Bloodlines

It’s an age of kings and kingdoms, heirs and assassinations. You and your opponents are vying for control over the four royal bloodlines. To emerge the victor, you must carefully manage a mismatched court of nobles to create the most prestigious kingdom the world has ever seen. Bloodlines is a micro game using 20 playing cards and 5 cubes. Each player drafts a hand of cards, each of which has a special ability and a point value that contributes to your influence in that suit's bloodline. Once all cards have been played, the prestige of any lines you control is based on presence of cards of that type in your opponent’s kingdoms. Each card you play has an associated special ability, and that card remains in your Kingdom as influence in that bloodline. The card abilities are: Ace (1 Influence): The Assassin may eliminate any unprotected card from the game, including any heirs placed on the card. 10 (2 Influence): The Castle protects all of the played cards in your kingdom from the effects of the Assassin and the Jack. Jack (3 Influence): The Jack may swap any two unprotected played cards of equal Influence value. You may swap for a lower valued card if swapping from your own kingdom. Queen (4 Influence): The Queen may produce an heir on any card you have played, including herself and cards in Castles. The heir increases this cards influence in that bloodline by 1. King (5 Influence): The King has no ability, but he may be played directly into an empty Castle already in your Kingdom. Full Rules available in the files section below

Players: 2–5 best 4
Playing time: 30 min
Age: 13+
Complexity: 1.5 / 5