World & How to Play
The Great Illuminary, and how to play
Two players, a deck each, and a race to 20 lore. Put cards into your inkwell, use the ink to bring Disney characters into play, then quest for lore or challenge your opponent's characters. Here is the whole game on one page, then the world it is set in.
How to play
Gather 20 lore
Characters quest to collect lore, and locations add lore at the start of your turn. The first player to reach 20 lore wins.
Their deck runs out
A player who has to draw a card from an empty deck loses the game.
The six inks
A deck uses one or two inks. Since Archazia's Island, some cards are two inks at once.
Kinds of card
Character
Has Strength (damage it deals), Willpower (damage it can take) and a Lore value. Quests for lore or challenges, from the turn after it arrives.
Action
A one-time effect. Play it, do what it says, then put it in the discard pile.
Song
An action you can also play for free by having a character sing it: exert a character whose cost is at least the number shown.
Item
An object that stays in play. Many can be used the turn you play them.
Location
A place your characters can move to. It gives you lore at the start of each of your turns. Added in Into the Inklands.
Setting up
- Bring a deck. At least 60 cards, no more than four copies of any card, and only one or two inks.
- Pick who goes first, shuffle, and set your lore to 0.
- Draw seven cards. Once, you may put any number of them on the bottom of your deck, draw back up to seven, then shuffle.
Your turn, in order
- 1
Beginning
- Ready your exerted cards.
- Set: “at the start of your turn” effects happen.
- Draw a card. The first player skips this on their first turn.
- 2
Main phase
- Once, put a card with the inkwell symbol into your inkwell.
- Play cards by exerting ink equal to their cost.
- Quest, challenge, move to locations and use abilities, in any order.
- 3
End
“At the end of your turn” effects happen, then it's your opponent's turn.
Words you will see
- Exert
- Turning a card sideways to use it. An exerted card can't be used again until it is readied at the start of your next turn.
- Drying
- Characters enter play ready but can't quest, challenge or exert until your next turn: “their ink is still drying”.
- Quest
- Exert a character to gain lore equal to its Lore value.
- Challenge
- Exert your character to fight an opponent's exerted character (or a location). Both deal damage equal to their Strength at the same time.
- Banish
- When the damage on a character or location reaches its Willpower, it is banished to the discard pile.
- Shift
- Play a character on top of one with the same name for its Shift cost. It keeps the damage and can act at once if the one below could.
- Storyborn, Dreamborn, Floodborn
- Glimmers as they are in their films, reimagined versions, and versions changed by the great ink flood.
- Core and Infinity
- Core tournaments use only recent sets (older sets rotate out). Infinity allows every card ever printed.
This is a summary for new players. Ravensburger's official rules have every detail, and they win any disagreement with this page.
The world of Lorcana
Illumineers
Players are Illumineers: people who use magical ink to bring characters and objects to life. The ink is drawn through an inkcaster from a lorebook.
Glimmers
The characters an Illumineer summons are called glimmers: ink-made versions of characters from Disney stories. Storyborn glimmers are as they appear in their films, Dreamborn glimmers are reimagined, and Floodborn glimmers were changed by a great flood of ink.
The Great Illuminary
The centre of the realm of Lorcana is the Great Illuminary, built by a mysterious sorcerer and holding every story ever told in the Halls of Lorcana. The lore points players collect are fragments of that larger story.
The stories
Every card comes from a Disney or Pixar film or series, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Zootopia, plus characters made for the game itself. The encyclopedia groups every card by the story it comes from.
The stories with the most cards
Sources for the rules and the world
- Disney Lorcana Quick Start Rules (Ravensburger) — Setup, turn structure, ink, questing, challenging, locations, songs and Shift.
- Disney Lorcana Comprehensive Rules (Ravensburger) — The complete rules, which win any disagreement with this summary.
- Disney Lorcana — Wikipedia — Illumineers, glimmers, the Great Illuminary, the six inks, card types and rarities.
- Disney Lorcana Lorecast Announces Core Constructed Rotation, New Format (Star City Games) — Core Constructed rotation and the Infinity format, announced May 2025.