Chivalry and Sorcery x2 – through Mon 06 July

Through Monday, July 6 we present two offers featuring Chivalry and Sorcery, the venerable RPG of medieval fantasy adventure from Brittannia Game Designs. Start with the revived February 2024 Chivalry and Rising Sun Bundle, with the current (2020) core rulebook and its 2021 line of Land of the Rising Sun supplements. Then check out our all-new companion offer of recent sourcebooks and adventures, C&S New Lands.

Among the oldest fantasy RPGs 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.

[Note: The “Fifth Edition” of Chivalry and Sorcery refers to the fifth version (2020) of the original 1977 game, not D&D Fifth Edition.]

1. CHIVALRY AND RISING SUN [from Feb 2024]

If you’re new to Chivalry and Sorcery, start with this revived February 2024 Chivalry and Rising Sun Bundle that includes the core rulebook, key supplements – and the high-caliber 2021 version of Land of the Rising Sun, an 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 community 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 50 years and 593 issues, Lee Gold ended Alarums and Excursions in May 2025. (There’s a successor APA, Ever & Anon.) As recently as 2021 Lee was still designing games: 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. Get them all for an unbeatable bargain price in this revived February 2024 Chivalry and Rising Sun Bundle.

Pay just US$14.95 to get all ten titles in this revived offer’s Chivalry Collection (retail value $78.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Chivalry and Sorcery Fifth Edition corebook, plus the C&S Basic Rules and Character Generator; Goblins, Orcs, & Trolls; the European Folklore Bestiary; three C&S adventures – Curse of the Casket, Facets of Fire, and The Welsh Connection; Castles of Britain; and the GM Screen.

And if you pay more than this revival’s threshold (average) price, which is set at $24.95 to start, you’ll level up and also get this offer’s entire Rising Sun Collection with four more supplements worth an additional $55, including the main Land of the Rising Sun campaign setting (plus its Map Pack), the Rising Sun Folklore Bestiary, and the Adventure Book.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/RisingSun2026

2. C&S NEW LANDS [all-new]

This all-new C&S New Lands companion offer adds recent sourcebooks and adventures for Chivalry and Sorcery. All these supplements require the corebook in the revived Chivalry and Rising Sun offer.

Pay just $12.95 to get all four titles in this offer’s Sourcebook Collection (retail value $60), including the historical settings Dux Bellorum (pre-Arthurian Britain) and The Celts; The Mhaun Isles, a location guide in the C&S fantasy setting of Marakush; and C&S Sourcebook One.

Pay more than this offer’s threshold ($24.95 to start) and you’ll also get this offer’s entire Adventure Collection with eight more titles worth an additional $78, including the Eorldom of Gar setting book (along with its Northern Urtind – Cadan Bay map) and the complete four-part Eorldom of Gar campaign – 1. Militas to Jaileen, 2. Across the Eorldom, 3. Agents of the Dragon, and 4. Then There Were None; and the full-length adventure Hillfort of the Pagans and the scenario anthology Adventures in Urtind.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/ChivalryNewLands

These two Chivalry and Sorcery offers vanish together in the twisted and corrupt Heart Caverns beneath the forests of Bel Versa in the Mhaun Isles Monday, July 6.