Piece sets keep the same rules and faction colors. Zoom in, then scroll or swipe the board to explore it.
Lesson
The Chamber
Begin a New Match
Starting a new match replaces your saved match.
Command one faction against two rivals, or pass the chamber among three players. Keeps cannot be occupied except by the conquering move.
The same armies, with more room to maneuver. Grand and Imperial allow a longer approach to rival keeps. The guided lesson uses Classic.
How to Play
From the novel: Trifecta is a three-player contest on a triangular board of light and dark spaces, with keeps at its tips. Pieces differ in ability and physical size. Capture is by surrounding. The Mage Gigas is a colossal, hovering, three-section creature whose black armor shimmers red, blue, and yellow. Reaching a rival keep defeats its ruler.
The chamber
Turns proceed Ember, Azure, then Dorian. On your turn, move one piece, rotate a multi-space piece, or change one Mage Fowl’s aspect.
Light and dark triangular tiles alternate. Ordinary steps always change color. Sight leaps two links and therefore stays on the same color—until the Fowl changes aspect.
Every cell of a multi-space piece must fit on empty tiles. Larger creatures may also rotate sixty degrees around one of their vertices.
After acting, your adjacent pieces exert surrounding pressure. Mage Fowl require two pressure to capture, Mage Beasts three, Mage Bears four, and the Mage Gigas five. Strength counts as two pressure; the Gigas counts as three.
The chamber itself takes sides. Strength gains +1 pressure on obsidian (dark) tiles. Sight gains +1 pressure on ivory (light) tiles. A creature adjacent to two different rival factions is contested and loses 1 armor (minimum 1).
A Mage Fowl that changes aspect is committed: it must march or rotate before it may change aspect again.
Keeps are sacred. No army may rest on a keep. If any part of a piece reaches a rival keep—or stands adjacent and storms the gate—that faction wins immediately. Sight Fowl may also leap the last two links.
Capture every rival piece to eliminate that faction. The last faction standing also wins.
◆ StrengthOne linked step. Two surrounding pressure, three on obsidian. Use it to finish a surround or to garrison a dark gate.
➶ SwiftnessMay travel through up to two linked, empty spaces in one move. Mage Beasts are born with this hunt.
◉ SightLeaps exactly two links, staying on color. One pressure, two on ivory — the assassin’s path into a keep.
Armies: Each faction commands five one-space Mage Fowl, one two-space Mage Beast (Swiftness), and one three-space Mage Bear (Strength). The unique Mage Gigas begins unbound in the center as three hovering sections. Surround it with five pressure to take command; another faction may later seize it. While you command it, adjacent allies gain +1 trinity pressure from its shimmering armor. Because it hovers, the Gigas may fly one or two lattice steps, rotate like other large creatures, and land on any empty matching footprint, passing over intervening creatures.