Glossary

action points

Combat speed: how far a unit can move in a round of battle. Fast units reach the enemy, or escape it, before slow ones. Read more →

age

Early, Middle or Late. The age you pick decides which nations can be played. In general, Early Age nations have stronger mages and weaker troops. Read more →

armor-defeating hit

A hit that lands when the defender's protection roll comes up at its minimum. It ignores a quarter of the target's protection, and becomes far more likely as fatigue rises. Read more →

ascension points

The score Thrones of Ascension give their holder. The game settings say how many a player must hold to win. Read more →

attack skill

How well a unit lands blows. The attacker adds a DRN to its attack skill and the target adds one to its defence skill; the blow lands only if the attacker's total is higher. Read more →

awakening

How soon your pretender appears: awake from the start, dormant for about a year, or imprisoned for years. Waiting gives you more design points. Read more →

battle orders

The script you give a commander before a fight: up to five single-round orders, then a main order for the rest of the battle. Read more →

bless effect

A bonus bought with bless points when you design your pretender and given to every blessed unit. Which ones you can buy depends on your paths. Read more →

bless rush

An early strategy of flooding the map with blessed sacred troops to overwhelm opponents before they are ready. Read more →

blessing

A set of bonuses granted to your sacred units when they fight where your dominion is strong. Your pretender's magic paths decide which bonuses it gives. Read more →

Call God

The order that brings back a dead pretender. Each priest level assigned adds a point, and about fifty points return the god. Read more →

Cataclysm

An optional setting that ends a game at a set turn. Horrors appear and destroy Thrones of Ascension, which lowers the points needed to win. Read more →

commander

A unit that leads troops or does a job such as research, forging or preaching. Only commanders carry gems and change equipment. Read more →

communion

A collective of mages who share the burden of casting. Masters do the casting; Slaves lend their power, raising the Master's path levels, and absorb the fatigue. Read more →

Conquer all

A victory setting where the game is won only by eliminating every other player, instead of by holding Thrones of Ascension. Read more →

defence skill

How hard a unit is to hit. The defender adds a DRN to its defence skill, and a blow that does not beat that total misses, so a tie goes to the defender. Shields and some abilities add to it. Read more →

defensive onion

The idea that stacked defences multiply instead of adding, so each layer that blocks most attacks makes a unit far harder to kill than any single layer could. Read more →

design points

The budget for building a pretender: 450, less the cost of its body. Dormant and imprisoned pretenders get extra. Read more →

dominion

The spread of your god's faith. It is not the same as who owns the land, and it matters in battle, in unrest and in how strong your god and its sacred troops are. Read more →

dominion strength

How strongly your god's belief spreads, from 1 to 10 candles. Each candle above the god's base costs design points. Read more →

DRN Dominions Random Number

Two open-ended dice added together. Most contests in the game add one to each side's value before comparing the totals. Written drn, in lower case, when only one die is used. Read more →

encumbrance

The weight of a unit's armour and gear. Every point tires the unit faster in battle, and a tired unit fights worse. Light troops carry little; heavy armour carries a lot. Read more →

fatigue

Strain that builds up in a unit. Casting tires mages, heavy armour tires the wearer, and a tired unit takes armor-defeating hits much more often. Read more →

fluffer

A mage whose whole job is to buff a thug before the fight and then retreat. Read more →

forging

A mage's order that makes a magic item, paid for with gems. What a mage can forge depends on research. Read more →

fort

A building that protects a province, collects resources and opens the nation's special recruits there. Your capital starts with one. Read more →

game settings

The options chosen when a game is created: the makeup of the world, the divine rules, and the victory conditions on the Thrones tab. Read more →

gems

The currency of the stronger magic, produced by magic sites. Rituals, forging and some battle spells spend them. Read more →

global enchantment

A spell that changes the whole world. Only a limited number can be active at once, and an enemy can break one by contesting it or by killing the mage who cast it. Read more →

gold cost

What a unit costs in gold to recruit. This wiki shows ? where the Inspector's value has not been checked in the game yet. Read more →

hit points

How much damage a unit can take before it dies. Damage that gets past its protection comes off hit points, and a unit at zero is dead. Big creatures usually have many more than ordinary soldiers. Read more →

income

The gold your provinces bring in each turn, which you spend on troops, commanders, buildings and mercenaries. Read more →

independents

The neutral peoples who hold provinces nobody owns. You conquer them to expand, and a game setting decides how strong they are. Read more →

laboratory

A building where your mages can research and forge. You build one in a province you hold. Read more →

leadership

How many troops a commander can lead, counted separately for ordinary, magical and undead troops. A good leader steadies the line; a force without a qualified leader tends to break. Read more →

mage

A commander with skill in one or more magic paths. Mages research, cast spells, forge items and search provinces for magic sites. Read more →

magic path

One kind of magic: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Astral, Death, Nature, Glamour or Blood, plus Holy for priests. Skill in a path decides the spells a caster can use. Read more →

magic resistance

A unit's defence against spells that can be resisted. The target adds a DRN to it, the caster adds one to its penetration, and the caster wins a tie. Read more →

magic school

One of the seven fields of spell research, such as Evocation or Construction. Each level researched unlocks stronger spells. Read more →

magic site

A place in a province that can produce gems or let you recruit special units. Mages find them by searching the province. Read more →

map move

How many movement points a unit has on the strategic map each turn. Difficult terrain costs more of them, and an army moves at the speed of its slowest member. Read more →

mercenary

A soldier hired for gold. Mercenaries arrive at once and cost upkeep until you dismiss them. Read more →

morale

A unit's nerve. Fear, losses and a fallen commander test it, and a unit that fails can break and flee. Higher morale holds the line longer; blessings, items and good leaders can raise it. Read more →

NAP Non-aggression pact

An agreement between players to keep a border quiet. The game has an in-game version, but most multiplayer diplomacy happens outside it, in chat. Read more →

nation

The people your god leads: their troops, commanders, mages, sacred units, magic paths and history. Each nation is a different game. Read more →

open-ended roll

A die roll with no upper limit. A 6 is worth 5 and the die is thrown again with the result added, for as long as sixes keep coming. Read more →

PD Province defence

The garrison a province raises on its own when you invest gold in it. You do not control it directly, it is capped by the province's population, and it defends automatically. Read more →

physical form

The body your pretender takes. Every nation offers its own list, and the form's cost comes out of your design points. Read more →

pinging

The cheapest form of scouting, which is sending one cheap commander into a province to see what defends it, not to conquer it. Read more →

precision

How accurately a unit shoots or throws. Low precision lets missiles drift off the target; high precision keeps them on it. It matters most for archers and for spells that must be aimed. Read more →

pretender

The god you design before the first turn from a limited budget of points, covering its body, magic paths, dominion, scales and how soon it arrives. Read more →

priest

A commander who preaches to spread your dominion, blesses sacred troops on the battlefield and can call a dead pretender back. Read more →

protection

What stands between a unit and a blow, from its armour plus any natural protection of its own. The defender adds a DRN to it, and a hit wounds only when the damage total is higher, so a tie does nothing. Read more →

province

One region of the map. It holds people, income, resources and your troops, and provinces are what players take from each other. Read more →

recruitment points

How much of a province's recruitment capacity a unit uses. A province can train only so many of the better units in one turn. Read more →

research

Points your mages produce each month towards the next level in a school of magic. Higher levels unlock stronger spells. Read more →

resource cost

The equipment a unit needs. It is taken from the province's resources, which are not saved from one turn to the next, so a province with few resources cannot arm many heavy units. Read more →

ritual

A spell cast on the map instead of in battle. Rituals change provinces or the world, and the stronger ones are paid for in gems. Read more →

sacred

Sacred troops are a special class that needs holy points to recruit. They receive your god's blessing when they fight in a province where your dominion is strong. Read more →

scales

The dials chosen with your pretender, such as order against turmoil or luck against misfortune. They shape the whole empire slowly but permanently. Read more →

size

How big the unit is, from small to giant. Size affects how much room a unit takes in battle and how easy it is to hit, and some effects work only on units of certain sizes. Read more →

spell

Magic a caster uses. Combat spells are cast in battle from your orders, and rituals are cast on the map. Read more →

squad

A group of units led by a commander. You place squads on the battle map before a fight. Read more →

strength

Added to the damage of a melee weapon on every hit, so a strong unit hurts more with the same weapon. Read more →

supercombatant

The fullest form of the single-unit plan, which is one unit buffed with spells and equipped with the best items, able to defeat whole armies in one battle. Read more →

temple

A building that spreads your dominion and lets your priests preach and bless in that province. Read more →

Throne of Ascension

A special province worth 1, 2 or 3 ascension points. Holding enough of them wins the game under the default victory rule. Read more →

thug

A single commander built up with gear and buffs to win fights on its own, used to take provinces cheaply. A light thug beats small province defence; a heavy one handles any undefended troops. Read more →

turn

One month of game time. Every player gives orders, then all orders are carried out together. Read more →

upkeep

The recurring cost of keeping a unit in service. This wiki shows ? where the Inspector's value has not been checked in the game yet. Read more →

70 terms