The monstrous Deepwood has consumed the land.

No farms or fields remain. There is only corruption,

rot and the endless shadow of the twisted trees.













Pot's Peace, Oathsworn. Welcome to The Art of Caesura!





200th post of The Art of Caesura, so if you haven't had a chance to check out the celebratory post, What's all this then, TWO posts in one day!? Well yes, you see timing is of the essence here. Today marks the, so if you haven't had a chance to check out the celebratory post, please do so





There is also a Kickstarter ongoing at the moment, that I am getting quite excited by, but it closes on Tuesday, so if I left it till next Friday to tell you about it...it would be too late! Hence, in a world first, two hits of The Art of Caesura in one day!



Now onward, into the world of Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood





Credit: Shadowborne Games



Nota bene: I am not associated with Shadowborne Games, and am just writing this because it is something that I am genuinely excited about. None of the media in this post belongs to me.





According to the designers' website





Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood is a dark fantasy RPG miniatures game set in a fully realized world. For the first time, we are bringing together a novel-sized, interactive audio book and tabletop miniature battles.





The City of Verum - Credit: Shadowborne Games





The two things that have really drawn me to this game are the incredible miniatures and the fact that the designers put just as much emphasis on story and world-building as on combat.





Let's look at the story first.





In the lore of the game, much of the known world is overgrown with a wild forest called the Deepwood. I think of it like Fangorn Forest in The Lord of the Rings where everything in the forest (including the forest itself) is trying to kill you.





The Deepwood - Credit: Shadowborne Games

A few walled cities have managed to survive and they are connected by the 'wire road'. The wire road is just an iron wire threaded through eye-holes attached to trees through the forest (a conventional path would be overgrown in days).



The Deepwood - Credit: Shadowborne Games



Some 'heroes' (though they come via various paths to be considered such) swear an oath to head out into the woods to protect people and keep the wire road safe(r than it would be without them). These are the Oathsworn.





The Warden - Credit: Shadowborne Games





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The Broodmother - Credit: Shadowborne Games



The game is currently made up of 21 chapters (15 originally, 6 through stretch goals) each of which comprises of two parts: the story part (30-60min) and the encounter (boss fight, 90-120min). These chapters are epic, they each involve about 10 000 words of narrative, but, depending on the choices you make, you might only experience 2000 words of that story in one play-through. This is because the story component is like a "choose your own adventure" novel, where you are regularly given choices of how to proceed. While all paths lead to the encounter, the consequences of your actions in the story part are huge: gaining (or having missed out on) extra companions or gear to help with the boss fight (and influence the story in future chapters), gaining advantages over the boss (like getting to ambush them, or having re-rolls or buffs against them).





Witchlight - Credit: Shadowborne Games





Shadowborne are clearly putting a ton of emphasis on their story. The lead writer is Aaron Dembski-Bowden (the New York Times bestselling author more commonly associated with Games Workshop's Black Library).









The game includes a hard copy of the narrative book, but also has a narrated version in app format. The cool thing about the narrated version is that it is read by James Cosmo (Game of Thrones' Lord Commander Mormont, also in Trainspotting, Braveheart, Troy...)

















The a ttention to detail in their world-building is exceptional (the city maps in the game are hand painted by an Italian cartographer) and there is a whole thread on Board Game Geek where one of the lead background writers will answer any questions you have about the lore - in character!





Bastone Map - Credit: Shadowborne Games

To add further depth, Shadowborne are running a short story competition (closing tomorrow!) which has provided a fun opportunity for some of us to explore the world ourselves - more on this next week!





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So, how about the miniatures!? I know, I know some of you just scrolled straight down here to see them, well welcome back!





Credit: Shadowborne Games

The minis in this game look great! We have a lot of cool twists on common RPG tropes. There is a ranger, but rather than being a "wood elf" she is part of a plant race called the A'Dendri. Outwardly like Sylvaneth from AoS, the A'Dendri have added depth. They don't have mouths so they communicate with other members of their race via spores (and as female A'Dendri age, their spores become more powerful, enabling them to enthrall younger members of their race) or with other races via a somewhat universal language known as "the knock".





A'Dendri Ranger - Credit: Shadowborne Games

A'Dendri Ranger - Credit: Shadowborne Games

There is an iconic War Bear race, the Ursus; and an incredible avian race, the Avi, who perceive past, present and future simultaneously though in a form that is difficult to interpret. These all have dark depth to them and much of this intriguing lore is brought to life by their rules on the table top.

Ursus Warbear - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Ursus Warbear - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Avi Harbinger - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Avi Harbinger - Credit: Shadowborne Games

The minis, including their sculpted bases, are made out of HIPS (High Impact PolyStyrene - the same quality of hard plastic that Games Workshop uses) and they are larger than standard minis, they are 45mm scale (where many common heroic scale minis are 28-32mm). The rationale for this is to accommodate one of the elements of the character models that I am most excited about: weapon swapping! You can buy an "armoury" add-on, which contains multiple different push-fit arms for each character so that you can equip them with any weapon combination that is possible for them to have! I have never seen this done before, and think it is super cool!

Credit: Shadowborne Games

Credit: Shadowborne Games

Credit: Shadowborne Games

Credit: Shadowborne Games

Credit: Shadowborne Games

And here are just some more awesome character minis and their artwork. Priest - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Priest - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Cur - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Cur - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Scar Tribe Exile - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Scar Tribe Exile - Credit: Shadowborne Games

The Witch - Credit: Shadowborne Games

The Witch - Credit: Shadowborne Games



A'Dendri Grove Maiden - Credit: Shadowborne Games

A'Dendri Grove Maiden and Pals - Credit: Shadowborne Games

And we haven't even talked about the monsters yet! 120mm giant rats anyone?





Broodmother - Credit: Shadowborne Games



Broodmother and 3D Terrain - Credit: Shadowborne Games

One of the big elements with this campaign is that Shadowborne are keeping most of the monster encounters secret! You can, of course, spoil it for yourself (which I have done), and take a look at many of the sensational boss minis (SPOILER WARNING) here . But when you buy the game, you will receive it with all the bosses in mystery boxes!





Broodmother and 3D Terrain - Credit: Shadowborne Games

Time to buy some bigger brushes!





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Finally, combat! I'm not going to go into all the details of the rules, for those you can check out some of the videos that I've linked at the bottom. Rather, some of the highlights are: the whole game is playable with 1-4 players, yes there is a dedicated solo mode. You can use either the custom dice or cards as your random number generators (with cards having the added element of equalizing over the course of a game and also with the meta game of trying to count cards). You can roll as many dice (or draw as many cards) as you want to try to get the result you are looking for, but if you roll two (or more) blanks (there are 2 blank faces on each custom die) - the whole thing fails! Conversely, the dice also have "critical hit" sides which make your attacks explode into new dice!



There is also a "Battleflow" system representing your momentum in battle. Ability cards you play cycle around your player board based on playing them in a strategic order.



All in all it seems like a load of fun to me, and people on the Board Game Geek forums who seem much more in tune with rules than I am seem largely excited.