Shadowborne Games’ Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood is a dark fantasy miniatures game for 1-4 players that brings together a novel-sized, interactive story and epic tabletop battles where you stand toe-to-toe with intimidating nightmares. Oathsworn is a grimdark RPG of multiple paths, where realism matters and your choices change the flow of the story, preparing or hindering you for the encounters to come.
Before fighting an encounter on the tabletop you will embark on a hunt through an interactive storybook presented in print or narrated via a companion app (read by James Cosmo, Game of Thrones). With the aid of beautifully rendered maps you will choose your own path to find your foes, gather allies and make decisions that affect how the story unfolds. There are real consequences to your actions as you learn the lore of this strange world and track down what saner people would flee from.
Oathsworn battles are a flurry of blades and teeth, plastic and dice, focusing on boss fights called Encounters. With a host of giant 100mm figurines and handcrafted multi-phase encounters, you are plunged into a life or death experience that will take all your guile and grit to survive. Each Encounter is different in significant ways, with their own 15-card multi-stage deck and special rules, where the monster changes its behaviour as it reacts to your actions in every fight. Customize your Free Company characters, skills and equipment before each fight, learn the enemy’s weaknesses and bring them to a swift end.
The monstrous Deepwood has consumed the land. No farms or fields remain. There is only corruption, rot and the endless shadow of the twisted trees. When the Deepwood came, mankind collapsed in on itself – ravaged by starvation and the stuff of nightmares. Clawing their way out of this abyss, barely clinging to life, were the great cities. They are all that survived of the old world and now stand alone, as if islands in a sea of death.
Life is cheap in the cities. A lack of resources and burgeoning populations has pushed many to extremes. Some even go so far as to accept the ‘King’s Pledge’ and brave the Deepwood to try and make a new home for themselves. However, out in the darkness is a new frontier. The King has promised, ‘If you can hold it you can keep it’, but few have succeeded. Mankind is assailed by the creatures of the Deepwood who constantly search for weaknesses in the city walls, trying to break the fragile shell protecting the soft humanity within. Hope is scarce, but not extinguished for there is always the Oathsworn.
Standing between mankind and the horrors of the Deepwood are the Free Companies. These individuals are sworn by oath to fight and to die in defence of humanity – who fear and respect them in equal measure. They carry the authority of the King with them and, although a wing of the military, are free to travel and live as they wish as long as they continue to take contracts. These Free Companies, commonly referred to as Oathsworn, are small bands of singular individuals. Some take the Oath for the power it gives, some for the money, some seek vengeance. Then there are the few who take the Oath because they know what awaits humanity if no one stands in the breach.
Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood has been designed as a solo-friendly game, as it includes a dedicated ‘companion’ system specifically designed to streamline the experience for solo players. Here you may replace full characters with 2-card companions that take up less table space and offer less micromanagement, allowing a single player to control a whole Free Company with ease.
The Kickstarter campaign for Oathsworn has already achieved funding of US$1 million in less than 12 hours, adding plenty of new content to the base game. Backers can choose a Core Pledge, which includes 53 extra large models in a Mystery Chest, or opt for the Basic Pledge, which replaces most of the extra large models with standees. Additionally, a bonus Secret Box will be given free to all Day 1 backers of the campaign.
Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood is a grand mystery game with dozens of puzzles, secrets and goodies, over 300 common and unique items, and incorporates multi-use abilities and a push your luck, exploding dice/card system that let’s you choose how combat is resolved. It also features many unique and imaginative character designs, and is superbly illustrated by a team of accomplished artists, including Dongjun and Dongbiao Lu, Utku Ozden, and award-winning cartographer Francesca Baerald.
The Kickstarter campaign for Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood will conclude on November 6th. Visit the Shadowborne Games website for further information about the game.