Documents

The Secret War Society maintains our own rulebook, errata list, and tournament floor rules for our events and cards.  These documents are broadly based on the documents produced by Inner Kingdom Games, modified as needed.  Any tournament organizer is free to use the SWS documents for their own events.  If you choose to do so, this should be part of your event description.

We've also uploaded two play aids for you to download and print.  One describes the common token types in the game, the other explains the game's bold-faced abilities.

Also below you will find a guide to rating cards for playtesting.  If you are a playtester, this document should act as a guide for your playtesting and reporting.  It may also be of interest to non-playtesters as a glimpse into how cards are playtested.

Summary of SWS Rules Changes:

We are trying, for the most part, not to tinker with the rules too much. Below is a brief summary of rules and errata changes we've made, that you can find in the documents below.

Tokens in Rulebook (Feb 2023): We've moved the description of common tokens to the Rulebook. Card that create these tokens will use the rulebook description. You can find a common token play-aid to download below.

Mobius Portal errata (Feb 2023): Mobius Portal reverts to it's original printing. It is no longer Limited.

Salvage errata (Feb 2023): The Reinforcements version of Salvage now has the restriction Toast It.

Heroic Bloodshed errata (Mar 2023): Heroic Bloodshed had both its cost and Crisis cost changed.

M.A.D. errata (March 2023): M.A.D. has changed.  The sacrifice is on resolution, not generation, and you may no longer sacrifice a card that is the target of an attack.

Minor rulebook update (May 2023): The rulebook has been updated to explicitly include some rules that have always been implicit in Shadowfist play.  You must shuffle your deck after searching it, if you are instructed to cut your deck during play, the cut must be random. The target of an attack may not intercept attackers targeting it.

Tournament Floor Rules update (May 2023): The formats have been changed to recognize "SWS Classic" and to slightly modify SWS Modern to exclude cards the SWS makes explicitly for the Classic environment.  See Tournament Information.

Minor rulebook update (June 2023): Rule 1.3 has been clarified to make explicit an implicit understanding of counters.  Each card that generates counters is considered to generate a unique type of counter, specific to that card's rules text.

Significant rulebook update (July 2023): Rule 23.5 has been changed.  The scene is now over when the last effect on the stack has resolved. You can no longer add effects to an empty stack.

Alternative win scoring (July 2023):  The scoring of alternative win cards has been changed in the Tournament Floor Rules.

Earthbound Warriors errata (July 2023): Earthbound Warriors now only creates tokens when non-token Characters are smoked.

Scrounging (tech version) errata (August 2023): Some versions of Scrounging have "Gain" rather than the correct "Generate."