Petersens Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors

Call of Cthulhu RPG

by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, Mike Mason

"With its clear visuals and hard-won information, this guide has saved my bacon on more than one occasion!"
—Ernest P. Wilderbeast, Visiting Professor of Preternatural Studies Miskatonic University

Weird shapes in the park? Odd rumbling noises in the basement? A lurking dread in the kitchen?

Bad dreams involving strange adventures and bizarre creatures? Identifying the lurking horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos is never an easy task, so researchers need all the help they can get—don’t leave home without the Field Guide!

An essential spotter’s guide for the budding and experienced preternaturalist.

• Accurate and complete
• 53 Lovecraftian creatures categorized and detailed
• Full color illustrations
• Size comparison charts
• Habitat, distribution, and life cycle notes
• How to distinguish similar-seeming entities
• Observer warnings
• Bibliography and recommended reading list

Illustrations and descriptions from the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle based upon
the creations of H.P. Lovecraft.

Genres: Horror, Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Reference, Gaming, Lovecraftian, Games

140 pages, Hardcover

First published May 16, 2016

About the author

Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of RuneQuest and creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. He later joined id Software where he worked on the development of the Doom franchise and Quake. As part of Ensemble Studios, Petersen subsequently contributed to the Age of Empires franchise.

Reviews

[Ferio · Rating 2 out of 5]

El único motivo por el que este libro puede considerarse un suplemento de un juego de rol es porque su editorial original (Chaosium) lo vende de esta manera y la de aquí (Edge) no va a discutir, porque el material que aporta es poco más que unas notas de color (como se entiende en el argot rolero) para describir las criaturas de los Mitos en las partidas. Ni más ni menos. Está más cerca del espíritu de un libro de ilustraciones que de un manual.

Y esas ilustraciones son maravillosas, eso es un hecho. ¿Pero por qué no son congruentes con el texto? ¿Tan difícil era? Deja bastante que desear, por muy bonitas que sean, que el texto describa unos atributos y características físicas de una criatura y su dibujo diverja notoriamente de las mismas.

De toda la colección de la 7ª edición castellana de La llamada de Cthulhu, el material más flojo, por no decir obviable salvo que seas coleccionista o sufras de compulsiones.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this! Like a Beastiary but for existential and unimaginable horrors - super helpful for putting a face to name during COC campaigns

[E Kummeneje · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, these field guides are weird books, in-universe faux-scientific biology/zoology identification guides to monsters in the extended Lovecraft Mythos. Basically it takes all the horror out of the "horrors".

This particular version seems to omit most of the "non-core" monsters, which I think is good. The writing is acceptable overall, but often falls between two chairs in neither being scientific enough, not horrific enough - this is a selection of fairly mediocre SCP entries to put it another way. There's quite a few editing errors, both typos and style errors.

The art is elaborate, and obviously intended to be luxurious and high value. It IS really high quality, but the art direction is *terrible*! More often than not, the magnificent paintings completely miss the (sparse and concrete) details given in the text. Artistic license is all fine and good, but this is specifically supposed to be an identification guide!

All in all, it's fine plus. Lots of interesting details.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sort of all fluff bestiary for Call of Cthulhu and related games. I think this book has a lot of potential in the hands of a keeper and could even work as an in universe book for Delta Green and a modern CoC game. It's written as an actual Miskatonic University publication from their preternatural studies of the medieval metaphysics department. It cites numerous fake research papers that are compiled in a bibliography at the end of the book. It takes a scholarly look at the habits and traits of these creatures. There in no crunch in this book. No statistics. No hit points. Just pure unadulterated fluff!

Half the book is devoted to denizens of the Dreamlands which allows for showcasing some of the... Well.. cuter and more colorful critters in the mythos. And that's definitely a nice inclusion. Not everything needs to be decked out with tentacles and gnashing teeth.

Even if it can't be used as an in game resource, the artwork of the monsters is glorious and can jog the imagination of any keeper. If nothing else, it is a beautiful macabre art book.
My favorite piece is probably image 6 depicting a Star Spawn of Cthulhu. Normally these fearsome monsters are portrayed as simply "Cthulhu but littler." The depiction here gives them a separate look and feel that still preserves their lineage but does not resort to reductive artistic short hand.

[Benjamin]

An odd book, probably skippable for roleplaying purposes: it's a tongue-in-cheek sort of scientific examination of monsters, the kind of thing you might find in world if everyone knew about Lovecraftian horrors. So there's a size guide and a flowchart for identifying monsters ("is it visible? does it have a head? does it have wings?") and little diagrams showing, for instance, how a certain monster's skull hinges open vertically. It's amusing, but unless you were going to run a campaign where, say, everyone knew about monsters but were choosing to ignore it (like a climate change parable), I feel like you would want to keep this book out of the players' hands because of how familiar it makes the monsters. But then again, that's the knife's edge problem that runs throughout Call of Cthulhu: is it really horror when there's so much familiar and known about the horrors? Do we need more new horrors?

[Ανδρέας Μιχαηλίδης · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent successor to past and beloved Petersen works (such as the Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands), this is a sort of "Academic Bestiary" of the Mythos, with creatures, gods and others from the game's (and wider lovecraftian literature's) annals.

If I have one complaint, is that maybe it tries too hard to imitate what it clearly isn't (an actual field guide) and more importantly, illustrations and texts do not always correspond with each other, sometimes glaringly so, as in the Ghoul. Lovecraft's Ghouls were a semi-canine race of offal eaters and not your run-of the-mill undead as they are depicted inside (in rather terrible PC game zombie fashion).

However, these instances are the exception and the book remains an excellent source of ideas and, if nothing else, a nifty prop for your game.

[Pablo · Rating 3 out of 5]

El arte y maquetación del libro son preciosas y están muy cuidadas, pero en contenido se queda un poco corto. Las descripciones son breves y los dibujos muchas veces no se corresponden con los rasgos descritos. Además, bastantes criaturas son repetidas y aparecen con descripciones parecidas en otras fuentes como el libro de rol básico de 6ª o 7ª edición.

Como complemento para coleccionar es atractivo y complementa con algo de información las criaturas del juego de rol, aunque no incluye ninguna mecánica para el mismo.

[The Smoog · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the writing side of things here is just fine, and fits nicely with the books schtick about being a research guide, there’s not much here that anyone familiar with the subject matter won’t be familiar with. Where this book really shines though, is in the art department- the imagery really is glorious. For this reason alone, it’s a book that would be a fine collector's piece for any fan of H. P. Lovecraft or the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. I got it cheap in a recent digital bundle offer, but there’s a real temptation to get a physical copy now.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the ninth book I've read from the lot that my friend sent me.

This book is pretty clever. It's a series of descriptions of several of Lovecraft's creatures. Most table top RPGs have at least one book full of monsters or other enemies and their stat blocks for GMs to use either to spice up an existing module or while writing their own. This is a bit different from that standard, though, because rather than stat blocks the monsters are listed as though they've been recorded for a field guide, as the title makes very obvious.

This book is a fun little tidbit for fans of Lovecraft and/or the Call of Cthulhu RPG but the entries are a tad shorter than I'd hoped, and the editing in this book is the worst I've encountered outside of Harlem Unbound, though this is still better than that book in this particular regard. Fun book, but not something I'd say is worth going out of your way for.

[Oleksandr Fediienko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Колись я читав два путівники від цього автора, видані ще у вісімдесятих. Цей новий поєднує їх і доповнює. Нові ілюстрації в цілому кращі, ніж старі, а часто – набагато. Тут представлено чимало вигаданих Лавкрафтом істот і богів лавкрафтівського пантеону. Помітне виключення – тут немає Ктулху. Та все ж головний недолік – чомусь відмовилися від написання транскрипції, а вона у багатьох випадках не завадить.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A high-quality, lavishly illustrated reference, S Petersen’s Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors is a terrific addition to any Keeper’s library and worthwhile addition to any Call of Cthulhu gaming table. My only complaint is that the book reads as an in-game prop for a modern setting instead of the far more popular 1920s.

It is highly recommended for Keepers of the Call of Cthulhu game and anyone interested in the genre.

[Honesty · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there were spelling errors and some of the depictions weren’t strictly accurate, all in all this is an enjoyable volume for fans of bestiaries in general or Lovecraft in particular. While I agree with other reviewers that having artwork of some of the entities removes the horror and mystique a bit, it is interesting seeing artists’ interpretations. This will be a valued addition to my growing collection of books of imagined beasties.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

For fans of the Lovecraftian mythos, this book is a treat. The writeups of each creature are brief but excellent at portraying the atmosphere of the mythos. The artwork is the big thing with this book... and is more than worth the cost of admission. Each creature gets its own gorgeous near-full page of colored artwork that complements the details provided in each entry.

[Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent artwork. Each entry is accompanied with a quote from HPL but, strangely, the quotes seem unrelated to the creature illustrated. I was a bit disappointed by the rendition of the dimensional shambler (the RPG had a great miniature for those guys) but each reader probably has his or her own image for the creatures described. Overall, this book would be great for any HPL fan.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not into role plays but here you get an excellent overview of how those eerie creatures might look like. The pages are dark, the monsters and creatures even darker. So otherworldly indeed they will scare you shitless. You won't forget those illustrations as long as you live. Excellent pick. Really recommended.

[Nikola Petrov · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best-illustrated guides on Lovecraft's monsters presented as an in-world textbook compiled by researchers from the Miskatonic University.

Light, entertaining, and content-rich. The identification table using different monster parts is great fun.

A must-read for Cthulhu fans!

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal artwork and some clever in-universe writing makes for an excellent read for any Lovecraft obsessive. If you're looking for an adventure supplement for COC this definitely isn't it, but it's got a tremendous amount of flavor you could borrow for world building.

[Kermet Key · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much more can be found online with the Lovecraft wiki and in the Cthulhu Mythos encyclopedia. It’s a fine introduction for those new to Lovecratian horror and the images are fine but I’ve barely cracked it open since I first browsed it.

[Azuregos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great visual treat for any Lovecraft fan. Great artwork, superb production quality and overall great read.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must have for Keepers everywhere!

[Me · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun book if you're into the Cthulhu

Hello from r'lyeh

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pictures were cool and great if you're running Call of Cthulhu (any edition)

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool little monster manual full of lovecraftian creatures.

[Geoff Gander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not much to say about this one, aside from it being highly recommended - both as a visual aid and as an example of "in-game" or "in-character" writing. The bibliography does not disappoint, either.

[Minoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

9/10. Cool monsters🫡👌🏻

[Luigi Mangione Wannabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oye , pues muy buen libro , me recordó a los bestiarios que leía de pequeño y logra ser disfrutable más alla de que el sistema para el qur está enfocado sea algo ... bazofioso

[Mikael Cerbing · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an artbook I would give it a 4 star review, as a RPG supplement it gets 2 stars. But I guess you can probably tweek out a fair amount of stuff if you really work on it. But I will still settle on 3 stars.

[Jefferson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The latest edition of this Call of Cthulhu classic is devoid of specific game statistics, making it an interesting read even if you're not familiar with the role playing game. It's a great reference for the many strange creatures that appear in Lovecraft-derived books, comics and games, and the graphic design and illustration in the new (2016) edition are top-notch.

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good to know what you might be up against if you find yourself in weird dimensions or dreamlands.

I had a blast reading through this!