You wait years for a Lone Wolf crowdfunding campaign...

No, not that Lone Wolf project, this one. This one has Gary Chalk art. Oh, but so did the other one. I'll tell you the first thing that sprang to mind:

"Nigel gave me a drawing that said eighteen inches. Now, whether or not he knows the difference between feet and inches is not my problem. I do what I'm told."

"But you're not as confused as him, are you. I mean, it's not your job to be as confused as Nigel."

Actually it's really simple. The other crowdfunder was for a new series of gamebooks set in Magnamund but not starring Lone Wolf. This, on the other hand, is a boardgame and it does star Lone Wolf, along with other famous characters from the books such as Giak Kootak and Rotzon the Cener. (I think that's him below with the big old book and the curtain rod.)

Confused? Maybe you should read Richard S Hetley's guest post about the Lone Wolf Boardgame on Lloyd of Gamebooks. That will explain everything. Go ahead, I'll wait.

What makes this special enough to be worth your hard-earned shards? Well, even if you're not a fan of the Lone Wolf gamebooks, any boardgame designed and illustrated by Gary Chalk is a must. Here's the guy who created the look and feel of Magnamund, who shaped the imagination of a generation of tabeletop gamers with his Games Workshop artwork & game design, and who has illustrated scores of beautiful books. On top of that he's a genuine gaming enthusiast himself with that rare combination: passion and talent, both turned up to 11.

For this Kickstarter campaign, Gary has teamed up with Megara Entertainment, who we might have mentioned before, and Greywood Publishing, the publishers of the very short-lived Fabled Lands RPG. The campaign has just one week left to run, and with your help it can still reach its target. Find out all the details here.

The wisdom of crowds

Ulule is one of those crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo where a publisher can raise investment for new projects from the people who are best placed to judge whether there's a market: the customers themselves. And this month, Megara Entertainment are looking to fund a French edition of the Sokara supplement to Greywood's Fabled Lands RPG.

Megara have set a total target of €1500, and as I write this they are more than a third of the way there. Depending on how much you invest you can get a bunch of goodies to thank you for being one of champions of Sokara. For more information, take a look at the Sokara page on Ulule. Don't delay - the offer only lasts until May 17.

The French connection

With French films creating such a stir at the moment, here's one that role-players are going to like. It stars Megara Entertainment's CEO Mikael Louys taking us on a guided tour of the French edition of the Fabled Lands RPG by Greywood Publishing.

You'll be able to buy it from Megara and the English edition is of course on sale on Amazon (UK and USA). Personally I have just enough French to order a beer and a steak, but Megara's full-color production is such a thing of beauty that I think I'll have to get a copy myself.

Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy the film. And be sure to full-screen it for maximum viewing pleasure.

Sokara so good

Greywood Publishing have just released the first of twelve supplements for the Fabled Lands role-playing game and, if this one is anything to go by, the series is set to be one of the greatest RPG experiences ever.

The book focuses on Sokara, with city maps, new rules, monsters, characters, items and scenarios. Amazing cartography by the legendary Gillian Pearce, drool-worthy art by a host of luminaries, editing by Andrew Wright and gorgeous layouts by author, typographer, graphic designer, publisher and full-on Renaissance Man, Jamie Wallis.

Naturally I'm going to say I like it, but take a look at the reviews this series is garnering. If you want a quick, comprehensive RPG system that lets the adventure come first, Fabled Lands is the one to pick. And P W Gresty, no stranger to these parts, has serendipitously just posted a Fabled Lands scenario, "Many Happy Returns", on his blog, giving new characters a great jumping-off point for their quests.

Golnir next. And wait till you see the beautiful cover artwork for that by a certain (and even more legendary) Mr Gary Chalk!

In the sky with diamonds

Okay, okay - I admit it, Russ Nicholson I'm not. The picture is my finger-paint attempt to illustrate this scenario for the Fabled Lands RPG. It's pretty freeform and would fit into an Over the Blood-Dark Sea kind of quest as a peripheral standalone adventure.

Now, if you're planning to play in this scenario I suggest you read no further!

To the referee, umpire or (if you must) game-master: choose carefully which player-character you use to initiate the adventure, as the payoff hinges on him buying into the romantic ideal so that the ending will have a suitably tragic flavor. You will probably want to adjust the stats to fit the characters' rank; the Angels should be a tough fight, especially because of their cunning, while the apparitions should be a real struggle for survival.

BY HER GAIT

A Fabled Lands RPG seafaring scenario that would fit in with a Sinbad/Odysseus type of campaign.

The bait

A young woman appears to one of the characters in his sleep. She wears a lacquered mask which she sets aside to reveal a face of startling beauty. She pleads with him to come to her rescue, but appears distracted. "I am trapped within a tower," she says, "and can appear to you only in your dreams. But if you can free me, you will have my gratitude and my love."

If any of the other characters are on watch and look into the cabin, they will see the dreaming character moaning and tossing in his sleep.

Surprise at sunrise

Shortly before dawn, a shadow appears on the horizon. Wary in case it is an uncharted island, the captain trims the sails. The rising sun, however, reveals an astonishing sight: a circular citadel with a central silver tower gradually takes shape out of the twilight, floating hundreds of feet up in the air.

While the characters watch, a tiny figure plunges from the citadel and hits the water. He does not surface - unsurprisingly, as nobody could survive such a fall. (In fact it is one of the "Angels", see later; it swims to the ship and waits underwater until it can slip aboard unnoticed, and may cause trouble in subsequent adventures.)

Obviously, if the characters have no means of levitating up to the citadel, this encounter is merely another eerie episode on the Violet Ocean and they must sail on. No need to force it. The dreams could recur over months or years of the character's life and that will only make the eventual resolution more effective.

The floating citadel

Consists of five circular terraces connected by steps passing through ornate archways. Trees and flowers grow in marble beds ranged along the terraces. A tower rises from the middle of the citadel.

Inhabitants of the citadel

Five hundred and fifty-five people live here. They are tall and slender with dark skin, narrow faces, gentle in disposition. Whenever a 556th baby is born, the oldest inhabitant leaps down a well shaft (located on the third terrace) into the sea. These people call themselves the Exalted and subsist on fruit, plus occasional fish that may be thrown up from the sea during very violent storms. For fresh water, they rely on the rain.

When picking fruit, they process around the terraces at regular intervals; a date might thus be described as "the time of the Third Orchard of the Second Terrace".

The Exalted never ascend beyond the third terrace - the second and first are off-limits, inhabited by "Angels". The Angels serve and guard the Goddess, who lives in the central tower. The legend states that the Goddess originally dwelt here long long ago (ie, in prehistoric times) and departed, but was brought back only a generation ago by warriors bearing a green banner. These warriors tried to slay the Exalted, who hid from them. They bore the Goddess on a silver catafalque, levitated from ships far below, and carried her up beyond the third terrace. From that day, all who glimpsed her could speak only of her sad beauty. After plundering the place, the green warriors flew back down to their ships. But they left the Goddess in the tower. The Goddess's servant, a green bird, sometimes descends to take offerings from her shrine on the first terrace.

The true story

The "Goddess" who dwells in the tower now has no connection to the legendary deity of ancient times. She is actually a sorceress called Virinasi, left here 40 years ago by soldiers from Chrysoprais ordered to conduct her into exile. If she was beautiful then, the long years of solitude have stolen that from her. Now she is wrinkled and barely sane. The green bird is her familiar, which brings her morsels of fish.

The "Angels" are pale, mute, homuncular creatures created by alchemy, sexless and undying. They were set here as the original guardians of the armoury. They retreated in the face of superior force when the Chrysoprais soldiers arrived, and would now like to trace and retrieve the plundered weapons. To this end, one of the Angels will hurl itself down into the sea and try to get aboard the characters’ ship.

There are twenty Angels here. (Despite the name, they have no wings; envisage white-skinned, naked, androgynous figures with pupils as large as their eyes.) They will attack only if somebody tries to plunder items from the armoury, and will fight intelligently:

"ANGELS"
Combat 5; Intelligence 10; Magic 5; Muscle 7; Scouting 5; Thievery 5
Defence 9; Stamina 11
Special attack: Pacify – if the Angel succeeds in a Magic roll of difficulty 11, the target will stand passively for one minute unless attacked.

The Angels ignore Virinasi. She sent her dream self, which still appears as a 20-year-old, to lure a rescuer here.

2nd Terrace: The armoury

At the back of the plundered armoury (describe gaps on wall where once were swords, spears, shields) is a huge metal door. There are tiny scratches on the surface of the door. Inscription in huge letters hangs over the door, in unknown language.

The damage to the door was caused by the pickaxes of the soldiers who brought Virinasi here. They looted the armoury itself and wanted to get into this inner vault but the door resisted every effort.

The inscription on the door is in an ancient language that can be read by means of an Intelligence check at Difficulty 15. (Language skill applies.) Reading the inscription aloud causes the door to open. Beyond lies the Lightning Armour Hall.

Inside the Lightning Armour Hall

Dim blue lighting flickers on. There are two daises set into the floor, one silver and one black. Each dais contains two oval indentations as though for feet. Directly above each dais is a silver disk suspended from the ceiling.

If you step into the indentations on the silver dais, the dais slowly rises and the disk lowers. Electricity crackles around you. Then you are returned to the floor.

This provides one user with the Lightning Armour. The Armour functions only when you have discarded any crystalline objects on you (including metal, and jewels). If you wear such items, you only notice minor side-effects: acrid taste on tongue, ozone smell, people get a mild shock when they touch you, bits of paper stick to your fingers, etc.

When you're down to very little crystal adornment, you might even notice sparks crackling around you in the dark. When no crystal at all is worn, then the Lightning Armour becomes active: a scintillant white aura that gives Defence +6 and full resistance to any electrical-based attack. You can wear leather armour with it (for an additional +1 Defence) but no form of metal armour. The glow of the Lightning Armour illuminates a circle of 10m radius around the wearer, causing -2 to any Thievery rolls involving stealth.

The black dais functions similarly but equips the user with the Thunder Spear.
This can be thrown (like a javelin) or used in melee. It always appears in the user's hands when a weapon is required. This means that it is never out of your hands for more than half a round (even if dropped) but also that you can't use any other weapon. No armour counts for better than 4 Defence against the Spear. It cannot be broken.

If the user of either the Lightning Armour or the Thunder Spear is killed, the item returns to the dais and can be claimed by somebody else.

The damsel in distress

Virinasi shows herself as the characters leave the Lightning Hall or if they fail read the inscription. They see a slight female figure in white robes, her face covered by a lacquered mask. She beckons to the character whose dreams she visited, calling him her champion and thanking him for coming to rescue her. But as he approaches her, the characters will become aware of creatures emerging from the shadows all around them. Virinasi screams, terrified, and seeks the protection of her champion.

Forty years of solitude with only the silent Angels for company have left Virinasi unhinged. Though her conscious reaction to her rescuers is one of gratitude, her troubled psyche unleashes monsters from the id that will attack. These are in fact just apparitions – but apparitions that can kill:

APPARITIONS
Combat 9
Defence 11
Stamina 14

Each round, 1-6 more apparitions appear on the scene until there are ten in all:

• Worm-thing
• Oozing slime that mutters
• Swarm of skulls
• Robed spectre
• Bloody corpse with teeth for hands
• Fiery spider
• Carrion bat
• Clanking warrior
• Jellyfish with heads inside
• Shrieking fungus man

The apparitions are not real, but will cause real damage to anybody who fails a Magic test at Difficulty 15. A character who succeeds in the roll will take no damage when hit, and can then try to convince others they are just illusions. This takes one round and everyone in earshot can then attempt the roll again, this time at Difficulty 12.

If anyone specifically states they are looking at Virinasi during the battle, they will notice on making an Intelligence test at difficulty 9 that she seems to be subvocalizing a spell. If she is struck unconscious, the apparitions immediately drop by 3 in both Combat and Defence.

If the apparitions are defeated, Virinasi gives a cry and drops to the floor. The psychic backlash has slain her. If they remove her lacquered mask, the characters will see that she is no longer the beautiful woman who appeared in the dream.

Nice price from DriveThruRPG

If you still haven't got your copy of the Fabled Lands RPG (and why not?) you may be interested in trying the PDF version that's now available on DriveThruRPG.

You can get the rulebook for $14.99 (that's about half the price of the print edition) or, for just fifty-one cents more, why not pick up a bundle of the rulebook plus a full-color map of Harkuna? Better do it right now, though - I can't believe those nice folks at Greywood Publishing will leave those prices so low for long.

The illustration, one of many excellent new images of he Fabled Lands to be found in the book, is by Tony Hough, and you can see more of his work here.

Okay, a short post today as I'm madly busy, but we'll make up for it with Castle of Lost Souls part 2 in five days. See you then...

From gamebook to RPG

Still sitting on the fence when it comes to the new Fabled Lands RPG? Shane Garvey and Jamie Wallis have created an elegant and versatile system that's worthy of your attention. Even if you're not a fan of the world of Harkuna, you can use it for other settings. I know of at least one Legend campaign that's switching from Dragon Warriors to FL rules.

But don't take my word for it, see what Stuart Lloyd has to say in the comprehensive new review on his blog Lloyd of Gamebooks. Andrew Wright has also begun a multi-part look at it on Fantasy Game Book. And if you like what those gentlemen have to say, you might want to order a copy now as we'll have a scenario for the FL RPG here in a fortnight or so.

Okay, there's more Lloyd (Dirk, not Stuart) at the weekend, but before that why not drop by on Friday for news of Jamie's latest book? (Our own Jamie T, that is, not Mr Wallis.) It's The War-Torn Kingdom meets Harry Potter... or so he tells me. And I also just heard that BBC radio are repeating his Harkuna-set fantasy serial in which a bunch of adventurers seek the mythical Heart that will grant ultimate power. No, sadly it's not what you think, gamebook fans ;-) but you should enjoy it anyway. And talking of gamebooks, can you wait two weeks until the next installment of The Castle of Lost Souls? Truly, 'tis a veritable summer feast of fantasy around here.

This just in -

I just got a heads up from Jamie Wallis at Greywood Publishing to say that the Fabled Lands RPG is now on Amazon UK. If you're Stateside, it's still on Amazon US, of course - and there, as bargain hunters will probably have already noticed, at a slightly lower price than the British edition.

Jamie also told me to tell you that the Sokara sourcebook will be out in September and the Golnir book in December. So lots of background material, scenarios, creature, characters, locations, maps and items to come. Better roll your characters now.

Oh, double-taking at that cover? It was Greywood's original mock up using Kevin Jenkins's beautiful painting from The War Torn Kingdom (FL Book One). Who wouldn't want to live in that castle?

Fabled Lands role-playing is here

This is a difficult post to write because my fingers don't really want to be on the keyboard. They keep twitching towards the beautiful object at the side of my desk - to wit, the core rulebook and first volume in Greywood Publishing's epic Fabled Lands Role-Playing Game series.

I remember getting starting in role-playing. Dungeons & Dragons came as three little booklets in a white box. You didn't need any more than that. It was a Narnia wardrobe, a Tardis, a Cavorite sphere to convey you into endless worlds of the imagination.

For many, though, rules quickly got in the way, spreading like traffic signs and one-way streets through the landscape of fantasy. I remember one Sunday afternoon at Jesus. (Yes, that was our church.) I was playing D&D or EPT with Mark Smith and Oliver Johnson. We went into the next room, where another group were playing Chivalry & Sorcery, to borrow the kettle. "As you enter the tomb, the sarcophagus lid starts to slide back," their umpire was telling them. Fifteen minutes later, tea brewed, I took the kettle back. "So, two of you are now adjacent to the sarcophagus, you others have readied arrows, and the wight is now standing up in the sarcophagus..."

The Fabled Lands RPG cuts away all the unncessary stuff. You want adventure. You want to create a character without having to use Excel, and you want to get stuck into a fun story without the need for calculus to resolve every situation. Shane Garvey and Jamie Wallis have delivered exactly the balance of ease-of-use and detail that the freewheeling, fast-paced, limitless vista of the Fabled Lands demands.

Of course, nobody in their right minds wants to turn the role-playing clock back to 1975. These days players rightly demand more than hack and slay. You might be creeping through the shadows of your enemy's castle, walking in disguise under the noses of temple guards, struggling to keep your ship afloat in a storm, trying to charm your way out of a fight, desperately weaving spells, or gambling with faerie folk for your very soul. And the Fabled Lands RPG has nicely streamlined rules to cover all of that and combat too.

You start by creating a character with all the familiar FL characteristics and a bit extra in the background. The best characters are "this but that", so you get to choose both positive and negative personality traits. You could be brave but selfish, for instance, or supportive yet an inveterate liar. It's up to you how to play those, and how to use the detailed background rules too. They're there to give players something to get to grips with right away.

The core system is based off the FL abilities (Charisma, Sanctity, etc) and you need to roll two dice, add your ability score, and beat the difficulty of the task. But with a few deft additions, Shane and Jay give a lot more scope to that basic mechanic. Skills modify your abilities for specific tasks. So if you have Navigate 2, for example, you can add +2 to Scouting rolls when plotting a course.

On top of that are the powers. These are unique to each profession: Primal Rage for barbarians, Cure and Bless for priests, and so on. Each profession has four special powers and as you rise in rank they can be taken multiple times for extra benefit.

The rest of this beautifully produced and laid-out book has sections on the gods, equipment, magic, monsters, world background (Yellowport is covered in detail, including maps and personalties with stats) and a very useful long section to guide the umpire (or GM if you must) in running adventures. And Greywood has marshalled a first rate art team, led by the undisputed master of fantasy Martin McKenna, to help evoke the Fabled Lands visually.

Further books are planned - in fact twelve sourcebooks, each zooming in on one part of the Fabled Lands and providing quests, treasures, characters, cities, lore and everything else you need for a long-running FL campaign. And yes, that does mean you will get to visit Chrysoprais and Atticala and the Forbidden Realm.

I am sure some of you will be saying, "That's all very well, but I like gamebooks. I'm not a roleplayer." But actually, you are. Just as most gamebooks were multiple-choice forms of a novel, the original six Fabled Lands books are a multiple-choice form of role-playing campaign. What Greywood have done is take all that material and rework it so that the world can be opened up for groups of friends to adventure together. And you don't need weeks to prepare a game nor a law degree to understand the rules. If you have read any of the Fabled Lands gamebooks, you'll be able to pick up the RPG, gather some friends together and get started.

Now, if you'll pardon me, my fingers are reaching for the rule book and they will not be denied. I'm going to be running an FL game in the near future, and I hope you will too! Oh – you want to know where you can get it? From Cubicle 7 right here and shortly (we hope) from Amazon.

In an open boat waiting for death

In case you thought we'd forgotten about the Fabled Lands RPG, the very latest news is that it is undergoing a thorough edit by the world's foremost FL authority, Andrew Wright, will hopefully be ready for release next month, and here is a sighting of the map and character sheet to prove it. Rara avis in terris commenticia.

To take you in the sun to promised lands

Okay, you Fabled Lands devotees were unfairly worked up to a lather by that "Serpent King arises" headline. Now it's Valentine's Day and you want some love. In particular, you want to know when the Fabled Lands role-playing game will be out. And the answer, I am at last able to tell you, is June this year. Yep, only four months to go. Greywood Publishing are starting off the series with the rulebook and the Sokara sourcebook, which is the first of twelve supplements covering the whole of the known Fabled Lands.

These will be released as both print books and PDFs. So everyone's happy. And if you choose the PDFs you get the bonus of Greywood's eye-poppingly gorgeous colour design, plus the option to buy just the parts of the rules that appeal to you. For all my championing of ebooks, I'll be getting the print edition myself and I expect it to get well-thumbed and lovingly battered very quickly as my role-playing group tear through the world of Harkuna for a change.

The game system is by Shane Garvey and the scenario and background material is by Jamie Wallis. Not James Wallis; he's the erstwhile Dragon Warriors impresario. Whole other RPG designer and publisher. No relation. And if that seems like an unlikely coincidence, what about there being two Steve Jacksons who both wrote Fighting Fantasy books? Spooky.

Return to the Fabled Lands

We had a good old run of Dragon Warriors stuff lately, and you Fabled Lands aficionados have been very patient, so here's some news worth waiting for. Greywood Publishing are creating an all-new Fabled Lands roleplaying game, based on either their own QUERP system or the rules in the FL books, or maybe a little bit of both, for release early in 2011. Co-designer Shane Garvey promises some cutting-edge streamlined design, with semi-freeform magic and a combat system that amounts to "more than just stand and swing, though everything is based on 2d6 and the difficulty mechanic familiar from the gamebooks."

To support the core RPG there'll be a series of sourcebooks for each nation, so you'll be be able to get a bunch of friends together for adventures in Golnir, Sokara, and so on, and then on to Ankon-Konu and beyond. The guys at Greywood are still trying out a few layouts, so no final decision has been taken on cover design (the picture above is just a mock-up) but we do know they will feature some sumptuous and scintillant digital artwork from the forthcoming Fabled Lands apps by Megara Entertainment, made available courtesy of Megara's heroic and gentlemanly patron, Mikael Louys.

But that's not all; we're also going to be reissuing the FL gamebooks. These will be standard paperback format, which ought to make them more accessible to readers of conventional-sized gamebooks, and they'll be on sale on Amazon from early December priced around $7.99 each. The covers will feature the original paintings by Kevin Jenkins, who's taking a quick time out from his packed movie schedule to give them a retouch that'll make them more eye-poppingly stunning than ever; and the interior illustrations will of course be by the da Vinci of Fabled Lands, Russ Nicholson. Yep, the gang's all here.

Wait, there's more. If those first six books sell well enough, the management of Fabled Lands LLP are talking about giving Jamie and me the green light to complete the series with books 7 to 12. So it could be quite an eventful year ahead for Fabled Lands fans. For further info, keep an eye on the Fabled Lands Facebook page and the Fabled Lands website (soon to have a major overhaul).