Board Game Defenders of the Wild

Guarding the forest against machines

Everything is connected and nothing is eternal - according to these principles, the inhabitants of Splinolis have lived for centuries. However, sooner or later there will be a daredevil who will rebel against nature and try to subjugate the laws of existence to his own will. The ambitious experiment ended in a devastating failure - deadly machines, awakened by dark magic, began a war against life itself...

Defenders of the Underworld is a co-op adventure game in an extremely atmospheric fantasy setting. Players will become the leaders of different factions of animals that are in the heat of the war against the machines. Despite long-standing misunderstandings between factions, you will have to unite in the fight against a common enemy in order to maintain hope that the Common Forest will escape an endless man-made winter.

Factions

Each participant will play for one of four factions:

• Coven. Masters of songs, charms and tricks. An ever-changing alliance of witches, herbalists, bards, and rogues who have practiced the healing magic of the Underworld for generations. Unsurpassed masters of ambushes. Homeland — swamps.
• Order. Scientists, fire keepers, cartographers and librarians. Official chroniclers of the animal world who practice the art of flame divination, often seeing into the past and sometimes predicting the future. Native area — forests.
• Council. Union of employees, guards, farmers and bakers. Driven by notions of justice, solidarity, and togetherness (and fueled by copious amounts of ale and bread), they were among the first to encounter the machines. Homeland - steppes.
• Sect. A shadowy brotherhood of mechanics, miners, mathematicians and hackers who work in remote laboratories deep in the mountains. Known for their superstitious lore, intricate crystal mines, and ingenious inventions. Homeland — mountains.

Game layout overview

The game continues for a number of rounds. The round consists of two phases, each of which has two steps:

1. Planning

• players stop discussion and secretly choose a defender card;
• players reveal the selected defender cards (and use the reveal skill, if applicable) and begin to discuss and strategize.

2. Actions

• each player in turn can perform as many actions as their active defender has action points, including: move, regroup, build camp, heal, clear pollution, breach wall, destroy mech, and destroy factory;
• after taking actions, the active player plays a machine card that places, moves, and controls certain machine components, preventing factions from defending and clearing the Common Forest.

End of the game

Players lose if the construction of the machine base is completed (five factories are built and another one is ordered to be built), an environmental disaster occurs (six poisoned areas are formed and another is ordered to be created), or a massacre occurs (two defenders from one localities died).

Players win if they have built all their camps and destroyed all their factories. You managed to save Splinolis! Everything is connected. Nothing is eternal.