Karen Kistler

karen.kistler@salisburypost.com

 

SALISBURY — Ancient Egypt first captured Matt Balent’s attention as a teenager when his mother took him to a history museum. For the man who has also been involved in role-playing games from a young age, it seemed only natural to combine the two.

Balent, of Salisbury, authored several role-playing game books in the 1980s and 90s, which were published by Palladium Books, and now has a new RPG to his credit.

His 280-page game book was published in December of 2024. Titled “The Valley of the Pharaohs 40th Anniversary Edition,” it is a fantasy role-playing game based in the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt around 1450 BC, “during a time that Egypt was an empire and they were expanding their area of influence,” he said.

It was during his college years that role-playing games started to become very popular, he said, with Dungeons and Dragons being the most famous.

He attended Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, which had a game club, and it was there that he got involved and wrote a book, he said, “about different kinds of medieval weapons and armory that they used in medieval times because that’s what the game was based on. It was based in a medieval fantasy setting.”

He worked with a friend, who he said, started a small game company in 1981 and the two published a book called “Weapons and Armor,” which was about the various weapons and armor used during medieval times.

They published an entire series of these books over the next five years, which Balent said were very popular.

He continued working as a contributing author back in those days with his friend at Palladium Books, which his friend continues to run.

In 1983, he made a game called The Valley of the Pharaohs, which, he said, was a role-playing game based in ancient Egypt.

They decided to box it up and include a rule book and map for people to buy; however, it wasn’t very successful, for multiple reasons, Balent said.

Time went by and he began a career as a computer programmer and while he remained in contact with his friend, he said, “I kind of fell out of role playing. I didn’t continue it as a hobby.”

That was until his now grown children, first a daughter who was in high school at the time, got involved with playing Dungeons and Dragons with a group of friends.

Balent said he dusted off his boxes of old RPG material from earlier days, and she “was pretty interested in that and my son a little bit as well.”

This got him to start thinking about RPG once again and decided to meet up with someone he knew who was a big Dungeons and Dragons player. Balent learned that he even had one of his games, which he said, “is pretty astounding to me because we sold less than 1,000 copies back in the 1980s. So for him to have one was pretty rare.”

This all rekindled his interest in role playing and in 2023, he once again started to work on his RPG project.

After talking with his friend in Michigan and being encouraged by him to “do whatever you want to with the title because it’s long out of print as far as he’s concerned,” he worked on it and at the end of 2024 he had a fundraising campaign to raise money to help offset printing costs and was able to publish the book in December.

Balent has a business called Cawing Crow Designs and The Valley of the Pharaohs 40th Anniversary Edition is available in hardbound and softbound versions on his website at cawingdesigns.com. 

The game book contains the rules for the game as well as lots of background material about the civilization, culture, different kinds of places you could visit, maps of ancient Egypt and various major cities.

Balent said that probably more than half of the book “deals with the actual game itself, how to play the game and how to set up your characters and that sort of stuff and the remainder is background material, and it has four different adventures that someone can conduct different game sessions, and give people an idea of how to play the game as well.”

The game is based on the Egyptian civilization, which has a long-established culture and is known for the pyramids, as well as its scientific and medical achievements. Balent said he “always felt there was a very dynamic time, very interesting time and unlike most fantasy type games in where they take place in like an imaginary world or imaginary setting, this one was more relatable I think to a lot of people because this was an actual time period in the Earth’s history, in mankind’s history.”

The game, Balent said, is a unique system and is not based on characters increasing power through experience points, but it is “totally skill based. It’s all based on skills that your character has and you advance your skills.”

As there are many different kinds of skills, he said that players can choose to move their character in “whatever direction you want. There’s no restrictions on you being able to acquire a new skillset.” 

When creating his game, he wanted people to have the chance to explore their own interests and not restrict them to a certain path based on a type of character. 

“One of the things about role-playing games, in general,” which he said has been the case for him, is “it’s an opportunity for you to learn about different cultures, different time periods and even though they are kind of fantasy based through the use of magic, and those kinds of things, it still can provide a catalyst for you to learn more about history, different societies and time periods.”