Slugfest Games, the makers of Red Dragon Inn, are going to be adding 7 new characters to their game throughout the next year. One of them, Ozrik the Adept, has already been talked about on their site to a degree. Ozrik is an elementalist that will be available to players involved in Slugfest’s reward program, SlugCrew. After doing so many hours worth of demos you can receive this powerful character that allows you to play elemental cards when you play actions to boost the effects of the card you are playing. It will take a little more effort to balance what cards you keep in your hands to get the most out of this deck. This character will not stay exclusive to the rewards program, but will not be printed earlier than May 2014 to make sure the people helping promote Slugfest feel their work is appreciated.

During the year there will be two allies released for purchase though. Because they have not officially released details on these characters, I do not have their names. I do, however, have details about their play styles and know they have printed at least prototype versions of these decks and the next four I will talk about. One of the characters will be a witch doctor. There are cards themed around voodoo dolls and curses. The curses work in a side deck style similar to the Brewmaster from RDI 3. The curses themselves work differently though. You get to play curses on other players that will affect how cards in the future will work. Some of them might say the next damage or drink card get two added to the damage or alcohol content. The best part about the curses, they do not get removed if a drink or damage card is ignored. The wording of the card requires the player to take damage or consume the drink to be removed.

The next character has a rage feather similar to the ally Pooky. The more action cards you play, the more damage you will do with those cards. The drawback to this feather is until you reach the last tier, you will also be taking more alcohol on your drink cards. The play style for this character is meant to alter what cards are discarded, since it will be important to be playing specific action cards during your turn to keep increasing your rage counter.

Both of these allies along with the three others they have released or talked about, are meant to be a bit more complicated and used by players already familiar to the game.

The other four character being released this year are coming out in Red Dragon Inn 4. This version of RDI will be pirate themed. Story-wise, these characters own the ship that is used by the other adventurers being played in RDI. Any time there are seas to be crossed, these four pirates are there to help sail away. I do not have play styles on these four, but do know one of them is the ship’s first mate. To make the pirate theme affect the game a little more, there should be news on another Kickstarter being ran by Slugfest to create oversized cards to be released with the game that will change game play. These will also add behavior of the boat, ocean, and weather to how the game will be played. Once funded, each box of RDI 4 should come with the new cards. We can hope to see this game released before or around September to take part in the same Talk Like a Pirate event box that Smirk and Dagger will be helping put together.