FATE HAS CHOSEN YOU
A sci-fi trading card game where you command a galactic faction and conquer the stars across three Battles. Pick how you’d like to learn:
01 How You Win
A game is three Battles — and each Battle is fought in two SkirmishesSkirmish — a round of placing and revealing units. Skirmish 1 (Forward) uses Locations 1–4; Skirmish 2 (Rear) uses Locations 5–7.. Bank Conquest Points every Battle:
02 What You Need to Get Started
A deck, someone to play against, and a way to keep score — that’s all it takes.
A Deck
40–80 cards, face-down as your Supply Deck. Your units — each with a Conquest Value and often an ability — all live here. Build your own or grab a starter deck.
An Opponent
Standard game is 1-on-1 (more is supported). Everyone starts at 0 CQ.
A Way to Keep Score
Track each player’s total Conquest. Pen & paper, dice, or counters all work fine.
03 Reading a Card
Every card lays out the same parts. Here’s what each one means — hover or tap an item to spotlight it on the card.
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- Faction — the galactic power the card belongs to, shown by the emblem in the top-left corner.
- Card Name — the card’s title, along the top banner.
- Conquest Value (CQ) — how much Conquest this unit is worth: the big number that decides who wins.
- Attributes & Implicits — built-in traits the card always has. Here: APEXApex — a powerful unit; only one copy per card name (a deck may run several different-named Apex units). and FORCEFIELDForcefield — while face-up, this unit can’t be Destroyed, Muted, or Plagued..
- Ability Trigger — when the ability happens: Upon DeploymentUpon Deployment — a one-time effect that fires when the unit is deployed (revealed face-up)., Throughout the BattleThroughout the Battle — an ongoing effect that keeps working after the unit deploys., or a Special TriggerSpecial Trigger — an ability with its own timing, spelled out in the card text..
- Special Ability — what the card does when its trigger fires.
- Card & Set Info — artist credit, set name, and the card’s number in the set.
Golden rule: if a card’s text ever contradicts these general rules, the card wins. The rules are a framework; individual cards bend them.
04 The Play Mat
Your play area is the Battle Zone: seven numbered Locations, the Celestial Zone, and the Extra Locations. Your Deck, Discard, and the Void sit just outside it.
Hover or tap any zone to highlight it.
Zone Celestial Zone — Celestials are placed here directly and remain here across all three Battles.
Locations Extra Locations — hold units placed here by special abilities, including Lightspeed deploys from your hand. They still score CQ.
Deck Supply Deck — your deck, face-down. You draw 7 from it each Supply Drop. Outside the Battle Zone.
Pile Discard Pile — cards Destroyed, Discarded, Depleted, or cleaned up at end of Battle, face-up. Outside the Battle Zone.
Locations are shared. “Location 1” is the same spot for both players — you’re fighting over the same ground. Only cards in the Battle Zone (Locations 1–7, Extra, Celestial) score CQ.
05 How a Battle Works
Every Battle follows the same loop. Learn one Battle and you know the whole game.
Supply Drop
Everyone draws 7 cards. Look your hand over and plan your Forward Skirmish — you’ll place cards in any order across up to the first four Locations (1–4).
First Battle only: you may mulliganMulligan — a one-time redo of your opening hand: shuffle it back into your deck and draw 7 new cards. once — shuffle back and redraw 7.
Forward Skirmish — place face-down
Place your chosen units face-down into Locations 1–4 — at most one per Location. Your opponent does the same at the same time, hidden from you. This is the first wave.
Reveal — take turns, Location by Location
Both boards face each other. Flip cards face-up one Location at a time, back and forth: you reveal Location 1 and its ability resolves, then your opponent reveals their Location 1 — then Location 2, then 3, then 4. A unit deploysDeploy · Upon Deployment — a unit deploys the instant it flips face-up; abilities that read Upon Deployment fire once at that moment. the moment it flips face-up.
Rear Skirmish — Locations 5–7
The second wave — no new draw. Your Forward units are now face-up and stay on the board. Using the cards still in hand, place face-down into Locations 5–7, then reveal them the same turn-based way.
Tally
Add up the CQ of all your face-up units across the whole battle zone (Locations 1–7 and Extra) into your Conquest Pool.
Clean Up
Units go to the discard. Your CelestialCelestial — an optional, powerful cosmic card deployed to the Celestial Zone. Once out, it stays in play across all three Battles. stays, your hand carries over, and the first-player seat passes. Next Battle begins.
Who goes first? Decide it any way you like for Battle 1 (dice, coin, rock-paper-scissors). After that it flips each Battle — the player who went first now goes second. The seat only changes between Battles, never in the middle of one.
06 Going Deeper
You can play a full game with everything above. When you’re ready, these add the real strategy.
⚡ Lightspeed
Gold-bordered cards you can play as an instant reaction to an action your opponent performs — never in response to your own actions. A Lightspeed unit lands face-up in your Extra Locations, and its abilities trigger first.
You may also simply place it face-down during a Skirmish and play it like a normal unit.
✧ Attributes & Implicits
Built-in traits a unit always carries. One to know: Apex — you may run only one copy per Apex name (a deck can still include several different-named Apex units).
✋ Maximum Hand Size
Your hand holds at most 10 cards. If an effect takes you above 10, you must immediately discard down to 10 before taking any other action. (Draw to 11? Discard one first.)
✦ Celestials
Your deck may include one Celestial (max, of any name) — a powerful cosmic card: the remnant of a star, quasar, or nebula. You deploy it from your hand during the Celestial Phase, before the rest of the Battle.
A Celestial works like a field spell: the instant it’s deployed its ability activates and stays on, affecting the whole battlefield, and it remains in play across all three Battles. If it ever leaves the Celestial Zone, its effect ends immediately.
◎ Ring Effects
Physical, colored ring markers placed around a unit’s Conquest Value (the big number). Each effect has its own preset color:
The unit can’t be Destroyed, Muted, or Plagued. Force Field overrides the other two.
The unit loses all of its abilities — but it keeps its implicitly-given attributes (Apex, Core, Adjacency, etc.). Those are not removed.
The unit’s CQ becomes −1 and can’t change.
⧉ Adjacency
Some abilities affect adjacent Locations — any that physically touch, including diagonally. Because the rear row (5–7) sits centered under the forward row, neighbors aren’t always obvious.
Extra Locations touch nothing.
🃏 Running Out of Cards
Emptying your deck does not lose you the game. Any action that would make you draw or use your deck simply doesn’t happen — you keep playing with what you have.
🧮 Scoring Note
CQ can go negative, and some effects add CQ to you directly — not only through units on the board.
07 Card Stack Resolution
When several cards, abilities, or responses happen at once, they form a stack and resolve Last In, First Out (LIFO): the most recently added item resolves first, then the next most recent, and so on until the stack is empty.
Example flow
- You flip a unit face-up — it deploys (goes on the stack).
- Its Upon Deployment ability is added on top.
- Your opponent answers with a Lightspeed card — it lands on top of everything.
- Resolve top-down: the Lightspeed resolves first, then your ability, then the deployment finishes.
A response window opens after any action an opponent takes. Each Location is fully resolved — every response and trigger, LIFO — before the next player reveals.
08 Core Timing Engine
Every ability keys off one moment — when a unit deploys. These timing words tell you when an ability fires and how long it lasts.
“Deployed” = the moment a unit becomes face-up in the Battle Zone (flipped from face-down, or placed face-up). A face-down unit has no active abilities — everything below switches on only once the unit deploys.
Upon Deployment
A one-time effect that fires once, the instant the unit deploys — then it’s done.
Throughout the Battle
An ongoing effect that turns on when the unit deploys and keeps working for the rest of the Battle (it ends at Clean Up). It isn’t active while the unit is face-down.
At the End of Battle
Fires at the end of the Rear Skirmish, just before Tally — perfect for last-second CQ swings.
When Destroyed / Depleted / Discarded
Fires when a unit reaches the discard pile by that specific effect — and it triggers from the discard pile itself. Destroyed = sent there from the Battle Zone · Depleted = from the deck · Discarded = from the hand. Normal Clean-Up does not set these off.
Special Triggers
Some cards have unusual timing spelled out in their own text. If a Special Trigger’s timing ever clashes with a normal trigger, the Special Trigger resolves first.
Attributes
Inherent traits (like a unit type, Apex, or Core) are part of the card’s identity and are active at all times, in every zone — hand, deck, discard, even face-down. (Implicit abilities only switch on once the unit deploys.)
Resolution order. When several abilities fire at once they resolve in Location order (1 → 7); Special Triggers go first; and cards/responses on the stack resolve last-in, first-out (see Card Stack Resolution). If a unit is Destroyed or Muted before a pending ability fires, that ability no longer happens.
09 Multiplayer
Conquest of Fates supports any table size — from a 1-on-1 duel to a four-player free-for-all — with the same core rules and decks. Every player takes part in every phase of every Battle, and no one is eliminated.
🔄 Turn Order
Set a turn order at the start — by default clockwise from a randomly-chosen first active player. It stays the same all three Battles; the active player rotates one seat clockwise each new Battle.
🤝 Opponents & Allies
Everyone is an opponent by default. Players may agree to be allies before the game begins (never mid-game). You can only Lightspeed-respond to an opponent, not an ally.
⚡ Lightspeed in Multiplayer
Follows the turn order: after a deployment the next player may respond or pass. Still one response per action, and all players must pass in succession before a unit resolves.
Game Configurations
Free-for-All 3+
Standard. Everyone competes individually; all other players are your opponents. No elimination — highest total CQ after all Battles wins.
Team Conquest 4+
Two teams, seated alternating. Teammates are allies who may share strategy and hands. CQ is tracked individually but added together per team — highest team total wins.
Nemesis 3+
Everyone versus one — “The Nemesis.” The Nemesis is always the active player and earns double CQ, and chooses one of six Nemesis Edicts per opponent to start.
Homeworld 2+
Everyone begins with a Celestial Body already in their Celestial Zone (can’t be destroyed, moved, or altered). No extra Celestials, and alliances only within a faction.
10 Terms & Clarifications
A quick glossary of terms used across the game. (Ring Effects, Adjacency, and Apex are covered in Going Deeper above.)
11 Keep Going
FATE HAS CHOSEN YOU. NOW GO CLAIM THE GALAXY.