The Sundered Continent — Lords of the Seven Kingdoms
A strategy game of conquest & intrigue — 7 players · ~20 min
New to Verdantholm? Read the Lore & Rules before your first game — knowing your kingdom's strengths is half the battle.
7 human lords required — share the room code with 6 friends.
Your kingdom is dealt at random when the game starts — each of the seven houses has its own bonus.
Share this code with 6 friends. Game starts automatically when all 7 lords arrive.
The name Verdantholm comes from the ancient Verdish tongue — Ver, meaning green, and Thal, meaning world. It was a fitting name for a continent of lush forests, fertile plains, and rivers that ran clear from the mountains to the sea. For two thousand years, seven peoples built their civilisations here, bound together by trade, language, and the memory of a common origin.
Long ago, the continent was united under the Verdant Throne — a seat of immense power whose holder commanded the loyalty of all seven kingdoms. The Throne was not merely political; it was said to be a physical object of tremendous power, forged at the moment the world was spoken into being by the seven first kings. "Neth-ilum thal-um kor-im veth-ilum" — from the void, the kings created the world. So begins the oldest verse of the Verdish creation myth, the Thal-Korim-Veth, still recited in ceremonial halls across the continent.
The last king of the unified Throne died without an heir. In the chaos that followed, the Throne shattered into seven fragments — one for each kingdom. The Seer of Neth, a legendary prophet said to have lived before the Sundering, had foretold this moment centuries earlier: "Seven worlds created, twelve waters, mountain-bound." Scholars of the Brighthelm Academy have since identified this as the Prophecy of the Sundering, fulfilled in the year 312 of the Continental Era.
For a generation, an uneasy peace held. The twelve great rivers — the Azureflow, the Crimsonreach, the Dawnbreak, and nine others — still carried merchant vessels between kingdoms. The Brighthelm Academy sent scholars abroad. Warriors trained but did not march. Then, in the Year of the Red Comet, the seven fragments began to glow — and each kingdom felt, for the first time, the pull of an old hunger.
The prophecy the Seer left behind spoke clearly: whosoever reunites four fragments shall reclaim the Verdant Throne and rule all of Verdantholm for a thousand years. Every lord on the continent read it the same way. Every lord believed it meant them.
The age of diplomacy is over. The age of lords has begun.
Verdantholm is currently in Beta. The world you see here is only a fragment of what has been imagined — new game modes, deeper lore, and entirely new games set in this universe are waiting to be built. If you enjoy your time on the Sundered Continent and want to help us unveil more of it, donations are welcome and deeply appreciated. Every contribution goes directly toward expanding the world of Verdantholm.
The mountain kingdom of Aethelred sits atop the northern highlands, carved from ancient granite by generations of miners and smiths. Their fortress walls have never been breached. Warriors train in thin air and cold wind, making them the finest defenders on the continent.
Glimmerock quarries the glimmering stone that gives the kingdom its name — a mineral that amplifies light and magnifies distant objects. Their opticians and engineers build infrastructure at costs no other kingdom can match, turning barren outposts into thriving settlements with remarkable speed.
Seaborne controls the only deep-water harbour on the Cerulean Sea. Their merchant fleets carry goods to every corner of Verdantholm, and their sailors know every reef and current. Their logistical mastery keeps armies supplied long after others exhaust their momentum.
Brighthelm is home to the Grand Academy, the oldest seat of learning in Verdantholm. Its scholars decoded the runes left by the ancient kingdom, and their research into military strategy, agriculture, and espionage is generations ahead of their rivals. Knowledge, they say, is the sharpest sword.
The sun-drenched plains of Sunstone produce more grain, wool, and textile than any other kingdom. Their rivers run clear, their harvests never fail, and their markets overflow. Wealth comes easily here — and with it, the means to fund armies, treaties, and ambitions.
Grimforge was built in the crater of a dead volcano, and its forges have burned without interruption for three centuries. Their weapons are the finest on the continent — and they produce them cheaply and in vast quantities. An army of Grimforge soldiers is the most feared sight in Verdantholm.
The deep forest of Whisperwood is home to healers, herbalists, and those who move without sound. Their Guild of Shadows maintains a network of informants in every court on the continent. Whisperwood rarely fights — they simply know everything before the battle begins.
One player creates a room and chooses how many AI lords to fill the thrones (0 to 6). Share the 5-letter room code with the remaining human players. Once all 7 seats are filled — by humans or AI — the game begins automatically. Each lord is randomly assigned one of the seven kingdoms.
Verdantholm is played in rounds. Each round, every territory takes one turn in a rotating order. The first territory to act rotates by one each round, so no kingdom always goes last.
If you control more than one territory (by conquest), you get one turn per territory — these are interleaved with other players' turns for fairness.
When it's your territory's turn, you have 60 seconds to choose one action. If time runs out with no action chosen, your turn ends automatically. Each action uses that territory's own gold and resources — you cannot move gold between territories.
Once all territories have chosen their action, everything resolves at the same time, in six passes:
After resolution, all territories collect their income.
Between rounds 11, 14, and 17, the normal turn timer stops and a continental Mercenary Market opens. Lots of 3 / 4 / 5 armies respectively are auctioned off in a 60-second blind sealed-bid auction. Every lord sees who has bid (a ✓ per locked bid) but never sees the amounts. Ties go to the lord with the fewest territories. Losing bids are refunded; abstaining is free.
See the Mercenary Market entry in Actions for full rules and tactical notes.
Gain 1 new army in this territory. With Research Level 1, gain 2 instead.
Permanently increases this territory's income by 1 gold per round. The single best long-term investment.
Unlock powerful upgrades for this territory, one level at a time:
Inspire your forces for fearless conquest. For the next 2 rounds (3 for Seaborne), any invasion you win costs zero casualties — all committed armies survive and garrison the conquered territory. Active rally status is visible to all.
Plant a spy in an enemy territory. Planting is public — everyone sees who spied whom in the Chronicle. After that, two things begin at once: one visible, one hidden.
Note: each player gets their own spy slot per target, so multiple rival lords can spy the same kingdom simultaneously, each with their own hidden sabotage roll. Planting a second spy yourself simply refreshes your own fuse.
Reinforce your defenses. For the next 2 rounds (not this one), this territory rolls +1 extra defense die when defending against invasions.
Approach the Verdant Throne and speak the ancient words. Fate draws one of four runes at random — their effect fires at the end of the round for all to witness in the Chronicle:
You cannot choose which rune answers. This action can only be used once per lord — not once per kingdom.
Declare an invasion of an enemy territory. Choose how many armies to commit (up to all armies minus 1). The attack resolves at end of round. Territories protected by the Bastion Ward cannot be invaded.
Three times per game, between rounds 11, 14, and 17, a Mercenary Market opens on the continent. It does not consume your normal action — it is a continental event, not a territory action.
Strategic note. A single R11 lot can snap a border war in your favour. Over-bidding to signal strength is legitimate bluff play — the other lords never know if you bid all your gold or none. Save enough for R14/R17 if you're behind on expansion; market gold is a throne-builder's last lever.
Combat unfolds in waves. Each wave the attacker rolls up to 3 dice (1 per remaining attacker, with +2 from Supreme Command at Research Lvl 4). The defender rolls up to 3 dice (1 per remaining defender, with +1 if Fortified and +1 passive for Aethelred's Highland Fortress on home territory).
Approximate win rates (no fortify): 3v1 ~92%, 6v2 ~93%, 6v3 ~69%, 5v3 ~57%, 6v6 ~26%, 8v6 ~41%. Equal-army battles favour the defender; only meaningful numerical advantage shifts the odds firmly to the attacker. Rally the Banners still zeros out attacker casualties on a successful conquest. The Invade modal shows live win-chance and expected survivors once the target has been spied.
A successful conquest carries weight beyond the immediate territory:
Before committing, the attacker can set a halt threshold: the assault retreats automatically once the attacker has lost that many armies (checked between waves, never mid-pair). Use it to test the dice on a long-shot raid without risking the whole stack.
If two or more kingdoms declare invasion of the same territory in the same round, only one attack proceeds. The kingdom committing the most armies wins the right to attack — all others retreat with their armies returned. If armies are tied, the kingdom with more gold wins the priority.
Once two kingdoms go to war, a permanent war state is recorded between them — visible on the map and in territory intel.
Verdantholm is a living continent — harvests fail, rivers flood, bandit bands appear from nowhere. At the start of each territory's turn, fate rolls a single die to see whether that territory is visited by an event. If it is, the effect is announced in the Chronicle for all lords to see.
The age of war is calm at first and grows restless as it drags on:
Every event is picked uniformly from the five below, so you are as likely to be blessed as cursed — but luck lives on the margins.
An unexpected windfall — grain stores overflow, taxes come in without resistance, a rich caravan passes through. Gold lands in that territory's coffers immediately.
Wandering blades swear loyalty to your banner. Two free armies join the territory's garrison on the spot — sometimes just in time to survive an invasion, sometimes just in time to launch one.
Rivers burst their banks. Fields submerge. The tax collector's wagon turns back at the flooded road. You lose this territory's gold income for one round only — infrastructure, armies, and research are untouched. Other territories you own continue to earn normally.
Disease sweeps through the ranks. Two armies perish before the next muster — but at least one always survives to hold the land. Plague can never wipe a territory empty on its own.
Disgruntled lords raid your coffers. You lose up to 3 gold; if you had less, your treasury empties to zero. Infrastructure and armies are untouched.
The first player to control 4 territories simultaneously — their home kingdom plus 3 conquests — wins the game and claims the Verdant Throne. The game ends immediately.
If no lord achieves dominance after 20 rounds, the age of war ends and a victor is declared by two tiebreakers, in order:
When a player wins by any condition, the game room is immediately closed and all game data is erased.