Early in 2024, after Arcs was in the books, Cole approached me to ask if I wanted to lead the next Root expansion. My answer was something like, “Yes! But…I need to go lie down for a couple months.” So I did—I went to the local cafe a lot, met some new friends, stared at the wall a bit, and started reading through The Power Broker. Arcs was hard! But as my creative energies recovered, I started to ponder the expansion: what part of Root was I interested in exploring?
Here’s what: Root is a living, breathing ecosystem because of the Woodland. The factions are not self-contained—they rely on the creatures of the Woodland to accomplish their goals. The Marquise works (and Overworks) the Woodfolk, the Eyrie enact their Decree through Woodfolk advisors and notables, and so on. You, as the faction leadership, are nothing without the Woodfolk. So, I first wanted to focus on this multiple, fractious nature of the factions.
The Woodland itself is also more complex than meets the eye. A fox clearing is not just a clearing of foxes alone; the Woodland is not just a bunch of insular ethnic enclaves. Instead, a fox clearing is one where the foxes have overriding influence. That could represent a population majority, but perhaps not! Maybe the clearing is an important crossroads, ruled over by a guild of fox traders. I wanted to highlight the complex compositions of the Woodfolk, their relationships to the factions, and how they could change.
So we come to the Homeland Expansion. As its title suggests, its focus is home. Its two big factions, the Lilypad Diaspora and the Twilight Council, both exemplify this. The Diaspora, composed mostly of frogs and toads, wishes to secure a home in the Woodland, working to integrate peacefully but struggling to find their footing among both the factional war and Woodfolk suspicion and intolerance. The Council, headed by bats but including the Woodland as a whole, wishes to restore peace to their shared homeland, organizing the Woodfolk through assemblies to reconcile with each other, demobilize and de-escalate the conflict, and refuse to cooperate with the violent factions that depend on their labor and bodies to keep the war machine going.
Thinking about these themes reminded me of my favorite grand-strategy video games, such as Stellaris, Crusader Kings, and Victoria by Paradox Interactive. I love how these games show that a single faction is actually composed of many factions, whether it’s the relationship between liege lords and vassals in Crusader Kings, interest groups in Victoria, or internal factions in Stellaris. No group is a monolith, but rather a pastiche of people who have different priorities and opinions. The Lilypad Diaspora shows this through its split between peacefulness and militancy, and the Twilight Council shows this through its ever-evolving assemblies.
But it’s not enough for the Homeland factions to be pastiches of internal groups; those internal groups should respond to the influence of everyone at the table. Essentially, any player should be able to fight proxy wars through the Homeland factions. For the Council, the assemblies are open to all comers, who can convince enemy warriors to lay down their arms…or else. For the Diaspora, anyone can provoke the Diaspora to become more militant by battling them, and can promote peacefulness by reconciling with them, swapping their own cards for cards from the Diaspora’s personal Frog deck. You might antagonize a Homeland faction in one part of the map and reconcile with them in another.
These factions work at the roots of Root. (Sorry.) They add a new suit, morph the map, and give everyone a whole new way to use their cards. They’re also a love letter to the Riverfolk Expansion. The Riverfolk factions are so wacky and I adore how they focus on player politics. However, over the years, we’ve found that newer players to Root can struggle to fully engage with them, especially the Lizard Cult. Because of this, I’ve structured the Homeland factions’ politics to ensure they are more accessible to everyone.
This expansion also includes two new maps—the Gorge Map, based on the excellent map of the same name by Sam Smith, Lord of the Board, and the Swamp Map, based on a map by our very own Patrick Leder! I’ll have plenty more to say about these maps in my fourth design diary.
That’s all for today, but you’ll hear from me plenty more. I’ll post a new design diary every Tuesday until the crowdfunding campaign begins. Next week, I’ll talk through the Lilypad Diaspora.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey! Thanks for reading.
Root: The Homeland Expansion
The Homeland Expansion adds new factions and two new maps to Root! Its Kickstarter launches on October 22nd, 2024. If you would like to sign up to be reminded, click here.
Lilypad Diaspora
Scattered long ago and suppressed ever since, the Lilypad Diaspora now returns to their Woodland home. While they hope to reintegrate peacefully, peace is rare in the midst of civil war. As they train their warriors, they must ensure that their desire for safety does not tip into outright aggression. With weapons at the ready, a simple misunderstanding between the Diaspora and the Woodland can flare into vicious reprisals, hardening the Diaspora’s militancy and spreading resentment against their cause.
Twilight Council
Sickened by the enduring conflict, the Twilight Council hosts assemblies to end the war, bringing together all the Woodland from the lowliest mouse-in-a-sack to the mightiest hawk with a royal claim. The assemblies emphasize political connections over pure numbers of warriors, pushing the factions away from bloody battle and toward heated debate. As the Council progresses in their mission, they can declare edicts to change how the assemblies work, manipulating their enemies’ incentives and actions.
Find the original Design Diary on BoardGameGeek! Subscribe to the page and check back weekly for more Design Diaries and updates as we get closer to the campaign launch on October 22, 2024.