1. Choose a Hero. Choose one hero freely from among the five hero cards, and select either of its sides to begin the game faceup. Place it as shown in the Table Diagram. Return the rest of the hero cards to the box.

2. Prepare the play area. Lay out the rest of the cards and decks as shown in the Table Diagram.

• Map the paths. Separate the 12 path cards into four groups of three according to the cards' letters (A-D). Shuffle each set of three and place them in four columns, in alphabetical order, with their daytime (pink) sides face-up as shown.

• Stock the items. Shuffle the item cards into a deck with their ordinary (light pink) and upgraded (dark pink) sides facing the same way. Place the deck as shown with the ordinary sides face-up.

• Scout the enemies. Shuffle the enemy cards into a deck and place it face-down as shown.

• Global effects are inactive. Place the three global effect reminder cards in a convenient area of the table with their inactive sides face-up.

• Ready your reference. Keep the Reference Card where you can refer to it as needed.

3. Stats. Set your Health , Strategy , and Recovery dice to the values on your hero card and place them near your Reference Card.

4. Unit dice. Exhaust one die of each color. Then, gather the remaining 12 unit dice and place them in your dice pool area.

5. Consult the calendar. Referring to the table in “Difficulty Scaling”, choose a difficulty level, set your day tracker chip to the number of days specified, and make any other adjustments to setup specified, if any.