You have traveled these accursed lands for far too long. Bound here by Kyndrithul, the manic vampire lord, your bodies and souls are his ongoing experiment. Something foul taints your blood. You are both living and dead—a little of both or perhaps not quite either. Regardless, you now know your last hope for a remedy. If you will ever escape, Kyndrithul must die.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce The Chains That Rust, a new expansion for Descent: Journeys in the Dark!

Your journey thus far has taken you deep into the Mistlands and the domain of Waiqar the Undying. In this land of shifting mists, uncertain footing, and terrifying undead, you are certain of little. The heroes that you’ve fought alongside for years seem suddenly alien and unknowable. Spirits loom up out of the fog and vanish moments before they touch you. Even the air you breathe seems to be worming its way inside you, tainting your blood and binding you to the Mistlands with indelible bonds. More and more, you are sure of only one thing: you must find a way to escape.

The heroes’ adventures through the Mistlands continue with The Chains That Rust, a new Descent expansion that pits your might against ever more deadly dangers. Within this expansion, you’ll discover an entirely new one-act campaign that can be played on its own or as a sequel to the campaign included in Mists of Bilehall. New Tainted cards and a new Overlord class give the overlord player new tools, even as eight plastic figures swell his armies with new monsters. Finally, you can stretch beyond your hero’s traditional Class decks for the first time with the addition of hybrid classes!

Where Warriors Go to Rust

Playing off of the themes first introduced in Mists of Bilehall, the Mistlands are no less dangerous in The Chains That Rust. As in Mists of Bilehall, the noxious mists afflict each of your heroes with new Tainted cards. Although a Tainted card may initially seem to give your hero the benefit of extra health, its true, insidious nature is only revealed after you’re knocked out. After your hero is knocked out, the Tainted card is flipped over to reveal a dangerous effect, such as Dream Walk . Worst of all, you also become tainted, which means you can only recover damage through untainted heroes and heroic feats.

It’s not just the mists you have to worry about as you seek to free yourself from bondage to Kyndrithul. The very ground beneath your feet may shake and give way with the addition of crumbling terrain and old walls might suddenly fall to reveal an undead monster stalking you. You’ll also have to face the horrors unleashed by an entirely new Overlord class—the Soulbinder.

Soulbinder cards offer a variety of powerful effects, but they all start with Ties that Bind . Once you’ve purchased this card, it remains in play for the rest of the campaign. By exhausting this card after a monster is defeated, you can bring the Scourge servant into play. Servants were first introduced by the Manor of Ravens expansion, and in The Chains That Rust, you can use the Scourge to help your monsters crush the heroes. Called forth from the souls of dead monsters, the Scourge is slow-moving and deadly in a fight. What’s more, it can quickly increase the level of fatigue that the heroes suffer—whenever a hero adjacent to the Scourge suffers fatigue, you can choose another hero to suffer a fatigue! With such dangerous effects, your opponent will want to kill the Scourge quickly, but if they do destroy it, you can simply summon it again as soon as a different monster is slain.

Undead Terrors

The mists obscure many things from the heroes’ sight. A flicker of motion may be a reed bowing in a phantom wind, or an undead creature scuttling past. You’ll find three brand-new monster groups within The Chains That Rust, and each poses unique dangers to those who battle against them. One such group is the shambling colossuses—monstrous undead constructs, created by the arts of foul necromancy and animated by hate and agony. A single blow from the bony spur of a shambling colossus can puncture a hero’s body, leaving him drained and empty.

Some of these shambling colossuses undoubtedly answer to the marrow priests. These monsters are priests utterly devoted to the worship of death. Their fanaticism has given them unnatural resilience and power, which makes them powerful enemies. Unlucky heroes may even be forced to contend with the dispossessed—bands of spirits that have gathered together into a vengeful whole. These ghosts flicker through the Mistlands, choosing their targets and driving them mad with fearful, spectral visions.

Moreover, the heroes will face three lieutenants over the course of the campaign. These lieutenants—Kyndrithul, Zarihell, and Ardus Ix’Erebus—were already featured in the Mists of Bilehall expansion, but even if you’re planning on playing The Chains That Rust as a standalone expansion, you can benefit from adding these Lieutenant Packs to your collection.

The Rules Have Changed

Though most of the new cards and content in The Chains That Rust are focused on the overlord player, one crucial aspect massively increases the options available to the hero players: the addition of hybrid classes. These new classes allow you to bring a Class deck from one archetype to a hero from a different archetype, massively increasing the number of classes you’re able to choose from at the beginning of any campaign.

For instance, as a Scout, you may choose to take the new Monk hybrid class. The first Class card for this class is Greater Calling , which reads, “When you gain this card, choose 1 standard Class deck belonging to the Healer archetype. When you spend experience points, you may purchase skills from either Class deck, excluding cards with an XP cost of 3 from the chosen standard Class deck.” Not only does this allow your Scout to immediately gain a Healer Class deck, along with all of that deck’s starting Class cards and items, you also gain access to three powerful Class cards from the Monk Class deck to give your hero a unique identity.

For instance, you may purchase Inner Balance , which you can use to heal your allies’ conditions and boost your attributes. Openhanded rewards you with greatly increased attacks for daring to attack your enemies with your bare hands. Finally, you may take a Vow of Freedom , eschewing traditional weapons or armor in exchange for the ability to dramatically increase the power of your attacks and defenses.

Three other hybrid classes in The Chains That Rust give every hero archetype access to hybrid classes, and your options for customizing your hero have never been more open. Whether you take the holy vows of a Monk or wield sword and magic interchangeably as a Battlemage, these hybrid classes offer new tactics for every hero.

Break Your Chains

The Mistlands have tainted your blood and enslaved your body, but they have not yet broken your spirit. Fight for freedom and bring down the power of the Mistlands with The Chains That Rust, a new expansion for Descent: Journeys in the Dark!

Look for The Chains That Rust at your local retailer in the third quarter of 2016.