How to Play

Goal

Be the last merchant standing. Everyone sets out with the same purse from the start space. Running low never knocks you out: you keep travelling at 0. You only leave the road if you give up a debt you truly cannot pay, or choose to leave.

Your turn: draw a Rihla card

There are no dice. Your caravan moves with Rihla (journey) cards. Each turn has three steps:

• Trade & manage (optional): offer trades, add Souq Stalls or a Grand Khan, sell them back, or put a business on Ijara and reclaim it.
• Draw: take the top Rihla card and travel forward the number of spaces it shows (1 to 12).
• Arrive: see what waits where you stop. Then the next merchant sets off.

Some cards let you choose where to stop from a few highlighted spaces. Bonus cards move you and let you draw again, but a third bonus card in a row wears your caravan out and sends you to Bayt al-Dayn.

Each time you pass the start space you collect 2,000k. Stopping right on it adds another 2,000k.

Every decision is on a turn timer (60 seconds by default). You get 3 short extensions per game; after that, running out of time ends your journey.

Setting up shop

When your caravan stops at a free spot, you can set up shop there: pay the price shown and open your business. The same goes for the services along the road.

If you pass, the spot goes to an auction between the other merchants. Bids rise by 100k and the highest bid opens the business. If nobody bids, the spot stays free.

When merchants visit your business

When another merchant stops at your business, they buy your goods and pay you. Owning every business on a street (one colour) doubles what they pay, and every Souq Stall and Grand Khan raises it a lot more.

A merchant who uses your service pays a fee that grows with how many services you own: 250k, 500k, 1,000k or 2,000k.

Growing your business: Souq Stalls and Grand Khans

Once you own every business on a street, you can grow them. Add Souq Stalls, up to four on each business, then turn four stalls into a Grand Khan, the biggest market there is.

• Grow evenly: no business on the street gets its next stall until the others have caught up.
• All businesses on the street need four stalls before any of them becomes a Grand Khan.
• One build per street per turn, during Trade & manage.
• Not while a business on that street is on Ijara.
• A stall or Grand Khan sells back for the full price you paid.

Services cannot be grown.

Ijara: cash without interest

Short of cash? Put a business with no stalls on Ijara (a lease to the bank). You receive half its price straight away. While it is on Ijara, visitors pay you nothing.

To take it back, pay 60% of its price: the half you received plus a fixed 10% fee that never grows with time. You have 15 of your own turns to reclaim it. After that the spot is free again and you keep the half.

Sadaqah and Hikma cards

Stopping on a Sadaqah or Hikma space draws a card. It might fill your purse, ask you to pay, send you along the road, or send you to Bayt al-Dayn. Charity cards also bring Barakah. A card is played as soon as it is drawn.

Zakat

Stop on Zakat and you give 2.5% of your wealth (cash, businesses, stalls and Grand Khans) to the merchant who has the least. If several tie for least, they share it. You gain 1 Barakah, even when you are the one with the least and owe nothing.

Waqf

A Waqf is an endowment for everyone, like a well or a school. The first time you stop at one you can endow it for 3,000k and gain 1 Barakah, or just pay the 1,000k visit fee.

Once it is endowed, every merchant who stops there pays 1,000k to the community fund (Bayt al-Mal), and the endower gains 1 Barakah each time. A Waqf earns its endower blessing, never cash.

Barakah

Barakah is blessing, earned by generosity: paying Zakat, endowing a Waqf (and every visit to it), and charity cards. It does not decide who wins and cannot be spent or lost during the game.

When the game ends, every merchant at the table, winner or not, has their Barakah added to their account, to spend later on skins.

Trading

Before you draw, you can offer another merchant a trade of businesses, endowed Waqfs and cash. They accept or decline; there are no counter-offers.

• Trades must be fair: one side can be worth at most twice the other.
• Both sides must give something, and cash can only be on one side.
• A street with Souq Stalls or a Grand Khan cannot be traded until they are sold.
• At most 3 offers to the same merchant per turn.

Bayt al-Dayn

Bayt al-Dayn (the house of debt) is where a caravan waits for a while. You are sent there by the Ghaflah space, some Hikma cards, or a third bonus Rihla card in a row, without passing the start space.

While you wait, your businesses keep serving customers and you can still trade and manage. Pay 500k at the start of your turn to leave at once, or wait: after 3 turns you set off again for free.

Debts, giving up and leaving

A payment you must make (at another merchant's business, Zakat, a card) that is more than your cash becomes a debt. Raise the cash by selling stalls, putting businesses on Ijara or trading, then pay. There is no interest and no negative balance.

You can give up only when even selling everything would not cover it. Your businesses close and their spots are free again, the merchant you owed is paid what you were worth, and you keep your Barakah. You can stay and watch the rest of the journey.

Leave game takes you out the same way at any time. Closing the tab does not: your seat waits for you, but the turn timer keeps running.