Lands of Legends is a toolkit for game fans ORS, created by Mauro Longo and Giuseppe Rotondo. These two names are well known in the Italian gaming scene having signed games such as Last Forsan, Tropicana, Lex Arcana, Brancalonia and many others.
This project, which will be released on Kickstarter on February 2nd, is part of the initiative Zine Quest. This event has been held for several years now, during the second month of the year, on the aforementioned platform.
What is the Zine Quest?
Quoting the platform, this initiative can be explained as follows:
Zine Quest is our annual proposal that invites creators to overcome a challenging mission: bring their own RPG to life with maps, adventures, monsters, comics, articles and interviews. To participate, launch a two-week project for a single-color RPG fanzine that is not bound, folded, stapled, or saddle-stitched on A5 paper or smaller. From Monday 1st February we will start promoting projects and will continue to do so throughout the month.
From the Kickstarter presentation page on the Zine Quest initiative
As a good fanatic of fanzines, and of the old stapled magazines of role-playing games, I could not fail to consider what was about to be born.
But how does it fit Lands of Legends in this initiative?
A few words about Lands of Legends
Many years ago, before the acronym LoL was linked to a well-known MOBA video game, Mauro Longo and Giuseppe Rotondo had started this project.
From the words of the authors:
Lands of Legends is a collection of five zines each of which can be used to create or enrich your fantasy sandbox adventures. You can therefore find unique areas, meetings, events and places to increase the fun in your games.
They can also be used for your fantasy RPGs and, in some parts of it, refer to the basic rules of the first edition of the most popular RPG in the world. This way it can also be used in most Old School Revival based games.
Each Zine will consist of a 48-page PDF containing ten Area tables, ten Encounter tables and ten tables for different types of Terrain. So each Zine will contain 100 unique areas and 100 unique encounters. Considering that the Zine will be five, the possible combinations will be five hundred of each!
What are the contents of these Zine
Lands of Legends examines some kinds of scenarios such as the Common ones (Mundane). This kind of terrain is perfect for setting low fantasy / low magic situations and as a countryside setting. An isolated farm, a provincial town with a fair, these are the kinds of contexts that can spark and give birth to a countryside. I don't know if you've ever played the Neverwinter Nights 2 core campaign, but the idea is very similar.
In addition to this there are four other different Zines to draw from. Some implement the magic and wonder of a world completely different from the previous one, each of these to its own unique and inimitable taste:
- The Zine Grim: dark magic, terrible secrets, horrible threats
- The Fairy Lands: enchanted lands and “kind” wonders, obviously how kind and terrible fairies can be.
- Lands of Legends Sacred: lands and events that can show the true power of the gods!
- Lands of Legends Primitives: here the power of Nature reigns supreme. Titanic monsters and equally monstrous flora
Let's get to know the authors and then ask them some questions.
Who are the authors of Lands of Legends?
Mauro Longo it's a blogger, writer, essayist and author of role-playing games, as well as project manager. Recently he has contributed to the development of some projects such as Lex Arcana e Brancalonia, as well as having already been our guest on these pages. You can find in-depth articles on his thinking always on our portal.
Joseph Rotondo it's a blogger, as well as translator for Italian localizations of many role-playing editorial lines, such as Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, Deadlands - Weird West, and Rippers. He is also the co-author with Mauro Longo of Tropicana e Last Forsan. It has also helped to develop Gold & Glory editorial line that allowed the entry of the OSR style in Savage Worlds.
Matteo Ceresa is the professional pager they use. He has collaborated on many works and projects that have not yet been made public!
First of all, we thank you for being here with us and being ready to accept our questions. I am not very experienced in this OSR, but slowly I am learning to understand it. However I wonder, it will be possible to combine more than one of these Zines together?
Of course! You can combine, for example, Grim and Fairy and thus create a sandbox campaign that combines the darkest horror with the gentle wonders of fairies, or completely mix both themes. You will thus have a unique, grotesque and surreal setting.
If you prefer, you can also combine the forces of nature with those of the gods and create a turbulent world. It won't be difficult, you just have to take the Zine Holy and combine it with Primeval.
And if two are not enough for you and you need more regions for your setting, add an additional Zine. The possibilities you will have to create your worlds will be limitless.
The fundamental question: why Kickstarter?
Lands of Legends is our love letter to the OSR and using this content for years both as a DM and as a content creator we thought that Kickstarter could be the ideal way to make it known.
We decided to use a Zine just to stay connected to the spirit of the Old School and allow so many to know this world and its nuances. What better month than Quest Zine month?
Conclusions
I'm an Old School Revival layman, but I'm a magazine fan. By now I have stated it in every possible and imaginable way and you will be bored to hear it said.
I wasn't even aware of the Quest Zine, and as I looked around for past ones, I got to see many interesting products that came out during this initiative.
So, please, a message to all OSR fans, February 2nd Lands of Legends will be online, at this address, and you will have the opportunity to finance it!
To conclude, I thank Mauro and Giuseppe again for having lent themselves to these questions and for teaching me something new that I had never really studied.
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