Note: In regions 1 through 4, which A Sample Turn: have no cities, you can always grow. It’s White’s turn. He wants to take However, growing 2 stacks is no better control of Blois, which Black just took than copying twice, so this is really only away from him. The board is shown below, relevant in regions 3 and 4. with the stack at 6-B expanded. Copy: First, White does a copy to add a Winning: new chip and take control of the stack on To win, be the first to score 100 points. 6-B. He then takes a move with that stack, If two players reach 100 or more on the as described below. same turn, the player with the highest score wins. If this is also tied, the victory goes to the player among them who con- trols the single most valuable region. The Basics: Welcome to Veritas, a game of Strategy: Truth, Books, and Patience. Players: 3-6 Early in the game, it’s important to Playing Time: 60 Minutes make more books. Take over a region by You are the truth. Or at least, owning its cities, plus enough monaster- This Game Comes With: some version of the truth. ies that a “grow” brings several books into the game. After building some strength, This stack Eight board sections, which assemble you can spread out and try to improve is on 6-B Your goal is to stay alive in the into a lovely 17” x 22” game board; your score. But beware: if you spread Dark Ages in France. You will do 96 hexagonal “burn tiles” including yourself too thin, you may find it difficult Move: To begin, white leaves nothing this by being copied in books in one tile for each monastery on the board to defend your territory. on 6-B. (He has the option of leaving a monasteries. (2-B, 8-D, etc), and 18 “Safe” tiles. You will find yourself in conflict with chip behind, or leaving nothing.) The sheet also contains some blanks in other players fairly early. Be aware that He goes north and then east, dropping A monastery burns down pretty case you need a replacement tile. players on your immediate left have an Black’s chip (#2) in Champagne. much every turn. Because it’s the advantage over you, because of the order He passes through 6-C, which is Dark Ages, and that’s what they do. You Will Also Need: of turns. When all else is equal, attack the burned, and returns to 6-B where he drops player on your right. chip #3. This is allowed because he left About 40 colored chips or tokens for If someone makes a stack that you’re nothing there at the beginning. This doesn’t destroy the books, but each player, representing books. These afraid of, you can move or copy on top of He then heads south to the city and to it scatters them. Sometimes this is tokens should be stackable at least 10 it, and take control. This way, you can 6-E and 6-F, dropping a chip on each. good for you, and sometimes not. high. Each player will also use one token even use an enemy’s tall stack to attack The resulting board is shown below. as a marker on the scoring track. another player! White now controls Blois, because he con- Veritas is a game of luck, guile, and trols 3 of the 5 unburned monasteries. strategy. But mostly it is a game of convincing your neighbors to fight each other instead of you. Designed Veritasby James Ernest and Mike Selinker. Tested by the usual assortment of Cheapass Games guinea pigs over the course of nine, yes, nine years. © 2013 Cheapass Games, Seattle, WA. www.cheapass.com.

If you enjoy this game, try our other games. We make lots of them. Some are free, some are fancy, and some occupy the ambiguous middle ground between Freetown and Expensiveburg. About The Board: Burning Monasteries: Half-Turn Actions: Copy and Move The game board represents France, in When a monastery tile is drawn, that Copy: On any monastery where you roughly the 10th century. It’s not all that monastery burns down. Place the tile on have at least one book in the stack (not accurate, so please don’t try to use it for Scoring Track the board on its corresponding space. If necessarily on top), you may place one new navigation or history tests. there were any books in that monastery, book on top of the stack. The small numbered spaces all over Road this will trigger a free move and then a Owning the topmost book on a stack the board are monasteries, and the large scoring round: gives you control of that stack. named spaces are cities. The books in the burned (Note that you cannot ever copy in a city.) Monastery Free Move: The straight lines are roads connecting monastery “run away,” which means that Move: Pick up any stack of books that the spaces. City the monks from the monastery flee, and you control (you own the top book), and Your tokens represent books. Each one spread the books through the country- distribute them along any path as follows: contains one player’s truth. Books will side. The active player (not necessarily the You may drop the first (bottom) book stack up in cities and monasteries all over controller of the stack) gets to move the either on the space where you start, or on a the board. stack as described under “move.” neighboring space. From then on, you must Stacks can contain books of many col- Scoring Round: When a burned mon- drop one book on every space you visit, in ors. If your book is on top of a stack, you astery contains at least one book, this the same order that they are in the pile control that stack. triggers a scoring round. Scoring happens (from bottom to top). These books go on after that monastery burns, and after the top of any stacks that are already there. Shrinking the Board: Starting with a random player, and free move, but before the main part of the Restrictions: You cannot use the same For a three- or four-player game, you proceeding counterclockwise, players place active player’s turn. road segment twice in the same move, and will play on only a portion of the board. a starting stack of two books on any single Players score points as follows: Each you cannot drop two books in the same You do this by ignoring certain territories monastery on the board. region is marked with a number between space on the same move. If you did not and discarding any burn tiles from those You cannot start within one road seg- 1 and 12, which is the number of monas- leave a book in your starting space, you territories. ment of another player’s starting point, teries in that region, and also the point may drop a book there later on in your All roads that lead into deactivated and it’s usually wise to begin farther away value of that region. move. See the example on the last page. areas should be ignored. When you draw a than that. To score a region, you must control Burned monasteries become open tile from a deactivated area, set that tile After setup, the player who placed last more than half of the remaining monaster- road. You don’t drop books there, you just aside and draw again. will take the first turn, and then play will ies in the region. To “control” means to keep moving. This means that as the game For three players, you will use only proceed clockwise. have the top chip on the stack. goes on, it becomes easier to go farther. nine of the twelve regions. You may use For example, Languedoc is 11, which Moving the stack from a burned mon- either the southern map, deactivating Starting Your Turn: means it starts with eleven monasteries. astery (the “free move” described above) Brittany, Normandy and Champagne, or At the beginning of each turn, you will If three of them have burned, you must does not count as one of your actions for the northern map, deactivating Gascony, draw a burn tile from the box. control more than half of the remaining the turn. Languedoc, and Guienne. If this tile represents a monastery, eight (five monasteries or more) to score Copy and Move are half-turn actions, For a four-player game, deactivate that monastery burns down. Languedoc. If you do, you get 11 points. so your turn can be copy-copy, copy- two territories on the map: either Brittany If this monastery has any books, you Everyone scores on a scoring round, move, move-copy, or move-move. and Normandy for the southern map, or get a free move with those books, followed not just the active player. To track your Languedoc and Valentinois for the north- by a scoring round, described below. score, move your piece along the scoring Full-Turn Action: Grow ern map. If the tile is a “Safe” tile, nothing burns track. The first player to reach 100 points Grow: If you control all the cities in a For a five- or six-player game, use the down. Return Safe tiles to the box. wins. region, you may “grow.” This takes your entire map. Note: Blank tiles are for backup only. whole turn. They don’t belong in the mix. Turn Actions: When you grow, add a new book to the Setting Up: After drawing a tile and dealing with top of every monastery in the region that Give each player all of the books of a the results, you have your choice of three you control. This can be a good way to single color. Each player uses one book for actions. Two of these actions (copy and make lots of books! the scoring track, and the rest will be used move) take only half a turn. The last Growing does not happen in cities, or on the board. Put all the burn tiles in the action (grow) takes your whole turn. in stacks that you do not control, even if box, and mix them well. you have a book farther down in the stack.