A new series of narrative events are taking place in the Chicago area, in the US. This is the Festermere Conflict, an ongoing storyline following the war in Verdia, around the city of Greywater Fastness, for control of a set of realmgates leading to everywhere in the Mortal Realms.
Each event consists of 3 games, focused on storytelling and casual gameplay, with tables bringing to life locations in the map of Ghyran, each with its own special rules.
The next event is right around the corner, this Saturday Jan 20th in Chicago! Following that, the Festermere Conflict will once again rage at Adepticon (just outside Chicago), in March.
- Unique Battlefields: Each round takes place on a themed table with its own backstory and objectives, immersing you in the world of the conflict. Imagine clashing on the frostbitten valleys near the Everwinter or battling under the typhoon of the Maddening Whorl.
- Unique Rules and Narrative Battleplans: Forget the General’s Handbook and “Season” rules! This event introduces special rules for each table and a different battle plan for every round, immersing players in the diverse battlefields around the Festermere Realmgates. Each mission and table will have a unique objective and scoring system, encouraging tactical thinking and strategic storytelling.
- Tactical Warbands: While Unique characters are off-limits in this event, you can bring along an Underworlds warband from your army’s faction or allies, adding a unique twist to your force and prompting creative lore opportunities.
- Battle Tactics Begone: Instead of relying on pre-defined tactics, you’ll choose one of three Grand Strategies, adapting to the unfolding story and your opponent’s choices.
- No Two Games Alike: Each battle features a unique objective and scoring system, keeping the gameplay fresh and unpredictable.
We chatted with the lead NEO for the event, Zak Kulhan (@ZakFieri), about what players can expect from it.
Q: Summarize to us what the Festermere narrative events are about, and what they offer to players.
A: The Festermere Narrative was initially created as a space for myself and my friends to expand upon the shared lore we had created over a few years playing at our local gaming store. This event is an attempt to show off the lore and rules that Chris Henry (my fellow NEO) and I have created, while also demonstrating that we don’t take ourselves TOO seriously and that narrative is, in the end, about having fun with your friends and your toys.
The tables take inspiration from the Holy Havoc events run by Steve and Reed Herner in that they each have unique rules and fun scenery abound. The tables and unique rules aren’t as deep or complex as what the Herners have created, but that is intentional on our end. At our local gaming store, Dice Dojo in Chicago, we have folks that really only play AoS a few times a year due to various reasons, and I wanted to create an event that had a very low barrier to entry while still offering space and tools for those that really want to dig into the LORE.
Q: On your tables, you have recreated several locations around Greywater Fastness and the Festermere itself, that are found on the map of Everspring Swathe in Ghyran. Some of these had descriptions in published books, some not. Tells us a bit about the process of bringing those to life.
A: The city of Greywater has been an incredibly interesting setting since I first learned about it when I started AoS a little under four years ago. The classic trope of “Modernizing” Industrialization vs The natural world is something that always draws me in and Greywater does it in a very engaging way. Greywater was where my 2-year long Soulbound roleplay campaign was set, and I am currently running one set in The Living City, so clearly I really like this region of Ghyran.
Almost entirely all the locations are places from my game or things I just made up for this event. When I first started playing AoS, I started researching all the names I saw on the map of Ghyran and was shocked to see that most were just words with not much to them. A lot of these places on the map don’t have any lore right? Or at least I couldn’t find solid stuff, so I felt why not work with the tools I have and GIVE these places lore. The Greywater lore, however, is very real though [and follows the canon lore in addition to the homebrew we’ve added along the way].
For example, the Maddening Whorl has no lore aside from being on a map, same for Grudge Plains, there were just words I made rules/loreup for. Often times during a game of Soulbound when we would explore a new area, the session would turn into us going back and start adding lore and information to the area.
The terrain is a mix of items borrowed from the Dice Dojo and terrain I created on my own and with the help of my friends. It truly is a community effort to get so much good looking terrain on the table and it would not have been possible without the good folks from the Dice Dojo.
Q: What Narrative innovations and special rules will you be deploying in this event? You use a particular mix of battleplans specific each game, but with table-specific objectives, right?
A: The battleplans are all custom but heavily inspired by missions from Bolt Action, a World War 2 mini game. The missions themselves are straight forward and none of them score the mission until the end. The goal of the tournament is to both have a space for the super nerdy lore folks (such as myself) as well as folks who only get to play a few games of AoS a year and prefer to play at more casual speed.
The table specific missions are a mixture of objective-based and “action-based”, where certain terrain features allow you to do things like “shoot a giant skaven laser” or “wield a wood elf bow cached in a tree” – the idea is to keep things interesting while not overtly competitive.
I figured something straight forward would be good: about half the people were regulars and half newbies and the event itself is billed as being friendly to newer players.
Grand strategies did not award any in-game points, but scored separately and tallied at the end of the battle to decide victory.
Q: The Festermere Conflict is an ongoing story that grows in each of your events, in particular with the lore contributed by players, right? Tell us a bit more about this story progression from your Soulbound campaign, and the impact players have on it.
A: Absolutely! The Soulbound campaign was really what exposed me to the “deep lore” of AoS and the realization that the Mortal Realms as a setting leave a lot of room to put your own stamp on things.
In regards to story progression, the idea is that each consecutive Festermere Conflict event is taking place some amount of time after the previous, with the results of that event carrying over. Each event we have seen people submit some spectacular lore that Chris and I try to work into new tables and pieces of lore. I like to think of the lore as a bit of ongoing improv with the NEOs and the attendees. Win or Lose doesn’t really matter as much to us, as exactly what win or loss MEANS to your army, to your characters. The event exists almost as much as a free writing prompt generator as it does to play AoS.
Q: What kind of team dynamics and strategic actions can players experience?
A: For the overall narrative it was Chaos/Death vs Order/Destruction. For each game, a player could win 2 max points for their team: 1 for winning the game and 1 for achieving the table-specific objective. I tallied all of these points and in the end, Order/Destruction won by 5 points, meaning the realmgates remained in their control.
Now, does it matter “mechanically” who controls the gates? No, not really, but it has HUGE lore implications and that is what really matters here, the continuing narrative that this event is just a small part of.
Beyond that, the idea is not to have too many “universal” effects or things that affect all the tables. This is partially in service of reducing overall complexity but also in pursuit of making each game feel unique. The goal is to have each of the 3 games act as a prompt or a safe space for you to evolve your own lore and story.
Q: What would you like to say to players out there, to motivate them to attend upcoming Festermere Conflict events, especially the one in March at Adepticon?
A: If you are the kind of person that enjoys ANY of the following you will feel at home at The Festermere Conflict
- Looking at fantasy maps and trying to figure out how long it would take to get from one place to another.
- Building a “sub-optimal” list in order to fit in your pet unit or favorite hero.
- Making little sound effects or taking time to describe what a kill would look like during combat.
- Having to reread a warscroll because you just cannot believe how bad it is.
- Pointing at someones hero model and asking “what is their name?”
- Hanging out with some like minded folks, sharing a few laughs and rolling some dice.
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Thank you, Zak!
We will be following the event online, so please post lots of pictures on social media!
You can find the Event Rules page here for more details and tickets.
Link to the Adepticon narrative event (March 24th).
All the Adepticon tickets are sold out currently, but you should sign up for the waitlist if you are interested: there are always dropouts! (true story)
What do you think about this event?
Do you have any questions for the NEO, and how they brought together their local group to do collaborative worldbuilding, and got them excited to write narrative and lore?
Leave your comments below!
Narrative Event Organizer Network 