Chapter
A section of playable time, involving goals whose fulfillment signals the chapter’s end. Chapters, together with intervals, form a campaign. Each chapter has a goal, and ends when the heroes achieve it.
Goals
The chapter ends when you fulfill all the goals. In a scripted campaign, a completed goal can sometimes be immediately replaced by a new goal (such as "Find the Lair" ➔ "Kill the Boss").
Interval
A “lull” in the action, during which a number of years of peace pass by; intervals separate chapters and propel time forward, affecting domain and heroes, without forcing the player to endure time’s passage.
Summary
At the beginning of the interval, a score panel is shown. Resources are earned from all developed tiles held at the end of the chapter. In most chapters, the heroes earn years of peace based on how many territories they have developed and made safe, and how many threats they left on the map. (There are exceptions, when scripted campaigns specify a fixed number of years for certain chapters.)
Years of peace do nothing mechanically except make your heroes older, so if you're a heartless ogre you can min-max by leaving infestations on the board.
Years of Peace
It used to be based on cleared tiles but now its randomized between 10-12 years of peace in generic campaigns. Story campaigns can have custom values that shorten the years of peace down.
Threats Diminish
A few calamity cards will be removed from the Doom Tracker. The number depends on difficulty and on how many cards have been collected so far.
At each chapter end, one calamity card is removed per removePer calamities collected, plus excessFraction of cards collected above a threshold number. Cards that introduce a new monster type will never be removed.
As of version 1.0, the values are:
| Storyteller | Adventurer | Tragic Hero | Walking Lunch | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| removePer | 7 | 9 | 11 | 14 |
| excessFraction | 80% | 70% | 33% | 0% |
| Thresholds: | ||||
| Chapter 1 | 6 | 7 | 10 | - |
| Chapter 2 | 10 | 12 | 18 | - |
| Chapter 3 | 14 | 17 | 26 | - |
| Chapter 4 | 18 | 22 | 34 | - |
At higher difficulties it becomes increasingly urgent not to dawdle on the overland map, and to spend LP to cancel calamities whenever possible.
Tidings
A montage of short vignettes shows what the heroes got up to during that time, with no choices to be made by the player and usually no lasting consequences.
Often the child of a hero will join up with the party (for free, 0 LP).
If a hero reached retirement age before the end of the preceding chapter, they retire now. The player may choose to either gain 3 Legacy Points or have the retiring hero pass on 3/8 of their experience to a lower-level hero.
Gear Upgrades
You have the opportunity to spend resources to craft new or better gear for the heroes.
Small discounts are given if you replace an item with a similar upgrade.
Items cannot be traded. Replaced items are lost.
You can upgrade enchanted or artifact items without losing their bonus, though it adds to the cost.
New Threats
The shadows deepen. Enemy forces add +1 to the number of cards they draw at the beginning of every battle, for the remainder of the game.
New territories to explore and an additional town to defend are revealed on the overland map.
Randomised chapters
During five chapter, 3 chapter, legacy, or five hero campaigns chapters will be randomised to create a campaign.
The chapters can only appear if it is there specific monster type, for instance a specific chapter may only show up if the main enemy is gorgons, however there are some that work for multiple or any.
Here is a list of the randomised chapters and the requirements:
