New to Chapter II – Keywords and Gems

Hello and welcome to our first campaign primer. Today we will be taking a look at a few new things coming with Chronicles of Entrath: Chapter II. Not only will we be introducing a brand new zone, The Alachian Sea, which will more than double the size of the campaign we currently have with our first zone, The Howling Plains, but we are also introducing a whole host of new systems and mechanics for you to sink your teeth into! Today we will cover some templating changes, new keywords, and the class gems that will go live with Chapter II.

Updates to old templating

While making HEX we are always on the lookout for ways to simplify gameplay and find new design space. A great number of cards in HEX have text that appears frequently in each set. When we have lines of text that are always appearing the same way, this stands out as a good place to try and slim down our textboxes by keywording that text. The following changes are things that we have wanted to do for some time, and with the release of Chapter II we will be implementing:

Deploy – Which will shortcut the text, “When this enters play”

Deathcry – Which will shortcut the text, “When this dies”

Summon – Which will shortcut the text, “Create and put into play”

Now these are not “new,” but you will see them being retroactively applied to all previous cards, champions, talents, and equipment with our update. It is important to stress that, like stun, these additions won’t change the function of your cards. What they will do is make your cards more readable and free up design space for future development. For an example of this new templating, check out the cards below:

New Keywords

Shell – This keyword will appear a few times throughout The Alachian Sea on troops. Shell means, “When this is dealt damage, prevent it and this gets -1 .”

Say for example, you have a 2 /7 troop and it blocks a troop with 2 . That damage is prevented and the 2 /7 gets -1 making him a 2 /6 now. If the attacking troop had 5 , the result would be exactly the same. I wonder what could possibly have the Keyword Shell?

…



Blub

Marked – Marked is a special keyword we are introducing with the ranger class. Marked is an “unloaded keyword” which means that, by itself, it has no impact. However, other cards and abilities will reference Marked troops. For example, let’s take a sneak peek at two ranger talents for more context.

So as we can see here, when an opposing troop enters play it might become Marked. Then, if that troop dies while Marked, the ranger would get to gain 2 health.

This next one is a counter type, not a keyword, that appears on the shin’hare ranger class combo talent.

Hidden counters – Champions with hidden counters on them can’t be attacked and have Spellshield. At the start of your turn, remove one hidden counter from anything with a hidden counter.

Class Gems

Last for this preview but certainly not least are class gems!

Each class has a talent in their second tier that gives them access to new gems once unlocked. Each class will have a unique minor and major gem. Once the talent is selected, you will have new gems available in the deck editor to socket your troops with. These will follow all of the same rules gems have previously, the only exception is that they do not require any thresholds for the socket to be active.

We are not going to show you any examples… yet. We wouldn’t want to steal the thunder from our upcoming class highlights. But keep your eyes peeled in the following weeks for this addition to each class’ unique playstyle.

Alright, that will do it for this preview of things to come. Keep in mind that this barely scratches the surface! There are plenty of other new aspects to Chronicles of Entrath: Chapter II that will be covered in future articles. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for spoilers!

Dan Clark-

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