We're going to see the Elves!
Designers' Notes for Realms of the Elf-lords

by Chuck Kallenbach II
Senior Game Designer

If you're a sentimental guy like me, you get genuinely choked up each time you hear Sam get excited about "going to see the Elves!" My affinity for Elvish culture goes way back, so long ago that I had to explain to players in my D&D campaign that "Elves" didn't mean the little guys who lived in trees and made cookies.

I volunteered early in the process to work on the Elven cards for The Fellowship of the Ring set. I didn't get to work on the Mines of Moria set, but that only had five Elven cards, right? I saved all my energy to make a big pitch for Realms.

When Joe Alread and I began work on Realms, I said, "I don't care how we divide up the cultures as long as I get to do the Elves." Joe agreed, and he got some of the other good stuff as a result. So we were both happy.

At this point, I didn't realize how tough it would be to make more Elven cards. When we started on Realms, Elves were very strong in the play environment. In fact, two powerful Elven cards had actually received errata to curb their abusive power.

Let's make a list: More archery? No, that's awfully strong right now. More discard? No, that's why we had to fix the Mirror and Far-seeing Eyes. What were the Elves going to do?

The answer was that they had to do something new. After a lot of experimentation (I'm sure that some of those Elven cards went through as many as ten iterations), we centered on two new themes.

One was based on Elven mobility. This was inspired by the terrific image of the Fellowship trudging through the snow on Caradhras... except Legolas, of course. He stood on top of the snow. When the Fellowship gets to the great chasm and they're faced with a sheer drop and a huge gap in the stairway, Legolas effortlessly leaps across.

So, how does this happen in the game? We tried to engineer an Elven deck that would win the race by making extra moves. We tried to give them move limit bonuses, but that was not a good idea. We eventually began to explore regroup actions.

Joe and I took inventory of previous card concepts, and we found that the regroup phase was pretty much an undiscovered country. The first set had only 8 regroup actions, and Mines had only 4, while Realms has 21. We found that the regroup phase, like the maneuver phase, is an important part of the turn where players can interact by alternating actions back and forth.

Elves can now use the regroup phase to wound minions, remove twilight tokens, heal companions, banish a minion to his owner's hand, and even do a mini-reconcile of 2 cards every move. These actions are designed to help your deck restock, heal, and get ready to move again. All without directly affecting the move limit.

The second new theme was eventually dubbed "Elven voodoo." Generally, Elves don't get many strength bonuses. They're far too subtle for that. As a result, they don't win a lot of skirmishes.

We developed some effects that give strength reductions to minions. This is often better than a strength bonus anyway. It seemed mysterious, powerful, and otherworldly, like all good Elven things. It also gave Elves a way to fight.

However, it's a lot more difficult for the Elves to accomplish this. In some cases, it takes a certain number of Elven allies to make it work. You'll see Elven voodoo featured in a couple of new allies, the Long-knives of Legolas, and one of the two new Arwen cards.

Besides the Elven culture, there's a lot more to find in Realms. There are several mechanics that are spread across many cultures which players are sure to find interesting.

There's a series of cards that reveal a card at random from your opponent's hand and then use that card's twilight cost in various ways. They were called "home run" cards in playtesting, because many times you reveal a 1 or 2 cost card but sometimes you "swing for the fences" and find a 10 or 12.

Each culture receives a "fortress" card, representing some kind of stronghold like the Tower of Orthanc or the Citadel of Minas Tirith. These conditions are used in multiples for maximum benefit.

There's another series of "temptation" Shadow cards that feature characters tempted by The One Ring in the story. Characters like Galadriel, Aragorn, and Boromir are among the chosen ones.

Also included in Realms are the promotional cards previewed in our League Kit. These cards feature powerful possessions that helped the Fellowship on their way. This is the first time these cards have been available in a regular expansion set.

June 7, 2002