The first preview article about the Adventures in Hyboria” components presented the Conan Reference Board, which tracks the Conan's progress, from his beginnings as a Warrior, to General and King. Now, let's learn more about the Companions and Legendary Items

Companion cards: important side characters in Conan's stories help and support him in the game.

Companion cards: important side characters in Conan's stories help and support him in the game.

Companions cards feature some of the most prominent side characters in Conan's stories - heroes almost as legendary as the Cimmerian himself. They enter the game thanks to three new special adventure tokens - called companion tokens - which are added to the adventure token pool at the beginning of the game.

Just like normal adventure tokens, companion tokens may be drawn and placed on the adventure track, or drawn by a player as a reward when using Conan (when Conan reaches the destination province, or as an Adventure/Story card reward).

Whenever a player takes a companion token (by random draw or from the adventure track), he can immediately trade it for either 1 gold token or 1 sorcery token, at his choice, or discard it to bring a companion card into play. In the latter case, he randomly draws one card from the companion deck. Then, he places the card, face up, among his play-on-the-table cards.

During the game, each companion may be used once to trigger the special ability described on the card. When used, the companion card is placed on its side to show it cannot be used again.

The adventure token value shown on the card is not used during the game, but it is considered when crowning Conan, and to assess majorities at the end of the game.

Legendary cards represent some of the most famous magical items encountered by Conan.

Legendary cards represent some of the most famous magical items encountered by Conan.

Legendary items represent some of the most famous magical (or "cursed", as they were labeled during the Kickstarter) items encountered by Conan during his travels, as well as places which are focal points of the Cimmerian's journeys, such as the notorious 'Tree of Death'.

From a mechanical point of view, legendary items function in much the same way as companions. Their gameplay effects, however, are exactly opposite: while companions help and support Conan, Legendary items offer a nasty way to players to hinder the successes of our favorite barbarian, either when he's used by the Conan player, or when an opponent tries to make him succeed in a Story.

The next preview will present the Story Cards and the Adventure Cards. Stay tuned!

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