The 3rd day of snow and cold has tightened its grip where I live. What happened to Spring which sprung 30 days past? As I eat some Skyr Icelandic Yogurt, my mind wanders to the Viking wastelands of yore. Come. Fill your drinking horns and join me as Rediscovered Realms tells tales of TSR’s 1981 minigame, “SAGA: Age of Heroes!”
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An unassuming yellowed plastic clamshell revealing a cartoon-like embattled Viking sits before you.
“What possible treasure could it have inside?”, you wonder.
You are hopeful, because after all, this is a product of the Great TSR Wizards who wrought Dungeons & Dragons and so many other epic Role-Playing Games into the realms.
You gingerly open the aged plastic so as not to crack the game’s protective time-capsule shell.
“By Odin!”, you exclaim.
There are indeed wonders to behold.
Un-yellowed rulebook, map, and counters greet your greedy fingers.
You flip to the back cover of the rulebook to see what’s in store:
Then you hungrily read the 16-page pocket-sized booklet, learning the mechanics of Heroes, Jarls, Trolls, Drow, Dragons, Runes, Spells, Witches, Giants, Ghosts and Gods.
You are impressed with the simplicity of the game, yet recognize there is so much room for varied gameplay and customization.
Want to see some Sword & Sorcery “Sagas”? Check out:
The placement of counters on the map is an elegant system of rolling 2 x 6-sided dice. If you roll a “3”, then a “2”, then find the unique area on the map with “3:2”.
The map is not only beautiful to behold, but it also contains the ancient bygone names of nations who vied for Glory (or just survival for the common folk!) in the Dark Ages, after the fall of Rome.
If you want to have some fun, Google some of the names and go down the Bullete-holes you find.
“Thule” was often mentioned as the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and cartography, often identified with Iceland or Greenland. The Latin expression “ultima Thule” (“farthest Thule”) came to mean any distant place located beyond the borders of the known world. - Wikipedia entry on Thule
“Frankland” = France, “Connacht”, “Ulster”, and “Leinster” made up what we know as Ireland.
Scotland was “Pictland”.
“Trondheim” has some interesting history, as well as “Armorica”, “Pomerania”, and really all the rest!
To see another cool TSR fantasy map, check out the one that came with the Conan RPG boxed set created by Jeff Butler & Diesel!:
The CRT (Combat Results Table) is also simple, yet deceivingly varied with the modifiers you apply from magic swords, spells, recruited Jarls, and the even favor (or disfavor) from the Gods . . .
One roll of the dice is all that is required after modifiers and comparing yours and your opponents’ strengths. Of course, if you want to use your Luck to influence the results, you will have to decide ahead of the roll.
The ultimate goal of the game is to achieve the most Glory (or at least just a little more Glory than the other heroes at the table) in 20 turns.
The winner’s deeds (whether alive or dead by the end) will be remembered the longest in the Sagas of the Norsemen.
The losers “will be forgotten soon after their lifetimes”.
You achieve Glory by conquering lands (and receiving their taxed tributes) and battling monsters and other heroes.
The Vikings weren’t the only team in town. See some incredibly evocative Celtic-style fantasy art:
You are intrigued by the mytho-historical names on the diminutive cardboard counters.
Heroes such as: “Siegfried”, “Ragnar”, “Beowulf”, and “Brunhild”
The Dragons, “Fafnir”, “Istvan”, and “Hallbjorn”
There are “Grendall” the Troll, “Storvick” the Giant, “Mord” the Ghost, “Grunhild” the Witch, and “Atli” the Drow.
Even the swords and magic items have names, “Hrunting” and “Frey Faxi” being examples.
And you don’t fail to notice that even the Jarls have individual names and stats.
“Jarl” (pronounced “Yarl”) was the Norse equivalent of an “Earl”
Ragnar: “Has anyone seen Jarl Borg around lately?”
You look at the credits page and see many names you recognize, both artists and game designers who still have their sagas sung up until this day, including David (“Diesel”) S. LaForce, Tom Moldvay, Erol Otus, Bill Willingham, Steve Marsh, Jeff Dee, David Cook, Jim Rosloff, and Stephen Sullivan.
And there on the back inside cover is a simple character sheet to keep track of your conquests and hoard.
“What a cool game!”, you think.
You peer up to see the sun splitting the gray gloom which made you melancholy since Thor’s Day (“Þorsdagr” in Old Norse, a.k.a. “Thursday”).
The blanketing snow begins to slip off the trees and cascade down the burdened branches in great explosive clods, revealing the bark and formerly-fresh Spring leaves anew.
You feel your heart swell with energy and hope for a brighter day.
Using your now-empty Skyr cup to roll the bones, you get a 5 and a 3. Looks like you’re setting course to Gwynedd.
The primal drumbeat of sagas of heroic adventures and fantastic journeys thrums just beneath your consciousness, and you hear yourself say aloud:
“This is a good day for Glory”.
Want to play? It looks like the complete “SAGA: Age of Heroes Minigame” rulebook & map was uploaded to scribd here.
You ever wonder what it takes to run a kingdom like Rediscovered Realms? Me too. But one thing that always helps is when generous adventurers such as yourselves can occasionally spare a few coppers.
Final 10 Days to enter our Legendary Dungeons & Dragons Giveaway Contest!
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Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the release of The NeverEnding Story, the Empress (Tami Stronach) returns with her 1st film in 40 years with “Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps”.
It’s a light-hearted fantasy adventure that smacks of The Princess Bride, Willow, and The NeverEnding Story, and includes Jim Henson’s creature shop, Sean Astin, Jennifer Saunders, Eddie Izzard.
"I think there's this nostalgia for the '80s fantasy world, so we wanted to celebrate those types of films,” Stronach told EW in 2020. “I want to see audiences rooting for the underdog again, like when they cheered for Bastian in The NeverEnding Story. One of our goals with this film is to go back to those values and then give it a twist."
“We made this movie for people who need to be uplifted,” Stronach continued. “To laugh, to feel delight and joy. There is no cynicism in this film — that is what makes it so different from everything else out there, and I think the trailer captures that beautifully. And if you want to know what the '80s felt like, see this in a theater.”
Finally, here’s a “Really” interesting article, “The Dungeon of Moria Really, Really Retro Review” on how this old school Rogue-like computer game shaped the author’s childhood and how he still thinks it is one of the best games he’s ever played.
Another week, another saga. Anon, heroic friend.
"He falls not whom true friends help forward on his way."
I still have my childhood copy of Saga! They sold them at my local hobby shop, next to the model rockets. They were in an old revolving wire-frame bookcase. Loved them!
I still have my childhood copy of Saga! They sold them at my local hobby shop, next to the model rockets. They were in an old revolving wire-frame bookcase. Loved them!
I know I missed it but we had a little place we would go to read them.