''Atlantis'' is a

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

(RPG) originally published by

Bard Games Bard Games was an American game company that produced role-playing games and game supplements. Products Bard Games was formed in 1982 by Steven Cordovano, Vernie Taylor and Stephan Michael Sechi, who each put up $600. Their intention was to mark ...

, set in the ancient world before

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

sank. It first consisted of three books: '' The Arcanum'', '' The Lexicon'', and '' The Bestiary'', and for this reason was originally called ''The Atlantean Trilogy'' or ''The Atlantis Trilogy''. ''Atlantis'' was one of the many fantasy RPGs that followed the rise of the popular ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...

'' RPG in the late 1970s. However, instead of featuring a fictional fantasy world such as ''D&D''s

Greyhawk Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for ''Dungeons & Dragons''—Dave Arneson' ...

or ''

Runequest ''RuneQuest'' (commonly abbreviated as RQ) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally designed by Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson (game designer), Steve Henderson, and Warren James, and set in Greg Stafford (game designer), Gre ...

''s

Glorantha Glorantha is a fantasy world created by Greg Stafford. Overview It was first introduced in the board game '' White Bear and Red Moon'' (1975) by Chaosium and then in a number of other board, roleplaying and computer games, including ''RuneQ ...

, ''Atlantis'' is based on a pseudo-historical version of the Earth and features historical mythology and creatures from myth.

Setting

The world setting is

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

, but in a fictionalized Antediluvian Age (a quasi-historical/mythical interpretation of the ancient past).

Geography

The geographic regions and real-world influences are: * Mediterranea (

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

) * Eria (

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

) * Tamoanchan (

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

) *

Turan Turan (; ; , , ) is a historical region in Central Asia. The term is of Iranian origin and may refer to a particular prehistoric human settlement, a historic geographical region, or a culture. The original Turanians were an Iranian tribe of th ...

(

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

) *

Gondwana Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zea ...

(

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

) * Jambu (

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

) * the Nether Realm (

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

) * Anostos and Jotunland (

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

and

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

). Mythical continents are also added: * Atlantia (Atlantis), * Antilla, *

Hyperborea In Greek mythology, the Hyperboreans (, ; ) were a mythical people who lived in the far northern part of the Ecumene, known world. Their name appears to derive from the Greek , "beyond Boreas (god), Boreas" (the God of the north wind). Some schol ...

Lemuria Lemuria (), or Limuria, was a continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, theorized to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by occultists in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the dis ...

* Mu * and others

Publication history

In the 1980s a group of friends — Vernie Taylor, Steven Cordovano, and

Stephan Michael Sechi Stephan Michael Sechi is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career Stephan Michael Sechi, Steven Cordovano and Vernie Taylor contributed $600 each to form the company Bard Games in 1982 to produce supplements for ' ...

— who played a highly customized version of ''

'' with new, specialized character classes and magic spells, decided to publish their improvements to the game. Each of them put up $600 to form

The Compleat Series

In 1983 the new company published three books known as the "Compleat Series": '' The Compleat Adventurer'' by Sechi, '' The Compleat Spell Caster'' by Taylor and Sechi, and '' The Compleat Alchemist'' by Cordovano and Sechi. No specific role-playing system rules were mentioned, the unwritten assumption being that players would use the popular ''Dungeons & Dragons'' rules.

First edition: ''The Atlantean Trilogy''

The following year, the books of ''The Compleat Series'' were combined with a new role-playing system into one central rulebook, '' The Arcanum'', a 156-page softcover book by Sechi and Taylor. This was followed in 1985 by '' The Lexicon'', a 128-page softcover book by Sechi, Taylor and Ed Mortimer that provided the setting, and '' The Bestiary'' in 1986, a 132-page softcover book written by Sechi and

J. Andrew Keith John Andrew Keith (August 31, 1958 – August 7, 1999) was an American author and games developer. Career J. Andrew Keith, and his brother William H. Keith Jr., responded to ads in ''Journal of the Travellers Aid Society'' for authors to wri ...

that provided the creatures. As a result, the role-playing game became known as ''The Atlantean Trilogy''; later versions with fewer than three books were simply titled ''Atlantis''. Sechi would go on to produce the role-playing game ''

Talislanta ''Talislanta'' is a fantasy role-playing game published by Bard Games in 1987 that forgoes many of the tropes used by popular games of the genre in favor of a unique world and many new game mechanisms. There have been six different English-langu ...

'', also published by Bard Games in 1987. In the 2014 book ''Designer & Dragons: The '80s'', game historian Shannon Appelcline wrote that "Because of the success of their ''Compleat'' books, Bard Games decided to combine the best information from those supplements within a game system and a setting. The result — which would become known as "The Atlantis Trilogy" — would really put Bard on the map. Stephan Michael Sechi oversaw this new and daunting project — which took three years to complete. Eventually he produced three books: ''The Arcanum'' (1984), ''The Lexicon'' (1985), and ''The Bestiary'' (1986). The system was clearly derivative of ''D&D'', but it also introduced character skills and point-based character creation. The setting was a bit more unique, as it portrayed an antediluvian world of myth (though it also contained some off-key elements including typical fantasy races of ''D&D'' and even druids). Some players embraced the new game as a more complex ''D&D'' with a uniquely textured setting."

Second edition: ''Atlantis''

A second edition of ''The Arcanum'' was published in 1985 with revised and updated rules. Three years later, Bard Press combined ''The Lexicon'' and ''The Bestiary'' into a single book, '' Atlantis: The Lost World''.

Third edition: ''Atlantis''

In 1996, Death's Edge Games released a third edition, largely based on the second edition, with the addition of a new race, the Selkie.

''Atlantis: The Second Age''

In 2005, Khepera Publishing released ''Atlantis: The Second Age'' replacing Bard Game's original role-playing rules with Morrigan Press's Omni System. In 2014, Khepera Publishing released a newer and updated version via kickstarter for ''Atlantis: The Second Age 2e'' using a different System : Omega System.

30th anniversary edition

In 2012, K. David Ladage purchased the rights to ''The Arcanum'', but not the rights to ''The Lexicon'' and ''The Bestiary'', which were still held by Khepera Publishing. The following year, doing business as ZiLa Games, Ladage ran a Kickstarter to re-release ''The Arcanum'' in a new, cleaned up and re-edited form. However, when ZiLa was unable to deliver after three years, all backers were reimbursed their entire pledge. In 2017, he ran a second Kickstarter to re-release ''The Arcanum'' and both a PDF of the book and the book itself were delivered in 2019.

Reception

In the December 1986 edition of ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a Compact star, stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very density, dense: in an Earth sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun. No nuclear fusion takes place i ...

'' (Issue #85), Phil Frances reviewed all three books of the original edition of ''The Atlantean Trilogy'', and noted the similarities to ''Dungeon & Dragons'', commenting "I found myself playing ''Spot the D&D Equivalent'' — a game not mentioned in the book. It sure whiffs of That Game a lot ..It's pretty obvious from the start which game this was primaririly intended for." He concluded that ''The Arcanum'' was probably not an essential buy for more experienced gamers, saying, "You can get by without this if you already own a roleplaying game; if not, its a solid starting base." Frances had good things to say about both ''The Lexicon'' — "oodles of pretty maps" — and ''The Bestiary'' — "my favourite because of the illustrations by

Bill Sienkiewicz Boleslav William Felix Robert Sienkiewicz ( ; ; born May 3, 1958) is an American artist known for his work in comic books—particularly for Marvel Comics' ''The New Mutants (comic book), The New Mutants'', ''Moon Knight,'' and ''Elektra: Assassi ...

(of

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...

)." In his 1990 book ''

The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games ''The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games'' is a book written by Rick Swan and published by St. Martin's Press in 1990 that explains role-playing games and provides reviews of those that were on the market at the time. Contents ''The Complete G ...

'', game critic

Rick Swan Rick Swan is a game designer and author who worked for TSR. His work for TSR, mostly for ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'', appeared from 1989 to 1995. Swan also wrote '' The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games'' (1990), published by St. Martin' ...

called this game "a winner" but pointed out that "As a game it's adequate, but nothing special. As a supplement [to another role-playing game such as ''

''] ''Arcanum'' is unsurpassed, easily one of the best treatments of magic ever published." Swan concluded by giving the game a rating of 3 out of 4, saying, "For those interested in expanding the magic systems of other fantasy RPGs, ''Arcanum'' serves as an excellent source of ideas."

References

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