Overlord Cards

Overlord Cards
Each turn, the overlord player draws two cards from the overlord deck. The overlord plays or discards these cards to spawn new monsters, trigger special abilities and game effects, and collect additional threat tokens.

When the overlord player draws the last card in the overlord deck, the heroes immediately lose three conquest tokens. The overlord player then shuffles the discarded cards and creates a new overlord deck.

Discarding Overlord Cards
As noted earlier in these rules, the overlord player can never have more than eight overlord cards in his hand. After he draws two cards at the beginning of his turn, the overlord player must discard cards until he has no more than eight cards in his hand.

The overlord player collects threat tokens from all discarded cards, and he may discard more cards than required in order to collect additional threat tokens. The overlord may discard cards at any time during his turn to collect additional threat tokens.

For each overlord card he discards, the overlord collects a number of threat tokens equal to the card’s discard value. Discarded overlord cards have no other game effect and cannot be used to trigger any game effect.

Playing Overlord Cards
The overlord player must always pay a card’s threat cost when playing it. He simply returns the indicated number of threat tokens to the pile of unused threat tokens, making change if necessary. The overlord player cannot play a card if he doesn’t have enough threat tokens to pay for it. He can, however, discard one or more other overlord cards from his hand to collect the additional threat tokens he needs to play the card. Important: The overlord player never collects threat tokens for cards that are discarded after he has played them and their effects have been resolved.

Types of Overlord Cards
There are four types of cards in the overlord deck: spawn cards, event cards, trap cards, and power cards.

Timing and “ Start of Turn”
Whenever there is a question of timing, such as whether an event card can be triggered before a hero can take an action, etc., the event card always receives precedence as long as the overlord player declares his intent to play the event card in a timely fashion.

Many overlord event cards include the phrase “Play at the start of your turn.” These cards must be played after the overlord player has discarded down to eight cards for the turn, but before he begins step 3 of his turn.

Event cards that say “Play immediately before a hero takes his turn” can be played until the hero player declares his action. As always, the overlord player should be given a reasonable chance to play his card before a hero declares his action.