About the game world
From the rulebook cover:
Enter a world of magic, folklore and danger. Here, superstition covers people’s lives like autumn mists cover the moors, and terrifying monsters with bizarre powers lurk in the shadows. The king is a weakling, barons scheme against each other, and lordless knights, back from the Crusades without the honour or riches they were promised, roam the countryside in search of adventure, or prey. Ruined castles and barrows are the lairs of the supernatural, or newer, more sinister masters. Labyrinthine underworlds lie forgotten below ancient temples and city cellars. The dark places of the world hold riches for those who would search for them, and the keys to great power, and death.
These are the Lands of Legend, and they need heroes. Brave knights, courageous barbarians, cunning sorcerers, mystics trained in the powers of mind and body, sword-wielding warlocks, elementalists who command the fabric of reality itself, and assassins trained to bring death to the deserving. All these will be your comrades on the path to glory—and perhaps your enemies too.
The jewel of Dragon Warriors and the reason for its longevity is Legend, a game-background based on the cultures of the medieval world. It is rich in myth, folklore, magic and superstition, built on a thousand-year history and populated with memorable characters, fearsome foes, treasure and glory. The game has a flavour unlike any other, combining a sense of history with the intensity of the greatest fantasy sagas.
Dragon Warriors is set in the Lands of Legend, a world that resembles parts of our world as they were around the thirteenth century—specifically Europe at the end of the Crusades. The world works the way that people in medieval Europe believed it did: there’s a feudal order, might makes right, and barons squabble and vie for power to stymie or oust the king, who is a weak fool.
But on top of that magic is real; the power of the Church is real; the devil is real and may meet you on the road at midnight; superstition and folklore are real; fairies and goblins are real and may sour your milk, lame your horse or steal your child if you don’t keep them happy; there are giants and dragons deep in the mountains; and the great kings of legend sleep under the forests and will return if their domains are threatened.
The world of Dragon Warriors is familiar—you have been there many times in the stories of King Arthur, the tales of Robin Hood and Richard the Lionheart, the classic works of fantasy fiction, and the histories of the medieval world—but at the same time it is a place filled with threats and the unknown. And the further you stray from home the stranger the places you will encounter: the desolate wastelands of Krarth, home to the Rathurbosk, a city built entirely on a bridge over the Gouge; the ruins of the city of Spyte, once ruled by (and perhaps destroyed by) the magi-lords, whose descendents still control Krarth today; the dangerous jungles of Mungoda filled with the remains of dead civilisations and populated by the bizarre Volucreth bird-men; the New Selentine Empire, trying to recapture the glories and power of the previous millennium; the Nomad Khanates; the Ta’ashim lands; the great city of Ferromaine where money is king and anything can be bought if the price is right; the Principalities of the Crusade; and much more.
You don’t have to stick to the Dragon Warriors setting as printed. The rules contain a chapter on ways you can adapt the game to other cultures, other time-periods of history, or other worlds from fiction or your own imagination.