ends might have been written, such as "The Magic Devices of Minaria," and

"The Temple of Kings" (whose history is only briefly covered in "The Eaters of
Wisdom" chapter). But not every idea presents expansive ideas. As for the
magical devices, except for a few, the author admits he don't know about the
origins of every one.

Looking ahead to the future, it may very well be that we will have to examine the
feasibility of doing a similar series of legends for The Scarlet Empire. The
Minarian Legends have taken between 300 and 400 pages and more than 20
years to write in their present form and attempting to do something similar for
Girion certainly presents a formidable task and so we are prepared to make no
promises at this time.

About the Minarian Legends
The "Minarian Legends" were originally published between 1980 and 1982 in
TSR's Dragon Magazine. The series emerged from the enthusiasm for Divine
Right displayed by Tim Kask, then the magazine's editor, who came up with the
basic format of the series and urged me to take it on. The idea immediately
struck me as an interesting one, and I still look back fondly upon that period of
writing.
One big change in the new format of the Legends is the attempt to include a
piece of verse in every one. Why did we bother? Well, the author enjoys com-
posing light verse and took advantage of the situation. It is very hard to find a
place to publish verse and the new Divine Right release presented an opportu-
nity too good to miss. Besides, a good number of poems had already been writ-
ten as filler for the never-published Excalibre edition. Also, we think that songs
and poetry can impart a quality of life into a subject that prose somehow falls
short of.
In closing, the author expresses his hope that this new compilation shall give the
purchaser as much fun in reading them as he himself has had in their writing.
If errors, contradictions, omissions, or typos are discovered we gratefully invite
the reader to let us know about them. Really.

All through the run of the Legends Mr. Kask and his successor, Kim Mohan, Glenn Rahman
remained its faithful patrons. I assure them both that the author's gratitude is
continuing. August, 2001
The author has been amazed and gratified by the unexpected popularity of the
Legends over the last 22 years. I don't know of any other fantasy board game
whose background has been the recipient of so much fan interest. There was
even an attempt by a fan publisher to create a hardcover collector edition of the
original Legends during the last decade. Alas, as in the case of so many publi-
cation ventures, it just didn't carry through. Out of that interesting episode, how-
ever, came the motivation to write the legend "The Origin of Minaria."

As for the present release, the first 20 episodes have all been polished anew
and some new material has been added here and there, filling in interesting
episodes from the past and bringing the kingdoms and heroes up to date. The
present edition also features new Legends which treat never-before-seen peo-
ple, places, and things presented in this anniversary edition of Divine Right.

Essentially, the Minarian Legends are short historical articles that describe the
rise of each important Minarian kingdom, from primitive conditions following a
world-wide catastrophe called "the great Cataclysm," to times just prior to the
action in the board game. In fact, the way we see it, things have continued to
happen in Minaria even since the idea to create a new edition came along in
1994.

Other Legends relate the biographies of noteworthy Minarian heroes, creatures,

and monuments. The reader should take special note that the tales are narrat-
ed in an unusual manner, as if some Minarian scholar is writing them for a
Minarian audience. He acts like a real historian would, drawing mainly from
memoirs and secondary material and is sometimes forced to resort to conjec -
ture when he finds detail scant. Oftentimes he is driven to cite variant versions
of the same event when different accounts supposedly exist. Of course, none
of the cited authors or books have ever existed outside of the fictional world of
Minaria. The technique is used to help transport the reader into the reality of
Minaria.

Unfortunately, the work on the legends has been sporadic over the last couple
decades, often discouraged by the lack of publication opportunities.
Circumstance changed unexpectedly last winter. On the downside, the time to
get the Legends ready was so short that the work had to be completed at a very
accelerated pace. This is not a formal publication of the Legends, but rather a
snapshot of the state of the legends at this point in time. All of them could use
more editing and polish, especially the new ones, and so a certain roughness of
presentation may be evident. Any mistakes found herein must simply be lived
with for the present.

I wrote "Hatu Khagan and the Storm-Riders" late and in great haste. Other leg-