Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Low interaction
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
A "roll and write" version of the popular Biblios. The life of a monastic scribe is not easy.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Action Drafting
Choose actions from a shared supply before opponents can claim them.
Paper-and-Pencil
Record choices and results directly on a personal sheet.
Push Your Luck
Choose whether to secure current gains or risk them for a larger reward.
Set Collection
Gather related items that become more valuable when scored together.
Read the full game description
A "roll and write" version of the popular Biblios. The life of a monastic scribe is not easy. Every day you spend long hours in the monastery copying books, praying, and performing tasks. Through hard work and prayer, earn the abbot’s trust and display your dedication to the pious life. The object of the game is to score the most piety points. The game consists of 8 days (i.e., rounds). In the first 4 days, players simultaneously roll their own dice (that show various book types, abbot influence and travel points) and may do so up to 3 times. After each roll, the players have 3 options: (1) to keep the dice as shown, (2) to reroll exactly one die or (3) to roll all the dice. Most of the dice are resource dice showing books monks are copying, but there are also abbot influence dice (abbot influences is accrued in the first half, but spent in the second half of the game), and a travel die (allowing a player's novice to go out into towns to do good works and find more books). In the last 4 rounds, players use their abbot influence to bid for a priority of tasks. This is a rare (if not unique) "roll + write" game that includes auctions and, unlike many roll + write game; it is highly interactive. After 8 days, the game ends and the players calculate scores. As in the original Biblios, the relative value of books changes during the game, so players are unsure of which books will be most valuable until the end of the game. —description from the designer