“I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.”

–Dracula

Europe has fallen victim to an abrupt, paralyzing fear. Rumours of rabid wolves and walking Un-Dead fill industrialized cities and rural villages alike. Corpses are decapitated and burned lest they rise again as newborn vampires. People lock their windows tightly shut at night, even along the warm Mediterranean coast, and adorn their beds with garlic, just to be safe. You are one of the few souls brave enough to openly acknowledge the truth behind the rumours: that somehow, despite all your efforts, Dracula has risen again.

Fury of Dracula offers you and your friends the chance to defeat Dracula once and for all—or to become the fiend himself and spread your influence across Europe. The hunters have the advantages of daylight, human allies, and technology, but no ability to conceal their actions. Dracula, however, has the cover of darkness, the advantage of secrecy, numberless minions, and the greatest ally of all: time. If the hunters wish to win the game, they must work quickly, devoting every action, every movement, to finding and eradicating the King of the Un-Dead. The longer Dracula remains at large, the more powerful he becomes.

Today’s preview introduces the actions and means of travel for Dracula and the hunters. It will show you how to travel between cities as distant as Paris and Milan as quickly as possible, and what actions you can take as a hunter to unearth the truth about Count Dracula, and what you can do as Dracula to thwart your mortal pursuers.

The Plan of Action

The hunters may launch their fearful enterprise from a single point in Europe, such as the Harkers’ home in London, or from disparate points across the continent, so as to surround Dracula and close in on him. But no matter where you begin, you start off with no clues about the Count’s location and no tools apart from your physical and mental fortitude.

Hunters can take one action every day and one action every night. Your first action might be to move to a new location or reserve a railway ticket by drawing one from the ticket pool. If you’re in a large city, you can take the supply action to acquire weapons and other tools, such as a Pistol , a bundle of Garlic , or even the ability to cast a protective Holy Circle around one of your group. However, venturing out into the busy streets of even the most modern cities is risky, and whenever you supply, you’ll also have to draw an event. It may be a beneficial event, like Local Rumors that happen to have some truth to them, or a hindrance, like a sudden Roadblock that keeps you from moving forward. Some event cards also have special actions that you can perform the night or day after you draw them.

You might also use your time to trade any items you’ve acquired with another hunter in your location—for example, Lord Godalming might not need a Holy Circle as much as Mina Harker, but he might be able to make better use of some Garlic. But such items are only useful once Dracula is found, and to do that, you’ll need clues. The search action lets you reveal any encounter cards that Dracula may have placed in your current location. The presence of an encounter card proves that Dracula has visited your location at some point, but encounters tend to be dangerous. A horde of Rats , for example, will deal you two damage and continue to plague that city until it is exterminated. Should you take damage—and eventually you will—every rest action lets you recover a single point of damage.

Road, Railway and Sea

The dead are known to travel fast, and Dracula fastest of them all. Since his aim is to subdue all of Europe under the shadow of his diabolical power, he is necessarily always on the move. To pick up his trail and catch up to him, you and your fellow hunters will need to travel just as swiftly as he does. However, just as the Count cannot risk moving under the deadly light of day, the hunters may move only in the hours between dawn and dusk, and must remain in the safety of well-lit cities and warm tavern rooms at night.

You have three means of transportation. With one action, you can travel between two cities that are directly connected by one of Europe’s time-worn roads. If you have reserved a railway ticket in advance, however, your one action can take you much farther. Railway tickets have two numbers on them, stating how many white or yellow railway paths that ticket allows you to travel on. A 1/1 ticket buys you passage on either one white route or one yellow. A 3/2 ticket buys you passage along three white routes, two yellow routes, or a combination of one white and one yellow.

In the diagram below, the four hunters are using the day to move towards the Alpine heart of Europe and block Dracula from moving northward early in the game. Dr. John Seward travels by road from Marseilles to Milan, where he intends to meet up with Mina Harker and perhaps trade some items. Mina starts the day in Paris and spends a 2/2 train ticket she reserved the night before to reach Milan. Meanwhile, Dr. Van Helsing spends a 1/1 train ticket to voyage east across Germany, from Cologne to Berlin.

Lord Arthur Godalming, however, having started the game in Romania, is traveling by sea in order to reach western Europe as quickly as possible. Yesterday he departed from the port of Constanta, and he will spend today sailing from the Black Sea, through the Bosphorus to the Ionian sea. Tomorrow he can dock at a port on the Ionian sea, either Athens or Salonica, or continue on into the Tyrrhenian Sea or the Adriatic. Traveling by ship allows you to cover distance quickly, but you can’t amass supplies, search for clues, or even rest while at sea. Your activities are entirely suspended until you again set foot on shore.

Eluding All Pursuit

Once the hunters have taken refuge and the darkest part of night has fallen, Dracula awakens. His hellish powers prevent him from needing any supplies and grant him full awareness of where all four hunters are at any given moment. All the Count needs to do is keep moving, keep creating new vampires, keep deploying traps for his enemies, and elude those who seek to destroy him. Like the hunters, he can move by land or by water, but train travel is too public and so too dangerous for him. The sea also has its perils. The Count can only board a ship encased in his coffin, surrounded by soil from his homeland, so simply leaving from a port deals the Count two damage. Remaining coffined for so long is draining as well, so Dracula suffers a point of damage every time he moves between sea zones. In addition, the hunters know from the color of the location card whether you are on land or at sea, and there are many fewer sea zones than there are cities. However, the hunters cannot find you while you are at sea, whereas on land they may force you to reveal yourself.

After you’ve chosen your location, you’ll slide the previous location card into the next spot on your trail, and place your new location card facedown next to it. You’ll also place an encounter with that card: either an obstacle to hinder your pursuers, like a loyal Szgany Mob or obedient vampire . Of course, if the hunters find an encounter that you’ve placed, they also discover that you passed through that city – and roughly when you were last there.

When your trail grows beyond six hideouts, you have a choice. You can transform that hideout into a lair, giving it a new encounter card and enabling you to ambush a hunter whenever they arrive there. If you choose not to create a lair, you can clear the hideout, return it to your location deck, and mature the encounter. Maturing a vampire you’ve spawned is one of the most effective ways of gaining influence and therefore, of winning the game.

If a hunter finds you or if you move to a city occupied by one of them, you must then reveal your presence and either attempt to escape or attack. That battle may enable to you bite, wound, or even kill one of your mortal foes, or it might prove your ultimate downfall and the end of your immortal reign.

Time Is Everything

“Time is everything with him.”

–Dr. Van Helsing

From the moment that uncanny and evil forces begin to stir, the hunters and Dracula enter a race. The longer that Dracula can continue to travel and sire new vampires, the more powerful he becomes and the more difficult to destroy. The hunters must balance being decisive, shrewd, and quick with being fully prepared for the moment when they finally confront the deadly evil that has plagued their lives. Fury of Dracula challenges you to a harrowing game of Gothic Victorian cat-and-mouse. Will the bloodthirsty cat or the canny mice prove victorious?

Count Dracula regains strength even as you read these words. Pre-order Fury of Dracula from your local retailer today.