For decades readers of science fiction have enjoyed fantastic adventures on the second planet of Tau Ceti, courtesy of the fertile imagination of L. Sprague de Camp. Now gamers can join in the fun. For the uninitiated, Krishna is a distant planet inhabited by green-skinned beings very similar to humans. The world is the scene of some of the most entertaining swashbuckling adventures ever written. As a setting for role-playing games it is a trove of wonders. Brave Earthmen can engage in swordplay beneath the triple moons, and win the hand of a beautiful green-haired princess! A pirate queen and her stalwart band waylay ships on the Sadabao Sea! Tailed cannibals menace castaways on the island of Fossanderan! The world of Krishna is a combination of classic space opera with hard-science realism and a dash of humor. If the Krishna stories are space opera, they are space opera as written by Gilbert and Sullivan rather than Wagner. The brave Earthman is liable to be a novice tour guide or a scheming con artist. The pirate queen is fat and middle-aged. And the tailed cannibals mend their ways after a stiff talking-to by an Oxford man. On Krishna, a hero who wins the hand of a princess must then live with the consequences of being married to a woman who lays eggs, on a world where dinner is eaten still wiggling and executions are a popular form of entertainment. Since the entire planet is under an embargo which forbids the import of advanced technology, adventurers cannot clank about in powered battlesuits, menacing the natives with plasma cannon. On Krishna, the Earthmen and the green-skinned natives are on an equal footing. Characters must rely on their wits as much as on their swords. Gamemasters who are tired of players who shoot their way out of every difficulty can see how well they do without their technological toys.
