Press [Chaosium] Mark Morrison: BRP Creatures: something monstrous this way comes

[Michael O'Brien]

By Mark Morrison

I won’t lie to you. When I saw Jason Durall's sneaky photo of a huge stack of the new Basic Roleplaying: Creatures book making its pre-release debut at Essen, my first thought was “I can’t wait to attack my players with those things.” There’s something irresistible about a monstrous stack of monsters.

Basic Roleplaying: Creatures is out November 12. I’m warming up my imagination because it’s not just a book for Basic Roleplaying: it’s a book for every Chaosium game you play.

• Want more sea monsters to pull down ships in Age of Vikings? BRP Creatures.
  
  
• Want some mysteries beyond the Mythos for Call of Cthulhu? BRP Creatures.*
  
  
• Want new mythic creatures to slink around Rivers of London? BRP Creatures.
  
  
• Want new beasts both natural or magical in the deep forests of Pendragon? BRP Creatures.
  
  
• Want to vary your Glorantha with a mass of new monsters for RuneQuest? Spoilers: BRP Creatures.

You get the idea. Each creature works across the other games because they’re all built on the same BRP foundation.** Characters and creatures roll against percentile skills to determine success***. Each has hit points based on their Size and Constitution, and do more damage based on their Size and Strength.

Conversion to other games is easy; there is a short guide in the appendices of BRP Creatures to help you. Want to use a BRP creature for RuneQuest or for Age of Vikings? It’s virtually identical, just sort out the Hit Locations and unleash that thing. Want to use one in Call of Cthulhu or Rivers of London? Just multiply the stats by 5 (for a handy guide, see Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook p.390) and you’re good to go. For Pendragon? Follow the advice in the appendices to adjust skills and armor, and get questing.

So… what kinda creatures are we talking about? Almost all the world’s monsters! Every size, shape and genre of creature you can think of is stomping this way. From the deep seas to deep space, from fantasy dungeons to the world of mythology, from the age of the dinosaurs to our current and far future, your campaign just got a lot more dangerous. All this plus a handy cast of NPC archetypes to fill out the world.

We’ll back on the blog in days to come with ideas for new scenarios for Age of Vikings, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Rivers of London and more using this book.

It’s almost time to let loose the monsters. So, behold: the first snippet of the index for Basic Roleplaying: Creatures. You can get your hands on your own copy this week - November 12!

* Make a Library Use roll: the first time that H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos creatures appeared in a Chaosium book was the Gateway Bestiary for RuneQuest. Soon after, Call of Cthulhu was born in a thunderstorm.

** To be historically correct, RuneQuest came first. Basic Roleplaying was a distilled version of the Steve Perrin and Ray Turney’s brilliant mechanics. BRP then grew into the engine which has powered every Chaosium game since: Call of Cthulhu, ElfQuest, Hawkmoon, Magic World, Nephilim, Pendragon, Ringworld, Stormbringer, Superworld, Worlds of Wonder and, of course, Basic Roleplaying itself.

*** That’s not 100% true either. Boy, the fact checkers are on point today. Pendragon is a D20 game, and so instead of percentiles, skills have a rating out of 20. But the success chance is largely the same.