Prophecy of Kings

Prophecy of Kings is the official expansion of Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition. 
It was announced at the Fantasy Flight Games In-Flight Report on July 29, 2020 and first released on November 7, 2020.
== Introduction ==
Ixth. The lost planet.Scholars have long debated the existence of Ixth. Once rumored to be a verdant paradise, an expedition through an enigmatic gateway has revealed the truth. Ixth was never a paradise - it was a prison.When the Lazax Imperium was in its infancy, it waged bloody war upon the tyrants known as the Mahact. World by world, the Mahact were pushed back, until only Ixth remained.In a desperate gambit to end the war, the Lazax isolated the Mahact and their ancestral home from the rest of the galaxy. But over the millennia, the secret of Ixth's existence - and its location - would reach the ears of those easily manipulated.As the echoes of the past tear through the galaxy and the Prophecy of Ixth turns to ash, a new flame grows amidst the still-burning embers.The Prophecy of Kings.
== Exploration, Relics and Relic Fragments ==
The most notable change to gameplay with the expansion is the ability to explore planets and systems. Exploration allows players to gain further rewards for expanding and reaching new systems.
See Exploration for more details on the mechanic as well as a list of Exploration Cards, Frontier Cards and Relics. 
== New Factions ==
7 new Factions are introduced in the Prophecy of Kings Expansion. Most of the Factions have emerged in the galaxy as a result of the catastrophic expedition to Ixth. Many of their abilities and technologies feature and highlight the new mechanics and components of this expansion.
* The Argent Flight
* The Empyrean
* The Mahact Gene Sorcerers
* The Naaz-Rokha Alliance
* The Nomad
* The Titans of Ul
* The Vuil'Raith Cabal
== Leaders ==
In Prophecy of Kings, each faction has access to 3 unique Leader cards* (1 Agent, 1 Commander and 1 Hero), each representing a named character important within that faction.
:Agents: Identified by 1 Stripe in the Upper right corner of the front of the Card 
:*Unlocked at the beginning of the game
:*Have exhaustible abilities (thus usable once per round)
:*The majority of agents have abilities that may be used on any player (not just the player playing that faction) 
:Commanders: Identified by 2 Stripes in the Upper right corner of the front of the Card 
:*Unlocked via unique, faction-specific requirements
:*Have passive abilities that do not exhaust 
:*Their ability may be shared with another player through use of the Alliance Promissory Note
:Heroes: Identified by 3 Stripes in the Upper right corner of the front of the Card 
:*Unlocked after scoring 3 objective cards (public or secret)
:*Have powerful abilities that are used only once throughout the game (the Hero card is purged after usage) 
See here for more information and for a list of each faction's leaders. 
(*) The Nomad has 3 Agents, giving them 5 total leaders.
== Mechs ==
Every faction has access to a new ground force unit, the Mech (mechanized unit).Mechs are available from the start of the game; represented by an additional faction-specific unit card placed adjacent to the player board. This unit card is NOT a unit upgrade technology. It does not need to be researched and cannot be copied by the Nekro Virus.Mechs function similarly to infantry in that they are able to take/hold planets and participate in Ground Combat. They all cost 2 Resources to produce and almost always have a combat value of 6. Mechs also have the Sustain Damage ability as well as a faction-specific special ability.Each player has 4 mechs in their reinforcements.See here for a list of all mechs by faction.
== Player Pieces ==
The expansion increases the maximum player count to 8.
Included are additional pieces that come in the colors orange and magenta.
==New Systems==
The Expansion includes 31 New System Tiles and 9 Hyperlane Tiles. 
The new system tiles divide into: 
*16 Regular Planet Tiles
**2 of these systems include Legendary Planets
*2 Systems that include both a planet and an anomaly 
*2 Anomaly tiles (Asteroid/Alpha system and Supernova)
*2 Empty Space tiles 
*7 Home System tiles (1 for each new faction)
**1 of these (The Empyrean home system) is also an anomaly (Nebula)
*Wormhole Nexus tile 
*Muaat supernova tile (For the Muaat Hero ability) 
See here for more information. 
== Additional Rules ==
Prophecy of Kings Rule Book 
Prophecy of Kings Living Rules Reference
New Terms, Abilities and Concepts: 
* Purge
* Attach
* Capture 
* Deploy
* Exploration
== Updates to Existing Components ==
=== Technology ===
There are 8 new basic technologies (2 of each color; one with 0 prerequisites and one with 1 prerequisite). These work just like other basic technologies and may be researched by any player. They are listed below: 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
=== Promissory Notes ===
There is 1 new generic promissory note available to all players: 'Alliance'. It reads:"When you receive this card, if you are not the <color> player, you must place it face up in your play area. While this card is in your play area, you can use the <color> player's commander ability, if it is unlocked. If you activate a system that contains 1 or more of the <color> player's units, return this card to the <color> player."
=== Objectives ===
The expansion doubles the total number of Public and Secret Objectives in the game by introducing 40 new objectives:
* 10 New Stage I Public Objectives
* 10 New Stage II Public Objectives
* 20 New Secret Objectives
See here for a list of new objectives 
.
=== Action Cards ===
The expansion includes 20 new action cards.
See here for a list of new action cards.
===Agenda Cards===
When playing with the Prophecy of Kings expansion, 13 of the Agendas in the base game are removed from play. These are either replaced by new agendas or exploration cards with similar effects.
The Expansion added 13 new Agenda cards; thus keeping the total number of Agenda cards at 50.
For a list of Agendas removed and added; see here.
=== Updated Strategy Cards ===
A new copy of the Diplomacy Strategy Card is included, with the Primary Ability now allowing a player to ready any 2 exhausted planets they control instead of 2 in one system.
A new copy of the Construction Strategy Card is included, with the same abilities but slightly different wording to make interaction with other game components simpler. 
== Lore ==
The Lazax. Founders of the greatest empire to span the galaxy. Hailed by some as benevolent rulers and powerful warrior-philosophers. Despised by others as vicious despots and arrogant dictators. Even a thousand years since their fall, few can consider them as anything but the Emperors of the entire galaxy. But there was a time when the Lazax were just another young and fiery race, and the galaxy was ruled by others.
Long before the Lazax, in the days of hallowed antiquity, legends and stories speak of the rule of the gene-sorcerers; the dreaded Mahact. Little is known about them save that their powers of cloning and genetic manipulation were nearly akin to magic, and that they divided the galaxy into many feudal holdings, each controlled by a Mahact family. The reign of the Mahact lasted for centuries, but it could not endure under the weight of their own decadence.
The dynasties of the Mahact kings were already crumbling under the weight of infighting and their debased technologies when the Lazax stepped onto the galactic stage. The Lazax armies crushed the remaining Mahact, slaying the last of their kings and purging their scourge from the civilized stars. Then, they built their reign on their legacy as liberators. They had saved the galaxy, and in return, its grateful citizens greeted their new masters with enthusiastic acclaim.
And so the Lazax Emperors set about ruling their new Imperium. Over twenty-four millennia, the Lazax prospered, waned, and eventually fell. Plenty of time for the rest of the galaxy, even the Lazax themselves, to forget about the struggles that had seen them rise to power in the first place. Plenty of time to forget about old horrors from the dawn of galactic history.
But those old horrors had not forgotten about them.
Within the Old Deep, the lightless warrens and passageways that lie far below Mecatol City, are vaults from the earliest days of Lazax rule. Some are cunningly hidden, while others are defended by fiendish traps and powerful barriers. Even the Winnaran custodians do not know what secrets they may contain.
However, as the powerful factions of the galaxy began to expand beyond their borders once again, they dispatched emissaries to Mecatol City. Some were politicians or soldiers sent to negotiate treaties or prepare for war, but others were scientists and historians. They hoped to rediscover the Lazax’s secrets and perhaps even give their own peoples some advantage in the conflicts to come.
One team had been sent from Creuss on the basis of fragmented information discovered from a wrecked ship found drifting in the depths of Shaleri space. With the codes and maps recovered from the dead captain’s vault, they unlocked an archive within the Catacombs of the Primals so old it had been sealed before the Lazax had declared their Empire. Within these ancient records they found something the galaxy had searched for across millennia.
They found a map leading to Ixth. Fabled paradise of a million dreamers, promised land of a thousand faiths, the legend of Ixth was as old as the Lazax. Although no one could agree on exactly where Ixth was, or what could be found on this legendary world, everyone did agree that the race that found it would reap immense riches and wield immeasurable power.
The Creuss believed they knew how to reach it. The discovery shocked the various great powers of the galaxy out of their constant struggles, and ignited a fevered race to discover the fabled world.
The maps led to a planet called Acheron, in the far reaches of Shaleri space. The Creuss mobilized an expeditionary armada without delay. However, the rest of the races of the Galactic Council unanimously decried their actions. The Creuss, not wanting to spark a war on every front, agreed to allow non-Creuss observers to join their expedition.
The expedition sailed around the turbulent space surrounding the Singularity of Manon, using the distant Torali Pulsar as their guide. Even as they delved deep into the unexplored nebulas beyond the Pulsar, they began to come under attack. Fast raiding ships struck at the edges of their fleet, and mysterious ambushers attacked scouting parties as they set down on planets along the way.
But the expedition pressed on. Eventually, they came across a clutch of dead planets circling an ancient dwarf star. The system appeared entirely without note, but clues within the maps made oblique references to such a place. The Creuss searched each planet in turn, and eventually they came to the innermost, a lonely world of dust and black oceans. The expedition’s scholars consulted their research and agreed; they had finally found Acheron.
The Creuss carefully swept the planet with their most powerful sensors and dispatched probes and parties of explorers to the surface. Soon, their persistence was rewarded. Buried beneath the depths of Acheron’s deepest sea were the ruins of a civilization that had been ancient before it had been flooded. At its heart was a gateway; an artificial wormhole larger and more powerful than any other that the galaxy had ever seen.
The Creuss immediately set about trying to unlock the gateway, pushing their formidable understanding of wormhole physics to its limits. And, soon, they succeeded. They opened the gateway, and stepped through to Ixth. They expected a paradise.
They were wrong.
Too late, the Creuss discovered that the prophecies of Ixth had been lies. Instead of a promised land, they discovered a tomb-city on a planet outside the galaxy. Instead of riches, they discovered horrors from a forgotten age. And instead of power, they awakened the Mahact.
For Ixth was their ancestral home. Driven from the galaxy by the Lazax, unable to return through the sealed Acheron gate, the Mahact had entombed themselves to await the day when someone would make the mistake of reopening the gate and awaken them.
Those belonging to the Creuss expedition were the Mahact’s first victims. Their sorcerous technology allowed the Mahact to remake the Creuss’ ethereal forms, crafting them into loyal servants for their new masters. From the entire expeditionary armada, only a few observers from the other races were able to escape to warn the rest of the galaxy.
Once awake, the Mahact were able to regain control over Acheron and the gate. The Mahact worked frantically and with single-minded purpose to ensure that they could never be isolated or exiled again, and they had little concern for other consequences of their actions.
So they unleashed the full force of their ancient machines, unbinding the wormhole from Acheron. Energy capable of maintaining the gateway until the stars burned out was unleashed in a moment, expanding its structure to swallow Ixth whole and hurl it into the midst of the galaxy’s bright core stars.
This drastic act destroyed the gateway. On Ixth, the mechanisms simply vanished, lost amongst a hundred dimensions of space and time, and leaving a glowing crater in the middle of the Mahact’s capital city. On Acheron, the consequences were far worse.
The violent severing of the gateway from Acheron ripped the fundamental fabric of the universe asunder. A massive gravity rift tore the planet to whirling shards, and split the star system in twain.
Then it began to grow, becoming a massive gravitational vortex that consumed the Acheron system. The sun writhed and twisted under the assault, and the remaining planets slowly crumbled. But that was not the worst. The power of Acheron’s wormhole gateway meant that, when it was destroyed, the rift became a gaping wound in reality. Through this wound spilled vicious creatures from a parallel dimension. Calling themselves the Vuil’raith, they seem to have sprung fully formed from the darkest nightmares of a hundred different species.
The Vuil’raith, however, are all too real. They seek to destroy the boundaries between this reality and their own, and in doing so, merge the galaxy into a warped and hellish extension of their home. Worse, their malevolence is matched by their cunning. They have courted allies amongst those cast aside and discarded by their own species, promising that those who serve the Vuil’raith now shall be lords of creation when the new order comes. For every world that falls to the voracious appetites of the Vuil’raith fleets, another collapses after being undermined by traitors from within.
In their bid to retake the galaxy, the Mahact unwittingly unleashed yet another threat, one that is possibly more dangerous than themselves.
The return of the Mahact has also spurred the rise of other races to prominence on the galactic stage. The fragile balance of power between the traditional members of the Galactic Council has shattered under the pressures of these upstarts.
On many worlds, the Titans of Ul rise from beneath the ground. Once slaves of the Mahact, millennia of slumber have freed the Titans’ minds from domination. Now they strive to carve out a place for themselves in the galaxy.
Long ago, the Argent Flight accepted the task of ensuring the Mahact would never return to plague the galaxy, and worked to accomplish it in secret. Now that their ancient foe has returned, the time for secrecy is over.
Even more mysterious are the forces of the Empyrean and the Nomad. In both cases, recent events seemed to have spurred them to action. More black-hulled ships have been spotted lurking on the edges of known systems, while mercenaries flock to the Nomad’s promises of fantastic wealth.
Others see the galactic upheaval as an opportunity to be grasped. The newly formed Naaz-Rokha Alliance looks at its peers with contempt. Isn’t it time for a younger species to chart the course of galactic affairs?
Beset by new rivals and ancient threats, the elder races of the galaxy rush to form alliances and build up their military might. As outposts and fortresses fall silent along borders, and night skies flicker with the light of distant weapons fire, planets everywhere ready their defenses and prepare for war.
Some believe a glorious new era is about to dawn—that a light might be forged that can resist the coming darkness. A glorious Imperium, rising from the ashes of the old.
But others know that old grudges run too deep to be so readily healed. They fear the galaxy is perched on the precipice of titanic conflict, and that the return of the Mahact will send it all plunging into the abyss.
Source: Guide to the Imperium