Black Rose Wars

The cards know your destiny!
over 6 years ago – Mon, May 21, 2018 at 10:45:37 AM

Hi Mages! 

Welcome to the new “magic guide for young mages”, today we will show you the inherent powers of the arcane art of tarot reading and, together with our amazing Baba Yaga we will discover how the Major Arcana’s cards can be useful to get to the Black Rose throne!  

Cartomancy is rooted in a distant past, since when the first men who found out they had supernatural powers began to use objects like bones and liquids to predict the future. Thence, the entities later known as Major Arcana revealed themselves and granted their powers to a select few. Baba Yaga, thanks to her immense magical knowledge, is one of these elected.    

The school of Cartomancy will offer new mechanics and combinations to those who want to approach the discipline: the feature characteristics of this discipline are the manipulation of his own hand and quest achievement ... some of its cards are themselves Missions to be solved! But first things first, as we said many of this school’s cards will make you discard cards from your hand to trigger special effects. 

For example, with “The Fool” you can discard a card to make 1 damage to an opponent for each card you decide to reveal, or you can discard a card to inflict 3 damage to an opponent and discard a card! “The Hanged Man” will allow you to discard 1 card to activate any room, even if already activated or destroyed, or discard a mission card to draw 1 or 2 quests.  

Or, with “The Chariot”, you will draw 3 cards from your deck and earn 1 Power Point, or discard a number of cards to draw just as many and gain 1 Power Point. As mentioned above, some of the spells have an effect called Mission that, if resolved by the end of the current turn, will guarantee excellent bonuses, for example “The Lovers” will ask you to cast 3 different spells to automatically solve one of your quests, or “Justice” will ask you to discard or force someone to discard 3 cards during the turn to receive 2 PPs and draw 2 from your Grimoire!  

Finally, we have “Minotower” that will allow you to summon a powerful Minotaur under your control, which, in addition to beating very hard, will block enemies in the room where it is, until it is defeated ... and it won’t be easy!  

Cartomancy perfectly matches almost all schools, its drawing and discarding mechanics can really help you to limit the luck factor and always have a right card at the right time. The mechanics of missions and other Arcana, such as “The World”, will help you a lot if you are focusing on quest achievement to win victory, and get along well with Divination and Conspiracy. Furthermore, “The Tower” is really one of the most powerful evocations, and any summoner will want it by his side!  

So… are you ready to get a card reading?

And now... from the ashes...

Farfarello
over 6 years ago – Mon, May 21, 2018 at 10:45:00 AM

Here we are with the second episode of Inferno.  

The path walked by Dante and Virgilio led them to stumble upon a fascinating place filled with meaning, where the poet used real life characters to describe the sins he would slowly go on to explore.  

Today we will visit two of the rooms in the expansion, linked to the 7th and 9th circle.  

The first, dedicated to the 7th circle of Violence, is the Wood of Suicides. Here, damned souls are held prisoners in the trees where Harpies nest, inflicting excruciating pain on the tormented souls trapped in the plants each time they nibble on its leaves.  

This room will offer you an extreme option, that is to “kill” your mage. If you choose this option, you’ll need to reposition the miniature in the cell as usual, but no power points will be given to those who participated in the killing. Not even the trophy will be assigned.  

The second room on the other hand is closer to the centre of hell where Lucifer’s throne is found: the 9th circle, the circle of Treachery. Here, hundreds of poor souls are trapped in eternal ice in varying positions depending on the type of treachery perpetrated during their life.  

Those who activate this room will have the possibility to view the quests held by an adversary and swap them with one of their own. The player must have at least one quest to swap in order to activate the power of this room.  

And now, it’s time to introduce the first WIP of Farfarello. This devil is different to the others of his kind because he’s part of the Malebranche controlled by Malacoda.  

He may not be the strongest and most courageous of devils, but he’s always ready and willing to indulge the desires of others.  

His main characteristic in the game is speed. Thanks to his small size and wings, he can get almost anywhere in rapid time. Despite being a weak attacker, he is nonetheless difficult to strike, which is why he can only receive one wound per turn thanks to his skill: dodge.  

That’s all for now from Inferno, see you next time on Saturday or Sunday with new rooms and the final image of Farfarello.  

Given the passion and enthusiasm you showed yesterday in the search for a name for the 5th-6th player box, we have decided to reward one of you by inserting your name in the box credits, with your consent of course.  

Some really fantastic names came up, including:  

Mr. E52s............................................... Mirage & Intrigue

Arkeran................................................ Dagger & Mirror

Eddie "Egghead" Bianco.................... Usurper call

Thomas................................................ The War Expands

Aaron Guzman.................................... Trickery for the Rose

But for us at the studio, the winner is:

Mr. E52s............................................... Hidden Thorne

Mr. E52s, we wait your PM :)

Spoiler time:

 Stay tuned and spread the words!

Pimp your Weapons!
over 6 years ago – Mon, May 21, 2018 at 10:44:32 AM

Hi, Mages!  

Here we are at a new update, dedicated to one of the schools unlocked during the campaign and which will improve your games and make them always fun and varied. 

Today we will talk about one of the most atypical among all schools, first of all, because its main mage, Bronte, is a giant Cyclops and then because his magic is based on the evocation of very powerful magical objects that will really help their owner during a game .... we are talking about the Enchantment school! 

But let’s start from the beginning (and try not to make Bronte angry in the meantime), this school’s cards will lead you to victory in many ways. For example, its Combat Spells will evoke Artifacts and deal direct damage to opponents. 

The Artifacts are in effect Evocations but do not have a physical representation, they are considered "worn" by the Mage who evokes them giving very useful bonuses to him. They will still occupy one of your evocation spaces and all have a value of Life, this means that they can be targeted by spells and will be involved in the effects of area attacks.

“Battle Fist” will deal 4 damages to its target and move him/her up to one room or, by evoking actual objects, you will always inflict more damage and you can immediately move forward one room and attack an enemy. “Dancing Swords”, instead, will increase the movement and attack values of one of your evocations, making it also act immediately, or you can evoke real swords, which will behave like a normal evocation ... actually, it is a rather difficult evocation to defeat, since it cannot suffer more than one damage at a time when it is attacked, and with its attack of 3 it can inflict a lot of damages around the Lodge. 

But Artifacts can be used even more finely than just to simply beat your opponents: “Ring of Toosa”, in fact, as well as inflict damage if summoned can make you draw an extra quest every time you have to draw quests and choose which to hold. “Tribute of the Aegadian” will help you manage the quests, you can, in fact, discard a quest to immediately solve another and earn half the Power Points, or you can draw 3 quests and decide how many to hold in hand by paying 1 PP for each. 

“Sight of Arge” instead will prove very useful to control the board, you can in fact immediately activate your room and do the same with one of the adjacent rooms ... really, really useful! 

This school has just one Protection card, but it’s very powerful: “Violent Reaction” will reduce the next damage (2 points) and whoever inflicted it will take a damage or will cancel one trap and its owner will suffer as much damage as your number of active summons at the moment! 

Enchantment is, therefore, a very aggressive school that can be brilliantly joined with Transmutation or Destruction to optimize its offensive aspect, or with Divination and Chronomancy to focus on quests’ solving; schools devoted to evocations can greatly benefit from this school too. You can also try to create a great mix of combat and control evocations to reach the Black Rose throne in a more difficult but surely satisfying way! 

Bronte did not get mad (this time) and, together with us, he will meet you tomorrow to continue our discovery of the Lodge’ schools!

As usual some pics for you!

And another amazing Model painted by Bellarofonte Art Studio!

 Stay tuned and spread the word!