Lost City of the Dwarves - Part 1: Discovery
Lost City of the Dwarves – Where it all began
Find out how it all began with the Lost City of the Dwarves novels. Part 1: Discovery and Part 2: Deliverance are available in print and PDF at DriveThruRPG so you can experience first-hand the epic adventure that started it all almost twenty years before the Adventure Tome campaign.
These books allow you to choose the path of your solo adventure while using a dice-rolling combat system. In addition to the main story, every book is integrated with a collection of original word puzzles that help to promote vocabulary learning. A recent, independent review by the Roleplayers Chronicle said, “It’s the right blend of traditional d20 roleplaying and gamebook action to create a unique and enjoyable experience that will definitely entertain you for hours.”
The Path of Legends book series brings you back into the era of gaming when dice ruled the battlefield and a sharp pencil was your weapon of choice. If you crave adventure, you’ve come to the right place. If you love a good story with fantastic artwork, we have what you’re looking for. If you long for a good excuse to roll dice, seek no further. Everything that an armchair adventurer could hope to find is here on these pages, all you need to supply is your imagination and your trusty pencil to embark on an adventure that’s suitable for all ages. Even dice are optional, but they do make the story more exciting.
When you got up this morning, you probably didn’t have this on your to-do list:
- Discover long-lost city
- Defeat rat-man leader
- Wipe out mutated army
- Destroy a nightmare legend
But if this sounds like the adventure for you then delve into the Lost City of the Dwarves! You’ll be hunting for enchanted items, battling goblins, rat-men and other creatures, enhancing your combat with a variety of potions and solving puzzles with deadly traps. Included in the book is a detailed Codex with character sheets, various word puzzles, and an illustrated guide of the treasures you can find. All you need to supply is your adventurer’s spirit, some gaming dice and a pencil.
A print version is available at DriveThruRPG where you get the PDF version free with your printed book purchase.
Lost City of the Dwarves - Part 2: Deliverance
You have found the lost nation of Dwarves deep within their ruined city and defeated many of their enemies in the process. And while you stumbled into their realm as a novice adventurer with only the clothes on your back, you are now a 5th level Hero who has accumulated a small arsenal of enchanted weapons and items. It’s hard to believe that your adventure is only half over. The crucial finale of this historic event hangs in the balance, and you are the one to tip the scales in the Dwarves’ favour. In order to emerge victorious you must delve deeper into the Lost City of the Dwarves where you will find your greatest challenges yet, and even greater treasures. You may even accomplish the feat of becoming a living legend.
A print version is available at DriveThruRPG where you get the PDF version free with your printed book purchase.
Path of Legends is an adventure gaming book series like no other. The series begins with a two part adventure; Lost City of the Dwarves: Discovery and Lost City of the Dwarves: Deliverance. These stories are not a jumble of paragraphs which you stumble through randomly, nor are they full of unavoidable and unexpected instant death scenarios that rarely make sense. These stories are set in a traditional fantasy-medieval world and have the quality of a well-written novel which you navigate through as the main hero. By using a trimmed-down d20 rule system you will experience maximum adventure with a minimum learning curve whether you’re an expert dungeon delver or have yet to slay your first dragon. Best of all, the character that you create and build throughout the first story can be used in the next book - your victories and treasures do not disappear at the end of the first novel, but continue on with you to finish the next Lost City of the Dwarves book.
Why use this type of format? Over the decades, I feel that role-playing games have evolved into over-complicated gaming systems for which you need to read and memorize hundreds of pages of rules before you can start playing, and that’s only if you can organize a group of friends who are willing to do the same. At Pen & Forge Productions, the aim is to bring back that beloved, uncomplicated, tried and true role-playing experience from the 1980s, combine it with great artwork and make adventuring available to anyone – quality before quantity. The free set of multi-player rules enables you to play this adventure with one or more friends (or family), turning this solo-adventure into a ready to play campaign. Just roll up your characters and dive in.
The first two books take place in a lost Dwarven city where you embark on an adventure of legendary proportions. You will battle fearsome beasts, discover wondrous, magical treasures, and make new allies to help you along your way. Many challenges will need to be overcome for you to survive. Only by combining your wit, skill and adventuring prowess will you be able to beat the odds and emerge victorious. While each book does have a definitive end, how you get there is up to you. Some paths along the way are unavoidable, and you will need to face those dangers sooner or later, while others are completely optional or well hidden. You will need to adventure through each book a few times before exploring every aspect that it has to offer. Be forewarned, however, that merely surviving the various quests, traps and monsters along the way will not earn you an illustrious title. Only the truly courageous and noble of heart will earn the legendary status at the conclusion of each story.
Besides taking you on an amazing adventure, each novel includes a Codex that is full of extra content, from a summary of all magical items that you can expect to find to instruction on some of the local culture that could help you solve some of the puzzles. There are even crossword puzzles, word scrambles and word searches to help readers expand their vocabulary and gain some bonus treasure, giving you some educational downtime without losing your adventuring theme.
Finally, I would like to claim that these books are kid friendly. From the clean, professional artwork to the captivating story, every Path of Legends book will be an adventure that you can send your kids on without worrying about any profane or explicit content. While written so that adult gamers can enjoy the challenge, these books were also written with young readers in mind. Sure, they’ll be pretending to battle hordes of goblins and other beasties with an array of medieval weaponry, but they’ll be doing it in an environment that promotes adventure, learning and imagination, not excessive gore and brutal violence. And if you’ve always dreamt of becoming a gaming family, Lost City of the Dwarves is a great way to introduce kids to the wonders of pre-digital gaming.
A bit more ...
FREE DOWNLOADS
The Prologue trilogy is a free mini-adventure series that I’ve written to promote my Path of Legends books – just click on the images above to download them from DriveThruRPG. These short adventures take place in a different part of the lost city as a background story. The premise is the same in that you build a character and choose your way through the adventure, but you’ll find new information to shed a bit more light on the story behind the Lost City of the Dwarves.
These free downloads form a three part mini-adventure that sets the background for Lost City of the Dwarves. It gives the reader some extra information about the main story without spoiling the adventure while also giving you a good idea about my writing style and the type of adventure I have created with my novels. This mini-adventure trilogy will take place around the two novels as a background story to give some extra details about the Dwarven city and its history, along with some history about the adversaries that you will also encounter.
Since this is a prequel to the novel, and the entire series, I have designed it as an "in the works" book by using initial sketches instead of the finished artwork. I have also modified the rules a bit to use regular six-sided dice since not everybody has polyhedron gaming dice. However, if you have downloaded the Codex (see below) with the full set of adventuring rules, plus you have your own polyhedron dice, then you can play through this mini-adventure using those. If you don't have any dice on hand then there are several dice apps that can be downloaded from the web. So enjoy the story, and don’t hesitate to pass it on to anyone whom you think would like it as well.
Lost City of the Dwarves: Multi-Player Rules
This free rule set allows between 2 to 5 people to adventure through the Lost City of the Dwarves together. Though originally written as a solo adventure, it can now be run as a multi-player campaign with some story alterations that are outlined in these rules. There are also many new magical items and treasure to be found so everyone doesn't have to share the original items in the story. Just click on the picture to download these rules from DriveThruRPG.
Dwarven Codices
While already included with each Lost City of the Dwarves book, these downloads are also useful for anyone who has bought a printed version of the book and does not wish to write in it, though I encourage you to do so. You can also print off multiple character sheets and Word Puzzle sheets if needed. The Codex is also a good file to download if you would like to get a better idea of what you will find when adventuring in the lost city before buying the novels. The brown codex is from the first book, Discovery, and the black one accompanies the second book, Deliverance. Just click on their pictures to download them from DriveThruRPG.
Also available here is the separate, full-size character sheet from the Codex which holds more info than the character sheet from the mini-adventure Prologue.
Free Bookmarks
These bookmarks are excellent companions to the printed novels. The first one has some good reference info on it so you won't have to keep turning to the front of the book, and the second one has a size reference picture to give you a better idea just how big the various creatures are in this story.
- Print the file on heavy paper.
- Cut the page in half to separate the two bookmarks and carefully fold them in half along the dotted line.
- Trim them to get rid of the extra paper.
- Once you're happy with the result you can use some glue stick to keep them together. Make sure the glue is dry before putting them in your books.
(works best when the file is printed from Adobe Reader)
Dwarven Battle Dice
Dwarven Battle Dice is an original, collectible dice game played with special six-sided dice that you can make yourself using downloadable files, allowing you to print stickers to apply to standard 16mm six-sided dice, thereby crafting your own Dwarven Battle Dice. Each file has images for ten random dice, and there are twenty different files that will be rotating every week or so. This will ensure that it is difficult to collect a complete set of dice by downloads only, and that you will instead need to collect them as the Dwarves do; by playing against other people. By finding other adventurers like yourself who have ventured along the Path of Legends you can exchange stories and trade dice, or battle for them like the ancient Dwarves did. Only by doing this will you be able to seek out the dice that you need to complete your favourite set and be able to officially use a Random Event Die in the game.
Click on the dice bag to see which random dice are available this week. I have also made a PDF (viewed best in Acrobat) with complete details and instructions for making your dice.
Known Dice Sets
The following is a catalogue of the known Dwarven Battle Dice sets that have been discovered thus far, along with the Elemental Glyph of Power, if any, that is found on the Random Event die. Each set is indicated whether it is common (C), difficult to find (D) or a rare, mastercrafted set (M).
Boulder Chip (C): Brown stone with white runes. Element: None.
Mudstone (C): Brown stone with black runes. Element: None.
Slate (C): Gray stone with black runes. Element: None.
Ferris (C): Gray iron ore with rust coloured runes. Element: None.
Cave Rock (C): Beige stone with black runes. Element: None.
Marble (C): White stone with brown runes. Element: None.
Frost Quartz (D): Light blue stone with white runes. Element: Ice.
Flame Stone (D): Red stone with yellow runes. Element: Fire.
Shock Shale (D): Black stone with yellow runes. Element: Lightning.
Mountain Jade (D): Green jade with silver runes. Element: Mountain.
Obsidian (M): Black stone with silver runes. Element: Hammer
Mithryl (M): Gray Mithryl ore with silver runes. Element: Mithryl.
Golem (M): Gray Mithryl ore with blue runes. Element: Golem.
Griffon (M): Copper ore with yellow runes. Element: Griffon.
Hydra (M): Yellow stone with green runes. Element: Hydra.
You can read about the rules and history of Dwarven Battle Dice in either Codex (see above).
FAQ
Frequently Anticipated Questions
Will there be any more solo books?
LCotD ended with a hint of future adventures, but a lack of sales has kept me from expanding the series in the way that was intended. Instead, I have focused on the multi-player Adventure Tome expansion in hopes of appealing to the larger, multi-player audience.
Don’t forget to visit the gift shop on your way out of the dungeon!
From stickers and magnets to mugs and shirts, there’s something for everyone at the Pen & Forge Redbubble shop. All of the amazing black and white artwork from the Path of Legends books is now being coloured and loaded onto product.
Check out our Free downloads
