The Legend returns because Legends never die!
We all knew it was coming, but now it is official and we got to see little snippets and breadcrumbs of what the future looks like for Aarklash. Monolith sent out an email along with the trailer drop, so lets see how they broke it down.
This will be a string of products, as Monolith puts it "an ambitious new transmedia range of games, stories and roleplaying adventures", all interconnected and tying up in our beloved Aarklash. The projects so far unveiled are:
- Incarnation: A tactical fantasy skirmish miniatures game set in the reborn world of Aarklash.
- Depths of Cadwallon: A fantasy dungeon crawler adventure game exploring the dangers of the Free City.
- The Book of Aarklash: A premium definitive lorebook exploring the peoples, factions, kingdoms, wars and forgotten history of the universe.
- Cadwallon Roleplaying Game: A new roleplaying experience developed with Modiphius.
- Stories of Aarklash: New comics and graphic stories developed with Astrolabe.
Along with these, they have already put up Gamefound preview pages for Incarnation, with a "coming soon" tag, and Depths of Cadwallon, tagged as "yet to come". I think it is safe to assume that Incarnation will be the first on the production line.
So right off the bat, let us get one thing out of the way. Yes, these projects will be crowdfunded. A bold move by Monolith and a big mental hurdle for many fans who were previously burned by Sans-Detour, but a wise choice. Monolith is a crowdfunding company with an established pedigree and it is a smart choice for them to continue this trend for such a monolithic project. It will provide them with a needed jump off point and to once again prove why all their previous campaigns were successful and why so many people put their trust in them over the years. I wrote extensively about my experience with Monolith in the article where I did an unboxing of Mythic Battles: Isfet, so definitely check it out if you're still feeling uneasy.
There is one thing which I believe will set this upcoming Incarnation campaign apart from all the previous ones and that is that I don't believe this will be a "one and done" kind of thing. All the previous projects we had a crowdfunding campaign, the game would be released and then that is simply it until Monolith does an updated version of the game or a new expansion. I believe now we will see the initial crowdfunding campaign and then somehow continued support of the project as a live game, ideally through retail. I touched briefly on that in my previous article where I also discuss the potential material used for miniatures and Monolith's desire for Aarklash to be the next step in the company's evolution, which you can read here.
So, Incarnation will essentially be the new incarnation of Confrontation. Along with the trailer and what was written in the email, we also got to see a miniature preview. You can briefly see a Wolfen, what I assume is a new rendition of the Prowler, and then the miniature dropped on the new Rackham Community discord server. Worth noting is that on the server it has been explained that this miniature is going to be used for demos and is not the official studio paintjob since it has been painted by someone local on the French CORD, so keep that in mind.
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| Wolfen painted by Damien |
More pictures from various angles of the miniature can be found on the Rackham Community server. Mini painted by Damien, who you can also check out on Instagram here.
Whether or not this ends up being a released miniature or not, the sculpting direction for the updated Wolfen is fantastic and I truly love this sculpt. I'll spout some heresy and say that I was never a hardcore fan of the original Prowler, somehow the whole "leg on a stick" gimmick killed it for me and I know people tend to consider it a cult Rackham sculpt, so this new version is a nice refresh for me. It is also exceptionally nice to see the community embracing the new sculpt and all the news with open arms, since the previous response to the initially revealed Wolfen was cringe worthy. Glad to see all the positivity about the reveals and I can only hope that some of my articles helped motivate the community at least a little bit towards lightheartedness.
What is really interesting as well is the inclusion of the round base which is bound to be a bit of a controversy in the community. Personally, I dislike round bases and truly hope that Monolith will give us the option of using either round or square... otherwise, I'll just continue using square bases myself.
Depths of Cadwallon will be the new dungeon crawler or what I previously believed will be Hybrid 2.0. I was actually in the process of writing a follow-up to that article to discuss what we might actually see in the an updated Hybrid, but now I will have to rethink this! On first glance I actually love that they decided to set the dungeon crawler under Cadwallon as it opens the game up for the inclusion of literally all factions, unlike Hybrid which might be more restrictive fluff-wise. For example, it might be a bit of a stretch to see my beloved Daikinee introduced into the arid deserts of Syharhalna, but now that we're in the depths of the most famous city in Aarklash there is a chance!
Also a thing that drew my attention instantly was that Depths of Cadwallon is marked as a "cooperative" and as a "1-5" player game, signaling up front that this will also be a game for solo players, which is huge! Obviously you could play any game solo with a little bit of adaptation, but actually having an officially supported rules system for that is something I'm very excited about.
Overall, a great little teaser for "Depths..." and I expect this to shape up into an interesting game. I love the choice of the preview art for this, as it immediately sets the mood for something dark and atmospheric without the need for a lot of words to back it up.
The other 3 products (the RPG, the comic books, and the lore book) we don't have any additional info for, aside from the collaborators on the RPG and comic book being Modiphius and Astrolabe, respectively. Personally, I am not the biggest of fans when it comes to Modiphius, primarily because I am heavily invested in other RPG games, but there is no denying that they create stellar products and are top contenders in the industry for quite some time now. It is amazing that Monolith managed to strike a deal with them, since the sheer enormity of Modiphius' platform alone will be an amazing way to spread the word about Aarklash and we will surely get a product on par with the beloved original Cadwallon RPG.
The Book of Aarklash, aka the lore book, is featured on both preview pages for Incarnation and Depths of Cadwallon, so I guess it is safe to assume that it will be part of both crowdfunding campaigns, possibly as an add-on. The comic book is not shown anywhere yet however.
I'll stop here and let you go back to enjoying all these lovely new previews. I am certainly more motivated than ever to keep walking on through Aarklash and continue documenting all these things as they transpire. It is honestly such a joy to witness a beloved franchise come back to life and I hope many more new folks join us along the way. Rackham never truly died, it was simply hibernating all these years, coming back stronger than ever! Thank you for reading, see you soon.
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