King of the Mountain Game Design Gallery
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September 2022
Portal Stones
These are portal stones! Difficult to come by but extremely useful, portal stones allow your clansmen to instantly teleport from one side of the kingdom to the other. Each clan may acquire up to three stones; there are lots of fun rules about where and how they are placed (and whether you can interfere with another player’s portals; for instance, let’s say by capturing a monster and sending it through their portal stone back to their stronghold) but we’ll save that for another day. Notice how the bottom of each stone has a black swirl on it? Those are portals to the underworld! Soulless ghouls come out of them! Obviously, you cannot play around with trans-dimensional magic portals without some risk of opening a gateway to the realm of the undead and jeopardizing every living creature in the kingdom.
August 2022
The Giant
Meet the Giant! He may not show up in every game, but when he does, watch out! The Giant tromps around slowly, only moving a few spaces each turn, but anything or anyone who gets in his way gets turned into a pancake. Of course, there are ways to defeat him: it will take careful planning and no small amount of courage, but for those daring clansmen who succeed in cutting the Giant down to size, the rewards may be enormous. (Just be sure you are not standing too close when he falls…)
When you make it to the top of the mountain, you will replace whichever pawn actually reached the top (whether it was a wizard, a knight, or a thief) with a king. Kings are in a class of their own and rarely leave the Throne, although certain circumstances do allow it.
The Gold Miners have a wealth of advantages when it comes to—what else?—gold. They collect a greater feudal income than other clans, pay lower rates on loans from the Goblin Bank, and may levy higher taxes on other players if they claim the Throne, to name a very few. In King of the Mountain, there are over a hundred ways you can spend your treasure, from paying bridge tolls to building castles, buying supplies at the Pawn Shop or tossing silver pennies into the Wishing Well… They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can definitely finance a formidable campaign to ascend the mountain and claim the Crown, and what could possibly make anyone happier than naming yourself King of the Mountain and grinding all your rival clans into the dust?
The Mountain Folk
The Mountain Folks’ big advantages have to do with the mountain itself—and because the Throne everyone is trying to reach is located on the mountaintop, and the whole point of the game is to reach the Throne, the Mountain Folk are uniquely well-positioned to scale the summit and claim the Crown. Where other clans must tread the narrow mountain trails carefully, the Mountain Folk go boldly; where others stumble and fall all the way back to the bottom, the sure-footed Mountain Folk only slip back a few spaces; and when cataclysmic events occur that change the very orientation of the great mountain itself, the Mountain Folk take it all in stride. If you want to be the King of the Mountain, it doesn’t hurt to control a clan that knows the mountain inside and out.
The Forest Dwellers
The reclusive Forest Dwellers’ primary advantages are an outgrowth of being familiar with the Dark Forest, which is a loop of green spaces along the King’s Highway not far from the mountain. The Dark Forest is home to a number of magical mysteries: often the unicorn can be found grazing there, and it is where the dragon makes its home (and hides its horde of gold) when it is banished from the mountaintop. The Wishing Well is located in the woods, as well, and there are more treasure chests located in the Dark Forest than in any other area of the kingdom. The only problem is, anyone who ventures into the Dark Forest gets lost and has a terrible time trying to find their way out… except for the Forest Dwellers. Climbing the mountain and claiming the Throne is no easy task; players will need to be armed with magical artifacts, gold and silver, and many other items, all of which the Forest Dwellers are able to harvest from the eldritch woods like picking fruit from a tree, while the other clans have to scrabble in the dirt to scrape together what they need.
The River People
The River People are masters of the river, which swirls all across the kingdom in wild loops and curls, reaching nearly every corner of the kingdom (or close enough), forming not only a natural barrier which other clans often have difficulty crossing, but a natural highway for the River People. In a game where rolling dice limits how far your clansmen can move on any given turn, on a board with over 400 game spaces, being able to quickly cross the kingdom to achieve your goals can make all the difference in the world, and the River People, who swim like they were born with gills, have an advantage over the other clans that you cannot buy with all the gold in the world.
July 2022
The Immortal Monarchs
The Immortal Monarchs are among the most powerful characters you may encounter in King of the Mountain, although there is no guarantee that all of them (or any of them) will make an appearance during any given game. They are: the King of the Dead, the Fairy Queen, the Ice Queen, and the Goblin King. (I put a soulless ghoul and a common goblin in the picture to show how big the Immortal Monarchs are.)
Any number of events might trigger the appearance of one of these omnipotent characters: a wizard’s spell gone wrong might cover the kingdom in snow, causing the Ice Queen to appear. If the Black Spread spreads across the country, the King of the Dead will surely follow, turning any clansman he meets into a soulless ghoul. If you are lucky, the Fairy Queen might appear at the Wishing Well, while the Goblin King might invade the land with his thieving horde if a player simply draws the wrong Fate & Fortune card. This is just a sampling; there are dozens of different events and storylines that can lead to an encounter with an Immortal Monarch. Such confrontations are to be approached with great caution but great awe, as well, for though the danger of dealing face-to-face with an Immortal Monarch is substantial (as their regard for mortal clansmen is not particularly high), the reward for earning their trust or esteem (or even slaying them, in some cases) may be worth the risk for a bold adventurer who is looking for any advantage to climb the mountain and win the throne.
April 2022
The Goblin Army
Meet the Goblin Army! Led by the greedy Goblin King, this kleptocratic horde of thieving ne’er-do-wells occasionally invades the kingdom in search of unguarded treasure. Players with unsecured gold and other valuables will need to be wary whenever these little, green misfits show up on the scene. Though not particularly fierce or deadly, the Goblin Army can nonetheless wreak widespread havoc, leaving your treasuries barren, your bank accounts bereft, your pockets turned out, and all your best-laid plans unfunded and insolvent. Of course, the Goblin King knows a good deal when he hears one, so perhaps you can come to some agreement that will not leave you totally bankrupt…
Landmarks
There are eleven Landmarks in King of the Mountain, although only five can be in play at one time as they fit into special, carved-out spaces on the gameboard. These unique destinations provide wildly varying gameplay possibilities, from seeking safe haven from Acts of God in the Sanctuary, to hiring sellswords at the Mercenary Camp, to casting wishes in the Wishing Well.
Shown above (from left to right) are the Sanctuary, the Mercenary Camp, the Gypsy Caravan, the Witch’s Cottage, the Wishing Well, and the Runestone. The Landmarks I still have to make are the Goblin Bank, the Graveyard, the Menagerie, the Long Lost Library, and the Pawn Shop.
Four Landmarks are chosen at the beginning of the game and placed in preordained locations; the Wishing Well is always placed in the Dark Wood to begin the game. During gameplay, Landmarks may be destroyed by certain events (i.e. they may burned down by the Dragon or razed by the Barbarian Horde), and new ones may be built in their place.
Fate & Fortune Cards
There are several dozen game spaces on the board stamped with a mystical silver star; when clansmen land on these spaces, players may draw a Fate & Fortune card. (Various other circumstances may also lead to the drawing of a card, but landing on a silver star is the most likely.) Some cards lead to one-time events, like losing a turn or winning a few gold coins, while others may be kept and made use of in the future, like the Golden Goose. Cards that players keep may be traded or sold to other players. Below is a sample of 72 cards; currently, about 150 are designed, and the final game will probably have 300+.
The Dragon
Magical Artifacts
Magical Artifacts are the heart and soul of this game. Hand-painted on little, wooden tiles (about the size of a Scrabble tile), each Artifact will grant players special powers and privileges as they seek to win the Throne. For instance, if you have the Crossbow, you may be able to attack an opponent from a distance, without putting your own clansman at risk; if you play the Ace of Spades, you may be able to shuffle through the Fate & Fortune deck and choose any card you want; if you have the Magic Beans, you may be able to… well, you get the idea. Some Artifacts grant players long-lasting advantages; some are good for one-time uses; some do both. To make things even more c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶i̶c̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ fun, most Artifacts are part of a Collection (as determined by their colored borders.) If you manage to get your hands on an entire Collection, your powers and privileges will be considerably enhanced. Magical Artifacts are spread across the board, face-down, for any and all players to find and lay claim, but they can also be bought from gypsies, won in games of chance, traded with other players, stolen by thieves, lost during Acts of God, etc. So, while it may be wise to collect as many Artifacts as you can, prudent players will put their special abilities to good use before the winds of fate sweep them away again.
