CMON Feature Friday: Gaming with Fictional Icons
A while back, we pondered how much fun it would be to sit down at a table with famous historical icons and play some CMON games. Imagine playing The Others with H.P. Lovecraft, or The World of SMOG: Rise of Moloch with Winston Churchill? There are certain games that conjure up historical figures and make you want to game with them.
For this week’s CMON Feature Friday, we’re taking a look at fictional characters and finding the perfectly matched title for a fun evening of gaming.
Beowulf and Blood Rage
The old English epic poem, Beowulf, tells the tale of a great warrior who fights and defeats the monster Grendel, then his mother, then enjoys 50 years of peace before fighting and defeating a dragon. Now, this is a man who enjoys a good battle, and you have to assume he’s going to need some entertainment during that 50-year quiet period between fights. Blood Rage is the perfect time killer for a Scandinavian King. It has tense conflict, difficult decisions, and giant mythological monsters, all set on the backdrop of Ragnarok. It would make sense that Beowulf would embrace the battle on the board as much as he does in real life. Would he be good at it? And would you want to consistently beat a Norse warrior if he wasn’t? That’s a whole other story.
Freddy Benson, Lawrence Jamieson and Rising Sun
Those two names might not jump out at you immediately, but if you ever saw the brilliant 1980s movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, you know that these two conmen are pretty adept at convincing normally rational and intelligent people to do some pretty foolish things. They say you can’t cheat an honest man, but in Rising Sun, everyone is out for their own goals, and Honor is just a commodity like anything else. We could see Freddy and Lawrence being the perfect scheming pair to try and convince the other players to follow their leads, while they prepared to stab them in the back. Having a couple of untrustworthy players in a game of Rising Sun can make it more difficult, but at least you know you can’t believe a word they’re going to say.
Gandalf and Ethnos
This legendary, literary wizard was known for his wisdom, magic, and foresight. However, in Ethnos, his powers of perception will be limited. In this game, you’re trying to unite six Kingdoms by sending out bands of creatures to exercise your control. But, you don’t know which cards are going to come up, making planning a little more difficult. Gandalf will feel right at home in the fantasy setting, featuring artwork by John Howe, famous for his illustrations in the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Gandalf may even find himself a little bit flattered by the depiction of Wizards in the game, an obvious homage to one of the most famous ones in literature. Win or lose, it would be fun to sit at a table with Gandalf while he regales you with stories of his adventures!
Indiana Jones and Massive Darkness
Look, if we’re going on pretty much any adventure, we’d like to have Dr. Jones along. While his day job is as a professor of archeology, he spends his free time traveling the world, solving ancient mysteries, and punching out bad guys. What’s not to love about him? Not to mention the fact that his moral compass is always pointed in the right direction. Who better than Indy, when contemplating starting a multi-quest campaign into a deep dark dungeon, taking on mythical creatures in your fight to restore peace to the world? Sure, every time you found an Artifact, he’d tell you that it belongs in a museum, but that would be a minor annoyance for having one of the world’s greatest adventurers on your side as you set off on another one.
What do you think of our list? Which fictional character would you like to game with? What would you play? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #CMONFeatureFriday.
