Throughout the game, players travel across the high-fantasy land of Urak (which is split into 8 distinct regions, one for each faith), building an army composed of archers, infantry, cavalry, and creatures.

There are eight different factions: life, death, order, chaos, air, earth, fire, and water.

The Heroes of the game consist of three different types which offer unique gameplay and tactics.

The Mage is very weak with low hit points but can use spells which can change the entire battle in his army's favour, summoning great monsters or raining down fire and lightning from behind the front lines.

The atmosphere of the game is high fantasy, loosely inspired by the works of Tolkien, as well as Dungeons & Dragons.

Balkoth, the lord of Death, has embarked on a campaign to destroy all other faiths in honor of the dark god Golgoth.

The other lords scramble to expand their ranks to defend themselves against this dark threat but also to once and for all destroy their lifelong nemesis.

One of these considerations is that each faith's polar opposite (e.g., Chaos vs. Order, Fire vs. Water) begins the game extremely hostile to its counterpart.

Lords of Magic was developed by Impressions Games for Microsoft Windows and released by Sierra Entertainment in December 1997.

The first Order adventure is loosely based on the legends of Merlin and King Arthur and ends with the retrieval of the Holy Grail and the death of Mordred.

The second-order adventure is only activated by clicking in the centre of the circle of life in the quests menu and has a unique lord named Sigfried who transforms as the game progresses.