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Fantasy Flight Games

Elder Sign

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$49.00
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Elder Sign is a fast-paced cooperative dice game for 1–8 players, playable in 60–120 minutes. Investigators explore a haunted 1926 museum, pushing their luck with custom dice to gather Elder Signs and seal away the Ancient One. Medium-light complexity; recommended for ages 13+.

Players
1–8 players
Play time
Up to 2 hr
Age
Teens
Complexity
Medium

About the Game

In Elder Sign, one to eight investigators race against time inside a 1926 museum whose occult artefacts are tearing open gates to other dimensions. Each turn, players roll custom dice to match the tasks on Adventure cards, battling monsters and risking sanity and stamina to claim the Elder Signs needed to seal the Ancient One away; dawdle, and a doom countdown drags the Ancient One into play for a desperate final battle. Expect a one to two hour game of medium-light complexity, recommended for ages 13 and up, built on cooperative play, push-your-luck dice rolling and variable investigator powers.

Designed by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson, the designers of Arkham Horror, and published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2011, Elder Sign draws on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It is a standalone game rather than an expansion, offering a faster, dice-driven take on the supernatural investigation its designers first explored in Arkham Horror.

History

Elder Sign was designed by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson, the designers of Arkham Horror, and published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2011. Drawing on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, it is a standalone game that recasts its designers' supernatural-investigation themes as a quicker, dice-driven experience rather than an expansion or sequel.

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Shipping details

Elder Sign

$49.00

Watch: How to play

Rules of Elder Sign

  • Setup: Choose an Ancient One, give each player an investigator card with starting items, lay out six Adventure cards in the museum, and place the clock and doom track within reach.
  • Take a turn: Move your investigator to an Adventure card (or another world) and roll the custom dice to match the symbol tasks shown on it.
  • Push your luck: After each roll you may set dice aside to complete tasks; fail a roll and you must discard a die before trying again. Spells, items and allies add yellow or red bonus dice, and clues let you reroll.
  • Resolve the outcome: Complete all tasks to earn rewards such as Elder Signs, items and trophies; fail and you suffer penalties like losing sanity or stamina, while monsters may appear to block tasks.
  • Advance the clock: After each turn the clock moves forward, and at midnight a mythos effect fires, often adding doom tokens toward awakening the Ancient One.
  • Win: The team wins immediately by collecting the number of Elder Signs shown on the Ancient One card.
  • Lose: If the doom track fills, the Ancient One awakens and forces a desperate final battle; if the investigators cannot defeat it (or are all devoured), everyone loses.

Strategy

  • Prioritise Adventure cards that award Elder Signs — collecting them quickly is the only way to win.
  • Check a card's tasks against your available items and dice before committing, and walk away if the odds look poor.
  • Save clue tokens for rolls where one or two symbols will finish a card, rather than spending them on long shots.
  • Play to your investigator's strengths — send high-sanity characters at sanity-draining adventures and use each unique ability often.
  • Clear or avoid cards burdened with monsters, since they add extra tasks and slow the whole team down.
  • Watch the doom track; if it is filling fast, favour quick, achievable adventures over risky big payouts.
  • Spend trophies at the entrance on healing, items or elder signs when a trip back is worth the lost time.
  • Use focus and the assist action to lock useful dice for yourself or a teammate instead of letting good results go to waste.