A future, unimaginably distant…
The sun, now in its dotage, is a swollen maroon orb. It stutters and blinks. At any moment it may finally go out.
Earth, immensely old… Dig anywhere and find a buried city or the shore of a vanished sea. Deodand-haunted woods stretch from decadent Kaiin to the Land of the Falling Wall. Erbs and grue hunt in the wilds. Isolated villages embrace surprising customs. Larger towns favor debauchery and mincing murder.
Magic, rich and colourful… Enchantment shapes the world. Any dabbler may know a few simple cantraps. Magicians in lavish manses struggle to master Earth's last great spells, while all-powerful cabals intrigue against rivals or plot revenge for ancient feuds.
Enter this vivid world in this roleplaying game authorized by master fantasist Jack Vance. Here, the importance of a flashing sword is matched by nimble wits, persuasive words, and a fine sense of fashion. Create an adventurer for any of three different kinds of stories:
- a typical mortal, such as Cugel the Clever, surviving by wits and cunning;
- an ambitious magician searching for lost lore, like Turjan of Miir;
- a supreme mage to rank with Rhialto the Marvellous, commanding the omnipotent but quarrelsome sandestins
Created by Robin D. Laws and John Snead, The Dying Earth RPG features easy, fast-playing rules that encourage creativity and interaction. This core rulebook contains everything you need to play a one-shot or campaign set in this evocative world.
No knowledge of Jack Vance's work is needed for play, but fans of the stories will enjoy the badinage, as well as the comprehensive summary of the world's places, creatures, and known spells.
Praise for The Dying Earth RPG:
"Pick of GenCon: Dying Earth. Of all the new RPGs at GenCon, the one I want to run most is Dying Earth. It's extremely stylish, which, of course, a game based on the Dying Earth ought to be. The detail that won me over is that characters need to do different things to "recharge" depending on which skills they've been using."
Jonathan Tweet, D&D 3rd edition author
"In a flood of fantasy fiction and games, there are fewer and fewer that are truly exciting, exotic, and strange. The Dying Earth is all of those, and exciting, too; reading over the rules makes you WANT to plunge into life and adventure in the setting---even if you've never read any of Jack Vance's delightful fiction! If you have, of course, the game skillfully expands, rounds out, and suggests new trails to adventure...in a setting that is at once whimsical, sinister, gloriously cynical and colorful, eccentric, and oh, so polite. A superb game and setting that could easily provide delightful play in a campaign lasting decades!"
Ed Greenwood, creator of the Forgotten Realms
"Hell, just buy it for the read -it's that good!"
Review of the game rpg.net
"[DERPG] is so well written that it could make even a group of strangers to the books play a perfect game of Dying Earth."
Review of the game rpg.net