Imagine a raceway that begins in the woodlands. Typhon, Angrboda, Arachne, Tiamat, Grendel, and Qilin are lined up and ready to compete in a marathon to the volcano. The breeze seems to rot and die from the festering tension, sensing the oncoming rampage that will shake the world. Typhon bursts from the forest with his hundred dragon heads scrambling over each other, creating havoc to disrupt his competitors. Angrboda wields her frost giantess magic to freeze the others with Fimbulwinter cold. Arachne, ever patient, takes her time to weave and scatter web traps far in the distance, beyond the sight of those without eight eyes. Tiamat, unwilling to risk another defeat, unleashes her ten monstrous children throughout the battlefield to ambush her foes and help her when she needs them most. Grendel, the living dreadnought, bashes his way past the others, refusing to be slowed. And the Qilin, well…this dragon deer doesn’t care about the violence, opting to prance ahead, helping whoever they feel like, swaying the tide of the race with benevolent magic. Who wins? What do they do at the end? That’s up to you to decide.

Now imagine that with any combination of 100 monsters from all across the globe.

Monster Marathon is the wild 2-6 player race to set back your friends. Each character has 6 abilities that match your dice roll, so you’ll have to use what you get to survive the 40 spaces to the end. (My original intent for the game was for each player from 3-6 to control one monster, but over the course of playtesting, I've discovered that it also plays quite well at two if both players each pick 2-3 characters on a team.)

Here’s a glance at the basic rules:

All players can select the monster they want. Then, choose a lane to start in.

Pick a monster figure and the matching color of tokens. Some abilities will give you tokens for wards, curses, or traps. When you use an ability that gives you a token, select one with a number that matches the ability.

During each turn, you will have two separate rolls of a six-sided die. You roll a die for an ability at the beginning of each turn. The number you roll determines the ability you get to use. After you’ve used your ability, you roll a die to move on the board.

First to the finish wins!

-description from designer

Games