Guide to Euthia: Fierce Powers & Crawling Shadows Expansion

Welcome, heroes! As you’ll know, we’re inching closer to the Euthia: Cruel Frost Kickstarter launch on May 2nd.

(If that's slipped past you, you can follow the campaign here.)

Euthia has three parts: the core game, Torment of Resurrection. The big expansion, Fierce Powers & Crawling Shadows. And the chilling final chapter, (i.e. the second and final big expansion), coming to Kickstarter on May 2nd: Cruel Frost.

You may already be familiar with the core game. If you’re not, you can check out the core game guide here. 

Assuming you’re all caught up, let's talk Fierce Powers & Crawling Shadows. In this guide, we’ll run through everything you need to know.

A Bit of History 

Fierce Powers and Crawling Shadows began life as two separate expansions.

Fierce Powers introduced us to big new scenarios, new gameplay modes, and a new hero, while Crawling Shadows brought us shake-ups in co-op and solo play.

What's in the Box?

Euthia boxes are pretty big, so it’d take a while to talk through it all! Instead, we’ll hand over to So Many Games, So Little Time for a quick unboxing video:

We thought it’d be easier to split this blog into two parts.

The first half covers all the new bits introduced in Fierce Powers, and the second half rounds things off with all Crawling Shadows.

So without further ado, let's confront some fierce powers…

New Scenarios in Fierce Powers

In the Fierce Powers expansion, you’ll be faced with dark forces hell-bent on bringing destruction to the land.

Hunt a vicious hydra that’s awoken from a deep slumber only to devour everything in its sight. Undergo a series of trials while searching for a way to lift a terrible curse that’s shrouded the land in impenetrable fog. Travel to highly unstable arcane dimensions and uncover their dark secrets before they collapse. And fight against Adraghor the Soul Reaper, a gruesome necromancer who, driven by an insatiable thirst for power, corrupts the land of Euthia using his unholy magic. These are just some of the new scenarios Fierce Powers adds.

There's also Wrath from the Underworld, Wild Run, and Meet the Devil... but we’ll let you discover those for yourself.

A New Hero Appears

In addition to the six original characters introduced in the core box (you can learn more about them here), Fierce Powers brings us a new hero: Eltrea, Sentinel of Nature. Eltrea’s 23 new abilities and weapons shouldn’t be overlooked, but what makes Eltrea truly unique is her ability to call on her bench of familiars. 

From the start of the game, Eltrea has a choice to make. Which alignment of familiar will she choose to summon? Moon or Leaf. When she’s made her choice, she’ll start the game with one of five familiars available to summon. To call on others, Eltrea must exceed a given reputation level.

“That’s great, but how do they help me?” we hear you ask.

Familiars have a few handy uses. Primarily, they’ll provide you with a helping hand in combat, and aid you in your quest to overcome the challenges Euthia throws at you. (Especially when things get difficult.)

Something to bear in mind when it comes to familiars is that they’re able to move around the map using their own movement points. Can’t quite reach that shiny gem? Don’t worry about it — summon a familiar and they’ll grab it for you. Useful, right? 

Untapped Lands to Explore 

We’ve covered the new scenarios, we’ve met our new hero, so what about the new lands? 

Fierce Powers takes us to 15 new fixed map tiles and includes for the first time, a new type of loot: gems!  You might also want to keep your eyes peeled for a dangerous new threat roaming the world: corrupted elementals. In a similar way to other elementals, corrupted elementals have powers that affect the surrounding areas. But you’ll need to be even more careful with these unsavoury beings, or you’ll learn the hard way that heroes and monsters don’t tend to strike as easily against them.

New Ways to Play with Crawling Shadows

Now, on to Crawling Shadows. As we mentioned earlier, Crawling Shadows centred around enhancing co-op and solo gameplay. What does that look like?

Solo Play

If you’re a hardcore solo player, Playing with Fire might be of interest to you. (Disclaimer: Please do not play with actual fire.)

For those craving a greater challenge, the Playing with Fire solo mode brings in new rules and a custom die that’ll make combat more in line with the way a real-life Monster player would fight.

Instead of combat cards, the special die will be rolled in combination with the two standard dice to determine everything in the enemy’s combat round. This will really turn up the heat on your heroes.

Co-op Play

Crawling Shadows also introduces an alternative way to play co-operatively: Fellowship mode.

This mode uses the same basic rules you’ll already know, but to win you’ll have to complete the main goal of a chosen scenario. Reputation scoring won’t come into play here (although it's still required to level up your heroes).

In addition to there being a new way to win, there’s some set-up changes as well. You can throw aside control cards, for example; they won’t be needed while playing Fellowship mode.

You’ll also need to create a monster dice using two hero dice and a combat dice, which you'll use to control the monster.

Personal Quests

Also important in Fellowship mode are personal quests. These are quests given to each game member to complete as soon as possible.

Each personal quest has three levels: Starting, Advanced, and Elite. Complete these quests and you’ll get some special rewards. There’s a lot more to Fellowship mode, so we won’t go into too much detail here.

If you’re interested in learning more about it. You can read the Fierce Powers & Crawling Shadows rulebook here.

Tread Dreadful Paths

Like Fierce Powers, Crawling Shadows has a new set of solo scenarios for your heroes to complete, with four epic journeys introduced. Each scenario ends in a massive boss fight with a seriously challenging enemy.

Open the Gateway to the Underworld and battle the horrific Faer Demon. Stand in the way of the Crystal Golem as it wrecks everything in its path in the High Lands. Brave the inhospitable swamp and come face-to-face with the dangerous six-headed Hydra. Investigate the old monastery and take on the Behemoth. In the meantime, while exploring the new map tiles featured in Crawling Shadows, you’ll likely come across ritual sites. These offer some pretty neat features. If your heroes are looking worse for wear, you can heal them here. But the main attraction will be the rituals themselves. 

To complete these rituals, you must make an offering, specifically in the form of silver and/or gold cards. The bigger your offering, the greater your reward, so be as generous as you can afford to be. 

Speaking of generosity, Crawling Shadows also introduces us to a new mythical pal, Pegasus, who if you land on their tile, will take you up to 4 hexes, for the small price of one gold. Good horse.

Gameplay Resources

If you’re up for a spot of semi-light reading, you can download the English versions of both the Fierce Powers and Crawling Shadows rulebook and scenario books in our Resources section. They’re also available in multiple languages.

Sounds like too much reading right now? Well, you can watch Fierce Powers and Crawling Shadows videos on YouTube instead. Here's a couple we like:

Fog of Necromancy Playthrough

Wild Run Playthrough

If your thirst for more knowledge hasn’t been fully quenched yet, you can take a look at the Euthia Resurrected Kickstarter campaign in which we introduced the new expansion here.

Reviews

The Fierce Powers & Crawling Shadows expansion currently has a 9.0 rating on BoardGameGeek! 

Like the gameplay videos, you’ll also find a few reviews of Fierce Powers & Crawling Shadows on YouTube. 

We won’t link them all here (this post is long enough), but you’ll find plenty of them linked toward the bottom of the Euthia Resurrected Kickstarter page as well.

Where to Buy

Euthia is massive, as you’ve probably noticed. So, it won’t be going into retail; it's Kickstarter exclusive. 

Don't fret though! Euthia is returning to Kickstarter on May 2nd, along with the final chapter, Cruel Frost. You’ll be hearing plenty about that in the coming weeks. 

In the meantime, you can follow the Kickstarter campaign here to be notified when we launch.

Any questions? You’ll find us and the Euthia community in the Discord and Facebook group, where we’ll share more teases in the build-up to launch.