Quest for the Grail CCG

Quest for the Grail is an Arthurian CCG, one of the small handful of 90s games that tried to build an entire card pool around Knights of the Round Table and the grail quest mythology.

The game

Published in 1995 by Stone Ring Games, Quest for the Grail CCG is a two-player duel where each player runs a Knight (Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad, Gawain) on a quest toward the Holy Grail while facing opposing knights, enchanters, Morgause, and the Green Knight. Mechanics use a questing progression track and a Chivalry-points system that penalises unchivalrous play.

The context

The Arthurian-theme market in 1995 was unusually crowded (Camelot Software's King Arthur game, the TSR King Arthur's Pendragon RPG, several Arthurian novels in trade paperback). Stone Ring was a small publisher and Quest for the Grail was its major CCG effort.

The collector angle

The base set plus a small Lady of the Lake expansion make up the English print. Stone Ring Games wound down shortly after the expansion and the planned Excalibur wave was never shipped. The hand-painted-style rares by artist Brom are the chase pulls for art-collector buyers, and the Merlin foil from the 1995 GenCon promo event is the trophy item. Grail-themed promotional cards given at Renaissance Faire booths circa 1995-1996 exist in very small numbers.