In Evil High Priest, the players are the leaders of dark cults devoted to the horrifying gods of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos.  They send their worker-minions to complete tasks with the goal of gathering the ritual resources their Great Old One desires.  In the game, the players choose which Great Old One they will serve, and their chosen cult determines which actions they can assign their workers to undertake during the game.  The base game includes two cults to choose from:  Cthulhu himself and the Black Goat.

During the game, the players must also contend with troublesome investigators who can attack their lairs and destroy their resources.  Since those resources award victory points, the players must protect them as the game goes on.

The base Evil High Priest game will have an MSRP of $60.00.  It is intended for 2 to 5 players, ages 14 and up, and takes 40 to 90 minutes to play.  The game was created by Lincoln Petersen, son of Sandy Petersen (Cthulhu Wars), who also contributed to the game’s design and development.

Two expansion sets are scheduled to release at the same time as the base game, titled The Blood Ceremony and The Dark Rituals.  Each expansion adds four new Great Old Ones to serve, each with their own worker placement mat, as well as new game cards.  They will have an MSRP of $30.00 each.

Production of Evil High Priest was funded through a Kickstarter campaign last year that attracted $97,239 in pledged support from 1,071 backers (an average of $90.79 per backer).

Petersen’s latest design, Planet Apocalypse, is expected to release into the trade early next year (see “Petersen Games Plans ‘Planet Apocalypse’”).