In House of the Dragon: Dark Dealings, players must use both their strength and their wits to emerge victorious. Will you forge alliances and honor your word…or will you betray and deceive as you strive for control of the realm?
Each player starts the game with a deck of fifteen cards. Each deck features cards valued 1-3 in three suits — economic, military, and political — as well as character cards with effects and deceit cards that show one suit at top and another at bottom.
In each round, players each start with four cards in hand and simultaneously reveal a strength token to indicate the suit of their highest-valued card; in a tie, they choose which suit to reveal. The round’s start player places one card inside a vault, stating which suit they played, whether true or false. They then choose who adds a card next, and the vault has a tiny window in it that allows this person to see the suit color and value of the card previously added.
Once everyone has added a card, open the vault and see which suit has the highest combined strength. Deceit cards count as their bottommost suit in this tally; character effects can adjust these totals. Each player who contributed a card to this suit draws a scoring card matching this suit; scoring cards are worth 2-4 points. If all cards are of the same suit, only the round’s first player scores.
After a set number of rounds, players tally their final score, counting the value of their highest scoring card in each suit, plus 1 point for each additional card. 