It is 1598, and you have settled in the middle of France in the city of Orléans on the Loire. Your goal is clear: Build a cathedral in Orléans — all of you together because only together can you meet this challenge!

In the co-operative game The Cathedral of Orléans, players will recruit followers familiar from Orléans to take actions — knights, craftsmen, scholars, traders, and monks — but these followers are divided between two pouches, so the question you will constantly face: From which pouch should I draw to get the desired tile? You will want to remember which tiles go into which bag at the end of the round, dividing duties between one another in order to work out your strategy together as effectively as possible.

Time is always a pressing issue. The cathedral must be completed in the third round at the latest, and if a tile can no longer be placed elsewhere with an action, it must go into the bell tower, with that tower's toll ending the round.

Special highlight: You build a real, three-dimensional cathedral!

Mon Dieu, quelle horreur! The inhabitants of Orléans have been hit hard as the plague has come upon them, bringing suffering and misery to the population. There are many dead to mourn, and even the plague doctor can bring only limited relief and hope to the long-suffering inhabitants. The clergy also has little to offer in the way of relief. And so, in the end, everyone is on their own and must try to protect their followers as best they can...

When you use the Orléans: Die Pest / The Plague expansion, the game conditions are made tougher from the start of play thanks to the "rat cards". Sometimes there are fewer monks in the game, sometimes no gears may be placed on place cards or the building of trading stations must be paid for with an additional coin.

New events are now also linked to the "corpse tokens" which players must place a certain number of in their bag at the end of each round. These tokens might be randomly drawn from the bag at the beginning of the round and occupy valuable space on the marketplace because they cannot be used for any action. To get rid of them for good, a player can fulfill indulgence cards through pilgrimage, donations, or other conditions, which also bring victory points at game's end. Fortunately, each player has a "plague doctor", a new figure that is available in (almost) every round and can be used universally.

—description from the publisher