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Hawthorn

Written by Jamie "Themo" Richards, illustrated by Ameshin and Themo

 

 Hawthorn is a hex card based table-top role playing game set within the mist-shrouded forest of the Fae. Players explore, quest and battle their way through an ever shifting landscape in an attempt to carve out territory and claim the forest as their own. Heroes grow in strength as they gain experience and claim new lands and creatures, wielding powerful Fae dweomer and weaving mischief within the ranks of their foes. Harness the powerful rivers of invisible energy known as ley lines that flow throughout the forest  to drag the forest realm closer to that of your own and lock down the nexus to prevent invasion.

 

Development Stage

 

 Early dev: Obtaining art, creating icons, refining mechanics.

 

 

Work In Progress 
 
Creatures of the Fae forest
Heroes
Dweomer and magic 
Mischief Cards
Event Cards
Construct Cards
Quest Cards
Humans

 

Land Card Properties 

 Printed on hex cards. A 90 card deck containing 11 generic lands, 36 "named" lands (2 copies of each) and 7 "sacred" lands.

 

-Title: the name of this land card.

-Resource: the type of resource produced by this land card (gold, crystal or stone).

-Dweomer: the type of dweomer that can be drawn from this land (fire, water, wind or earth).

-Encounter rate: the likelihood of having an encounter on this land. 

-Encounter level: the difficulty of dungeons and encounters on this land.

-Fade cost: the cost of fading this land into a players realm.

 

The Thee Dice

Hawthorn is played using three different colored 6-sided dice (green, yellow and red). The green dice has 4 faces allocated to a "fail" result and 2 faces allocated to a success result. The yellow dice has 3 faces allocated to a fail, 2 faces allocated to a success and 1 face allocated to a "exceptional success". The red dice has 3 faces allocated to fail, 1 face allocated to success and 2 faces allocated to exceptional success. 

 

Nexus And Hedge Tiles

Printed on large hex tiles. 4 hedge tiles (player gateway), 1 nexus tile (game hub).

 

Seelie Mischief Deck

Printed on poker cards. A 90 card deck containing 7 "Quest" cards (4 of each), 7 "Mischief" cards (4 of each), 7 "Spell" cards (4 of each) , 1 "Construct" card (4 copies)  and 2 "Event" cards.

 

Unseelie Mischief Deck

Printed on poker cards. A 90 card deck containing 7 "Quest" cards (4 of each), 7 "Mischief" cards (4 of each), 7 "Spell" cards (4 of each) , 1 "Construct" card (4 copies)  and 2 "Event" cards.

 

Mundane Mischief Deck

Printed on poker cards. A 90 card deck containing 7 "Quest" cards (4 of each), 7 "Mischief" cards (4 of each), 7 "Construct" cards (4 of each) , 1 "Spell" card (4 copies)  and 2 "Event" cards.

 

Ley Lines And The Nexus

Felt but not seen, every land card is considered to be intersected by at least one ley line. Immense torrents of energy that vary in size yet all span the entire planet, these ley lines are the very life force of the living world. The nexus is a crossroads formed by seven of the larger ley lines and is the source of tremendous energy for those able to tap into it. It is this energy that allows the Fae to bring their native realms into alignment with the physical world and pass over using "elfdans", circles of mushrooms grown around sacred hawthorn trees. With enough skill, a Fae hero is able to "lock" the nexus into alignment with his native realm, creating a permanent link and severing the ties with other Fae realms. The nexus tile is the first "land" to be placed on the table, usually in a central position with player hedge tiles and the Daggers Brink tavern then placed connecting it. 

 

Players And Hedge Tiles

Hedge tiles represent each players elfdan, the circle of mushrooms surrounding a sacred hawthorn tree that serves as the gateway between the physical world and their native realm. Hedge tiles are always placed connecting the nexus and are the starting area for exploring player heroes. Moving onto another players hedge tile is considered a hostile act and the precursor to invasion. Players start the game with a single hero card, placed on their table edge and represented on the table by its matching micro card stand. As the game progresses each player may "fade" up to three land cards into their realm and three creature cards to inhabit those lands. These are placed beside the players hero card and remain separate from the main game area.

 

Humans And The Daggers Brink Tavern

The Fae are not the only inhabitants of the living world, even in the Fae forest. Humans, usually quite unaware of the Faes existence, are also to be found in the area. The Daggers Brink tavern is the human equivalent of a hedge tile and is the source of all human npc activity in the game area. Fae of the seelie alignment often choose to peacefully co-exist with the humans, finding endless joy in making them the targets of pranks and other mischief while the unseelie Fae will not tolerate a human presence in the forest at all, often going to great lengths to frighten, harm or even kill the intruders. At the beginning of each turn the Daggers Brink tavern has a chance to produce a human npc, which will wander about the area in an attempt to complete its own randomly assigned task.

 

Movement And Lands

Moving a hero onto a land card (or a hedge tile) will reveal a land connected to each available edge of that land card. The lands are drawn at random from the deck and placed in position face up, this process is repeated each time the hero is moved. Land cards that remain face up are considered to be "unveiled". At the end of each turn all land cards not directly connecting to either a hedge tile or a land on which a hero is positioned is turned face down and considered to be "veiled" and any non-connecting land cards that are already veiled are removed from play and placed into the land decks discard pile. In this way the nexus-charged mists that cloak the Fae forest continually swallow up and reshape the terrain as heroes venture further away from their hedge tile. Each land tile has an "encounter chance" value and an "encounter difficulty" which heroes must roll against the moment they move onto that land. This will determine whether or not the player is met by a hostile force, potential ally or unoccupied area. An "exceptional result" on the encounter chance roll will reveal a dungeon on this land card which stronger players can venture into for a chance at extra experience and other rewards. Lands also have a native dweomer, which is the pure elemental energy that the Fae harness to work magic and cast their spells. Heroes occupying a land can expend mischief points to attempt to extract dweomer of the lands native type and add it to their own dweomer cache. Multiple heroes can occupy a single land card, though it opens up the option for the players heroes to spend mischief points to attack each other. Some lands also produce one of the three natural resources (gold, crystal and stone) and heroes occupying these lands may expend mischief points to attempt to extract a resource of that type and add it to their own resource cache.  Each land has a fade cost which players can pay (along with mischief points) to rip that land from the physical realm and into their own native realm. This process is referred to as "fading" and places the land out of the game area and next to that players hero card on his table edge, the hero that was occupying the land is returned to his hedge tile. Lands held in this fashion will automatically produce any native dweomer and resources at the beginning of each turn and add it to its owners cache. Each player may hold a maximum of three lands in fade.

 

Combat And Encounters

When a player encounters a hostile creature (or player) the result is usually combat. All hero cards, creature cards and human cards have  a health value and three sets of dice icons indicating the number and type of dice rolled in combat for that card at each of the three experience levels. A card with a  "3 green" icon for attack  and a "2 yellow" icon for defense would roll 3 green dice when attempting to strike an opponent and 2 yellow dice when attempting to fend off incoming attacks. When rolling to strike an opponent a roll resulting in a fail represents a miss, a success represents a hit and an exceptional success represents an aimed hit. When rolling to defend a fail represents a failed attempt to evade, a success represents a successful evasion and an exceptional success represents an balanced evasion. Aimed hits may only be countered by balanced evasions. For each hit not evaded, the defending card loses one point of health and becomes "defeated" when its health total is reduced to zero. Some cards have special abilities which affect combat as described in the lower section of that particular card and players may activate spells and play mischief cards at any time during the process. Successfully defeating an opponent with result in an exp reward while being defeated will result in the loss of all experience gained since the heroes last increase in experience level. Defeated creature cards with the same alignment as the hero that defeated it my be faded by the hero at the cost of mischief points if that player controls a faded land matching the creatures native dweomer. Creature cards held in this way imbue any special abilities they may have to their controlling hero, with a maximum of one creature able to be faded per land held in fade.

 

The Mischief Decks

 There are three separate mischief decks, one for each alignment (seelie, unseelie and mundane). Any hero may draw from the mundane mischief deck while only heroes with the matching alignment may draw from the seelie or unseelie decks. These decks are from which the players draw their "hand"  with each player drawing a total of seven cards in any combination at the start of the first turn. Mischief points can be spent at any time to draw additional cards so long as the players hand does not exceed a total of seven cards. These decks consist of five different types of cards, Spell cards, Mischief cards, Construct cards, Quest cards and Event cards. Spell cards can be placed in fade beside the hero card and can be activated by the hero at any time by paying the dweomer cost listed on the spell card. Spell cards can be used any number of times and are not placed in the discard pile after use unless abandoned by the player. A hero may hold a total number of spell cards in fade equal to that heroes spell count attribute. Mischief cards are held in the players hand until use and can be activated for the cost listed on each individual mischief card and placed in the discard pile after use. Construct cards can be placed on lands in the players fade should that land meet the constructs requirements and the player be able to pay the cards resource requirements. Quest cards can be placed in fade with a maximum of one being in that players fade at a time. Meeting the requirements listed on the quest card will "complete" the card, rewarding the player and being returned to the discard pile. Event cards are much like mischief cards except that effect all players equally including the person playing the card, rather than having a chosen target.   

 

 

 

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