Kingdom & Empire is set on the continent of Pittia. Pittia’s peoples have enjoyed an uneasy truce in the two decades following the Kingdom of Celesia’s eliminationist war against a draconic race. Many of Pittia’s nations have ancient roots and remain largely traditional societies, though there are one or two fairly dramatic exceptions. These nations have all endeavored to adapt in their own ways to the new realities created by the Dragon War.

The social and technological disruption actually began in the years just prior to the Dragon War, as the Mages of the Amaranthine Tower bestowed the Kingdom of Celesia with the magically charged arcane cores that would enable them to effectively engage their draconic foes. These arcane cores enabled the development of large piloted mechanical suits of armour called Praetorians, as well as giant floating skyships that for the first time enabled aerial combat, rapid military deployments, and fast travel over long distances.

A continent away, the Ithican Empire had developed into a pitiless meritocracy that used their own parallel development of arcane cores to fuel an expansionist industrialization that saw them conquer and subjugate the entire Ithican continent. Having exhausted its domestic opportunities for expansion, the Empire then turned its sights towards Pittia as the presumptive target of its first overseas conquest.

Pittia’s uneasy truce was irrevocably shattered on the 6th of Trias, 411 BU by the invasion of the Ithican Empire. The assault by a large fleet of black skyships from Ithica’s expeditionary and semi-privateer Blackship Raiders took the continent of Pittia entirely by surprise. Pittia’s nations now find themselves desperately trying to resist an onslaught of a scale and ferocity beyond any they had previously known.

Rules Overview

Kingdom & Empire is a 36mm truescale skirmish wargame designed for 2-4 players. Players choose their forces from one of Kingdom & Empire’s 12+ factions and then pit their forces against each other on a 4′ x 4′ play surface, competing to achieve victory by completing mission objectives.

The outcomes of most events in the game are determined by rolling a pair of six sided dice against a target number. The target number is determined based on the characteristics of the units involved. Kingdom & Empire uses a pair of dice for most rolls instead of a single die to reduce the chances of a couple of unlucky rolls determining the outcome of a game.

The units in Kingdom & Empire range from simple pikemen to ranged musketmen, towering Praetorians and thunderous cavalry. These units all have vital roles to play on the table and learning to effectively use them together is the key to victory and defeat. Later expansions will introduce other factions that showcase the arcane power of mages, the ferocity of mythical beasts, and the inventiveness of those unbound by traditional ideas of war.

Kingdom & Empire is designed with both narrative and competitive gameplay in mind. The rules include a set of standard game types suitable for competitive play as well as installments of a narrative campaign that tells the central story of the Kingdom & Empire setting. The rules are also designed with an emphasis on clarity and balance that we believe help to facilitate all types of gameplay.