Hideous Creatures: a Bestiary of the Cthulhu Mythos

by Kenneth Hite, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, Becky Annison

Lovecraft created his various “shadowy congeners” because the stories of vampires, werewolves, and even ghosts had become too familiar and too formulaic to evoke true horror. Almost a century after he wrote, his own monstrous races have likewise begun to seem like comfortable story furniture rather than unnerving signals that the world is horrible and wrong.

In Hideous Creatures: a Bestiary of the Cthulhu Mythos, we present a comprehensive look at Lovecraft’s hideous creatures, from as many angles as we can. Our goal is contradiction, surprise, and most especially the uncanny: the recognition of something familiar as something weird. As in the “Gods and Titans” section of the Trail of Cthulhu core book, this book deliberately contradicts itself, blurring boundaries and erasing certainties in the name of the uncanny. In your campaign, these variant truths might be misunderstandings, legends, heresies, or deliberate lies spread by the creatures to lull their foes into a false sense of familiarity.

Genres: Horror, Role Playing Games

368 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2018

About the author

Kenneth Hite (born September 15, 1965) is a writer and role-playing game designer. Author of Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents role-playing games, Hite has been announced as the lead designer of the upcoming 5th edition of Vampire: the Masquerade.

Reviews

[Jose Vidal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hace ya décadas que distintos sistemas han ido ofreciendo sus versiones de los Mitos de Cthulhu y las entidades lovecraftianas de forma más o menos exitosa; aunque creo que, aún, la Llamada de Cthulhu, especialmente tras la revitalización que ha significado la 7ª edición, sigue siendo el referente absoluto.

La lista es larga, y por citar algunos sin un orden determinado, podemos hablar de Realms of Cthulhu, Raiders of R'lyeh, De profundis o Achtung Cthulhu!. Entre los más interesantes, para mi, se cuenta el juego de investigación de Pelgrane Press (el Rastro de Cthulhu) que fue, en 2008, uno de los primeros en marcar esta tendencia y que sigue siendo, para mi, uno de los mejores si no el mejor. Quizás sea, también, el que más se acerca al formato y ambientación tradicional de las aventuras de los la Llamada, con un pequeño cambio de foco hacia los años 30, frente a los 20 que suelen centrar las historias del juego de Chaosium, pero por lo demás muy parecido en tono, objetivos y ambiente.

http://aventurasextraordinarias.blogs...

[Robert DeLeskie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most evocative bestiary since the original Monster Manual. The descriptions, prompts and handouts make it an excellent resource for fiction writers as well as RPG designers and GMs. The bibliography that ends each entry is something I'd like to see in every book like this. It's true there are only 31 creatures listed, but how many variations on flying bats/lizards, fecund tentacle horrors and ghouls/zombies does one really need? Highly recommended for those considering it.