Solomon Kane

Solomon Kane’s lifelong fight against Darkness is told in a series of Adventures, based on the stories and characters created by Robert E. Howard. Adventures are broken down into 1-5 Acts, depending on their length. Each Act is itself broken down into 8-10 Chapters. A gaming session will typically be a single Act, or part of one. Depending on the time you have available, you may play through a whole Act, or be able to complete only a few of its Chapters. If this is the case, you simply use the game’s save function to remember where you have got to, and you can return to complete the rest of the Adventure another day.

When you play through an Act, you naturally start with the first Chapter. One player reads the narrative text aloud and follows the instructions on the card. The players then do their best to help Solomon Kane overcome whatever challenges the Chapter throws his way, and then they move onto the next one.

Each Virtue Turn, the controlling player rolls their Fate dice to see what resources they have available to pay for actions. These dice can be donated to other players, or saved for later Turns, as well as buying actions immediately, and deciding how to coordinate these actions and share these resources between the players is a big part of the game. Solomon Kane takes the concept of cooperation very much to heart, and the players need to be discussing and working together throughout the game. Even when it is not your Turn you are involved in vital decisions.

After each player’s Virtue Turn comes a Darkness Turn. This is where the AI deck acts to thwart the players and destroy Solomon Kane. It can move its minions on the board, trigger unpleasant events, or simply sap the will of the mortals to carry on.

The Act continues with the players resolving one Chapter card after another, with their Adventure unfolding as they do. After many trials and obstacles, a final Chapter card will tell the players whether their actions have been enough to achieve victory, and whether they have won or lost. Solomon Kane is a pure co-op game, and players either all win together, or all lose together.