# Sword World Quick Start Guide tags: #game/rpg/sword-world-quick-start-guide ![[Sword World Quick Start Guide (cover).jpg|600]] **Sword World** is the oldest and most popular tabletop RPG in Japan — the one that grew out of a group's **[[Dungeons and Dragons]]** campaign that became *Record of Lodoss War* — and this quick start guide is the first official English release of it, courtesy of Mugen Gaming, Group SNE, and the Word Refinery. It's a work-in-progress primer for the upcoming Sword World 2.5 English core rulebook (headed to crowdfunding in 2026), and it's honest about that on the cover: "This is a work in progress." ## Setting The quick start drops you into the port city of **Harves**, the waterway-crossed capital of the kingdom of the same name on the world of **Raxia**, where the ancient **Magitech Civilization** died out three hundred years ago and left behind airships, ruins, and dungeons shaped by mystical energies. It's a classic fantasy-adventure economy: adventurers register with the **Adventurers' Guild** — here the Blue Nose, a branch famously hospitable to novices — and take requests to earn coin (Gumells), while the world outside the city walls is home to the Barbarous and other dangers. The races are the usual fantasy spread with a Japanese flavor — humans, elves, the rabbitfolk tabbit, the lykant — and the tone is cooperative, structured, and team-oriented, the thing that made it Japan's most-played fantasy RPG for decades. The solo adventure ("My First Adventure") doubles as a tutorial, and the one-shot ("The Safest Place in the World") is a ready-to-play mystery set in and around Harves. ## Mechanics The system is a class-based **2d6** affair. ### Skill Checks Roll 2d6, add your modifier, and beat the **target number** — the modifier is your ability score bonus plus your class levels (or your adventurer level, for untrained skills), and you only get the bonus if you have a level in the required class. Double 6s is an automatic success; double 1s is an automatic failure that still grants you 50 XP for learning from your mistakes. ### Character Creation Characters multiclass freely across heroic and common classes — fighter, ranger, scout, sage, priest, sorcerer, martial artist, marksman — with six ability scores (Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Spirit, Vitality), HP from your adventurer level and Vitality, and MP from your magic class levels and Spirit. ### Magic Spells cost MP and resolve as 2d + Magic Power against the target's Willpower, with a resistance check deciding whether the effect lands, is halved, or is negated. ## Editions & related This English release is built around **Sword World 2.5**. Related English material in the library: - **Sword World: Official English Edition Primer** — the same quick-start content (basic rules, solo adventure, one-shot, and ready-to-play characters) in a more polished, non-WIP form. *In the library.* The full **Sword World 2.5 Core Rulebook** localization is heading to crowdfunding — launching **20 October 2026** via Mugen Gaming / BackerKit — the campaign this quick start is warming you up for. ## References - [Sword World: Quick Start Guide - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/538118/sword-world-quick-start-guide) - [Sword World - Mugen Gaming](https://mugengaming.com/pages/sword-world) - [Sword World - BackerKit](https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mugen-gaming/sword-world)