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Zeugma en Solo · 06/06/2026
Earthborne Trailblazer
Par Earthborne Games
Statut actuel
Pledge Manager ouvert
Fonds récoltés : 492 493 €
Gameplay Overview
Earthborne Trailblazer is an open-world, cooperative adventure board game set in the wilderness of the far future. You and up to four friends take on the role of Rangers, the sworn protectors of a small mountain valley nestled high in the Rocky Mountains, now yearning to blaze new trails and explore the untrodden lands beyond the Valley's borders. Earthborne Trailblazer is not a campaign game, but the memories you'll create will last far beyond a single session of play. In the game you will...
- Explore a beautifully illustrated world and uncover its secrets by becoming familiar with the board's meticulously crafted and delightful details.
- Navigate an entertaining ecology of predators, flora, and prey as the world comes to life around you and nature takes its course.
- Experience an organically branching narrative as you undertake endeavors, avert crises, and explore the wilderness without depleting the reserves of Lone Tree Station.
At the start of each round, you will draw an event card. These cards can represent the weather, progress the narrative, cause the ecology to come to life, and/or spawn crises onto the board. Then, in any order, each player takes a turn. On your turn, you’ll follow these steps: 1) Prepare, 2) Explore, and 3) Travel.
At the beginning of your turn, you can spend any number of tokens from each of your four energy pools.
- Spend Awareness energy to look at that many cards from the top of your region’s terrain deck and then put them back on the top or the bottom of the deck in any order.
- Spend Fitness energy to gain progress that will be used during the travel step at the end of your turn.
- Spend Focus energy to discard fatigue and/or injuries from your player board. The more severe the injury, the more focus you’ll need to spend.
- Spend Spirit energy to barter for gear cards from the a market.
You can spend as much energy during the prepare step as you’d like, but be careful not to spend too much. You will want to have some energy in reserve during the next step of your turn!
During the explore step, you’ll attempt to make progress toward traveling to a different region and/or trying to encounter something or someone specific to your current region. To do so, first look at the artwork and icons shown on the back of the top card of the deck matching the terrain of your region. If you see a meeple or an illustration that appears in your region, you must encounter that card. Otherwise, you can choose to take the card as progress by placing it facedown next to your player board. Then, repeat this process for the top card of the deck, continuing in this fashion until you either choose to stop exploring or are forced to have an encounter.
If you have an encounter, hand the card the player to your left, and they will read the card aloud. You then make a choice about how to resolve it based on the narrative, companions you may have with you, or your remaining energy tokens. Then, you can either stop exploring or you can "press on" by suffering a fatigue. If you press on, draw a fatigue card and place it in one the gear slots on your player board then repeat the explore step.
During the final step of your turn, you can spend progress to travel to a new region of the board and/or place a trail marker in your current region. To travel, you must discard a number of progress equal to the trail type (1, 2, or 3 cards) plus the number of flora in your region. You must discard all of your progress when you leave a region, even if you have more cards than you need to do so.
As you have encounters, avert crises, and explore the wilderness you will find people to help and endeavors to undertake, earning you Ranger Badges that represent your accomplishments. You must earn a specific number of these badges (determined by your chosen difficulty level) to win the game. You must do so before crises and other threats deplete the reserves of Lone Tree Station, causing you to lose the game.
For a more detailed description of Earthborne Trailblazer's gameplay, we invite you to watch the above "How to Play" video in which the game's designer, Andrew Fischer, walks you through its themes and mechanics. If you'd like to see the game in action, check out the gameplay videos below!
The Game in Action
Game Contents
The State of Development
Earthborne Trailblazer is a game under development. That is, we're still working on it. What we shared as part of the Kickstarter campaign is a fair representation of our vision, but it is not the final product. For example, the core design is complete, but we have a lot of individual cards still to develop. Similarly, we've established the look of the board, but have only completed around 20% of the illustration.
Since wrapping up the Kickstarter campaign, we have expanded the board from the small section you can see in our gameplay demo videos. Now, we're in the process of identifying the best content developers to help us bring the game to life and getting them set up to start on the design, development, and writing process that will create the branching story of the game. Once they are underway and playtesting has begun, we can start the collaborative process of building out the final art for the complete board.
As we complete the design and the artwork, you're invited to share in the journey and follow our progress by way of our monthly updates, social feeds, and our fan Discord.
We hope to wrap up development early next year (2027) and go to press early in Q2. If all goes according to plan, we anticipate that fulfillment will begin sometime in August.
Returning EBR Backers
If you’re a returning backer, or if you purchased Earthborne Rangers at retail, you may be wondering how Earthborne Trailblazer relates to EBR, and whether or not it's right for you. Hopefully, this section will help answer that question!
Earthborne Trailblazer is a brand new game with an entirely different rules system that offers a more "zoomed out" and fast-playing experience. For example, it's played in a single session as opposed to a campaign, and instead of the focus being on card interactions, the focus is on the board and the wider world. Trailblazer is rich with its own mechanical depth, and the two games play very differently from one another. What is similar, however, is the theme. In both games you play as Rangers exploring the world and helping people, but the scale of the game is very different, as is the moment to moment action.
If your experience with EBR is anything like ours, as with all campaign games, it can be difficult sometimes to get your full group to the table, or to entice your friends who might not be interested in customizable card games to give it a shot. Trailblazer is great for times when you want to play EBR but can't, or if you want to introduce the world of Earthborne to friends who prefer to play board games over card games.
If you’re only interested in Earthborne Rangers, we have something for you during this campaign as well: a new, unique expansion titled The Fountain, based on the animated short. In it you’ll find a new location (the Fountain), a new location set, and alternate-art cards featuring artwork from the short and its development.
Creative Team
Andrew Fischer // Design
Andrew Fischer is the Game Design Director at Earthborne Games. He is an accomplished game designer and writer with more than 15 years of industry experience. Across that time he has led development on a wide range of products including digital games, tabletop RPGs, miniatures games, and board games including Earthborne Rangers, Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth, Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition, and Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere Roleplaying Game.
Evan Simonet // Illustration, Art Direction, and Graphic Design
Before joining Earthborne Games as the Visual Design Director, Evan Simonet worked as a professional graphic designer and illustrator in the tabletop industry for over a decade. His graphics work is featured prominently in several titles including Arkham Horror The Card Game, Marvel Champions, and Star Wars: Legion. His illustrations and graphic design work are featured heavily in Earthborne Rangers and Hubworld: Aidalon.
Andrew Navaro // Creative Direction
Andrew Navaro is the Founder and Creative Director of Earthborne Games. Prior to that he was a key member of the creative team at Fantasy Flight Games during its heyday where he served in a multitude of roles ranging from Graphic Designer to Head of Studio. His work appears in six titles currently found in BoardGameGeek’s Top 100, including Twilight Imperium 4th Edition, Arkham Horror The Card Game, and Marvel Champions.
Maxine Newman // Additional Design & Development
Maxine Newman is the Lead Game Designer at Earthborne Games where she primarily heads up development on Earthborne Rangers and its expansions. Prior to joining EBG, Maxine was a Senior Developer at Fantasy Flight Games where she was the lead developer of Lord of the Rings The Card Game and co-designer and lead developer of Arkham Horror The Card Game. She is also the author of the fantasy novel, The Key and the Crescent.
Additional Ranger artwork by David Orellana and Bonnie Forsyth.
Sales Tax & VAT
Prices shown on the campaign page do not include tax. Please see below for details as to how applicable taxes will (or won't) be collected based on your location.
USA:
Sales tax will be collected in the pledge manager. There will be no taxes or duties charged at the time of delivery.
EU/UK:
Based on the country of residence, the applicable VAT will be added in two stages - for the pledge in crowdfunding and for shipping and additional items in the pledge manager. There will be no taxes or duties upon delivery.
Canada:
No GST will be collected. Your games will be shipped from within Canada. There will be no taxes or duties upon delivery.
Australia and New Zealand:
No GST will be collected. Your games will be shipped from within Australia. No taxes will be charged upon delivery.
China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Viet Nam:
No VAT will be collected. No customs fees or duties will be charged at the time of delivery.
Rest of the World:
No taxes will be collected during the Pledge Manager, however, taxes and/or duties may be due when your games are delivered.
Join Our Community
To stay up-to-date on the development of Earthborne Trailblazer as well as our other projects, we invite you to follow us on social media and join our fan Discord. We'd love to see you there!
If you would like to stay as up-to-date as possible, we have a bi-weekly podcast where we share what we've been working on, giving project updates in the opening moments of each episode.
Risks & Challenges
All creative projects are somewhat unpredictable, no matter how well one may plan. Whether it be production issues, supply chain disruptions, or other challenges that come up during game development, it's likely that some unforeseen complication will arise and present us with a challenge. Because of our years of experience, however, there are few problems that we have not encountered and have since learned to overcome. Whatever challenges we may face, you can count on clear communication and transparency throughout the process. Our goal is for you to have a clear understanding of the status of Earthborne Trailblazer at all times.
Images (2 · BoardGameGeek)
▶ Vidéos (2)
Review
Semaine légère mais quelques projets sympa | Menu Crowdfunding 222 (31/05/2026)
Les Ludovores · 31/05/2026
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