Root Expansion Factions: Building a Fair Mix

The base game’s four factions are only the start. Leder Games has added nine more across four big expansions, plus new maps, decks, Vagabonds, and hired helpers. Each new faction is its own small rulebook, so the same advice from the first lesson holds: teach the shared rules once, then let each player learn their own board.

This lesson walks through the expansion factions and shows how to pick a fair mix.

How do you pick a fair mix?

The Law of Root gives each faction a reach value. To set up an interesting game, pick factions whose reach adds up to at least the total for your player count.

The Law adds that adventurous groups are welcome to try any mix with a total of 17 or more. Notice how far apart the numbers are: a Lizard Cult and a Marquise are not the same kind of opponent, and the chart is how the designers say so.

The Riverfolk Expansion

The Riverfolk Expansion adds two factions and the pieces to play with up to six.

• Riverfolk Company: a trading company that sells services, such as cards from its face-up hand or the use of its warriors as mercenaries, and gets paid in other players’ warriors. It scores by building trade posts and from its funds.
• Lizard Cult: a faith that builds gardens where it rules and acts mostly by revealing cards. Its warriors become acolytes when they fall defending, which powers its conspiracies.

The box also adds three Vagabond characters, a second Vagabond board for games with two, and a bot board for the Marquise.

The Underworld Expansion

The Underworld Expansion adds two factions and a second double-sided board with the Lake and Mountain maps.

• Underground Duchy: moles who tunnel up from a private Burrow, build citadels and markets, and sway ministers for points and extra actions. Losing buildings costs them ministers.
• Corvid Conspiracy: crows who hide face-down plots, such as bombs, snares, and extortion, and score as they flip them. Rivals can guess a plot’s type to remove it.

The Marauder Expansion

The Marauder Expansion adds two factions, four hirelings, and faction setup cards for drafting factions.

• Lord of the Hundreds: a warlord and a hoard of items. They score each Evening for clearings they rule with no enemy pieces at all, and their mobs burn enemy buildings.
• Keepers in Iron: knights who dig relics out of the forests and carry them to matching waystations, scoring for each relic and each full set. Their Retinue grows, but cards can be lost along the way.

The Homeland Expansion

The Homeland Expansion adds three factions and the Marsh and Gorge maps.

• Lilypad Diaspora: frogs who settle enclaves and add a new frog suit to the Woodland. Peaceful enclaves score, but attacks can turn them militant.
• Twilight Council: peacekeepers who hold assemblies, defend the factions attacked there, and score from governing assemblies.
• Knaves of the Deepwood: a band of three rotating captains and a crew of skunks who score from acclaim and from the prisoners they take.

Smaller ways to grow

• Advanced Setup in the Law adds a faction draft using faction setup cards, a choice of map and deck, and optional hirelings and landmarks. Tournament play uses it, as Level 4 explains.
• The Exiles and Partisans Deck and The Squires and Disciples Deck each replace the 54-card shared deck.
• The Vagabond Pack adds three more Vagabond characters. The Landmarks Pack adds landmarks that change the map.
• The Clockwork Expansion 2 adds four automated bot factions to round out a small game or to play cooperatively. It needs the Riverfolk or Underworld expansion.

Our guide to whether expansions are worth it can help you decide where to start.

When to add a new faction

Add one new faction at a time, to a table that already knows the base four. Seat the new faction with the player who most wants to read a new board, and give everyone else a short tour of how it scores and what it fears, using the same questions the table talk lesson asks of the base factions. Check the reach total before every game. Once your group is drafting from several boxes, the Advanced Setup lesson at Level 4 shows how competitive tables choose factions.