RUNEvember Session 3: Obran Express

November 7, 2022

Session 0, 1, 2

On the third stop, we've hit our first pamphlet realm, Obran Express! There are 4 of these right now if my memory serves. These are Realms that fit on a sheet front and back, usually they have 4 points and take like half an hour to play tops.

Glass shatters and screams echo across the Obran Express. Your journey to another realm interrupted, you sigh, scratch a hasty sigil. and draw your weapon. Nothing is ever easy.

Overview and Realm Mechanics

As you may have guessed by the name, the entire Realm is a train! The Rattlesnake Gang has taken over and is steering it towards their hideout: you'll have to get past them and either detach the back or stop the train at the front to win before it reaches their hideout. I'd post just the map but it's also the entire Realm because it's 4 points long.

Unlike the default map, each Realm uses uneven maps: 5x4 for 3 of the areas, 2x3 for one of them. There's no death penalty.

Worth noting that this one was definitely intended to work with the old difficult terrain mechanics (moving onto it costs 2 Move instead of 1), so if you're giving it a go, consider using them as such.

Realm Clock

For every 4 interior car movements or actions taken (minus fights), advance the clock. (You can move on the exterior of the car too, which doesn't take clock time but puts you in a situation where you can take a lot of Harm.) Once it's full, you pick one of four events, which can't be picked multiple times. (The fourth one is "it reaches the hideout and you lose" essentially, so practically there are three events.) It's a pretty neat system for a one-way clock.

Play Impressions

I love how hard this leans into the pamphlet thing to provide a unique experience. Every car has one fight with a unique rattlesnake with some kind of unique mechanic, which is pretty cool - it feels like a boss rush. Each car is laid out with terrain to really give the feel of the area. There's a little strategy for which events to pick as the clock turns over because some of them are more disruptive than others or provide an advantage (like Braking, which lets you move more towards the "front" of the car). The snake fights were mostly fun, the gimmicks were pretty interesting (with the exception of the ranged snake, where I mostly spent my time dancing back and forth at range 3 because getting hit with the high-Harm abilities was really gnarly, but half of that was owed to the wonkiness of the Greataxe moveset.) I messed up getting to point 1 because I missed that the diagram indicates that you can only get there on the exterior, so keep that in mind, but it's all good. There's also a few consumables, which have very handy strategic uses.

All in all, a good time! It has a rune which is consumable: it lets you travel an arbitrary number of times without advancing the Realm Clock once, which would be extremely helpful in certain Realms. Give this one a go, it won't take long.

Carried Over Equipment

• Weapons:
  • Greataxe
  • Festering Longsword (Bulwark Hollow)
  • Scale Shield (Great Serpent Tree)
• Gear:
  • Amulet of Dawn
  • Charred Whetstone
• Runes:
  • Fate's Foe
  • Fate's Hunter (Great Serpent Tree replacement)
  • Devouring Rune (Bulwark Hollow)
  • Obran Express Medal (Obran Express)

Next up, World's Grave!

(Read the original on cohost here!)