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Chaosium
Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include '' Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'', RuneQuest Glorantha'', ''Pendragon'', based on Thomas Mallory's ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', and '' 7th Sea'', "swashbuckling and sorcery" set in a fantasy 17th century Europe. Many of Chaosium’s product lines are based upon literary sources. While Stafford himself has been described as "one of the most decorated game designers of all time" and "the grand shaman of gaming", multiple other notable game designers have written for Chaosium. These include David Conyers, Matthew Costello, Larry DiTillio, Paul Fricker, David A. Hargrave, Rob Heinsoo, Keith Herber, Jennell Jaquays, Katharine Kerr, Reiner Knizia, Charlie Krank, Robin Laws, Penelope Love, Mark Morrison, Steve Perrin, Sandy Petersen, Ken Rolston, Ken St. Andre, Jonathan Tweet, John Wick, and Lynn Willis, among others. ...
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Call Of Cthulhu (role-playing Game)
''Call of Cthulhu'' is a horror fiction role-playing game based on H. P. Lovecraft's story of the same name and the associated Cthulhu Mythos. The game, often abbreviated as ''CoC'', is published by Chaosium; it was first released in 1981 and is in its seventh edition, with licensed foreign language editions available as well. Its game system is based on Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing (BRP) with additions for the horror genre. These include special rules for sanity and luck. Gameplay Setting ''Call of Cthulhu'' is set in a darker version of our world based on H. P. Lovecraft's observation (from his essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature") that "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." The original edition, first published in 1981, uses Basic Role-Playing as its basis and is set in the 1920s, the setting of many of Lovecraft's stories. The ''Cthulhu by Gaslight'' supplement blends the occult and Holmesian my ...
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RuneQuest
''RuneQuest'' (commonly abbreviated as RQ) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally designed by Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson (game designer), Steve Henderson, and Warren James, and set in Greg Stafford's mythical world of Glorantha. It was first published in 1978 by Chaosium, The Chaosium. Beginning in 1984, publication passed between a number of companies, including Avalon Hill, Mongoose Publishing, and The Design Mechanism, before finally returning to Chaosium in 2016. ''RuneQuest'' is notable for its system, designed around percentile dice and an early implementation of skill (role-playing games), skill rules, which became the basis for numerous other games. There have been several editions of the game. History In 1975, game designer Greg Stafford released the fantasy board game ''White Bear and Red Moon'' (later renamed ''Dragon Pass''), produced and marketed by Chaosium, The Chaosium, a publishing company set up by Stafford specifically for the release ...
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Pendragon (role-playing Game)
''Pendragon'', or ''King Arthur Pendragon'', is a Tabletop role-playing game (RPG) in which players take the role of knights performing chivalric deeds in the tradition of Arthurian legend. It was originally written by Greg Stafford and published by Chaosium, then was acquired by Green Knight Publishing, who in turn passed on the rights to White Wolf Publishing in 2004. White Wolf sold the game to Stewart Wieck in 2009. Wieck formed Nocturnal Media, who updated and reissued the 5th edition originally published by White Wolf. In 2018, it returned to Chaosium. After it was published in 1985, ''Pendragon'' won several industry awards, and reviewers highly recommended it; in following years, it was included in several "Best of" industry lists. Setting Like several other RPGs from Chaosium (most notably '' Call of Cthulhu''), ''Pendragon'' has a literary basis, in this case the fifteenth-century Arthurian romance, ''Le Morte d'Arthur''. It studiously avoids fantasy RPG cliches in f ...
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Greg Stafford
Francis Gregory Stafford (February 9, 1948 – October 10, 2018), usually known as Greg Stafford, was an American game designer, publisher, and practitioner of shamanism. Stafford is most famous as the creator of the fantasy world of Glorantha, but he was also a prolific games designer. He was designer of ''Pendragon'', he was co-designer of the ''RuneQuest'', ''Ghostbusters'', Prince Valiant and ''HeroQuest'' role-playing systems, founder of the role-playing game companies Chaosium and Issaries, designer of the '' White Bear and Red Moon'', '' Nomad Gods'', '' King Arthur's Knights'' and '' Elric'' board games, and co-designer of the ''King of Dragon Pass'' computer game. Gaming industry career 1970s: Chaosium Greg Stafford began wargaming after picking up a copy of ''U-Boat'' by Avalon Hill, and in 1966 as a freshman at Beloit College he started writing about the fantasy world of Glorantha. After rejection from a publisher, Stafford created '' White Bear and Red Moon'' set ...
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David Conyers
David Conyers (born 30 May 1971) is an Australian author. Conyers writes predominantly science fiction and Lovecraftian horror. Biography Convers was born in Sydney. Most of his childhood was spent in the Adelaide Hills, before moving to Melbourne. There he achieved a bachelor's degree in civil engineering at the University of Melbourne in 1993. After several years working on remote outback construction sites in Western Australia, and extensive travel in Africa and Europe in 1995, he settled back in Melbourne, taking up a career in marketing and corporate communications. He moved to Adelaide in 2005. Writing career Convers published his first story ''Vanishing Curves'' in the ''Book of Dark Wisdom'' in 2004 and his first novel, ''The Spiraling Worm'' co-authored with United States horror writer John Sunseri, was published by Chaosium in 2007. The novel went on to receive an Honourable Mention for Best Australian Horror Novel in the 12th Annual Aurealis Award and the 2007 Au ...
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Charlie Krank
Charlie Krank is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Early life Charlie Krank was born in 1957 in San Francisco. Career Charlie Krank, an employee of the San Francisco game store Gambit, started volunteering to help Chaosium playtest in 1978 and became a paid employee two years later. Krank designed the collectible card game ''Mythos'', which won the 1996 ''Best Card Game'' award at Origins. When Greg Stafford founded Issaries, Inc. and left Chaosium after 25 years, long-time employee and part owner Krank stepped up as the new president of Chaosium. Chaosium almost went out of business in 2003, and for a time afterward it was run out of president Krank's house with no paid staff. On September 11, 2008, Krank informed the public that his friend and fellow long-time Chaosium employee Lynn Willis had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Krank later reported that Willis died on January 18, 2013. In a forum posting of 3 June 2015, Sandy Petersen Ca ...
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Jennell Jaquays
Jennell Jaquays (born Paul Jaquays, October 14, 1956) is an American game designer, Game art design, video game artist, and illustrator of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs). Her notable works include the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' modules ''Dark Tower (module), Dark Tower'' and ''Caverns of Thracia'' for Judges Guild; the development and design of conversions on games such as ''Pac-Man'' and ''Donkey Kong'' for Coleco's ColecoVision, home arcade video game system; and more recent design work, including the ''Age of Empires'' series, ''Quake 2'', and ''Quake III Arena''. Some of her best known works as a fantasy artist are the cover illustration for TSR, Inc., TSR's ''Dragon Mountain (Dungeons & Dragons), Dragon Mountain'' Adventure (Dungeons & Dragons), adventure. Early life and education Jennell Jaquays was born on October 14, 1956 in Michigan and grew up in Michigan and Indiana. Jaquays graduated from Michigan's Western High School (Parma, Michigan), Jackson County Western High Scho ...
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Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen (born September 16, 1955) is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of ''RuneQuest'' and later creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game ''Call of Cthulhu''. He would later join id Software where he would work on the development of the ''Doom'' franchise and ''Quake''. Biography Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and developed the love for dinosaurs at age 3. He studied paleontology in college and later attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology. Work Chaosium He is a well-known fan of H. P. Lovecraft, whose work he first encountered in a World War II Armed Services Edition of '' The Dunwich Horror and other Weird Tales'' found in his father's library. In 1974, ''Dungeons & Dragons'' brought his interest to role-playing games. He became a full-time staff member at Chaosium. His interest for role-playing games and H. P. Lovecraft were fused when h ...
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7th Sea (role-playing Game)
''7th Sea'' is a "swashbuckling and sorcery"-themed tabletop role-playing game by John Wick. It is set in the fictional world of Théah, a fantasy version of 17th century Earth. Originally published by AEG, ''7th Sea'' is currently published by Chaosium. Setting The ''7th Sea'' RPG is set in a world that draws direct influence from the literature of 17th century Europe. Each country in the world can be compared to a European kingdom but is an exaggerated representation. Sorcery is a large part of the world with many types available to players. The dominant religion in the world, the belief in Theus and his prophets, is based on a form of Gnostic Christianity and features a parallel of the Spanish Inquisition. There are also references to the Knights Templars, Masons and the Invisible College of scientists. All major European powers have their representations in Théah. Avalon (England), Castille (Spain), Montaigne (France), Eisen (Germany), Ussura (Russia), Vendel (Netherl ...
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Larry DiTillio
Lawrence G. DiTillio (February 15, 1948 – March 16, 2019) was an American film, TV series, and tabletop role-playing game writer. His creations include ''He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword'' and the award-winning ''Masks of Nyarlathotep''. Education Larry DiTillio attended the film school at New York University for four years. He then spent an additional two years at UCLA's film school. Career After graduating, DiTillio decided to make a career as a Hollywood writer. He knocked on agency doors until he was able to find an agent willing and able to find him work as a film writer. DiTillio wrote for both television and movies in the 1970s, including a stint on Filmation's ''Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids''. He then became a staff writer for the original ''He-Man and the Masters of the Universe'' series and over its two seasons, wrote 17 episodes, more than anyone else. He also directed one episode. During a writers' strike in 1983, DiTillio searched for other ways to gene ...
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Michael O'Brien (game Designer)
Michael O'Brien is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career With David Hall, Nick Brooke and Rick Meints, Michael O'Brien and others staffed the leading Glorantha fanzine '' Tales of the Reaching Moon'' (1989-2002). When new ''RuneQuest'' line editor Ken Rolston kicked off the so-called "''RuneQuest'' Renaissance" for Avalon Hill, his first publication was O'Brien's ''Sun County'' (1992). O'Brien contributed to ''later RuneQuest'' releases in the product line during Rolston's tenure at Avalon Hill. O'Brien published two issues of another fanzine, the Glorantha Con Down Under fundraiser ''Questlines'' (1995-1998). These were published in 1995 and 1998 as fund-raisers for gaming conventions held in Melbourne, Australia. O'Brien also created ''Gorp'' #1 (Summer, 2000) a fake fanzine that purported to be a rare collectible from 1982. This magazine was produced for a British gaming convention in 2000, and because it nevertheless featured original materi ...
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Rick Meints
Rick Meints is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career In the 1990s, American expatriate Rick Meints was a member of the Reaching Moon Megacorp, the British fan publisher that was the center of Glorantha culture at the time. Meints was one of the staff on the leading Glorantha fanzine '' Tales of the Reaching Moon'' (1989-2002), published by Reaching Moon Megacorp. The Megacorp also published Meints's book on collecting Gloranthan publications, ''The Meints Index to Glorantha'' (1996, 1999). In 1998 Meints and Colin Phillips founded Moon Design Publications, the publisher of ''HeroQuest''. In July 2015, as part of an announcement by Greg Stafford that Moon Design Publications had joined the ownership group of his iconic game company Chaosium Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include '' Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft'' ...
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