Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is an expandable deduction card game set in the colonial America of 1587. In this asymmetrical card game you either play a witch who is trying to complete a ritual of renaturation or a hunter who is trying to discover the witch’s true identity among nine villagers. Each turn, the two players use their action pawns to active available villagers which allow them to draw cards, play cards, or gain influence. Each player has their own variable 50-card deck. The cards allow the witch to brew powerful potions, improve their familiar, and cast enchantments and charms, while the hunter enlists allies, claims strategic locations, and ruthlessly investigates the villagers.
As the witch, your objective is to collect enough secrets to perform a ritual so potent that the entire region will fall under your spell and Mother Nature will reclaim the island. As the hunter, you gather all the allies and support you can muster to bring the witch to justice before her fatal ritual comes to fruition.
There are two victory conditions for each player. As the witch, you either have to perform the ritual or you can lead the hunter into a false trail causing him to kill three innocent villagers. As the hunter you either have to eliminate the true witch or exonerate the eight villagers from the suspect deck.
Game setup
As Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is an asymmetrical card game, each player chooses whether they will be the witch or the hunter at the start of the game. Then, each player takes the corresponding action pawns, influence disc, deck, board and tokens corresponding to the witch or the hunter. Place the three part village board at the center of the table and put the enchantment board to one side. Place the nine villagers on the village board corresponding to their symbol, then shuffle the nine suspects (matching the villagers on the village board) to form the suspect deck. The witch can now draw the top card of the suspect deck, keeping it secret from the hunter. This suspect indicates the true identity of the witch for the remainder of this game.
You’re now ready to play.
Final thoughts
As a big fan of asymmetrical card games (and former player of Android Netrunner), I find this game really awesome. There are lots of interesting mechanics and a huge replayability since you can build your own deck, change the villagers or play different scenarios. So you will never get bored of playing Pagan: Fate of Roanoke and you will always want to try and improve your gameplay.
The deck building and many villager options allow for more strategies, as well as the two-player interactions, and the limited number of action per turn. In Pagan: Fate of Roanoke, every move as a consequence on the opponent and on your own future play. It is thus a really strategic game which really pushes you to think about every action you want to do each turn. New mechanics and different ways to play are available in the expansions to add even more fun (and strategies!) to the game.
