The Druids of Edora (Saturday Review)

Mist coiled between the ancient stones, whispering secrets of powers wielded by only a few. The forest waited, still and patient, as cloaked figures approached with burning torches. As they began to chant, the flickering flames stretched and twisted until fires flared in silent circles. Moving from shrine to shrine, they connected dolmens, built runestones and standing stones, and weaved their magic through leaf and root. In that sacred balance of offering and renewal, the old ways awoke once more. Those cloaked figures that called forth the wisdom of ancient times were The Druids of Edora by Stefan Feld from Alea with art by Fred Gissubel.

Frustrating First Forays

I hate to start my review with a negative, but I just have to get it out of the way. The English rulebook for The Druids of Edora is really awful. I don’t want to upset a fellow translator, but I had to revert to the German rules to understand how the game is supposed to work.

In some places, the English translation is just a bit awkward: “Place the six oracle stones face up in the six gaps, just as they come […]” We know that means that we draw the oracle stones randomly and place them… well… as they come. Or “Going counterclockwise, […] and going in turn […]” means we go around the table in reverse turn order.

However, at one point, it no longer makes any sense: “It costs as many provisions as its value indicates to place a die.” That’s supposed to mean that you pay as many provisions as there are pips on the die you just placed. For me, that’s when I gave up and put the English rules back in the box and stuck with the German version.

Learning the rules of a game is never straightforward, and writing rulebooks is hard. I get it. However, it’s the translation that’s the issue. The German rulebook makes perfect sense and allowed me to learn and teach the game. It’s the English version that failed, unfortunately.

One redeeming factor is that there is an additional reference booklet for some of the powers, benefits and other icons, which clarifies everything. The English version of that is absolutely fine.

So, I’m not sure what happened here, because the game itself is a lot of fun, as you will see in a moment. I hope there is going to be a version of the English rules available online that has been translated properly.

Familiar Feelings

Moving on, let me get into the thick of the game itself.

The Druids of Edora is a dense forest with many routes to scoring points. One is connecting the so-called dolmens that are around the edge of the board. Fulfilling the requirements of the stone tablet endgame objectives is another. Going up the knowledge and sickle tracks are two more options. Brewing potions, collecting gemstones, placing rune and standing stones are four more ways. A mini area control element also allows players to score. Lighting fire pits is the tenth way of gaining points.

To get those points in The Druids of Edora you move your druid pawn along the forest path from clearing to clearing. Then you pay one provision for each step of the journey and place one of your dice on one of the action spaces in the clearing and pay for its pip value. So the further you journey and the higher the dice value is, the more you have to pay.

Some actions are more powerful with more pips, others work the same, irrespective of dice value. However, you often want to play a higher pip value dice, because when you place a dice in a clearing with other players’ dice, whoever’s dice has the highest pip value immediately gains two points. Yet, provisions can be scarce, so you have to decide when to concede two points and when to place a high-pip-value dice.

So, as you can see, there is nothing really new in The Druids of Edora, but that’s a good thing. It’s a game that’s like a well-loved cloak with a comfy hood that keeps you warm and snuggly. It’s the familiarity that immediately makes you feel at home in the world of Edora.

Shining Shrines

What adds to the comfy feeling of playing The Druids of Edora are the components. The beautifully sculpted plastic rune and standing stones, dolmens and player pawns are really fitting for the setting. The cardboard boards have cutouts to place certain tokens and pieces so they don’t slide about. The lovely wooden dice are very tactile and a pleasure to place on the modular game board.

In fact, I love how the game board functions. It consists of a cardboard frame that slots together like puzzle pieces and keeps the nine square board tiles in place. The tiles are double-sided and either show one or two dice worker placement spaces in each clearing. To set up the game for two players, you place all squares with their single-dice side up, while for four players, you flip them to their two-dice side. For three players, you alternate between the single-dice and double-dice sides. It’s such a clever bit of product design that also allows you to create a different setup for each game.

Putting it all together, you get a game that’s very familiar, looks beautiful on the table and is a joy to play. Yet, The Druids of Edora is bigger than the sum of its parts. As players, you have a lot of important decisions to make. Not only do you need to solve the puzzle of the labyrinth of paths and what pip-value dice to place where, but also what tracks to go up, what benefits to choose when and generally figure out what order you want to do everything in. You can never do everything, so you need to focus on the most important tasks first, while keeping an eye on everyone else.

Echoes of Edora

The Druids of Edora is a game that appeals to puzzle-solving brains as well as strategists and tacticians. It even caters for your tactile senses and visual appreciation. While it is quite an abstract game, the setting still exudes a lot of magic. It doesn’t offer any new ideas, but the way well-known mechanisms are combined and refined is very well done and makes playing it hugely enjoyable.

The Druids of Edora can be a multiplayer-solitaire game with two players, especially if you both pick different parts of the forest, but when you play with four, it becomes very competitive very quickly. Even so, it’s not a cut-throat game. Other than the potions and worker placement spaces, you can’t really prevent players from doing what they want to do. So once you’ve formulated a strategy, you should be able to pursue it without too much interference.

The Druids of Edora is quite a gentle game. You’re never rushed and are always able to come back from behind. The many ways to score should never leave you wanting. That, and the fact that the mechanisms are so familiar, make it an evergreen title for me.

For newcomers to the hobby, it might be a bit overwhelming, but at the same time, it feels like a family game. You might have to help for the first few turns, but after that, players will be able to explore the forest on their own. So while it isn’t an outstanding game with cutting-edge mechanisms, it is a very clever design that focuses on what we all know to create an inviting world for us all to discover together. The Druids of Edora is definitely going to stay in my collection.

Useful Links

• The Druids of Edora: https://www.ravensburger.co.uk/en-GB/products/games/strategy-games/druids-of-edora-game-24686
• Rulebook: https://product-files.ravensburger.cloud/manuals/681573.pdf
• BGG listing: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/440007/the-druids-of-edora

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