Darkleaf Gambit | Reignite Your Chessboard's Magic

Darkleaf Gambit | Reignite Your Chessboard's Magic

Transform your most beloved chessboard into the mythical forest of Haggedorn in this 2-player game of risk and cunning.

54,774 USD
of 10,000 USD Goal
660
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Darkleaf Gambit is an entirely new game for your chess set! Perfect for quick, intense duels that blend classic charm and modern, asymmetric mechanics. Whether played on a family heirloom or a steal from the local thrift store, Darkleaf Gambit reignites the magic in your chessboard. Bring your keen mind for strategy, but otherwise no chess experience is required to play Darkleaf Gambit.

#1: Choose Your Clan

Take control of one of six clans, each inviting its own distinct style of play and unique path to victory. No two units move alike or possess the same abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. And with six to choose from, that amounts to 15 possible matchups and high replayability.

#2: The Setup

Gather six dice, one mighty clan board, and assign Fate Chips to their skills. Configure your units around Haggedorn (that mythical forest, commonly mistaken for a chessboard) as depicted on the clan guide.

#3: Roll a Die & Execute

Gameplay is turn-based and begins with a roll of the die, which powers and limits every action. Will you hunt with the Huldra’s ranged attack or hazard a close confrontation with The Murg? Push your opponent into the void on the Ferrymen’s wave, or reclaim the Erde’s sacred territories? Transform rival units into Wibo pawns or cast Hexen curses on the ground upon which your rival walks? 

#4: Slot the Die & Acquire Power

End your turn by slotting the rolled die in your clan board to power miracles, relics, auras and laws. Once purchased, miracles produce immediate effects while relics can be saved for later, strategic use. Auras are placed on units and territories, which can have both offensive and defensive impacts. Laws create an advantage for your clan that lasts the remainder of the duel.

#5: Achieve Victory!

The first clan to meet its victory condition wins! With six clans and six different conditions, be wary as your rival’s objective will be different from your own… and not at all easy to thwart.

More ways to learn Darkleaf Gambit

  • Watch the Good Time Society’s How to Game with Becca Scott.
  • Hop into the full digital version of the game on Tabletopia…for free!
  • Delve into the 20-page rulebook with complete clan compendiums.

Just the One Add-On? We’re fans of both types of Kickstarters: the ones where you have oodles of options for shiny tokens and metal upgrades and kickass expansions, and the ones where you can see exactly what you are getting without even scrolling. For this campaign, we’re executing the latter. Darkleaf Gambit is a tightly focused game. Its components are already premium in every way. And the asymmetry was a bear to balance. We thought it would be insincere (and even damaging to the core mechanics) to concoct an expansion or an extra add-on to simply raise more revenue. Every parent says this, but Darkleaf Gambit is perfect just as it is.

How About Stretch Goals? We have some fun things planned that are dependent upon the level of this campaign’s success. These things primarily entail a) extending the game’s Haggedorn's Will mechanic and b) forest conservation. We are thankful to every tree that inspired the mythology behind Darkleaf Gambit, and every tree that will go into manufacturing your games. We’ll discuss these plans with you in the campaign updates rather than building a ladder of stretch goals.

Special thanks goes to all of Darkleaf Gambit's wonderful playtesters (both in the physical realm as well as on Tabletopia), Dalla Croce Studios for 3d modeling support, and In Depth Films for being our videography wingman!  
All UpdatesUpdate #5

Games Have (Mostly) Set Sail

2026-04-14 02:55:34

Ahoy friends!


Let me begin by apologizing that this update is a couple of weeks overdue. While the games were packaged and ready for oceanic freight a month ago, we’ve been wrestling our way through disruptions in global shipping, rising costs of fuel, and all the normal stuff associated with attempting to move items from one side of the world to four location on the other. The good news is that everything is now loaded into cargo containers that are either at port or already aboard ship.

The bad news is that these delays will push fulfillment by one month. That means we are looking at a fulfillment date of mid to late June. We feel confident this should be the only delay you’ll endure, and we’ll provide specific timelines for each region during the next update.

As you may have noticed, our updates are text heavy as the Only Then Studios crew are all language lovers and absolutely shy about pop culture. Which means we don’t often include swanky GIFs. We made the above animation for another project telling the story of Sir John Suckling. The cursing is cribbage’s inventor meeting his demise, but it’s an apt inclusion when contemplating oceanic freight in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

The Murg: Simple But Surprising

We’ve introduced you to half of Darkleaf Gambit’s clans. While we’re waiting for games to cross oceans, now might be a nice opportunity to present to you the tree-loving, no-nonsense, balance-preserving robot woodsmen known as The Murg.


A little backstory. The Murg was the first clan we designed, and the only clan from early iterations to be included in the final version of Darkleaf. Working through basic questions of whether to incorporate a hit point system (too much off-board tracking), unit markers to delineate one pawn from the next (too busy a board), or D&D-style THAC0 calculations to determine hit (my Player’s Handbook is still 2e), The Murg were there to help answer all of it. And the answer was always simplify, simplify, simplify.

Simplicity can be exciting! The Murg are used as one of the starting clans when learning to play. Units movement is straightforward. Actions are tied to that most familiar 6-sided die. And their victory condition is guileless: position a unit beside the rival king and roll a perfect 6! Set aside the difficulty of cornering a king, and, statistically speaking, you’ve got a 16% chance of victory.

It’s those odds that make playing The Murg such a delight. Some games end in only a handful of rounds. Other games will see a pawn chasing a king for dozens of turns while that precious 6 continues to elude. The rival player must remain vigilant, deciding whether to spend a turn retreating or risk that 16% potential for defeat. Some of the most heart-pounding rolls of the game arise, for both sides of the table, from this decision.

One last story! For those of you familiar with German geography, you will recognize this clan’s name as a river flowing from the Black Forest into the Rhine. Die Murg captured our imagination during those early days of Darkleaf development while exploring the village of Steinmauern. Locals spoke of the not-too-distant Murg Valley with a certain, otherworldly tone that this clan embodied wholly. Both magical and ordinary, right here and just over the horizon…

Feels like we nailed this update.


Until the next shuffle,

Jamison (and Jess)









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