The Chronicle: a 15-chapter campaign
The Chronicle is Open World Chess's story campaign: 15 chapters in 5 acts, designed as a journey of about fifteen hours, that take you from a single house to High King. Each chapter is a quest; finishing it grants a title, new buildings or new abilities.
Titles
Titles are the power ladder. Each one raises how many kings you may hold.
| # | Title | Kings you may hold |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Settler | 2 |
| 2 | Chieftain | 2 |
| 3 | Warden | 3 |
| 4 | Lord | 4 |
| 5 | Baron | 5 |
| 6 | Count | 6 |
| 7 | Duke | 7 |
| 8 | Prince | 8 |
| 9 | King | 12 |
| 10 | High King | 20 |
Act I: Hearth
Chapter 1: Hearth
An empty square, a loyal king, four pawns and a field. Every empire begins with a roof.
Long ago the First Empire covered the whole Board, until the wilds swallowed it and its crowns were scattered. You carry one of those crowns. While your Emperor lives, your empire lives.
- Raise a house beside the crops. Your Emperor and your king hold this ground together.
- The house raises pawns on its own. Three pawns, and your people are a people.
- Smoke rises from the wilds nearby. Send a pawn to see who camps there (just look: the fight comes next).
Opens: Stables: knights, who leap in L-shapes. And Arenas: a chessboard in your town · Title: Chieftain
Chapter 2: First Hunt
The camp is young and hungry. Strike before it grows.
The wilds that swallowed the First Empire are waking. Their camps grow as your empire grows, so the time to strike is now, while they are small. Kings are too precious to risk on a raid: a brave pawn can lead one.
- A knight rides where pawns cannot. Raise one in your stable.
- Raid the camp you found with your pawns and your knight. No king needed: a pawn commands. Win the game.
- Your people saw a war won on a chessboard, and want one of their own. Lay an Arena in your town: a full board, 8 squares by 8 (the Chronicle marks open ground).
- Tap your Arena and play a practice match on it, while the town looks on. Nothing is lost, win or lose.
Opens: Spoils: every camp you clear leaves a hoard behind
Chapter 3: Village
Three roofs make a village, and a village remembers its king.
A hamlet dies the day its king walks away. A village can wait for him. Build until your hearth can stand on its own; then your Emperor can hold it while your king rides out to found a second.
- Build until your hearth is a village: three buildings close together.
- Raise two more knights to ride the village bounds.
- Your Emperor holds the village. Lead your king 25 squares out and build there: a hamlet of his own.
Opens: Temples: bishops. And villages now hold themselves for an hour without a king · Title: Warden
Act II: Realm
Chapter 4: The Second Crown
Two towns, and only one king to go between them.
In the ruins of the First Empire, the Chronicle has found a second crown, and it has chosen a king. Now each of your towns can keep a king of its own. Deeper in the ruins lies ore, the stuff crowns are made of.
- Temples work ore. Build one within 3 squares of an ore vein.
- Raise a bishop in your temple: he sees along the diagonals.
Opens: Barracks and palaces: war elephants, and a seat to crown kings · Title: Lord
Chapter 5: Crown of Stone
Crowns can be found. Kings must be made, in stone, beside ore.
Two crowns will not hold a realm. The First Empire made its kings in palaces of stone and ore; so will you. But every king you make is harder won than the last.
- Build a palace where ore meets rock (the Chronicle marks a site).
- Crown a king in your palace. The first comes quickly.
Opens: Regents: a queen holds a city as a king would · Title: Baron
Chapter 6: Trade Winds
Your towns are strong apart. Together they are wealthy.
Merchants walk where kings have made the roads safe. And where the forest presses in, the great beasts of the barracks can push it back.
- Let a merchant walk between two of your towns.
- Raise a war elephant in a barracks.
- The woods press close. Set your elephants to clear eight trees.
Opens: Trade: towns linked by merchants produce 15% faster
Act III: Frontier
Chapter 7: Roads Beyond
Past the last field, the map is blank. Fill it.
The First Empire was bound together by roads of stone. Lay the first stones of your own, then follow them out into the blank.
- Knights lay stone. Pave twelve squares of road out from your town.
- Send an expedition 150 squares out, down your road and beyond.
- Clear two camps on the frontier.
Opens: Roads speed marches, and your map remembers camps and rivals · Title: Count
Chapter 8: The Lairs
Some beasts do not wander. They wait.
The old lairs never moved when the First Empire fell; they only grew. And the raiders keep what they take, prisoners too.
- Clear a lair: wolves, kobolds, owlbears.
- Free prisoners from a raider camp.
Opens: Captives: raiders hold prisoners who will join you
Chapter 9: Strange Lands
There are places where the grass is silver and the rivers burn.
Where the First Empire fell hardest, the land itself changed. Its strange places hold the rarest beasts, and room for an outpost no king could hold.
- Find a rare land: blossom, mushroom, blight, fey, crystal or ash.
- Clear a camp in a rare land.
- Raise an altar: a bishop keeps an outpost far from any king.
Opens: Relics: rare camps leave trophies for your capital
Act IV: Dominion
Chapter 10: Rivals
You are not the only crown on this board.
Other crowns survived the fall, and other hands carry them. Every one of them wants the whole Board back.
- Win a battle against another empire.
Opens: Walls muster: a walled town defends with its whole garrison · Title: Duke
Chapter 11: The Rich Lands
Stronger lands, richer veins, harder neighbors.
The land remembers who lives on it. Where the strong settle, the ground grows rich, and the beasts grow bold.
- Found a town in land rated 150 above your home.
Opens: Capital: name one town that holds itself forever and crowns faster
Chapter 12: The Deep Wilds
The old hordes field whole armies.
Deep in the wilds, the hordes that broke the First Empire still march in full array. Meet them with a full army.
- Beat a horde of 12 or more.
- Carry a pawn to the far rank in battle.
Opens: Muster: one order gathers every piece near a king · Title: Prince
Act V: Legacy
Chapter 13: Siegecraft
Walls fall to those who bring enough.
An empire is not made by holding. Take a rival town, king and walls and all.
- Win a siege against another empire.
Opens: Towns you take keep their walls and their standing · Title: King
Chapter 14: The Dragon
On the ash plains, something old sleeps on gold.
The Chronicle knows now what ended the First Empire. It sleeps on the ash plains, on the gold of fallen kings.
- Hunt the great beasts: earn 4 trophies (uncommon camps 1, rare 2, a dragon 4).
Opens: Wonders: raise one monument the whole world can see
Chapter 15: Legacy
What you build now will outlast every battle.
The First Empire is a ruin because it built nothing that could outlast it. Build what will.
- Grow your capital into a city (10 buildings).
- Raise your Wonder.
Opens: The Epilogue: the world keeps offering quests · Title: High King
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