Dune: Imperium – Bloodlines Design Diary 1: Introducing Bloodlines

Dune: Imperium – Bloodlines is the latest expansion for both Dune: Imperium and Dune: Imperium – Uprising. It’s available for pre-order now, and will hit your Friendly Local Game Store in early 2025.

When I thought about what should be next for Dune: Imperium on the heels of Uprising, a couple things seemed clear. First, it should be compatible with both Uprising and base Dune: Imperium. Both of those games are solid foundations that can be built upon, and the design team loves playing both versions. And if you do too, or even if you prefer one version over the other, we think Bloodlines will provide many hours of new Dune: Imperium experiences for you.

Secondly, it felt right to go back to something around the size of Rise of Ix or Immortality. Uprising was a major new product in the line, with all-new Imperium and Intrigue decks, an all-new game board, and so on, all coinciding with the spectacular Dune: Part Two film. With Bloodlines, we wanted to go back to something around the size of Rise of Ix or Immortality, and focus more on deepening some of the areas of gameplay that we’d already begun to explore. In the end, with nine new leaders the expansion turned out a bit bigger than initially envisioned, ending up with even more content than Rise of Ix!

Bloodlines leans heavily into the idea of expanding the concept of what a leader can be. With both base Dune: Imperium and Rise of Ix, all the included leader cards are literal leaders of the Great Houses of the Landsraad. With Uprising, that changed, by allowing some great characters to fill the roles of leaders, even if they weren’t born to nobility. For example, Gurney Halleck and Staban Tuek. In Bloodlines, the majority of the leaders in the box are not nobility and thus fall into the “what if?” category of leaders.

Let’s take a look at a few Bloodlines leaders, shall we?

Delayed Gratification

Steersman Y’rkoon was a leader originally designed for Uprising, but that ultimately didn’t make it into the product. He and Piter De Vries (also in Bloodlines) are special in that they each use a unique deck of cards. In Y’rkoon’s case, a deck of Navigation cards, because he is one of the very special beings in the Dune universe who can navigate across the stars. Y’rkoon appeals to players who enjoy some longer-term planning and having some surprises up their sleeves, as well as players who just enjoy playing a “weird” leader, as Y’rkoon just feels different to play, starting with the fact that he doesn’t have a signet ring.

At the start of the game, the Y’rkoon player looks at five Navigation cards, out of ten in the box, and chooses four to “plot a course.” You might have certain favorite Navigation cards, but whether you’ll see each individual card is a coin flip. So you need to make due with what opportunities you have. Below is an example of a hand of five Navigation cards that you might draw at the start of the game. How would you plot a course with these?

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Designing Uprising was a huge project, and I both needed some time to gather energy and I knew I would need help with Bloodlines. Fortunately, I work with a great team of designers at Dire Wolf and brought several of them – Caleb Vance, Phil Amylon, and Andy Clautice – into the design booth for this one. There’s no way Bloodlines would have come out as high quality as it did without the energy and enthusiasm that they contributed to the project.

Esmar Tuek is an example of a leader that I would not have come up with if I’d designed Bloodlines by myself. I think I chuckled when I saw the pitch. A leader that brings a unique board space into the game? That’s cool!

In any game where Esmar Tuek is in play, the Tuek’s Sietch board space is added to the table:

Esmar is particularly fun at a table of talkative players. As Esmar, you may want to sometimes call out the “great spice deals” you can get if you pay a visit to the Sietch, especially if you’re looking to get some Intrigue cards in exchange for “allowing” others to access your site.

The Spy Game

Bloodlines does have some content in it that only works with Uprising, simply because there are leaders and cards that refer to mechanics which are unique to Uprising: sandworms and spies. Here’s an example of a leader that can be added to Uprising games:

Mohiam was a tricky one to balance during development. She mostly performed well, but sometimes she had abysmal games when the Imperium row wasn’t cooperating with her. We ended up tweaking her signet ring, adding the ability to spend spice to place a spy, because that helped her “pay” her way out of tough situations. We raised the floor experience without raising the ceiling experience.

I had a lot of fun playing Mohiam; the way you think about your cards and spies feels unusual and refreshing. She is particularly great for a The Spice Must Flow strategy, in that you can justify making those purchases earlier in the game than usual, because even your TSMF cards have a spy icon on them!

Looking Forward

This is just the first in a series of Bloodlines design diary articles. Stay tuned for more, written by other members of the design team, that will explain the major new concepts introduced by the expansion.

Thanks for reading. I’ll see you on the bloody sands of Arrakis!

–Paul Dennen