ElfQuest TTRPG Returns For New Printing

Chaosium is bringing back the ElfQuest roleplaying game. Today, Chaosium announced that it would produce a "classic reissue" of ElfQuest: The Official Roleplaying Game, which was originally released in 1984. The game is an official adaptation of the popular fantasy indie comic created by Wendy and Richard Pini. A Kickstarter for the RPG will launch in October 2024, with plans to publish the game in its original box edition format, with later supplements included. The Kickstarter will help fund new printings of all the 1984 publications.

ElfQuest is a culturally significant comic first published in 1978. The Pinis chose to self-publish the original series, although it was later reprinted by Marvel and DC, with Dark Horse publishing a follow-up series called The Final Quest. ElfQuest was one of the first "indie" comic successes, bridging the divide between the underground comics movement and the later explosion of indie comics during the 1980s and 1990s.

The ElfQuest TTRPG uses Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System and was originally written by Steve Perrin, Sandy Petersen, and Yurek Chodak. Chaosium president Rick Meints will lead the Chaosium team working on the new reprint, with Meints also having led the Call of Cthulhu Classic and RuneQuest Classic reprints. The Pinis will work with Chaosium on the new ElfQuest RPG's development and presentation.

 

[Zarithar]

I owned it back in the day (just the base boxed set) and was a rabid fan of the original 20 issue run of the comics. As I got older and more jaded, I found I couldn't get into the newer stuff quite as much and have never actually finished the series as a whole. The initial Wolfrider Saga (first 20 issues) was excellent though. I will definitely be backing this!

 

[Mannahnin]

I owned it back in the day (just the base boxed set) and was a rabid fan of the original 20 issue run of the comics. As I got older and more jaded, I found I couldn't get into the newer stuff quite as much and have never actually finished the series as a whole. The initial Wolfrider Saga (first 20 issues) was excellent though. I will definitely be backing this!

For my money the Siege at Blue Mountain series which followed the original run* is every bit as good, though I didn't like Kings of the Broken Wheel as much.

*(20 issues in indie magazine format, split to 32 regular-sized issues with ads in the Marvel Epic reprints)

 

[MacDhomnuill]

Not much different, honestly. The big thing is the use of the Resistance Table (which I honestly dislike quite a bit).

Ditching the resistance table is the one thing I wanted from CoC/BRP for decades. So glad they did it.

 

[aramis erak]

Sweet. I still have my original paperback on the shelf.

I suggested to Richard that they do this back in about 2006...
So I've been waiting for it.

I hope it's available in PDF; I've got dead tree of the originals.

 

[aramis erak]

I have Elfquest 2nd Edition - it looks like it’s just a compilation of the Elfbook and Worldbook from the 1e boxed set plus the Companion supplement and the map attached in the back.

I read it back in the day but never played it. I could not think of a better story than the original quest. I’m getting this and now I know I can just play smaller plots and personal quests.

Keep in mind: The game is built upon the premise of the PCs being a second holt of Wolfriders... an idea presented also in Blood of Ten Chiefs (IIRC vol 2), with the Wolfhaven Holt, splitting off some generations prior to Hunter's quest.

(For those who don't know, it does also include gen for Blue Mountain, and Letah's tribe, as well as the snow elves, and also the plainsrunners and another I forget; the Sea Elves supplement adds the dolphin riding sea elves to thegame. Oh, and there are generation rules for Trolls and Preservers, too.)

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I read it back in the day but never played it. I could not think of a better story than the original quest. I’m getting this and now I know I can just play smaller plots and personal quests.

The one group I can recall from back in the day ran a short campaign around finding and cleansing pockets of bad magic that had been scattered around their territory by an unnatural storm. So, lot of exploration to locate areas showing symptoms of corruption, trace it to the heart and then performing rituals to disperse or transform the energies to something beneficial instead. Kind of a "magic eco-warrior" vibe going on. Opposition was everything from chimerical horrors like Madcoil to flora that had been twisted to produce dangerous (or at least weird) fruit/seeds/etc. to dangerously enchanted streams that were ruining a big swath of land - and the exploration part of things led the tribe to meet human and even troll refugees from the effects of all this, some hostile, some just desperate, a few friendly.

I think the long-term plan was for the PCs to discover what had caused the magic storm in the first place, but I had to leave for college and never found out how it ended - or even if it did.

So yeah, you can definitely move beyond the source material.

 

[Dumnbunny]

I'll be backing this. I'm not sure I'll ever play it, but it will be fun to read! My wife, who doesn't play RPGs but is a huge fan of ElfQuest, would probably enjoy reading it, too.

I really hope they reprint all of the Elric rpg books!

From your lips to Michael Moorcock's ears!

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Someone who's still got a copy (mine died in an apartment fire in the early 2000s), refresh my memory: "Recognition" didn't actually have hard/mandatory mechanics associated with it, did it? No PC was ever forced to "check for Recognition" on meeting someone new or anything like that, yeah? I've seen a few people going off on what a deal-killer the concept is, and while I can't say I give a fig myself (elves are aliens, not humans, and should have some alien biological and psychological traits to reflect that - and really, this is nothing compared to playing an aldryami over in Glorantha) I don't recall it being some kind of forced mechanic on PCs instead of a potential source of narrative drama. Am I misremembering?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

While I remember seeing ads for the Elfquest RPG in Dragon magazine back in the day, I didn't get into the Elfquest comics until the early 00s, devouring the collections at my local library. Very excited for this Kickstarter.

 

[Zarithar]

For my money the Siege at Blue Mountain series which followed the original run* is every bit as good, though I didn't like Kings of the Broken Wheel as much.

*(20 issues in indie magazine format, split to 32 regular-sized issues with ads in the Marvel Epic reprints)

I'll have to give Siege at Blue Mountain another look then