"FOR NORTHWOOD!

"
(a solo trick-taking game)

PRINT AND PLAY VERSION 2023-04-20

„Velvet Vale Remix“ 1.0 by Ruhrgamer 2024-11-11

Illustrations made with Adobe Firefly (Generative AI)

With kind permission of Wil Su

This document is for personal use only and may

not be used for any commercial purposes. You
may freely distribute this document as long as it
is unmodified, and includes this documentation.

Boardgamegeek: bit.ly/ForNorthwoodBGG

https://boardgamegeek.com/user/Ruhrgamer
For Northwood! is a solo hand management
and precision trick-taking game. Your task is to
peacefully unite the titular woodland kingdom.
You do this by visiting eight fiefs and engaging
their rulers in dialogue (tricks) to win them over.

You start with four allies, each with an ability

that you can use once per visit. These abilities can
make you draw, discard, or otherwise manipulate
your hand to help you hit the target score.
Once you’ve won a ruler over, they can substitute
temporarily for one of your allies, giving you more
choices for abilities to tackle the harder fiefs!
COMPONENTS
32 dialogue cards, valued
1 – 8 in four suits: Claws,
Flowers, Leaves and Eyes.

24 character cards, six

of each suit. Twelve
of them are marked
with a crown icon on
the lower-right; these
are not used in the
introductory game.

1 visiting card, with

an arrow in front and a
score chart at the back.

8 fief cards numbered

0 to 7, with a victory point
value from one to four stars.

1 advanced challenge booklet

(a) row of eight fief cards SETUP
(in order from 0 to 7)
(d) visiting card

(c) rulers (one

(b) allies on each fief )
(f ) (e) (g)
discard deck score
pile pile
The introductory setup shown on the previous
page starts you off with simpler abilities and is
recommended for your first few games. The full
setup is described at the end of this rulebook.
(a) Place the eight fief cards in a row in
order from 0 to 7. Set aside the 12 character
cards with the crown icon. These are
not used in the introductory game.
(b) Place the four Jack cards in a row under the
fiefs to be your allies. Their order doesn’t matter.
(c) Shuffle the King and Queen cards,
then deal one on top of each fief to be the
rulers. Place them slightly offset upward
so you can see the fief number.
(d) Place the visiting card somewhere above
the fiefs, arrow side up, pointing down.
(e) Shuffle the 32 dialogue cards.
Place this deck under your allies.
(f+g) Leave space for a discard pile and a score pile.
Draw eight cards from the deck to form your hand.
GAMEPLAY
Each game follows the five steps below:
A. Choose an unvisited fief to visit.
B. Optionally bring in friendly
rulers to substitute for allies.
C. Play out dialogues with the chosen fief ’s
ruler to try to hit their target score.
D. If you exactly hit the target score at the
end of the visit, the ruler is now friendly.
E. Repeat until you’ve visited all the fiefs.
Each of these steps are described in
detail in the following sections.
A. CHOOSE A FIEF TO VISIT
You must visit each of Northwood’s eight fiefs
once and only once per game. Each fief ’s ruler
starts off neutral to you, and each fief requires
you to end your visit with a different, exact
score to turn its ruler friendly. The target scores
are found on the bottom of the fief cards and
range from 0 (leftmost) to 7 (rightmost).
1. Review the eight cards in your hand,
then choose an unvisited fief to visit.
2. Move the visiting card above the chosen fief
(fief #2 in the example below).

The fief you choose is ideally based on

the cards in your hand, the ruler’s suit,
and your available abilities; this will be
clearer later after explaining dialogues.

B. BRING IN FRIENDLY RULERS

You start the game with only your four allies,
but rulers you’ve won over are willing to lend
their help. When visiting a fief, any number of
friendly rulers from previously visited fiefs may be
brought in to temporarily substitute for an ally.
Each substitute brought in replaces a
single ally, allowing you to use their
ability for that fief only (more on abilities
and turning rulers friendly later).
1. Choose any number of
friendly rulers to bring
in (or choose none).
2. Place each chosen ruler
on top of one of your
ally cards. Any ruler can
substitute for any ally.
C. PLAY OUT DIALOGUES
Once you’ve chosen a fief and determined which
four allies to use, you must now continuously
play out dialogues (tricks) with that fief ’s
ruler until either of you run out of cards.
A single dialogue consists of the ruler
playing a card and you responding with a
single card. Each ruler also has a favorite
conversation topic, represented by their
suit (also known as the trump suit).
1. You may activate up to one ally
ability (explained below).
2. Place the top card of the deck face up into the
discard pile. This card is the ruler’s statement.
3. Choose one card in your hand to play as
your response. What cards you can play
follows standard trick-taking rules:
• Your response must be of the same suit as the ruler’s
statement if able. This is called following suit.
• If and only if you cannot follow suit,
you may instead play any card.
4. You score a point in the dialogue if either:
• Your response is a higher card of the
same suit as the ruler’s statement (a
strong, on-topic rebuttal!), or
• The ruler’s statement doesn’t match the ruler
card’s suit, but your response does. (Changing
the topic to something they like. Way to go!)
5. If you score, place your response card
into the score pile (face up), otherwise
place it into the discard pile as well.
Let’s say these four cards
form your hand, and
Owl is the ruler (meaning
the trump suit is Eyes).
Three separate examples are shown below.
If Owl leads with ...
... you must follow suit. Since your only
Leaves card is 5, you must play it. Since
5 is lower than 7, it will not score.
... you must follow suit, but you have a
choice. Responding with 7 of Eyes will
score since it’s higher than 2 of Eyes.
Responding with 1 of Eyes will not.
... you hold no Claw cards, so you
may respond with any card. Playing
1 of Eyes or 7 of Eyes will score since
it matches the trump suit Eyes.
Responding with 8 of Flowers or 5 of
Leaves won’t score since neither card
matches the statement’s suit Claws nor
the trump Eyes. Values don’t matter.
ALLY ABILITIES
Your most powerful tools are your
four allies. Each of them has an ability
you can activate once per visit.
Before each ruler’s statement,
you may activate up to one
ally by turning that ally card
(or the substitute for it) 90
degrees to the right, exhausting
it. Follow the instructions on
the card exactly, and fully
resolve the whole ability.
Allies are the heart of the game! Abilities reset after
each visit, so use them freely – for example, you can
activate one ally at the very start of the visit, two
more in the middle, and not use the last one at all.
D. ENDING THE VISIT
After completing a dialogue or fully resolving an
ability, if either your hand or the deck is empty, the
visit immediately ends. You can’t end visits early,
nor can you activate abilities after the visit ends.
1. Once the visit ends, count the
number of cards in the score pile.
• If it’s exactly equal to the fief ’s target
score, the ruler is now friendly. Slide
their card downward a bit. They’ll be
letting out a little “For Northwood!”
cheer. You may call them to substitute
starting from the next visit.
• If it’s not equal to the target score,
your discussions have unfortunately
failed. Remove that ruler from the
game and flip the fief face down.
2. If you brought in any substitutes, remove all
of them from the game, whether you used their
abilities or not. In the next fief visit, you’re back to
your starting allies unless you bring in new rulers.
3. Reset all exhausted allies by
rotating them back face up.
4. Shuffle all dialogue cards back into a new deck and
draw eight new cards. Choose the next fief to visit.
E. ENDING THE GAME
Once you’ve visited all eight fiefs, the game ends.
Each friendly fief gives you victory points equal
to the number of stars on their card. Friendly
fiefs give points whether their ruler is still on
their card or was called in to substitute.
Add the total victory points to get your final score.
You win with a score of 16 or higher. You may
also choose a difficulty level before starting and
set its minimum score as a cutoff for a game win.
Medal Difficulty Min. Score
Bronze Standard 16
Silver Advanced 18
Gold Idealist 20

4 3 2 1 2 4

4 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 4 = 16
(bronze medal! Win when playing on Standard,
loss when playing on Advanced/Idealist)
The hardest rulers to convince are the ones in the
edges. However, they’re also much more valuable
than the ones in the center and are must-wins at
higher difficulties. Recruit the allies you need first!
If you lose a fief and realize that a win
is out of reach, you may choose to either
end the game or continue playing to
see what score you can still get.

FULL GAME - ALL THE RULERS!

The introductory setup introduced earlier
gives you the jacks as allies, providing
strong and beginner-friendly abilities.
Once you’re comfortable, you’re ready for
the full game using the whole roster!
Place the fiefs as normal, but instead
with one random ally from each suit and
two random rulers from each suit.
1. Shuffle all 24 character cards. Deal them face
up one at a time, noting their suit as you deal.
2. As you deal, place the first card you see
of each suit into your ally row. Place the
second and third cards you see of each suit
on the leftmost open fief as a ruler. Discard
any further card of that suit revealed.
3. Once you have four allies and eight
rulers, stop dealing. Remove the 12
unused character cards from the game.
FAQ
• This is not a memory game. You are free to
look through discard or score pile at any time,
but you may not rearrange their cards.
• If you activate an ability and there is at
least one valid way to execute it, you must
perform the ability. If there is no valid way
to perform the ability, it does nothing.
• If an instruction tells you to draw or move
cards from an empty pile (e.g., “draw three
cards” when the deck only has two), do
as much as possible and skip the rest.
• Detailed examples for each ability can
be found in bit.ly/ForNorthwoodFAQ
CREDITS
• A huge thanks to Side Room Games for giving
me and other new designers opportunities
to bring our games to more people.
• Thanks to Bernardo, Charles W, Charles
P, Emmy, Justin, Kevin, Taylor, Veselko,
Matt and everyone who believed in the game
when it was still a prototype and a mess.
• Thanks to Clint, Ron, Mykey, Nico,
and the rest of the Unpub PH / Solo
Boardgamers PH for the love and support.
• To Kat (Knight of Eyes) and Nate (Fool of Claws)

Velvet Vale Remix by Ruhrgamer:

https://boardgamegeek.com/user/Ruhrgamer
Illustrations made with
Adobe Firefly (Generative AI)
With kind permission of Wil Su