Within the ocean depths of Abyss’ kingdom, intrigue and corruption are the rhythm of life. The Oceanic Senate Assembly is at the heart of this permanent power struggle, where opponents tirelessly scheme against each other to gain influence. Rally the most advantageous Lords before your opponents turn them against you and organize your Senate Chamber in the best way possible. Will you succeed in establishing your power and reigning supreme over the Assembly? In the kingdom of Abyss, five different races of creatures live together; each associated with a color and affiliated to a guild of Lords.

Rally the Lords to your cause, to form the most influential Senate Chamber of the hemicycle and ensure control over the Oceanic Senate Assembly. To do this, you will rely on:

- Your most influential Lord of each color;

- The Locations under your control;

- Your greatest coalition of Lords of the same color;

- The Pearls in your possession.

Players take turns, moving clockwise. During your turn, you must carry out the following steps, in order:

1 Recruit Lords: choose one or more Lords to add to your Senate Chamber.

2 Extend your Senate Chamber: place your chosen Lord(s) in your Senate Chamber and apply the effects of the cards you have just placed.

STEP 1. RECRUIT LORDS (from the deck or from the discard):

DECK

1. Draw 1, 2 or 3 cards at the same time from the top of the Lord deck, and then place them on the table in plain view for the time it takes to review them.

2. Choose ONE CARD ONLY to add to your Senate Chamber.

3. The remaining cards are discarded faceup and divided according to their color in the different discard piles. There can therefore be up to 5 discard piles, one of each color. The Lords of the same discard pile are placed on top of each other so that the Influence Points and powers of each are visible.

DISCARD

Choose a discard pile of one color; take ALL the Lords to add to your Senate Chamber

STEP 2. EXTEND YOUR SENATE CHAMBER

Place the chosen Lord(s) in your Senate Chamber, following the placement rules: if you recruit more than one Lord, choose the order in which they are placed. The player must always add the Lord(s) by placing them: from left to right and from top to bottom so creating an inverted pyramid, as shown in the diagram.

 1   2   3   4   5
   6   7   8   9
     10  11  12
       13  14
         15

KEYS

Lords with 1 and 2 Influence Points respectively give you a silver key or a gold key. To take control of a Location, two identical keys are required. When you add a Lord that gives you a second key, check the two keys in your possession:

• If they are identical, you immediately take control of a Location;
• If they are different, you will take control of a Location only after gaining a third key, whatever its color.

So, when you have either two identical keys, or three keys, you must take control of a Location by following these steps:

STEP 1 - Choose a Location. Draw 1, 2 or 3 Location cards at the same time. Choose one of them, then discard the rest faceup.-OR- take 1 of the available faceup Locations.

STEP 2 - Place your Location on the Lord you have just added to your Senate Chamber, so as to mask the last key revealed. By doing this, your key count is reset to zero: none of the keys placed before a Location can be used. You can take control of another Location if you succeed in obtaining other keys.

STEP 3 - Apply, where necessary, the power of the Location (see the Description of the Locations’ Powers at the end of the rulebook).

THE PEARL MASTER

Lords with 4 and 3 Influence Points respectively give you 1 and 2 Pearls. The first player that gains one or several Pearls takes the Pearl Master token and places the marker on the Pearl track to correspond to the number of Pearls that they possess. If they gain more Pearls later, the marker is moved forward on the track.

• If an opponent reaches the same number of Pearls as held by the Pearl Master, they steal the Pearl Master token from them.
• If an opponent has more Pearls, they steal the Pearl Master token then move the marker forward to the number of Pearls in their possession.

At the end of the game, the player possessing the Pearl Master token gains a bonus of 5 Influence Points.

END OF THE GAME

The game ends when a player completes their Senate Chamber by placing their 15th and final Lord. Each opponent then gets to play one last turn. Note: if a player chooses to recruit Lords using a discard pile that contains more cards than free spaces in their Senate Chamber, they choose enough cards to complete their Chamber and replace the remaining cards faceup in the discard pile.

Each player then calculates their Influence Points. Points come from:

1. Your Lords: the Influence Points from each of the most influential Lord of each race/color in your senate chamber, marked with the Coat of Arms tokens.

2. Your Locations: the total of Influence Points from the Locations you control.

3. Your Lords Coalition: the biggest group of adjacent Lords of the same color is identified and 3 points are scored for each Lord within it.

4. The Pearl Master: the player who has the Pearl Master token gains a bonus of 5 Influence Points.

The player with the highest Influence Points score wins the game! In case of a tie, the tied player with the most Pearls wins. If there is still a tie, the victory is shared.

LORD CARDS

There are twelve Lords in each colour:

- One zero (with the power to swap two Lords within your chamber)

- Four 1s (with a silver key)

- Two 2s (with a gold key)

- Two 3s (with two pearls)

- Two 4s (with a single pearl)

- One 6 (which forces the top card of the deck to be discarded)