Time Slip

Legendlore: The Realm Chronicles #1

by Ralph Griffith, Stuart Kerr, Guy Davis (Illustrations)

Four normal modern day teenagers are plunged into a world they thought only existed in novels and film. They are whisked away to a magical land where dragons roam the skies, orcs and hobgoblins terrorize travelers, where unicorns prance through the forest, and kingdoms wage war for dominance. It is a world where man is just one race, joining other races such as elves, trolls, dwarves, changelings, and the dreaded night creatures who steal the night. Not a typical "dungeons and dragons" world, for this story follows the adventures of these teens into the unknown as we watch the world unfold with their eyes. It is a world that is foreign to them. We learn as they learn. And what hope do these teens have in this strange Middle Earth world? How can they survive against wizards, dwarves, halflings, dragons, and trolls if they had a hard time making it in high school? It is a world of fantasy. Of imagination. It is the Realm. It is Legendlore. From Caliber Comics now comes the entire Realm and Legendlore saga as a set of volumes that collects the long running critically acclaimed series. In the vein of The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit with elements of Game of Thrones and Dungeon and Dragons. This book collects The Realm - Volume One issues 1-5.

158 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 2017

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK so it is a well used trope, normal people get transported to a fantasy world and have to live out new lives. However this is the first time I have encountered it in a comic medium. Nice art and some good plotting made this an enjoyable read. Recommended

[cauldronofevil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely review PDFs. Mostly because even when I pay good money for them (as in this case) I often forget to read them.

This came in a bundle that I was curious about so I decided to try it out.

It is a set of PDFs of a comic book from the 80’s that was about a group of modern teenagers that accidentally got put in a Dungeons and Dragons type fantasy world. Normally this would be radioactive to me. The kind of idea that I’ve heard from many friends that never wound up getting written.

But I’ve actually read some good versions of this idea. Most notably Barbara Hamby’s “Time of the Dark” series.

Legendlore also recently put out an RPG (that was part of the bundle) so I thought that since it had been around for this long it might be worth checking out.

And it is.

The story is that two guys and their girlfriends go a ‘cabin in the woods’ that has been left to one of the guys as an inheritance. They find a chest that when opened transports them to another world.

In the other world they are all slightly changed. One given strength and muscles, the other magical powers, the other clerical powers, etc.

Nothing incredibly surprising or original, except that this was done back in 1987 and was actually published back then. I remember the book though I don’t think I ever more than flipped through it back then.

The artwork is wonderfully amateur. Kind of a high-school Joe Staton. As it says in the introduction very imitation anime that I personally find quite charming for being non-computer polished.

At the same time its quite good with the layout and ‘direction’ choices really compelling.

Of course, this band of friends is immediately attacked by villians who take the two girls to be sold as slaves.

Luckily they are come upon by a sexy and friendly elf lady (Silverfawn) who offers to be their guide. And they need one.

Soon they are also attacked by Goblins and fare a little better defending themselves.

After Silverfawn tells her tragic backstory we cut to the captive girls, one of whom is sold to an Evil Lord Darkoth. There is not much need to go over the rest of the story. It’s not that its not particularly interesting. It is fun to read and the art makes it very entertaining. It’s full of fantasy derring do and any RPG players will recognize the many tropes used and appreciate the clever touches that are definitely more story based than RPG based.

I definitely sucked me in and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of it.

I can’t quite give it a perfect 5 stars but it’s definitely better than it has any need or right to be so a strong 4 stars is not a slight at all.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well... it doesn’t completely suck but this did not age well. It’s good enough I’ll probably read book two because my library has it but it’s not much better than a reminiscence of the old days of portal fantasies and early rpgs. I probably would have loved it when it first came out-I think my age was still in single digit numbers then...

[David Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread of the comics from 30+ years ago. Nice walk down memory lane.