In Zamora, a jewel burns at the top of a sorcerer’s tower, and Monolith Board Games has built that tower for its Conan board game. 

It rises level by level in one of two new expansions in Conan by Monolith: Tales of Tortage and Zamora, a Kickstarter that runs until October 15.

Read on to learn how the game plays and what waits for you in this twisted and far away land!

How the board game plays

Conan: The Board Game sends a band of Heroes after an objective, with an enemy force standing between them and it. Every battle plays out in miniature across a scenario map.

Monolith puts the heart of it plainly: “Energy is everything.” Every Hero carries a pool of Energy Gems, and every move, swing, block and reroll draws from it. Pour it all into one turn and you may cut your way through, but you will stand spent when the enemy strikes back. 

In Adventure Mode, one player sits as the Overlord and commands every blade and fang on the board. Solo/Co-op empties that seat. Each scenario carries automated commands that drive the enemy forward, so you can fight alone or shoulder to shoulder with friends. Our 2020 piece, Go solo in Conan: The Board Game, walks through how that works.

The King Pledge holds 227 miniatures. They arrive assembled and unpainted, at 28 to 32 mm scale. Monolith posts the rules and scenarios as a free download, so you can study the field before you pledge.

Zamora and the Tower of the Elephant

Howard’s Nemedian Chronicles, quoted at the head of “The Phoenix on the Sword,” speak of “Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery.”

“The Tower of the Elephant” ran in Weird Tales in March 1933. In it, a young Conan, still a thief in a Zamorian city of thieves, scales a sorcerer’s tower to steal a jewel. Howard scholars often name it among his finest work. If you know the 1982 film, its tower heist was born from this story.

Monolith has drawn from this well before, with its Yogah of Yag box. Zamora raises the tower itself, its levels bound together by a mini-board called the Silver Stairs. Beyond the tower, the expansion’s locations reach as far as a Lotus Den, and it arms both sides with new spells and equipment.

Its darkest addition belongs to the Overlord: a deck called the Blessings of the Spider-God. Turn by turn, its cards make the enemy stronger and harder to read. Two of Zamora’s scenarios are built around the deck, and you can deal it into others when you want a crueler fight. Zamora brings six scenarios, three for Solo/Co-op and three for Adventure Mode.

Tortage

Tortage was the pirate island where every player’s story began in Age of Conan, Funcom’s 2008 online game, and it lies in Howard’s Barachan Isles.

Monolith’s expansion carries the Heroes from the haven’s streets and beaches onto fully playable ships, where the deck and the hold are separate ground. Here the sea itself can kill you, through a new Drown skill and a spell called Dagon’s Embrace. A Grappling Hook opens new ways across the battlefield.

The ship half-boards first released in Tales of the Red Brotherhood sail with Tortage at no extra cost. Its six scenarios split the same way as Zamora’s.

Starting with no gaming group

For €89 before VAT and shipping, the King Pledge brings the original core game and its original stretch goals in two large boxes. Adventure Mode and Solo/Co-op both come with it, with the solo versions of the scenarios as PDFs.

Monolith’s own web store lists the King Box at $189, tax included.

If this is your first Kickstarter, you pick one pledge and add anything else as add-ons. Kickstarter charges you when the campaign ends. About a month later, Monolith opens a pledge manager on Gamefound, where you pay shipping and tax and confirm your order. It stays open for around four months. A pledge left unconfirmed when it closes becomes Monolith store credit for the amount pledged, so watch your spam folder for the invitation.

The campaign page also lists Rolling Solo’s solo playthrough, if you want to watch a game unfold first.

The roleplaying game

If you already gather around a table for D&D, Conan: The Hyborian Age may be your shorter road into Howard’s world. The free Quickstart hands you five pregenerated characters and a full adventure, The Seal of Acheron.

In the campaign, the Core Book is €25 as a PDF, or €50 in print with the PDF included, both before VAT, with shipping extra on print. It stands entirely on its own, and board game maps and miniatures are optional. Our 2024 piece, Blood, Thunder, and Dice, goes inside the system.

Two new sourcebooks each open a new Origin and a complete campaign. Both need the Core Book.

Shadows of Zamora walks the nation’s history and its cults, all the way to Yezud, which the book names as the lair of the Spider-God. Its three-part campaign, Serpents of Zamora, begins with a ritual murder. In its first campaign update, Monolith says Thulsa Doom looms over it.

Howard forged Thulsa Doom for a Kull story, and the 1982 film made him Conan’s foe. He is also the villain of Titan’s Conan: Tides of the Tyrant-King by Jim Zub and Jesús Merino, which launched September 23. Zub, who writes Titan’s Conan the Barbarian, guests in a Dungeon Dudes actual play of the RPG listed on the campaign page.

Upon a Blood Red Tide charts the pirates of the Barachan Isles, with rules for ship-to-ship combat and boarding actions. Its five-part campaign, The Amulet of Bones, ends against a sorcerer and the kraken he commands. In the same update, Monolith says players can cross paths with Valeria, from “Red Nails,” and Strom, the Barachan pirate from “The Black Stranger.”

The Origins Box binds the two games together: twelve RPG characters as miniatures, with board game components to bring each one in as a Hero.

If your 2015 box is on a shelf

Take it down. The Board Game New Content Pledge was built for you! It bundles both new expansions with the Origins Box for €99 before VAT and shipping. Monolith’s FAQ says the expansions need only the core game.

Two scenario books stand outside that pledge as add-ons. Chronicles of the Free Companions gathers 37 Solo/Co-op scenarios and prints the Solo/Co-op rules in the same volume. Twelve of those scenarios are new solo adaptations of Adventure Mode scenarios from three older expansions. Monolith says a list of what each scenario needs is coming in a campaign update.

Tales of High Adventure gathers 23 Adventure Mode scenarios. Eight are new, and 15 lived only in digital form until now. Nearly the entire earlier board game range returns as add-ons too.

When it ships

Monolith estimates delivery in September 2027. Its risks section says that of its past campaigns, “most have been delivered within the predicted time frame, and among the games still to be delivered, none is behind schedule.”

Backing it

During the campaign, the King Pledge is €89 before VAT and shipping. Monolith hasn’t said what it will cost afterward. If you want to test the waters first, the RPG Quickstart is free.

Conan by Monolith: Tales of Tortage and Zamora is on Kickstarter until October 15.