Dragon Wars

Bard's Tale

Dragon Wars was developed as The Bard's Tale IV, but three months before release the name had to be dropped. Interplay replaced Electronic Arts with Mediagenic as their publisher and Electronic Arts owned the Bard's Tale name. It was decided to rename the game to Dragon Wars. The developers had to rewrite the story so it would fit the new title.

Default Party Characters

The party in the beginning of the game consists of four default party members (which may optionally be deleted and replaced with new characters). The original party members are: Muskels, Theb, Elendil, and Cheetah. Three additional characters may also optionally be recruited in-game, these characters are: Louie, Ulric, and Valar.

The Elendil party character in this game bears the same name with a fictional character created by author J. R. R. Tolkien, the first high king of Arnor and Gondor. One notable scene from Fellowship of the Ring, where Elendil dies fighting Sauron, his broken sword is then used to cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand.

Importable Characters

The player may transfer (import) previously made character(s) from Tales of the Unknown: Volume I - The Bard's Tale, The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight or The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate into Dragon Wars. Transferring characters will unfortunately delete the previously saved game. The DOS version only allows importing from the first two games (the third one had not yet been ported to DOS when Dragon Wars was released) via the external command line tool DWTRAN.COM. Other versions allow importing from all three games and have an in-game utility for that purpose.

Mythology

Purgatory, the starting city in the game, comes from a legend or a myth referring to a place between earth and hell.

Reversed Spelling/Semordnilaps

Some of the names used in the game have a meaning if spelled backwards. Though it may be coincidental, there are numerous names that are used in this manner, among others: * Namtar, the bad guy's name read backwards is Ratman. * Another name used in the game, Lanac'toor, read backwards is Root Canal.

Information here was also contributed by Late and Zzap.