Tainted Grail is a solo or cooperative survival exploration board game for 1-4 players from Awaken Realms, set in a dark universe that blends Arthurian legends and Celtic mythology. Players control one of the characters – accidental heroes who need to fight for their lives after stronger and wiser champions have failed. Chased by the encroaching, twisted power of the Wyrdness, fighting an uneven battle against depleting resources and challenging encounters, the characters set out to achieve the impossible – and die many times in the process. Each act of the story is set apart by many years, revealing the long-term consequences of player actions. A deep, branching storyline allows them to tackle problems in different ways, ensuring no two games play alike.
This island was not meant for humans. Looming on the border between our reality and the ancient power known as the Wyrdness, it was populated by a mysterious, legendary race. Humans came here anyway, with their wooden ships, their ambitious king and his fellowship of knights.
Running from a plague ravaging their distant homeland, they took the island piece by piece, raising menhirs of foreboding shape and mysterious purpose. The former masters of the island were wiped out.
Four hundred years later, not even their name remains; the people of Avalon simply call them the Fore-dwellers. The times are harsh. The Red Death is back. The menhirs are dying, and without their power, the land itself crumbles back into the Wyrdness. That’s why your hometown has gathered five of its strongest and wisest heroes and sent them to find help in distant Kamelot. As these champions set out to brave the dangers of this wild land, you watch from afar.
You are NOT one of them.
During a standard game of Tainted Grail, you will spend most of your time traversing the dangerous island of Avalon. Your character will Travel from one Location card to another, spending Energy and revealing more of the map. Often, to progress further, you will have to enable one of the guardian Menhirs, scattered throughout the realm. These ancient monuments go dark after some time, and enabling them requires considerable resources, so plotting your course will test your planning and logistics skills.
At any point, you may Explore any location you visit. This will throw you into the middle of a non-linear, branching storyline that often changes the game world around you, swapping some of the Location cards for their different versions. At the start of each day, a new Event card will be revealed, slowly pushing time forward and providing you with new Tasks.
While playing, you will also stumble upon many random combat and non-combat Encounters. To resolve them, you will use your Combat and Diplomacy decks, utilizing your tactical and deck building skills. Rewards from these Encounters will help your character advance, letting you optimize your two decks, gain interesting Abilities, raise your Attributes, and – eventually – reach parts of the island that you would not have reached otherwise until you finally arrive at the end of the Act. After that, you will be able to progress to the next Act of the story, with a fresh character, in a different age, on an island that was transformed according to the exploits of your previous hero.
That is unless you first succumb to death or insanity. Their shadow will hang above you right from the start. The Fall of Avalon is not a good time to be alive, after all… When you return, you will hopefully be wiser and better prepared – and you may even retain some powers earned during previous games.
Immersive, story-driven exploration will bring the world of Avalon to life, confronting you and your team with difficult choices that have far-reaching consequences. Over 100,000 words of branching story scripts provide many different paths to your goal as well as several different endings to your adventures!
The Chapters of Tainted Grail are built with replayability in mind and offer multiple branching paths, while the entire campaign has several alternative endings. After you survive it once, there are still lots of new things to see, and storylines to experience! And even if you make the same choices on your new playthrough, random events, encounters and randomized elements within the 220-page Exploration Journal ensure no two games play alike, while tense, survival-based gameplay lends itself to many unique moments of emergent storytelling.
Tainted Grail is currently funding on Kickstarter, where it has already received pledges in excess of £2,000,000! This successful campaign has unlocked numerous stretch goals including an additional full campaign in the cold, desolate landscape of apocalyptic Avalon (The Last Knight), consisting of new characters, locations and encounters, and a new 220-page Journal featuring new interactions, choices, secrets, and long-term consequences of actions made during the first campaign.
Created by one of the best polish fantasy authors, Krzysztof Piskorski, the story of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon aims to push the boundaries of non-linear narrative, building upon the rich experience Awaken Realms has in fusing ambitious stories with excellent board game mechanics and striking visuals.
The Tainted Grail Kickstarter campaign ends on December 29th.