Sword & sorcery stands out as a fantasy subgenre outlined by its rugged heroes, their mastery of the blade, and their thrilling adventures in untamed lands. Whereas romance, magic, and the supernatural usually discover their manner into these tales, the guts of sword & sorcery lies within the private struggles of its protagonists, somewhat than the looming threats confronted by total kingdoms or civilizations.

Pulp author Fritz Lieber coined the time period “sword and sorcery” as a play on the present genres of “cloak and sword” (historic journey) and “cloak and dagger” (spy fiction). Lieber meant to evoke Robert E. Howard’s fantasy tales, tales that may finally change into synonymous with the sword and sorcery style. Lieber’s personal creations, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, would additional solidify the style’s identification.

Sword and sorcery is a distinct segment inside fantasy fiction, and its recognition has risen and fallen a number of instances over time. Like epic fantasy, it unfolds inside a magical secondary world. Nevertheless, the emphasis on private conflicts and the intimate scale of the stakes units it aside.

Examples of Sword & Sorcery

The most effective methods to be taught to put in writing in a selected model is to learn it. Check out this listing of sword & sorcery novels or sequence, which represents the previous and current of the style. Honest warning: the earliest works listed below are very a lot “of their time,” and will embody content material fashionable readers discover disturbing.

• Conan the Barbarian, Robert E. Howard
• Elric of Melniboné sequence, Michael Moorcock
• The Blade Itself, Joe Abercromby
• The Identify of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
• Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed
• The Copper Promise, Jen Williams
• The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, Kai Ashante Wilson
• The Witcher, Andrzej Sapkowski

Sword & Sorcery in ttRPGs

Sword & sorcery aligns very carefully to the beginnings of the tabletop RPG interest. So Outdated Faculty Renaissance, or OSR techniques, are sometimes an excellent match for operating a marketing campaign on this style!

As a result of troublesome, harmful fight is a major focus of the subgenre, these techniques are sometimes extra mechanically dense, or “crunchy.” That’s partly as a result of the heroes are usually lone wolf warriors working on the perimeters of civilization, which suggests useful resource administration can come into play. In some methods, the quantity crunching mirrors the painful bone crunching concerned in fight!

If you wish to play a rules-light marketing campaign, there are techniques that work – it’s only a much less widespread mixture. Try these ttRPG techniques and settings.

• Savage Worlds – a fast-paced and versatile tabletop role-playing recreation system recognized for its cinematic model.
• Dungeon Crawl Classics – provides an old-school aesthetic that embraces unpredictable and sometimes perilous outcomes.
• Barbarians of Lemuria – a rules-light system emphasizing fast-paced and narrative-driven adventures in a world impressed by basic pulp fantasy.
• RuneQuest – a recreation influenced closely by Bronze Age cultures, that includes deadly fight and deep customization for heroes.
• Zweihander – a recreation of gallows humor, social intrigue, investigative thriller, occult magic, supernatural horror, and historic vendettas meted out with blackpowder, sorcery, and metal.

Designing a Harmful Fantasy World

Worldbuilding and writing successfully means understanding reader or participant expectations. Even – or particularly – if you happen to plan to subvert them! So it’s finest to know the widespread parts. Many  settings on this fantasy style embody these tropes:

Noir Temper

It’s a darkish, harmful world poisoned by corruption. The unhealthy guys are in all probability in cost, and that femme asking for assist – properly, she’s in all probability fatale.

Outsider Heroes

Protagonists are thieves, mercenaries (or each) on the fringes of society. “Lone wolf” morally-gray warriors begrudgingly be a part of a associate with complementary expertise.

Pulp Origins

The tales are normally filled with swashbuckling motion, journey and cliffhangers. Civilization is a entice, and whereas the wilderness will in all probability kill you, at the least you’ll die free.

Private Stakes

Chances are high, your characters aren’t on this for justice, fact and apple pie. They anticipate to be well-paid (both in chilly, arduous coin or candy, petty vengeance).

Corrupting Magic

Magic is normally uncommon, darkish, harmful, and most frequently wielded by a strong enemy. It’s not a sensible substitute for know-how.

Brutal Fight

Not like the almost invulnerable heroes of different subgenres, sword & sorcery heroes take a nasty beating earlier than rising victorious. They’re the Rocky Balboa of fantasy heroes.

Writing Fashionable Sword & Sorcery

Originating within the pulp and noir fiction of the early mid-twentieth century, this fantasy subgenre retained a few of these works’ regressive attitudes till the Nineteen Eighties. That’s when sword & sorcery had a resurgence in curiosity, and a artistic revival.

Towards the top of the millennium, writers started reimagining what sword & sorcery may very well be. They usually borrowed an elevated prose model from literary fiction, and generally included larger stakes from epic fantasy, whereas sustaining the mercenary/outsider protagonists and gritty, up-close fight of conventional sword & sorcery.

This evolution has continued, permitting sword and sorcery to broaden to incorporate a extra various vary of voices – each in protagonists and authorship.

Conquer this style… on World Anvil!

Whether or not you’re a author searching for to craft your subsequent sword & sorcery novel, or a gamemaster hoping to dive right into a brutal, darkish fantasy marketing campaign, you’ll find worlds of inspiration on World Anvil. This no-holds-barred fantasy style has many followers amongst our neighborhood of two million writers, gamemasters and RPG gamers.

In case you’re desperate to take your worldbuilding expertise to the following stage, take into account becoming a member of World Anvil. Our professionally-designed worldbuilding templates, month-to-month challenges, and wonderful sources might help you conquer the savage challenges of writing sword and sorcery!