House of Echoes

How to play House of Echoes

1. All explorers start together in the Entrance Hall with 6 Health, 2 Insight and 2 Power. Each turn allows two actions: move to a connected room, explore a new branch, search, attack, or seal a shrine. You may pass early.
2. Explore reveals the next room and moves you into it, gaining 1 Insight. The house has three starting landings and 42 discoverable rooms on three floors. New rooms connect to the room you explore from; each room allows up to three discovered branches. Rooms numbered 4, 7, 10 and every third room afterward contain shrines. Exploring or searching draws from a 110-card deck: 55 events, 40 items and 15 omens. Items remain in your private inventory. Keepsake stat bonuses apply immediately; usable items have limited charges and cost one action per use. Give an item to a nearby living ally for one action; used charges stay used and discovery bonuses do not apply again. Wards absorb attacks and hourglass wind, up to 6 points. Health damage from these discoveries cannot reduce you below 1. Each room can be searched once.
3. When the ninth room is revealed, the house awakens. With three or more players, a random explorer becomes the Warden and gains 10 Health. With two players, everyone remains allied and the house advances Doom at the end of each round.
4. The house includes eight standalone haunts plus 500 combinations of 20 objectives and 25 curses. The reveal selects a surprise scenario and sends each side a private rulebook. Read it on your phone: victory conditions and special effects change between haunts. Sealing a shrine costs one action and 2 Insight.
5. The Warden wins at the scenario’s Doom limit or when every hero is defeated. Once per turn the Warden may spend an action on a ritual to raise Doom by 1.
6. Attack an enemy in your room or a directly connected room: roll one die plus Power; a result of 5 or higher deals 2 damage. Defeated explorers take no more turns. Defeating the Warden wins for the heroes. In a two-player game there is no attack target.
7. Health cannot exceed 10. Before the haunt there is no combat or sealing. After 40 rounds, the house wins if the heroes have not succeeded. The Warden’s identity is revealed only when the haunt begins.
8. This is an original scenario with its own rooms, progression and rules. It does not reproduce a commercial game’s scenarios or components.

Bring your group together

Open a table, invite your friends, then start when everyone is ready. The host can add available computer players before starting. For a living-room game, open the TV screen from your table while everyone plays on their own device.