Black Rose Wars: Rebirth

Winds of Change!
over 3 years ago – Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 03:29:05 AM

Hello, Magisters!

Did you have a good weekend? Relaxed? Now it's time to play hard!

Here are 2 new add-ons for you: Deadly Masks and Gaea Reborn.

Deadly Masks is the expansion that will allow you to play Rebirth with 5 or 6 players!

In this expansion you will find 2 new Mages and the complete set of components needed to add 2 players to your games: 2 Cells, 2 Mage Sheets, 6 Personal Spell cards, 2 sets of all tokens and rings for the Evocations; The mages will use 2 new colors: Green and Yellow.

Sefu and Angela will join those already present in the Core Box and, in addition to their two beautiful miniatures, they will have their Mage Card and 3 copies of their Personal Spell. Let's get acquainted with these two new contenders for the title of Great Magister!

Sefu comes from the remote and unspoiled lands of the African continent, beyond the great desert. In these lands, where the spirits of nature are still powerful, the Shamanic School was born. Sefu is the last of an ancient lineage of Magisters of this school. He and his ancestors dedicated their lives to their tribe and to the control of the primeval spirits who rule all things. Although the influence of the Lodge is weaker in these distant lands, Sefu 25 years ago sensed the fall of the Black Rose, and he now is hearing the call, he knows that a new war is about to begin. The time has come for a Shaman to bring order to the chaos in which the Lodge is, once and for all!

His personal spell “Spiritual Totems” will allow him to move each Totem in the Lodge as he likes and place huge amounts of Instability!

Angela inherited the natural talent of her family, her grandmother was Caterina Sforza, one of the most celebrated magisters of the Alchemy School. From her, Angela inherited powers and a passion for alchemical arts. Despite her young age, many of the other wizards fear her innate talent, her growing thirst for knowledge ... and power. Her use of Alchemical wisdom is revolutionizing decades of tradition, even the oldest and most traditionalists among alchemists are surrendering to the discoveries that this young woman is making, tracing a golden future for this school long overshadowed by the others. What better opportunity to consolidate her power than to answer the call of the Black Rose, rebuild the Lodge, and become the new Great Magister? 

Her personal spell “Alchemic Summoning” will let her combine 3 alchemical elements to add Albedo's Forgotten Spell directly from the deck to her hand! But be careful, your opponents will know about your terrible weapon and will prepare themselves to face it in the following rounds!

Listening to your feedback, some of you will have already noticed that we have designed the plastic trays of the Core Box to also contain all the Deadly Masks material, so you can store all the material in a single box to be ready to play up to 6 players!

Besides Deadly Masks, today we are also announcing the expansion Gaea Reborn!

This rich expansion contains Gaea, a huge new Titan (130mm!!!), her prophetess Talia, a new Mage, and a new School of Magic: Geomancy!

You will also find 4 new Rooms, new event cards, specific Quests & Events playable in the games that will see her as the protagonist. Tomorrow we will reveal all the details about this expansion, we just anticipate that Gaea is an Epic Avatar and that the expansion can also be played in Nova Aetas Renaissance!

As always, all add-ons can be added now or later, after the end of the campaign, during the Pledge Manager. Adding add-ons (or their value) during the campaign helps unlock new stretch goals and thus enrich the value of your pledge.

Last but not least, today we are launching the first Social Stretch Goal: the challenge is to help us make Rebirth known by reaching 1500 likes on the BoardGameGeek page dedicated to Black Rose Wars: Rebirth! 

If we achieve this Venticello, a new Mage will be added to all the backers! Don't waste time, go to the BoardGameGeek Rebirth page and click on the heart icon! Did you recognize him? His name could also be familiar to some backers :)

This new mage has come from a parallel dimension, he was traveling through space and time on a giant turtle, trying to escape from angry mobs, after he accidentally set a fire that destroyed an entire city! The Black Rose call reached him and now he seems ready to join the challenge!

See you later for the new chapter of Irene's fate.

Fireball!!!

A new friend.
over 3 years ago – Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 11:55:40 PM

The noise you hear coming from the room beyond the main entrance scares you, after yesterday you may think it is not the best choice you can make. Something in your head tells you that the crack in the wall is the right way to go. You gather your things and slip into the crack in the wall, attracted by those strange lights.

You are now in a completely dark room, illuminated at times by ghostly lights that seem to dance suspended in the air. Absorbed in contemplating the beauty of this vision, you are distracted by a hum. A male voice with an exotic pronunciation, it almost seems to be complaining about something.

You search in the dark hoping that the lights will come to your aid. Your instinct guides you until, through a green dancing light, you see an old face with a nice mustache staring at you.

"I found you little thief!" he says sternly to you with a strange accent never heard before. You don't have the time to answer, the light expands, wraps you like a sheet, covering you completely. You are now blocked.

The old man approaches you, he starts looking at you through the veil of light, then mumbles some other strange and incomprehensible words, and the light vanishes letting you go.

"Uff ... it's not you" he continues annoyed "a girl, very skilled to tell the truth, surprised me and robbed me of my possessions". The thief struck again, you immediately think.

"All junk for pity's sake, nothing of value, my money is well hidden", then throwing his shoulders and arms down he lets out a sigh "but I have to find it, the monkey's magic is too precious and I can't risk it ending in the wrong hands”.

A new character from the far east just joined the Black Rose Wars: Dai Jin, a new powerful mage. His personal spell is based on the Nightmare and Alchemy schools. The Nightmare School gives him the possibility to leave veils of light in the rooms, represented by tokens, which can be used in two ways:

1 - As an obstacle for opposing models, as they will end their movement when entering a room where this token is present.

2 - As one of the alchemical symbols of earth, water, air or fire to enhance, when you enter that room, any Alchemy spell, including your personal spell.

The Alchemy school allows him to convert damage on opposing mages, with a secondary effect based on the alchemical symbols on his mage board and/or in the room where he is.

After explaining to Dai Jin that you are also looking for the thief, the old mage offers to accompany you.

He is convinced that he saw her flee south. He also tells you very frightened that he has no intention of going to the room to the north, the room where that deafening din continues to come from.

Do you decide to follow Dai Jin (South) or do you want to know what is the source of the noise (North)?

We are entering the sixth day of the campaign, the initial sprint has been great, the best since we started creating projects on Kickstarter. We have already unlocked 12 new great models (6 Mages, 3 Avatars and 3 Forgotten Spell Evocations), new miniature tokens, one new school of magic, another school is coming. We have 10 more daily stretch goals and many other to to reveal!

Now we have an iconic milestone in front of us, to surpass the result obtained with the first Black Rose Wars project (€ 1,112K / $ 1,311K). We are definitely confident that you will help us achieve this record in the coming days, so we want to let you know that we have prepared a very nice surprise and that we will reveal it soon!

Get ready because in tomorrow's update Mastro Peio will announce two new items for sale in his shop, two new game addons!

And here another beautiful spoiler 

Saturday "alchemical" night fever
over 3 years ago – Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 11:50:55 PM

The fog seems to move around the room, as if it was hunting you. 

Once again that voice in your mind sends out a warning...

"Mirror now!" You decide to hurry up and cross your fingers, you squint… your eyes dazzled by the reflection of light on the mirror surface, you reach out and the sensation of a frozen liquid envelops your hand. The mirror now seems to pull you towards itself, with more and more force.

Your head is still spinning, and you don't have the strength to resist, you decide to let yourself go.

You get sucked through the mirror, into a vortex of frozen liquid, nothing to hold on to.

Images of places you've never visited intermix with familiar places, swirling before your eyes. Dozens of strangers pass in front of you in a few seconds, ignoring you. You see them as if through a deformed lens, they look distorted – something known but at the same time foreign. Suddenly, a strange apparition, a pink hog, takes notice of you and tries to grab you, but like any other figure it deforms and melts in the distance.

You fall to your knees; you feel as if awakened from a nightmare. You look around, it's evening now.

You don't remember this room, maybe it was one of the rooms you were forbidden from, one of those you always wanted to enter, but never dared. The ceiling has given way to the starry sky. It looks like an old museum, weapons and armor are placed on special supports, many ruined by time, some swallowed by clinging vines. Many lie on the ground, dented and rusted.

You move around in wonder, attracted by the many details, until a beautiful and massive armor catches your attention. It is located in front of the main entrance, it's all red with precious inserts, but the strangest thing is that it looks new, as if time had never touched it.

At its feet is a case with a paper inside. The paper looks alive, and the image inside seems to come to life.

Your foot hits something under the pedestal of the case, you bend down and observe several bodies, now reduced to little more than skeletons, piled at the foot of the armor. You open the case to take the card, but at that precise moment the armor animates, trying to hit you. You lean back, avoiding the long blade by a whisper, grab the paper and try to jump away.

According to the Magnum Opus, Nigredo and Albedo represent black and white, decay and purification.

Nigredo is the knight within the Core box, an Evocation linked with the alchemical school.

Albedo is the Forgotten Spell, represented for now by a token inside the base box.

Rubedo represents the final state of matter, the alchemical marriage between white and black that generate the philosopher's stone, red.

Rubedo is a new Avatar for Black Rose Wars. Its strength is impressive, managing to withstand the impact of magic, the same with which it was created. Instead of a heart it has a philosopher's stone, imbued with a strong magical power. One of his unique characteristics is the ability to summon and command Nigredo and Albedo, using them as his own Evocations. 

Rubedo doesn't have long-range attacks, but if you get in his way, that's probably your end.

You keep running and leaping all over the room, avoiding slashes as best you can. The armor presses you, any magic you cast at it seems to be absorbed, causing very little effect. You try to bring down objects and furniture to slow it down. You finally see a fairly large hole in a dark corner, after distracting the armor with a sphere of light thrown towards its helmet you rush inside the hole, crouching like a frightened mouse.

The armor is searching for you and the metallic sound of its footsteps in the cold silence of the night makes you shiver. You see his leggings pass in front of you, you wait for him to walk away, trying to formulate an escape plan.

Unfortunately, the armor keeps moving around the room, it seems to be sure of your presence. Then you feel something moving within your hands… you remember, the paper taken from the case.

In the dark you can't read anything that is written on it, but you feel an enormous arcane power spring from it, the same one that the knight probably also perceives.

You decide to take a risk, allow some magic words slip from your lips. The magical light immediately attracts the attention of the armor, which strides towards you. You don't waste time, you try to quickly read the formula written on the paper, but a hard and cold hand grabs you and throws you against the opposite wall. The impact is tremendous and takes away your breath. The knight reaches you again, takes you by the neck and lifts you off the ground, the grip is very strong, and you cannot free yourself.

Before losing consciousness, you whisper a few words, with the little air left in your lungs:

"Iosis, the sunset, Sun and Moon together, fusion of masculine and feminine, marriage between soul and spirit, Prometheus."

The armor freezes for a moment, then drops you to the ground. A moment later the armor begins to crumble into a pile of burning ashes, the wind blowing in from the ceiling scatters it all over the room. You sit on the ground, catching your breath, and securing that card.

You are too tired to continue, you prepare a makeshift bed near the hole that saved your life. You eat a piece of dried meat and take a sip from your water bottle. You fall asleep thinking that the next day, with the coming sunlight, you will try to recover your belongings keeping a lookout for the thief.

The morning sun hits your face, almost envious, waking you up from a restless night. You still feel sore, but you have regained your energy. In the room you now notice that next to the main exit there is a large crack in the wall...  Where might it lead?

A deafening noise seems to come from the room in front of you, everything seems to vibrate, as if an earthquake was concentrating only on that room, while from the crack in the wall you can see only halos of light, like small ghostly northern lights.

Make your choice wisely: Do you enter the room right in front (Front) or do you explore what's in that crack (Crack)?

Below you find a comparative scale between some of our models, to make you better understand Rubedo's size, and to give you a couple of small clues about what will come later in the Campaign.

The Fate of Irene!
over 3 years ago – Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 11:31:53 PM

Update on Irene add-on

We always carefully read and evaluate your feedback. When we talked about the novel for the first time, we got immediately excited about it, about the opportunity to explore and expand our worlds in such wonderful way, so we quickly decided to create a nice miniature, and immediately after to make it live also within our game. That's how this add-on came up so natural for us :)

After reading your comments on our last update, we decided not to change the Collector's Box add-on (we really believe is super cool!!), but we decided to add the option to buy separately only Irene miniature plus cards. You can already find Irene as separate add-on within the add-on section.

Thank you again for your precious feedback!

Now let's see what happened to Irene!

"The feeble voice starts again to whisper in your head... Left...

You move to the room next to you, the music becomes clearer, its melody is sweet, almost hypnotic.

Numb, you advance into the corridor shrouded in semi-darkness, leaving the strange fog behind you.

As you cross what remains of the threshold of the new room, you realize that you are no longer in control of your body. You try to resist, to stop, you are fighting against yourself but without success.

A female silhouette breaks away from the darkness dancing towards you.

As soon as you recover from its spell, a powerful sonic wave hits you making you collapse to the ground. Stunned, you look at the girl's face right in front of you, then you faint."

We are pleased to introduce you to Alisha, the first sorceress from Indian region.

Alisha, Meher's daughter, has been called by the Black Rose, and travelled from far east to Turin, to reach the ruins of the Lodge. She has a difficult character and does not trust anyone.

Her personal spell has to do with the schools of Oracle and Hex: the Oracle side allows her to swap 2 spells (except the quick spell) on a target mage's board, while the Hex side allows her to curse the targeted mage and, until the hex is attached, she can cast spells using that mage as the starting point for all her actions, both physical and magical. It will be great fun to move opponent mages around the Lodge trying to trigger traps. That is why during our playtests Alisha revealed to be one of the most annoying Mage in the game!

“You wake up with a severe headache, the room now seems brighter. A good perfume accompanies your awakening while a strange light attracts your attention. Once on your feet, you realize that the fog you previously encountered is now surrounding you and that it is probably the origin of that perfume.

You move forward into the room and behind the vines you find a mirror, it reflects the sunshine coming from the ceiling, showing you a vortex. Within the vortex you see... another room.

You try to take your spell book from the bag, with surprise you can't find it ... That little thief must have cleaned you up well, after checking you realize almost all your belongings are missing, for sure the most valuable!"

Do you try to cross the mirror hoping to find the thief and recover belongings (Mirror) or do you investigate the strange fog (North) first?

Today we are releasing the first of a series of short videos showing the various game phases you will play in Black Rose Wars: Rebirth.

A total of six videos will be released throughout the Campaign.

Good "short" view :)

The Library is expanding!
over 3 years ago – Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 02:37:09 PM

Hello, Magisters!

Time has come to introduce you to the first add-on of this KS campaign!

We decided to start the campaign with something unusual: a "Black Rose Wars" Novel!

The original novel "La Guerra Della Rosa Nera", written by the young and promising author Marco Olivieri, and published in Italy by Myth Press, is set at the time of the last war of the Black Rose, before the catastrophe that led to the events of Rebirth. Irene, a young girl arrives at the Lodge with her mother, destiny will lead her to discover her role within the Lodge of the Black Rose.

The novel will bring you into the world of Nova Aetas, for all those who want to immerse and to exploit even more this fantastic setting! 

A little backstory: in 2018, immediately after the first BRW campaign, Marco came to our office, presented himself, and asked us if it was possible for him to write short stories set in Black Rose Wars universe. 

We felt honored and excited about the idea, and after some short stories of BRW mages, Marco came back asking permission to write a full novel.

As soon as Marco sent us the first draft, we fell in love with it and we immediately started a collab with him and Myth Press. At the beginning of this year, after the first book was released (the Italian edition is printed in 2 volumes), we persuaded Myth Press to translate the novel in English language, and we asked them permission to make a very special Collector's edition for this Kickstarter campaign.

As a preview, you can download and read the Preface of the novel to get a taste of what awaits you!

This elegant Collector's Box includes the novel “Black Rose Wars - The Secrets of the Lodge” (English Language), a rich book of more than 400 pages, and the miniature of our beloved Irene!

Black Rose Wars Novel Preface

Marco Olvieri is also the author of the four short stories that introduce the 4 mages of Black Rose Wars: Rebirth. If you didn't read them already, you can find them here on our website.

You can play as Irene in your games as a new Mage! In the Collector's Box, you will find her fantastic miniature, which portrays her 25 years after the events narrated in the book, her Mage Card, and the 3 copies of her Custom Spell card!

The Black Rose Wars Novel in the box will be only in English language, Irene's Spell cards will be in all available languages.

Our graphic department studied a stunning packaging for this little masterpiece to add to your library. Have a look at it!

The "Black Rose Wars - The Secrets of the Lodge" Collector's Box is a Kickstarter Exclusive add-on: discover what happened in the Lodge and dive deeply into the Nova Aetas lore!

You can purchase add-ons for your pledge through a drop-down menu before confirming your payment details or, if you already pledged, managing your Pledge on Kickstarter. It will add the additional cost to your pledge before finalizing your payment.