Glorantha is a fantasy world created by Greg Stafford. It was first introduced in the board game White Bear and Red Moon (1975) by Chaosium and then in a number of other board, roleplaying and computer games, including RuneQuest and HeroQuest, as well as several works of fiction and the computer strategy game King of Dragon Pass. The Gloranthan world is characterised by its complex use of mythology, heavily influenced by the universalist approaches of Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade, its sword and sorcery ethos, its long and distinctive history as a setting for role-playing games, its community development and expansion, and its relative lack of Tolkienesque influence, which is uncommon among early American fantasy role-playing games.
The drow or dark elves are a generally evil, dark-skinned, and white-haired subrace of elves in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game.
Warhammer 40,000 is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is the most popular miniature wargame in the world, particularly in the United Kingdom. The first edition of the rulebook was published in September 1987, and the ninth and current edition was released in July 2020.
Warhammer Fantasy is a fictional fantasy universe created by Games Workshop and used in many of its games, including the table top wargame Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) pen-and-paper role-playing game, and a number of video games: the MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the strategy games Total War: Warhammer, Total War: Warhammer II and Total War: Warhammer III and the two first-person shooter games in the Warhammer Vermintide series, Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide and Warhammer: Vermintide 2.
Eberron is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role-playing game. The game is set primarily on the continent of Khorvaire following a vast destructive war. Eberron is designed to accommodate traditional D&D elements and races within a differently toned setting; Eberron combines a fantasy tone with pulp and dark adventure elements, and some non-traditional fantasy technologies such as trains, skyships, and mechanical beings which are all powered by magic.
Warcraft is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of five core games: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone. The first three of these core games are in the real-time strategy genre, where opposing players command virtual armies in battle against each other or a computer-controlled enemy. The fourth and best-selling title of the franchise is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), where players control their character and interact with each other in a virtual world. Warcraft is one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time, having grossed $11.2 billion in lifetime revenue, as of 2018.
Ivalice is a fictional universe setting primarily appearing in the Final Fantasy video game series. The world was created by Yasumi Matsuno and has since been expanded upon by several games as the Ivalice Alliance series. Ivalice is described as a complex world with a very long history, and the stories of Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII all take place in it.
Arcanis was originally a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons game, created by Henry Lopez and supported by Paradigm Concepts. It is also the name of the fictional world where the setting takes place. The setting was launched in 2001 and is known for its odd twists on the fantasy genre, as well as its wide member approval and community-based design and construction. Unlike many other fantasy roleplaying games, which focus primarily on tactical combat, the Arcanis campaigns focus on moral ambiguity and politics.
In many works of modern fantasy, elves are depicted as a race or species of pointy-eared humanoid beings. These depictions arise from the álfar of Norse mythology influencing elves in fantasy as being semi-divine and of human stature, whose key traits are being friendly with nature and animals. However, this differs from Norse and the traditional elves found in Middle Ages folklore and Victorian era literature.
GURPS Fantasy is a Genre Toolkit source book which was first designed by Steve Jackson and published by Steve Jackson Games in 1986 for the GURPS role-playing game. It presented a magic system for the game as well as background information for the fantasy campaign world of Yrth. A second edition by new writers was published in 1990 as GURPS Fantasy: The Magical World of Yrth. These two editions received mixed reviews in game periodicals including Dragon, Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer, and Games International. The fourth edition of GURPS separates the fantasy parts into fantasy and a setting book called GURPS Banestorm.
Polish role-playing games have been in production since the early 1990s. Now there are several games that have been designed in Poland, as well as many translations on the market.
The Baháʼí Faith and related topics have appeared multiple forms of fiction. The mention of this religion can be seen in science fiction, fantasy, short stories, novelettes, novels, and TV series. In 2005, an estimated value of 30 references could be found relating Baháʼí Faith to different forms of fiction. An estimated 3rd of these references have a significant relationship with the religion in the way that these forms of fiction show the Baháʼí Faith as a crucial aspect of the story. The first occurrence known is perhaps in the writings of Marie von Najmajer wrote a poem dedicated to Tahirih in Gurret-úl-Eyn: Ein Bild aus Persiens Neuzeit which was published in 1874. After a series of works covering the events of the Bábí period, most of the focus shifted towards Baháʼí specific related connections. Soon Khalil Gibran wrote two books - The Prophet and Jesus, The Son of Man. There is some second-hand evidence for the sustained influence of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in these works. In modern times the first known occurrence is of a short story by non-Baháʼí Tom Ligon The Devil and the Deep Black Void, - he also wrote a sequel The Gardener. The next fictional publication, in 1991, which references the Baháʼí Faith may be a short story "Home Is Where…" by Baháʼí Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff,
The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), which receives significant attention in the media and in popular culture, has been the subject of numerous controversies. The game sometimes received negative coverage, especially in the early 1980s during the game's early years. Because the term D&D may be mistakenly used to refer to all types of role-playing games, some controversies regarding D&D mistakenly pertain to role-playing games in general, or to the literary genre of fantasy. Part of the controversies concern the game and its alleged impact on those who play it, while others concern business issues at the game's original publisher, TSR. The game is now owned by Wizards of the Coast.
The Rogue Mage series of fantasy novels were written by American author Faith Hunter about races of beings inhabiting a post-apocalyptic Earth of the not-too distant future. Some of them possess magical powers. The series is set in the remains of the United States about a century after an apocalypse similar to the one predicted in the Book of Revelation, but with no God appearing.
Elves, a word from Germanic mythology, are frequently featured in fantasy fiction. In modern fiction, particularly because of the influence from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, elves are modeled mostly after his original description: tall, human-like creatures of otherworldly beauty, with Kings and Queens. Along with this development, Dark elves are often modeled as a more sinister counterpart to the High elves, like the Drow or the Trow, which are the fairy-like dark creatures of Orcadian and Shetland folklore. The dark elves (Dökkálfar) or black elves (Svartálfar) are presented in Germanic mythology as dwarves and gray ones.
Dark Sun is an original Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign setting set in the fictional, post-apocalyptic desert world of Athas. Dark Sun featured an innovative metaplot, influential art work, dark themes, and a genre-bending take on traditional fantasy role-playing. The product line began with the original Dark Sun Boxed Set released for D&D's 2nd edition in 1991, originally ran until 1996, and was one of TSR's most successful releases.
The Witcher is a series of six fantasy novels and 15 short stories written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The series revolves around the eponymous "witcher," Geralt of Rivia. In Sapkowski's works, "witchers" are beast hunters who develop supernatural abilities at a young age to battle wild beasts and monsters. The Witcher began with a titular 1986 short story that Sapkowski entered into a competition held by Fantastyka magazine, marking his debut as an author. Due to reader demand, Sapkowski wrote 14 more stories before starting a series of novels in 1994. Known as The Witcher Saga, he wrote one book a year until the fifth and final installment in 1999. A standalone prequel novel, Season of Storms, was published in 2013.
A Song of Ice and Fire is an ongoing series of epic fantasy novels by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. The first installment of the series, A Game of Thrones, which was originally planned as a trilogy, was published in 1996. The series now consists of five published volumes, and two more volumes are planned. The series is told in the third-person through the eyes of a number of point of view characters. A television series adaptation, Game of Thrones, premiered on HBO in 2011.
Bloodshadows is an original high dark fantasy / pulp adventure gamebook by West End Games that was published in 1994. It was the first setting book for WEG's MasterBook game, which used rules elements used earlier in their TORG and Shatterzone games. It was reprinted in 2011 by Precis Intermedia, which is looking to rework and reform the core rules. A reworked third edition of the gamebook was published by Precis Intermedia in 2016.
