Pot's Peace, Oathsworn. Welcome to The Art of Caesura!
What's all this then, TWO posts in one day!? Well yes, you see timing is of the essence here. Today marks the 200th post of The Art of Caesura, so if you haven't had a chance to check out the celebratory post, please do so!
There is also a Kickstarter ongoing at the moment, that I am getting quite excited by, but it closes on Tuesday, so if I left it till next Friday to tell you about it...it would be too late! Hence, in a world first, two hits of The Art of Caesura in one day! Now onward, into the world of Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood!
Credit: Shadowborne Games
Nota bene: I am not associated with Shadowborne Games, and am just writing this because it is something that I am genuinely excited about. None of the media in this post belongs to me.
Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood is a dark fantasy RPG miniatures game set in a fully realized world. For the first time, we are bringing together a novel-sized, interactive audio book and tabletop miniature battles.
The City of Verum - Credit: Shadowborne Games
The two things that have really drawn me to this game are the incredible miniatures and the fact that the designers put just as much emphasis on story and world-building as on combat.
Let's look at the story first.
In the lore of the game, much of the known world is overgrown with a wild forest called the Deepwood. I think of it like Fangorn Forest in The Lord of the Rings where everything in the forest (including the forest itself) is trying to kill you.
The Deepwood - Credit: Shadowborne Games
A few walled cities have managed to survive and they are connected by the 'wire road'. The wire road is just an iron wire threaded through eye-holes attached to trees through the forest (a conventional path would be overgrown in days).
The Deepwood -Credit: Shadowborne Games
Some 'heroes' (though they come via various paths to be considered such) swear an oath to head out into the woods to protect people and keep the wire road safe(r than it would be without them). These are the Oathsworn.
The Warden - Credit: Shadowborne Games
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The Broodmother - Credit: Shadowborne Games
The game is currently made up of 21 chapters (15 originally, 6 through stretch goals) each of which comprises of two parts: the story part (30-60min) and the encounter (boss fight, 90-120min). These chapters are epic, they each involve about 10 000 words of narrative, but, depending on the choices you make, you might only experience 2000 words of that story in one play-through. This is because the story component is like a "choose your own adventure" novel, where you are regularly given choices of how to proceed. While all paths lead to the encounter, the consequences of your actions in the story part are huge: gaining (or having missed out on) extra companions or gear to help with the boss fight (and influence the story in future chapters), gaining advantages over the boss (like getting to ambush them, or having re-rolls or buffs against them).
Witchlight - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Shadowborne are clearly putting a ton of emphasis on their story. One of the lead writers is Aaron Dembski-Bowden (the New York Times bestselling author more commonly associated with Games Workshop's Black Library).
The game includes a hard copy of the narrative book, but also has a narrated version in app format. The cool thing about the narrated version is that it is read by James Cosmo (Game of Thrones' Lord Commander Mormont, also in Trainspotting, Braveheart, Troy...)
The attention to detail in their world-building is exceptional (the city maps in the game are hand painted by an Italian cartographer) and there is a whole thread on Board Game Geek where one of the lead background writers will answer any questions you have about the lore - in character!
Bastone Map - Credit: Shadowborne Games
To add further depth, Shadowborne are running a short story competition (closing tomorrow!) which has provided a fun opportunity for some of us to explore the world ourselves - more on this next week!
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So, how about the miniatures!? I know, I know some of you just scrolled straight down here to see them, well welcome back!
Credit: Shadowborne Games
The minis in this game look great! We have a lot of cool twists on common RPG tropes. There is a ranger, but rather than being a "wood elf" she is part of a plant race called the A'Dendri. Outwardly like Sylvaneth from AoS, the A'Dendri have added depth. They don't have mouths so they communicate with other members of their race via spores (and as female A'Dendri age, their spores become more powerful, enabling them to enthrall younger members of their race) or with other races via a somewhat universal language known as "the knock".
A'Dendri Ranger - Credit: Shadowborne Games
A'Dendri Ranger - Credit: Shadowborne Games
There is an iconic War Bear race, the Ursus; and an incredible avian race, the Avi, who perceive past, present and future simultaneously though in a form that is difficult to interpret. These all have dark depth to them and much of this intriguing lore is brought to life by their rules on the table top.
Ursus Warbear - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Ursus Warbear - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Avi Harbinger - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Avi Harbinger - Credit: Shadowborne Games
The minis, including their sculpted bases, are made out of HIPS (High Impact PolyStyrene - the same quality of hard plastic that Games Workshop uses) and they are larger than standard minis, they are 45mm scale (where many common heroic scale minis are 28-32mm). The rationale for this is to accommodate one of the elements of the character models that I am most excited about: weapon swapping! You can buy an "armoury" add-on, which contains multiple different push-fit arms for each character so that you can equip them with any weapon combination that is possible for them to have! I have never seen this done before, and think it is super cool!
Credit: Shadowborne Games
Credit: Shadowborne Games
Credit: Shadowborne Games
Credit: Shadowborne Games
Credit: Shadowborne Games
And here are just some more awesome character minis and their artwork.
Priest - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Priest - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Cur - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Cur - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Scar Tribe Exile - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Scar Tribe Exile - Credit: Shadowborne Games
The Witch - Credit: Shadowborne Games
The Witch - Credit: Shadowborne Games
A'Dendri Grove Maiden - Credit: Shadowborne Games
A'Dendri Grove Maiden and Pals - Credit: Shadowborne Games
And we haven't even talked about the monsters yet! 120mm giant rats anyone?
Broodmother - Credit: Shadowborne Games
Broodmother and 3D Terrain - Credit: Shadowborne Games
One of the big elements with this campaign is that Shadowborne are keeping most of the monster encounters secret! You can, of course, spoil it for yourself (which I have done), and take a look at many of the sensational boss minis (SPOILER WARNING) here. But when you buy the game, you will receive it with all the bosses in mystery boxes!
Broodmother and 3D Terrain -Credit: Shadowborne Games
Time to buy some bigger brushes!
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Finally, combat! I'm not going to go into all the details of the rules, for those you can check out some of the videos that I've linked at the bottom. Rather, some of the highlights are: the whole game is playable with 1-4 players, yes there is a dedicated solo mode. You can use either the custom dice or cards as your random number generators (with cards having the added element of equalizing over the course of a game and also with the meta game of trying to count cards). You can roll as many dice (or draw as many cards) as you want to try to get the result you are looking for, but if you roll two (or more) blanks (there are 2 blank faces on each custom die) - the whole thing fails! Conversely, the dice also have "critical hit" sides which make your attacks explode into new dice! There is also a "Battleflow" system representing your momentum in battle. Ability cards you play cycle around your player board based on playing them in a strategic order. All in all it seems like a load of fun to me, and people on the Board Game Geek forums who seem much more in tune with rules than I am seem largely excited.
I hope you've enjoyed this look at Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood! If it looks like something you're interested in, the Kickstarter has already unlocked all stretch goals and is closing on Tuesday, November 5th. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below (I have been following the campaign quite avidly) or in the comments section of the Kickstarter, where the developers are very active. Keep one hand on the wire and the other on your blade. I'll see you next week on The Art of Caesura!
Reading: Machines Like Me - Ian McEwan Watching: From Beyond (1986) - Stuart Gordon Next Week: Story time...
What you failed to mention is that combat can take 2 hours, in fact so long on 1 boss that they recommend you split your game session, 1 on story and another on combat. This is what turned me off the game, and for me the elephant in the room. Two hours on a boss, is like spongy enemies in online fps games. Not welcome anytime.
Hey, thanks for your comment. In the paragraph above the picture of the Witchlight I mentioned:
"The game is currently made up of 20 chapters (15 originally, 6 through stretch goals) each of which comprises of two parts: the story part (30-60min) and the encounter (boss fight, 90-120min)."
So you're absolutely right, a single chapter (story + combat) can take up to 3 hours. In interviews Shadowborne mention that this was an intentional timeframe, because most week-night gaming sessions would be about 3 hours. But, like you say, you can split a chapter into story and combat components and play these on different occasions if you wish. You can even ditch the story, and play a "right into the action" mode (I forget what they actually called it) where you get a little summary of the story elements and get straight into the fight if this is your preference.
Personally, 3 hours (2 of which on a boss which changes behaviour as it gets more and more injured) sounds great to me, but preferences will vary.
The complexion of a light-skinned face divides into three zones: The forehead has a light golden colour because it's freer of muscles and surface capillaries. The ears, cheeks and nose all lie within the central zone of the face. Those areas have more capillaries carrying oxygenated blood near the surface, causing the reddish colour... The zone from the nose to the chin (where there are relatively more veins carrying blue deoxygenated blood) tends toward a bluish, greenish or greyish colour. Some artists accentuated this subtle bluish or greenish hue to bring out the reddish lip colour. Color and Light (page 156) - James Gurney Welcome all to The Art of Caesura! So I finished all the models in Warhammer Quest Silver Tower!! Wooohooo!! Now for something a bit different! This week I'm going to do something I've never done on the blog before: write a review!! I've been wanting to write my thoughts on Scale 75 's Flesh Paint Set for ov
Hello again good friends of the Caesura! I am glad to report that I am feeling much better than last week, recovered from most of my COVID symptoms. Continuing from last week's post , I'm ready to tell you more about the lists that JP and I took for my first game of Warhammer 40k in over a decade and a half. I have tried to write this post for those who know very little about playing Warhammer 40k (which was me when I started preparing for this game). So, I knew that I wanted to keep things straightforward for my first game and that we were playing to 500 points. For those non-warhammerites, this is basically the smallest game you can play - less moving parts to keep track of. Here is my list again, but this time I will discuss what it all means, and my thought process behind each choice: + Stratagems [-1CP] + Stratagem: Revered Repositories [-1CP] This just means that before the game I used one of my finite resources ("Command Points") to buy a very fancy weapon (
What you failed to mention is that combat can take 2 hours, in fact so long on 1 boss that they recommend you split your game session, 1 on story and another on combat. This is what turned me off the game, and for me the elephant in the room. Two hours on a boss, is like spongy enemies in online fps games. Not welcome anytime.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for your comment. In the paragraph above the picture of the Witchlight I mentioned:
ReplyDelete"The game is currently made up of 20 chapters (15 originally, 6 through stretch goals) each of which comprises of two parts: the story part (30-60min) and the encounter (boss fight, 90-120min)."
So you're absolutely right, a single chapter (story + combat) can take up to 3 hours. In interviews Shadowborne mention that this was an intentional timeframe, because most week-night gaming sessions would be about 3 hours. But, like you say, you can split a chapter into story and combat components and play these on different occasions if you wish. You can even ditch the story, and play a "right into the action" mode (I forget what they actually called it) where you get a little summary of the story elements and get straight into the fight if this is your preference.
Personally, 3 hours (2 of which on a boss which changes behaviour as it gets more and more injured) sounds great to me, but preferences will vary.