Pyramid Pick
The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game
Published by Pelgrane Press
Written by Robin D. Laws, with John Snead and Peter Freeman
Hardback, 192 pages; $29.95
Jack Vance is one of the most idiosyncratic and popular fantasy authors of the last forty years, and his many and varied worlds and settings have always seemed ripe for translation into RPG settings. But it is not until this year, with the release of both the upcoming GURPS Planet Of Adventure, from Steve Jackson Games, and Pelgrane Press' new Dying Earth Roleplaying Game that there have been any licensed Vance products on the market. Pelgrane Press' game, designed by Robin Laws, is an impressive effort, with great pains made to enforce the peculiar nature of Vance's world.
The Dying Earth tales are set at the twilight days of our Earth, during the 21st Aeon -- an undefined, but very distant, time in the future. In this strange, ancient world is set the Dying Earth Roleplaying Game -- a world of powerful, capricious magicians, baroque customs, ravening beasts, and callous cruelty. Vance's stories are atypical fantasy -- the protagonists are clever and resourceful, but also amoral and pragmatic; they are more likely to flee than fight. About half of Vance's Dying Earth stories are about Cugel the Clever, who is twice flung to distant shores by the whim of a magician, and must journey across strange lands to find his way home. Other tales concern the powerful -- and not-so-powerful -- magicians of the 21st Aeon, who seem as concerned . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: May 11, 2001
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