Greywood Publishing grew out of more than two decades of writing, layout, game design and independent publishing. Its history begins before Greywood itself existed, with Fighting Fantasy, freelance publishing work and the first rough maps of a world that would eventually become Darcanthia.
Greywood Publishing did not begin as a company with a catalogue and a business plan. It grew out of years spent working on roleplaying games, learning publishing from the inside and developing projects that would eventually become Greywood's own worlds and game lines.
For Jamie Wallis, the path ran through Myriador, freelance layout work, the creation of Darcanthia and the earliest version of Dungeon Crawl before Greywood Publishing was formally established.
Before Greywood Publishing existed, Jamie worked with Myriador during the period in which the classic Fighting Fantasy gamebooks were being adapted for d20 roleplaying. It was an early step into professional roleplaying-game publishing and the beginning of a much longer path.
After Myriador, Jamie founded Jaytype.com, a freelance layout business specialising in roleplaying and publishing work. Projects included layout for a range of companies, among them Goodman Games and Sovereign Press.
Jaytype became the practical bridge between working for other publishers and eventually building an independent publishing company.
While developing the earliest version of Dungeon Crawl, Jamie began creating a fantasy world called Darcanthia. For roughly twenty years it existed largely in notes, sketches and rough maps, gathering places, history and ideas without ever becoming the fully realised setting it was intended to be.
The Darcanthia now appearing in Greywood's books is therefore not a recent invention, but the continuation of one of Jamie's oldest surviving game projects.
Greywood Publishing was established when Jamie teamed up with Shane Garvey around Shane's original roleplaying game, QUERP.
The aim was straightforward: create accessible games, publish them independently and build a range that could grow beyond a single rulebook.
The same year saw the release of Epic Adventure Dungeon Crawl on DriveThruRPG as a Print and Play game. It was the first published incarnation of the dungeon-crawling concept that would, many years later, evolve into Dungeon Crawl Quest.
QUERP began with Shane Garvey's original game and quickly expanded. Jamie and Shane worked together on the QUERP Bestiary, the first major follow-up to the core rules.
From there, Shane wrote the Players Companion, while Jamie wrote the Gamesmasters Companion. The line grew into a family of books rather than remaining a single standalone game.
Jamie then branched the system into a new genre with QUERP Modern, writing the Core Rulebook and Wild West. This established the idea that QUERP could support more than traditional fantasy and laid the foundation for the wider family of QUERP games that Greywood continues to develop today.
In 2006 Greywood began attending gaming conventions, sharing booth space with Arion Games. Conventions became an important part of putting the books in front of players, meeting other publishers and taking Greywood beyond purely online publishing.
Greywood's work also moved beyond roleplaying books. In 2013, Lone Wolf: The Board Game was produced with Gary Chalk, continuing Greywood's interest in tabletop games as well as books.
Publishing activity eventually slowed and Greywood entered a much quieter period. The company, its games and its worlds remained, but many projects existed only as old files, notes, unfinished manuscripts and ideas waiting for the right time to return.
Darcanthia remained among them: still present in notebooks and maps, still growing in the background, but not yet the published world it would eventually become.
Greywood is now active again, with old lines being rebuilt and long-standing projects finally reaching publication. QUERP Fantasy has returned in revised form, QUERP Modern and QUERP Space are active again, and Darcanthia has moved from decades of notes and rough maps into a fully developed published setting.
At the same time, Greywood is looking forward rather than simply revisiting the past. CoN.D.O.R. is expanding QUERP Modern, The Underworld of Darcanthia is pushing the fantasy setting into new territory, and Dungeon Crawl Quest is bringing a game concept first published in 2004 back in a completely new form.
The rebuilt Greywood website, new publishing programme and plans for UK Games Expo 2027 mark the beginning of a new chapter: not a relaunch of something forgotten, but the continuation of work that has been developing, in one form or another, for more than two decades.
Greywood Publishing has changed shape many times, but the idea behind it has remained remarkably consistent: make games and books worth putting on the shelf, build worlds worth exploring and keep creating.