Order of the Black Sheep

Everything starts somewhere. Sometimes finding that start is easy, but other times, not so much. My interest in gaming evolved over time, but it did have a few places that I would consider focal points that encouraged my interest. One of these things was a game called Magic Realms. This was a game that my dad owned, though I don’t remember ever seeing him play it. I remember being fascinated with it when I was in grade school, though I had only ever seen the side of the box which was where the name was at. Magic Realm. What could be in that box? To a pre-teen who like cartoons and comic books, the word “magic” ensnared my curiosity like nothing else. I mean, it’s a box, placed high out of reach, with contents unknown, and titled like that. How could I not be fascinated?


At some point, my dad let me check the game out. It was the first time I had ever seen the cover of the game and I was blown away. On the cover was a knight in armor, a dwarf, and some chick with a bow fighting a giant dragon, while in the background a badass looking wizard watched over it all. The cover alone was enough justify my youthful enthrallment in this item. If it was that awesome on the outside, what wonders would I behold once I opened the box. To be truthful, I probably didn’t spend more than a few seconds looking at the box before tearing into the contents, but these thoughts did get seared into my mind during the short time I had to process them. I was overdosing on pure, unadulterated awesome. Opening the box did not disappoint. Tons of cardboard counters, cards that read “Treasure” and featured descriptive names on the reverse side:
tiles that had colorful names of different forests and mountain terrains:

and large cards of different types of heroes with, to my young mind, some of the most amazing artwork in the world:


I was enthralled. But then the roadblocks came. Trying to read the rules was above my head. The rulebook was not the back of the box like I had been used to, but a giant book written in small font with a lot of words and technical phrases that I wasn’t familiar with. I quickly moved on from trying to decipher the rule book to looking at the game pieces and making up my own game for them. I made my own game maps and built little armies out of the game pieces and pretty much used them like I would my G.I. Joe figures, staging battles, pitting good vs. evil, and elevating heroes.
I played with the game like this for months, though I eventually lost many of the pieces and had to give up playing with it. The game always held a cherished place in my memory, but it wasn’t until I was much older that I had an opportunity to revisit it.

I couldn’t ever remember the name of the game a few years ago, but I had joined the site [url]www.boardgamegeek.com[/url] and was able to find the game once again. A trip to ebay and $80 later and I had a copy of the game once again. Opening it up brought the old memories back in a rush. I sorted through the contents, organized them, and sat down to read the rulebook. I figured that after teaching myself how to play Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and the Star Wars CCG, I could handle this old game. Well, I figured wrong. The rules were still pretty complicated and there were few clear example of how to play in rulebook. This added to the fact that I wasn’t sure if the game I bought was complete, caused me to shelve the game. I have looked up different guides on how to play the game but I haven’t had enough motivation since I got it to try to play it for real. Maybe I will at some point, but for now, I think I will keep it as a reminder of my childhood and first foray into the fantasy game genre.