13 October 2017 | Legacy of Dragonholt

Your Place in the Story

Inside the Narrative Adventure of Legacy of Dragonholt

Terrinoth is a world full of magic and mystery. Its deep forests and dark caverns beckon to adventurers, while the plots and political intrigues of the court promise danger and hidden secrets. Now, you have the opportunity to explore the realm like never before in Legacy of Dragonholt, a cooperative narrative adventure for one to six players. This standalone game set in the Runebound universe is not about winning or losing, but about creating a story. The world is yours to command and explore as you seek love, revenge, or answers to the mysteries lurking in the seemingly quiet village. Before you strap on your pack and set out for new adventures, take a closer look at the identity of a narrative adventure game, and what you can expect to find in the world of Legacy of Dragonholt!

You can pre-order Legacy of Dragonholt at your local retailer or online through our webstore today!

What Is a Narrative Adventure Game?

Legacy of Dragonholt is a new style of game: the narrative adventure game. Its unique, intuitive system borrows elements from roleplaying games and adventure board games, open world video games, and even Choose Your Own Adventure books to create an expansive story experience. Your goal in a narrative adventure game is not to win or to lose per se—instead, you're creating a story that you can experience with your friends. However, Legacy of Dragonholt is not truly a roleplaying game, because it offers significantly more structure to your adventure, focusing your choices and helping the player to build the narrative without the need for a Game Master. A full playthrough of Legacy of Dragonholt can't (usually) be played in a single sitting. Instead, you're embarking on an adventure that will unfold over the course of several play sessions.

Players begin a game of Legacy of Dragonholt by creating their own characters, complete with a race, class, and history. Each of these aspects of character creation inform the sort of skills that your character may possess and how they contribute to the group. A rebellious elf who has turned their back on the teachings of the Latari may know little arcana, despite this skill being typically attributed to their race, but they may be a skilled apothecary with a rich knowledge of alchemy and craftsmanship. Just as in life, people are more than their pasts. There is always more than meets the eye. (We'll take a closer look at character creation in a future preview!)

Once the characters’ identities have been formed, they are placed in a fully realized world and set in motion on a story. Players may choose to go on quests in the areas surrounding your home base of Dragonholt village, help an entrepreneur start a business, or even pursue romantic interests with the people they encounter. The options are limitless and with the game system’s freedom from the need of a Game Master, everyone is a vital part of the story. While playing the game, players will be presented with a series of choices and scenarios that will affect how their story unfolds. The game tracks the choices that you make, and those same choices will affect your options and your unfolding story. We'll take a much closer look at the choices that you make below.

Even beyond the immediate impact of the choices that you make, the story of Legacy of Dragonholt changes independent to the players’ involvement as the world continues to breathe around them. Quests, stories, and interactions can change and morph based on anything and everything; from who the adventurers have met, to which items they possess, to what day of the week it is.

Explore New Vistas

As players explore Terrinoth, they will find six quests that they may embark upon. Here, they may delve into dark crypts, battle goblin bands, or solve a mystery that has plagued the once quiet village. Players do not need to become noble heroes. They are under no obligation to rescue innocents or search for treasure. The story progresses however the adventurers choose. While their decisions have consequences, ultimately, the power is with the players—and it all starts with the To New Roads adventure.

To New Roads is where you'll begin your experience with Legacy of Dragonholt—in the midst of a new adventure! Legacy of Dragonholt will teach you to play as you embark on this initial adventure, illustrating all rules as they become pertinent. At the heart of these rules and the experience of the game are the choices that you and your fellow players will make. At the beginning of the game, each adventurer receives an activation token. Whenever your band of adventurers is faced with a choice, you may naturally discuss and debate, but ultimately one player decides how the group will act. When that player declares the group’s course of action, they flip their activation token and the entire band must abide by that player’s decision. However, that player does not get the final say again until each of the players have used their activation token, at which point the tokens refresh and the cycle begins again. In this way, Legacy of Dragonholt ensures that all players have an equal opportunity to determine their fate, no matter how many players you have in your party.

For example, in the To New Roads quest, an adventurer on watch is confronted by a troupe of bandits, as described in the text to the right. This discovery of these villains leads you to first mark story point X1—marking story points is the game's way of remembering your choices and encounters and adapting to what you have done in future adventures. Perhaps the discovery of the bandits (and marking story point X1) will save the travelers by giving them extra time to escape, or make a preemptive strike more plausible. Perhaps one of the bandits will appear in a tavern in three days, or a character may find one rogue particularly attractive in the firelight. The only way to find out is to read on.

At the end of the entry, the adventurer is faced with three possible choices. They may shout a warning to their companions, draw their weapon and engage the bandits, or sneak up on the bandits and ambush them. Each decision leads to a different entry within the quest book. This is where the player’s character comes in to play. Which option makes the most sense for who they are? Does your character have the extensive military training to allow them to feel confident in direct melee? Do they even have the stealth skills that would enable them to creep up behind the bandits? There are no wrong answers, but only one can be chosen!

If players manage to make it safely out of Eventide Forest and complete the To New Roads adventure, Legacy of Dragonholt opens up into a new experience, with the vibrant village of Dragonholt itself. The party of players can explore Dragonholt by interacting with the expansive village book. With nearly 150 pages filled with possibilities, it is impossible for any troupe of adventurers to explore Dragonholt’s many hidden corners on a single playthrough. As in real life, the stories woven in Legacy of Dragonholt do not progress in a strictly linear fashion of cause and effect. Rather, the village book adopts an open world concept where adventurers are free to explore shops, taverns, libraries, and even the manor of Lady Regina Fairfax, the Countess of Dragonholt. In this sweeping literary landscape, players may only see a quarter of the entries during any game, but the encounters that you have, and the friends that you make can have an effect on countless other storylines.

As part of your explorations in the village of Dragonholt, you and your fellow adventurers will inevitably uncover the threads of additional quests, leading you out into the wild. These quests may lead you into dark crypts, into battle with marauding goblins, or into even stranger situations—and we don't want to spoil what you may encounter in Terrinoth once you stray beyond Dragonholt's borders. But rest assured that these quests provide you with new stories to tell, testing your characters to the utmost and transforming every game of Legacy of Dragonholt that you play in completely unique ways.