Say you are on Skull Passage, and you draw Turncoat and a Sneakthief. The Turncoat Event forces you to ditch the Mercenary Follower (Adventure card) and an Axe (Purchase card) on the Skull Passage space, and you win the subsequent Psychic Combat vs. the Sneakthief and discard it to take an Object from any player.

1) Is there a Bridge discard pile? Is that where the Turncoat and Sneakthief go, or is the intention to have Bridge cards shuffled back into Bridge deck at the end of the turn even if they are not actually present on the space at the end of the turn?

2) Since the Mercenary and Axe are on the Bridge space at the end of the turn, are they also shuffled back into the Bridge deck? Or is the Mercenary placed onto the Adventure card discard pile, or maybe even shuffled back into the Adventure card deck since it belongs to that deck? The Axe, does it return to the Purchase deck instead?

Anything that is ditched/dropped on the Bridge is shuffled into the Bridge deck at the end of your turn.

So any cards have to be shuffled into the bridge deck if dropped/ditched?

Yup.

This is a really cool feature. I love it!

Close your eyes to shuffle and just stop randomly I guess. I love it!!!

I suppose cut the deck after shuffling.

There's a little subtlety that might not be understood immediately.

Except for Enemies that normally have no discard condition, Events and Places in the Bridge Deck don't have instructions to discard them. This means that they will remain faceup on the space until the end of the turn, and then get shuffled into the Bridge Deck. This implies that you'll never get rid of Turncoat, The Geminax, Falling Slab and Akbar's Revenge. They might be encountered multiple times during a game. However, when you trade in trophies for Strength and Craft, or when you discard Objects and Followers for any reason, they are supposed to go to the discard pile, so a Bridge discard pile should exist.

On the contrary, Events from the Tunnel Deck (Sphinx of Khayu, Turing's Enigma, Portcullis, Sliding Walls) are discarded when resolved. The rules also say that if a character escapes, he must discard all cards currently on his stack, so no Tunnel Card is going to be seen twice in a game, unless the Tunnel Deck is depleted and the discard pile has to be shuffled to form a new Tunnel Deck.

Hey Warlock, that's a neat observation about the Bridge cards not having a discard condition! I never noticed that. However, could I clarify something?

However, when you trade in trophies for Strength and Craft, or when you discard Objects and Followers for any reason, they are supposed to go to the discard pile, so a Bridge discard pile should exist.

The rules on pg. 5 say, "When a bridge or tunnel card is discarded, it is shuffled back into its corresponding deck." I wonder if this means there isn't a discard pile?

It seems a bit like the Shop decks from The City expansion (discarded cards returned to the bottom.)

Hey Warlock, that's a neat observation about the Bridge cards not having a discard condition! I never noticed that. However, could I clarify something?

However, when you trade in trophies for Strength and Craft, or when you discard Objects and Followers for any reason, they are supposed to go to the discard pile, so a Bridge discard pile should exist.

The rules on pg. 5 say, "When a bridge or tunnel card is discarded, it is shuffled back into its corresponding deck." I wonder if this means there isn't a discard pile?

It seems a bit like the Shop decks from The City expansion (discarded cards returned to the bottom.)

I swear I was looking through the rules for discard conditions, yet I completely spaced that phrase.

Ok, to summarize:

1) Any card, no matter its origin deck (Adventure, Purchase, Tunnel card displaced onto a Bridge space, etc.), that remains on the Bridge space at the end of your turn is indeed shuffled into the Bridge deck. This appears to be the reason Terrain and Spell cards are forbidden to be placed here, along with tokens. (Thanks Jon!)

2) The Bridge Events and Places notably lack any text stating they are to be discarded, hence they remain on the space and are shuffled into the Bridge deck at the end of the turn (Thanks Warlock!)

3) Pg. 5 of the rulebook states all Bridge and Tunnel cards that are to be discarded are instead shuffled into their respective decks. (Thanks Artaterxes!)

You would think that after all of this time I would just learn to take any and all Talisman rules purely at face value!

I think that's a correct summary.

Also, like Dragon Cards (and Shop, Talisman, Treasure, Relic...) Bridge and Tunnel Cards aren't considered to be Adventure Cards until they are faceup on the board (pg. 5). This creates an interesting situation where a "mixed Bridge deck" can have a combination of Adventure Cards and non-Adventure Cards.

I am not sure what to do with card replacement abilities for a "mixed" Bridge deck. The Prophetess could draw an Adventure Card from the Bridge deck, want to replace it, but be unable to do so because the next card is a non-Adventure Card.

Maybe we can consider all cards in the Bridge deck, regardless of their "back," to be considered Bridge cards until they are faceup on the board?

However, when you trade in trophies for Strength and Craft, or when you discard Objects and Followers for any reason, they are supposed to go to the discard pile, so a Bridge discard pile should exist.

The rules on pg. 5 say, "When a bridge or tunnel card is discarded, it is shuffled back into its corresponding deck." I wonder if this means there isn't a discard pile?

Yes, I remembered reading that sentence at some point, but cannot find it back in the rules PDF.

So finally there's no way to prevent cards from resurfacing multiple times in the same game. I don't understand what's the purpose of Bridge Cards not having and the Tunnel Cards having a discard condition, since they would be returned to the deck when discarded. Events and Places on the Bridge would return to the deck both if they stay faceup or are discarded.