The Half-Brother
Duke Tomas wants your throne, and the great houses like him better than they like you.
- It escalates through
- Grievance, petition, obstruction, conspiracy, revolt
- It can end
- Reconciled, sidelined, crushed, or with you deposed
A medieval grand strategy game
Beyond the
King's Words
Rule a kingdom for sixty years through a council of ministers with real personalities, ideologies and grudges. Give your orders in your own words, and live with what they cost.
The opening
The throne is yours.
You have just taken the throne of Kelvarn at the age of forty. Your father died in the northern war, and the realm he left you is intact, solvent and quietly rotten.
Your half-brother, Duke Tomas, openly covets your crown. He is well liked by the great houses, he has the patience you lack, and he holds the granary keys of the river country that feeds your capital. Your Chancellor has something to hide, and your Steward knows what it is.
The harvest is failing and a barefoot preacher is rallying the hungry. To the west, the riders of Corwyn are restless. To the north, the Queen of Brackmoor keeps an emperor as her puppet.
Your reign has only just begun.
The council talks back
Twelve people who want something from you.
Every minister has skills, an ideology and a memory. They advise you, argue with each other, form factions and keep score. Over decades they may die for you, or betray you.
Your oldest ally
Lord Malvern
Put you on the throne. Still powerful at court, and in failing health.
Chancellor
Aldwin Reeve
Gifted administrator · venal · schemer · cynical
Marshal
Ser Brandt of Harrow
Noble-born · born soldier · bold · wrathful
Steward
Mirella of the Weighhouse
Merchant family · shrewd trader · blunt · cynical
Spymaster
Quill
Lowborn · schemer · paranoid
Chaplain
Father Odo
Clergy-trained · pious · compassionate
Your half-brother
Duke Tomas
Warden of the Louthton. He holds the valley's granary keys, and he is far too calm.
Your queen
Victoria
Of a banking family whose kin hold the counting-houses of half your towns.
Your daughter
Princess Nora
Nineteen, a formidable soldier, and barely speaking to you.
The barefoot preacher
Cassian
Demands bread for the hungry and justice for the corrupt. The crowds are listening.
A veteran at the door
Captain Hale
Takes a safe conduct to mean the walls as well as the road.
Queen of Brackmoor
Isabeau
Keeps the Emperor of Farhold as her puppet, and looks south.
Try it · Spring, Year 1
Sit your first council.
The game's opening scene, with its real choices. Pick how you begin and watch the court react.
The First Council
The table is older than the kingdom and every seat at it was filled by your father. Lord Malvern rises last and slowest, one hand flat on the oak to carry his weight, and says what none of the others will: the treasury holds what it holds, and a king who confuses his house's purse with the crown's is poor by midsummer. Then he sits, out of breath, and the hall waits to learn what kind of king asks the first question.
Next month: The Brotherhood of the Sheaf. Quill has found a letter.
In-game
See the realm.
Armies on a living 3D map, campaigns planned on the War Room table, and the whole kingdom laid out as a star chart.
The first chapter
Three crises, one crown.
The opening chapter runs three storylines at once. Each can end several ways, and how you settle one changes the others.
The Hungry Crowd
The granaries are low, and Cassian is turning hunger into a movement.
- It escalates through
- Grain shortages, protests and the preacher's rallies
- It can end
- Fed, suppressed at a lasting price, or won over
Spears in the West
The riders of Corwyn are mustering to raid eastward, into your land.
- It escalates through
- Warnings, muster reports and envoys
- It can end
- Raid repelled, raid suffered, or deterred before it comes
Coming to Windows, macOS and Linux
Be among the first to rule.
Join the playtest circle for early builds and a direct line to the team, or dive into everything the game can do.