In December 1564, strange events took place in Moscow that caused panic among the residents of the capital. Tsar Ivan, taking his family and several nearby boyars, loading his entire treasury on a sleigh, unexpectedly left Moscow. He took with him valuable icons and crosses and household utensils. The sleigh disappeared from sight, and Muscovites were left in complete bewilderment. Has this been seen before? The king has left the capital! Why? Where? For what?
And the tsar, having visited the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, moved to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, a hundred kilometers from the capital, and from there a month later he sent two letters to Moscow. In one, he expressed his anger and cast disgrace on the clergy and boyars, as well as government officials for their betrayals, embezzlement of the treasury and other sins. Unable to accept these betrayals, he left the kingdom and decided to settle where God showed him. The tsar sent a second letter to all the townspeople and merchants. It was read publicly on Red Square. In it, the king wrote so that people would not have doubts: he has no anger against them and there is no royal disgrace for them. Life in the capital came to a standstill. The shops were closed, the songs fell silent, the streets were empty. The townspeople were in fear. They asked the metropolitan and bishops to go to the tsar. A delegation of boyars, high clergy and officials went to Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. They beat the king with his forehead and asked him to return and rule the country according to his sovereign will, as he pleased. The king agreed, but only under special conditions. From the entire territory of the Russian state, he allocated himself an inheritance and took it under his control. So he hoped to protect himself from boyar conspiracies and attempts on his life. In February, he solemnly returned to the capital and announced the oprichnina. This and http://*****/user/f//examen/16_vek/pictures/43.jpg were a special condition.
What is oprichnina? "Oprich" means "except." This word was not new: it used to be used to refer to the special allotments of widowed princesses.
Contemporaries called the guardsmen - the associates of Ivan the Terrible - “kromeshniks”. With their arrival, “utter darkness” descended on Rus'. And “pitch darkness” for the Russian people meant hell, and therefore the guardsmen were called “the army of hell.”
In Rus' there were, as it were, two states: the oprichnina and the zemshchina. The boyars were supposed to manage zemstvo affairs “according to the old custom.”
For the oprichnina, the tsar recruited first a thousand, and then six thousand “bad people.” They swore a terrible oath to the king not to know anyone and to obey only him. Among the guardsmen were nobles, impoverished boyars, foreigners, and people of humble origin. The main thing that was required of them was to be loyal to the king and to prove this devotion in practice. The king dressed them in black clothes and mounted them on black horses. They tied a broom and a dog's head to the saddle - this meant that they gnawed at treason like dogs and swept it away like rubbish from the Russian soil. The guardsmen were capable of any trick and believed that the law was not written to them. They could declare anyone a traitor and kill anyone. They burned people at the stake, chopped off their heads, hung them, poisoned them with dogs, quartered them, skinned them alive, and impaled them. The German guardsman Heinrich Staden left notes about the events of those years: “If the guardsman lived somewhere in the neighborhood of the zemstvo, then he could, without fear of any responsibility, take away his neighbor’s land and property.”
The king turned his palace in the settlement into a kind of monastery. He called himself abbot, and the 300 most fierce guardsmen - brethren. He himself rang the bells, read prayers and bowed so earnestly that his forehead was constantly bruised. After the service every day there was a feast. Wine and honey flowed like a river, the tables were laden with food. And after a hearty dinner, the king often went to prison, where his faithful friend and associate, the cruel and soulless Malyuta Skuratov, interrogated and tortured someone, most often innocent people. The tsar took away estates from the owners and distributed them to his faithful servants, and resettled the former owners to other lands, thereby breaking relationships that had been established for centuries. The formidable king imprisoned his opponents and exiled them to the outskirts of the state, and often subjected them to painful executions. He loved to mock some nobleman: putting on him a fur coat with the fur turned outward, he sat him on a nag, face to tail, and in this form drove him around Moscow. This, by the way, is where the expression “topsy-turvy” comes from. The tsar entered the names of his victims into the synodik - memorial list and himself served a memorial service for them.
The king sensed betrayal everywhere. To protect himself from her, he even wanted to leave the world and become a monk. All suspects were tortured, tormented, executed, and their property went to the guardsmen, and they did not disdain false denunciations, often wanting to profit at the expense of their victims. It was not just individuals who suffered. In 1570, all of Novgorod suffered. Based on a false denunciation that the Novgorodians wanted to betray him and go over to Lithuania, the tsar carried out a brutal destruction of the city. There were murders and robberies for a month and a half. Even the babies were not spared: they were thrown into the icy water of Volkhov.
In the last years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, oprichnina robbery subsided. The Tsar returned to Moscow. The terrible palace in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda is empty.
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Who will become your hero: a hardy dwarf, a clever elf or a resourceful person?Which path will you choose for him: battle mage, night ranger or twilight barbarian? Having become the owner of this game, you can call your friends, gather a team and immerse yourself in "Pitch darkness"! During the game you will explore various dungeons in search of magical weapons and legendary artifacts, you will have to hone your combat skills in battles with vile and creepy enemies, which willManage the game itself according to a set of simple rules. A new war is on our doorstep!
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The game was tested on the KIСKSTARTER platform, collecting more than 3.5 million US dollars. The copyright holder of the game is the CMON company, which gave us the opportunity to become the exclusive distributor in Russia of the game in the basic configuration with the subsequent release of add-ons.
Pitch Dark is a cooperative board game for 1-6 players over 14 years old, set in a fantasy world.
Players will have to go as a team in search of adventure. After everyone chooses a hero, the whole group will descend into the underground lairs and tunnels. Wandering in the darkness, the heroes will encounter various monsters and other creatures guarding the dark labyrinths in battle, obtain legendary artifacts and defend their right to be called Lightbringers.
The game itself controls enemies of all kinds: from a bunch of goblins to huge monsters. Your heroes will be able to fight them with a sharp blade or even magic - both in ranged combat and face to face.
Explore dungeons, defeat enemies and be rewarded with new, more powerful weapons that will help you withstand future difficult challenges! Typically, the heroes need to achieve all the goals of the chosen adventure. Each adventure can be played either individually or in Story mode, which allows you to follow the characters' development as the story unfolds.
We've spared no space on the page to show you the full contents of the box. We have never had such a rich set before.
The basic package does not include exclusives intended exclusively for those who supported the crowdfunding project on the Kikstarter site.
For those who want to look at the components in even more detail, we have created and invite everyone to familiarize themselves with its contents.
The atmosphere is provided not only by the components, but also by the participants’ understanding of who they are in the game, what world they find themselves in, what happened in it before the events, what they have to go through now.
We suggest you now before moving on.
Preparing for the game is a rather complex process, consisting of many points, described in detail in the rules.
If this is your first game, then it is better to start with “Training” and only then move on to adventures, which should be completed in turn to follow the development of the plot. More experienced players will be able to replay an adventure with different victory conditions, or even create their own adventure using pieces of the game board and various tokens.
Having laid out the fragments of the playing field and tokens (in accordance with the current adventure), you need to prepare decks of cards. There are 7 types of cards in the game, some of which are also divided into levels! There are artifacts, guards, roaming monsters, equipment, treasures, doors, and event cards.
The game “Pitch Darkness” lasts several game rounds. Each round consists of 5 phases, which are played in the following order:
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HERO PHASE The first player begins his turn by activating his hero. Initially, upon activation, the hero can perform up to 3 actions. Each action is usually aimed at fulfilling the objectives of a specific adventure, be it moving around the board, fighting enemies, picking up tokens from the board, or trading equipment with other players. After the hero has completed all of his actions, the enemies he attacked can immediately counterattack (if they survived, of course). When a player has completed activating their hero (and all possible counterattacks have been performed), the turn passes to the player sitting to the left. He activates his hero in the same way. The Hero Phase ends when all players have completed their turn. |
| ENEMIES PHASE As the adventure progresses, the heroes will encounter enemies of all possible sizes and colors: from pathetic minions to terrifying wandering monsters. During this phase, the actions of enemies are played out according to certain rules. Enemies move around the playing field either patrolling the dungeon or actively searching for heroes. Of course, they also fight, shoot with bows and in every possible way try to ruin the heroes’ lives with their claws, swords and even magic. Good news: the most powerful enemies carry valuable treasures that will be useful to the heroes for completion of the adventure. The bad news: usually the enemies know how to use all these useful items, and in order to get the legendary magic sword, you will have to defeat the big guy who aimed this very blade at you! |
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DEVELOPMENT PHASE In standard game mode, all acquired skills and all unspent experience are reset before the next adventure. If you want your characters to develop and their acquired skills to be retained between adventures, then you need to play in the "Story" mode. |
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EVENT PHASE FINAL PHASE VICTORY AND DEFEAT |
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All parts of the dungeon are divided into zones. Zones on the playing field are either light or dark. Light zones have a light source (mostly a fire or torch), while dark zones are immersed in darkness.
A hidden hero can plan an attack from the shadows, resulting in partial loss of defense to an unwary victim. Players may also attempt to control the movement of enemies, as hidden heroes are ignored when determining enemy targets.
The booklet with rules and adventures is 56 pages of text with illustrations and examples. However, the terminology and the rules themselves are learned fairly quickly. At the bottom of the page there is a link to the rules of the game.
We invite you to watch the video, in which representatives of the CMON company talk in general terms about the rules of the game, even on the prototype.
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Pitch darkness
Pitch darkness
From the Bible (Church Slavonic text). In the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 22, v. 13), this expression means hell, the underworld - “outer darkness” (Russian translation).
These words entered everyday speech in their literal meaning.
Allegorically: 1. Impenetrable darkness, complete absence of light. 2. The world of illiteracy, ignorance, absurd prejudices, etc. (iron., contempt.).
Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M.: “Locked-Press”. Vadim Serov. 2003.
Pitch darkness
In the Church Slavonic text of the Gospel (Matt. 22:13) this is the name of hell, the underworld. This expression is used allegorically, meaning: complete, hopeless darkness; ignorance, painful, gloomy life.
Dictionary of catch words. Plutex. 2004.
See what “Pitch Darkness” is in other dictionaries:
- (external) complete darkness Wed. ...Henceforth the connection with the past is severed! The time of pitch darkness has been survived, the sun shines again And holds the scepter for truth and goodness Only Tsar Boris is no longer with Godunov. Gr. A. Tolstoy. Tsar Boris. 1. Boris. Wed. It is clear from everything that... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary
Pitch darkness (external) complete darkness. Wed. From now on, the connection with the past is severed! The time of pitch darkness has been survived, the sun shines again And holds the scepter for truth and goodness Only Tsar Boris is no more Godunov. Gr. A. Tolstoy. Tsar Boris. 1. Boris... ... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)
Pitch darkness- wing. sl. To the church glory In the text of the Gospel (Matt. 22:13) this is the name of hell, the underworld. This expression is used allegorically, meaning: complete, hopeless darkness; ignorance, painful, gloomy life... Universal additional practical explanatory dictionary by I. Mostitsky
Book 1. Complete, absolute darkness. BMS 1998, 578; BTS, 472. 2. Ignorance, painful, gloomy life. BMS 1998, 578. 3. Psk. Remote wilderness place. SPP 2001, 74. 4. Jarg. school Iron. Schooling. VMN 2003, 137 ...
dark- Pitch-utter darkness, hopeless darkness. It’s only seven o’clock in the evening, and it’s pitch dark outside. Darkness of darkness 1) one hundred thousand (old); 2) great multitude (colloquial). This side is baptized, there are too many people in it. Nekrasov. Darkness… … Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language
pitch black- pitch darkness pitch night pitch darkness pitch darkness pitch black... Dictionary of Russian Idioms
Demon (damn) darkness. Psk. The same as darkness. SPP 2001, 74. Egyptian darkness. Book 1. Hopeless, threatening darkness. 2. Ignorance, spiritual darkness. BTS, 294, 1356. /i> An expression of biblical origin. BMS 1998, 578. Korimyoshnaya... ... Large dictionary of Russian sayings
dark- absolute darkness bottomless darkness impenetrable darkness impenetrable darkness deep darkness deaf darkness grave darkness thick darkness pitch darkness impenetrable darkness complete darkness perfect darkness complete darkness ... Dictionary of Russian Idioms
1) y, f. 1. Darkness, darkness. She quickly walked towards the gate, and was immediately swallowed up by the thick darkness of the night. Kuprin, Duel. The workshop was plunged into darkness. All the lamps immediately went out, and large stars became visible through the windows of the ceiling frames. B. Field, Hot shop. 2. transfer... Small academic dictionary
Darkness, Egyptian darkness, pitch darkness, impenetrable darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness, gloom, haze Dictionary of Russian synonyms. pitch darkness noun, number of synonyms: 13 pitch darkness (9) ... Synonym dictionary
Books
- Pitch darkness, Ilya Goryachev. Ilya Goryachev is a historian by training, leader of the nationalist movement “Russian Image”, assistant to a State Duma deputy from “United Russia”, author of analytical reports on left-wing radicals for…