“Frodo threw himself down, and lay on the ground shivering. His left arm was lifeless, and his side and shoulder felt as if icy claws were laid upon them. The trees and rocks about him seemed shadowy and dim.”
    –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Some wounds do not heal quickly. Some wounds cut at your soul as much as they cut at your flesh. They weary you. They weigh you down. And even if they heal, they may leave scars. Your body may still ache at their memories. Some of these wounds may not be physical at all; they may be spiritual – the hollow ache of losing a loved one, the bitter sting of betrayal.

In The Lord of the Rings Saga Expansions for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game , these are the types of wounds represented by the game’s burdens. Like boons, which reward you for your successes, burdens can take a variety of forms. In The Black Riders Saga Expansion, we saw burdens appear as treachery cards and an objective card with a setup penalty. Now, as we eagerly await the release of The Road Darkens Saga Expansion, lead developer Caleb Grace reveals some of the new burdens we might receive and offers some insight into their development.

Evils Not Easily Remedied

In our last preview of The Road Darkens , we looked at some of the box’s exciting boon cards. In this final preview for the second The Lord of the Rings Saga Expansion, I want to look at a few of the burden cards with which you will soon have to contend. I’ll start by walking you through the creation of one of my favorite burden cards, Grievous Wound ( The Road Darkens , 88).

When designing a burden card, I like to start with a significant event from the book. In this case, we start with the time that Frodo was stabbed by an Orc spear. For a moment, the readers were led to believe that the Ring-bearer had died and the quest was in real jeopardy. This moment of peril took place in Moria, so it was an easy choice to introduce this burden in the expansion’s second scenario, Journey in the Dark .

After choosing the moment I want to represent, and determining where it will appear, the next step is to answer a few key questions that will give the burden its core identity:

This is definitely one of the most challenging stages of the design process for burdens, and arriving at the answer to each of those questions is a little process of its own.

What Type of Card Will the Burden Be?

First of all, the card type is determined primarily by its function. In the case of Grievous Wound, I knew that it would need to attach to a hero so that it could physically remind players that the hero was hurt. I could have made it a treachery that attached to a hero as part of its “When revealed” effect, but I wanted Grievous Wound to have Setup instructions. Adding the burden to the staging area at the beginning of each scenario would ensure that it would impact the players’ decisions throughout their games, so we gave Grievous Wound the objective card type.

What Effect Will the Burden Have?

The next step was to determine its effect. Matt and I have mentioned in previous articles how we draw heavily from the text in order to merge card effects with theme, and I feel that Grievous Wound is a good example:

“ Forced: After a hero takes damage, if Grievous Wound is unattached, attach to that hero. (Counts as a Condition attachment with the text: ‘ Forced: After attached hero exhausts, deal 1 damage to it.’)”

This effect was inspired by the passage from The Fellowship of the Ring that follows after Frodo was stabbed:

“Well, it did not skewer me, I am glad to say,” said Frodo; “though I feel as if I had been caught between a hammer and an anvil.” He said no more. He found breathing painful.

That moment stood out to me because it showed that Frodo was still flesh and blood underneath his mithril shirt. The spear thrust may have been thwarted by his hidden coat of mail, but the blow was still powerful enough to injure him. As a result, he found it difficult to exert himself, and that’s what I wanted the burden to convey by dealing one damage to the attached hero each time he or she exhausts.

How Do Players Earn the Burden?

The last decision to make is the most difficult: How do the players earn the burden? The answer to this question can be almost anything, but there are some parameters that we use to help decide. It should be easier to earn a burden than to avoid it; otherwise, we lose a lot of good tension. Trying to avoid the burden should also make the scenario more challenging. Since most players will avoid taking burdens whenever they can, they should have to work harder to that end.

Since each burden is introduced in a specific scenario, earning a burden should also tie into the theme of that scenario. In a previous article , I talked about how in Journey in the Dark , you’re racing through Moria to escape without confronting The Balrog ( The Road Darkens , 44) – or, at the very least, not until you’ve made your way to the last quest stage. I also revealed that, if you do encounter The Balrog, the only way to destroy it is to sacrifice a hero at The Great Bridge ( The Road Darkens , 50). As a result, many players probably just assume that it would always be better to run from The Balrog rather than lose a hero in campaign mode. Well, that is a valid option, but it comes at a price. The resolution on the campaign card for Journey in the Dark reads:

“The first player must choose one of the burden treachery cards ( Pursued by the Enemy or Shadow of Fear ), and one of the burden objective cards (Grievous Wound or Overcome by Grief ) to add to the Campaign Pool. If The Balrog is still in play, the first player must choose all 4 burden cards instead. The chosen burdens have been earned by the players.”


The two sides of the Journey in the Dark campaign card

Just as the Fellowship paid a high price to escape from Moria, and was forever altered by the experience, you cannot defeat Journey in the Dark in campaign mode without earning a couple of burdens. However, if The Balrog is left alive, the dangers of your quest increase, and you earn all four of the burdens. I find this choice particularly interesting because defeating The Balrog to avoid earning two burdens also means sacrificing a hero. Not only is that thematic, but it also has real significance in campaign mode where losing a hero makes it impossible to use that character in any subsequent scenarios.

When you consider the burdens that you can earn and you think about having to deal with them for the rest of the campaign, it should cause you to seriously consider which hero you might be able to part with in order to avoid that fate. Hopefully, wrestling with that decision will create a fun and memorable moment in your The Lord of the Rings campaign!

The Council Is Still in Session

With its new boons and burdens, The Road Darkens Saga Expansion gives weight not only to its own scenarios but to all The Lord of the Rings Saga Expansion scenarios to follow. Accordingly, you’ll want to think carefully about how you can best make use of your boons and what steps you might be able to take to suffer as few wounds and evils as possible.

Meanwhile, these concerns have also been weighing heavily upon the minds of Frodo Baggins ( The Road Darkens , 1) and his companions. While we had anticipated that The Road Darkens would be at retailers this week, the different members of the Council of Elrond have been unable, thus far, to agree on the course of action to take in order to ensure that Isildur’s Bane should never again fall into the hands of Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor. These deliberations have taken longer than expected as one man is currently arguing that Frodo’s ring should be taken to Minas Tirith and used against the power of Mordor. While we wait for the debate to conclude and The Road Darkens to arrive, we will post updates and spoilers on our Facebook page , starting tomorrow with a look at the expansion’s new Boromir ally.

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a cooperative card game that puts 1-2 players (or up to four with an additional Core Set) in control of the most powerful characters and artifacts of Middle-earth. Players will select heroes, gather allies, acquire artifacts, and coordinate their efforts to face Middle-earth’s most dangerous fiends. The Living Card Game format allows players to customize their gaming experience with monthly Adventure Pack expansions to the core game.

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