About Faerie Wood

 Photo of the original Faerie Wood game published in 1992

Faerie Wood is a fantasy role-playing game aimed at new and experienced role-players, based on European folklore and faerie tales. The game is inspired by dark folk tales about evil and mischievous creatures, Witches, Trolls and other strange and mysterious spirits. It is a fun light-hearted game but also draws on the darker and scarier side of faerie tales. It is primarily designed more for adults and teenage readers and is not suitable for very young players.

An illustration of a Kobold from the original Faerie Wood game book

In the Faerie Wood Game, players take on the roles of Faerie Folk and can choose from 10 core races including Gnomes, Tree Elves, Fauns, Fire Nymphs, shape changing Kobolds and Deerfolk (2 foot tall centuars that resemble woodland deer), but they can also adapt these to create their own Faerie Folk races. The players explore the magical world of Faerie Wood, travel to the land of humans, cause mischief, defeat evil Witches hell bent on capturing and enslaving Faerie Folk, terrorise humans and develop magical powers and abilities. In addition they must decide whether they become agents of Light or Dark magic, assisting the forces of good or evil in the World.

New concept illustration for a male Deerfolk

The Faerie Wood Role-playing Game was first created and published in 1992 by me – Garry Robson, an illustrator based in the UK. This was back in the days when lots of small publishers and individuals were creating their own bespoke fantasy role-playing games, inspired by other, bigger publishers such as TSR’s Dungeons and Dragons. Faerie Wood was published by Pixie Publications, which I set up specifically with my editor, Richard Farr, to provide a vehicle for this new range of games. The initial publication of Faerie Wood enjoyed some modest success, positive reviews and a number of other game books were published

Concept illustration of a Flower Elf for the new second edition

Over the last few years there has been some renewed interest in the Faerie Wood game, it’s had some coverage on gaming blogs and enquiries from retro game enthusiasts. Since Faerie Wood was first published I’ve also got back into playing fantasy game role-playing and have wanted to revisit the original game with a view to redeveloping it for a new audience. This blog is my way of documenting Faerie Wood’s new journey into the world of modern gaming.

You can see more of the new concept art for Faerie Wood as well as some of the original illustrations on  my website.