Ruling — Reign of Cthulhu

You asked

What needs to be placed on the table before the first round begins?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Reign of Cthulhubg-192153-en-1e

Before the first round begins, the following must be placed on the table: 1. The board [1][2]. 2. The Cthulhu Old One card, facedown in its provided space (X) on the board [1][2]. 3. Cultist and Shoggoth figures as a supply next to the board [1][2]. 4. Seal tokens near the Play Order table at the bottom of the board [1][2]. 5. Six Old One cards, shuffled and placed facedown on the remaining spaces to the left of Cthulhu [1][2]. 6. Two Investigator cards, shuffled and dealt to the table for players to choose from [1][2]. 7. The Summoning deck, created by shuffling all Summoning cards together and placing them in the provided space [3]. 8. Cultists on specific locations determined by flipping the top cards of the Summoning deck: 3 cultists on each of two locations, 2 cultists on each of two more locations, and 1 cultist on each of two more locations [3]. 9. One Shoggoth on a location determined by flipping one more card from the Summoning deck [3]. 10. All drawn Summoning cards, faceup, on the Summoning discard pile [3]. 11. The Player deck, formed by shuffling a specific number of Relic cards (4/5/6 depending on player count) with the remaining Clue cards and stacking them in the provided space [3]. 12. A Relic pile, consisting of unused Relic cards placed facedown to the side [3].

[1] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.4 ·

[2] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.4 · THE PLAYERS LOSE IF: · PLAYER CARDS: 44 CLUES · SET UP THE BOARD, CTHULHU, AND PIECES · PLACE THE OLD ONES · GIVE EACH PLAYER AN INVESTIGATOR, A FIGURE, AND SANITY TOKENS · SET THE GAME'S DIFFICULTY · …

[3] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.5 ·

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 246 ms · ask 7659 ms · total 148283 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 140367 ms · generation 7916 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 11, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "When insane, you may use the Song of Kaddath after your last action to become sane. In this case, you will get one more action to take this turn. When a player draws this card during the Draw Cards step, they may not immediately gain an action from their increase in sanity since it is no longer the ", "headingPath": "SONG OF KADATH · WARDED BOX · COMMONLY OVERLOOKED RULES", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "MILL CHURCH Example: If you have a Dunwich Clue card and are with another player on the Cafe, you can give this card to that player. Or, if another player has a Dunwich Clue card and you both are on the Cafe, then you can take it from that player. In either case, you both must agree before handing t", "headingPath": "FARMSTEAD GIVE OR TAKE 1 CLUE CARD · SEAL A GATE · 2. DRAW CARDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "You need only 4 cards (not 5) of the same color to seal the matching gate. You need only 4 cards (not 5) of the same color to seal the matching gate. When you are part of a Give or Take a Clue card action, you (or the other player doing it with you) must take 2 actions. You may do up to 5 actions pe", "headingPath": "SANE · INSANE · CREDITS", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "PLAY Each player turn is divided into 3 steps: 1. DO 4 ACTIONS. 2. DRAW 2 PLAYER CARDS. 3. REVEAL SUMMONING CARDS. After a player is done resolving the Summoning cards, the player on their left goes next. Players should freely give each other advice. Let everyone offer opinions and ideas. However, t", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "4 PLAYER CARDS: 12 RELICS 7 INVESTIGATOR CARDS 7 INVESTIGATOR FIGURES 4 EVIL STIRS CARDS Place the board within easy reach of all players. Place the Cthulhu Old One card facedown on the board in the space provided for it (X). Place the cultist and Shoggoth figures as a supply next to the board. Plac", "headingPath": "THE PLAYERS LOSE IF: · PLAYER CARDS: 44 CLUES · SET UP THE BOARD, CTHULHU, AND PIECES · PLACE THE OLD ONES · GIVE EACH PLAYER AN INVESTIGATOR, A FIGURE, AND SANITY TOKENS · SET THE GAME'S DIFFICULTY · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Cthulhu awakens, Not enough cultists are left when needed, Not enough Shoggoths are left when needed, Not enough Player cards are left when needed, or All players are insane.", "headingPath": "THE PLAYERS LOSE IF:", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Each player turn is divided into 3 steps: DO 4 ACTIONS. DRAW 2 PLAYER CARDS. REVEAL SUMMONING CARDS. Players should freely give each other advice. Let everyone offer opinions and ideas. However, the player whose turn it is decides what to do. 2: Draw 2 Player cards and resolve Evil Stirs cards After", "headingPath": "PLAY · 1. ACTIONS · MOVEMENT ACTIONS · WALK · TAKE THE BUS", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Players not only need to contend with the Old Ones' powers and their cultists but also their own grasp on sanity as the tides of madness grow ever higher from the Old Ones' machinations. after completing a Use a Gate action, after resolving the effects of a Relic card, when you enter a location with", "headingPath": "SANITY ROLLS · YOU MUST ROLL THE SANITY DIE: · SANITY DIE EFFECTS · INSANE INVESTIGATORS · GAME END", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "THE PLAYERS LOSE IF: · PLAYER CARDS: 44 CLUES · SET UP THE BOARD, CTHULHU, AND PIECES · PLACE THE OLD ONES · GIVE EACH PLAYER AN INVESTIGATOR, A FIGURE, AND SANITY TOKENS · SET THE GAME'S DIFFICULTY · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 554 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 554 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 7, 2026 08:05

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SONG OF KADATH · WARDED BOX · COMMONLY OVERLOOKED RULES	p.11	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	FARMSTEAD GIVE OR TAKE 1 CLUE CARD · SEAL A GATE · 2. DRAW CARDS	p.7	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SANE · INSANE · CREDITS	p.12	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.6	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	THE PLAYERS LOSE IF: · PLAYER CARDS: 44 CLUES · SET UP THE BOARD, CTHULHU, AND PIECES · PLACE THE OLD ONES · GIVE EACH PLAYER AN INVESTIGATOR, A FIGURE, AND SANITY TOKENS · SET THE GAME'S DIFFICULTY · …	p.4	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	THE PLAYERS LOSE IF:	p.3	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	174
#7	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	PLAY · 1. ACTIONS · MOVEMENT ACTIONS · WALK · TAKE THE BUS	p.6	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SANITY ROLLS · YOU MUST ROLL THE SANITY DIE: · SANITY DIE EFFECTS · INSANE INVESTIGATORS · GAME END	p.9	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	THE PLAYERS LOSE IF: · PLAYER CARDS: 44 CLUES · SET UP THE BOARD, CTHULHU, AND PIECES · PLACE THE OLD ONES · GIVE EACH PLAYER AN INVESTIGATOR, A FIGURE, AND SANITY TOKENS · SET THE GAME'S DIFFICULTY · …	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 246 ms · first delta 5450 ms · total 148283 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 140367 ms · retrieval 246 ms · ask 7659 ms · gateway work 7916 ms · total 148283 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4817
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 353
tok/sec: 147.0 tok/sec — 353 output tokens in 2.401 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 51s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 486), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.