Guardians

How to play a Guardian, the general rules, and the six Guardians of the base game: Medusa, Antaeus and Geryon (red), Minos, Cerberus and the Minotaur (black).

Playing a Guardian

Each game uses one red and one black Guardian (first game: Medusa and Minos; solo: one black only). Their standees start on the shields shown on their cards. You play a Guardian when something gives you the icon:

• a pagan stop on Dante’s path;
• the first two silver bonuses;
• the BONFIRE, for 1 .

Either Guardian in play may be chosen.

General rules

• Guardians teleport. A Guardian moves to any empty shield in Hell — it does not follow the lines like a Soul.
• Adjacent means any neighbouring shield, in the same circle or in the circles above and below.
• To use a Guardian’s effect you must move its standee to a different shield. You may move it without using the effect.
• Guardian effects act on Souls only, never on other standees or pieces.
• No effect lets a Soul go below its own circle.
• A Guardian and every Guardian piece occupy their shield: Souls jump over them, and they count as filled at the end (except Geryon’s Pits).

Red Guardians

Guardian	Component details
	Setup: Medusa starts on the far-left shield of the yellow circle; Petrified Souls go in the supply. Play: Move her to an empty shield, then replace an adjacent Soul with a Petrified Soul; return the Soul to the supply. Effect: Petrified Souls never move again, so use her on standing Souls; petrifying a lying Soul has no effect (FAQ).
	Setup: Antaeus starts on the far-left shield of the ice-blue circle; each player keeps their Chains. Play: Move him to an empty shield and chain an adjacent Soul, moving your Chain from another Soul if needed. Effect: Only you may move a chained Soul; take the Chain back when it reaches its circle. A Soul cannot wear two players’ Chains (FAQ).
	Setup: Geryon starts on the far-left shield of the gray circle; Pits go in the supply. Play: Move him to an empty shield and place a Pit on another empty adjacent shield. Effect: Pits block shields during play, then are removed before Phlegethon adjustment; each leaves an empty shield that costs its circle a step.

Black Guardians

Minos

Setup: far-right shield of the purple circle; each player keeps their Tail. Play: move Minos to an empty shield and put your Tail on the Infamy symbol to the right of that circle — not where another Tail already is (you may move yours from another circle). Effect: whenever another player lays down a Soul in the circle holding your Tail, you score the same points. Solo: you score 2 extra Infamy each time you lay a Soul down in your Tail’s circle.

Cerberus

Setup: far-right shield of the green circle; Bones in the supply. Play: do not move Cerberus — take a Bone. You may hoard several. Effect: at the start of a later turn, instead of your usual Soul move, return a Bone: put Cerberus on the shield of a standing Soul already in Hell and scare it away. The Soul moves down in a straight line as many shields as you like, through empty or occupied shields, to land on an empty one — never turning, never below its circle, and through the Walls of Dis only with your own safe passage.

Minotaur

Setup: far-right shield of the red circle; each player keeps their Labyrinth entrance. Play: move the Minotaur to an empty shield and put your Labyrinth entrance on any other empty shield (or move it there) — you always move both. Effect: for you, the shield with your Labyrinth is linked only to the Minotaur’s shield: a Soul you move onto it travels at once to the Minotaur and, as that shield is occupied, carries on down from there. For other players your Labyrinth is just an occupied shield to jump over. Through the Labyrinth a Soul may cross the Walls of Dis without a safe passage, and may even go back up if the Minotaur is higher — but never below its own circle.

Deluxe Guardians

[P&P] Two more Guardians — Plutus (red) and Phlegyas (black) — are explained on the Plutus & Phlegyas page.