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Banana Joe Games presents

JUJU'S CASTLE

Explore the dungeon. Gather the Relics. Slay the Hydra.

Rulebook based on Game Bible v1.6 · Cards v5.5.9 · 1–4 players

There is something sleeping deep inside JUJU's Castle. And the dungeon will do anything to stop you from getting there.

1 The Game

JUJU's Castle is a fully cooperative dungeon crawler for 1–4 players. There is no set board: the dungeon builds itself as you step into the dark, revealing allies, traps, and brutal enemies guarding legendary gear.

It's a game of asymmetric powers, shared battles, and defying luck. You will fight together, interrupt turns to save your friends, and hunt down powerful Relics. But tread carefully, finding them will wake the Hydra, and once it rises, there is no going back.

How you win. Find all four Relics, wake the Hydra, and bring all six heads down at the same time.

How you lose. An adventurer falls at the Hydra with no Relic left to spend, or the Hydra overflows: all six heads are already up when another is forced to grow.

2 The Adventurers

Four characters, each with a custom Fate Die. Three faces on every die carry the Flame symbol. When Flame shows, the number still counts for your roll, and your Innate Talent also fires (once per turn).

JujuTank

Flame4 5 6

Talent+2 to combat total

GigiSupport

Flame2 3 4

TalentGift Flame to any adventurer (their first roll next turn counts as Flame)

LuluMage

Flame1 3 6

TalentRecharge 1 Skill (usable immediately)

EggoRogue

Flame1 2 3

TalentChoose any enemy in play: cancel its ability until the end of the turn

3 What's in the Box

Everything in the box. The full searchable card index lives in the Components tab.

Poker Cards

Wonders

Mishaps

Misfortunes

Mini Cards

Legendary Equipment

Starting Gear

Relics

Skills

Hexagonal Cards

Shelter

Wayward Hall

Dread Vault

Relic Rooms

Starting Shelter

Adventurer Boards

Double-sided hex cards. Each Relic Room has a Hydra Head on its back (6 heads), and the Starting Shelter has the Hydra Body, Entry, on its back. They flip when the Hydra wakes. No separate Head or Exit cards.

And the rest

Fate Dice

Enemy Die (d6)

Hydra Counter (d10)

Miniatures

Bravery Coins

1 Set Up to Play

A short setup. Most of the game is built during play, not before it.

Pick an adventurer each. Juju, Gigi, Lulu, or Eggo. In a solo or two-player game, players can run more than one adventurer between them.
Take your kit. Place your Adventurer Board in front of you and your miniature on the starting Shelter. Equip your two Starter cards (one weapon, one armour), and lay your four Skill cards face-up (Ready).
Build the card decks. Shuffle the Wonder, Mishap, Misfortune, and Legendary Equipment decks separately. Shuffle the castle room deck and place it face-down.
Prep the endgame. Stack the 6 Relic Rooms within reach (each has a Hydra Head on its back), and set the 4 Relic cards face-down beside them.
Set the table. Put the Bravery Coins in a pool within reach, and keep the Enemy Die where everyone can grab it.
Choose the dungeon. In Freedom the castle has no wall, and rooms are laid wherever you walk. In Contained the castle is a hexagon three rooms deep around the starting Shelter, 37 spaces in all, which is the 36 castle rooms plus the entrance. Rooms are laid only inside it, Relic Rooms too. An adventurer whose move runs into the wall turns and follows the wall for the rest of the move; where it runs both ways, the player chooses which way.
Enter together. Every adventurer starts on the starting Shelter, which is also the entrance. It works as a Shelter for respawning and spending BP, but stopping there draws no Wonder card. The dungeon is revealed room by room as you explore.

Player scaling. The game runs from 1 to 4 players. When the Hydra wakes, it starts with a number of heads face-up equal to the number of adventurers, minimum two (1P = 2, 2P = 2, 3P = 3, 4P = 4).

2 Your Starter Equipment

Each adventurer begins with a personal weapon (+1 STR, no effect) and a piece of armour (0 STR, with a small thematic effect). These sit in your normal Equipment Slots and follow every standard equipment rule, with two exceptions: they cannot be traded, and on a KO they are not left in the room. Instead you discard them (set them aside) and can buy them back at a Shelter for 2 BP each.

Adventurer	Weapon	Armour & effect
Juju	Pencil Sword +1 STR	Sketchbook Shield Arms The first time you enter a Dread Vault during movement, you may keep moving instead of stopping. Skip that room (do not draw).
Gigi	Sylvan Bow +1 STR	Sylvan Tiara Head +1 STR while you have at least 1 Follower.
Lulu	Serpent Staff +1 STR	Witch Hat Head Once per turn, when you exhaust a Skill in combat (printed effect or Skill Burn), gain +1 STR for this fight.
Eggo	Rogue's Dagger +1 STR	Cadet's Cloak Body You may flee before rolling. Roll your Fate Die. Flame: move to an adjacent revealed room. Enemy stays. No Flame: you must fight.

3 Equipment Slots

Each adventurer has 2 Equipment Slots. Fill them with any mix of Weapons and Armour.

Weapons have no sub-type limit. Stack as many as your slots allow.
Armour has a body slot: Head, Body, Legs, or Arms. You cannot equip two armour pieces of the same body slot.
Eggo's Relic, the Shadow Cloak, grants a 3rd slot. The same restrictions still apply.

2 Weapons is fine. 1 Weapon + 1 Armour is fine. Head + Legs is fine. Two Head pieces is not.

No free slot? When you pick up new Equipment with both slots full, either drop an equipped piece in your room and take the new one, or leave the new piece behind. You can never carry more than your slots allow.

1 Turn Structure

On your turn you work through four phases in order.

Threat. Is there an enemy in your room that moved there last round? Fight it now, before anything else.
Move. Choose a direction, roll your Fate Die, and move that many rooms in a straight line, stopping on the final room. Every unexplored room you pass through is revealed: draw it, place it face-up, and earn 1 BP for each new room. One exception: if you reveal a Dread Vault along the way, you must stop on it and go no further.
Resolve. Clear whatever is already in the room first. If an enemy is there, beat it before you can touch any loot, then pick up what is left behind. A Dread Vault is the exception: gear lying there stays on the floor and is guarded by the Misfortune you are about to draw. Only then resolve the room by its type, as if you had just stepped onto it.
Powers. Utility and Support Skills can be used any time during your turn, outside of combat.

The Fate Die. A custom d6 with the Flame symbol on three faces. You use it for movement and combat. When Flame appears the number counts normally, and your Talent triggers once per turn, on the first Flame you roll that turn where it can act. For Juju that is his first Flame in a fight.

Entering a room. Whenever you enter a room, resolve it, even when a card or a Skill moves you there.

Entering a populated room. If a room already holds an enemy or loot (because something moved there, or a card placed it), resolve everything in the room first, then resolve the room by its type as if you had just entered it.

Flame places a Relic Room. After you move on a Flame roll, place 1 Relic Room adjacent to where you stopped. If every adjacent room is occupied, replace any room with no adventurer on it (discard what was there). Resolve the room you stopped in first, then take the free bonus move into the Relic Room. Turn up its Relic: take it, or leave it in the room for an ally. Once all 4 Relics have been turned up, you draw 1 Legendary Equipment there instead. The Flames don't stop: you keep placing Relic Rooms until all 6 are in play, and the 6th wakes the Hydra.

When do Relic Rooms start? Pick the pace together before the game. Quick: from the very first Flame. Normal: Flames place Relic Rooms only once the 10th room has been placed. Epic: once the 20th has. Until then, a movement Flame triggers your Talent and nothing more.

2 Three Room Types

ShelterGreen

Draw from the Wonder deck. Allies, treasure, relief. Also your Shelter: respawn here (your choice which Shelter) and spend BP (recharge, buy equipment, purify, repurchase starter).

Wayward HallYellow

Draw from the Mishap deck. Could be an enemy, a trap, a follower, or an event. A coin flip.

Dread VaultRed

Stops your movement at once. Draw 1 Legendary Equipment first and lay it on the floor, then draw 1 Misfortune on top of it and resolve it. Survive and the gear is yours, together with anything that was already lying in the vault. Fail and it all waits for the next adventurer.

3 Trading

On a room you share with an ally (not during combat) you can freely trade Equipment, Relics and BP. Followers can never be traded.

1 Combat, Step by Step

Combat is one die roll. Your Talent, your equipment, your followers, your Skills, and anyone at the table can change that roll before it's final.

Any hero can step in anytime, during anyone's turn. You can use your Skills to change the course of a battle, or exhaust one to reroll any die on the board.

Cooperative and Simultaneous: Every fight belongs to the whole table.

Enemy rolls. Standard d6 + its STR. The result is visible to everyone.
Skill Burn window (enemy die). Any adventurer may exhaust 1 Ready Skill to reroll the enemy die. Now or never.
You roll. Fate Die + base STR + equipment, follower, and relic bonuses. A Flame triggers your Talent.
Skill Burn window (your die). Any adventurer may reroll your die. One reroll per die, maximum.
Compare. Your total ≥ enemy total is a win (earn BP equal to the enemy's STR). Lower than the enemy is a KO.

Skills are free-flowing. Beyond the steps above, Skills can be played at any moment of a fight, by anyone. Only the two Skill Burn windows are fixed: a die can be rerolled once, then that moment is gone.

2 Getting Knocked Out

A KO is never the end of the world in the dungeon. At the Hydra it bites much harder.

KO in the Dungeon

Equipment is left in the room, guarded by the enemy that won. Whoever defeats it picks the gear up. Starter Equipment is the exception: it is discarded, and you buy it back at a Shelter for 2 BP.
Followers and Stalkers are discarded.
Relics and BP are kept. Always.
Your turn ends. You respawn at a Shelter of your choice at the start of your next turn, where you may spend BP.

Discard a Relic to refuse the KO. Discard 1 Relic before the KO takes effect. You return to a Shelter of your choice at once and your turn ends, but you keep everything you are carrying.

KO at the Hydra

One head grows immediately.
Equipment stays on the head's room, guarded by the head.
Followers and Stalkers are discarded.
You must discard a Relic to survive. You respawn at a Shelter of your choice and run back.
No Relic to discard? Game Over. The Hydra breaks free.

The key difference. A dungeon Relic prevents everything. A Hydra Relic only prevents the game ending. You still pay the full KO price.

Shield Wall is the exception. Juju's Shield Wall prevents the KO outright, at the Hydra too: no head grows, nothing is dropped, no Relic spent. The saved adventurer moves to the Shelter nearest to them, measured from their own room, not from Juju's. They do not stand there waiting for the next hit. If two Shelters are tied, they pick one.

1 Skills and Skill Burn

Four Skills per adventurer, all Ready at the start. Using one exhausts it until you recharge it. The choice of how to spend each one is the centre of the game.

Each time you use a Ready Skill you pick one of its two uses, never both:

Its printed effect: the thing the card was designed to do. Earns you 1 BP.
A Skill Burn: exhaust it instead to reroll any single die on the board. Any adventurer, any position, any die (yours, an ally's, or the enemy's). One reroll per die. A Skill Burn earns no BP.

So helping is always possible. The only question is whether you can afford it.

Timing

These are guides, not gates. You may play any Skill whenever you like; judging when it actually helps is up to you.

Combat Skills shine before a roll, or in response to a result.
Utility and Support Skills fit any moment on your turn, outside combat.
Reactive Skills answer a specific event, even on another adventurer's turn.

Once per turn. This one is firm. Each Skill can be used only once per turn, even if it is recharged mid-turn (by a Flame talent, a Mystic Wand, and so on). A Skill recharged during your turn becomes usable again next turn.

The full list of all 16 Skills is in the Components tab.

2 Bravery Points

Bravery Points (BP) are your currency. You keep them through a KO, and you can trade them with an ally in your room, like Equipment and Relics.

Earn BP

Defeat an enemy	= its STR
Use a printed Skill effect	1 BP
Place a new room	1 BP

Spend at the Shelter

Recharge a Skill	4 BP
Buy Equipment (draw 3, keep 1)	8 BP
Remove a Stalker	5 BP
Repurchase Starter Equipment	2 BP

Buying Equipment draws 3 Legendary Equipment cards; choose 1 and shuffle the other two back.

1 The Four Sacred Relics

One Relic per adventurer. Each gives +1 STR to whoever holds it, a passive that works for anyone, and a special that only fires for the matching adventurer. Relics never take up an Equipment Slot.

Crown of Courage

JujuBODYGUARD

+1 STR. After an enemy rolls against an ally, move to their room and fight in their place. Once per round.Juju only: +2 STR when bodyguarding.

Forest Amulet

GigiPACT

+1 STR. Your Followers cannot be discarded by any effect.Gigi only: When you gain a Follower, draw another Wonder. If Follower, keep it. Otherwise return to bottom.

Ancestral Grimoire

LuluGRIMOIRE

+1 STR. When you use Skill Burn, if the new die result shows Flame, the burned Skill is not exhausted (stays Ready).Lulu only: Arcane Recharge becomes: recharge 2 Skills instead of 1.

Shadow Cloak

EggoSAFEKEEP

+1 STR. Don't drop your Equipment on KO.Eggo only: 3 Equipment slots instead of 2. Lose Relic = choose 2, drop 1.

2 Relic Surge and Last Stand

Relic Surge. Every time a Relic is spent, all adventurers recharge 1 Skill.

Last Stand. When the last Relic is spent, all adventurers recharge 2 Skills and gain +2 STR for the rest of the round. One final push.

Discarding a Relic is usually how you refuse a KO. In the dungeon it sends you back to a Shelter of your choice with everything you carry, and your turn ends. At the Hydra it only holds off Game Over, and you still pay the full KO price.

1 The Hydra Wakes

Placing the 6th Relic Room changes everything. The dungeon turns on you.

The Hydra wakes the moment the 6th Relic Room is placed, not when a Relic is collected. Two things flip at once:

The Body

The starting Shelter flips into the Hydra Body, renamed Entry. It loses its Shelter function: no respawn and no spending BP there anymore. Standing on it is not dangerous by itself. It simply stops being a Shelter, so from now on you respawn at one of the others, your choice as always.

The Heads

The back of every Relic Room flips into a Hydra Head, so the heads are scattered across the dungeon where the Relic Rooms were, never clustered.

Which heads start active. Reveal active heads equal to the number of adventurers (1P 2, 2P 2, 3P 3, 4P 4), starting from those nearest the Body (Entry); break ties randomly. The rest stay face-down in the pool. If an adventurer is on a Relic Room that becomes an active head, they fight that head at once.

Free movement. Once the Hydra is awake the straight line is gone. You still roll your Fate Die and move that many rooms, but you may change direction at every room along the way. There is still no Hydra Area: the heads sit where the Relic Rooms were, scattered across the dungeon, and you have to reach them.

2 Fighting the Hydra

Each turn at the Hydra

Choose 1 active head and fight it. Win: the head flips down and its tile is a Relic Room again, empty: no Relic and no card to find there. The head waits face down and can rise again. Lose: you are KO'd and a head grows.

A head grows when

A round ends in which no adventurer fought a head. The round the Hydra wakes does not count.
An adventurer is KO'd at the Hydra.
The Spite is defeated.

Growth reveals the next face-down head, always the one nearest the Body (ties random). A head beaten this turn cannot rise again before the turn is over: if it is the only head face down, nothing grows. An adventurer standing on the room where a head rises fights it at once.

Winning and losing

Recycling is on. Defeated heads are flipped face down again and return to the pool, so they can re-emerge through growth. Victory: all six heads down at the same moment, so no head is up. A head that grows back has to be beaten too. Defeat (Overflow): all six active and a growth event with none left to reveal.

Relic Surge and Last Stand run here too. Every Relic spent recharges 1 Skill for every adventurer. When the last Relic is spent, every adventurer recharges 2 Skills and gains +2 STR for the rest of the round. At the Hydra, where each KO costs a Relic, this is the engine that turns your losses into one final push.

Hydra Movement (the only Hydra movement on the board). At the end of each round, mobile heads move. Only The Fangs and The Maw are mobile. Each active mobile head moves X (roll the Enemy Die) toward the nearest adventurer (ties random) as a direct swap: the head and the room X steps away trade places. If it lands on an adventurer's room, fight at once. If the nearest adventurer or the destination sits on a Shelter, the head stops on the room just before it, since Shelters are impassable. If it lands on a room with a normal monster, it replaces that monster and the monster and the room's contents are discarded. A head does not move if it is already adjacent to an adventurer or in combat.

The Hydra is a normal enemy that does not roll dice. All card interactions apply to it without exception.

The Six Heads

Head	STR	Type	Ability
The Nest	8	Passive	Iron Hide — While alive, all OTHER Hydra heads gain +2 Strength.
The Brood	8	Passive	Cursed Aura — While alive, Flame rolls do not trigger any effect. Count as normal numbers.
The Wail	10	On Defeat	Death Cry — When destroyed: all adventurers on a head's room exhaust 1 Skill.
The Spite	12	On Defeat	Last Gasp — When destroyed: add 1 random head from available ones. Otherwise, revive 1 destroyed head (not self). Cannot cause overflow.
The Fangs	9	On Target	Venom — When targeted: all adventurers on a head's room exhaust 1 Skill. Mobile: at end of round, moves X (roll) toward the nearest adventurer.
The Maw	8	On Target	Devour — When targeted: drop 1 Legendary Equipment (guarded by this head) before rolling. No Legendary Equipment: -2. Defeat The Maw to recover guarded Equipment. Mobile: at end of round, moves X (roll) toward the nearest adventurer.

★ Components

Every card in the box, straight from the master spreadsheet. Filter by deck, narrow by type, or search by name and effect.

⚡ Quick Reference

The numbers you reach for mid-game.

Win & Lose

Win: all 6 Hydra heads down at the same moment.
Lose: KO at the Hydra with no Relic and no Shield Wall, or Hydra Overflow.

KO & Respawn

Respawn: a Shelter of your choice. The starting Shelter counts until the Hydra wakes.
In the dungeon: Equipment stays in the room (guarded), Followers and Stalkers go, Relics and BP stay, turn ends.
At the Hydra: a head grows and you discard a Relic to survive. No Relic and no Shield Wall: Game Over.
Shield Wall: prevents the KO anywhere, and moves that adventurer to the Shelter nearest to them (not to Juju).
Discard a Relic: refuses a dungeon KO completely. Back to a Shelter of your choice with everything.

Flame Faces

Adventurer	Faces	Talent
Juju	4, 5, 6	+2 to combat total
Gigi	2, 3, 4	Gift Flame to any adventurer
Lulu	1, 3, 6	Recharge 1 Skill
Eggo	1, 2, 3	Cancel an enemy's ability for the turn

Shelter Costs (BP)

Recharge a Skill	4
Buy Equipment (draw 3, keep 1)	8
Remove a Stalker	5
Repurchase Starter	2

Earn BP

Defeat enemy	= STR
Printed Skill effect	1
Place a room	1

Skill Burn

Any adventurer, any position, any die. Exhaust 1 Ready Skill to reroll any single die. One reroll per die. Earns no BP.

Hydra Starting Heads

Players	1	2	3	4
Heads up	2	2	3	4

Heads activate from those nearest the Body. The Hydra wakes when the 6th Relic Room is placed.

Enemy STR ranges. Mishap enemies 2–5 (speed bumps). Misfortune enemies 3–8 (these hurt). The Faceless One scales to the party.