Free League announces Dragonbane, the translation of Swedish RPG classic Drakar och Demoner

Today Free League announced an English version of Drakar och Demoner, the seminal fantasy RPG in Sweden. The original dwarfed D&D in the Scandinavian market during the 80s and remains massively popular still in this day. A new edition of Sweden's first RPG Drakar och Demoner, finally in English after 40 years – the Kickstarter begins August 30 We are thrilled to announce the Dragonbane RPG...

Today Free League announced an English version of Drakar och Demoner, the seminal fantasy RPG in Sweden. The original dwarfed D&D in the Scandinavian market during the 80s and remains massively popular still in this day.
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A new edition of Sweden's first RPG Drakar och Demoner, finally in English after 40 years – the Kickstarter begins August 30
We are thrilled to announce the Dragonbane RPG, a brand new edition of Sweden's first and biggest tabletop roleplaying game Drakar och Demoner, now to be published in English for the first time.

Dragonbane / Drakar och Demoner is coming to Kickstarter August 30.
Sign up here to be notified the moment the campaign starts:

Drakar och Demoner was originally launched in Sweden in 1982. Now, we celebrate its 40th anniversary with a brand new and reimagined edition, with one foot firmly planted in the heritage of decades of Swedish gaming and the other in the modern and innovative game design for which Free League is known worldwide.

There has been talk about the "Swedish invasion" in the RPG world in the last few years, with award-winning titles like Mutant: Year Zero, Tales From the Loop, Symbaroum, Forbidden Lands, and MÖRK BORG. Drakar och Demoner is the game that started it all. And now, for the first time, the game will also be available to an international audience, under the English title Dragonbane.

Drakar och Demoner / Dragonbane has art by acclaimed illustrator Johan Egerkrans (Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying and art books Vaesen, Norse Gods, The Undead, Dragons) and lead game design by Tomas Härenstam (Mutant: Year Zero, Forbidden Lands, ALIEN RPG, Twilight: 2000 4th Edition, and the upcoming Blade Runner RPG). The team of contributing writers include the elite of the Swedish tabletop RPG industry as well as acclaimed historical fiction author Niklas Natt och Dag (1793 The Wolf and the Watchman).

For a glimpse at the fantasy odyssey to come, check out the artwork from the upcoming core boxed set in this newsletter. More details about Drakar och Demoner / Dragonbane will be shared via our social media accounts throughout the weeks leading up to launch.

Drakar och Demoner / Dragonbane is a classic fantasy RPG full of magic, mystery, and adventure. This new edition is designed from the ground up to facilitate fast and furious play, with very little prep time and adventures that are a breeze to run.

Although a toolbox allowing you to tell fantasy stories of all kinds, Drakar och Demoner / Dragonbane is a game with room for laughs at the table and even a pinch of sillyness at times – while at the same time offering brutal challenges for your adventurers.

We call this playstyle "mirth and mayhem roleplaying" – great for long campaigns but also perfect for a one-shot if you just want to have some quick fun at the table for a night. The core set will include at least one complete adventure and we hope to unlock many more as stretch goals, offering a complete campaign to play even in the core game set.
 

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It will be an update to the old engine, using D20 instead of D100 and fixing some problematic rules. So hopefully it will feel lika a contemporary take on a skill based system.

So I think this will feel very different from modern Runequest (which I know very little about to be honest).
Well, I'm pretty sure I will back it (Free League things usually click with me immediately), but so far I thought of it mostly as an interesting read. If it happens to be a nice, modern take on a skill-based fantasy system, I might actually also play. I didn't see too much on the mechanics so far, though. Probably that's something that will come in the coming weeks?
 

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Jer

Legend
Supporter
Yeah, is there room for another fantasy RPG is the question? I hope so!
Free League already has two fantasy RPGs though. Even if there is room for another, it's weird to have a single company competing against itself like that.

(Though I suspect that a good chunk of what they're going for is nostalgia in their home market and curiosity in the US. So I guess it probably won't be really "competing" with Symbaroum or Forbidden Lands in that sense.)
 

Staffan

Legend
Free League already has two fantasy RPGs though. Even if there is room for another, it's weird to have a single company competing against itself like that.

(Though I suspect that a good chunk of what they're going for is nostalgia in their home market and curiosity in the US. So I guess it probably won't be really "competing" with Symbaroum or Forbidden Lands in that sense.)
Helmgast, the other "big" Swedish RPG company has three fantasy RPGs going on. Though maybe 2½ is more accurate, since one (Kopparhavets Hjältar) is a variant on another (Hjältarnas Tid).
 


Staffan

Legend
On the one hand, that is super cool, but on the other feels about 40 years too late to yhe Anglosphere party?
We'll see. From where I'm sitting, it seems likely that the main point is to release a new Swedish version co-inciding with the 40th anniversary. But since Free League are international these days, they likely figured that they might as well release it in English as well. They'll be able to use the same development work, the same art, mostly the same design/layout stuff, and just incur relatively minor translation costs while opening up a much larger market.

They're probably not expecting it to knock D&D off the RPG throne, and I'd actually be surprised if it outsells their own Symbaroum on the international market, but it's a fair bit of profit for a low cost.
 


Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens
Supporter
I think part of this is a Swedish company wanting to release an updated version of the most popular Swedish RPG ever. That's not weird, its awesome. I also think Free League has enough die hard fans that there shouldn't be any issues with 'is there room for it' or anything like that. Personally, I think early BRP updated by the Free League design team sounds great. (y)
 
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