GURPS Fantasy Bestiary is a sourcebook for GURPS. Contents. 1 Contents; 2 Publication history; 3 Reception; 4 References. Contents[edit]. GURPS Fantasy. GURPS Classic: Fantasy Bestiary – Creatures of Fantasy This extensively researched book, based on authentic folklore and legends from all. Gurps Fantasy Bestiary on *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Fantastic creatures for fantasy roleplaying.
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It began with a late-night phone conversation in November, Steve Jackson called me up, commenting that I had had a nice long break from writing, and would I like to do another book? We need a Fantasy Gurpz. Some gufps have no sense — meaning me, not Steve. Knowing that I have been a slow writer in the past, I accepted the job anyway. Now that it’s done, I can say it was worth it — but at the time, I wondered!
GURPS Fantasy Bestiary – Wikipedia
I was tired for four months straight! A number of creatures that I rather liked were cut from that book for lack of space. And I continued to think of more creatures long after the book was published. I got many comments on the original Bestiarymost of them favorable. But every now and then I’d meet someone who’d say, “There aren’t enough monsters — nothing to scare a party in plate mail.
GURPS Fantasy Bestiary Designer’s Article
I began to feel I had unwittingly cheated some people by not supplying them with enough “monsters. I am a professional storyteller, and tell mostly old legends, myths gueps other tales. So I read these types of stories constantly, and have been running across “monsters” for years. Now I had another chance to glean those stories for appropriate fantasy creatures — not races suitable for player characters, though.
There are still a lot of interesting creatures out there, even with that limitation. And once more I began to read and read and read.
GURPS Fantasy Bestiary
Many of the creatures I found reference to were not spelled out very clearly, alas. Some were, and those were easy enough to write up. But I really earned my pay on this one in two ways: The creativity involved in the latter exercise made up for the sheer hard work and bleary eyeballs of the former. I actually found reference to well over a thousand legendary monsters, but so many of them were so vaguely described that I couldn’t use them.
Others had no names — more on that in a bit. Often a storyteller would describe a monster very briefly, and then turn his attention turps the hero.
So I looked for clues in the hero’s reaction to the beast it was fighting. As an example, I read that “even the mightiest warriors found their arms tiring as they grups this creature. I had to — there wasn’t much else written about the animal except a brief description! So I wrote that this particular monster it was a dragon, by the way cast the Fatigue spell with its glance. This accounts very well for the mightiest warriors tiring, and makes for a more interesting creature than a simple collection of numbers.
And it doesn’t really violate the original myth! I found well over a thousand references to animals with no names.
This was very frustrating, for some of them were great creatures! Tantasy I took the liberty of blending the best characteristics of a nameless animal into a similar creature in the same culture’s mythology. This does violate the purity of the creatures a little bit, but those who don’t like such adulteration can ignore them.
I gkrps that class of reader is very small — most of us would rather have interesting creatures than by-the-book accurate descriptions. After a while, motifs began to appear.
There were numberless “giant this” and “giant that,” and an bestuary greater number of “part this animal, part that animal. Here is where I feel the best value of the book is. I’m proud of that chapter, and I hope somebody out there likes it. The names of the creatures caused me a little bit of a problem for a while. Most fantasy campaigns have a European flavor, and meeting creatures with names like “nyah-gwaheh” or “wu kung ching” doesn’t synch very well.
In the end, I left the names alone. Anyone who doesn’t like them can go back to a very ancient practice: I like this book, and I’m proud of it. I feel it is my best work, at least until the next one comes out! I hope bestiaary enjoy it, and may you gestiary the nyah-gwaheh before it stalks you! Back to Roleplayer 20 Table of Contents.