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War of the Worlds game: Player factions


I say it's War of the Worlds, but really, that's no longer true. It's become more than that particular story. Now, it's a treasury of old tales, warriors and armies brought together for almighty punch-up.

So, I'm still working on it, but I'll present some progress. Here are a set of the local player boards that deal with the each faction and thus what each player will be doing.

(I find I rather like Root's style of player board, so, for the moment, I'm stealing that, until I find something better).

The Martians

The Martians primary goal is to make earth habitable for Martian-kind. They are (at least in my game) intending to abandon Mars and move their entire race to Earth. As such, they need to deal with the diseases (as they have lost their immune systems, along with other organs).

They need antibodies and luckily enough there's a lot of them contained inside the bags of meat who are running around screaming.

As the Martians feed each turn, they get more anti-bodies, and more diseases. They need to cure ALL the diseases as well as taking the main cities on Earth to win.

Other components:

  • A set of 60-ish Anti-body cards. Unevenly split into 4 Anti-body types, A, B, C, D. Reverse side is a 'blood' image.
  • A set of 7 diseases. 3 disease require antibody A, 2 require B, 1 requires C, and 1 requires D. Reverse side is a 'blood' image.
  • The Martians start with 2 diseases already present. Each disease triggers on when the turn counter reaches certain numbers. E.g. "On the 17th turn, lose 1 Martian", "On the 20th Turn lose ALL martians."

The Cultists

The Cultists want to summon Hastur (or one other other Ancient Ones (not Cthulhu though)) to Earth. They find a Prophecy detailing how it will happen. The Prophecy says they need to perform a magic ritual in a specific location with 3 specific mythic Artifacts to powering the spell.

The Cultists run around the board, raiding tombs and museums looking for mythic artifacts (stuff like Excaliber, Invisible Armour, etc). Whenever the Cultists find an Artifact they can, if they wish, take it back to their base, the Red House. However, other players can raid their house for the Artifacts too.

Other components:

  • There's some 36 Mythic Artifact cards. These are turned facedown and placed 1 per tomb on the map and up to 3 per museum (in a city).
  • There's about 20 Prophecy cards. Each one contains a location and 3 Artifacts (some Artifacts appear on multiple prophecies). The Cultists draw a Prophecy and try to fulfil it. It if fails, they get a new one.

The Asguardians

The Asguardians want their weapons back. Loki, brother of Odin, (not Thor, Marvel, not Thor!), has stolen Thor's hammer and Belt, and Odin's spear, and then lost them on Midgard (Earth).

As the Asguardians, you are super strong, super quick (can use the Bifrost to get anywhere quickly) and can't be killed. However ... you drag Loki with you, and, well, Loki is Loki. Whenever you do something, he pulls a prank (unless he's injured). Sometimes, it's helpful, but usually it's not. Sometimes nothing happens and somethings something bad happens. When something really bad happens, Thor punches Loki in the face, and you get a bit of peace.

The Asguardians run around the map searching tombs and museums for the 3 Asguardian Artifacts. As soon as they find them all they have won.

Other components:

  • Just the same 36 Mythic Artifacts spread around the board.

And that's probably enough for now. Next time, I've got the Venusians, the Mummy and Cthulhu to show.

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gamejournal | by Dr. Radut