Brány Skeldalu

Lore & Background

The game is set on the ancient island of Rovenland, a land full of magic where the elder gods rested after creating the world. The balance of the world is threatened by five evil mages who attempt to open a gate into the forbidden dimension of Zohar. They build Skeldal Tower in the south of the island, filling it with monsters to keep others away. An old scholar named Freghar summons three heroes through a rite but dies in the process. The heroes are later joined by a thief named Roland, a mage named Gralt, and a librarian's son named Erik. They seek help from Nimeth, the former teacher of the five mages, who reveals that the mages betrayed him after finding the Scroll of Nogran. Nimeth sends the heroes to obtain five artifacts, which are forged into a Sword of Revenge. The group then enters Skeldal Tower, stops the ritual, and kills the evil mages. The summoned heroes return home, while Roland becomes a merchant, Erik returns to his family, and Gralt sets off on a new adventure.

Reader's Guide

Gates of Skeldal holds significance as a landmark in Czech video game history, being one of the first domestic dungeon crawlers to combine 2D and 3D graphics. Its legacy was extended when it was made freeware in 2007 and its source code released under GPLv3 in 2008, allowing fan translations and community modifications. The game's commercial re-release for iOS and Android in 2014, funded through a Czech crowdfunding campaign, demonstrated enduring interest. A sequel, The Fifth Disciple, was released in 2002, and a spin-off novel, Lawless Country, follows the character Wahargem. The series continued with 7 Mages, released in 2016. The game's plot, involving summoned heroes and a struggle against evil mages, has been retold in a novel by Jindřich Rohlík. Its open-source nature and fan translation have helped it reach an international audience despite never having an official English release.

Did You Know?

• The game was made freeware on 19 November 2007.
• The source code was released under GPLv3 in 2008 on SourceForge.
• The character Roland (or another hero) is the main character of the spin-off book Země bez zákona (Lawless Country).

The World of Rovenland and Its Heroes

The story unfolds on Rovenland, an ancient island steeped in magic where the elder gods are said to have rested during the world's creation. That balance is shattered when five mages, lured by the Scroll of Nogran, attempt to open a gate into the forbidden dimension of Zohar. To protect their work, they raise the monster-filled Skeldal tower on the island's southern shore. An aging scholar, Freghar, tries to intervene through a summoning rite that calls three heroes to the island, but the ritual costs him his life. The summoned warriors — among them the strong Wahargem — press forward and are joined by Roland, an honorable thief met in the Goblin Caves; Gralt, a reclusive mage; and Erik, a librarian's son. Their quest leads them to Nimeth, the very teacher the five mages once served before betraying him. Nimeth tasks the group with seizing five artifacts that fuel the mages' power. The heroes forge these relics into the Sword of Revenge and storm Skeldal tower, halting the ritual at the final moment and slaying the mages. In the aftermath, the summoned heroes return home, Roland becomes a merchant, Erik returns to his family, and Gralt sets out on a new wandering.

Development and the 1998 Debut

Gates of Skeldal is a dungeon-crawler role-playing game that blends 2D and 3D graphics, a technical hybrid that was distinctive for its era. The title was created by the Czech studio Napoleon Games and brought to market by publisher JRC Interactive in 1998, targeting the MS-DOS platform. The game was produced entirely in Czech and never received an official English-language release, meaning that for years the only way for non-Czech-speaking players to experience it was through community-driven fan translations that appeared well after the original launch. Despite its limited initial distribution, the game carved out a devoted following in the Czech Republic and became a notable entry in the country's video-game history. Its combination of dungeon-crawling exploration, party-based combat, and a richly layered narrative set on the magical island of Rovenland gave it a character that set it apart from many of its contemporaries. The 2D-and-3D visual approach, in particular, gave the game a layered look that helped bring the world of Rovenland and its towering Skeldal fortress to life on the modest hardware of the late 1990s.

Freeware, Open Source, and the Mobile Revival

Long after its 1998 debut, Gates of Skeldal underwent a remarkable transformation in accessibility. In 2005, one of the original developers ported the title to Windows, broadening its reach beyond the MS-DOS machines it was built for. Then, on 19 November 2007, the game was officially made freeware, removing the price barrier entirely. The following year, in 2008, the full source code was published under the GPLv3 license on a SourceForge repository, inviting modders and developers to study, modify, and build upon the game's internals. Because no official English version had ever existed, fan-created translations became essential for the international community to enjoy the title. The most significant modern milestone came in 2014, when Napoleon Games launched a commercial port for iOS and Android. That mobile release was funded through a crowdfunding campaign on the Czech platform Startovač, demonstrating that the game still had a passionate audience more than fifteen years after its original launch. During that same campaign, the studio released a small advertising game called Skeldal Pexeso to generate buzz, and developer Jindřich Rohlík began working on a novel retelling of the game's story.

Sequels and the Expanded Skeldal Universe

The world of Rovenland has continued to grow well beyond the original 1998 game. In 2002, Napoleon Games released the sequel The Fifth Disciple (Brány Skeldalu 2: Pátý Učedník), which follows a young magic student named Engeor as he confronts Wahargem, one of the three heroes summoned in the first game. It was in this sequel that Wahargem's name was finally revealed to players, since the original title never explicitly stated it. The character's popularity extended into prose fiction as well: Jindřich Rohlík authored a spin-off novel called Země bez zákona (Lawless Country), which follows Wahargem's adventures outside the game's main storyline. The franchise kept moving forward when Napoleon Games announced in April 2015 that a new installment titled 7 Mages was in development, targeting both mobile devices and Microsoft Windows. That third entry ultimately shipped on 15 March 2016, continuing the saga of the mages, the island, and the ancient forces that threaten the balance of the world. Together, the games and novels form a small but dedicated expanded universe rooted in the original Skeldal setting.