Dave Morris, co-creator of Dragon Warriors, has a new Kickstarter project for his much-loved Fabled Lands gamebook series. This reunites Dave and Jamie Thomson, the original Fabled Lands writers, with Russ Nicholson, the classic fantasy artist who illustrated the original Fabled Lands series (as well as Book 6 of the 1980s edition of Dragon Warriors, among many other things).

Want to see a sequel to the Fabled Lands? We didn’t see one for many years, and the reason is largely one of money. In the glory days of the 1980s, you could publish a gamebook (or even a paperback RPG book like Dragon Warriors…), see it stocked in major bookshops, sell tens of thousands of copies, and expect, not to become wealthy (chance would be a fine thing) but at least to make a reasonable living as a writer and game designer. These days that’s a lot trickier, even using Kickstarter, even for an established author.

But Fabled Lands, and their partners at Megara, are managing it. They’ve funded the Kickstarter already (within 45 minutes!). There will be a new Fabled Lands book. More funding will mean better art, though. Get to it. 35 euro for a hardcover, beautifully illustrated, fantastically written slice of gaming magic.

Oh, and it’s called The Serpent King’s Domain, which would make us feel very happy here at Serpent King Games, if the title had anything to do with us! It seems to be one of those ‘great minds think alike’ moments, though.

Fabled Lands: The Serpent King’s Domain Kickstarter

Our latest short adventure, The Knight’s Tale, is now available here: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/132843/The-Knights-Tale. Set in Algandy, this adventure gives a hint of what life is like in that dark land and focuses on one of the grand events of the Legend calendar. Weighing in at nearly four times the length of the Miller’s Tale, this adventure is a sandbox scenario with heaps of NPCs and a healthy dose of chaos.

In other news the Player’s Guide is in it’s final stages and is on track for a late summer release.

We’ve secured a few copies of some of the Magnum Opus print run of DW, mostly so as to give us some stock for selling at conventions etc. However, we do have them available to UK buyers (only, for the moment) who might prefer to get their physical copies of the books directly from us. If you’re in the USA, it’s almost certainly better to go through DriveThru. We also had DriveThru send us a few copies of the main rulebook (our printing, this time), just so as to ensure we could do some decent bundle deals that at least have enough books in to let you play.

Individual Books (all Magnum Opus editions, other than Core Book, which is the Serpent King Games edition)

Elven Crystals: £14.95 + P&P
Bestiary: £14.95+ P&P
Prince of Darkness: £19.95+ P&P
Sleeping Gods: £19.95+ P&P
Friends or Foes: £19.95 + P&P
Core Book: £22.50 + P&P

Postage & Packing is £5 for any one or two books (excluding the core rulebook), or £7.50 for the core rulebook plus up to two smaller books. Sorry about that, but Royal Mail prices are high, and books are heavy. That price does include insurance though.

Bundle Deals
Starter Set I: Rulebook + Bestiary + Sleeping Gods = £62.50 inc P&P
Starter Set II: Rulebook + Bestiary + Prince of Darkness = £62.50 inc P&P
Something Old, Something New (Elven Crystals + Prince of Darkness + Sleeping Gods + Friends or Foes) = £77.50 inc P&P
Big Bundle (all the above books) = £115 inc P&P

If you want to place an order, send us the relevant funds to info@serpentking.com via PayPal, and I’ll get the books parcelled up and posted out within a week or two. This is just a question of me taking the books up the hill from my house to the post office, rather than some bigger business that has a postroom operative, so I’m not going to guarantee a delivery date, but usually I’d sooner get them in the post and out of the house ASAP.

At Serpent King Games, we’re fans of Dragon Warriors as well as the current publishers of the game. We recognise the essential contribution that fans have made in keeping interest in the game alive over the past three decades or so. We are very happy to see additions to the Dragon Warriors setting, in the form of free fan-made websites or other internet-based content such as free e-books or e-zines. However, it is essential that all Dragon Warriors fan sites adhere to the following Fan Policy:

1. Fan websites (or e-books, e-zines, etc.) must not be commercial enterprises. We have no objection to a fan site covering its costs through the use of adverts or similar, but you must not charge people to download or access fan-made material based on the Dragon Warriors setting.

2. Fan websites(or e-books, e-zines, etc.) are explicitly NOT permitted to reprint copyright material, including such items as art, character professions, monsters, or adventures that have been printed by Serpent King Games or other official Dragon Warriors publishers.

3. You may reference names, places, etc. from the Dragon Warriors setting.

4. All fan websites (or e-books, e-zines, etc.) must include the following text, in legible form, on the front page or on the first page that refers to Dragon Warriors or Legend:

“This website includes material based on the Dragon Warriors setting, as created by and copyright (c) Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson, and used according to the terms of the Serpent King Games Fan Policy. We are not permitted to charge you to use or access this content. This website is not published, endorsed, or officially approved by Serpent King Games. For more information about Dragon Warriors products and Serpent King Games, please visit www.serpentking.com”

5. We expect fan websites (or e-books, e-zines, etc.) to use the Dragon Warriors setting responsibly and legally. That means avoiding associating the setting with extreme graphic violence, explicit sexual content, hate speech against any particular real-world segment of society, or anything else that does not present Dragon Warriors in a positive light.

If you have any questions about the Fan Policy, please email info@serpentking.com

We’re still progressing…  slowly. We’ve hit so many hitches, but we’re working our way around them. I will give more info about that in the next few days, including:

*  A Fan Publication guide, so that we can make clear precisely what is and isn’t allowed, when it comes to Dragon Warriors fanzines, fan pages, etc.

*  Info on how to order print copies of some Dragon Warriors books directly from us, if you’re in the UK.

*  More short adventure releases.

*  Progress on the Players Book.

*  Changes afoot at Serpent King Games, and the future.

(begin forwarded message)

DriveThruRPG.com no-reply@onebookshelf.com

08:01 (1 hour ago)

to Gareth
Product Dragon Warriors has shipped.
Date Shipped: 2012-07-17
Shipped via: Lettermail Economy Packet

Address shipped to:
Gareth Hanrahan

(end forwarded message)

Yes, that really is the proof copy of the long-awaited SKG print edition of the Dragon Warriors core rulebook. This isn’t a new edition, in terms of the content — it’s just new to us. But that does mean that it will be back in print, not just in PDF, in a few weeks, once we receive and approve the proof. Sorry it’s taken us a while.

Hi All,

First up our sincere apologies for going dark for so long.  All three of us running SKG are incredibly busy in other areas of our work, from studying games at the highest academic levels, to running line development on Dr Who rpg and writing a gazillion words a day, to art directing at Cubicle 7.  You would be more than forgiven for thinking Dragon Warriors is currently, to be kind about it, in a deep slumber.

However, whilst progress has been slow and sporadic we have never stopped working on the new Players Book and DW in general, from writing and testing new material to making translation deals and clearing up after things go badly wrong with those, and so on.   We have been remiss in not posting more here, and for that we can only apologise. Often times it feels we’d be repeating ourselves if we were to say yet again “we’re working on it” with little to show.  But, well, we’re working on it.

The mainstays of the DW line remain available in pdf format here, and plans for print have remained in flux for a long time, due to a couple of factors it isn’t possible to discuss here.  Rest assured we’re working on the best option for Dragon Warriors.

Thank you as ever for your continued patience.

We’re (still) all hard at work at SKG Towers. The Players Book is largely finished, at least in terms of writing, but we are still finishing off some playtesting before finalising the text. The art and layout process will, inevitably, take longer still, probably pushing us back to a 2012 release.

We have a couple of adventures currently being worked on too, so do look out for at least three releases from us next year.

In the meantime, as a sneak preview of the Players Book, here’s the current, near-final version of the Hunter Profession. Feel free to use it in your campaigns right now, and email us your thoughts: info@serpentking.com

The Hunter Profession

Hearty congratulations from all the team at Serpent King Games to Andrew Wright, one of our regular Dragon Warriors writing team (he contributed to the Friends or Foes anthology for Magnum Opus Press, as well as the upcoming Players Book) who just won the Windhammer Prize for short gamebook fiction. He’s blogged about it here.

In other news, that Players Book is very, very nearly through the editing and rewriting stage. That doesn’t mean we’re quite ready to sell it yet; there is still a lot of art and layout to do before that point. We’re working on it, though, and are still determined that it will be a print release as well as PDF.