Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
After an arduous journey through the otherworldly land of Valanyr, your caravan finally arrives at Camp Trinity — a young, thriving settlement built atop a ruined kingdom once decimated by an ancient cataclysm.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Action Retrieval
Previously used actions must be recovered before they can be selected again.
Contracts
Complete specific requirements to earn rewards, income, or victory points.
Deck / Bag Building
Add new pieces during play to improve the cards, tokens, or dice drawn later.
Dice Rolling
Roll dice to introduce uncertainty into actions, production, movement, or resolution.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Read the full game description
After an arduous journey through the otherworldly land of Valanyr, your caravan finally arrives at Camp Trinity — a young, thriving settlement built atop a ruined kingdom once decimated by an ancient cataclysm. Like many here, you were previously a mage of low renown now seeking a better fortune. The cataclysm altered Valanyr's Elan to be fertile but mercurial, rendering the rules of spellcasting different from whence you came. Here, the usually separate elements of nature fuse readily, allowing for new and unknown spells to be created. You'll have to start from scratch, but unknown means new discoveries to be made, and a thriving settlement means opportunity... Mercurial is a card & dice-manipulation game themed on spellcrafting with combo & engine-building mechanics. Learn magical Alteration techniques to control the chaos of your elemental dice, and use these elements to combine lesser magicks into new and unknown spells. Your combined spells can either inflict ruin, restore life, or something more — use them to perform heroic deeds, ranging from helping your allies defeat dangerous beasts, to finding a path for stranded travelers lost in the strange land of Valanyr. In Mercurial, each player has varying capabilities and starting resources, with their differences offering a unique path to power with every journey. Delve into the fantastic world of Mercurial, and discover a new age of spellcrafting. —description from the designer