Gambit: The Pyre Wars

The Pyre

At the centre of the war is an ancient, world-scarring power that empires fear and covet in equal measure — and it does not hold still. The Pyre moves. The ground that matters this turn is not the ground that mattered last turn, and an army dug into a strong position is an army that has committed to a place the fire is already leaving.

Hold the ground it walks over, or cut down the enemy leader.

Those are the two roads to victory, and they pull in opposite directions. Chasing the Pyre spreads you across the board. Hunting the enemy leader concentrates you. You cannot do both well, and choosing which to abandon is the gambit the game is named for.

Who fights

The field is not two tidy armies of the same shape. Knights and assassins, druids and zealots, ghosts, spiders, necromancers and shapeshifters all have a stake in the fire — the loyal and the opportunistic pressed into the same campaign, with the tone of old wartime chronicles and imperial court intrigue running underneath it.

Playing alone

Take the field against a friend, or against the computer. The solo game is the same game, not a reduced version of it: one seat is simply played for you.

Where it stands

This is a living build. It runs in the browser and changes as it is playtested, so what you play today may differ from what you played last month — usually because something at the table wasn't working.