Play Elder Sign Online

What Is Elder Sign?

Elder Sign is a cooperative dice game for one to eight players set in a museum after dark in 1926. The exhibits have opened cracks between our world and something older, and the players are investigators trying to gather enough elder signs, ancient sealing symbols, to lock the gate before a monstrous Ancient One awakens. It is built on the H. P. Lovecraft mythos and shares its world with Arkham Horror, but where that game takes an evening, Elder Sign plays in an hour or two and is driven entirely by dice.

The core of the game is a matching puzzle. Every adventure card shows one or more rows of symbols. You roll six green dice and try to cover a row with matching results: investigation numbers add together, while lore, terror and peril symbols must match exactly. Complete a row and you re-roll the rest for the next one; fail, and you lose a die before rolling again. It is the hold-and-re-roll rhythm of Yahtzee and King of Tokyo turned into a tense, cooperative race against a clock, and it is the reason Elder Sign has stayed popular among solo gamers since its release.

A Short History of Elder Sign

Elder Sign was designed by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson, the designers of Arkham Horror, and published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2011. The idea was to distill the sprawling Arkham experience, with its investigators, monsters, sanity and stamina, into a box that could be played in an hour or two with a handful of custom dice. The result became one of Fantasy Flight’s evergreen titles and a popular choice for solo play. A digital version, Elder Sign: Omens, was released the same year and is still sold on Steam.

The expansions changed the game’s shape considerably. Unseen Forces (June 2013) added a blessed-and-cursed mechanic with extra white and black dice. Gates of Arkham (February 2015) left the museum entirely, replacing the adventure deck with locations in the city of Arkham and introducing face-down adventures in a “Streets of Arkham” mode. Omens of Ice (March 2016) moved the game to Alaska with weather and supply mechanics, Grave Consequences (April 2016) was a small print-on-demand pack of modular cards, Omens of the Deep (February 2017) took the investigators to sea aboard a research vessel, and Omens of the Pharaoh (March 2018) sent them to Egypt. Each of the “Omens” boxes is effectively a new campaign built on the same dice engine you play above.

Elder Sign Rules

Components

• 6 green dice with faces 🔍1, 🔍2, 🔍3 (investigation), 📜 (lore), 👁 (terror) and 💀 (peril / skull)
• A yellow die (terror replaced by 🔍4) and a red die (🔍1 replaced by a wild face), unlocked in the boxed game by certain cards
• Adventure cards, each with one to three task rows, a reward and a penalty
• An Ancient One card with a doom track and an elder sign target
• Investigator cards with stamina, sanity and a special ability
• A clock, plus tokens for elder signs, doom, clues, items and spells

Our free version uses the six green dice, a rotating display of three adventures, and fixed totals: 5 stamina, 5 sanity, a doom limit of 12 and a target of 8 elder signs.

Object of the Game

Collect the required number of elder signs before the doom track fills. In the boxed game both numbers depend on the Ancient One you choose; in our version you need 8 signs and lose at 12 doom. You also lose if your stamina or sanity reaches zero.

How a Turn Works

1. Choose an adventure. Pick one of the open adventure cards. (In the boxed game you move your investigator to it and pay any entry cost.)
2. Roll all your dice. Six green dice, plus any bonus dice you have earned.
3. Complete a task row if you can. Assign dice whose faces match the row. Investigation dice combine: 🔍4 can be met with 🔍3 + 🔍1, or 🔍2 + 🔍2, or any total of 4 or more. Symbol requirements must be matched one die per symbol, and a die can only count toward one requirement. Dice assigned to a completed row are locked for the rest of the adventure.
4. Roll again. If rows remain, re-roll all unassigned dice and try to complete another row. You may complete the rows in any order unless the card says otherwise.
5. If nothing matches, you must discard one die, then roll again. Before that roll you may focus: set aside one die so it keeps its face. In our version focus can be used once per adventure.
6. Success or failure. Complete every row and you gain the card’s reward. Run out of dice and the adventure fails: you suffer the penalty and the card stays on the table.
7. The clock. In the boxed game the clock advances three hours at the end of each turn, and every midnight a mythos card is drawn, which often adds doom. In our version the clock strikes midnight after every third adventure resolved, adding 1 doom.

The Dice

Half of every die is investigation, which is why 🔍 requirements feel forgiving and a single 📜 or 💀 on a short row can feel like a wall.

Rewards and Penalties

Rewards in our version are one or two elder signs, or a recovery of stamina or sanity. Penalties cost one stamina or one sanity, add one doom, or a combination. As a rule, cards with more task rows or higher symbol counts pay two signs and punish failure harder. In the boxed game rewards also include items, spells, clue tokens (which let you re-roll dice) and allies, and penalties can spawn monsters onto other cards.

Worked Examples

• Card: “🔍4 📜” (one row). Roll: 🔍3, 🔍1, 📜, 💀, 🔍2, 👁. The 📜 covers the symbol and 🔍3 + 🔍1 covers the number. Assign those three dice and the card is complete in one roll. The game above picks the smallest matching set for you automatically, or you can select dice yourself first.
• Card: “👁” then “🔍5” (two rows). Roll: 🔍2, 🔍2, 📜, 💀, 💀, 🔍1. No terror, and only 5 investigation on three dice. You could complete “🔍5” with 🔍2 + 🔍2 + 🔍1 now, leaving three dice for the terror row: a 42 percent chance per roll, with two more discards possible before failure. That is the right play, because the row with the flexible requirement is the one you are sure of.
• Card: “💀 💀” then “🔍4” (two rows). Roll: 💀, 🔍3, 🔍3, 📜, 👁, 🔍1. Only one skull. Focus the 💀, discard the 👁, and roll four dice looking for a second skull (52 percent). Completing the 🔍4 row first with 🔍3 + 🔍1 also works, but then only three dice hunt the second skull once you have focused the first (42 percent instead of 52), and a miss leaves you two discards from failure instead of three.
• Card: “🔍8” (one row). Roll: 🔍3, 🔍2, 🔍1, 📜, 👁, 💀. Six investigation is not enough. Focus the 🔍3, discard the 💀, and re-roll four dice needing 5 more: about 40 percent. If that misses, focus is spent, so keep discarding the least useful die each time.
• Down to one die with a row unfinished. Discarding it fails the adventure. If the penalty is one sanity and you sit at 1 sanity, that is the game, so always check the penalty before you commit to a card.

The Odds: What Six Dice Give You

Every face has a 1-in-6 chance on every die, and the dice are independent, so the odds of any row are fixed by how many dice you still hold.

• A specific symbol (📜, 👁 or 💀) appears on at least one of six dice 66.5% of the time, on two or more 26.3%. With five dice it is 59.8 percent for at least one; with four, 51.8 percent; with three, 42.1 percent; with two, 30.6 percent; with one, 16.7 percent.
• Two different symbols together (say 📜 and 👁) both appear on six dice 41.8% of the time.
• Investigation totals. Six dice average 6 points. They reach 3 or more 89.6%, 4 or more 80.1%, 5 or more 68.5%, 6 or more 55.2% and 8 or more 29.2% of the time. With four dice the figures fall to 55 percent for 4 or more and 26 percent for 6 or more.
• A combined row such as “🔍4 📜” is completed on a fresh six-dice roll 49.9% of the time.
• No terror faces at all on six dice: 33.5%. In our version terror is simply a symbol you sometimes need, but in the boxed game some cards trigger a terror effect whenever a terror is rolled, which makes this number matter.
• Losing dice hurts fast. Because each discard removes a full sixth of your chances, the probability of finding a specific symbol falls from 66 percent to 42 percent after just three failed rolls.

The message is that investigation rows are easy to hit with many dice and symbol rows are easy to miss with few. Sequence your rows so that the symbol rows get the most dice.

Elder Sign Strategy

1. Do the Hard Row First

Rows with two symbols, or a symbol plus a number, need the most dice. Attempt them while you still have all six, and save flexible investigation rows for when you are down to three or four dice, where an average of 3 or 4 investigation points still gets you home.

2. Focus the Rarest Die

Focus is worth far more when it protects a 📜 or 💀 you still need than when it protects a 🔍3. A locked symbol turns a 42 percent hunt into a done deal and lets every other die chase the rest of the row.

3. Discard the Die the Card Cannot Use

When nothing matches, you choose which die to lose. Throw away a symbol no remaining row needs, or a 🔍1 if the number rows are already covered. Never discard a die that matches a symbol still required. The online game suggests the least useful die if you do not select one yourself.

4. Read the Penalty Before the Reward

A two-sign card with a penalty of “−1 stamina, −1 sanity, +1 doom” is an excellent choice at full health and a terrible one when you are at 1 sanity. Rewards win the game; penalties lose it. Count your stamina and sanity and treat any card whose penalty could take you to zero as a last resort.

5. Spend Turns on Recovery Cards When You Must

Adventures that restore stamina or sanity give no elder signs, and every three adventures cost a doom, so they are expensive. Even so, take one when you are at 1 or 2 on either track. Losing the game to a single failed roll costs more than one doom.

6. Prefer Two-Sign Cards While You Are Healthy

Eight signs at one per card means eight successes and at least two or three midnights. Two-sign cards with three rows are riskier, but each success halves the number of clocks you must survive. Early in the game, with full stamina and sanity, they are the efficient choice.

7. Count the Clock

Midnight strikes after every third adventure, success or failure. If two adventures have been resolved since the last midnight, the next one adds a doom whatever you do, so pick the card that pays the most for that unavoidable cost, not the safest one.

8. Do Not Be Afraid to Fail Cheaply

A one-row card with a “−1 stamina” penalty and one die left is often worth abandoning mentally: take the failure, keep your sanity intact, and move on. Chasing a lost cause with every die only guarantees the same penalty later.

Common Mistakes

• Completing the easy row first and leaving a two-symbol row for three dice.
• Focusing early on a 🔍3 when the row that is actually unfinished needs a lore.
• Discarding by habit, losing a 💀 that the next row required.
• Ignoring the penalty, then losing on a card whose reward you did not even need.
• Forgetting that used dice are gone. Dice assigned to a completed row do not come back until the adventure ends.

Variants, Expansions and House Rules

• Investigators and Ancient Ones. The boxed game gives each investigator a special ability and different stamina and sanity, and each Ancient One a unique doom track, elder sign target and attack. Choosing them sets the difficulty.
• Yellow and red dice. Unlocked by certain cards, they add a 🔍4 face and a wild face respectively, and are among the strongest boosts in the game.
• Clue tokens. Spend one to re-roll any number of dice without discarding. They are the boxed game’s answer to a bad roll.
• Unseen Forces (2013). Blessed and cursed states with white and black dice.
• Gates of Arkham (2015). Replaces the museum with Arkham locations and face-down adventures.
• Omens of Ice, Omens of the Deep, Omens of the Pharaoh (2016–2018). Stand-alone campaigns with their own decks and survival mechanics.
• House rules for our version: play to 10 elder signs for a longer game, allow focus twice per adventure for an easier one, or forbid recovery cards for a harder one.

For a themed dice game with direct conflict instead of cooperation, try King of Tokyo; for the same symbol-matching idea played as a light race, Roll For It; and for pure push-your-luck without the puzzle, Zombie Dice.

Glossary

• Adventure: A card with one or more task rows, a reward and a penalty.
• Task row: A set of requirements that must all be met by dice in a single roll.
• Investigation 🔍: Numbered faces that add together.
• Lore 📜, Terror 👁, Peril 💀: Symbol faces that must be matched exactly.
• Focus: Setting aside one die so it is not re-rolled.
• Doom track: The Ancient One’s progress toward waking; full means defeat.
• Elder sign: The sealing token you collect to win.
• Midnight: The clock event that advances doom.
• Stamina / Sanity: Physical and mental health; zero on either ends the game.

Play Elder Sign Online on Dice.now

The game at the top of this page is a free, solo fan re-creation built for learning and practicing the dice puzzle. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Fantasy Flight Games, Richard Launius or Kevin Wilson; the official game, with its investigators, Ancient Ones, items, monsters and six expansions, is on the Fantasy Flight Games Elder Sign page.

Our version deals three open adventures from a deck of eighteen original cards, each with one to three task rows written as symbols such as “🔍4 📜” or “👁 💀”, a reward of one or two elder signs or a stamina or sanity recovery, and a penalty. You choose a card, roll six green dice, and complete a row by pressing its button; the game finds the smallest set of matching dice, or uses the dice you have selected. When nothing fits, select a die to discard (or let the game pick the least useful) and roll again, and once per adventure you can focus a selected die so it keeps its face. Finish every row for the reward, or run out of dice and take the penalty. The clock strikes midnight after every third adventure and adds one doom. You win at 8 elder signs and lose if doom reaches 12 or your stamina or sanity hits zero from a start of 5 each. In our own tests, playing the cards in random order and completing whatever row comes first wins about 30 percent of games, so the decisions in the strategy section above are what separate a win from a loss. Your win-loss record and best sign total are saved on your device only. Roll the dice and seal the gate.