Chaosium Announces the Return of The Great Pendragon Campaign

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One of the most iconic adventures for the Pendragon tabletop RPG is coming back, with Chaosium announcing a new version of The Great Pendragon Campaign for the current 6th edition of the game.

First released in 1985 and written by Chaosium founder Greg Stafford, the original version of The Great Pendragon Campaign was a detailed setting expansion that fully explored the Arthurian legend, with a timeline covering 80 years of history and allowing players to participate in the rise and fall of Camelot.

The new version of The Great Pendragon Campaign will be released as multiple books over the next two years, with the first entry entitled The Boy King coming out in August 2026. Below, we take a closer look at what to expect from this new version of an RPG legend.

What is Pendragon: The Boy King?

Pendragon: The Boy King is the first part of the revised 6th edition version of The Great Pendragon Campaign. It is set during the reign of King Uther Pendragon (father of King Arthur), in a period of chaos and civil war. Players will take on the role of knights serving the newly crowned king over a 20-year period and setting the path for the eventual rise of Camelot. The project will be overseen by line editor David Larkins with art direction by Paul Tobin.

In a blog post on the Chaosium website, the team mentions that The Boy King will draw upon notes drafted by Greg Stafford before his death in 2018 which outline updates he was hoping to make to the original material.

What is the original version of the Great Pendragon Campaign?

The Pendragon Campaign is a 1985 supplement for the first edition of Chaosium’s Pendragon RPG written by Greg Stafford, with art by Tom Sullivan. That same year it won the H.G. Wells Award at the Origins Convention for Best Roleplaying Supplement.

The book was later revised by Greg Stafford and republished in 1991 as The Boy King, before again being revised with a second edition version of The Boy King in 1997. In 2006, it was again republished for the fifth edition of the game and given the new name The Great Pendragon Campaign, winning the 2007 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming.

While the material has changed significantly over its various iterations, the core concept of the Great Pendragon Campaign has remained the same, with content detailing the lands, NPCs and major plot points of King Arthur’s Britain, with a detailed year-by-year analysis for the period from 495 to 570 CE and blending a wide range of real-world historical and fictional sources.

Why we’re excited for The Great Pendragon Campaign

• The return of an RPG legend: One of the most iconic and critically acclaimed adventures in tabletop RPG history is being updated specifically for the current 6th edition of the Pendragon system and it’ll be interesting to see how both longtime fans and new players react to it.
• Built on the original: The new release incorporates updated notes drafted by Pendragon creator Greg Stafford before his passing, so the project really sounds like a continuation of a vision started over four decades ago.
• Epic scope and immersion: Spanning a massive 80-year timeline, the campaign allows players to experience the rise and fall of Camelot, and we are 100% on board for all the multi-generational drama.
• A multipart experience: While the original version of The Great Pendragon Campaign was just a single book (along with a few expansions here and there) this new version sounds absolutely epic, encompassing multiple books over a two-year release window.

Final thoughts

The new version of The Great Pendragon Campaign feels like it may be one of Chaosium’s most ambitious projects in years. Whether or not it can live up to the legend, however, remains to be seen. We’ll learn more at this year’s Gen Con in July and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.

In the meantime, you can read the complete press release on the Chaosium website.