How to play Realm Triad

1. Each player sits five plaques. A coin (or House rules) decides who places first.
2. On your turn, place exactly one card on any empty cell.
3. Check N, E, S, W neighbors. Your touching rank vs theirs. Strictly higher flips their card to you.
4. Equals do nothing. Diagonals never interact.
5. When all 9 cells are filled, count cards you own on the board plus any still in hand. Higher total wins. Ties are legal unless Sudden Death is live.

These are the only rules the cloth can call. Sets and shops are not modules.

Same

If two or more sides of the newly placed card exactly match the printed ranks they touch, capture all of those matching cards at once.

Plus

If the sum of two or more of your touching printed ranks equals the sum of those opponent ranks, capture those cards.

Combo

Whenever a card is captured, immediately re-check its new adjacent opponent cards using basic rank (with Type and Clash). Chains are allowed. A card cannot flip twice in the same chain.

Type Advantage

Dragon vs Giant or Humanoid: +1 North. Undead vs Humanoid or Beast: +1 West. Fiend vs Celestial: +1 North. Celestial vs Fiend or Undead: +1 West. Aberration vs Humanoid: +1 West. A Construct defending its South gets +1. Same and Plus still use printed ranks.

Alignment Clash

If Lawful touches Chaotic, or Good touches Evil, the higher modified rank gets +1 for that comparison only.

Legendary Resistance

Once per game, ignore the first successful capture against one of your Legendary cards.

Lair Action

Once per game, declare Lair as you place. That card is +1 on all four sides for the rest of that turn, including Combo checks that involve it.

Sudden Death

If the board is full and tied, replace the lowest-total-rank card with the next card from the draw pile and resolve captures until someone leads.

Great Cloth

Optional 4×4 board. Eight plaques each. Same ranks, Same, Plus, Combo, Type, Clash, Lair, Resistance, Sudden Death, and Cursed all apply. The inner four chairs are the new heart. Campaign tables stay 3×3 unless you light this lamp at setup.

Cursed

Type prints a hex on every plaque: Construct/Celestial Ward (holds one flip), Dragon/Elemental/Fiend Ember (+1 first compare), Undead/Ooze/Plant Rot (−1 next defend on a neighbor), Aberration/Fey Silence (no Combo from that seating), everything else Bind (the touching face reads 0). Works on 3×3 and on the Great Cloth.