Sword & Sorcery – Immortal Souls launched this Summer and immediately received rave reviews and great commercial success.

Not surprisingly, Ares Games is now following up the initial release of this cooperative dungeon crawler with various expansions, which are meant to enhance gameplay and increase replayability of the initial core set (already quite significant, as the game features five Heroes – each playable as two different “classes,” depending on the Law/Chaos alignment – and a campaign with seven quests).

In Sword & Sorcery, the flow of an adventure may change dramatically depending on the characters you’re playing. Playing with a team composed of a “tank” like the Paladin, Ecarus, together with a healer like the Dwarf Cleric, Thorgar, rather than with a team-up between the Elf Sorceress, Auriel, and the Human Thief, Shae, gives a completely different feeling.

For this reason, many new Heroes, each with unique abilities and gameplay, have already been developed by the design studio, Gremlin Project, and the first expansions released for the game focus on two of them, the Necromancer/Summoner Onamor, and the Pirate/Sea Captain Victoria Kromi. Each of these Hero Packs is further enhanced with the hero, figures, and cards, plus additional cards representing legendary items, like the magic sword Sea Fin or the powerful Ritual Dagger. Though, both of these new characters have one thing in common: they’re cursed, dark personalities, renegades from their kin. This is about it as far as similarities go!

Onamor the Necromancer is a loner, who grew up with arcane tomes as his only companions, obsessed with death. The years spent learning the obscure art of necromancy have twisted his mind, but he’s now capable of rising from the dead his fallen enemies and forcing them to do his bidding. Onamor, however, can also be played as a lawful Summoner, who utilizes summoned creatures to exact revenge on the demons that murdered his parents. He can also rely on two powerful companions — the Nightwalker and the Efreet — and is capable of manipulating the elements with his arcane powers.

Victoria Kromi, on the other hand, is a skilled fighter and sailor. Her lifepath was different, as a Sea Captain or a Pirate, but in both cases, she’s been struck by the dark spell of an ancient treasure, and is now forever damned to live a normal life during the day, but to be a cursed soul after the sun sets - so she’s now a dark creature who benefits from the night to gain additional powers. As a Pirate, she’s hungry for more gold; as a Captain, she’s bravery incarnate. In either case, she’s a resourceful sailor, capable not only of raising lots of money, but also using that coin to turn her enemies into allies.

Each Hero Pack will feature two figures of each Hero (the “normal” version of the Hero, and his/her Ghost Form, replacing the figure when the Hero is eliminated – there’s no “player elimination” in Sword & Sorcery), as well as all the necessary bits to play the character – Companion figures (for Onamor’s summoned creatures), Soul Gem, Hero Sheet, cards, and rules.

These releases herald what looks like a great year for Sword & Sorcery – in Spring of 2018 the first new campaign set, Arcane Portal, is slated for release, adding to the game new quests centered around powerful other-planar creatures and a monstrous final demonic opponent, the Hellspawn; more new Heroes, including diverse characters as a Dwarf Berserker, a Witch Hunter, a Bard, and a Barbarian; and a massive campaign, Darkness Falls, which brings the Immortal Souls campaign to a climactic conclusion and allows the Heroes to liberate themselves from the cursed spell of the High Priest who called them back from the dead to free the Talon Coast from the clutches of evil.