The Road Darkens Saga Expansion Is Now Available for The Lord of the Rings

“Rewards!” said Frodo, “I can’t imagine a more severe punishment. You are not thinking what you are saying: condemned to go on this hopeless journey, a reward? Yesterday I dreamed that my task was done, and I could rest here, a long while, perhaps for good.”
    –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

The second The Lord of the Rings Saga Expansion is now available at your local retailer and online through our webstore!

The adventures of The Road Darkens begin in Rivendell at the Council of Elrond and sweep you along through some of the most dangerous and thrilling encounters from both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Directly inspired by the novel, the expansion’s three scenarios allow you to come as close as possible to walking alongside Frodo Baggins and his companions without finding your name scrawled in the pages. Fight past evil Wargs and the Watcher in the Water to gain entrance to Moria, flee from Cave Trolls and the Balrog, and piece your Fellowship back together after it splinters when Frodo disappears at Amon Hen.

Just as J.R.R. Tolkien’s much-beloved fantasy saga is full of noble heroics, powerful villains, and cutting treachery, The Road Darkens races forward, plummeting from tremendous highs to the pits of despair, and then allowing you the chance to fight your way back toward the light. You’ll find new heroes and allies willing to accompany you along the way, and you’ll find new boons and burdens that ensure your every choice carries a meaningful and lasting consequence.

Continue Your Campaign

As a Saga Expansion, The Road Darkens does more with its scenarios than introduce three fun and exciting challenges; it continues the epic narrative that began in The Black Riders Saga Expansion and that will continue in future The Lord of the Rings Saga Expansions, as Frodo and his companions travel closer to the dark lands of Mordor.

Accordingly, in Campaign Mode, your struggles are given more weight and consequence by the campaign-specific cards that help bind together the individual chapters of your epic adventure. Campaign cards introduce specific rules for each scenario that only apply in Campaign Mode, and the boons and burdens that you earn in your scenarios are then added to all future scenarios, continuing to help you or haunt you so long as they remain in the campaign pool.

This means that even as such powerful weapons as Sting (The Road Darkens, 11) and Andúril (The Road Darkens, 14) can give you strength and support your cause, you may also be haunted by such devastating burdens as Ill Fate (The Road Darkens, 90) or Fallen into Evil (The Road Darkens, 83), either of which has the potential to break your Fellowship, crush your spirits, and end your quest.

Part of your duty to the Ring-bearer, then, is to offer wise counsel, ensuring that you suffer as few burdens as possible and make the best use of the boons you are granted. The closer you draw to Mordor, the more these decisions will matter.

To that end, The Road Darkens introduces several boons that differ in one significant way from those you may have earned in The Black Riders. Like Three Golden Hairs (The Road Darkens, 16), some boons in The Road Darkens are removed from the campaign pool when you use them. Though they introduce some extremely powerful effects, these effects may only be used once. Then they are lost.

Thus, these new boons bring additional layers of decision making and drama to your adventures in Middle-earth. You know you’re going to encounter perils and evils at every turn, but what you don’t know is whether or not the current situation is the best one in which to make use of your boons. Taking advantage of the resources at hand may spare you greater burdens in the future, or it may leave you empty-handed at a critical juncture. Using these boons at the appropriate moment may prove the difference between success and failure in your quest.

Form Your Fellowship Today

Bag End is far behind you. Your life in the Shire is over. The adventures you experienced on the road to Rivendell were only the beginning. Now you must begin the first steps of the rest of your journey to Mordor and Mount Doom.

Fortunately, you need not travel your road by yourself. As your saga propels you further forward, The Road Darkens introduces an iconic new hero and several powerful allies. From Gandalf (The Road Darkens, 2) to Galadriel (The Road Darkens, 3), and from Elrond (The Road Darkens, 5) to Boromir (The Road Darkens, 4), these famous characters arrive to lend their strength, offer their wisdom, and help ease your burden.

Choose your companions wisely, and set forth to retrace the path of the greatest fantasy saga of all time. The Road Darkens is now available at your local retailer and online through our webstore!

…