0. Dized. For a quick start use the interactive DIZED Tutorial. It will walk you through the setup and game rules step by step while you play!

1. Choose a Hero. Choose freely among the five hero cards. Some require you to begin on one side of the card or the other, but if the one you choose does not, you may select a side freely as well. Place it on 5 the table as shown in the Table Diagram (see Table Diagram). Return the rest of the hero cards to the box.

2. Stats & Gold. Set your Health Strategy , and Recovery , dice to the values on your hero card and place them near it. Turn your chip — called the GOLD TRACKER in Tanglewoods: Red — to its numerical side; then set it to 20 minus the sum of your three starting stats.

3. Prepare the Play Area. Lay out the various cards and decks as shown in the Table Diagram and described below.

• Stock the Shop. Shuffle the item cards into a deck with their ORDINARY (orange) and UPRADED (red) sides facing the same direction. Place them on the table as shown with the ordinary 6 sides face-up. Put the Merchant Card on top of them.

• Cultivate the Forest. Shuffle the forest cards with their DAYTIME (green) and NIGHTTIME (purple) sides facing the same direction. Return five at random to the box; then place the remaining 10 as a deck on the table as shown, with the daytime sides face-up. Put the Grandma’s Cabin Card on top of them. Put the Trailhead Card on the table as shown, leaving space above it for your path. Place your Health die on top of the house icon; this die is used to show your current location as you travel through the forest.

• Cry Wolf. Shuffle the five wolf pack cards with their WOLF (illustration) and POWER-UP (red background) sides facing the same direction. Place them as 7 a deck on the table as shown with their wolf sides face-up. Put the Big Bad Wolf Card on top of them.

• Prepare the Minions. Shuffle the enemy/fable cards with their ENEMY (showing three stats) and FABLE (showing the icon) sides facing the same direction. Place them on the table as shown with their enemy sides face up. This is the Minion Deck.

• Ready Your Reference. Keep the Reference Card handy, placing it on the table as shown. The “Brothers Grimm” side is ignored unless using a universal hero without a secondary side.

• Scout. Deal out cards from the top of the Minion Deck into the SCOUTING LINE (see Scouting Line), a horizontal line of single cards as shown, until the number of minions you can see — including the 8 one on top of the deck — is equal to your Strategy .

4. Unit Dice. Separate out one unit die of each color (,,,, and) and place these in a BANISHED area as shown, unless your hero instructs otherwise. Put the rest in your dice pool, also as shown.

5. Difficulty Scaling. Referring to the table in “Difficulty Scaling” (see Difficulty Scaling), choose a difficulty level and make that level’s adjustments to setup, if any.