In February 2024 we present the new Chivalry and Rising Sun Bundle featuring the current editions of Chivalry and Sorcery, its Land of the Rising Sun setting, and other recent supplements from Brittannia Game Designs.
Among the oldest FRPGs still published, C&S depicts an authentic feudal Europe with nobles, knights, Christian priests, and medieval doctrines. The game focuses not on dungeon crawls but on the feudal system, court intrigue, tournaments and jousts, and a comprehensive catalogue of ordinary life. With its Fifth Edition (2020), Chivalry and Sorcery has drawn on modern research to present the Middle Ages as they really were: diverse in cultural influences and rich with visitors from outside Europe. Priests can follow Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, or you can tailor the faith rules to any religion, whether real-world or fictional. As with previous versions, the Fifth Edition weaves its fantasy on a foundation of realism, believability, and history. Want to foil an assassination plot at a royal wedding – clear a pack of bandits from Creag Hill in Somerset – or find a missing priest and recover his tithes from a haunted keep? Chivalry and Sorcery helps you tell all these stories with authority and conviction.
Originally published in 1980 as a standalone adaptation of Chivalry and Sorcery, and expanded in 2021 in a new version for C&S Fifth Edition, Land of the Rising Sun offers an equally authentic view of the late Classical period of Japan in its middle Feudal period, circa 850-1500 CE. Choose from 30 new Vocations including samurai and otokodate (commoner warriors), yamabushi (martial priests), Buddhist and Shinto priests, gamblers, pirates, and bandits. Introduce fantasy elements or omit them, as you prefer. The Magick rules draw on the Japanese elements of Air, Earth, Fire, Metal, Water, and Wood. You can play supernatural entities like hengeyokai, bakemono, and spirits.
Land of the Rising Sun‘s designer, influential writer-editor Lee Gold, developed her interest in Asian history during a four-month sojourn in Japan in 1975. Also in that year she founded the APA (amateur press association) Alarums and Excursions, the first periodical devoted entirely to roleplaying games. The design discussions in Alarums helped popularize early D&D concepts; historian Jon Peterson credits Alarums for examples of dice notation and character sheets, for the earliest use in print of the term “THAC0”, and for one of the first Samurai character class designs, by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling.
More generally, A&E‘s rules-hacking culture helped inspire early RPG creators like Ken St. Andre, Steve Perrin, Dave Hargrave, and many more – including Ed Simbalist and Wilf Backhaus, designers of the 1977 First Edition of Chivalry and Sorcery. Gold based the original Land of the Rising Sun (Fantasy Games Unlimited, 1980) on C&S 1E.
Nurtured in the relatively egalitarian science fiction fan community in Los Angeles, Gold navigated the male-dominated RPG hobby with confidence, taking in stride others’ occasional awkwardness. David Hartlage mentions one notable moment in a June 2020 post on his DM David blog, “Meet the Woman Who by 1976 was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary“:
Her one personal encounter with Gary Gygax revealed a similar bias. Early on, Lee sent copies of A&E to TSR. After a couple of months, she received a phone call, which she recounts:
“This is Gary Gygax,” said the voice, “and I’d like to speak to Lee Gold.”
“I’m Lee Gold,” I said. “I gather you got the copies of A&E I sent you.”
“You’re a woman!” he said.
“That’s right,” I said, and I told him how much we all loved playing D&D and how grateful we were to him for writing it.
“You’re a woman,” he said. “I wrote some bad things about women wargamers once.”
“You don’t need to feel embarrassed,” I said. “I haven’t read them.”
“You’re a woman,” he said.
We didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, so I told him goodbye and hung up.
After 49 years Alarums and Excursions still publishes regularly, and Lee Gold still edits it. (Lee’s husband sells back issues in .PDF.) And she still designs games: In 2021 Brittannia Games Kickstarted her new version of Land of the Rising Sun as the first full-blown setting expansion for C&S Fifth Edition. The campaign funded a new setting sourcebook as well as a bestiary, map pack, and adventures.
There were ten titles in our Chivalry Collection (retail value $78.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Chivalry and Sorcery Fifth Edition corebook (along with the C&S Basic Rules and the Character Generator Excel spreadsheet); Goblins, Orcs, & Trolls; theEuropean Folklore Bestiary; three recent C&S adventures – Curse of the Casket, Facets of Fire, and The Welsh Connection; the sourcebook Castles of Britain; and the GM Screen.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Rising Sun Collection with four more titles worth an additional $55, including the 316-page Land of the Rising Sun campaign setting, plus the Rising Sun Folklore Bestiary, Map Pack, and Adventure Book.
Three titles in this new offer – the Chivalry and Sorcery corebook, Character Generator, and GM Screen – appeared previously in our April 2021 Chivalry and Sorcery 5E Bundle. The three repeated titles have a total retail value of $24.
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) for this Chivalry and Rising Sun offer went to the charity designated by Stephen Turner of Brittannia Games, The Honeypot Children’s Charity. Honeypot supports young caregivers – children under 18 who provide care and emotional support to a parent, grandparent, or sibling who is ill, disabled, or suffers from a mental health condition or substance abuse. “Honeypot needs all the support it can get,” says Stephen. “They are supporting 4,000 young carers, and they estimate there are 800,000 more they are trying to reach.”
