Story:
Enter the Ancient Isles of Kjeldor as they were in olden days of myth
and legend where the heroes (and the battles) were larger than life.
Fight as a raging warchief, a righteous prophet, or just a straight up
stone-cold killer. Whatever your mettle, test your battle prowess in
this epoch of constant strife, copious bloodshed, and all-around chaos
as the gods (and a few titans) shook the very earth with their
colossal combat.
Go forth, gather your warriors, zealots, and peeps to your battle
standard, and wage war upon the heathen hordes!
Gameplay:
High unit counts:
If the histories are to be believed, the great feats of yesteryear
make Hercules and his twelve labors look like little Johnny doing his
weekend chores. In the Golden Age, everything was HUGE – the warriors,
the heroes, the weapons, and the stakes. Beyond enormous, beyond
gargantuan, beyond titanic. Back then, war was downright
brobdingnagian.
Each continent gives HUGE bonuses, ranging from +10 to +70. The
minimum per-turn unit bonus is set to 20, and all territories start
with 10 units. To balance the attacker advantage with high troop
counts, default dice are 4-sided.
Heavy fog:
The Isles have always been extremely misty, and the added weight of
endless aeons clouds the vision of all but the most devout clerics.
Players can only see neighboring territories, so plan accordingly.
Shrines:
Build a shrine to the gods of your land and they will grant you the
strength of avatars and divine vision to pierce the thick fog around
you.
Controlling a shrine grants vision up to three territories beyond the borders of the shrine’s associated continent.Shrines can attack any other shrine with default 4-sided dice.Shrines cannot attack normal territories – shrines are observational only!Shrines are not included in the labeled continent bonuses, but willadd 33% (rounded up) to the total bonus received from their continent.Each shrine begins the game with 20 neutral units, which is also the unit max.Units sacrificed to a shrine cannot be returned to the normal field of battle, and are stuck in the shrine network. The unit max helps protect against accidentally tranferring an entire army into a shrine.
Attacking over water:
Said to be spawned from the nether abysses by Cthulu himself, the vast
behemoths that lived beneath the seas surrounding the Isles made
seafaring a risky venture. Many a warrior was lost in that age to the
rampages of krakens and other unnamed leviathans.
Sea attacks - from an island to the mainland or between
islands - are resolved with 5-sided (attacker) versus 6-sided
(defender) dice.
Simultaneous territory selection:
Everyone had a fair shot at glory in Ancient Kjeldor. Well, as long as
they were mighty enough to survive the roaming dire wolves. And the
hell bears. And the Lovecraftian lumbering horrors…
Players bid against their opponents for their starting territory locations. Neutral count is medium, so a fair number of territories will start with 10 neutral units.
Cards:
Pervasive violence and endless war required incredible reserves of
charisma from the Kjeldoran warlords. Whether through inspiring the
unquestioning love of their people, ruling through the iron fist of
fear, or invoking the righteous sense of duty in their followers,
these leaders used whatever means possible to raise hordes the ferocity
of which have not been seen in many an age.
The card scale begins at 20, and increases in increments of 5 until it reaches 40, after which it increments by 10 until reseting back to 20 after reaching 100.