A Filipino Twentysomething Entrepreneur Created This Board Game About the Byzantine Empire

We all have our own niche interests—craft beer, high-end stereo equipment, vintage Pokemon trading cards—but Paolo “Powee” Celdran’s might be the most niche of them all. For most of his young life, the twentysomething Entrepreneurship graduate from MINT College has nurtured a fascination with Byzantine history, or that period of history centered around the Byzantine or Eastern Roman empire which ruled from its capital Constantinople for over 1,000 years.

The interest led Celdran to create a digital content storytelling platform called Byzantine Time Traveller, where he uploads Byzantine-themed art, photos, short videos, historical trivia, and stories based on his travels across the various parts of the former Byzantine empire and his own research and academic studies on the subject.

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Celdran thought of developing a tabletop board game based on Byzantine history after enrolling in a Game Development course in MINT College four years. The young game developer decided to focus on what he thought was one of the most exciting and intriguing periods of Byzantine history—the aftermath of the reign of Emperor Basil II, who many historian consider one of the empire’s ablest rulers. 

Photo by David Celdran.

“I thought to myself that by creating something fun like a game, perhaps more people could be introduced to this often-overlooked civilization and forgotten era of history,” he tells Esquire Philippines. “To achieve this balance of fun and educational value, I realized I needed to combine historically accurate events, places and characters with a bit of fan fiction and good art and design thrown in.”

The result is Battle of Byzantium, a tabletop board game that combines medieval history and fantasy. While Celdran thought of the initial concept for the game to fulfill one of the requirements in his class, he brought on collaborators from all over the world from his community of like-minded Byzantine enthusiasts to help turn his vision to reality. He mentions artists and creators from all over the world who were just as excited to work on the project—creators such as Athens-based comic book illustrator Chryssa Sakel, Sicilian artist and book illustrator Alessia  Valastro, and Manila-based art director Arjun Altomonte, among many others from the Philippines and abroad who helped enrich the game’s design and storyline. 

Photo by Powee Celdran.

“What we produced is much more than a board game; the illustrations, informative captions, and several references to Byzantine art, culture and technology all make Battle for Byzantium a window into what we believe is one of the world’s most influential civilizations,” he says.  

We asked Celdran to give us a broad outline of how the game is played.

“The game is set on the actual and historical map of the 11th century AD Byzantine world when the empire was at one of its peaks of power and influence,” he says. “The death of the great emperor Basil II leaves a power vacuum which brings four rivals – and here, semi-fictional - commanders to battle for supremacy over the empire. Players representing Arab, Norman, Varangian and Byzantine armies race across the board game map using the roll of the dice to land on special tiles and draw action or event cards to either advance or retreat, take cities or lose them, or miss a turn in exile. The player who takes the most number of cities wins the Battle for Byzantium. Players can tweak the rules to increase the difficulty or length of the game or shorten and simplify it.”

Photo by Powee Celdran.

Celdran, who is the son of journalist, TV news anchor, and host Devid Celdran, has previously produced a series of limited-edition playing cards featuring his own hand-drawn and hand-colored historical figures and cultural artifacts of Byzantine history. The cards are available at the Ayala Museum in Makati and at Guava Sketches in Greenbelt 5, as well as in overseas retail points, including at the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington DC, one of the world’s top institutions of Byzantine art and artifacts.

The new board game is part of the burgepning global board game industry, which estimates show was worth $24.918 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.82 percent to $48.699 billion by 2028.

Photo by Powee Celdran.

Meanwhile, Celdran launched Battle for Byzantium in early July and is already available for purchase in his website for P2,450. He says he’s already gotten orders from as far away as the USA, Austria, Italy, Dubai, and Mexico. Check out the Byzantine Time Traveler on Instagram (@byzantine_time_traveller) and on Facebook (Byzantine Time Traveller by Powee Celdran)