Lone Wolf (Playbook)

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Lonely Wolf is a 20-part (in the original English 30-part) playbook series, created by Joe Dever . The first eight volumes of the series were illustrated by Gary Chalk, all other parts by Brian Williams. The series was first published in England from 1984 and in Germany that same year. It is one of the most successful playbook series, and to date over 10 million copies have been sold worldwide.

The story takes place in the independent fantasy world Magnamund, where the forces of good and evil clash in an epic war and fight for supremacy on the planet. The main character is Lone Wolf, the last survivor of an order of warrior monks, the Kai Lords. The books are written in the second person and thus tell the adventures of Lone Wolf as if the reader himself were the main character. As a lone wolf, the reader must regularly make decisions in every book that influence the course and outcome of the plot.

While the German edition of Volume 12 was discontinued by Goldmann Verlag in the early 1990s , the series in England had 28 volumes by the time it was discontinued in 1998. Since 2007 the books have been reissued in a revised and expanded version by Moongoose Publishing in England and completely re-illustrated by Rich Longmore and Nathan Furman. The series is to be expanded from 28 to 32 volumes, as was originally planned. This revised new edition has also been published in Germany by Mantikore-Verlag since April 2009 . The publisher has announced that it will publish all 32 volumes in the series in German. Since volume 18 of the new edition, the English original version has also been distributed by Mantikore-Verlag.

There are also two role-playing games by Lone Wolf in England :

  • The Lone Wolf RPG (August Hahn, Mongoose Publishing , 2004), based on the d20 system ;
  • Lone Wolf Multiplayer Gamebook (Matthew Sprange, Mongoose / Cubicle 7 , 2010), with the same system as the game books.

Work on a computer game based on the first volume in the series and developed by Ksatria Gameworks had to be stopped in February 2009 for financial reasons.

At the end of 2013, the game provider "BulkyPix" published a game version for iOS (iPad / iPhone) which so far (as of April 2015) comprises four extensive chapters.

On November 27, 2014, the developer Forge Reply srl (Publisher: Plug In Digital, BulkyPix) released a PC computer role-playing game on Lone Wolf with the title "Joe Dever's Lone Wolf HD Remastered" (available for example from STEAM) tells an independent story in the LW universe in the style of the game books. It won several INDIE computer game awards in 2013 and 2014.

action

Magnamund is a planet in the universe of Aon that becomes the center of an epic battle between the forces of good, including Kai (god of the sun) and Ishir (goddess of the moon), and Naar, god of darkness.

Magnamund is divided into two large continents, the Northern and the Southern Magnamund. In the northeast of Northern Magnamund lies the Sommerlund Kingdom, whose people, the Sommerlendinge, are devoted followers of the god Kai. There are some among them who have extraordinary abilities from birth. Already in their earliest childhood they are trained in the Kai Abbey to become powerful warriors, the Kai Lords, often just called "Kai". They are Sommerlund's main protection against the henchmen of the dark god Naar.

Naar's most powerful servants on Magnamund are the Black Lords, whose home is the desolate, scorched wasteland of the Dark Lands west of Sommerlund. There is the city of Helgedad, also known as "the dark city". This realm, in which otherwise life is hardly possible, allows the Black Lords on Magnamund to survive, because despite their great power they are greatly weakened by the natural atmosphere of this world. They can therefore only pursue their goal of subjugating Magnamund from afar by sending armies of Drakkarim (people who are dedicated to Naar), Giaks (small creatures that reproduce endlessly) and other creatures to war. Among their most dangerous servants are Vordak (undead with supernatural abilities) and Helghast (shape-changing undead).

A young initiate named Silent Wolf is also being trained in the Kai Abbey. On the morning of the Fehmarn Festival, on which all Kai Lords are traditionally gathered in the abbey, an army of the Black Lords suddenly invades Sommerlund. The abbey is one of the first targets of this invasion and all Kai Lords are killed while trying to defend the abbey. Silent Wolf succeeds in this battle to light the abbey's beacon in order to warn the king in the capital Holmgard of the attack by the Black Lords. When he finally escapes from the rubble of the burning abbey, he is the only survivor of the order. (In the first edition of Goldmann Verlag, Silent Wolf is collecting firewood when the attack occurs. As he rushes back to the abbey, he bumps his head on a low-hanging branch and loses consciousness. When he wakes up again, the abbey is already in ruins .) As the last of the quays, he calls himself from now on Lone Wolf and sets off for the capital to tell the king about the sad end of the quay order.

The Kai series (Volumes 1 to 5) accompanies Lonely Wolf as he first fought his way to the capital Holmgard and then called on the army of the allied neighboring country Durenor to help fight back the invasion. He hunted down a summer traitor who helped the Black Lords invade and uncovered a fateful conspiracy. At the end of the series, Lonely Wolf finds the Book of Magnakai, an ancient script in which the high knowledge of the Kai Lords is written down. With the massacre of the quay and the lone wolf as the only survivor, this knowledge was believed to be lost.

The Magnakai series (volumes 6 to 12) continues the story. Lone Wolf is now an adult Kai Master and has set himself the goal of acquiring the knowledge of the Magnakai. The book he found is old and incomplete. To understand the teachings and establish a new Kai Order, Lone Wolf must follow in the footsteps of Sun Eagle, the first Kai Lord and author of the Book of Magnakai. Sun Eagle searched for the knowledge contained in the wisdom stones of Nyxator. These seven crystals were scattered in different places in Northern Magnamund. When the Lone Wolf embarks on the same search as the Sun Eagle once again, war breaks out again. The Black Lords have united under a single leader and are now trying everything to thwart Lone Wolf's endeavor by invading peaceful lands. Lone wolf, however, follows its destiny; he fights his way through the war-torn realms of Magnamunds and even enters dimensions beyond the known world. Ultimately, he penetrates as far as Helgedad, the capital of the Dark Lands, in order to destroy the Black Lords once and for all.

The Grand Master series (volumes 13 to 20) tells of Grand Master Lonely Wolf and the rebuilding of the Kai Order. After the annihilation of the Black Lords, Naar and his servants no longer wage open war, but are looking for new, more subtle ways to gain power and influence. Most of their plans focus directly on Lone Wolf, who has become a key figure in the Forces of Light.

At the center of the Kai Order series (Volume 21 to 28; published in Germany since November 2015) is a new main character: a grandmaster of the new Kai Order and student of Lonely Wolf. The series gives the player the opportunity to create their own character with their own name. Most of the series focuses on the attempts by Naar's followers to harness the power of Agarash the Damned, Naar's greatest champion and successor to the Black Lords, for their own dark purposes. The southern Magnamund is also explored, where the center of Agarash's empire was, and which did not play a major role in the previous volumes.

Creation and publication

Joe Dever, who had a keen childhood interest in historical battles and strategy games, said he drew his early inspiration for Lone Wolf from classics in English literature such as Beowulf , Ivanhoe, and the Arthurian saga . In his youth, JRR Tolkien , Michael Moorcock and Mervyn Peake , as well as his interest in military history and Norse mythology, had a major influence on the creation of the quays. He also used travel books to create “exotic places” for his fantasy world.

Dever developed the world of Magnamund from 1975 to 1983 as the setting for his Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, and Lone Wolf was Joe Dever's own character. Originally he called the world Chinaraux, and at first it consisted only of the Northern Magnamund. It is noticeable that classic fantasy motifs, such as elves and orcs, are missing in Dever's world, as he was very careful to create Magnamund as an independent fantasy world. While some of the names and motifs are based on Norse mythology, most of the others are fictitious. Dever even developed a language of their own for the Giaks, and the names of the cities in the Dark Lands are made up of this language. (For example, Helgedad means “Black City.”) It took Dever about nine weeks to write a book, three to draw the maps and plan the plot, and another six to write the text, with an average of twelve sections each Day wrote.

Dever was initially under contract with the London publisher Hutchinson. This contract initially consisted of four books, although Dever had already planned twelve. After the great success of the first books, the contract was soon expanded so that in the end a total of 28 books were published. The series was then discontinued by the publisher on the grounds that interest in the game book genre was slowly ebbing away - despite hundreds of requests from fans for books that were already out of print. The last four volumes (29 to 32) were never published, although Dever had already planned them.

In addition, the 4-part series Silberstern der Magier , which was written by Diver's friend Ian Page and was based on Page's own character in the world of Magnamund, was created. It takes place exclusively in southern Magnamund and tells of Silberstern's fight against the demon king Shasarak.

In Germany, Lonely Wolf (as well as Silberstern der Magier) was published by Goldmann Verlag from 1984 and was also a great success in this country. Nevertheless, the series was discontinued after Volume 12 in the early 1990s. Joe Dever suspects that the reasons for this lay in the change in ownership of the publisher, which was followed by a new strategic direction of the publisher.

New edition

After the end of the playbook series, Joe Dever devoted himself to other projects (including the development of computer games) until he finally designed a lone wolf role-playing game together with Moongoose Publishing in 2002 and published it in England. As part of this collaboration, Moongoose Publishing Dever offered to reissue the playbook series.

Mongoose Publishing started the English reprint in July 2007, with the books by Rich Longmore (Volumes 1 to 12) and Nathan Furman (Volumes 13 and beyond; including bonus adventures) being completely re-illustrated. The content of the first volume was revised by Joe Dever and expanded by 200 game sections, while all other volumes are expanded by Moongoose Publishing with bonus adventures. The new edition will also contain the previously unpublished volumes 29 to 32. Since volume 18, the original edition is no longer distributed by Mongoose Publishing , but by Mantikore-Verlag, which has been publishing the German translations of the new edition since 2009.

For the new edition of the first band, Joe Dever completely revised the opening sequence. Instead of finding the abbey already destroyed on his return, Lone Wolf now takes part in the battle for the abbey. Joe Dever said this is a golden chance to get the series off to a better start as he's also a much better writer now than he was at the beginning of his career.

"Joe Dever's Lone Wolf" (game)

At the end of 2013, a version for the mobile operating system iOS (Apple iPad / iPhone) was published, which describes the adventures of Lone Wolf in the fight against the Black Lords in the domain he was given by the king. The game consists of alternating longer text chapters, decisive questions that steer the course of the story in different directions, and battles with the henchmen of the Black Lords. The game is now also available for Android and Steam.

The success of Lone Wolf

The game book series has been published in over 30 countries, translated into 18 languages, and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Each of the first 20 books had an average circulation of 250,000 copies.

The reactions to the game book series Lonely Wolf have been largely positive. The series received several book awards in England. Author Joe Dever himself receives high praise for his illustrative and pictorial narrative style, as well as the fact that playing the books one after the other reveals a continuous and coherent story to the reader in which one repeatedly encounters familiar characters - something which is rather untypical for the playbook genre.

Still, there are some points of criticism. Above all, the strongly fluctuating level of difficulty is often criticized. The fights are often too difficult or too easy. The main reason for this is the preservation of the Sommerswerd in Volume 2 “Fire over the waters”, which drastically improves the wearer's fighting skills. Another reason is that the player can start the game with very different character values. Also, the fact that you can play the books both in series and on their own makes it difficult to determine an exact measure of the level of difficulty, as special items and additional skills from previous books in the following volumes are an advantage.

bibliography

Goldmann publishing house

Lonely Wolf was first published in 1984 by Goldmann Verlag. The following titles were published:

  1. Escape from the Dark (1984)
  2. Fire Over The Waters (1984)
  3. Danger in the Caves (1985)
  4. Battle Over the Graves (1985)
  5. The Book of Magnakai (1986)
  6. Kingdom of Terror (1986)
  7. The Castle of Death (1988)
  8. The jungle of horror (1988)
  9. The Cauldron (1988)
  10. The dungeons of Torgar (1989)
  11. The Prisoners of Time (1989)
  12. The Lords of Darkness (1990)

Mantikore Publishing House

Since April 2009, the books have been reissued by Mantikore-Verlag in an expanded version. The title names partly differ from the old edition by Goldmann Verlag, as they are closer to the English original titles:

  1. Escape from the Dark (April 2009)
  2. Fire over the waters (October 2009)
  3. The Kulde Caves (April 2010)
  4. Destiny Canyon (October 2010)
  5. The Shadows of the Desert (April 2011)
  6. The Terror Kingdoms (July 2011)
  7. Castle of Death (September 2011)
  8. The jungle of horror (December 2011)
  9. The ruins of Zaaryx (April 2012)
  10. The dungeons of Torgar (July 2012)
  11. The Prisoners of Time (October 2012)
  12. The Lords of Darkness (December 2012)
  13. The Druids of Ruel (April 2013)
  14. The Damned of Kaag (August 2013)
  15. The Darke Crusade (November 2013)
  16. Vashna's Legacy (March 2014)
  17. The Death Lord of Ixia (September 2014)
  18. Dawn of the Dragon (January 2015)
  19. The shadow of the wolf (May 2015)
  20. The Curse of Naar (September 2015)
  21. Hunt for the Moonstone (November 2015)
  22. The Pirates of Shadaki (April 2017)
  23. The Crown of Siyen (April 2018)
  24. The Runic War (July 2019)

Mantikore-Verlag has announced that it will publish all 32 volumes of the series in Germany by 2020.

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