The Final Lanterns: The Priestess, The Muscle, and The Guild Master
2 months ago
– Sun, Jul 26, 2026 at 12:56:03 PM
The team is finally whole! 🏮
To wrap up our character reveals, we are looking at the agents who provide the momentum, the strength, and the ultimate leadership for our cause. We are also diving into the Vault to explain why some treasures are more "Fragile" than others.
Meet the Agents: Efficiency and Absolute Priority
The Priestess (Value 4)
The Priestess acts as the primary search engine for your strategy, ensuring your hand always has the right tools for the job.
Face-Up Power: Discard one or two cards from your hand to draw an equal number of fresh cards.
Face-Down Effect: Playing her face-down permanently unlocks an Emblem that grants you Extra points for stored treasures..
Pro Strategy: Use her early to recycle useless cards and hunt for high-value powerhouses like The Strategist (8) or The Guild Master (9).
The Muscle (Value 5)
While others focus on finding relics, The Muscle ensures they are immediately secured.
Face-Up Power: Move a Treasure from your hand or discard pile directly into the Vault.
Face-Down Effect: The Treasure you reclaim during this turn is immediately placed into the Vault instead of your discard pile.
Pro Strategy: She is the indispensable protector of "Fragile" items. Use her face-down effect to snatch a Ming Vase from the play area and secure it in one move.
The Guild Master (Value 9)
The ultimate authority of the society, her high value dictates the flow of the entire round.
Face-Up Power: Draw two cards from your deck, then discard one.
Face-Down Effect: While she has no unique face-down power, her value of 9 is her greatest strength.
Pro Strategy: Only use her face-up in emergencies. Her true power is absolute priority—playing her face-down practically guarantees you will choose your Treasure first.
The Importance of the Vault & Fragile Treasures
The Vault is a secure area below your player board for "secured" Treasures. While most relics score points regardless of where they are, Fragile items like Ming Vases and Snuff Bottles have specific requirements:
Zero-Point Risk: If these items are in your deck or discard pile at the end of the game, they are worth 0 points.
If you secure at least two Fragile Treasures in your Vault, they grant 6 points each.
Once revealed, these items are immediately locked, meaning they cannot be targeted or modified by Lantern card effects.
What’s Next?
Our team of nine agents is fully assembled! 🏮 In our next update, we’ll walk through a full round of gameplay, showing how these abilities, emblems, and reclaiming priorities come together.
Essen Orders and The Spy and Trickster Deep Dive
2 months ago
– Wed, Jul 22, 2026 at 08:54:53 AM
The mission continues, rebels! 🏮
Thanks to your incredible support, Red Lanterns is officially funded! With funding secured, our team is jumping straight into the next phase and officially beginning production!
To celebrate, we have some exciting news for everyone attending Essen Spiel:
Pick Up Your Copy at Essen Spiel (No Shipping Fees!)
We are expediting a limited run of 200 copies via air freight so they arrive in time for the convention!
Where to Pick Up: You can grab your copy directly at the Independent Publisher's Alliance (IPA) booth Hall 3 3F110 during the event.
Zero Shipping Fees: Selecting this option means you won't have to pay a single cent in shipping costs.
How to Claim Yours: We have officially added a new pledge option—1 copy of Red Lantern KS edition (Essen Pickup) for 168 HKD—directly on our Kickstarter page!
Note: Because air freight capacity is strictly capped, this offer is limited to only 200 copies on a first-come, first-served basis. If you plan to be at Essen Spiel and want to get your hands on the game early without shipping fees, update your pledge on Kickstarter now to lock in your pickup copy!
As we move deeper into the reclamation of our stolen heritage, we need more than just quick fingers; we need information and influence. Today, we are revealing two agents who specialize in the psychological side of the struggle: The Spy and The Trickster. We’ll also take a deep dive into the Emblems of the Elders, the mechanic that allows your team to grow stronger as the game progresses.
Meet the Agents: Insight and Illusion
The Spy (Value 3)
Knowledge is the deadliest weapon in the Red Lantern Society. The Spy specializes in uncovering what the Western powers are trying to hide.
Face-Up Power: Examine one hidden (face-down) Treasure in the play area.
Face-Down Effect: Playing her face-down is the only way to permanently unlock Emblem 3 on your player board.
Pro Strategy: Use her Face-Up before playing The Trickster to know exactly which card is worth hiding or revealing.
The Trickster (Value 6)
A master of bluffing and misdirection, The Trickster ensures that the best relics stay out of enemy hands.
Face-Up Power: Hide or reveal a Treasure in the play area. You can even shuffle hidden cards "under the table" to keep your opponents guessing.
Face-Down Effect: If you reclaim a Chest Relic while she is face-down, it goes directly into your Vault and grants you a bonus Pound card of the same value.
Pro Strategy: Hide a Treasure you want so no one else can snatch it before your turn.
Deep Dive: The Emblems of the Elders
Your player board features four slots for the Emblems of the Elders. Unlocking these is key to your long-term strategy, as they provide powerful abilities that can be used every single round.
How to Unlock Them
To unlock an emblem, you must play the corresponding Lantern card (1, 2, 3, or 4) Face-Down during the "Play Lantern Cards" phase. Once the reclaim phase begins, you flip that emblem to its active side permanently.
The Elder Abilities
Emblem 1 (The Thief): Lock a Treasure each round so no other action can affect it.
Emblem 2 (The Snitch): Look at the top or bottom card of the Treasures deck each round.
Emblem 3 (The Spy): During the reclaim phase, you can choose to steal from the bottom of the deck instead of the play area.
Emblem 4 (The Priestess): Does not grant a round power, but gives 3 bonus points at the end of the game if you have at least 3 Treasures in your Vault.
Note: Activating Emblems 1, 2, and 3 also grants you 1 direct point each during final scoring.
What’s Next?
In our next update, we will look at the heavy hitters of the society and their counterpart: The Muscle, The Priestess and The Guild Master. We’ll also explain the importance of the Vault and why "Fragile" treasures like the Ming Vases need extra protection.
Keep the lanterns burning!
Fresh Pre-Production Pictures! Foil, Deluxe Box & Components 🏮
2 months ago
– Tue, Jul 21, 2026 at 11:21:05 AM
Greetings, Rebels!
We have exciting visual updates fresh off the press! We just received new photos of our pre-production copies showing off the game's physical components in detail.
A Closer Look at the Craftsmanship
These new photos highlight the physical details that bring the world of Red Lanterns to life:
Shimmering Foil & Box: Premium box aesthetics and vibrant foil accents that make the presentation pop off the table.
Vibrant Card Art: Detailed looks at Sylvain Leroy’s artwork across the 36 Lantern cards, 22 Treasures, and 10 Pound cards.
Player Boards & Tokens: High-resolution shots of the scroll-style player boards, 16 Emblems of the Elders, the Initiative Token, and the Round Tracker
Deluxe Shadow Box: A closer look at the Kickstarter Exclusive Deluxe Shadow Box centerpiece.
We'll be sharing more up close photos in upcoming updates!
Help Us Spread the Flame on BoardGameGeek! 🗳️
To help us reach new fans and grow our community, we’ve uploaded these high-resolution pictures directly to BoardGameGeek (BGG)!
How you can help in 30 seconds:
Visit our BGG page: Click over to the Red Lanterns BoardGameGeek image gallery.
Explore the images: Check out the foil finish, cards, and box shots up close.
Upvote your favorites: Hit the "Thumbs Up" button on the photos!
Every upvote boosts Red Lanterns on the BGG rankings and helps bring new backers to our uprising.
Market Sabotage & Recycled Agents: Meet The Thief and The Fence! 🏮
2 months ago
– Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 12:57:45 PM
Greetings, fellow rebels!
The campaign is moving fast, and our community of backers is growing every day! Following our look at insight and strategy, it’s time to introduce two essential operational members who specialize in the art of "acquisition". Whether they are purging the market in the heat of the moment or ensuring our best agents return for a second strike, these two are absolute masters of their craft.
The Thief (Value 1)
Quick-witted and even quicker with her hands, The Thief is your ultimate market disruptor. She excels at sweeping away items that might benefit your opponents.
Face-Up Power: Place one revealed Treasure from the market onto the bottom of the Treasure deck, then immediately draw and reveal a fresh replacement.
Face-Down Effect: Playing her face-down permanently unlocks Emblem 1 on your player scroll. Once active, the emblem grants a reusable round power allowing you to "lock" a face-up Treasure after playing a card face-up, protecting it from being targeted or modified by any other player's actions.
Pro Strategy: Pair her with The Spy (3). If your Spy checks a face-down Treasure and discovers it isn't worth the risk, deploy The Thief Face-Up to cycle the market and refresh the options without wasting your high-value cards.
The Fence (Value 7)
Where others see a lost opportunity, The Fence sees a second chance. She is the backbone of the society’s logistics, ensuring our most valuable assets are never out of reach for long.
Face-Up Power: Draw the top card of the Treasure deck and look at it. You can either use it to completely replace a hidden, face-down Treasure in the play area or tuck it away at the bottom of the deck.
Face-Down Effect: When revealed from your face-down slot, she allows you to take one of your active Elders (the cards played face-down in previous rounds) and place it right back on top of your deck.
Pro Strategy: Use her to give a "second life" to your heavy hitters. By recycling The Guild Master (9) or The Muscle (5) back to your hand, you ensure you maintain absolute priority and vault protection for the crucial rounds ahead.
A Closer Look at the Vault
As you reclaim these historical Treasures, remember the game's core tactical twist: every relic you claim goes into your deck, diluting your power and weakening your operational control.
However, fragile items like Ming Vases and Snuff Bottles carry a high risk. If they remain in your deck or discard pile at the end of the game, they are worth 0 points! To score them, you must use card effects to secure them safely in your Vault. Keep an eye on those Emblems—they might just be the difference between a minor skirmish and a legendary victory!
Pictures!!!
We're preparing a full update with a closer look, but here are some pictures of the samples we received from the factory.
Shadows & Strategy — Meet The Snitch and The Strategist
3 months ago
– Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 08:44:00 AM
Greetings, Rebels!
We are coming to the end of our first work week on Kickstarter, and we cannot thank you enough for the support you’ve brought to the campaign since our launch Together, we are keeping the lanterns burning and fighting to bring this project to life.
We are already preparing to showcase the official pre-production copies of the game. Very soon, we’ll be sharing high-quality photos right here in our updates so you can see the detailed card art and premium materials up close.
In the meantime, let’s dive straight into the tactical heart of the game. To help you master your identical 9-card agent decks, we want to introduce you to two essential members of the Red Lantern Society who define the game's flexibility: The Snitch and The Strategist.
The Snitch (Value 2)
The Lore: A true shadow of the streets, she survives by observing the greatest masters and instantly mimicking the techniques of the Ancients. Her snow leopard guides her through the darkness of her clandestine searches to uncover relics where no one else would think to look.
The Strategy: The Snitch is the queen of versatility. When played Face-Up, she allows you to use the Face-Up action of any agent currently sitting in your Elder area. Playing her Face-Down permanently activates an Emblem that allows you to draw from the bottom of the deck. If another player tries to bury valuable treasures, they won't escape your grasp.
Pro-Tip: She is the ultimate combo asset. If you already have The Muscle (5) as an active Elder from a previous round, playing The Snitch Face-Up allows you to copy their power and secure a second Treasure into your Vault in a single turn!
The Strategist (Value 8)
The Lore: Born of the highest lineage, she calculates every probability with remarkable composure. The true mastermind of the society, she crafts formidable plans that allow her allies to reach their full potential.
The Strategy: For her, timing is everything. When played Face-Up, she allows you to take any number of cards from your hand or discard pile and place them on top of your deck in any order you choose. While she has no unique effect when played Face-Down, her high Reclaiming Power value of 8 practically guarantees you priority choice during the market phase.
Pro-Tip: She perfectly sets the stage for The Guild Master (9). Use her Face-Up ability to stack your two best cards on top of your deck so you draw them instantly at the start of the next round!
We'll be doing more dives into the strategies and combos of Red Lanterns. If there are combos or gameplay you want us to dive into, let us know.
-Moon Gate Design
