Mage Up Close: Cu’Laghn, Bringer of Balance

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Core Rules

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Meet the Mage

The Druids have always sought to curb the encroachment of human civilization on nature. They disdain the Crystal Tower, arguing that it intentionally separates itself from the natural order of things. The Druids’ approach is typically subtle, but as settlements have become more invasive and destructive, some druids have adopted more radical methods. Chief among these is Cu’Laghn, Bringer of Balance.

 Cu'Laghn was slow to adopt Necromancy as a means of curbing the damage natural environments suffer as settlements expand, but civilized folk disappointed the once kindly druid at every turn. He resolved to find answers, and found them in a long banished magical treatise. The Forbidden Scrolls of Vorax were hidden away centuries ago because of how dangerous the undead hordes of Vorax proved to be. Cu'Laghn disappeared for a decade and returned with the scrolls, anointing himself the Bringer of Balance as he unleashed a truly destructive plague on the frontier city of Fanspar.

Now, he is steadfast in his conviction that the arts of death are a necessary corrective to the danger of settled populations. To actualize this, Cu’Laghn has started his own splinter cell of druids dedicated to restoring balance by by any means necessary. The Wellsprings offer them the opportunity to create a plague which will restore balance to the natural world.

Cu'Laghn takes on his work solemnly, without cruelty or joy. 

Overview

Cu’Laghn is one of the first mages I designed. He helped get me excited about designing characters for this game, so I felt like I owed him the distinction of being the first one I blog about.

The reason I enjoyed making him is that Mage Duel’s structure forces me to look at two seemingly unrelated schools of magic and figure out what sort of person would master both. In this case, what sort of person would devote themselves to serving nature (Druidicae) but also raise zombies and wield the power of death (Necromancy)? 

The answer is Cu’Laghn: a grouchy old Druid who believes that preserving the delicate balance of nature means reducing the population of the settled world by means of unleashing zombies on it.

Once I knew who he was, I more or less knew how he should play.

On the table, this eco-extremist does work by manipulating the terrain and unleashing damage over time effects which target the willpower of lots of enemy characters.

Let’s dive in. Here's the dashboard:

Board Manipulation

An expression of his druid side, Cu'Laghn's ability to create rough and hazardous terrain while making himself and his summons immune to those terrain types is a defining feature of his playstyle. Either of these abilities is storng on its own, but the combination can be especially useful.

Rune Bears Like to Push People

The most obvious use of this is to make the area around a Wellspring very inhospitable to opponents, but it's very versatile overall. Combined with units that can reposition enemy characters (like the Rune Bears or Giant Carnivorous Plant), Cu'Laghn can push or drag opponents into spots that damage them or that they'll struggle to leave. Also consider teaming Cu'Laghn up with another mage (someone with Elementalism, maybe) who can make the map really brutal for opponents who don't have Pathfinder.

Slow Pain

Cu'Laghn is one of the games premier distributors of Damage Over Time (DoT) tokens. He has three ways to do it on his dashboard. For the cost of one action and one mana, he can give three characters a DoT, which is a nice antidote to low-cost multi-character units like the Easily Misled Mob or the Temple Guardian Monks. Turn for the Worse lets Cu'laghn really accelerate the threat of DoT by instantly turning them into straight up damage. Combined with minions that also hand out DoT (like the Plague Zombies), this mage can put out considerable pressure on opponent's health pools.

A Plague Zombie, Looking to Distribute DoT

WP Pressure

Aside from his hit meter attack, Cu'Laghn generally targets willpower. This is good since DEF values tend to be a bit higher. Cu'Laghn comes at the game sideways a bit. This does seemingly leave him vulnerable against constructs, but Rust and Decay gives him a special sauce for applying DoTs to them in a way no other character in the game can. This does force him to adopt a less minion-intensive approach when facing a lot of constructs, though, so think about lower cost minions when facing an Artificer with Cu'Laghn so that that you have the mana to use (or at least threaten) this spell.

Vulnerabilities

Like many mages, he is slow. Cu'Laghn doesn't have a great way to speed up. Most of his offensive output is about spreading small amounts of damage around to many targets, but he does not have a good way of putting large amounts of damage on single targets, so he will personally struggle into elite minions. He has no real way of dealing with debuffs, and a movement debuff in particular can really neutralize the advantage he gets from Pathfinder.

Closing Thoughts

Cu'Laghn is really fun because he takes advantage of some of the mechanics that make Mage Duel special. If you really enjoy swapping out terrain tiles, he's a great way to do that. This is also a character who synergizes really well with his minion options - there's a lot of DoT in Necromancy and a lot of positioning in Druidicae. Please take this curmudgeon out for a spin and tell us what you think!