Sagaland (game books)

Sagaland ( Fabled Lands ) is the name of a fantasy game book series written by the English game book authors Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson and published by Ravensburger in Germany at the end of the 1990s . Kevin Jenkins designed the cover pictures. The interior illustrations of the English edition are by Russ Nicholson, the German by L. Ghepetto.

Originally planned as a twelve-volume book series, only six books were published in England between 1995 and 1996 before the series was discontinued. In Germany, only the first four books were published between 1997 and 1999.

Since December 2010 the books have been reissued in England. In Germany, the publisher Mantikore started to re-publish the books under the name "Fabled Lands - Die Legenden von Harkuna" in March 2017, but this time with the original illustrations by Russ Nicholson. With the new edition, volumes 5 and 6 have now been published.

overview

The books differ in many ways from other well-known game book series (such as Adventure Game Book or Lone Wolf ). Most striking is the open, non-linear game principle. In other game books, the character receives an order and is directed towards fulfilling this order. When this is done, the game book ends. The Sagaland series offers the player a whole fantasy world in which he can move freely and do whatever he wants without any restrictions. There are no fixed orders and no way to "end" the game (unless the player dies). There are hundreds of assignments to be found in the six books published, varying in difficulty and length. The player can accept and fulfill these at will or spend his time on completely different things - traveling, trading, exploring or improving skills.

Each book corresponds to a different geographic region of Harkuna and the player can easily travel between regions by jumping to a different book. The books get heavier as they progress, with increasingly tough opponents and more difficult quests to cater to the stronger and more powerful players as they advance through the books.

Further differences to other game book series are:

• A larger number of game segments, between 679 and 786
• Fold-out character sheets and maps
• Open trade through market goods, investments and shipping
• Acquisition of large assets such as houses and ships
• Action development through the use of discovered code words
• Join certain groups such as monastic orders, bandit clans and many others and thus make friends and enemies

Although the last six books in the series have never been published (or written), Dave Morris has indicated in the past that he would like to bring the series back to life:

I would like to complete the series. It would take a while to get back to it, but I still have our (very voluminous) notes. I think the first step would be to build books 1-6 as web pages and see what interest they generate. I think that's a better format for game books these days - we're no longer in the era of the printed word. If that works and the web publisher is able to set up a subscription system, then Fabled Lands and many other game book series could see a rebirth in my eyes.

In September 2010, Dave Morris indicated on his blog that the publisher would be ready to give the go-ahead for books 7–12 in the series, provided that the reprint of books 1–6 would sell about ten thousand copies.

system

The Sagaland system is like most other game books . The player has six elementary skills:

• CHARISMA - the talent to make friends and to convince others of an opinion
• COMBAT POWER - the strength and the fighting skill
• MAGIC POWER - the magical abilities
• HOLINESS - the gift of divine power and wisdom
• NATURAL KNOWLEDGE - the skill to survive in the wild
• THE ART OF THEFT - the talent of cunning and cunning

A player's starting value in each of these six skills is determined by their occupation. You can choose from six different professions: bard, warrior, magician, priest, wanderer and villain . Every profession is skilled or weak in certain skills. As the books progress, the player has the opportunity to improve these skills by completing missions.

If the player is given the opportunity to use an ability, then the corresponding task has a difficulty level; in order to complete the task, he must achieve a result that is above the level of difficulty.

Fighting in Sagaland consists of slightly different skill rolls; The defense of the enemy is the degree of difficulty and the player must use his combat strength value to defeat his opponent. The number by which the player's throw exceeds the enemy's defense is equal to the number of Life Force Points the enemy loses. Then the same principle is used to roll for the enemy. The fight ends (unless the text says otherwise) because when one of the fighters is dead.

The defense of the player himself corresponds to his social status + his combat strength value + the bonus of the armor he is wearing (if he has one). His life force is determined at the beginning of the game and is increased by one die number each time he moves up while standing .

The player's initial social status corresponds to the number of the book in which he begins (e.g. a new player in the Battle for the Kingdom starts at level 1, while a new player in The Endless Steppes starts at level 4). The player can rise in social class by doing particularly difficult tasks, such as killing a dragon or defeating three samurai in unarmed combat (the book then tells the player that he is going up in the class).

The player can carry up to 12 possessions, which are shown in bold (e.g. gold compass ) . Some items give skill bonuses - an amber wand (magic power +1) or chain mail (defense +3) for example. Others may come in handy as the adventure progresses or are needed for an assignment. The player can carry an unlimited amount of money with them.

Books

1. Battle for the Kingdom (Das Reich des Krieg) / The War-Torn Kingdom

Sokara, a nation in civil war

Set shortly after a civil war in the land of Sokara, where the king was overthrown in a military coup. This background provides the two main assignments for the book; the player can choose to either help the heir to the throne and his partisan squad to regain power, or to support the new leader General Marlock in eradicating the last nests of resistance.

Other assignments include the assassination of the Ratman King in the sewers of Yellowport, stealing treasures from the lair of the sea dragon Vayss, delivering items between the druids of the City of Trees and the Forest of Larun, defeating the black dragon knight in battle until the death and the salvation of a captive god from the summit of the devil's peak and some smaller assignments.

2. The City of Gold (The Empire of Gold) / Cities of Gold and Glory

Golnir, a rich land full of hidden dangers

Set in the prosperous kingdom of Golnir, which draws its wealth from abundant agriculture. This book is ideal for getting started and / or earning a golden nose. This book is not as suitable as a starting volume as volume one because it is harder to find jobs that can be done in this volume . There are many jobs to be done for the Baroness Ravayne (the ruler of Golnir): travel to the land of Uttaku and spy on her enemies, travel to the land of Akatsurai and strengthen country relations, kill a dragon, make a map of the northern mountains or a traitor expose . There are also other orders such. B. the search for three magical artifacts for the wizard tarragon and the tracking of a murderer on behalf of the spirit of the victim.

3. The Sea of ​​Terror (The Sea of ​​Terror) / Over the Blood-Dark Sea

The purple sea, daring adventures and secret islands on the high seas

Play on the Purple Sea, which separates the northern continent of Harkuna from the southern continent of Ankon-Konu. Without a ship, you can only travel around here to a limited extent, which makes it difficult, especially for inexperienced playbook readers, to use this book as a starting book. On the Violet Sea is one of the first books in the series where you are faced with constant danger - the player is almost always exposed to pirates, storms or even sea monsters.

Main assignments are the assassination of Amcha, the king of the pirates, the enrollment in the wizarding academy in the city of Dweomer to learn new magic, the search for buried treasures on hidden islands and the climbing of the huge mountain on the startip island.

4. The Valleys of Darkness (Das Reich des Frostes) / The Plains of Howling Darkness

The great steppe, desolate expanses and dangerous nomads

Play in the Great Steppe, a landscape of grasslands, plains and tundra, similar to Siberia and Mongolia . Main orders are the liberation of the citadel of Velis Corin for the king of Sokara (closely linked to orders in volume 1 ), the freeing of the king of Harkuna from his prison under the rhyming water (closely linked to orders in volume 5 ), the killing of the immortal tyrant Kashuf (based on the legend of Koschei the Immortal) who ruled over the village of Vodhya (closely linked to orders in volume 3 ) and the liberation of the magician Targadaz (closely linked to orders in volume 5 ).

This is the first book in the series to introduce the idea of ​​a harsh environment - in the steppes the player must constantly do NATURE checks to find enough food, and further north the player loses one life force point every day except he has a wolf's skin to keep himself warm. In addition, there are new gods in this book.

5. The Realm of Masks / The Court of Hidden Faces

Uttaku and old Harkuna, intrigues and ancient hostilities

Play in the land of Uttaku which was occupied by the kingdom of Old Harkuna. If the player in The Endless Plains frees the King of Old Harkuna from his prison, the king can reclaim his land, end the occupation by Uttaku and bring the land back to prosperity. In Harkuna there is also an abandoned castle, which the player can rebuild and take possession of if he has freed the magician Targadaz in volume 4. Most of the other major assignments involve undertaking for the Uttaku government (which the book title refers to).

The book gets its title from the court of the ruling nobles in Uttaku, who wear elaborate masks that are considered status symbols and hide their faces. The king himself was born without a face.

6. Lords of the Rising Sun (The Empire of the Rising Sun)

Imperial Akatsurai, land of samurai and ninja

Play in a country that clearly corresponds to Imperial Japan . Similar to the Battle of the Kingdom , a revolution is in progress here. The self-proclaimed shogun Yoritomo has claimed the eastern seaboard for himself, while the old Emperor Kiyomori continues to control the western coast and the country is on the verge of civil war. Although the player can do jobs for both sides of the revolution, the two armed forces never really go to war like in the first book.

Other major assignments include retrieving a fake pearl from a great dragon, exploring the Kwaidan Forest to learn the secrets of the Tengus , and entering the Black Pagoda .

7. The Realm of the Serpent King's Domain

The lost tribes of the Feathered Lands

This book was never published in the 1990s, but has been available since February 2018 following a successful campaign on Kickstarter. Based on the notes of Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson, Paul Gresty brought the realm of the Serpent King to life. It is set in the region of the southern continent Ankon-Konu, which has similarities to Africa or South America. The edition has so far only appeared in English and was illustrated by Russ Nicholson.

8. The Bone Desert (The Realm of Sands) / The Lone and Level Sands

The rough deserts of western Ankon-Konu

This book was never published, but would have been set in the desert of bones in Ankon-Konu. That would probably have been the equivalent of the series to the Sahara . There is also the Blue Grassland, which, according to information from the first six books, is populated by blue-skinned nomads who are descendants of the Uttakins from Volume 5 , as well as tribes like the Golden Men and their flying arks. Other places would have been the city of stargazers and the land of those who hide.

9. The Isle of a Thousand Spiers

Chrysoprais and the Sea of ​​Stilts

This book was never published, but would have been set in the western area of ​​Chrysoprais and the Sea of ​​Stilts.

Chrysoprais would have looked very much like India ; the names on the map have an Indian flavor (for example the Crimson Fort instead of the Red Fort ). There are also some references to the culture of Chrysoprais in the first six books - for example, in the Japanese-influenced country Akatsurai from Volume 6, there is a religion that follows the "Wise of Peace" and clearly relates to Buddhism . If the player fails on a quest related to the Wise Men of Peace, then he can travel west to the Saint of Vulture Peak (located in Chrysoprais) in search of salvation and enlightenment. This suggests that both Chrysoprais and Akatsurai people worship the Sage of Peace; in reality, Buddhism originated in India and later spread to Japan .

10. The Hordes of the Labyrinth (The Realm of Riddles) / Legions of the Labyrinth

Philosopher Kings of the West

This book was never published but would have been set in the western country of Atticala. Atticala was clearly inspired by Ancient Greece ; the map of Sagaland reveals this, as many of the cities have Greek-sounding names and are represented with symbols of Greek architecture.

The name Atticala is also similar to Attica , a region in Greece.

11. The City in the Clouds

Danger in the heart of a sprawling metropolis

This book was never published, but would have been set in the city of Dangor in the mysterious Forbidden Kingdom. It is not clear how the book would have been structured to fit into a single city - all of the other Sagaland books spread out over an entire landscape in which there are many cities and villages.

Little is known about Dangor except that it is located high up on cliffs hundreds of meters high, the "Golden Cliffs". Dangor's harbor is apparently at the top of these cliffs along with the rest of the city. In Volume 3 , the player can read the account of a Sokaran sailor in the Dweomer library. He tells how his ship waited for three days at the foot of the cliff while a climber brought his documents to the port authorities upstairs. Since everything seemed to be in order, throwing hooks were lowered and tied up and the whole ship was hoisted to the docks several thousand feet higher with a winch.

12. The Shadows of the Underworld (The Realm of Darkness) / Into the Underworld

The underworld, a place of horror

This book was never published but would have been set in the Sagaland underworld. In the first six books there are many entrances to the twelfth book. Some of these lead through caves or tunnels, while others are magical gates by falling over the edge of the world or even boarding a ship in a heavenly port. You can also find a book in the archive of the "Master of Poetic Documents" in Volume 5 with the name: How to Enter the Underworld, Volume 1 . There all possibilities are mentioned to get into the underworld.

A series of magical gates that can only be entered with a verdigris key allow the player to travel instantly to some of the many towns in Sagaland included in the unpublished books. One of them was called "Erebus" and sent the player to the twelfth book. In Greek mythology , Erebus was a god of the underworld.

Planned MMOG

In 1996, the authors decided to use their experience with game books to venture into the computer game industry - and take the Sagaland series with them. At Eidos Interactive they started working on an MMOG . Eidos was skeptical that an MMOG would be successful, but was keen to see what would come of it. They gave the writers a team to research the necessary technology. The team's plans for the late 1990s were extremely ambitious, as the Sagaland MMOG was to include advanced AI that would act like a digital game master and customize the game experience for each player.

The games were never published; according to Morris and Thomson, this was due to their own over-ambitious designs, colleagues who didn't understand their ideas, and the generally poor direction of game design and development at the time.

Web links

• Official website for the new English edition
• Fabled Lands Blog by Dave Morris
• Mantikore Publishing House

Individual evidence

1. ↑ FightingFantasy.com ( Memento from June 30, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Fabled Lands Blog: Return to Fabled Lands
3. ↑ bit-tech.net