Hemlock is 2-5 player card game the goal of which is to poison the Royalty of your opponent(s). In each round, the ‘Conspirator’ leads a card from her hand face-down in the center of the play area. Moving clockwise, players place cards for their value or their ability to control or manipulate the trick while at the same time trying to determine whether they want the face-down Lead card to go to their team or an opponent. The winner of the trick assigns the face-down card to either the ‘Target’, herself, or, if the winner of the trick is the Target then to any player she chooses. Once a certain number of cards have been assigned the game ends, and the face-down cards assigned to each player are resolved. The winner is the player or team with the most Royalty Points at the end of the game.