Development #0: Foreword

Foreword is something a reader usually skips, so I won't whine if it happens; by the way, I'd like to start talking about me.

As far as I can remember (I think I was 5 years old), I've always been fascinated by 2 big genres: japanese robots and Sword&Sorcery (meaning the coexistence of fighters and wizards, not only the literary genre close to Robert E. Howard).

During the 80s, I spent my childhood watching Arthurian Myth adaptations like Boorman's Excalibur or King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (by Toei Animation), or movies like Deodato's The Barbarians, Milius' Conan the Barbarian and Fleischer's Conan the Destroyer, Reiner's The Princess Bride, Coscarelli's The Beastmaster, the infamous D&D Animated Series and so on.

In few words, that was my childhood's Video Appendix N.

By the way, my first contact with fantasy gaming happened only in 1991, when my parents bought HeroQuest Board Game: that was a dream coming true, allowing me and my friends to play - although in a miniature game - fantasy characters in an imaginary world expanded by my teen mind.

The real turning point was in 1994, when I bought - with my savings - 1991's D&D Classic Black Boxed Set and I started roleplaying the world's most famous Tabletop RPG with my friends: we spent our summer adventuring in an imaginary dimension, with its own city and nations, having great fun.

Despite the rules covered character advancement up to level 5, we kept on playing using a customized advancement and our first set of House Rules: that was the first time I showed some intention to create my own set of rules.

My first attempt was Legend of Arkanya (1998, during high-school and with no Internet connection), an openly D&D-inspired game using the typical d100 resolution (roll under value) but applied on a d20 scale and with a limited amount of Hit Points (scaled by Size).

After LoA, I've tried for years to create a new set of rules, drawing inspiration from the different free game systems gathered around the Net or other mainstream games (GURPS, Rolemaster, Chaosium's d100, etc..) but every single project remained unfinished or covering only part of the entire game (either magic system or combat system).

Recently - also thanks to OGL and the so called Old School Renaissance Movement - I've decided to bring some old ideas back blending them with some new gaming concepts, in order to realize my own RPG Game and to make the DM's creative burden a lil lighter, sharing that burden with all the players.

That's the story so far.

P.S.: the artwork is a courtesy of the dwarvish friend Daryoon X.