Legends (play-by-mail game)

Legends, also called Legends PBM, is a turn-based play-by-mail role-playing game set in a medieval world drawing on sword and sorcery and heroic fantasy traditions, currently published in English by Harlequin Games. Players take on roles ranging from a warlord commanding a great empire to a solitary heroic adventurer or a wandering bard, submitting written orders each turn that are processed to advance an ongoing shared storyline. Designer Jim Landes began developing the game in 1984, building on an earlier system called Epic, and released it in December 1989 through his own company, Midnight Games, under the working title Swords of Pelarn before settling on the name Legends. Over the following years Midnight Games licensed the game to a number of other publishers, including Epic Games in the United States, Rhann Postal Games in the United Kingdom and PBM Associates in Australia. Sam Roads of Harlequin Games acquired the game in 2003 and continues to operate it, and the game has since moved to a computer-moderated system playable through web-based interfaces.