Four millennia ago, on the eastern bank of the Nile river, was laid the foundation of the Temple of Amun-Ra. Over the course of 2,000 years the temple complex was gradually expanded and became widely known as "The Most Select of Places" (Ipet-Isut), boasting the largest religious building in the world. Today, the site is known as Karnak, located at Luxor in modern-day Egypt.
Join ancient Pharaohs in creating and growing one of the most impressive sites the world has seen, honoring the Egyptian gods Horus, Ra, Hathor, Bastet, Thoth, and Osiris. You must carefully manage the balance of your actions, preparing for the reckoning by the goddess Maat.
The shadow... the unique dice mechanism in Tekhenu
Tekhenu is a strategy game with an innovative twist on dice drafting with each die changing some of its characteristics depending on whether it is in the sun, in the obelisk’s shadow – or in the twilight zone between.
The game board is divided into six sections, each associated with an Egyptian god: Horus, Ra, Hathor, Bastet, Thoth, and Osiris. In the center stands an impressive obelisk (Tekhenu) casting its shadow onto different parts of the board. As a result, the area around the obelisk will be divided into sunny, shaded, and dark sections, depending on how the obelisk casts its shadow at that particular moment. As the game progresses, the sun's rotation will alter which sections are sunny, shaded, or dark.
There are five different color dice: white, yellow, black, brown, and gray. Depending on the color of the die and the position of the obelisk's shadow, each die will either be considered Pure, Tainted, or Forbidden. While you may never draft Forbidden dice, you are always free to draft any other die, whether Pure or Tainted.
Dice drafted from the sun or dark – depending on their colors – will push you towards purity or taint your soul. An imbalance in favor of Purity carries no negative outcome whereas a Tainted imbalance may result in loss of victory points. A perfect balance between Pure and Tainted dice, however, will result in a more favorable turn order.
When drafting a die, you must not only consider the general availability of dice, but you must also consider which value die to draft and how your chosen die will affect your overall balance and power of action you want to perform!
The game is played over four full rotations of the titular obelisk, each seeing players draft dice to build statues, pillars, houses, farms and mines, to produce resources, or raise their population and its happiness in order to gain access to valuable special ability cards.
Tekhenu comes with:
1 large obelisk – the titular Tekhenu
1 large game board and 4 individual player boards
45 special ability, scoring and setup cards
26 six-sided dice in 5 colors: white, black, yellow, brown and grey.
40 wooden houses
32 wooden pillars
36 wooden markers, including production cubes and discs, as well as marker-meeples in four player colors
24 custom wooden statues in four player colors
50 plus cardboard resource markers
1 rulebook
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