Pyramid Review

Torches & Pitchforks

Published by Green Ronin Publishing

Concept by Adam Conus

Designed by Luke Matthews

Developed by Adam Conus & Luke Matthews

Illustrated by Rich Werner

200 cards (108 Mob, 30 Townsfolk, 60 Monster, two reference) plus rules (requires one six-sided die, not included); $24.95

Night falls, and the moon rises. A thick fog billows across the glen. As you and your fellow townspeople step gingerly into the mist, a raspy growl reaches your ears. It's Vlad the Inhaler, one of the asthmatic undead, and the sound makes it easier for you to bury a stake in his chest. That's unlife in Green Ronin Publishing's Torches & Pitchforks.

The object of this swollen-tongue-in-decaying-cheek card game is to fend off the monsters attacking your tiny hamlet -- but when the sun rises you'd rather the town remember you as the man of the hour, so you want to be the first villager to reach 30 points.

Each player (two to five of them) gets six Townsfolk cards. Each one of these is a personality from your burg, ready and willing to lend a hand. (How much help you can expect from the likes of Luke the Inconsiderate Ass and Howard the Village Idiot is questionable, but they're all you've got.) For your turn you get a hand of five Mob cards. This deck contains everything the effective monster hunter needs for a night of supernatural tail-kicking:

Enhancement cards will give you a leg up in your fight. The first kind of Enhancement is Weapons, most of which, in true cinematic style, are . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.




Article publication date: October 31, 2003


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