Preview Two New Heroes and Hero Classes from Manor of Ravens

In the forests near Greyhaven, there lies a haunted manor. By day, bandits raid the house for moldering treasures and arcane artifacts. By night, terrifying wraiths wisp through the halls, devouring the soul of any adventurer foolish enough to enter. As if these fearsome guardians were not enough, a magical construct stalks the halls of the mansion, searching for trespassers.

Manor of Ravens, an upcoming expansion for Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition, dares any hero to enter the haunted mansion and brave the dangers within. In our last preview, we looked at bandits and wraiths, the two new monster groups that serve the overlord in Manor of Ravens.

Today, we’ll examine the heroes who face these threats: Alys Raine and Thaiden Mistpeak.

Marshal of the Realm

By her eighth birthday, Alys Raine could recite the entirety of the Common Law in one sitting and had begun memorizing the seven treaties associated with it. Preferring her studies to long hours of combat training, her dream of becoming a Marshal kept her moving forward. Now a rising star among her comrades, Alys Raine drives fear into the hearts of the unjust throughout Terrinoth. As a Marshal of the Citadel, Alys brings justice wherever it is needed, serving as both judge and executioner.

Alys Raine proves herself a powerful addition to your hero party as you seek to uncover the mystery of at the heart of the manor. She is completely devoted to her duties as a Marshal, and her hero ability and heroic feat give you the tools to trigger Class cards whenever you need them. Alys’s hero ability allows you to recover fatigue whenever an adjacent hero takes one or more damage, giving you the energy you need to enact justice on the evildoer.

Alys’s heroic feat lets you use your powerful Class cards more than once per turn. By activating Alys’s heroic feat during any player’s turn, you may refresh all of your exhausted cards and recover two fatigue, freeing you to exercise your power once more.

The Power of Law

The Marshal hero class puts the judicial power of the Citadel behind your quests, inviting any Warrior can punish the overlord for his flagrant disregard for the law. The Marshal hero class begins with the Retribution card. By exhausting this card when a nearby monster attacks another hero, you can force that monster to take damage as its just desserts. Vigilant Watch allows you to punish monsters for leaving your presence, whereas I am the Law allows you to attack a monster that attacked you, possibly inflicting a condition on the monster as well!

Some of the Marshal’s other Class cards punish the overlord for using his Overlord cards against the heroes. Zealous Fire can be exhausted when the overlord plays an Overlord card, allowing you to recover a fatigue. To make matters worse for the overlord, when Zealous Fire refreshes, you may deal a damage to a nearby monster. The By the Book card gives you a chance to cancel an Overlord card, returning it to the Overlord deck without effect.

A Hunter in the Wild

Alys Raine is aided in her investigations by Thaiden Mistpeak, a Scout with an uncanny knack for finding what others cannot. He led his clan through the Crags of the Forgotten, rescued his love from the center of the Gray Wastes, and recovered his grandmother’s hairpin from a very large haystack… or so it is said. He never planned to use his talents to avenge the deaths of his loved ones. But when his family’s murderers were never found, he took matters into his own hands. He has never spoken of that fateful journey, but from that day on, Thaiden Mistpeak was a changed man. All that remained was his skill, and his passion for the hunt.

Thaiden is an expert at surviving in the wilds, and his hero ability and heroic feat give him some of the tricks he may need to get the upper hand on the overlord’s monsters. By using Thaiden’s hero ability, you may cancel your attack and search an adjacent search token instead. By using this ability when an attack would miss or fail to cause damage, you can salvage what would have been a wasted action.

Thaiden’s heroic feat gives you a way to escape any monsters that happen to get too close. When a monster enters a space adjacent to you, you may trigger Thaiden’s heroic feat to immobilize the monster and immediately move up to three spaces! By using the heroic feat at the right time, you can neutralize a monster and prepare for Thaiden’s attack on his next turn.

Tracking Your Quarry

Monsters throughout Terrinoth would be wise to fear any Scout trained as a Bounty Hunter. Bounty Hunters excel at tracking a single monster before moving in for the kill. A Bounty Hunter’s Class cards make his hunts even more deadly.

Bounty Hunters start gameplay with the Chosen Target card, which they can exhaust to track a monster in their line of sight. Each of your attacks against the tracked monster gain an additional damage, which lets you take it down faster than ever. Other Class cards give you more benefits for hunting a tracked monster. Not so Fast reduces your target’s movement points and gives you movement points, whereas Evil Eye allows you to give your tracked monster the Doomed condition.

A key aspect of your hunts is waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Other Bounty Hunter Class cards reward you for doing just that. Lie in Wait takes an action to exhaust, but when it refreshes it gives you a bonus attack action with an additional power die! Undercover, on the other hand, invites you to enhance your defense for a turn before breaking out of hiding and gaining three movement points on your next turn.

Into the Manor

The mystery of the haunted manor awaits you and your fellow heroes within the Manor of Ravens expansion. Alys Raine and Thaiden Mistpeak may give you the strength to cross the mansion’s threshold, but can you withstand the horrors within?

Preorder Manor of Ravens at your local retailer today!

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