Post by Admin Pete on Aug 10, 2017 12:03:49 GMT -5
I’m posting this in both the General Discussion section and the Men & Magic section of Original D&D Discussion. I hope that’s okay. (Should they be consolidated in one or the other, Finarvyn?)
Announcing SEVEN VOYAGES of ZYLARTHEN, published by Campion & Clitherow!
From the Foreword to Vol. 1:
ONCE UPON A TIME almost forty years ago, two amateur historians—one temporarily working as a shoe repairman, the other as a security guard—released a little game in the form of three forty page booklets. With an odd but intriguing name suggested by the shoe repairman’s daughter, these “Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns” sold one thousand copies in their first year, mostly to military hobbyists and collectors of miniature lead soldiers…
And that’s where the story ends, at least for our purposes. SEVEN VOYAGES of ZYLARTHEN is a re-imagining of the original edition of the world’s most popular paper and pencil fantasy adventure game, first published by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974. The brilliance and charm of the earliest version was its simplicity and elegance, combined with a certain asymmetrical quirkiness. It invoked many sources—King Arthur, the Crusades, Middle-earth, the Arabian Nights, pulp fantasy, fairy tales, even science fiction. Its breadth of tone was a virtue, offering to the players a multiplicity of delights. Our intention was to follow the spirit of the original as closely as possible. We hope that we have (if only partially and in a small way) captured it.
Happy dungeoneering! Guard the innocent! Avenge the wronged! May you find heaps of gold at the end of your path, or at the least a memorable and heroic demise! But above all, God grant that you find wonder everywhere!
Since I’ve learned much from the discussions on this site, as well as from what many of the contributors have said elsewhere in blogs and other places, any feedback would be enjoyable for me, and of course helpful.
PDF’s of all four volumes are available for free download. Lulu did a fabulous job with the physical booklets. The creamy covers and high-quality paper show off the simple but elegant "old-school" font and the wonderful John Dickson Batten drawings to great effect. And the saddle stitch binding allows one to easily lie any of the volumes flat for reference.
The Lulu search address is:
www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=&keyWords=zylarthen&x=0&y=0&sitesearch=lulu.com&q=
Or you can read a bit more introductory material about the game, and then click through to Lulu if you wish at:
saveversusallwands.blogspot.com
I hope you enjoy it.
Oakes