Dragon Warriors RPG Books and Periodicals

DRAGON WARRIORS is the key to a magic world. A land of cobwebbed forests and haunted castles. A land where dire monsters lurk in the shadows of the night, where hobgoblins shriek across the bleak and misty moors, where wizards and armoured warriors roam dank dungeons in their quest for gold and glory. The realm of your imagination.

This is the world of Dragon Warriors: a unique role-playing game in which you and your friends become the mighty heroes of fantasy.

This first book gives you the essentials for combat, a complete armoury and a bestiary of bloodthirsty opponents. You choose the type of warrior you want to be: an armour-clad Knight, a muscle-bound Barbarian, a tough Dwarf or a crafty Elf. Take up your sword, your war axe or your bow. Within ten minutes you will be battling with your first deadly foe in a perilous adventure:

LIFE AND DEATH ARE ONLY A DICE ROLL AWAY!

Invoke the occult powers of another world: scatter your foes with searing Deathlight bolts, rend monsters limb from limb with the psionic Steel Claw or Banish them to a timeless limbo, pass through dungeon walls like a bodiless spectre, conjure the razor-sharp Vorpal Blade, hurl deadly Firestorm blasts...

The Way of Wizardry expands the DRAGON WARRIORS role-playing game to include the magical arts. Take on the mantle of a Mystic or spell-casting Sorcerer: more than a hundred spells, potions, and arcane magical devices await you and your friends.

Within ten minutes, your mind charged with hidden power, you will venture forth on your first sorcerous mission:

LIFE AND DEATH ARE ONLY A DICE ROLL AWAY!

Battle through a monster-filled forest to a lonely well. Scale the ice-covered towers of a mountain fortress. Fight with hideous bat-winged foes. Struggle in the raging surf of a wreck-bound reef. Grapple with horrors from the depths of the sea. Finally, you will reach your goal, deep in a cavern beneath a haunted island: there an evil priest holds the final fragment of a thousand-year-old secret...

What is the mystery behind the Elven Crystals?

The third book of the DRAGON WARRIORS role-playing game presents three adventure scenarios along with new monsters, magic, and treasure that extend the basic rules of the series. These adventures will take you and your friends to the limits of your skill and endurance.

LIFE AND DEATH ARE ONLY A DICE ROLL AWAY!

Out of the shadows stalk night's black agents, the Assassins. Armed with the secret lore of this new adventuring profession, players become the shadow warriors, the silent killers of the dark, who pass unseen and bring swift death by poison, knife, or lethal throwing star.

Out of the Shadows presents the full rules for Assassins - techniques of stealth and the martial arts as well as arcane alchemy, mysterious trance-magic, and the unstoppable power of the DEATH VOW. Also included in the book are more than fifty new terifying monsters, special combat expertise, and magic for high-ranking characters, and three enthralling adventure scenarios.

Once again, you and your friends can experience the excitement of adventure in the DRAGON WARRIORS fantasy world:

LIFE AND DEATH ARE ONLY A DICE ROLL AWAY!

All around you lie the elemental forces ready to bend to your sorcerous skill: summon lightning from the sky, split the earth so that it swallows up your foes, or spin them into the air with a typhoon. The spirits of the Air will serve you, the Earth gives up its dead to protect you, Water freezes at your touch, Fire-dwelling demons dart from your hands.

You are an Elementalist with power over the Earth, the Air, Fire, and Water. But you have not the power of Darkness that holds the world in thrall and which you quest to banish forever.

This fifth book in the DRAGON WARRIORS series explains how you may become an Elementalist, drawing on the powers of nature. There are fifty new spells and a full-length epic adventure in search of the lost city of Fengil, Prince of Darkness.

LIFE AND DEATH ARE ONLY A DICE ROLL AWAY!

The Lands of Legend are glittering kingdoms full of adventure. Voyage from the haunted ruin of Spyte in the cold wasteland of Krarth to the mysterious pyramids of the blistering Kaikuhuru Desert. Sup with fierce warriors in their mead-halls, stroll through the luxurious gardens of Ferromaine, trade in exotic ports along the shores of the Coradian Sea. You can venture into the steaming swamps of Cosh Goyope or the icy brine of the Rymchaeld Ocean, seek glory in the dwarven strongholds of Harogarn or in the sorcery-laden forests of Algandy. Risk untold peril for undreamed-of treasure, in a world fit for epic heroes!

This sixth book in the bestselling Dragon Warriors series presents a complete fantasy world for your adventures. Also included are full rules for Warlocks, the masters of swords and sorcery, and a series of challenging adventure scenarios that will plunge you and your friends into the realms of utmost danger -

LIFE AND DEATH ARE ONLY A DICE ROLL AWAY!

Enter a world of magic, folklore and danger. Here, superstition covers peoples' lives like autumn mists cover the moors, and terrifying monsters with bizarre powers lurk in the shadows. The king is a weakling, barons scheme against each other, and lordless knights, back from the Crusades without the honour or riches they were promised, roam the countryside in search of adventure, or prey.

Ruined castles and barrows are the lairs of the supernatural, or newer, more sinister masters. Labyrinthine underworlds lie forgotten below ancient temples and city cellars. The dark places of the world hold riches for those who would search for them, and the keys to great power, and death.

These are the Lands of Legend, and they need heroes. Brave knights, courageous barbarians, cunning sorcerers, mystics trained in the powers of mind and body, sword-wielding warlocks, elementalists who command the fabric of reality itself, and assassins trained to bring death to the deserving. All these will be your comrades on the path to glory - and perhaps your enemies too.

Will you accept the challenge of Dragon Warriors?

Monsters of Myth for the Lands of Legend

Human beings think they rule the Lands of Legend, but they do not. Even the most powerful live in terror of the things that lurk in the shadows, or prowl the wild country, or creep into the depths of a guilty man's dreams.

The spirits of long-dead kings and chieftains guard their ancient barrows, or lie waiting under the soil for the call to protect their homeland once again. An Eaves Phantom can torment a family for generations. Sailors live in terror of the Blue Men whose rotten longships rise from the deep to issue fearsome challenges.

Stranger still are the Automata, created by the scholars of ancient empires, who may reveal lost secrets for an awful price; or the Obsidiak, a human head carved from granite, with tentacles for a neck; or the malicious creatures of the faerie: Goblins, Caitshee, Spriggan and many others.

And the less said about the Jumbees, the Hellrots or the terrifying Grey Hood, the better. In the Lands of Legend, being eaten alive is often the least of an adventurer's fears.

Return to Legend

Are you a roguish knave who has pilfered this book and even now crouches in some dark alleyway, wondering where best to fence such a rare treasure?

Or are you a wily hunter who braved some monster-haunted underworld in the wild woods, and found this very book in a chest of buried treasure?

Or perhaps you are a devout priest, in which case you are doubtless hastening to the nearest fire to consign this book to the flames, for you have peeked within and seen the wealth of lore concerning sorcery and demonology!

The Players' Guide to Dragon Warriors contains these three new professions and much more besides! Inside, you'll find treasures including:

• Organisations and sworn fellowships.
• A miscellanea of essays on Living in Legend.
• Secrets of arcane lore.
• New secondary skills, weapons and armours.
• Demons! Demons! Horrible demons!
• Better yet, spells to contain and banish demons!

Those who lie under the earth should not be woken

When you took the job, you never thought it would lead to this. Escorting a prisoner to the court of Baron Aldred did not sound like the start of your path to glory and riches.

As you stare out over the battlements of your castle, you reflect on the long, twisted journey that brought you here. How a chance meeting with a village priest led you to the lost tomb of the legendary king Vallandar. That drew the attention of the Baron's steward, Sir Beorn; and the strange mission he asked you to do convinced the Baron to make you his trusted guards.

Then from there... the bizarre island; the attempt on the Baron's life and the tragedy of his eldest son; the long sea-voyage to the jungles of Mungoda; and finally here, fighting for control of this ancient castle and its hidden secrets.

As the enemy's soldiers stand at the causeway, waiting for low tide to begin their assault, you ask yourself: has it been worth it? Smiling, you draw your weapon. Glory is its own reward, and today will be glorious indeed.

A shattered stone, a fractured kingdom, one last chance

Ereworn was once the jewel of the countries of Ellesland. The land was protected from the evils of the world by mystical wards around its boundary, and the king took counsel from the greatest of elves, the archmage Elvaron.

Elvaron foresaw many things, including his own death and the failing of the wards, and he worked to protect the land he loved. He placed an image of himself in a great crystal to preserve his knowledge. But the making of the crystal hastened his death, and less than a year later the wards fell. The crystal shattered into shards, misfortune flooded into Ereworn, and the few knights who might have saved the land fled.

Now Ereworn is home to brigands, assassins, corrupt barons, and much worse. The crystal's shards are still within its borders, lost for decades, waiting to be found. And there are forces moving once more to reunite the pieces, destroy the last safeguards that Elvaron left behind, and turn Ereworn into a realm of darkness.

Under the ice, ancient things are waking

Glissom is the norternmost of the countries of Ellesland. Trapped between its sinister neighbours to the south in Ereworn and the ice-pack beyond the Mountains of Brack to the north, it is an unquiet place where the old ways are crashing head-on into the new.

Outside the walls of Glissom City, the old ways hold. Reivers raid rural settlements, killing and pillaging, making honest trade impossible.

Beyond their forts lie forests populated by elves, ruins left by the Selentine Empire a thousand years ago, and the mountains with their strange inhabitants. And in the north people still talk of the ancient Fomorians and their glass towers, and abandoned cities under the ice.

It is a wild land, in need of strong leadership. But King Durindar has been seen only twice in two years. With the heir to the throne a reckless adventurer, many are saying that it is time for a change in Glissom. And a change is coming.

An adventure of wrecks and ruins

Hear ye now a tale as old as the ocean: of a man of pride and vanity, and his desire to possess that which was not his to own. Of a great island temple to ancient gods lost within its secrets for long centuries; and of spirits even older, with unknowable powers and great vengeance, who will fight to preserve the fragile balance and subtle treasures of their home. And of a band of wanderers whose travels bring them to the heart of this story where they will, as like as not, make of it a blood-red shambles.

Fury of the Deep is a self-contained adventure designed for a group of adventurers between 4th and 6th rank.

*Cold Fury, which contains the Fury of the Deep adventure, is cheaper than Fury of the Deep, so you should purchase that.

A Tale of Death and Vengeance

A month ago, a miller with 'the sight' was slain by a dark sorcerer in order to protect his secrets. The PCs are asked by the miller's ghost to track down his murderer. The PCs have to navigate a web of lies and misdirection to find the true murderer, and hopefully stop a plot that extends beyond this small village.

As-written, the adventure should challenge a group of Dragon Warriors characters of 2nd-5th rank.

A Tale of Intrigue and Chaos

The PCs travel to the Carind Royal Tourney, one of the largest tourneys held anywhere in Legend. As the games progress, the PCs notice strange behaviour from the tourney-goers. Conflicts that would ordinarily simmer, instead boil to the surface without reason, and even the animals start to act strangely.

Legend of the Salt King

The castle of Brochleah Bluff stands warden over the Coronach Marsh, but its crumbling battlements can do nothing against the curse that has plagued the lords of Brochleah for centuries. Chaos haunts the marshlands, while in the darkness, something evil and alien stirs in its sleep for the first time in a thousand years. Can the heroes prevail where even the fell might of Balor himself failed?

Is your worst enemy sitting next to you?

Here is a selection of intriguing characters for the Dragon Warriors RPG, ranging from the powerful to the obscure, nobles and beggars, figures from folklore, and others with strange and dangerous motives. They include:

• Ealdun the Fool, dwarf jester and master of secrets at the court of King Hadric.
• Sister Dominique, leader of teh heretical Novan sect, pitted against the leaders of the True Faith and the noted witch-burner Father Alessandro.
• Rakov, Magus Lim, one of the ruling Magi of Krarth - and a voracious vampire commanding a host of undead.
• Tuanku, a beautiful diplomat and 53rd wife of the Emir of Marazid... who appears to have a nail embedded in the back of her neck.

Plus 33 other unique characters to bring interest, adventure, and a little chaos to your game.

Those who forget the past are doomed

In from the Cold is a collection of classic articles from the golden age of RPGs, when Dragon Warriors creator Dave Morris was the foremost writer for White Dwarf magazine, so prolific that he used pseudonyms to disguise the sheer volume of his output. This book collects the very best of his articles and adventures from the 1980s, fully revised and expanded to fit the rules and world of Dragon Warriors.

In from the Cold features two major articles and six complete adventures for Dragon Warriors player-characters of all levels, including:

• Dealing with Demons: Demonologists as a playable profession, with complete rules for summoning and binding the inhabitants of the abyss, new spells and rituals, a chapter of new minor demons and rules on using the game's existing demon races, plus full descriptions of the powerful and terrifying Demon Princes.
• The Unquiet Grave: Rules and instructions for giving undead and ghosts the properly chilling effects on PCs that they deserve.
• A Box of Old Bones: A fan-favourite scenario, set in Osterlin Abbey where the bones of Saint Giles are attracting unwelcome attention.
• The Lone and Level Sands: Wherein an ancient tomb long buried in the desert proves to have some unexpected contents.
• The Serpent's Venom: In which a chance remark gives the party an opportunity to beat a band of rivals to a treasure, if they move fast
• A Ballad to Times Past: An adventure from the history of the Lands of Legend, when magic worked strangely and required powerful patrons.
• Temple of the Lost God: An excursion deep into the Mungodan jungle to search a cursed ancient temple for a frankly bizarre prize.
• Key of Tirandor: An epic quest for a forgotten city, a world of dreams and the ultimate power within.

Contained in this grimoire of ancient knowledge are quests that will lead those who dare to crumbling temples, labyrinthine tombs, sand-swept pyramids and dragon-haunted caverns. Here are demons and gremlins, ghosts and traitors, the ways and means to reach fabled islands and mayhap escape with your life. Will you rise up or be cast down to drown in the briny depths?

This book combines the contents of Fury of the Deep with In from the Cold but without the demonology rules (now available in the Players' Guide) and the Key of Triandor adventure, for which the publishing rights could not be obtained. Note also that the bulk of the remaining content from In from the Cold is also available in the public domain (see links in the description of In from the Cold).

cadaver draconis; n. Being a nutritious if slightly stale miscellany of entirely unofficial and discarded addenda for the Dragon Warriors RPG.

It seems like aeons have passed since Magnum Opus Press first breathed life into the revised version of the Dragon Warriors RPG.

Later, in the Magnum Opus print run, a concept took form, of a mystical tome that would be known as the "Players' Book" or "Legends" which would enhance and revise significant aspects of the Dragon Warriors RPG.

This is not that book.

However, this book is mostly comprised of an almost fully-written core component from early drafts of the Players' Book. Over time, this material was replaced with even more cool stuff, and it eventually found its way to the proverbial cutting room floor at Dragon Warriors HQ.

Thus, the Dragon Warriors Players' Guide - as it was named when printed by Serpent King Games - was eventually published without the considerably lengthy paths mechanic and evocative flavour text. In addition, a small selection of later rules and background material were also dropped.

All of this cut material has not been lost or forgotten, basically because, in our humble opinion, it is pretty darn good. Good enough, in fact, to justify publication.

This book is dedicated to all those Dragon Warriors fans who waited ever-so patiently for the long-overdue printing of the Dragon Wariors Players' Guide - this book is for you.

Long may your Dragon Warrior prosper!

Herein can be found tales of the perilous lands of the Great Steppe, an untamed wild roamed by savage peoples and the vengeful spirits of the earth. Take heed of the lore contained within, wise traveller! Know your death worm from your murder worm! Your sun shaman from your moon shaman! Your Urgar from your Berkha! Tread lightly as you go, sing the songs of the spirits and perhaps, if lucky, you may one day reach the fabled city of Shardis.

Signs & Portents is a magazine produced by Mongoose Publishing and, whilst they held the licence for Dragon Warriors, published some supplementary material in various issues of Signs & Portents, all of which are still available for purchase (click images, above).

• Signs & Portents #64: Betrayal at Desolate Mountain
  Beneath the jagged slopes of Mount Desolate are the remains of an ancient prison. Abandoned by a long-forgotten people, this goal has become a haven for renegades and foul beasts. Drawn by tales of lost treasure and magical items, the site also serves as a beacon for adventurers and treasure hunters. When the PCs become involved in a rescue mission, how will they fare in the treacherous tunnels of this former prison?
• Signs & Portents #65: Exotic Weapons for Dragon Warriors
  The new Dragon Warriors rulebook provides statistics for most common medieval weapons. However, players often enjoy letting their characters get hold of more unusual implements of war. Presented here is a selection is more esoteric weapons, from various periods of history and from a range of cultures. This article also introduces some optional rules that cover the particular quirks of different weapons. This adds another level of complexity to combat, more accurately reflecting the strengths and weaknesses of these armaments.
• Signs & Portents #67: Critical Hits for Dragon Warriors
  Adding descriptions of specific injuries and blows is a great way to bring battles to life. The Dragon Warriors rulebook, whilst providing simple rules for critical hits, suggests that players consider inventing their own tables to determine the consequences of specific wounds. If you want to know exactly what that arrow in the ogre's chest has done or that mace-strike on an opponent's knee, then look no further! Presented here is a complete set of critical hit tables, covering just about anything that your PC might choose to pick up and use as a weapon.
• Signs & Portents #68: Arcana of the Elements Combined
  There are many sorcerers who devote themselves to mastering the elements and fashioning items that channel the eldritch force of nature. However, when the elements are not just tamed but combined, artefacts of rare power may be forged - with the interplay of these raw energies producing some quite startling results.

From the Horse's Mouth
Dave Morris and James Wallis answer some Dragon Warriors questions.

Rules of the House
Some house rules to balance play, including a proposed single mechanic option, new skills of the mighty for knights and barbarians, the effect of starvation and dehydration, and adding a little uncertaintly to death.

The Friar
A new adventuring professional, the friar, is a mendicant priest or lay person, different from monks in that a monk is expected to live cloistered while a friar lives out int he world, doing charities and good works and dealing closely with people.

Along the Road
A collection of short encounters set in Darbon, featuring a rather aggressive bovine, the search for a legendary sword, a sinister pool and cave that may provide the final answer to the mystery of some missing sailors...

The Thuland Campaign
The first part of a series charting the progress of an ongoing PBM campaign set in southern Thuland.

The County of Anglicia
Anglicia is one of the smallest counties in Albion but at the same time one of the most powerful. The county has always been the breadbasket of the kingdom, with flat fields for growing crops and pastures for raising sheep and cattle.

Believing in Faerie
The fay of Legend aren't Tolkien or Gygax, but an entirely alien melange of nature spirits as disparate among themselves as humans from Thuland to the Sinistine Empire.

The Ruins of Castle Cerreg
A basic slot-in adventure set within the thick bordering forest in the far south-east of Darbon, fifteen miles south of Cully.

Northern Cornumbria
A poster map of northern Cornumbria.

The Thane Profession
Martial champions and stalwart of the shield-wall, the Thane is a primal warrior whose fury grants him powers beyond the ken of mere fighters.

Darbon Barony
Nestling within the southern tip of Cornumbria, th Barony of Darbon is a prosperous domain that is full of secrets and unexplained happenings.

Fireside Tales
An eerie short story set amidst the swirling mists of the Coronach Marshes, with a sting in the tail.

Location! Location! Location!
Uneasy peace has reigned in Eastmarch since it was wrested from Cornumbria forty years ago and made into an Albish fief. The town is now a hotbed of rebellion and intrigue and is detailed as a base setting for adventurers intent on exploring the trackless wastes of the Coronach Marshes.

Codex Cryptozoologica
A look at a rare and most monstrous denizen of Legend, the hideous Buggane.

Along the Road
A look at some distinctly Cornumbrian local legends to add a bit of regional flavour to any adventure.

The Thuland Campaign
A continuation of Cameron Smith's epic PBM.

For Whom the Bell Tolls
A Dragon Warriors adventure for 4-6 characters of 1st rank. The serenity of a remote Cornumbrian abbey is shattered by a cabal of pitiless assassins who plot to plunge Cornumbria into civil war in this murder mystery.

What's in a Name
Ever been floored when players asked you the name of the pot-boy or the ostler? Want a few celtic-sounding words to add colour to your Cornumbrian adventure?

The Casket of Fays, in addition to being an iconic magical artefact in Dragon Warriors, is a free quarterly fanzine showcasing new fan-written material for, and about, the Dragon Warriors RPG published by Red Ruin. The Casket delivers unto its reader:

• short encounters;
• small locales;
• new monsters, skills, NPCs, spells, and items;
• myths, legends, and folklore from the Lands of Legend;
• maps and art;
• and more besides!

Check out the Casket of Fays website for details of (and links to) all of the issues.