Preview New Overlord Cards and Download the Rules for Manor of Ravens

The overlord’s power branches out into new magic with the Manor of Ravens expansion for Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition. Two new classes of Overlord cards arrive, alongside the overlord’s first servant, the raven flock. Within this expansion, you’ll find cards to serve your plots for harnessing the power of the haunted manor and destroying the heroes of Terrinoth forever.

In past previews, we explored the monsters you command in Manor of Ravens and we looked at the heroes that dare to oppose your dominion. Today, guest writer Justin Hoeger, an avid Descent player and fan, delves deep into the new classes of Overlord cards you’ll find inside this expansion.

In addition, the rules for Manor of Ravens (pdf, 5.9 MB) are now available for download! Download the rules from the Descent support page, then read below for Justin’s thoughts on the power of new Overlord cards.

Justin Hoeger on the Overlord’s New Powers

In Descent up to this point, the majority of Overlord cards have caused immediate, temporary effects. You played your card, and when its effect completed, the card was discarded. The two new classes of Overlord cards in Manor of Ravens are different. These two classes transform the normal rules for playing your Overlord cards and open the door to a vast array of new strategies.

Arcane Enchantments

The Enchanter class of Overlord cards introduces abilities that persist beyond an immediate effect. Wristlet of Wind, for example, gives a monster group added mobility, letting each monster move one space after it attacks. You have to keep moving to maintain this card’s effects, though; the card is discarded if any monster in the group doesn’t move during its activation. The Dragonbone Pendant, on the other hand, can give your monsters an effective attack boost for each attack, but to get the most out of the Dragonbone Pendant, you’ll want to spread the damage around. This card is discarded when a monster in the group defeats a hero.

The cards above can benefit any monster group, but others may call for careful consideration to get the most benefit. For example, if you’re bringing a large group of low-health monsters into play, you may encircle them with the Rings of Zhol’alam. Each time a monster from the enhanced group is defeated, every nearby hero takes damage. As an added bonus, this card only goes away when the entire monster group is gone. If you move your low-health monsters among the heroes, they’ll have to think twice before using skills and abilities that can kill many monsters at once. And if you want to get tricky, you could use a giant’s Sweep or a lava beetle’s Blast to attack your own monsters alongside the heroes, dealing extra damage for each of your defeated monsters!

The Rune of the Phoenix card can be especially handy for prolonging the life of your monsters. Once a monster in the group suffers wounds equal to its Health, the overlord can discard Rune of the Phoenix to heal five of the monster’s wounds. This is a great card to increase the survivability of your agent if you’re playing with a Plot deck. For example, you may play with the Unstable Forces Plot deck included in the Tristayne Olliven Lieutenant Pack. If you have Tristayne Olliven in play as an agent, Rune of the Phoenix paired with Mortal Coil makes him extremely difficult to kill: in Act II, four heroes would have to deal forty-one wounds to destroy him. Until he’s defeated, his magic spells and Ravage ability would wreak havoc on the hero party.

Finally, the Sign of the Last Zenith ensures that your favorite Enchanter cards escape the discard pile. After you play Sign of the Last Zenith on a monster group, every time an Enchanter card is discarded from a different group, the card transfers to the group with Sign of the Last Zenith instead of being discarded. Better yet, you draw an Overlord card every time this effect occurs. If you play your cards right, you could end up with a monster group or lieutenant featuring a terrifying number of Enchantments, while the heroes struggle to chew through your lesser minions.

Call Your Servant

While the Enchanter class focuses on spreading benefits across entire monster groups, the Unkindness class is all about your first servant, the raven flock. Similar to a familiar for a hero, the raven flock can be summoned with the Call of the Ravens card. This servant arrives on the scene adjacent to another monster at the start of an overlord turn. Summoning the raven flock deals four wounds to the adjacent monster, so summoning it close to a monster near death is preferable. Once you purchase the Call of the Ravens card, it’s always available to you. It’s never shuffled into your Overlord deck, and doesn’t count toward your Overlord deck total, meaning you can use it at any time.

As a monster, the raven flock is fast and versatile, and every other card in the Unkindness class boosts the raven flock’s abilities in some way. You can give it the same Shadow ability as the mighty shadow dragons with the Beneath the Shadow Overlord card, making it more difficult for adjacent heroes to hit the raven flock. The Ill Omen card grants your raven flock an Ominous aura, inflicting the potent new Doomed condition on nearby heroes who fail a Willpower test at the beginning of their turns.

Other cards in the Unkindness class allow your servant to profit from a hero’s defeat. Feast heals the raven flock’s wounds and boosts its health when a hero is defeated within five spaces of your servant. And as a final unkindness to a hero defeated near the raven flock, you can play the Envelop card to remove that hero token from the map. The hero cannot be revived or recover damage for any reason until the servant is defeated!

Thanks, Justin!

New magic and arcane servants await the overlord in the haunted mansion. Click the thumbnail at right to download the rules to Manor of Ravens and uncover the secrets that lurk within. Then, preorder Manor of Ravens at your local retailer today!

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