“The World of Pelinore is flat, everyone knows that…,” so it says in TSR UK Ltd’s Imagine magazine issue 16 – the first issue to publish material on the Pelinore game world.

“What is Pelinore?” I hear you ask. Well, back in the early to mid-1980s, when role playing games were attracting thousands of fans in the United Kingdom, TSR UK Ltd released Imagine magazine as a sister publication to Dragon magazine. The very first issue, published in April 1983, featured an introductory forword by none other than EGG himself. The magazine proved popular in the UK and after 16 monthly issues began to feature regular articles about Pelinore. This author feels that Pelinore was in fact the campaign world created by the staff of Imagine for their own games, that they later chose to air to the public through the organ that they worked for.

Pelinore is indeed geographically flat. A rough disc with Worldheart at its centre and an expanse of grey void at its rim. Between the two extremes, Worldheart and void, one finds the realms of adventure known as the Domains, the Theocratic Principalities, the Splintered Realms, Dontaldur and the Tradecities of Xir. Even further still, at the heart of the Domains, one could find the City League – focus of the the majority of articles published in Imagine.

But, Pelinore was flat in geography alone. In all other respects the world, more specifically the City League, was incredibly rich in detail. With hundreds of locations and PCs, all somehow linked to each other by family tie, love or hate, the City League was alive with intrigue and adventure. Yet, somehow at the same time, it all seemed to have an every day feel to it: the NPCs seem to lead ordinary lives; magic, although fantastic in other worlds, seems unremarkable in Pelinore; and the population of the City League is very definitely human-centric (although there are demi-humans, but these have no homelands of their own described in the hallowed pages of Imagine).

Publication of Imagine continued until issue 30, plus one Special Edition, before it was discontinued in September 1985. The reasons for the cancellation of Imagine are well documented (and debated) in other places, so I won’t go into it here, but publication of Pelinore didn’t stop there.

Like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, Pelinore continued in GameMaster Publications (produced by the ex-Imagine staff) in five issues between October 1985 and early 1987. The detail expanded from the City League into the Domains and beyond. Each issue of GMPubs included an adventure for play in Pelinore. It was alive.

Sadly, GMPubs couldn’t continue. The staff were snapped up by Games Workshop – and very rightly deserved that was. That same staff went on to produce a wealth of fantastic material for the Warhammer Fantasy RPG and the world became their oyster.

And yet, Pelinore refuses to die. I noticed, around a year ago, that Pelinore was attracting some curiosity in the discussion boards and blogs around the internet and that knowledge of this setting was a little thin on the ground. So, I bought a domain name and some web hosting and set up PelinoreRevived! The project has been a little slow in getting of the ground, but if you go to www.pelinore.org you can see what I’ve done so far; starting with a review of the original canon material.

Please visit. If you like what you see then let me know. If you don’t, then tell me how to improve. I look forward to seeing you there.