The mystical island of Emberheart is home to the last dragons. They were living in harmony with the villagers until poachers from the Distant Lands arrived to capture, raid, and plunder. To keep the island safe, the Dragon Ambassador now seeks the King’s support. As one of the King’s champions, your mission is to join forces with the villagers, rescue and protect the dragons, and stand against the evil poachers.
Emberheart is a quick-playing, medium-weight worker placement game for 2-4 players. As one of the King’s Champions, your task is to recruit heroes, rescue dragons and expand their preserves, train your own dragon companion, and oppose the roaming poachers.
On your turn, you can either take an Aide token (granting you a unique bonus for the round), or send a party of hirelings to one of the locations on the island. The number of hirelings you send matters just as much as where you send them: the more you commit to a location, the earlier you get to choose from its limited rewards, and the less likely your opponents are to outbid you with a larger party. There are various hirelings at your disposal: Grunts are versatile but single-use, while Scouts, Rangers and Wardens are permanent, but limited to specific locations. Your Dragon Companion can also join a party of hirelings as you place them, giving them various bonuses based on how you trained it.
The locations’ rewards allow you to recruit Heroes with unique abilities, rescue Dragons from the poachers’ grasp to get them to safety in matching Preserves, and launch counterattacks against the poachers. In the heat of some actions, and during the Poachers’ Raid at the end of each round, you may get burned, and advancing too far on the Flame track will take its toll at the end of the game.
Rescuing Dragons, recruiting Heroes, training your Dragon Companion, and keeping your Flame low will earn you Glory at the end of the game. After five rounds, the Champion with the most Glory wins, inheriting the title of Dragon Ambassador.
