Troll Lord Games

History

TLG's first published products were a series of adventures designed for the Swords and Sorcery RPG. This RPG was developed by Davis Chenault and Mac Golden. TLG debuted these three adventures, the game system and Stephen Chenault's The After Winter's Dark campaign world at Gencon in 2000. These releases coincided with the release of d20 Dungeons and Dragons. Within a very short while TLG republished the books under the d20 license. At about this time they signed Gary Gygax and committed to the Gygaxian Fantasy World series. The series was launched with The Canting Crew, by Gary Gygax, in 2001.

Shortly thereafter TLG published the Codex of Erde (later Aihrde), a fantasy world campaign setting and sourcebook for RPGs. It saw release in 2001 and was written by Stephen Chenault and Mac Golden with contributions by Davis Chenault and Gary Gygax.

Stephen Chenault recounts the origins of the Codex of Erde and how they were enmeshed with the founding of TLG as a company, in The Crusader Magazine.

In this book, Gary Gygax wrote an introductory adventure, Search for a Lost City. It was a prelude to another TLG RPG book also released in 2001, called The Lost City of Gaxmoor, written by Ernie Gygax and Luke Gygax.

TLG also produced and published a string of RPG adventure modules taking place in the fantasy campaign world of Erde. These include:

Another module written for the world of Erde was called Dark Druids written by Robert J. Kuntz, RPG author and ex-employee of TSR, Inc. It was released in 2002.

Also, in 2002 Gary Gygax and TLG continued to work together to produce the Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds series of RPG “world builder” books.

In 2005 TLG took over the publishing of Gary Gygax’s Lejendary Adventure products and produced a boxed set with a scaled down version of the rules and monsters called Essentials. Following this, came the release of Living the Legend, a LA module written by Gygax.

2008 saw a new hard cover release and reprinting of the Greyhawk Adventures book Saga of Old City, a Gord the Rogue novel by Gary Gygax.

Castles & Crusades

The Castles & Crusades RPG Collector’s Box Set was produced in 2004. It contained a Players Handbook, a Monsters & Treasure booklet and an introductory adventure booklet; all were digest size like the original Dungeons and Dragons boxed set.

The year 2005 proved to be a busy and productive year for TLG:

Gary Gygax continued to work on the next Castle Zagyg volume (at that time Volume II) into 2006 and 2007.

At Gen Con 40 in 2007, Gary Gygax was the Guest of Honor at the TLG booth. It would be his last Gen Con. The long-awaited Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works made its debut at the TLG booth the following year, 2008.

In 2007 TLG published an update of the fantasy campaign World of Erde, changing the name to Aihrde and releasing a 48-page gazetteer called After Winter’s Dark which established Aihrde as the official Castles & Crusades adventure setting.

A collection of alternate rules and guidelines for modifying the system, the Castle Keepers Guide, was released in February, 2011

Castles & Crusades

Adventures

The Crusader Journal

Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds

Lejendary Adventure

d20

Publications By Year

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011