Letters & Seals
Istanbul's second expansion: Letters and Seals, the Companion, the Courier, double moves and the Embassy, Kiosk, Auction House, Secret Society and Catacombs.
Short tag: [Letters]
What it adds
- 5 Places: 21 Embassy, 22 Kiosk, 23 Auction House, 24 Secret Society, 25 Catacombs (the Catacombs only in The Great Bazaar).
Letters — the front shows 1 Seal and a Place number, the back 2 Seals. A Letter
you receive is laid front side up; once delivered, flip it to the back.- A Companion per player, the Courier, 24 Kiosk tiles, spare Rubies and new Bonus cards (a Seal in the corners). Pictures: Cards & Components.
Setup changes
- Lay out Places 1–16 and 21–24 in a 5 × 4 grid; first game: rows 9 1 4 21 3 / 15 6 7 11 22 / 13 24 12 14 8 / 10 2 23 5 16.
- Set up the base game. Use only the new Bonus cards, or mix them with the base ones.
- Roll both dice for the Courier’s starting Place.
- Kiosk: shuffle the Kiosk tiles into 2 face-down stacks on it; reshuffle the discards when they run out.
- Secret Society: put 3, 2 and 1 Lira under its 1st, 2nd and 3rd rank.
- Shuffle the Letters with their 2-Seal back up into one or more stacks.
- Companions and the spare Rubies beside the board.
Your turn
The Companion
Your first Fountain action moves your Companion into your supply. At the start of a later turn you may place it, free, on your Merchant’s Place. Once it is on the board, each turn you move either the Merchant stack or the Companion:
- it moves only 1 Place (orthogonally);
- it works alone: it needs no Assistants;
- Bonus cards and tiles showing the Merchant do not apply to it unless they say so.
Every Fountain action may also return it to your supply. Merchants and Companions you share a Place with must each be paid 2 Lira.
Delivering Letters
Whenever one of your figures — Merchant, Family member or Companion — is on the Place shown on one of your Letters, flip that Letter to its back: it is delivered. It does not matter whether the figure moved this turn.
The Courier
In phase 4 you may meet him: take 1 Letter, paying 2 or discarding 1
Letter, then reroll him.
Double move
Once per round, at the end of your turn, discard Letters showing 3 Seals to take another turn at once. Extra Seals are lost.
The new Places
21 Embassy
Take 2 Letters, front side up.
22 Kiosk
Take 1 Letter. Turn up one Kiosk tile per player plus one. Starting with you, clockwise, each player picks one, may use it, and turns it down; you also get the last one. Then discard them all.
23 Auction House
Take 1 good of your choice, then auction 2 Bonus cards: you open with at least 1 Lira; each other player, clockwise, may bid once (higher) or pass; then you may bid once more. The winner draws 2 Bonus cards; if another player wins, they pay their bid to you.
24 Secret Society
Discard Letters showing 6 Seals and take the next Ruby from the Sultan’s Palace or the Gemstone Dealer (or the Coffee House in The Great Bazaar). The first three players to do this also get 3, 2 and 1 Lira.
25 Catacombs
Take 1 good of your choice (or coffee), then move your Merchant stack — or the Companion that came here — to any Place. You take no action and have no encounters there.
Game end
The end is triggered at 6 Rubies, whatever the player count.