Sword & Sorcery – Arcane Portal: the Legend Continues...

Sword & Sorcery was a major hit in Summer 2017 and now Ares Games’ cooperative dungeon-crawler grows with the first major campaign expansion set, Arcane Portal. This is a great chance to try out the first Hero Packs already available: Onamor and Victoria - these two heroes are a perfect match for the challenges offered by Arcane Portal.

In Arcane Portal, players will be launched into a new adventure, where demons and sorcerers will be the main opponents. These new monsters have been designed to act in synergy with each other, creating powerful combos. Vanishing evil will not be easy!

Arcane Portal introduces new maps, treasures, monsters, event and equipment cards, along with four new Quests – with a longer playing time than those in the Core Set, and increasing the level of the epic challenges the Heroes will face. The players can go on from where the core set campaign, Immortal Souls, left off, or they can start again a new campaign with Act I (Level 2-4) heroes, and build up their strength in preparation for the forthcoming climax of the storyline, in Sword & Sorcery – “Act II” (actual title TBD, due for release next Fall).

You can play every quest in Arcane Portal as a stand-alone adventure, but if you play them one after the other, their challenges will leave the heroes breathless! They will have to use their powers and objects very wisely, to arrive in forces at the epic ending.

The Efreets - fire demons - will tire out the heroes both in attack and in defense, throwing flames and burning everything in their path.

The Nightwalkers - infernal specters -  will act to protect and heal their monsters, but even during duels they are fearsome, thanks to their resistance and to their capacity to attack piercing every kind of armor.

Behind these demons, are the Cultists. They will be the real nemesis of our heroes, evoking and activating hellish creatures, and able to attack with powerful spells when hard-pressed.

But the strength of these monsters is nothing compared to the power of the Hellspawn: this creature of flame and smoke is a horror evoked to burn Talon to the ground. Players must use all their tactical prowess to defeat this flying demon, avoiding his relentless blazing weapons.

Luckily, new Treasures and new Emporium cards will also aid players in their mission. It’s also possible to add these new treasures and emporium cards to the core set decks, enriching the game experience of the core set campaign.

Thanks to the Book of Secrets, a “choose your own path”-style booklet which is an integral part of the quests, the outcome of each mission is truly unpredictable. Story events and unique twists make the outcome of each mission variable, depending on player’s choices and moral alignment. At the end of every mission, whole parts of the map may remain unexplored or hidden in the Book of Secrets: The outcome of a quest is not only winning or losing - the actions of the heroes will also greatly influence the following adventures and encounters.

Sword & Sorcery – Arcane Portal releases together with two more new Hero Packs and one new Accessories Pack.

Ryld, one of the new heroes, is the son of a human and an elf. As a Bard with a magic voice, he charms his opponents and give courage and strength to the party. As a Blademaster, he is a highly skilled swordsman and becomes a deathly threat to every opponent.

The second hero, Morrigan, can be played as a Demon Huntress, master in use of a whip, or a Witch Huntress armed with a crossbow. Her weapons and her abilities are at the party’s service to defeat the hordes of supernatural creatures.

These heroes bring four new classes that can be used in all the adventures of Act I and II and of course are also perfect to fight the demon hordes of Arcane Portal.

Each Hero Pack is provided with all necessary to play with the new hero: Hero sheet, Hero and Power cards, miniatures (Hero/ghost), Soul Gem, tokens and new item cards to add to the mission or emporium.

Also releasing is the Ghost Soul Form Heroes Accessory Pack, a set including the ghost form of the heroes in the core set, which also includes a set of Background Talent Cards, optional cards to assign new skills or disadvantages to the players’ characters.

The Arcane Portal expansion, the new heroes, and the Ghost Soul pack will give the proper conclusion to Act I and lay the ground for Act II, where players will have to face new, darker challenges… A new legend, where “sword and sorcery” will determine the fate of the Talon Coast.