Overview

History: 1993-1996

Beaumains magazine is a fanzine that was founded in early 1993 by Gareth Jones. It was labeled "The Arthurian Magazine for Gamers", and almost exclusively contained content about Chaosium's Arthurian game, King Arthur Pendragon (1985). The colophon listed the magazine as produced by "Taupe Games", an imprint that Jones had previously used to publish his All-Adventure Action Roleplay (1990) game, or AAARG.

Two of the best elements of Beaumains as a magazine were that it focused on the historical framework of Pendragon, offering background and adventures for a variety of eras; and that it offered reviews not just of Pendragon products, but also other roleplaying (and non-fiction) books that might be of use to Pendragon GMs.

Originally, Beaumains was only distributed in Britain, but issues #3 and up would be more widely available in the US, Sweden, and other parts of the world. This was thanks to individuals in each of those countries who personally distributed the magazine: in the US, distribution was from Eric Rowe, who shortly went on to form the consolidation & distribution company Wizard's Attic.

Publication of Beaumains sputtered out after the publication of Beaumains #5 (June 1994). A final issue, Beamains #6 (1995) appeared over a year later, but by this point some of the distributors had moved on, making it more of a rarity compared to #3-5. Afterward, Jones says that "life got in the way" of editing additional issues.

In 2020, Jones (now moved from Britain to California) reported that he was working on a project to both reprint material from Beaumains and to publish material intended for the fanzine but never published. It has yet to appear.

Obtaining the Magazines

As a fanzine from the '90s, Beaumains is likely almost impossible to acquire on secondary markets, though issues #3-5 are slightly more likely to turn up.

About the Contents

This index was converted from an original version produced in 1995. The update was made without the ability to consult Beaumains #1 or #2 (since they were originally borrowed from one of the distributors of the magazine), though some references were double-checked and data filled in via consultation with RPGGeek Nonetheless, credits, system descriptions, and categorizations for the first two issues might be slightly less reliable. As usual, feel free to mail corrections or submit them as PRs to GitHub.

About the Editions

Publication of Beaumains occurred during the transition period between King Arthur Pendragon 3e (1990) and King Arthur Pendragon 4e (1993), the latter being extensively reviewed in Beaumains #4 (February 1994). Any articles were largely cross-compatible with both editions because of their similarity, other than the addition of magic in 4e. Articles are somewhat arbitrarily labeled as being for 3e or 4e depending on when they appeared, whether they referenced old books like Knights Adventurous (1990), and whether they featured 4e rules on magic.

Publication of Beaumains also occurred after The Boy King (1991) but before The Great Pendragon Campaign (2006), which means that its fairly considerable focus on historic adventures would likely need to be revised for the modern sourcebook.

This index is © Copyright 1995, 2022-2023 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution. Background image by macrovector on Freepik laid atop Grunge Stained Old Paper Texture from Textures4Photoshop, used under license.

Main Arthurian Index

🗺️ Accessories

⛺ Adventures: Misc

1. Reprinted in TALES OF CHIVALRY & ROMANCE (Green Knight, 1999)

⌛️ Adventures: Historic

1. Originally the Beaumains Tournament at Convulsion '94

🎨 Background: Misc

⌛ Background: Historic

🖊️ Campaign Design

🛠️ Equipment

📣 Interviews, Memoirs & Notes

⬆️ Meta

🗣️ NPCs

📜 Rules

🔎 Previews

⭐ Reviews

Covers