Blood Sword 5e

I've had to keep this under my hat for months, but now it can be told: a new roleplaying game based on the Blood Sword books is in the works -- and it uses Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition rules.

Confused? There is already an RPG of the world of Legend, of course: Dragon Warriors. And I'm even working on an unplugged variant or cousin of that system: Jewelspider. So why Blood Sword?

The fact is that the Blood Sword books, while nominally set in the world of Dragon Warriors, have a very different flavour. Dragon Warriors is low fantasy, or was always meant to be, and that goes double for Jewelspider. But Blood Sword is the very essence of epic fantasy, with its mythic adversaries, heroic challenges, and save-the-world storyline.

Blood Sword, in short, is perfect for the kind of high adventure that 5e delivers. And I have a feeling it'll be the system that many Legend players have been looking for all these years. I've noticed that a lot of Dragon Warriors games throw out the cultural and small-scale folkloric elements in favour of grand plots worthy of the MCU. So the 5e edition of Blood Sword is going to be the RPG those gamers have been waiting for, while those who prefer the lower key of decidedly unheroic "real" Legend will still have DW and Jewelspider.

Here's the official description from publishers Tambù:

Blood Sword, the legendary 1980s gamebook series by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson, is back as a new setting for the 5th Edition of the most famous role-playing game of all time. 

You will play as rough and ragged mercenaries or bounty hunters, in service to the lords and monarchs of Legend. You will be part of a vile stew of assassins and soldiers of fortune hired to fight bloody wars, to banish the monstrous creatures that plague woods and villages. But it is woven into your destiny that you will retrieve ancient relics – relics of great and terrible power such as the lost fragments of the Blood Sword, the only weapon that can defeat the five undying Magi of Krarth who threaten to unleash the Apocalypse. 

Are you ready for adventure?

A Kickstarter is planned to launch the Blood Sword 5e game, and you can sign up for the pre-campaign and to be notified of early bird pledges here. And there's also a Facebook group.

Those who are waiting on Jewelspider, don't fret that this will distract me. I'm not directly involved in the design of the Blood Sword 5e game. I haven't played any edition of D&D in over thirty years so I'd be no help anyway, but in any case Tambù already has a very talented creative team lined up, with Ercole Belloni as editor and Valentino Sergi and Daniele Fusetto as designers. Read more about the team and the project here. I'll be on hand to advise them and I may even get to play in one of their games on Facebook. I'd better take a look at those 5e links, hadn't I?