It’s an easy job, they said. Great benefits, they said. Easy money, they said. Well, they never had to suffer a Withering Look from a skull-faced archmage! But if you can just manage to sneak a few more peeks into that Magic Tome of his, you’ll be king of the goblins for sure! All you need to do is tiptoe into his library and “clean” it. Yea, that’s it…

Kragmortha is a silly, fun-filled board game in which the players become the goblin minions of the dreaded Dark Overlord Rigor Mortis. Their goal, of course, is to creep into the Dark Overlord’s library, avoid the bleak curses that he unleashes with a simple glance, and steal away a few pages from his enormous magical tome of lore. Sounds easy enough, right?

~ Minions Bold and Mischievous ~

But the real problem is not, actually, the Dark Overlord and his curses. No, that would be easy enough to avoid. The problem is that you are not the only goblin that had the bright idea of sneaking into the library and stealing magic secrets. Being the nasty-minded types they are, your “friends” will constantly try to maneuver you into a bad spot. After all, if you are the target of Rigor Mortis’ wrath, your friends won’t be! And this is the heart of Kragmortha: trying to use the cover of the bookshelves and a well-timed shove to avoid the Withering Looks of the Dark Overlord while you inflict them on your friends.

After all, it turns out that the way to win at Kragmortha is not what you might think. The winner is usually not the goblin that collected the most secrets from the Archmage’s book. No, it’s almost always the goblin that has managed to collect the fewest curses along the way…

~ So, What is a Curse, Anyway? ~

One thing is almost guaranteed in a game of Kragmortha: sooner or later, you’re going to make a mistake and land yourself in the lap of Rigor Mortis. So what, you ask? Well, considering that the guy has no skin, you can imagine that he’s a bit lacking in the sense of humor department.

What that means, is that when a goblin has the misfortune of disturbing the Dark Overlord’s studies, he’s going to get a dreaded Withering Look. In the game, that means you have to draw a Withering Look card. And this is where the real fun begins. Each Withering Look card is a wacky curse that Rigor Mortis can inflict upon a player. Each curse adds a new challenge to how you play the game. For instance, you may be afflicted by the “Tight-Fisted Hands” curse, which forces you to play the game with both hands clenched in fists, even when you try to move your goblin. Or there is the “Password” curse, which forces you to knock your elbow on the table whenever the secret password is spoken (chosen by the other goblins, of course. I particularly like “you” as a password…). Needless to say, the more curses you collect, the harder it becomes to actually function as a coherent goblin. (Of course, is there such a thing as a coherent goblin anyway?)

~ The Tale of the Dark Overlord ~

Kragmortha is part of a growing collection of books, games, and graphic novels that are based on the unique and quirky comic book Rigor Mortis. Created and illustrated by Riccardo Crosa (who also provided illustrations for the game), this bi-monthly Italian comic series has told the story of Rigor Mortis and his less-than-competent goblin minions since 2005.

The game Kragmortha borrows its name from the world in which the Rigor Mortis comic book is set. This is a strange world of unlimited possibility in which the very laws of the universe have been warped and twisted by some outside force. The Archmage Rigor Mortis seeks to uncover the secrets behind these cosmic forces. And, naturally, our intrepid goblin players hope to steal a few tidbits of Mortis’ work.

The game was designed by the team of Fabrizio Bonifacio, Riccardo Crosa, Massimiliano Enrico, Chiara Ferlito, and the veteran game designer Walter Obert.