A competitive euro-hybrid board game where noble houses expand across hexagonal terrain, pact with dragons, and forge a legacy through prestige or infamy across fifteen rounds of strategic warfare and political intrigue.
A competitive euro-4x hybrid engine builder with area control and exploration, where Houses choose the path of Prestige or Infamy in a dispute for Legacy, using dragons, politics, trade, and resource management to rise beyond all others.
The World
And from the clash of ancient magic, rifts tore open the earth. From them came calamities. Dragons. Sovereigns of Fire, Water, Earth, Light, Shadow and Air. “Gifts,” whispered the Wandering God. And so the prophecy was carved into the black stones of the Exiled King’s Castle. Three times the world will change. The rifts marked the beginning. Dragons and men will fight side by side, and at the end of the Third Age, one House will rule over all others.
In Ardenrift, the world is modular: every game builds the map differently. Exploration cards reveal dragon lairs, resource caches, traps, and boons, and the tone sharpens across three ages as the stakes escalate toward the final reckoning.
Gameplay
Claim hexes with outposts, strongholds, and refineries. Generate resources and build your influence, and domain.
Send expeditions to the new world, explore unclaimed territories and find dragon lairs, resources, ancient traps, and magical events. Each of three ages has its own deck of forty cards of things to fear and to conquer.
Wage war, pact with dragons, navigate the Dragon Council's political pressure, and fight for the exiled king's castle, the most dangerous and lucrative hex on the map.
Scoring
Every house accumulates both Prestige and Infamy throughout the game. At the end, the game determines which path defines you. the noble guardian or the feared conqueror and measures your legacy from that identity.
The question is never whether you earn both. It's which identity you were truly building toward, and whether you committed hard enough to outpace every rival on that path.
At a Glance
Factions
Each house bears ascendancy in two elemental forms of magic. Their names, seats, and vows shape the political landscape of Ardenrift.
Mechanics
Every round begins with, your territory generates resources automatically based on what you control. Then each house resolves two different actions before the Dragon Sigil passes onward.
The constraint of two unique actions per round means tempo depends on sequencing, not repetition. Planning a strong round means deciding which pair unlocks the most value before the board shifts again.
Move the time marker. Check for Dragon Council or age transitions.
Collect resources from influence and domain. Feed strongholds or suffer consequences.
Explore, expand, build, trade, recruit, attack, pick two, no repeats.
First-player rotates. Dragon Council resolves on rounds 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15.
Scales of Ardenrift is in active development. The core mechanics, noble houses, and world-building are coming together through iterative playtesting and design. We're looking for players who want to shape this game with us.
If you're interested in trying an early version, book a playtest session and experience Ardenrift firsthand.
