This booklet is a companion to Marcia B.’s  Fantastic Medieval Campaigns (FMC), itself a restatement of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s 1974 rules for, well, fantastic medieval campaigns. 

In 1971, Gygax authored a medieval miniatures war-game with Jeff Perren. The fantastic medieval campaigns game of 1974 pretty much required the use of the 1971 miniatures game. Because of this, FMC offers a “semi-abridged” version of that earlier game as an appendix called Chain of Command. 

One thing the “semi-abridged” Chain of Command does not include is information on “historical” factions and units contained in the 1971 rules. The omission is understandable: much of the “historical” information in the 1971 games is uninformed, ethnocentric, orientalist slop – a conservative medieval fantasy with very little history to speak of. 

The question that inspired this booklet is: what if the “historical” information in the 1971 game, obtuse as it is, is actually fundamental to make sense of FMC’s "medieval" setting? 

This guide does not seek to recount the game's history. Instead, it aims to illuminate FMC's hidden assumptions about its own setting, allowing players and referees to challenge its embedded ideologies and engage with the game in more varied and satisfying ways.

Version & Licensing

Version: The current version is 0.6 (16 November 2025). 

Licensing: The Hidden Chains of Command is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0) license. That means you’re free to use, remix, and even steal from it—no specific permission is needed, especially if you use it as inspiration for writing something new and cool!

Thanks!

Thanks to Marcia B.,  for FMC (and FMC Basic!), for the Traverse Fantasy blog, and for the Icon0clasm Ball!

And thank you, reader!