Legend

Runequest II is no longer going to be Wayfarer but will now be Legend. Better choice of name, lends itself to a wider range of more interesting book titles, and stands out a bit better (and rolls off the tongue more easily!) than Wayfarer. Meanwhile the real Wayfarers game not only got some attention out of this, they're getting distribution through Mongoose. I don't know anything about that game, but it is always nice to see an indie publisher get more mainstream distribution and recognition like this.

Check out this mock-up (not sure if it was final) of the Italian RQII cover:



With any luck, Legend will have some decent artwork and eschew the lame history of artless covers. I'd really like it if the books in this line looked more like the Runequest II Compendium's cover, for example. The leather covers were nice and all, but the further away we get from the MRQ 4th edition "generic, artless cheap-o faux designer covers" that are themselves a carry-over from the glut of the D20 years, the better!

It's a tough issue for RPGs these days: art is vital to a good looking RPG, and a quality presentation is practically an industry standard. But RPGs are not big money, and most decent artists command prices way out of the average RPG publisher's range. This leads to the unfortunate problem that is increasingly common today, especially in the small press PDF market: loads and loads of recycled copyright free art, or the same art over and over again from the royalty free art packages available through rpgnow and drivethrurpg. I'm guilty of this...no idea how to work around it, though. If every RPG book required spanky new art to stand out, most of the industry would evaporate overnight.