Having been founded, in part, by former employees of wargame manufacturer Arthurian Games, SRQ Inc. had a strong desire to enter that space as well. To that end, the company partnered with Ryland X. Ragascasa to resurrect his Cassandra Galaxy tabletop science fiction/fantasy game, which had previously been in print from 1980-1985 by Works Gameshop before the former fell out with Ragascasa over licensing and royalties.

The Cassandra Galaxy was made up of two interrelated properties: the fantasy Garden World, and the self-titled Cassandra Galaxy, often called Cassandra Galaxy Future to distinguish it (players sometimes refer to Garden World as Cassandra Galaxy Past in a tongue-in-cheek way as a result). Both used essentially the same systems of play, being distinguished only by the era in which they occurred. Ragascasa conceived Garden World as a planet on which humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, goblins, and the ratlike muroids had all co-evolved and over which they warred. Cassandra Galaxy Future, in contrast, was set in the far future, when the various people of the Garden World had abandoned it for the wider galaxy, coming back into conflict as they attempted to expand their empires and search for their lost homeworld.

Cassandra Galaxy was a strong seller on the back of Ragascasa’s reputation as a tabletop auteur but it was a financial failure for SRQ for a number of reasons. For one, the deal inked with Ragascasa allowed him to keep a significant percentage of the proceeds as royalties. For another, the sourcebooks, sets, and miniatures were very expensive to produce, and left SRQ with very thin profit margins after Ragascasa took his cut. Works Gameshop did not take the change lying down, either, and quickly pivoted to their in-house Starhammer and Earthhammer system, which was compatible with Cassandra Galaxy and incorporated modified versions of popular older miniatures.

Ragascasa became involved in a messy lawsuit with Works Gameshop in 1985, with the result that both SRQ and Works Gameshop were served with judicial notices to cease production; sensing weakness, WG reached a settlement with Ragascasa that included regaining a license to publish Cassandra Galaxy at a higher royalty rate than before. The sudden switch left SRQ with mountains of product that they could not, legally, sell; the 1985 vintage sets would languish in warehouses until they were bought by WG during SRQ’s liquidation and released with a date of 1994 (so-called “overstamp” or “sticker date” sets).