Root designer’s Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile is getting its first board game expansion

Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile, a board game designed by the creator behind Root, will be getting its first expansion.

Released in 2021, Oath is a board game for one to six players that has the group attempting to seize, or even share, control of a fictional land. Whilst one player takes the role of the Chancellor, the others become other agents operating within different regions of the country, with the goal of either taking the role of Chancellor themselves or allying themselves with the Chancellor in the hopes of gaining access to some amount of power.

As the Chancellor, the player will have access to a larger amount of resources than the others - thereby reflecting their status of power - but will be forced to constantly defend themselves against the others. The rest of the players will have fewer resources but will be able to focus on developing their own strategies against the Chancellor, whilst keeping a keen eye on what their opponents are doing.

Every round has players playing cards from their hands, with the various cards having differing effects. Players will be able to move between the different regions of the game world - represented by cards - which will enable them to perform certain actions. If they have the troops, players can attempt to seize control of certain areas from either the Chancellor or another player, which will gain them new advantages. Alternatively, players can attempt to unseat the Chancellor through the gathering of secrets via their own spy network.

When the game ends, players can record the outcome - who won, who is Chancellor, which areas are under whose control - and use it to set up their next game of Oath, thereby creating a campaign that they can return to and a history for the game’s world.

The upcoming board game expansion for Oath will be called New Foundations and will offer “players new ways to make the game their own.” According to the official X (formally known as Twitter) account for the expansion’s publisher, Leder Games, the expansion will “bring hundreds of new cards and fascinating new systems to your games of Oath.”

Cole Wehrle, the creator of Root and the designer for Oath, responded to a reply to the post by X user @ChipRoush that asked how much the expansion had been influenced by the development of Arcs: Conflict & Collapse in the Reach - one of Wehrle's other games: “The new expansion wouldn’t be happening if not for Arcs. We learned so much!” said Wehrle.

A crowdfunding campaign for Oath: New Foundations will be launching on Kickstarter on May 28th.