Minarian Legends & OD&D? (world of Divine Right)

[casey777]

Anyone remember the Minarian Legends articles in the Dragon? In the 30s to the 50s IIRC. Written for the setting of the Divine Right boardgame. Great illustrations too.

Has anyone roleplayed in this setting or otherwise used material from it or Divine Right in the games?

I started reading Dragon later but read a few issues that had Miniarian Legends articles in them and they made an impression. Looking back, they're in some ways to me a flipside of Tekumel. Very baroque art, a sense of huge depth and a dollop of weirdness. I think it could be pretty fun to game there.

Text of the Minarian Legends articles - evidently unedited and/or updated since their appearance in the Dragon, I haven't confirmed this
Minaria RPG Materials - the stats are for 3E & I have no way of knowing how much is whole cloth from the site's author and how much is from source material; still it's a start and the only such site I'm aware of

[Finarvyn]

I have a copy of Divine Right and remember playing it once or twice in the 1980's but really don't recall much about it.

I also recall seeing the articles in question in Dragon magazine, and remember thinking highly of them. Otherwise, drawing a blank.

What I can't believe is that it never occured to me to look to see if that world would make a fun place to adventure in. I'll have to dust off my Dragon magazines to see what's in there.....

[James Maliszewski]

casey777 said:

Anyone remember the Minarian Legends articles in the Dragon? In the 30s to the 50s IIRC. Written for the setting of the Divine Right! boardgame. Great illustrations too.

Funny you should mention this, as I was just reading these articles the other day and I was thinking how "odd" they were. By "odd" I mean that they were extraordinarily well detailed and illustrated at a time when such things weren't common. The comparison to Tékumel is an apt one, even if I think the Minarian Legends are more generally accessible.

Was Divine Right a popular game in its day? Whatever became of Glenn Rahman?

[casey777]

Yeah Minaria still has vanilla fantasy stuff like elves and dwarves, though I think they're not quite stock. Can't remember orcs, still going through the stuff! Offhand I think it could go near the Wilderlands on the way to the Petal Throne.

thread on Divine Right here on these forums

Woops! Guess the sword part of the logo got turned into a ! in my brain.

No idea on DR's popularity in the day, IIRC from the catalogs it was a bit pricey for a boardgame of the time. The reprint got mixed reviews, mainly a components / printing issue IIRC. I thought it odd that of all places, the huge anime/manga online store Right Stuf sold (made?) it, though they have been known to make exclusive one offs for anime.

[thorswulf]

I owned a copy of the game and sold it, which I am still beating myself with a flail for. There were no orcs, but the goblin Kingdoms were very strong! Some of the legendary places like the Tombs of Olde were pretty cool. I toyed around with this world as a setting but never did anything with it. Great inspirational reading if anything. As far as I know Glenn Rahman wrote at least one solo for Flying Buffalo, beyond that I have no idea.