Garphill Games Announces the “South” Trilogy of Upcoming Games

(Edit: 4/26/22) – The Kickstarter’s live! Go here to back it.

If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, you know how much I love Garphill Games and their trilogies.

Architects of the West Kingdom is one of my favourite games ever. Raiders of the North Sea and Paladins of the West Kingdom are up there too. I’m sure Viscounts of the West Kingdom will be up there as soon as I get it played.

So when Shem Phillips and SJ MacDonald went live to announce the next trilogy of games, I really wish I could have been there.

Sadly, I was out when the livestream went live, but you can actually watch the video announcement here!

The next trilogy of games takes Garphill Games to the South Tigris with some really interesting-sounding games.

The first game, coming in 2022, is called Wayfarers of the South Tigris.

This game actually uses dice!

I know MacDonald did dice with Circadians: First Light, but this is the first of the “trilogy” games that will use dice.

Let’s do a blurb since Shem and Sam can say it better than I can:

“Wayfarers of the South Tigris is set during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, circa 820 AD. As brave explorers, cartographers and astronomers, players set off from Baghdad to map the surrounding land, waterways, and heavens above. Players must carefully manage their caravan of workers and equipment, while reporting back regularly to journal their findings at the House of Wisdom. Will you succeed in impressing the Caliph, or lose your way and succumb to the wilderness?

The aim of Wayfarers of the South Tigris is to be the player with the most victory points (VP) at the game’s end. Points are primarily gained by mapping the land, water, and sky. Players can also gain points from upgrading their caravans, by gaining inspiration from nobles, and by influencing the three guilds of science, politics, and trade. As they make discoveries, players want to quickly journal their progress. The game ends once one player has journaled enough to gain membership in one of the three guilds.”

Does that sound cool or what?

It sounds like the complexity will be around the same level as Viscounts of the West Kingdom, which unfortunately I don’t quite know what that means yet (by the end of the year, I want to play this).

It looks like the other two games will be as follows:

Scholars of the South Tigris – 2023

Inventions of the South Tigris – 2024

Nothing about those two games came out, of course.

I, for one, am really excited about all of this. I was looking forward to finding out what the first game in the next trilogy is going to be, but I had no idea we’d be getting all three!

You can already subscribe to forum posts for Wayfarers of the South Tigris on Boardgame Geek. It must have been secretly in the queue or something.

Keep an eye here as well, because when I find out something, you will find out something.

Are you as excited as I am?

Let me know in the comments.