Underground Duchy

The Underground Duchy is a mole monarchy that has long ruled the earth below the Woodland. Now they are surfacing — sending tunnels up into clearings to establish outposts, plant citadels and markets, and bring the woodland creatures under the crown's authority through persuasion and overwhelming presence.

Your home base is the Burrow, a sealed underground clearing that only Duchy pieces can enter. The Burrow sits at the center of your network: your warriors spawn there every morning and pour out through tunnels you dig into surface clearings. Meanwhile, your parliament of nine ministers — ranging from lowly Squires to powerful Lords — slowly fills over the course of the game, each one adding a new action to your Daylight turn and scoring victory points the moment it is swayed.

The Duchy starts slowly and spends its early turns laying groundwork. By mid-game, a swollen parliament can give you six, seven, or more actions per turn — a torrent of moves that other factions simply cannot match.

You score victory points primarily by swaying ministers. Every time you bring a new minister into your parliament, you uncover and score the points printed under their crown on your faction board — 1 VP for each Squire, 2 VP for each Noble, and 3 VP for each Lord. Swaying all nine ministers is worth 18 VP and floods your turn with actions.

Buildings also score indirectly: Citadels grow your Burrow army each Birdsong, and Markets grow your Evening card draw, both of which fuel faster minister-swaying. The three Lord ministers score additional VP each turn based on board state — the Earl of Stone scores 1 VP per citadel on the map, the Baron of Dirt scores 1 VP per market, and the Duchess of Mud scores 2 VP if all three tunnels are placed. Getting those Lords swayed and keeping your buildings intact turns late-game into a reliable point drip on top of the sway income.

Protect your buildings: the Price of Failure strips your highest-rank swayed minister and permanently destroys its crown whenever any of your buildings are removed, gutting both your parliament and your future sway capacity.

Your Daylight turn has three sub-phases, run in order every turn:

1. Assembly — take up to two actions from: Move, Battle, Recruit, Build, or Dig.
2. Parliament — take the action of each swayed minister once, in any order you choose.
3. Sway — reveal cards from your hand (one per clearing where you have Duchy pieces) to attempt to sway one new minister.

In Birdsong you place warriors into the Burrow: one warrior automatically, plus one more for each warrior icon revealed by your citadels on the faction board. Those warriors pool underground, ready to flood out through your tunnel network.

The five Assembly actions each serve the engine:

• Dig — spend a card matching a surface clearing to place a tunnel there (connecting it to the Burrow) and move up to four warriors from the Burrow into that clearing.
• Build — reveal a matching card to place a citadel or market in a clearing you rule.
• Recruit — move any number of warriors from the Burrow to any clearing with a tunnel.
• Move — move warriors from one clearing to an adjacent one.
• Battle — initiate combat in any clearing where you have warriors.

The Parliament phase is where your investment pays off. Ministers come in three tiers: Squires (Marshal, Captain, Foremole) each give you a move or battle; Nobles (Brigadier, Banker, Mayor) give you two moves or attacks, card-to-VP conversion, or the ability to copy any other minister; Lords (Earl of Stone, Baron of Dirt, Duchess of Mud) score ongoing VP based on your buildings and tunnels on the map.

To sway during the Sway phase, reveal the required number of cards — 2 for a Squire, 3 for a Noble, 4 for a Lord — from clearings where you have pieces. The cards do not need to be the same suit but must each come from a clearing with a piece there. Sway one minister per turn.

In Evening you discard any bird cards you revealed during Sway (non-bird cards return to your hand), craft using your buildings, then draw cards: 1 base, plus 1 per card-draw icon revealed by your markets on the faction board.