illgottengames

October preview: Prisoners of Gaznak

Added 2022-09-30 21:15:15 +0000 UTC

Alright, folks. For the coming month, we're going to be doing something darker and a bit more on the literary side.

Based on The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth, by Lord Dunsany, Prisoners of Gaznak will be a competitive/co-op dungeon-crawler board game (somewhere in the Hero Quest-esque wheelhouse) where players are captives attempting to escape the dream-like dungeons of the Fortress Unvanquishable. One player will take the role of the sleeping sorcerer, Gaznak, and will run the dungeon and its many monsters and traps, not to mention the evil, invincible sorcerer himself, should he wake up thanks to the players' exploits.

This will be the first go of our Underdelve crawler system, which is part of a new direction we're exploring with CRUX wargaming (which may also be getting a revamp/release this coming month). The full game will be a Kickstarted release eventually, and this whole coming month will be devoted to creating a beta for which you patrons will get in on the ground floor. While the game rules will only be going to our Games backers ($10+), we'll be releasing lots of miniatures and terrain (see: dungeon tiles) to patrons at the lower tiers, and there will be a monthly Pocket-Tactics set based on this theme as well, of course.

If you haven't read the original story, we highly recommend it. Dunsany's work is a cornerstone of what we know as fantasy today, and this story in particular is one of the earliest examples of sword & sorcery fiction (and one of the most metal things we've ever read to boot). You can find the short story in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories on Project Gutenberg, and there are free audiobook versions out there as well, so give a read/listen if you want to get an idea of what you're in for.