One of my favourite games is Dungeoneer by Thomas Denmark and published by Atlas Games. Dungeoneer is sold as card decks, but it's also a board game, with some of the cards in the deck serving as board tiles. I own every Dungeoneer deck released, and I'm reviewing them one by one. In this post, I'm looking at the setting of the Wrath of the Serpent Goddess set.
From the Haste card in Vault of the Fiends, I gather that the planet or realm (or whatever) of Dungeoneer is named Tarnys. This isn't proven fact, it's only my assumption, but Tarnys is the name I use for the global setting.
As usual in Dungeoneer sets, the story of Wrath of the Serpent Goddess starts on the back of the box:
The twisted Knights of Ilbor were banished after being corrupted by the serpent goddess Nakari. Now they've rebuilt their armies in the wastes and coupled with her priestesses to spawn unimaginable slithering horrors. Gather your courage to enter the serpentine temple, where you'll journey into the very heart of Nakari's abysmal lair to rid the world of this blight.
We know from Call of the Lich Lord that Ilbor is currently a troubled region. The quest card Defeat the High Priestess reveals that the knights of Ilbor are have been magically dominated by Nakari's high priestess, and that to destroy her is to save the knights. According to the Slay the Naga Queen quest card in Call of the Lich Lord, the naga queen has allied with a lich to strengthen her hold on Northern Ilbor. Because the lich is supported (as far as we can tell) by Nakari, the naga queen has functionally allied herself with Nakari (which seems appropriate.)
To be clear, it's not definitive that Nakari is the goddess helping the lich lord of Call of the Lich Lord. The back of the box only refers to a "dark god of death and magic" but those exact terms are never used in the set's cards, and the most prominent god of the set is Nakari. I'm assuming she's the goddess referred to by the back of the box, or else that the back of the box is apocryphal interpretive text (that is, it's metagame marketing).
Assuming Nakari is the connection between the Wrath of the Serpent Goddess set and the Call of the Lich Lord set, it becomes obvious that these 2 sets represent a divine assault on Tarnys. Nakari is mobilizing not only the naga and a lich in one dungeon, but her own army in another. This seems likely to me, because the back of the box says explicitly:
It plays best when combined with Call of the Lich Lord.
Similar to its companion set, this one is set in a dungeon rather than outdoors like Realm of the Ice Witch, Dragons of the Forsaken Desert, and Haunted Woods of Malthorin.) Both are also Legendary sets (meaning they both start at a level higher than 1), so the recommendation to pair them makes mechanical sense. That said, back when they were my only 2 sets, I used to drop Call of the Lich Lord into Realm of the Ice Witch and had a lot of fun with a high-level destination dungeon.
The dungeon in Wrath of the Serpent Goddess is explicitly a temple of Nakari. We obviously don't know much about the worship of Nakari, but we can make inferences based on this set's location and quest cards.
Broadly, and ignoring common hallways and junctions, there are 2 categories of location cards in the temple. There are locations of remediation and there are cards of communion.
Rooms like the Altar of Reparation, Chamber of Atonement, Chamber of Penance, and Fountain of Healing suggest that Nakari makes provisions for her followers to be purified and healed. Healing is easily defined mechanically. Specifically, you can pay any amount of Movement to regain an equal amount of health. In the lore, it's more complex than that. The Defile the Unholy Fountain quest says "While the fountain can heal, it does so with an unholy power." So Nakari heals, but for some reason the narrator considers her healing power dangerous or tainted.
Words like atonement, reparation and penance are also open to interpretation. What do you have to atone for in the eyes of Nakari, and just what does penance require? Both the Chamber of Atonement and Chamber of Penance give boosts to monsters, which suggests that Nakari is a harsh mistress to followers who fail her. Then again, what god doesn't threaten their followers with punishment? It's kind of what gods do.
Rooms like the Chamber of Channeling, Nakari's Gateway, Sanctum Sanctorum, Serpentine Lair, and Lair of Nakari suggest communion and worship. What that looks like in Nakari's cult is appropriately shrouded in mystery. We know that Nakari's cult has endured for a very long time, and that it has important relics. According to the Face the Eye of the Serpent quest card:
The mighty eye of the serpent is a powerful reic forged by the minions of Nakari in a past age.
The hissing of snakes is said to be the "voice of Nakari," which makes the Sanctum Sancorum, which is filled with snakes, a particularly holy place. That is, at least to worshippers of Nakari. To others, it's literally maddening.
The Read the Signs quest card leads players to the Observation Room to search for signs of Nakari's arrival on (or return to?) Tarnys:
The signs of Nakari's coming can be difficult to discern.
Finally, the Defeat Nakari quest identifies Nakari as a "demonic goddess." This probably isn't just an opinion about her disposition, but a statement about her actual origin and nature. The card Armored Rat Beast card says that "Strange rat beasts came with Nakari into our world from the Abyss," and Scaled Demon says "The priestesses have summoned us to serve our infernal mother." That's pretty demonic sounding to me.
There are a few cards that mention regions or possibly factions within Tarnys.
In the Vault of the Fiends set, the Bannus Soldier card states that "Bannuss Soldiers love money and battle." We don't know what makes a soldier a Bannus Soldier. It could be that a Bannus Soldier is someone from a specific region of the world, or someone who's adopted a certain mercenary ethos, or from the Bannus family, or the Bannus religion, or something else entirely. This is relevant to Wrath of the Serpent Goddess because the Shenka Mercenary card provides a counterpoint to Bannus soldiers.
The Shenka Mercenary card grants you an ally that provides bonuses against fiends, and that may be discarded to negate a melee effect entirely. The flavour text reads:
While Bannus mercenaries are loyal only to money, Shenka are loyal only to their friends.
Shenka could be a geographical location on Tarnys, or a school of thought, the name of a martial art, a family business, a religion, or anything.
In the Vault of the Fiends set, the Iron Helmet card displays a stylish helmet and says "Knights of Dolmarathuz wear helmets like this one." I might be reading too much into it, but I believe this card hints that Ramalith, the villain of the titular Vault of the Fiends, was himself once a Knight of Dolmaranthuz.
In Wrath of the Serpent Goddess, there's a card called Corrupted Knight with this flavour text:
We were once the most revered knights of Dolmaranthuz.
This confirms that at least some knights of Dolmaranthuz were corrupted by some evil force.
Getting to kill a goddess, or at least her avatar, is a pretty exciting prospect for any adventurer. It's all the more appealing if you've played Call of the Lich Lord, as I had by the time I acquired Wrath of the Serpent Goddess. After reading about Nakari and gathering clues about her identity, there's nothing more exciting than descending into her temple and, if you're very lucky, finding her avatar waiting for you. Of course, along the way there are all kinds of dangers and threats, which I cover in characters of Wrath of the Serpent Goddess
Header and card image copyright by Thomas Denmark and Atlas Games, and used exclusively as reference.