Another repeat bundle - The Dying Earth

[ffutures]

Yet another repeat (the third) of a bundle originally offered in 2014, The Dying Earth from Pelgrane Press (not the recent "old school revival" version of this setting from Goodman Games for Dungeon Crawl Classics)

Pelgrane Dying Earth

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DERPG2024

Originally presented in January 2014 and again in 2015, 2017, and 2020, this Pelgrane Dying Earth Bundle returns for yet another revivification. Once again this comprehensive offer encompasses the entire product line for the 2001 Dying Earth RPG from Pelgrane Press based on the world-famous Dying Earth stories by legendary fantasist Jack Vance.

[Note: This is the first Dying Earth RPG, published by Pelgrane Press in 2001 through 2012, and not the recent Goodman Games Dying Earth campaign setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics.]

Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories portray the exploits of characters ranging from vat-grown beauties to wandering scoundrels to vainglorious magicians, who eat, drink, gamble, explore, and cheat their way through what is widely presumed to be the final era of history. Above them, the sun has reddened and grown spotty with age; all assume it will soon extinguish itself. The cities of the Dying Earth are places of exotic and decadent beauty. Strange foods and bizarre clothing are commonplace. The world is littered with forgotten ruins and plagued by dangerous predators. Only the foolhardy or powerful venture far from the safety of their communities. The latter group is intimately familiar with arcane secrets of magic, which, though wondrous and impressive, are mere shadows of the achievement of previous ages.

Published in 2001, The Dying Earth RPG was the first official tabletop RPG based on Jack Vance's work and one of the earliest releases from Pelgrane Press, which has since published 13th Age, the GUMSHOE line of games, and many more. Designer Robin D. Laws (The Yellow King RPG, Cthulhu Confidential, Feng Shui) captures the essence of Vance's stories through an ingenious rules system that downplays combat in favor of intricate social rules of persuasion and rebuff. The game text anatomizes elements that mark the Dying Earth stories: odd customs, crafty swindles, heated protests and presumptuous claims, casual cruelty, weird magic, strange vistas, ruined wonders, exotic food, and foppish apparel. Here the importance of a flashing sword is matched by nimble wits, persuasive words, and a fine sense of fashion.

We provide each title complete in .PDF. Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these ebooks have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices.

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) goes to this Pelgrane Dying Earth revival's designated charity, Cancer Research UK. Cancer Research UK is a cancer research and awareness charity in the United Kingdom that funds more than half of the UK''s cancer research, including the life-saving work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors, and nurses fighting cancer on all fronts.

The total retail value of the titles in this revived Pelgrane Dying Earth Bundle is US$238. Customers who pay just US$19.95 get all seven titles in this revival's Essentials Collection (retail value $115) as DRM-free ebooks:

• The Dying Earth core rulebook: The complete original 192-page game by Robin D. Laws (GUMSHOE, The Yellow King RPG), plus the The Dying Earth Revivification Folio, Robin's 2012 update that adapts the Dying Earth setting to his fast-playing Skulduggery rules system (itself an evolution of the original DE rules).
• The Primer of Practical Magic: The DERPG spells adapted to the d20 System.
• The Compendium of Universal Knowledge: A huge, passably accurate, incessantly entertaining encyclopedia of the Dying Earth setting.
• Cugel's Compendium of Indispensable Advantages: Worthy adjuncts for wayward wayfarers like the protagonist of Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga.
• The Kaiin Player's Guide Robin Laws's all-encompassing guidebook to a city perfect for long-term play at all levels. Includes the bonus "Old Town" chapter.
• The Scaum Valley Gazetteer: An exhaustive travelogue of the ideal starting region for new characters.

Those who pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $39.95 to start, also get this revival's Compleat Collection with nineteen more titles worth an additional $123 that amplify any Dying Earth game at all three levels of play:

• Turjan's Tome of Beauty and Horror: For the brave and adventurous seekers of the Last Hundred Spells, as seen in Jack Vance's first Dying Earth book.
• Rhialto's Book of Marvels: Powerful magic for the fractious arch-magicians of Rhialto the Marvellous.
• Demons of the Dying Earth and Tooth, Talon, & Pinion : Denizens of this mundane world and its unspeakable subworlds that will ruffle your most blase characters.
• Three introductory adventures for Cugel-, Turjan-, and Rhialto-level play: The Day of the Quelo, Gomoshan's Tomb, and The Creep of Inaccuracy.
• Fields of Silver: An epic Turjan-level campaign.
• "In the Footsteps of Fools": All five installments of Ian Thomson's panoramic campaign – All's Fair in Azenomei, Strangers in Saskervoy, Lords of Cil, Beyond the Mountains of Magnatz, And Thence to Almery.
• The Excellent Prismatic Spray: All six issues of the authoritative Dying Earth RPG periodical, with contributions from many gaming luminaries.

 

In 2017 (and again in 2020) I said ""The Dying Earth is one of the classic RPGs with a lot of interesting ideas and a huge amount of material for the money... My recommendation is a definite YES! for Dying Earth, if you know Vance at all you probably want to role-play this setting, and this is the kit of tools to do it."

I still don't see any reason to change that.