Been reading the old Tales of Gargentihr game, the sole product by Scotland-based Sanctuary Games, and am filled with curiosity about it. Gargentihr is a very deliberately non-standard fantasy world and where it's mentioned at all online people seem to compare it to the likes of Tekumel or Glorantha or Jorune. But Gargentihr seems to be by far the most obscure of all of them - Tekumel's had continuous active gaming happening in it since before D&D came out, Glorantha is well-loved and widely celebrated, and whilst Jorune has no real commercial presence any more there does at least seem to be continued fan activity and gaming happening there.

Not so Gargentihr. So far as I can tell there's no Gargentihr fan community out there. I can't even find any evidence that anyone's actually played the gosh-darn thing. I'm sure 99% of this comes down to the game's incredibly brief commercial existence (so far as I can tell Sanctuary Games managed to get off a print run of the core book and then fell on its arse and died), combined with the fact that it came out slightly too early for there to be dedicated web forums out there keeping the flame alive (compare, say, A|State, which doesn't seem to have any active fansites but until a couple of years ago managed to sustain a trickle of residual fan activity on Contested Ground's forums). On the other hand, it got a nice writeup in Interactive Fantasy (little-read, yes, but quite influential) and enough books seemed to get out into the wild that it isn't too difficult to get a copy. So, is there a Gargentihr fan community out there I've completely failed to notice, or is the game more or less dead aside from occasional individual groups tinkering with it?

Another point of curiosity: Richard Cooper and Alastair Cowan, the main designers, seem to have completely vanished off the face of the RPG community after Sanctuary went down - does anyone know whether they had any further exploits in gaming?

Tekumel has longevity because its been in print in some format nearly non-stop. That and the novels keep alive in the more mainstream. Not to mention the language studies.

Jorne had a PC game. Never gotten to play it yet. Its pretty quirky an RPG I am told. Still on my "check it out" list.

Gargentihr is like alot of quirky "indie" style RPGs in that they are known to a rare few and thats about it unless theres something else to keep them in the public eye no matter how minor. I'd heard of it at cons, but never had a chance to look at it that I can recall.

Lace and Steel for example has the Donna Barr reprint and some comic appearances for example. Gargentihr has none of that it seems?

As for vanishing after print. Same happened with RuinsWorld. Hell, they seemed to vanish at the convention they were selling the game at! I helped out with the fan site a little. Lise Breakey? Havent seen her since the late 90s. Two games out and when poof. Gone.

JArcane mentioned it a while back, which encouraged me to scare up a copy. It's an inspired bit of madness, takes itself seriously without (IIRC) being pretentious, and I wouldn't mind giving it a go sometime. But I haven't heard anything online other than a review or two.

According to rpggeek, it was also reviewed in Pyramid and The Dragon.

Quote from: Arminius;747282JArcane mentioned it a while back, which encouraged me to scare up a copy. It's an inspired bit of madness, takes itself seriously without (IIRC) being pretentious, and I wouldn't mind giving it a go sometime. But I haven't heard anything online other than a review or two.

According to rpggeek, it was also reviewed in Pyramid and The Dragon.

Don't think that was me. I've never heard of it.

You might be thinking of Hackett's Fantasy Gaming.

Quote from: Omega;747281Gargentihr is like alot of quirky "indie" style RPGs [...]
Lace and Steel for example[...]

I have copies of both on my "this is what real fantasy looks like, you Tolkien/Gygax-fellating wankers" shelf.  Next to Maelstrom Storytelling, Everway, Talislanta, and Secret of Zir'An.

If anyone knows how to contact the creator, please let me know.

Quote from: J Arcane;747469Don't think that was me. I've never heard of it.

You might be thinking of Hackett's Fantasy Gaming.

Huh, my mistake. Well, I'll recommend it to you, then.

Anyone have any links to what the fuck y'all are talking about?

http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/52974/tales-of-gargentihr

Quote from: RPGPundit;747864Anyone have any links to what the fuck y'all are talking about?

I'd try to post something more informative than the RPGGeek link but when I said there's no Gargentihr fan presence there really isn't any fan presence online - I haven't found a single fansite, let alone one which would actually be informative, and the Sanctuary Games website died before Wayback was even a thing.

Phil Masters wrote a fairly detailed review, other than that online information about the thing is nonexistent.

Fascinating. This is utterly new to me; it must be very rare, I never heard of it before, that I recall.

From Phil's review, it seems to have presaged Perdido Street Station and that whole world. Sounds very odd, but not in a bad way. (He said, in near-utter ignorance.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;748262Fascinating. This is utterly new to me; it must be very rare, I never heard of it before, that I recall.

There are probably a-lot of games like that out there that simply saw one print run and then vanished off the face of the earth.

Quote from: Omega;748345There are probably a-lot of games like that out there that simply saw one print run and then vanished off the face of the earth.

True enough, but over the years I've heard of quite a lot of them. Owned a couple too.

Quote from: RPGPundit;748262Fascinating. This is utterly new to me; it must be very rare, I never heard of it before, that I recall.

As a side note, it amazes me how well-stocked German game stores are/were back in the day. Stuff like that was in distribution in Germany (and ended up in many discount bins).

Gargentihr, Arduin, Lace & Steel (both TAGG and Chessex reprint), Darksword Adventures, Fifth Cycle, Rüs, Sorcerer, Hahlmabrea, Dragonraid, Justifiers (there is a reason why the license was acquired by a German fan who wrote a revised edition), Legendary Lives, Darkurthe Legends, Dragon Warriors, ... or magazines like Tortured Souls, Interactive Fantasy, HarnQuest, Mythic Perspectives, or Space Gamer & Fantasy Gamer.