Wyrm Kings is a boardgame developed in the year 1066 Re by an Ofirar living in the country of Seiforh. It is one of the continent's oldest boardgames, and is thought to have originally been made by its creator as a way to mock the Fyrstbairn. The game sees players take on the role of the eponymous 'Wyrm Kings' and attempt to amass wealth and territory through any of the numerous means available to them. The game is infamous for its long playtimes; with a single 'campaign' able to take weeks or potentially months of playtime to finish.
The board game usually comes in an ornate wooden box covered in intricate embellishments, and includes a map, the rule book, and a variety of tokens and counters used for play. The game received dozens of so-called 'expansion packs' throughout its lifetime, each of which contained new rules and mechanical additions to the game, and were commonly priced at around 1/3rd of the cost of the original game itself.
Gameplay
Each copy of Wyrm Kings comes with a hand-drawn map of Pretheya, upon which political borders have been drawn out representing the various kingdoms, republics, and other polities which existed at the time of the game's publication. Each is given a number starting at 1 and are numbered from north-west to south-east. The number corresponds to the page in the rulebook where information on the country, its ruler, and their important underlings can be found.
In order to begin playing, each player must select one of the characters listed within the rulebook to play as. This can be either the ruler of a country, a governor, a duke, or a lower rank vassal; allowing for play at many different levels of power. The immense variety of available choices means that one will never be short of options, and it has been estimated that a person would die of old age several dozen times over before finishing a playthrough with every character.
Character Stats
Characters within Wyrm Kings possess a number of attributes, known colloquially as their 'stats'; which govern how proficient they are at various activities within the game. Each character has several dozen of these, but the most important ones are the following:
Diplomacy; which governs a character's ability to interact with other player-or-non-player-characters and the likelihood that they will succeed when attempting to make requests of other characters, as well as how much other characters like them. There are also extremely complicated calculations about how a character's level in this statistic can generate a miniscule amount of extra prestige per month, but most players agree to ignore this rule for convenience.
Martial; which is a measure of a character's competence as a commander when leading troops, as well as the size of levies which they can call upon, and how fast the levies regenerate spent troops when dismissed. An important factor often overlooked by players new to the Wyrm Kings series is that a character's Martial stat does not influence their personal fighting skill in duels and other hand-to-hand combat; meaning characters with high martial are just as likely to die if they take the field personally as characters with low martial.
Stewardship; which determines a character's competency in managing their demesne, how capable they are when placed in a council position, and the amount of currency they can raise through taxes and other means.
Intrigue; which controls how adept a character is at keeping secrets, orchestrating plots without being found out, successfully assassinating other characters, and uncovering plots against them.
There is also a fifth major skill, called learning, but it has been criticised for the fact that it does nothing.
Rules
The full rulebook for the first edition of Wyrm Kings is around 1,100 pages long. The most important rule of play is that a player loses when their character's bloodline goes extinct. This occurs if their character dies without a male heir; in the event that they do have a male heir, they will instead transfer to this character and can continue playing.
The goal of Wyrm Kings, or the metric by which one wins, is unclear and has been the source of much scholarly debate throughout the years. Although there is technically a score system, it is so complicated to calculate that most players cannot even understand how to measure it; and it appears to have been intended more as a joke than anything. The lack of any kind of concrete goal is thought to be a kind of meta-commentary on the nature of statesmanship, and serves as a form of rudimentary existentialist inquiry into the nature and purpose of political entities like countries and nations.
As such, most players will either agree on a victory condition before beginning a campaign, or simply not bother with one. Despite the incredible complexity of its rules and the seriousness of its subject matter, Wyrm Kings is approached by many as an immersive roleplaying game first and foremost. As such, players will commonly each pick a ruler to play as and compete for things like who can assassinate the most children in their realm; who can accrue the highest count of unique individuals slept with; or who can create the worst borders for their country.
In some cases, players will also embark on so-called 'challenge runs', which involve attempting to accomplish difficult goals. Wyrm Kings is full of potential for such activities, and the following is only a brief collection of popular objectives within this mode of play:
Achieving a world conquest as any character. This is considered a relatively entry-level objective among the challenge running community.
Routing the Shahru faith and re-converting the continent to worship of the Hundred Gods
While playing as the Vestaltir, convert to Gaulir.
Play as a Rukhmarite character and embrace a specific Grestvytian heresy that only appears in one province, then defeat the Vestaltir in a war and force them to recognize the superiority of your religion; thereby causing an orange cat named William to replace Rukhmar as the deity of the Shahru religion
Achieve a world-conquest while playing as the one-province-minor nation of Refuge (only possible in the second edition of Wyrm Kings, due to Refuge not being on the map in the first)
Convert every province on the map to forest terrain while playing as one of the Leskeln
While playing as a Landamaeri character, restore the Grannrormrlen
Have your character become immortal by drinking the blood of Rukhmar (requires completion of an event chain that has a less than ten percent chance to succeed)
Electing a giant spider to the position of king
Critical Reception
Wyrm Kings was well received in Landamar, and is thought of by many as a cult classic; being commonly enjoyed by army strategists and members of the nobility. Within the Rukhmarite world, it was declared to be a heretical game of the darkest perversion; with the Alight himself stating that the game 'corrupted the souls of all those who partook in it, and inspired them towards vice.' The game has been harshly criticised by other members of the Firebird Church for the violence it contains, as well as the fact that it is possible to kill children in it. These are considered to be secondary issues, however, and the main criticism levied by priests against the game has consistently been its inclusion of detailed rules for homosexual characters. The game's depiction of homosexuality has been said to promote 'unnatural behaviour' and to 'encourage deviant behaviour that goes against Rukhmar's plan for humanity.'
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