As the many planes of existence turn and churn, occasionally worlds come into alignment. For brief moments in the multiverse's timescale, these Conjunctions allow objects to slip from one world to another, sometimes unnoticed, sometimes causing chaos.
One such Conjunction occurred between Earth and Neemoss, during the Dark Ages. Two dimensions could not be more different. Physics in this alternate plane is more akin to magic and its corrupting effects create worlds of monsters and cruelty. When items from Neemoss appear on Earth they are still imbued with their magical essence, which is soon discovered by healers, alchemists, fakirs and all manner of snake-oil peddlers. But things become decidedly worse when the Conjunction strengthens and the first Witches from Neemoss cross into our plane of existence.
Help the Heroes master their newfound magical powers as they defend their lands from the malevolent Witches and the disciples they summon. Or control the Witches as they complete their rituals to ravage the Earth!
Dark Rituals: Malleus Maleficarum is an asymmetric “One vs Many” miniatures board game for 2 to 5 players with an expansion for a solo mode where one player controls the Witch Master. In "one vs many", a team of people control a small band of Heroes defending villagers from a single player controlling the vile Forces of Evil. All players manage a pool of stamina that is used to pay for their character’s actions. Game play is dynamic with little downtime: turns alternate between the two forces with a player on each side taking one or two actions each turn, so long as they still have stamina.
Play is organized around scenarios with unique objectives. The scenarios can be linked into a longer campaign or played individually if your group is more casual. Story driven scenarios, game mechanics, detailed miniatures and lush modular boards bring the game world to life.
Can you use the magic of Neemoss to defeat the invading horde? Or will you complete your Dark Rituals to summon the ultimate evil?
Dark Rituals: Malleus Maleficarum – The Cursed Fjord
This expansion includes new Heroes, new Creatures and Minions, and a previously unseen Witch, Skriga, and her Werewolf familiar Accalia. Comes complete with 4 new double sided map tiles that add water barriers to the game as well as 5 new Encounters for this new land.
Skriga paddled her boat idly. Life at sea suited her fine. Sure, there were no stupid minions to kick, but no Demons to kick her either. And plenty of fish! Leave them in the bottom of the boat for a couple of days and they get really tasty. Sea dragons would fetch the really ugly fishes from the depths, if you shout at them loud enough. Ugly ones tasted best and it felt good to push the sea dragons around. They were so full of themselves! Anything could swim. She could learn if she wanted to.
Looking up she saw a storm brewing, small but close. Perfect, everyone likes a little rain in their face, trickling down their backs. She turned the boat to head towards the better weather.
As she paddled, it became clear this was not a simple storm. Water splashed and circled in the air, the vortex moving towards her faster than she moved towards it. Then it was upon her, and everything changed. She was under the water, not on it, and her precious boat was torn to pieces around her. And it was cold, so cold. As she floated towards the dim and strangely diffuse light above her, the cold dragged her mind to a dark, silent place. And then she cracked her face against the sheet of ice above her.
Trapped beneath the ice for decades, Skriga could barely be called alive. Frozen in place, she was too chilled to draw power from Neemoss but the fading tendrils of her magic could feel the dead and drowned around her, together with the rotting flotsam and jetsam that is human decay. Her slowed thoughts could imagine new spells to use her surroundings to her advantage and when the ice began to thaw, she was a new Witch. We might call her a necromancer, although she had no name for what she had become.
