Magical Miniatures Game for 1-4 Players
All New Game
Cursebreaker is an all new game set in the world of Relicblade. It uses all of the same miniatures and terrain from your Relicblade collection, but the rules and gameplay experience is completely new. The Cursebreaker game is a new book, deck of spell book cards, and a token set. All miniatures used to play Cursebreaker come from the main Relicblade range.
Cursebreaker is designed to make you think and feel like a battle wizard. The game mechanics are all carefully designed with that experience in mind.
Players enter the Shattered Lands as a learned magician with mastery over the eight mighty books of magic lore. Equipped with advanced learning and arcane will, magicians use a pool of power dice to interact with the surging whims of magic. The results of their dice allow them to cast powerful spells.
Players use the power dice on their lore books to cast powerful spells and summon deadly creatures from beyond the veil. Magicians must master the fickle flow of magic to acquire even greater power or be stripped of their power by hungry rivals.
Games of Cursebreaker are ultimately a contest of wit and will between competing magicians and the cursed lands themselves. In the end, only one battle wizard will emerge victorious.
About Cursebreaker
Cursebreaker is an all new, stand alone game set in the world of Relicblade. Players enter the Shattered Lands as powerful magicians in search of greatness. As you cross the threshold into those cursed lands, the laws of reality are warped beyond recognition. A completely new rule-set governs reality as you and your rivals contend with feral magic.
Features
Cursebreaker is a wizard battle game that takes place in the Shattered Lands of Relicblade.
1-4 players. 2'x2' play area.
Strategic magic system that rewards cleverness.
Exciting dice mechanic for casting spells and stealing your opponent's dice to grow more powerful.
Uses Relicblade miniatures in a completely new rule-set with a completely new gameplay experience. Play more games with your existing collection!
All About Cursebreaker
Overview
Hobby Game: Cursebreaker is a miniatures game. Players collect, build, and paint detailed models of their magicians, champions, creatures, and the terrain of the world itself.
1-4 Players: Cursebreaker is a competitive puzzle game. Players use the spells at their disposal to lay deadly traps, summon powerful creatures, and break curses to claim victory.
Solo Play: Games can be played head-to-head or played using a solo variant where the player is hunted by a deadly curse instead of other players.
Campaign Play: The game of Cursebreaker runs through eleven missions and features a campaign system as you progress through the Shattered Lands.
Miniatures: Each player controls a single magician, can hire up to two champions (fighters, rogues, or scouts), and will summon various creatures depending on the types of magic they choose to employ. Cursebreaker utilizes a wide range of miniatures from Relicblade, but players are welcome to use any miniatures to represent the characters in play.
Dice and Ranges: Cursebreaker uses six-sided dice and measures ranges in inches. Players will want a selection of d6s in various colors to represent the power assigned to various lores of magic.
The Battlefield: Games play on a 2’x2’ play area. Gameplay is greatly enhanced by terrain features built from model kits or from scratch.
Starting A Game
The Magician
Each player commands a single magician. Magicians are represented on the table by any spell-caster miniature the player wishes to use. The rules call for a miniature on a 25mm to 40mm base, so your options are wide open.
As player prepare their miniatures for a game of Cursebreaker, they will need a magician at the very least. However, it is possible to hire champions and you will likely summon creatures and various spell effects that can be represented by miniatures from the Relicblade range! Players are welcome to “re-skin” the game to match their miniature collection.
Magicians have three stats: Speed, Power Dice, and Endurance. All of these stats can be modified throughout each game and over the course of the campaign.
Speed: Magicians are speed 5, so they can move 5” during their activation.
Power Dice: Power dice are the core mechanic for Cursebreaker and magicians start each game with five power dice. Power dice are assigned to a specific lore of magic and once rolled, each die face represents a specific spell from that lore.
Endurance: Magicians start each game with 10 endurance. If their endurance is reduced to 0, they are removed from play.
Prepare Your Books of Magical Lore
In the world of Relicblade, wizards must have a personal connection to the source of a particular type of magic to wield it. But in the Shattered Lands of Cursebreaker, magic will manifest in force for any magician with sufficient will! This metaphysical reality is one of the core reasons that magicians are tempted to risk their lives to explore the Shattered Lands.
All magicians have knowledge of the Eight Books of Magic Lore. Before each game, players must choose which books they will prepare for the coming scenario.
Books of Lore: Lore books are cards with a specific set of spells. There are eight main books of lore and two books of Forbidden Lore that can be acquired throughout the campaign.
Choose Your Books: Magicians may select between 1 and 5 different books at the start of each game. Your selection will strongly influence your play style for the game.
Assign Power Dice: Magicians start each game with five power dice. Each die must be assigned to a specific lore of magic and each lore book must have at least one power die assigned to it. During the Power Phase of each round, players roll their dice to discover what spells will be at their disposal.
For example, if a player rolled a die assigned to the Book of Storms and the results was a 2, they would be able to spend the 2 during their activation to cast a lightning bolt.
Scenario Setup and Campaigns
“Crossing the threshold into the Shattered Lands is a decision that can never be taken lightly. From the first steps into the desolate mud fields to the dizzying heights of otherworldly palaces, the threat of complete obliteration is always underfoot. The very nature of reality is changed, and without deep arcane understanding, one is as likely to be utterly mutilated as they are to take their next step.
The journey into the Shattered Lands, be it for personal glory or to unmake the ruinous curses upon the world, is a quest that will test the limits of even the greatest magicians of the age.”
There are eleven scenarios in Cursebreaker representing cursed locations that will test your magician’s limits. Campaigns always start at the threshold as you attempt to cross the cursed Mud Fields. During setup, players much choose which locations they will explore on their deadly quest.
Scenarios include rules for deployment and setup, but most importantly, the scenarios describe the powerful Cursed Objects found there.
Cursed Objects
Cursed objects are the defining feature of a Cursebreaker scenario. Cursed objects are objectives that cast dangerous spells and summon horrible monsters. They are repositories of wild magic and hateful power. Players will be forced to not only contend with rival magicians, but the curses that blight the land itself!
Overview of Gameplay
Cursebreaker is played over a series of rounds. Each round is broken down into three phases. The phases are the Power Phase, the Curse Phase, and the Cleanse Phase.
The Power Phase
Roll Power Dice: During the power phase players roll all of their power dice to discover what spells they will have access to during the round and determine initiative. The results of the power dice dictate exactly what spells can be cast during the round.
Roll Power Dice on Cursed Objects: Players must also roll all of the power dice assigned to the cursed objects in play to discover what curses will be evoked during the curse phase. Being able to predict certain inevitabilities is an important aspect of a wizard’s abilities. Keeping track of what will happen, and what you can do about it, is the key to the Cursebreaker puzzle!
Determine Initiative: Players determine initiative by analyzing their power dice. Generally, the player with the fewest dice has initiative, otherwise it is the player who rolled the most 1s. Results of 1 are shifting power and are an important game mechanic for the flow of magic between players and cursed objects.
Activate Magicians: Players then take turns activating their magicians in initiative order. During a magician’s activation they can move their speed and cast two spells. Once each magician has activated TWICE play moves to the Curse Phase.
The Curse Phase
Evoke Curses: It may come as a surprise, but curses are a major part of Cursebreaker. Power dice assigned to a cursed object were rolled during the power phase as d3s.
Results of 1 are shifting power and are part of the flow of magic between magicians. Shifting power on cursed objects do not evoke curses but can be stolen by clever magicians looking to break the curses and grow in power.
Results of 2 are curse dice. Curse dice are resolved first and are spells cast by the object at specified targets. These spells usually target the nearest magician, so be careful where you and your creatures are standing. Remember what I said about needing to rely on your foresight.
Results of 3 are summoning dice. Summoning dice bring wild monsters into play. The cursed skull of an ancient basilisk will summon the hateful form of a terrible basilisk and the severed head of an ancient necromancer will bring forth a horde of sinister skeletons! Spooky stuff.
Creature Movement: After the cursed objects have resolved their dice, all the creatures on the board move. Creatures are moved in initiative order toward the nearest enemy. Unlike other games, players do not choose where the creatures go. They do not even control the creatures they summoned. Instead, the movement is deterministic and you must lean on your ability to predict this step to lay your plans.
Fights: After all the creatures have moved, any characters with fight stats fight in initiative order. There are no dice rolls, the fight stat is dealt as damage against the target’s endurance stat. Any characters reduced to 0 endurance are removed from play.
Once again, your ability to predict this step and whatever plans you laid in place are your path to victory!
The Cleanse Phase
Reduce Term: The cleanse phase is a quick upkeep step for spells that remain in play over multiple rounds.
Move Shifting Power Dice: Any 1s still active in a players Power Dice are moved from the player to the nearest cursed object! Shifting power dice are fickle and you must use them or lose them!
Assign New Power Dice: If you were able to acquire additional power dice during the round, they must now be assigned to a specific lore book in your possession.
Start a new Power Phase: Play then proceeds to a new round.
Spell Casting
Power Dice
Power dice represent the raw magic flowing through your magician. Power dice are rolled at the beginning of each round during the Power Phase. Each die was assigned to a specific book of lore before the game began. The resulting face of a given die is a specific spell from a specific lore.
Once rolled, the power dice are arranged alongside the lore books for the commanding player to reference.
Spend Dice to Cast Spells
During a magician’s activation, they spend a power die to cast the associated spell and the player resolves the spell effect. Spells have various effects including attacks, enchantments, and more. Spells are written in a shorthand to list all of its effects.
In this example image, you can see the player has rolled their dice and arranged them next to their lore books. During this round they will have access to the spells Riptide, High Tide, Shifting Power, Storm Heron, and Overpower.
Results of 1 and 6
All spell books have the same results for 1s and 6s. These are core game mechanics for spell casting and represent the fickle nature of wild magic!
Shifting Power Dice
Results of 1 are shifting power dice. These dice may be spent to steal a 1 from a magician or cursed object within 6”. Stealing power from cursed objects and other players is extremely important and your main way to win.
Alternatively, you can focus the rebellious power into an arcane bolt to deal 1 damage to a target within 6”. It doesn’t matter how much power your opponent has if they are dead.
Overpower Dice
Results of 6 are overpower dice. The magic is surging and you have two options. You can allow that power to flow and combine the 6 with another spell you are casting to make the spell more powerful. Or you can enjoy the euphoric rush of the surging magic to gain +1 endurance. Either way, it is going to feel really, really good.
Spell Traits
Spells have various traits that dictate how they are used and what effects they have. There is a lot of flexibility in how you will apply a given spell. With various targeting options and creative applications you can unlock very situational and surprising combinations.
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Ranges are measured in inches.
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Unless specified otherwise, all spells can target self, other characters, objects, or the ground. This opens certain spells to some very creative applications.
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Unless stated otherwise, all spells require line of sight to their target. There are no rules for cover saves, your best defensive option is to completely block line of sight.
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Damaging spells deal a specific amount of damage to the target. There are no armor saves and damage is a predetermined value. So you can very easily know how successful your plans will be. If you reduce the target’s endurance to 0 they are removed from play.
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Spells with an AOE value affect the target and any characters within the AOE value.
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Some spells can increase or decrease stats. Some spells can only target creatures and not magicians, so pay attention to the target traits. Some spells only change stas for a short time, while others last for a certain amount of time or even the whole game.
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Summoning spells conjure creatures or other physical manifestations. Summoned miniatures must be placed within line of sight and at least partially within range.
Summon spells have a maximum number of instances that can be in play. If the max is already in play you can choose to remove one of the other summons and place a new one.
summoned creatures have stats like normal creatures and remain in play until they are destroyed.
Spell Traits Continued
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Some spells assign terrain trait such as dangerous or rough, to a defined area.
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The Term trait defines how long a spell remains in play. During the Cleanse Phase, spells with a term have their term value reduced by 1. When the term reaches 0, the spell is removed from play.
There are Term tokens so players can place the appropriate number of term tokens on a spell to track the Term value. -
Move spells re powerful tools for control. Characters affected by a move spell are moved the Move value. This counts as a normal move for dangerous terrain, so you can move enemies into your walls of flame, or perform other tricky and moves. You can even just move yourself to get into position. Good stuff. Get creative.
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Bind effects force the target to skip their next move. This can be used offensively to prevent a creature from advancing on you, prevent a rival from entering a strategic position, or defensively to prevent your opponent from moving you into a dangerous spot. Again, you can get clever!
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Daze effects force a character to skip the fight step. You can prevent a powerful monster from attacking you. Or otherwise undermine your opponent’s plans.
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Characters affected by Hate treat all other characters as enemies. Why not take that over powered fire elemental and make it rip it’s own magician’s head off?
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All spells have an overpower, or OP, line. This shows what extra effects are applied when combined with a 6 (overpower die)
Creatures and Champions
Creatures
Creatures are a common sight in the Shattered Lands. Some are real, while many are the hateful manifestations of wild magic and summoned entities at your bidding.
Creatures have a suggested base size and three stats.
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Creature stat blocks are include a suggested base size. They are either mounted on a 25mm base or a 40mm base. Though players are welcome to re-skin creatures to fit their collection and use whatever miniatures they have available.
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Creatures move their speed in inches. Creatures cannot move through other characters
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When creatures fight they deal damage equal to their fight stat to a target enemy within 1” horizontally and 2” vertically.
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The endurance stat represents how much damage the creature can endure before being removed from play.
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Creatures set up at the start of the scenario and those summoned by cursed objects are friendly to one another.
Creatures summoned by a magician are friendly to that magician, their champion, and other creatures summoned by that magician.
Creatures not explicitly friendly are enemies!
Example Creature
Creature entries are written in the following shorthand “base size Speed/Fight/Endurance”
Gilblin: 25mm 5/1/2
The Gilblin is on a 25mm base, and is speed 5, fight 1, and endurance 2. Cute.
Champions
The Shattered Lands are extremely dangerous for non-magical beings. Despite this reality, champions heed the call to adventure and find themselves wandering the twisted ruins. Champions are brave travelers who can be enlisted to aid you on your quest in the Shattered Lands.
In campaign play, magicians can hire up to two champions by giving them a magical treasure as a retainer fee. If the champion dies they drop the treasure! Is that incentive to kill enemy champions? You tell me.
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There are three champion types. Fighters, Rogues, and Scouts.
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Champion stats are found on their contract card. They have the same stats as Creatures, but they also have access to a contract card that gives them access to special actions.
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When Champions are in play, they are activated during a special Champion Phase that takes place after the Power Phase and before the Curse Phase.
During the champion phase, champions are activated in initiative order. When activated, champions can move their speed and perform two actions.
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Champions have three action dice. These are rolled during the power phase and arranged next to the contract card just like power dice.
Action dice are spent to perform actions just like spells. However, action dice are not part of the exchange of shifting power since they are not magical in nature.
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Fumble dice cannot be spent. But they aren’t shifting power, so stop trying to vampire away their life.
Focus dice are spen alongside another die to make an action stronger. It’s like overpower, but its the champion trying extra hard.
Terrain Traits
Terrain is an important part of any miniatures game. Players should strive to create a terrain setup that reflects the location that the scenario takes place at. Once terrain is in place, players need to agree what traits apply to each terrain feature. These traits are usually self evident. Traits that have X/Y values should be assigned before the game starts.
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Blocking terrain blocks line of sight to characters touching the terrain piece. Think very tall grass, a bamboo thicket, or strange fog.
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Blockin Thru terrain only blocks line of sight to character on the other side of it. Like a wall. If you are touching a wall, but you’re on the same side as me, I can still see you. You’re getting fire-balled!
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Climbable terrain can be climbed. When a character moves into contact with climbable terrain reduce their remaining move by the height of the terrain. If they have remaining move then place them on top and continue to move.
lots of things are climbable, but some things aren’t. Like that fog we talked about.
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Dangerous terrain deals X damage to characters who touch it during any part of move.
That means you can use move spells to move creatures into dangerous terrain. Or just cheese grater them on it. -
Destroyable terrain has X endurance. These can be doors or scaffolding or something along those lines.
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Some things are dangerous when they are destroyed. Crash X/Y terrain deals X damage withn Y AOE when destroyed.
Exploding barrels are a simple example. But precarious scaffolding or rock spires work too!
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Movable terrain can be moved. You could make exploding barrels movable, or large LOS blocking wagons movable. Maybe a drawbridge that is up and can be moved down. Good stuff.
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Rough terrain reduces speed by X the first time a character touches it during a move. It is a simple but important trait when there are so many skeletons trying to get to you to eat your brains.
Do skeletons eat brain? Their bones are their money. I know that much.
Conclusion…
I worked hard on making this game and it is very fun and weird. I hope you’ll check it out. If you already own some Relicblade miniatures it is an extremely good value. You get a lot of new reasons to play games. Cursebreaker is a completely different play experience from Relicblade, but I think you will notice a lot of Sean Sutter style in here.
Cursebreaker is currently available for preorder through a Kickstarter campaign, but once it is published it will be a nice little bundle of a book, tokens, and cards for you to pick up and double down on your adventures in the world of Relicblade!
Thanks for checking all this out!
Your friend,
Sean