Armored Kingdom is a multi-media entertainment universe encompassing comic books, an animated series and an NFT-based card game. It’s designed to attract a wide audience and keep them engaged with all aspects of the evolving storyline.

Set on a medieval fantasy world, Armored Kingdom is a genre-blending, character-driven story of conflict, treachery and mystery. Three warring factions—the anthropomorphized jungle animals from the Kingdom of the Horn, the sea-dwelling creatures known as the Costraca and the humans of the Veldt—are about to enter a critical battle that could leave all three armies decimated. But before any blood is spilled, a new nemesis emerges in the form of a mysterious spacecraft as large as a city. The ship remains motionless, but the silent threat forces the three empires into a fragile alliance.

But there are enemies within their ranks, and the chaos creates opportunities for those who would seize power no matter the cost. When the coalition leader is assassinated, a ragtag team of fugitives must prove their innocence while taking on a desperate quest for lost magical artifacts—powerful weapons that may be their only hope to fend off an alien invasion.

Drawing on a rich, multicultural world with deep backstories and a serialized storyline featuring shocking twists and turns, this central narrative will drive synergy throughout our expanding universe of comics, games, and animation.

The gaming system—an ambitious amalgam of role-playing game (RPG) and collectible-card game (CCG) mechanics—is the heart of Armored Kingdom. The goal is to attract players with compelling gaming, allowing them to win, purchase and trade collectable NFT equipment, which in turn makes them more competitive.

Combining the “looting and gearing” excitement of RPGs like World of WarCraft and Skyrim with turn-based mechanics similar to CCGs like Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone, the Armored Kingdom game will allow you to take on your opponent in a game of simulated one-on-one physical combat. After creating your own character from among five races in the AK universe, you’ll arm yourself with collectible and tradable NFT weapons and armor and take on opponents to win in-game currency that can be used to boost game play. You’ll eventually be able to upgrade tiers by burning lower-grade equipment, and in future updates, new gameplay mechanics will allow you to win special gear via PVE quests. Eventually we’ll expand into multiplayer territory by allowing players to form raiding teams and work together against huge bosses for special, limited-time prizes. But the very best gear—forged by the ancestors from a magical metal known as Armorite—will mint at the rarest of odds and only fall upon the luckiest adventurers.

With new, more powerful assets being added on a seasonal basis via NFT drops, competitive players will be able to regularly upgrade equipment. The wide variety of these assets—including pieces that combine to grant bonus abilities—will encourage players to engage even more. The more damage a player does in-game, the more powerful their equipment will become, with their record of wins and losses tracked forever on-chain. Beat the best and your gear will soar. Unearth Armorite and it will be priceless.

This five-issue limited series— released both digitally as well as physically —will establish the world and mythology of Armored Kingdom, introducing the races, conflicts and main characters. It will culminate with the launching point of the game’s storyline, and lead directly into the animated series.

The animated series follows the trials of specific hero characters as they travel the world, racing to recover Armorite artifacts forged by ancient ancestors. We pick up ten years after the spaceship—known as the Skyship—descended upon Mt. Shine, a highly-contested territory considered sacred to both the Costraca and the Kingdom of the Horn (and the only known location of impervious Armorite rock). The Skyship still hovers in the sky, giving no indication of its intent after all these years, and the alliance is growing fragile as there’s been no progress in a resolution of the conflict over Mt. Shine.

The shocking assassination of human King Assurant, the coalition leader, rocks the coalition to the precipice of dissolution. A crowd of diplomats witness Assurant’s own daughter, Valory Bolt, execute him before a stunned crowd of diplomats. But Valory—the human army’s first knight—sees it herself from a distance…and it was most certainly not her. Somehow, someone made themselves look just like her.

With the entire coalition army in pursuit, Valory must go on the run to prove her innocence. She’ll assemble a team of outlaws—outcasts from their own societies, who put their faith in Valory but have no liking for one another—and together they’ll search for her father’s murderer. The journey leads them to discover more Armorite artifacts, ancient magical weapons and armor somehow forged from the rock of Mt. Shine. As the leader of the human army, Valory carries one of only six Armorite artifacts known to the world: the Strikeshield, a sword that can transform into a shield. Recovering more of these powerful items may be their only hope if the mysterious Skyship attacks…but they’re wielded by the most hideous monsters and sorcerers in the world. As our heroes are drawn toward the most dangerous realm—the Ghosted Glades—they’ll square off against unimaginable horror…and step ever closer to the secret of the Armorite.

Players will begin by choosing and customizing their own avatar from among five races—a mechanic familiar to players of role-playing games like World of WarCraft. Each of the races will grant unique bonuses to attack, defense or magical abilities. The races and their factions will be introduced in the comic book and explored in-depth in the animated series.

Players will begin the match with bare-bones starting gear and have to strategically decide when and what to equip while battling through attack/defense phases in each turn. Choosing when—and how—to attack or defend will add a layer of strategy beyond just matching gear against gear. Exceptionally well trained, Warri aim to parry everything thrown their way, relying on acid to make short work of their opponent’s gear.

With a system that matches players based on their record and overall deck power, we avoid players seeking to adopt a pay-to-win approach and keep the game accessible to newcomers as well as veterans.

The game is “Simultaneous Turn Based”, meaning that turns happen in stages, with both players active in each stage. Rather than switching off offensive and defensive play, both players are playing offense and defense at the same time, while their opponent does the same.

Each player controls a warrior which starts with a set amount of health. A game is won by killing your opponent’s warrior.

While weapon and armor values are set and knowable up front, the outcome of your attack will depend on both the decisions made by your opponent and a “skill check”. Players are therefore the source of all the information going into the equation, but no given player has perfect knowledge of the outcome until everything is revealed. This adds tension, making the combat feel more real and dangerous.

Equipment in the game falls into three categories — weapons, armor, and shields. These will be discussed in greater detail below, but basic definitions of each will aid in understanding game flow.

There are several modes of game play. These will be explained in greater detail later.

Player Vs Player Matches

“Arena” (seasonal)

Players use their own equipment to battle one another for seasonal ranking and rewards.

“Practice” (non-ranked)

Players use their own equipment to battle one another outside of the seasonal or overall ranking systems for fun and practice. There are no rewards.

“Duel” (ranked)

Players use their own equipment to battle one another outside of the seasonal system for overall ranking. This can be done for rank alone, or players can decide to risk in-game currency or equipment.

Player vs. Environment Games

“Tutorials”

Players are given specific equipment and walked through specific fight scenarios in order to learn gameplay. There is a minor “welcome to the game” type reward at the end of the tutorials. Players can play the tutorials as often as they wish, but the reward is only granted once per account.

“Conqueror” (Rogue-like)

Players use game generated equipment to battle a series of progressively harder opponents. This would be set up as playing through the four kingdoms, with the kingdom order randomized. Each tier of opponent would be harder than the last, with each kingdom being harder still than the one before. Kingdoms would feature warriors with the equipment types specific to that kingdom.

It would culminate in a battle against a single opponent who is not a member of any of the kingdoms (an alien, a monster, or such). This final opponent would be extremely difficult to beat.

Completing various stages would earn the players rewards.

“Adventure” (RPG)

Players play through a campaign as one of heroes from the comic/animated series, they obtain specific equipment along the way, playing through story events from the series as well as side quests. Completely quests could reward the player with crafting materials (see “Crafting”).

“Challenges”

Players use their own equipment to battle difficult opponents in scenarios which change over time and unlock special rewards. An example would be a dragon or a legendary warrior. These opponents would have special abilities which players can not obtain (breath weapon, claws, etc.) and therefore would pose unique challenges outside of the normal opponents

“Raid”

Dropping in a future season, Raid will allow multiple players to team up and take on challenge monsters that no single player could beat on their own.

The master inventory for Armored Kingdom is both wide and deep, with each race specific designs and materials that better accent their natural abilities. Combining that with dual slots for magical enchantment means lots and lots of choices when it comes to gear. Beyond the standard equipment, we have both Heroic and Armorite gear categories. The Heroic gear comes from legends of the realm and has boosted stats and hidden abilities. The Armorite gear is above and beyond even that, with special abilities unavailable in other items.

As we close in on our first minting, we’ll be sharing artwork and stats of sample gear so that aesthetic players can get a feel for the look of Armored Kingdom, and the quant players can dig into the stats and start planning strategies.