"The most beautiful box set in the history of the roleplaying game art form"
4 months ago
– Mon, Nov 03, 2025 at 05:34:29 PM
To our dear lords, ladies, and knights of the realm,
Award winning TTRPG writer Mark Morrison is renowned for his work for Call of Cthulhu (Horror on the Orient Express etc), and is also our community content ambassador for the Pendragon roleplaying game, supporting independent creators in our 'Companions of Arthur' community content program at DriveThruRPG.
About Pendragon first edition, Mark writes:
"I think that the first edition of Pendragon from 1985 remains the most beautiful box set in the history of the roleplaying game art form. It’s all thanks to the gorgeous cover by Jody Lee, the innovative but clean layout by Yurek Chodak, the simply wonderful full colour map by Charlie Krank, and above all, the romantic interior art by Lisa Free.
But in addition to that, Greg Stafford’s brilliant and passionate system design with dynastic play means that there are 75 years of adventure in the box, from the death of Uther to the fall of Arthur. I can’t think of a single other box set that offers that much playability with just the contents at hand.
I’m frankly thrilled that this peerless edition is coming back into print so that everyone can see the purity of its intent, without paying Ebay prices or settling for a PDF scan. I still use this map of King Arthur’s Britain to this day, and players always warm to the quest immediately.
Today’s the last day to mount up if you’d like to experience this for yourself. It’s a joy."
As always, thank you for your support, and for backing this Kickstarter.
Color Heraldry Unlocked! The Final 36 hours!
4 months ago
– Mon, Nov 03, 2025 at 02:01:36 AM
To our dear lords, ladies, and knights of the realm,
Huzzah!
With your support, we have unlocked yet another stretch goal, and after 40 years the 1st edition of Pendragon will contain a full color heraldry handout!
As we enter the last day-and-a-half of the campaign, we wanted to say once again how thankful we are for your support. Without the keen help of all of you, we'd never be able to ressurect Greg Stafford's masterpiece, and being able to do it on both the 40th anniversary of the game and the 50th anniversary of the company he founded is especially auspicious.
Here is to the tail-end of our quest. Can we unlock another stretch goal in the twilight of our campaign?
Here is hoping for another huzzah!
Bonus free content we are adding
4 months ago
– Sun, Nov 02, 2025 at 04:01:20 AM
To our most noble knights, lords, and ladies,
As we enter the final days of this campaign we wanted to take a few minutes to provide more information on the bonus content going into the various books. While Greg Stafford was able to get most of his Pendragon material published, he wrote a number of associated articles that never made it into a printed Pendragon book, or have been long out-of-print until now. These articles include:
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Solo Jousting Rules (first published in White Dwarf #81 in 1986)
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Swords of Pendragon (first published in White Dwarf #85 in 1987)
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Genre and Generic - why there are no magicians in Pendragon.
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Professional Personnel - non-knightly professions and their key skills.
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Faerie Places - all manner of locations and adventure ideas.
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Designer Notes - knowledge skills
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Designer Notes - RPG in the 14th Century (playing knights of the round table).
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Designer Notes - Separate Weapon Skills.
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Designer Notes - More on Merlin and his role in the game.
Here's a sample of one small topic: The Wandering Bards
Bards are ordinarily not for hire, but live on gifts given to them. They wander the land going where their intuition and poetic obligation urges them to go. They do not charge a fee, but do their job and rely upon the largesse of their host for rewards. No one wishes to short change them, for this could incur their wrath—the satire that is a curse coming from the mouth of a bard!
A qualified bard, who lives at the rate of about £2 per year, gets about 1½ denarii a day, or the cost of a noble’s feast for one person. Thus, a suitable reward for him would be to have him sit among the knights to eat for the duration of his stay, plus a place to sleep equivalent to a knight’s lodging. The bard would not ask or expect more. Of course, giving more warrants a Generous check for largesse. And remember that bards whose skills have earned them great fame deserve more. Calculate about double fee for each five years of experience. But do not be stingy with the truly great! If Taliesin himself sings in your hall, it would not be overly generous to give him a gold ring worth £20!
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Collectively, these add over 10 pages of additional insight into Greg's design process for the 1st edition of Pendragon, plus useful information to use when running a game of Pendragon. While a number of these will specifically be added to the GM's book, many of the more general interest articles will be sprinkled throughout the other books in the boxed set, as best fits each topic.
This special deluxe anniversary edition is ideal for this type of bonus content. Please note that this material is not tied to a stretch goal. It is going to be in the books (and PDFs) regardless of the final funding level reached. It will also not be published elsewhere separately.
As always, thank you for your support, and for backing this Kickstarter.
Stretch Goal Unlocked: The Pendragon GM Screen
4 months ago
– Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 07:59:42 PM
To our noble lords, ladies, and knights of the realm,
We're so pleased to announce that with our collective efforts, the quest to print a GM screen for the original Pendragon game will now be completed after 40 years!
That's right—now that we've reached the $110,000 goal, every backer at the Knight of the Realm tier and above will receive this excellent game aid.
The GM Screen will also be available in PDF for all backers at Squire level and above – if you want to get your hands on the physical version of this screen, it's not too late to upgrade your pledge!
With less than a week left in the campaign, our eyes now look to the next stretch goal of $120,000, where we'll be adding glorious full color heraldry to every 2" boxed set and PDF!
As always, we thank you for your support, and thank you for your continued aid on this quest.
First Stretch Goal Unlocked - With new Goals Revealed!
4 months ago
– Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 10:43:29 PM
To our most noble lords, ladies, and knights of the realm,
Great joy! We have unlocked our first stretch goal, and with it your Pendragon Classic 2" box will overflow with dice! (D4, 6D6, D8, 2D10, D12, and 2D20)
Our attention now turns to the upcoming stretch goals, and some changes:
GM Screen Goal Now $110,000
Having considered both the time we have left, and how excited we are to finally produce a GM screen for the first edition of this wonderful game, we have reviewed the budget with our Exchequer and agreed to reduce this stretch goal from $120,000, to $110,000 - thus whilst writing this update we know its achievement looms close on the horizon!
New Stretch Goals
We are pleased to announce new stretch goals that will carry us through to the end of the campaign.
$120,000 - Color Heraldry
The first four editions of the Pendragon RPG and its supplements were all done with black & white interiors. Most of the heraldry was not produced in color, with the exception of a few shields on a few book back covers. To help correct this deficit, we want to make the game more colorful by adding a multi-page armorial with full color heraldry for the knights in the rules and the early supplements!
Once we reach $120,000 in funding this brand new printed item will be included for free to all backers getting the printed Deluxe boxed set, and also as a free PDF to all $20+ backers.
NOTE: We're not replacing the art in the books. They will all continue to be filled with the original B&W heraldry from the originals. The color heraldry is being added as a bonus handout. That way you have the best of both without having to choose one over the other.
$130,000 - More Creatures, all in one place
The original Gamemaster’s book only contained statistics for 11 creatures, plus brief notes on seven more. Of course, many more were documented over time, especially in various supplements and in the newer editions of the game.
Once we reach $130,000 in funding we will add more creatures and monsters to the GM’s book, including: Basilisk, Copper Giant, Faerie Knight, Griffin, Hippogriff, four Horse breeds, Lion, Manticore, Panther, Raven Witch, Redcap, Water Leaper, Wolf, and Wyvern. This allows for a consolidated single reference of all of the creatures found in various places in the four supplements, as well as creatures not in the first edition of Pendragon.
$150,000 - Knight Standees
For our final stretch goal we are creating a sheet of (2mm thick) cardboard full color standees. These are double sided, die-cut, and will come with 10 plastic stands.
When we reach $150,000 in funding, we’ll be adding the set of standees for free in all of the printed boxed sets, and provide them as a free PDF to all $49+ backers. The standees will include knights and their steeds.
As always, we thank you for joining us on this quest, and look forward to continuing the journey as we enter the final week of the campaign.
