MORANA: The Open Grave / The Bright Thaw
The radiant half of the First Turning
Set II is the dark half of the Turning: the open grave, and the dead walking back. The Bright Thaw is the same broken wheel's radiant half. The crack that let the dead out also let the wonder through, and the goddess rises green with the light. Here are its first 24 cards, the Slavic wonder-tales drawn in a lush painterly hand. A design preview, not the launch set. The launch game is Set II, which you can play free in your browser now.
In MORANA's cosmology (see the Ten Worlds), the wheel of the year has cracked and the dead walk back. Set II, the Slavic First Turning, is the dark half of that break: the grave, the drowned girls, the household dead returning cold. The Bright Thaw is its radiant half. The same wound that let the dead out tore the sky and the deep wonder-realms open too, and their light is pouring up into the living world. Morana herself is drowned in effigy each winter and rises green with every thaw. She is not the frost. She is the turning that outlives it, and this is the world of her rising.
Sky is the radiant above: the sun-gods and dawn-sisters, the Firebird and the jewel-plumed prophecy-birds, the horse that leaps to the tower window. Hollow is the jewel-bright below: the Sea-Tsar's undersea tsardom, the copper and golden underground kingdoms, the crystal mountain, treasure that is alive. Between them runs the Turning itself, the thaw at Kupala midnight where the fern-flower blooms and the snow-maiden melts into light, the bridge that leads straight back to Morana's open grave. Wonder in these tales is dangerous and enchanting at once: the Firebird's feather curses as it gifts, the Sea-Tsar drowns as he dances.
Set II is muted, dark, woodcut folk-horror. The Bright Thaw turns the lights all the way up: a bold, modern, graphic style, dramatic silhouettes lit by a huge glowing sun or moon, rich saturated color, and gleaming metallic gold and iridescent surfaces built for foil. The rarer the card, the more the art gives: Commons are clean and punchy, and the Legendaries open into elaborate, shimmering showpieces. Every card is a scene you can read at a glance.
Where Set II turns on the Open Grave and Set III on the Retell, the Bright Thaw is built around the Boon: the wonder-tale gift that pays a great reward but carries a printed price, right there in the open for both players to see. The feather that lights the way and calls the debt. The water that raises the dead but must be poured in the right order. Costs, power and text below are an early design preview and will change before print.
Every game of the Bright Thaw is told by a Warden who sits face-up all game and sets your school of play. Legendary, one per deck, each with a passive Vigil and one Invocation.
4♛
Vigil: your Boons cost 1 less Ember.
Invocation (4): draw the top 2 cards of your Nav; keep one as a Boon.
Take the feather and you take the debt. Every wonder has a price at the back of it.
4♛
Vigil: your Spirits with Ward get +1 Power.
Invocation (4): defeat an enemy Spirit with Power 6 or less.
She kept Koschei on a chain. She did not do it by being gentle.
4♛
Vigil: at Dusk, an enemy Spirit gets -1 Power.
Invocation (4): move every enemy Spirit at one Site to another Site.
He dances when the music pleases him. Up above, they call it a wreck.
4♛
Vigil: your first Reborn each turn costs 1 less.
Invocation (4): return two Spirits from your Nav to a Site.
Every task her father set, she finished before dawn, and never let him see her weep.
The Bright Thaw is fought over three Sites drawn from these: a night garden of gold, an undersea court, a mountain of glass, a river where the worlds stand open.
The first Boon you play each turn costs 1 less Ember.
Something takes one apple a night. The tsar stopped counting and started watching.
Your Spirits here cannot be moved by the enemy.
The music never stopped, so the sea never stilled, so the sailors never came home.
At Dusk, the player with the highest-Power Spirit here gains 1 extra Slava.
Halfway is nothing here. The glass gives back everyone who could not reach the top.
Once each turn, when you Reborn a Spirit here, draw a card.
One night a year the door stands open. Bring a wreath. Do not bring a name you cannot lose.
The wonder-tale cast of the rising: falcon-princes and dawn-sisters of the Sky, the frog-tsarevna and the golden kingdoms of the Hollow, and the two who stand on the Turning itself.
23
Omen: return a friendly Spirit from your Nav to your hand.
She wore out three pairs of iron shoes to find the window he flew from.
22
Vigil: at Dawn, a friendly Spirit gets +1 Power until Dusk.
The Morning one opens the gate; the Evening one bars it. The sun is only a guest.
34
Step. Omen: you may move Sivka-Burka to any Site.
Stand before me like a leaf before the grass. Then hold on, and do not look down.
34
Omen: defeat an enemy Spirit with Power 3 or less.
The witch's gift lit her whole way home, and burned her stepmother to a cinder at the door.
33
Vigil: the enemy cannot gain Slava from your Nav.
Whoever hears her forgets the whole world, and counts it a fair trade.
34
Omen: a friendly Spirit gains Ward until your next turn.
Dance first, they said. So she made a lake of one sleeve and a spring of the other.
23
Omen: gain 1 Ember this turn.
The first of the three underground kingdoms. She has learned to like the dark.
33
Reborn: gain 2 Embers this turn.
She can roll a gold kingdom into an egg and carry it home in your pocket.
11
Step. Omen: you may move to any Site.
Two arshins tall with ears a yard long, and worth more than the tsar's whole stable.
22
Omen: gain 1 Slava.
Every hoofbeat leaves a coin. That is exactly how they catch the greedy ones.
23
Omen: move an enemy Spirit to a neighboring Site.
They carry off what is left alone. Do not leave a little brother on the grass.
22
Omen: an enemy Spirit gets -1 Power this turn.
In the dark half they drown you. In the thaw they only want to dance. Only.
24
Boon: she gets +3 Power; at your next Dusk she melts to your Nav.
She was warned to keep from fire. She wanted, just once, to be warm with the rest.
23
Reborn: she returns crowned, with +2 Power.
Drowned at winter's end, she comes back green at the edges. She is the turning that outlives the frost.
The one-night wonders: the bloom that opens the earth, and the two waters that raise the dead. Great Boons, each with its printed price.
2
Boon: look at the top 3 cards of your Nav; return one to a Site for free.
It blooms for one breath at midnight. Hold it, and every buried thing calls out at once.
3
Boon: return a defeated Spirit from your Nav to your hand; the enemy gains 1 Slava.
Death-water to make him whole, life-water to make him rise. In that order, or you have a corpse.
The Bright Thaw is an early look at the bright half of the world, its story, its art and its ideas. It is not the game you buy first, and MORANA publishes at walking pace: no set enters production before it passes its playtest gates, and none is sold before the one before it is delivered. The launch game is Set II, the Slavic First Turning, the complete box and the free browser duel.
More of the world: The founding myth · The Ten Worlds · The Old Tales (Set III) · Play free