Blade of Destiny's story has actually been written by writers from the P&P game, and its major events are considered official canon. The premise is rather simple: The city of Thorwal is threatened by an invasion of Orcs, and so Hetman Tronde (a Hetman is something like the mayor of Thorwal) calls out for heroes who are daring enough to retrieve the legendary Hetman Hyggelik's equally legendary magic sword Grimring, to challenge the Orc champion and thus cross the destructive plans of the blackpelts. The catch is, Grimring has long ago disappeared in the Orclands, buried with his owner, and the only map has been divided among his heirs and those of his followers who survived the expedition. So the heroes are in for quite an odyssey, hunting down the pieces of the map, Grimring, by the way of the Orcish field plains to actually meet their champion, all in time before the scheduled invasion of Thorwal. But first, they have to be born. All six of them.

Realms of Arkania is a role playing game series of the very old school. This doesn't surprise when knowing that its director, Hans-Jürgen Brändle, used to be a passionate pen & paper RPG player. On the advanced setting, players get to tune their heroes to every minute detail, from the choice whether a weapon skill upgrade is used for offence or defence, up to their ability to swim, lie or sense danger. The vast number of stats and skills have its drawbacks, though, and not only are some abilities more useful than others, there are even skills that don't have a single use during the whole trilogy. It soon becomes clear that the series is dominated by the pen & paper spirit. After all, it was even encouraged to use the heroes for further adventures outside of the computer game. Visual customization on the other hand is rather limited, as for each class and gender there are a mere three portraits to chose from.

Creating a hero can become quite a chore, though. Every class, called archetype, has certain criteria for minimum stats, and the stats are determined by rolling virtual dice. More often than not, it'll end up with values that don't qualify for any class (consulting the manual while distributing the numbers is obligatory), and there's no choice but to start all over again. That doesn't only apply to the seven base values, but also the seven rather unique negative stats, that determine each heroes special weaknesses. There is, of course, the option to chose the class directly, but heroes created by this method are actively nerfed. Each hero also has a protective god according to the month he was born in, which is completely random, so if a certain bonus is desired, that means quite a few more restarts there.

Speaking of classes, there's a reason the game calls them "archetypes" instead, and it might seem alienating to D&D veterans not to have any distinction between class and race. So in effect, every non-human race is limited to a single "class". With 12 archetypes, the game uses but a fraction of those introduced in the original, but a lot of those missing would have made sense in the scenario, anyway. The available archetypes are as follows:

Hero Archetypes

	Jester The Jester is trained in skills like acrobatics, music and "survival techniques", but not very useful in hand-to-hand combat.
	Hunter Hunters are not only the right choice to send hunting for food, they are also masters of projectile weapons. Are rendered somewhat obsolete by elves, though, who get magic skills on top.
	Warrior The warrior is the only class that can use the most heavy weapons and armor in the game. Their overall battle abilities make at least one warrior invaluable for each party. Their codex forbids the use of poison, though.
	Rogue Typical rogue skills like pickpocketing and cheating secure a party's financial integrity, while their ability to wear medium armor and decent proficiency with certain weapon types makes them not a wasted slot in combat at all.
	Thorwalian Practically a "warrior light", Thorwalians are not allowed to use the heaviest weapon and armor types, without any notable redeeming qualities other than their nordic charm. Thorwalians are very superstitious, which makes them quite vulnerable to magic.
	Dwarf Decent fighters (in the first game, they can even use two-handed weapons, but get nerfed later on) combined with the less morally dubious skills of the rogues. 3/4 of Dwarves in the world of Arkania are male.
	Witch/Warlock A witch or warlock starts out with terrible fighting skills, and quite peculiar house spells. With their only redeeming qualities being herb lore and healing, they're quite the choice for players seeking for a challenge.
	Druid Another mage user class, druids are not allowed to use equipment made of metal. Most of their strong spells are based around the manipulation of nature.
	Magician They can achieve the most versatile selection of spells of all magic using classes, but also get to chose a specialty magic school. Each magician also hold his personal indestructible staff, which can replace torches and ropes when properly upgraded.
	Green Elf There are three major elven races in Arkania. Green elves live closest to humans and tend to be the most sociable. In the game, they get to wear heavier armor than other elves (but get consecutively nerfed in the sequels).
	Silvan Elf Silvan elves live enclosed in their communities in the woods, and often are viewed as arrogant by humans. They have equal abilities in hunting and archery as the hunter.
	Ice Elf The last elven race, Ice Elves live in the arctic regions of Arkania. They're of smaller height than the other two races, and usually have very bright skin and hair. Their hostile living space makes them also more sturdy.

When the party is completely created and recruited, it is dropped inside the city of Thorwal, without any further instructions. As with most problems, the solution lies in one of the bars in town. No, really. The bars are the places where most information regarding the quest is to be gathered, be it the residence of local informants or the position of hidden dungeons. They are also meeting places for recruitable NPCs to fill the 7th slot in the party. First, it's time to learn about the Hetman's proclamation of his search for heroes.

The next problem: Finding places isn't always easy, even if one knows what to look for. There are about three different graphics for houses in the game, with no signs or any other visual means of identification for stores. To tell what kind of building lies in front of the party, it is necessary to consult the auto map every time, which shows color coded buildings. The only exception are Temples which get their own graphic tile in the 3D view. There is, however, once again no outside indication which god it belongs to before entering, and each god grants different gifts for donating and worshipping. More great news: Quest relevant buildings use the same shade of brown as the hundreds of completely useless commoner dwellings.

After finally finding the Hetman's residence and getting the assignment, it's imperative to stock up on equipment, for which the Hetman even gives a small grant from his armory. For further shopping ordinary stores have to be used, of which there are three types. The armory is likely to be the most familiar to any CRPG veteran, but even they will search in vain for any "Flaming Broadsword +3" here. The selection is much more down-to-earth, and most weapons look like they'd have made perfect sense in reality. There are magical weapons in the game, however they're very rare and hard to miss, as there's no way of telling if a weapon is magical just by looking at it. Magicians' staffs or witches' brooms hold magic powers as well, but they're inalienable. Then there's the herbalist, who sells herbs, poisons and potions. Poisons are invaluable for characters with low combat skills, while herbs are used to treat the numerous illnesses in the game. However, characters with a lot of knowledge about herbs can search for them themselves. The general merchant finally holds all the stuff that would be used in any modern game as pure ambient graphics at best, if it was present at all. Torches, lamps and oil for light sources in dungeons, ropes, blankets, flatware all come in handy during travels. These stores also sell some completely useless stuff, though. A whetstone can't be used until the sequel, for example. At each transaction there's a chance to haggle the price, but if the party gets too greedy, they might get thrown out of the shop.

Signposts mark exits out of town, and walking into them accesses the travel mode, which makes up a good portion of the whole game. Traveling takes place by foot and by boat, though the latter is the standard form of movement. Here it becomes clear how simulation heavy Blade of Destiny is. The party has to rest every night, take care of food and water, assign guards for the night, etc. The mountain passes can't be traveled during winter, and not dressing properly for the season is likely to get someone sick. There are also a lot of random and fixed encounters, some useful, some dangerous, or just annoying.