Time for the Ancients

We are now announcing the new Ancients cult board! (Hmm, “New Ancients” is quite the oxymoron.) It will be included in the Dark Rituals stretch goal box, for everyone at the Dunwich pledge level. It’s not a “stretch goal” per se. Just a fun bonus for you all.

Thematically the Ancients don’t actually have a Great Old One to release, so your success on the Ancients cult board means you have successfully powered the Ancients dread machinery to enable them to rise en masse and conquer the surface world. As a reward for assisting them, they appoint you their High Priest administrator of the remains of humanity.

How do the Ancients work?

Unlike every other cult board, the Ancients do not provide any branching paths – you must follow a single straight line to the end. And, we are on the path of this Kickstarter to automatically arrive at the point of unlocking their cult board!

The standout feature of this board is the new Atomics resource. This resource is ONLY used on the Ancients board, and is gained by several of the sites, as well as an automatic gain when you shatter certain of the Elder Signs. For completeness, we are therefore automatically adding plastic versions of the atomic resource to the Artifact Pack!

The Atomic resource is necessary for unlocking some of the Elder Signs, but it is also usable as a resource on the “trade” sites. For example, you can trade 5 Atomics for 3 Magic at the Athenaeum on the Town board. (Of course you can also mix and match – 3 atomics, 1 treasure, and 1 blood for 3 Magic, for instance.)

The Ancients board is not particular lethal when it comes to attacks, but it also doesn’t provide you with any access to defenses or cultists, with two “sort-of” exceptions – two sites lets you trade a bunch of resources for spellbooks, and of course you can use a spellbook to get a monster (& chamber). The first lets you exchange 5 resources for 1 spellbook, the other, in the late game, trades 9 for two spellbooks (that second one is so close to the game end that it is important to be able to use, so try to get First Player once it unlocks so you can seize it). Five or nine resources for 1-2 spellbooks might seem like a lot, because normally it only costs you 3 resources at Miskatonic University, but on the other hand it is really flexible. Particular with the useful trading areas where you can trade 1 resource for 3 atomics, or 3 resources for 7 atomics (less efficient, but uses less cultist actions).

The last five Elder Signs on the Ancients board all require Atomics, so if you have been slacking off on gathering this resource in the mid-game, you might find yourself in a straitjacket near the end. So beware.

We really enjoyed creating and playing the Ancients board. I hope you like it as much as we do.