secret sauron

It is the dawn of the Third Age of Middle-Earth. The Fellowship is on a perilous quest to destroy The One Ring and stop the spread of corruption. Be watchful! There are enemies among you, and one of them is Secret Sauron.

I have a family friend who is an avid fan of the hidden-identity game Secret Hitler. Every summer, he works at a sleepaway camp and had long wanted to share the game with his young campers. However, he worried that the game’s theme might not be appropriate for children and had resigned himself to leaving it at home.

When I discovered that the publishers of Secret Hitler had released the game under a Creative Commons license—encouraging re-mixing and re-theming for non-commercial purposes, as long as derivative works were shared with the board gaming community—I saw an opportunity. After researching examples of other community-made remixes, I set out to design one of my own.

I reimagined the game through the lens of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, a theme that pairs perfectly with the game’s mechanics of secret roles, hidden allegiances, and slow-building tension. Using a mix of recycled components, 3D-printed pieces, and custom cards, boards, and stickers, I created Secret Sauron.

The best moment was presenting the finished game to my friend the week before he left for camp. He was thrilled — and more excited than ever to introduce the game to his campers in a way that was fun, thematic, and age-appropriate.

Are you brave enough to face Sauron yourself? You can download the files to forge your own copy at Board Game Geek!

Components:

• Box, insert, boards, Decision Tiles, voting scrolls: Repurposed game of Risk, custom-printed paper and stickers

• Cards: Custom-printed cardstock

• Placards, tray, token: 3D printed PLA filament, custom-printed stickers

• Illustrations: Printelling

• Paints: Apple Barrel acrylics

• Completion Date: June 2025

Design Insights:

The visual design of the game boards was crafted to tell a story alongside the mechanics:

• Corruption Tracks: Players advance from Orthanc to Barad-dûr, visually representing the growing influence of Sauron’s forces and the descent into shadow as more Corruption affects the Ring-bearer.

• Resistance Track: In contrast, the Resistance track begins with the broken sword of Narsil and ends with the reforged Andúril, symbolizing the Fellowship’s journey toward unity and the restoration of hope as Resistance persists.

These design choices turn each decision into a narrative milestone, making the game’s progress feel like part of the War of the Ring’s unfolding story.

Acknowledgements:

This project would not have been possible without the generous support, equipment, and expertise of the Portland Community College Sylvania Campus Maker Lab.

With guidance from the lab’s staff and volunteers:

• The game boards and decision tiles were laser-cut from the components of a secondhand copy of Risk (thrifted for just two dollars!).

• Several 3D printers were employed to create the custom plastic pieces.

• The cards and stickers were designed, printed in full color, and precisely cut to size using the lab’s printers, paper cutters, and materials.