Nova Aetas: Renaissance

Stranger in a foreign land
over 1 year ago – Fri, Nov 25, 2022 at 07:49:17 PM

Update Contents:

• Mass Production Started
• Fatima Spotlight

Hello Guys!

We are back for our regular NAR update appointment. We have delayed publishing this update for a few days in order to bring you a piece of news that will definitely please you.

The mass production of NAR Wave 1 has officially started!

Yes, we know that this news comes much later than expected due to issues that we have repeatedly mentioned and for which we have taken responsibility. However, we also know that the quality of the restyling we applied to NAR made it better than the version presented in the KS in all aspects... and soon you will be able to judge for yourself the quality of the final product!

Returning to mass production, the first stage is focused on miniature printing. All of the models' files and molds have been ready for about a year and a half (it was one of the first steps we completed), but we agreed with the factory to delay the start of printing until the files for the paper material were also in the final stage of pre-production. We did this to avoid having the miniatures ready too early before the paper material and having them sit in storage for too long.

 The miniatures' mass production will end in early 2023 when the paper material files are also nearing completion, and as a result, the storage period will be definitely short, minimizing the risk of damage.

Following this good news, let's get back to business with game spoilers, this time focusing on one of the community's most eagerly anticipated Heroes!

Fatima the Traveler 

Fatima was the last Hero revealed during the campaign, and she led us on a wild hunt that brought the (Dino)Draco into the world of NAR, with an expansion presented at a super-affordable price!

 Fatima was created to introduce a Hero dedicated to range attacks, but who could also assist other Heroes in ways that other Support Heroes could not.

Fatima will begin the campaign as a Wayfarer, relying on a diverse set of skills and equipment to attack from afar, move, and support other Heroes — especially with her exotic musical instrument, the Oud.

 Thanks to the Oud, Fatima can give out to other Heroes a special token called Fate token. A Hero can discard this token during any Test to add a Fate Die to their dice pool. This die has far more advantageous faces and is far more likely to produce Astro Symbols than a standard die. Using this die at the right time will increase your chances of success during an attack or defense, as well as during a feature test, critical for a successful mission.

 The Fate die also has two sides with Musical Note on them. These sides will not provide Test successes but will activate additional effects of some of Fatima's skills and charge her Heroic Points.

Fatima, like all Heroes, must choose between the two Advanced Classes at some point.

The Explorer focuses Fatima in ranged combat through particularly powerful Enhancements. Furthermore, The Explorer makes extensive use of skills that are activated when another Hero obtains the Musical Note through the Fate Die.

 The Bard, on the other hand, will concentrate on support, and in addition to having more skills that are triggered by Fate tokens, she will be able to use the three spells of the Bardic School of Magic; a school that is mainly focused on providing various bonuses to the group of Heroes. "O' Sole Mio," for example, activates a buff to a Hero's attacks if they obtain Sun Astro symbols on one of their Attack tests.

In conclusion, despite the fact that Fatima lacks healing skills, she may prove to be one of the most important support Heroes in your party, and her ranged offensive power distinguishes her gameplay from that of Vincenzo and Gregorio. If you enjoy playing these types of characters, you will have plenty of options and will be able to tackle multiple runs of the campaign without becoming bored with Heroes who are too similar to each other!

That's all for now; we'll see you in the next update when we'll take a break from Heroes spotlights to show you a previously unseen aspect of NAR: the Travel Phase and Events!

We'll leave you with a small spoiler, and see you in the next update!

Back from the Spiel!
over 1 year ago – Sun, Oct 23, 2022 at 02:36:11 AM

Update Contents:

• Spiel '22 Report
• Altair Spotlight

Hello, guys!

The Spiel has passed and we are back very enthusiastic about how the convention went! Our RUNAR-themed booth hosted tons of friends, old and new, who sat down at our demo tables and played our games!

We can proudly tell you that Nova Aetas: Renaissance was certainly among the stars of the party, with a demo table showing the materials in their final look. Many fans have played the campaign prologue, thus experiencing the introductory game of the Core Box, the one that will teach you to play without having to read the manual.

We enjoyed meeting many NAR backers, and we have been happy that those who have had the opportunity to try the game and touch the quality of the materials left the booth super happy, knowing that their support and patience are finally very close to being paid back! Thanks, Thanks Thanks!

At the next Spiel, NAR will no longer be a preview game, but a game finished and delivered!

Let's go back to the Wave 1 spoilers now!

As we told you in the last update, we have decided to include in wave 1 all the Heroes unlocked during the KS campaign, we have 3 brand new Heroes to show you and we could not start with the most famous assassin in history!

Nothing is true, everything is permitted

Altair was the guest of honor on the Kickstarter campaign, courtesy of Ubisoft (we love you Ubisoft!). As huge fans of the Assassin's Creed series, we were honored to be able to bring the first legendary assassin into our game! Yes, we know... Ezio would have been more on the "Renaissance" theme, but he was already too busy killing Magisters in the Lodge of the Black Rose. It was really great to create rules that reflected the skills and character of this fantastic character!

Altair will be your melee "DPS"! In addition to having many skills that allow him to move quickly on the field and evade the Enemies, once he arrives adjacent to an Enemy, he will have many ways of inflicting wounds, starting of course with his famous Hidden Blade.

Those of you who are fans of the video game will find many quotes about his abilities, such as the Eagle Vision and the spectacular Leap of Faith.

Creating his two Advanced Classes has been the most challenging part. How to make such a cool character evolve while respecting his background? We then created the Mentor and Master.

The Mentor will change Altair's role towards a Support character. He will use his abilities to teach the principles and fighting techniques of the Creed to other Heroes, providing numerous bonuses and Positive Statuses. However, he will remain a lethal character in melee.

The Master will increase Altair's chances of doing damage and moving quickly on the battlefield, thanks to the large use of his Reaction Skills.

These abilities allow heroes to interrupt enemy actions to take a quick Action out of their activation. These are very useful skills if used at the right time, but they have a limit: when a Hero uses a Reaction Skill he gets a Reaction token, which will be discarded at the beginning of his activation, by spending Action Points. It is also not possible to perform a Reaction as long as you have one of these tokens.

The Master uses many of these skills and also has the ability to discard the Reaction token in alternative ways, so that he can use more Reactions than other Heroes can.

Finally, Altair's Destiny Cards will make you discover the reason for his presence in the world of NAR, with a surprise ending! Don't worry, we'll talk more about Destiny Cards in one of the next updates!

We have come to an end for today! As always, let us know if you liked these spoilers and... who is your favorite assassin from the Assassin's Creed Series!

We post again the actual timeline, confirming that things are moving forward as indicated.

See you at the next update!

Fireball!

The Spiel is coming!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Oct 04, 2022 at 03:14:02 AM

• Update Contents:
• Wave 1 timeline
• Road to the Spiel 2022
• Ashes Special Issue
• Chimera preview (NAR/BRW)

Hello, Guys!

This update came out a little later than expected, because we waited for more certain information and a better level of detail, in order to give you a complete timeline for the delivery of Wave 1.

Let's start with a surprise: in the original plan, we announced that in wave 1 we would only send the "crossover" Stretch Goals between Nova Aetas: Renaissance and Black Rose Wars, which means those included within the Magister pledge. After analyzing the working plan and actual status, we decided to expand the announced content of Wave 1, including all the Stretch Goals unlocked during the Campaign. In the last few months of development, we realized that a lot of the Stretch Goals material had already been developed and tested and that we would be able to get it all done in a relatively short extra time. Including all the Stretch Goals in Wave 1 means being able to deliver the complete Kickstarter version to all of you, thus giving you the complete gaming experience right away. The amount of material you will receive with Wave 1 will keep you busy for a long time!

So let's re-list what Wave 1 will contain:

• Nova Aetas Renaissance Core box
• Hyperion Expansion
• Draco Expansion
• Mediceo Expansion
• Minotaur Expansion

All Unlocked Stretch Goals

• 4 Additional Heroes
• 4 Bonus Mission
• 2 Additional Hunt encounter
• 20 Event cards
• 20 Random Encounter cards
• 12 Zodiac cards
• 9 City cards
• 10 Nightmare cards
• 10 Divine cards
• 5&6th Players components
• 2 additional Map tiles
• A lot of other stuff but this list is becoming too long!
• Ok, ok, ok, of course in this list you have to add all the material for the crossover stretch goals with BRW.

We are dedicating a lot of energy to editing and translations since the narrative part of NAR is a fundamental element of the game and we want it to be carried out in the best way for all 5 languages. The quantity of text to be translated, combined with the quality that we want to achieve for the final product, does not allow us great room for maneuver to try to speed up this phase.

With a work team that has involved more than 20 people, with more than 2 years spent on this project, certainly underestimated by us at the time of the Kickstarter campaign, Nova Aetas: Renaissance is an unprecedented productive effort for us, far beyond all previous and actual projects! Know that our ambition is to make NAR a new benchmark in our industry!

In the image, we have indicated the whole timeline with the various phases of the project, as you can see the fulfillment operations will begin in April 2023. Wave 2 will contain only 3 expansions: Catacombs, Vesuvio, and Under Siege. Wave 2 will be completed and delivered by the end of 2023.

A little more patience and you will enjoy the fruits of all this work... We will continue to keep you updated regularly with our updates!

Essen Spiel '22  (6th-9th Oct)

As usual, LMS will be present again at the most important European Convention of our sector, with a bigger booth and with many demo tables. Obviously, we will bring NAR and dedicate to it a fantastic demo table. We will let you try the prologue mission, with the help of the "Quick Start" booklet that we added to the core box. We invite you all to come and try this new feature, which will let you start to play and enjoy the game without the need to dive deeply into the entire rulebook at the beginning of your experience! 

We will also bring with us lots of the final material: miniatures, cards, the new Hero sheets with the beautiful Hero boards just received from the factory! So you have lots of good reasons to come visit us, we look forward to seeing you at Booth 2E112!

Ashes Special Issue

As per our tradition, we have created a new issue of our magazine Ashes for the Spiel. This year Ashes will include a fantastic new promo miniature, Helblindi, directly from our upcoming project: RUNAR! 

This ice giant shaman with its Promo Miniature can be also played as an Enemy in NAR, with its special Enemy card. It can be also played in BRW and BRW: Rebirth as a new Mage, with its personal spells and its Mage card! You will also find a new promo Mission for D.E.I.!

Here you have all the options to buy the new issue of Ashes with Helblindi:

1 - You can pre-order Ashes at our shop and pick them up directly at our booth during the convention days. Alternatively, you can buy it directly at the booth, but remember the quantities will be limited, so if you are interested we suggest you pre-order it!

2 - You can pre-order Ashes on our shop and have it shipped directly to your home, shipments will start from 6 October.

3 - If you have a Nova Aetas Renaissance pledge or late pledge, you can pre-order Ashes on our shop and have it added to your order, along with all the rest of the NAR's items, without additional shipping costs! Simply enter the "BACKERSNAR" coupon at checkout.

Choose the way that works best for you and get ready to fight this icy Giant!

Chimera Spotlight!

And now we want to present you the Chimera, the protagonist of one of the Hunts present in the main campaign of NAR. These Side Missions can be undertaken in two ways: as random events as you move up and down Italy, activated by the Event Cards; or you can decide to face them by visiting the Inn during a Rest Phase between one Mission of the Campaign and the other.

In both cases, you will find yourself facing a very different mission from those of the Campaign! Well ... considering that every single mission of the Campaign is unique and completely different from the others, it should be already clear to you that in NAR the concept of "different" is practically the norm! This mission will put you in front of a mighty opponent, even quite angry, that you will have to beat to recover Reagent and Formulae (Recipes) to create new and powerful equipment!

As with all Hunts, the Chimera has its own Prey Card (tarot size) which lists all of its stats and special abilities, and a deck of 18 Action Cards that will determine its behavior during the battle. Each Action Card drawn from its deck reveals a move that the Chimera will perform during its activation. Each Chimera Action will have an Action Points cost that will cause its Activation Token to move on the Horologium, just like any other model in the game. Also for the Chimera, the management of the Horologium and the artificial intelligence for the choice of its target will add more tactical elements to a game mechanics well known by lovers of the Dungeon Crawler genre.

The deck of Action Cards can be played keeping the cards in the original order, or you can decide to mix it to add more unpredictability, especially if you want to play again against a Prey to try to recover all its loot ... especially when among its rewards there's a weapon called Flail of the Ages!

The Chimera will use its agility and power to attack the Heroes, with fast and savage attacks. In addition, its 3 heads will be able to inflict specific effects, thanks to the use of the Astra Symbols present in the NAR dice. For example, if a "Star" is added to an attack, you can be sure that Goat's head will deliver a good blow to its target, giving it the "Stunned" status.

Also, the Magisters of the Black Rose will meet this mythical beast in the Lodge, thanks to the new Forgotten Spell included also in the Magister Pledge called Spawn of Echidna!

What do you think of this terrible monster? Let us know what you think of the hunting rules!

We give you an appointment in mid-October for a new update with a complete report of Spiel'22 and new spoilers, but we left to you a (long) gallery of images with the print-proofs of the final paper material of the core box! Enjoy it and give us your feedback!

Necromantic Power!
over 1 year ago – Sat, Aug 27, 2022 at 08:53:55 PM

Update Contents:

• Onamor preview (NAR/BRW)
• Boogeyman preview (NAR/BRW)

Summer is ending, and we return to talk about the Wave 1 content! We continue the overview of the "crossover" materials for the Magister Pledge! Today we will get to know better two disturbing characters who will appear during your adventures in Renaissance Italy.

Onamor is one of the characters from other games that we hosted during the KS campaign.

Directly from the world of Sword & Sorcery, created by Simone Romano and Nunzio Surace, Onamor is a powerful necromancer. It will appear as the protagonist in the Secondary Mission (unlocked during the KS), written for you by his "dad" Simone Romano.

But Onamor miniature is truly wonderful, and we would use it in more than "only" one mission! So we created a new generic enemy who can be encountered in many missions as a random enemy, generated by an Enemy Draft.

Dark Druid is part of the Faun faction, it is in fact a druid that has tightened pacts with the Priamevi to discover the darkest secrets of their magic. In return, he committed to helping them defend their territories from other humans. A truly fearful enemy able to combine the powers of death with those of nature, incorporating it will make a mission much harder than expected!

But Onamor is also a new Mage who can be used in your Black Rose Wars and Rebirth games!

Do you love necromancers, but have you tired of Rebecca or Arianna? Then Onamor will be able to give you a new sprint to guide your undead horde!

His personal spell "Undeath and Fire" definitely keeps faith with its title. The "light" side allows you to summon any Undead with a Health value of 3 or less, and then you can also immediately activate any of your Undead!

The "dark" side has a more direct effect, which inflicts 3 wounds to all models in a Room within range 2 and then places 2 Instability in the same Room.

It is easy to say that this Spell is perfect to enter a deck built with cards from the schools of Necromancy and/or Technomancy!

But Onamor is not the only necromancer in the city. An ancient and terrible figure lives in the damp sewers of Venice, an old enemy of the human race from a far past!

Somehow the Boogeyman managed to follow Genesis's crew on Earth to take revenge after the defeat suffered by him and Andromeda 1.0 on the Silicio planet (you should know this story if you have played the Silicio expansion for Sine Tempore). He remained dormant for millennia, but now he has recovered his strength and has become the master of the underground kingdom under the city of Venice. Using his magical skills (or rather psionics) he has subjugated powerful personalities of the city (perhaps also the Doge!) And took control of the Venetian underworld. 

When the fog rises on Venetian nights, and a masked black-cloaked figure wanders in the canals, many tremble with fear.

Boogeyman (with his faithful Dolls) will appear on a Secondary Mission dedicated to him. Also for Boogeyman, a generic profile has been created for the Venice faction. In this case, his model will represent a Necromancer, a Mage transformed by the Boogeyman into a being similar to him.

For sure, the Boogeyman is the oldest "living" Mage on Earth, and obviously, he has some kind of link with the Black Rose. So he can join the wars of the Black Rose as a Mage!

The "light" side of his personal spell "Necrotic Technology" allows him to summon 3 Dolls in one swoop and immediately activate one of them. The "dark" side allows you to use Dolls not only to inflict damage but also to convert damage to opponents. You can Convert 2 damage on each Mage who is in the same Room as one of your Evocations.

The Dolls are an exclusive Evocation for the Boogeyman, and they can be very dangerous if you mass launch them against an enemy model. Using them individually, their offensive potential is very reduced but they will still allow the Boogeyman to convert 1 damage to the Mage they attacks.

That's all for today! As always let us know what you think of these 2 bad guys!

As you can see from the material that we have been showing you in the updates for about 2 months, the work on wave 1 is proceeding toward its conclusion and we are very happy that each update keeps high your hype!

As always thanks for your support!

See you in 2 weeks with other Magister Pledge-related spoilers!

Fireball!

Born to be Wild
over 1 year ago – Mon, Aug 08, 2022 at 01:26:29 AM

Update contents:

• Hero Spotlight: Agorix
• Agorix in Black Rose Wars & Rebirth

Hello, guys!

A new Spotlight on the NAR Heroes but different from the usual! Today's protagonist is also part of the Magister Pledge, and therefore for the first time, we will show you the material dedicated to BRW and Rebirth!

Agorix is ​​a young Magister of the Black Rose Lodge and has dedicated his life to studying the schools of magic that most depend on the power of nature and on Gaea herself.

He begins his career with the Druid class, a very atypical class which, to use gamer slang, can be defined as "Tank-Caster". Like Rebecca, Agorix will be able to use various Spells depending on his class, but unlike the charming sorceress, he will be able to count on skills that will make him very resistant so as to be able to replace Valerio in the role of protector of the group. As a Druid, he will be able to count on 3 spells from the Transmutation School, which will unleash the fury of nature on the battlefield. Another peculiarity of Agorix is his Familiar Eracleto. This grumpy owl will help its master in various ways, distracting his enemies and interacting with many of Agorix's abilities.

As he progresses through the campaign he can choose to become a Geomancer or an Animist.

The Geomancer will shift his play style towards the role of a real caster. Thanks to the use of the Geomantic Die (his Bond Equipment), he will be able to place up 3 Geopod tokens on the map that can be used as a launch point for his spells, or they can be removed to trigger additional effects to spells and skills.

The Animist, on the other hand, will aim to improve Agorix's "punch" qualities, giving him powerful Physical Attacks and Boosts to his offensive and defensive skills. The Animism school will also aim to fortify and heal Agorix, until his Heroic Skill transforms him into a mighty Owl Bear (merging with Eracleto), a huge arcane beast capable of shattering even the toughest enemies.

If you are wondering what Bond Equipment is, it's easy to say! When a Hero switches to an Advanced Class they will automatically receive one new piece of equipment, which is essential for using the mechanics of the new class. All Advanced Classes have one of these gears that adds an extra layer of depth to each Hero's play style.

But as we said, Agorix can also be used as a new Magister in your BRW and Rebirth games!

The light/straight side of his Personal Spell "Naturalis Invocation" will allow him to summon Eracleto, and to place himself in any Green Room of the Lodge. The dark/reverse side will maintain the link with the Green Rooms. You may place 2 of your Instabilities in a Green Room of your choice, healing a wound for each Instability you fail to place! A truly versatile effect that can be used in different ways depending on whether you need to destroy/build rooms or to take advantage of an emergency cure to prevent an opponent from taking your Trophy!

Eracleto is Agorix's exclusive pet and once summoned, it will follow the classic BRW Pet rules, with the only exception that only Agorix will be able to use it. When in a hunting position, he will be a decent damage dealer (Eracleto has a bad temper!) While in guard position he will prove very useful for removing and placing Instability in the Lodge!

We have come to the end of this spotlight! We are curious to know what you think of this new hero for both NAR and BRW/Rebirth!

That's all for today, see you in about two weeks!

#Fireball!!