Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Blame Eliphas Levi

Today I would like to offer a correction to a previous item. Back in 2005 I suggested that Wraeththu: From Enchantment to Fufilment was "the first RPG I've ever encountered with someone's genitalia displayed on the cover". I was wrong. Somehow I had forgotten about ol' Baphomet on the cover of Bruce Galloway's oddball Fantasy Wargaming.



If the snakes don't get you, Mr. Happy surely will.
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Posted by Jeff Rients at 12:02 AM
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19 comments:

  1. John B2:02 AM

    We can also blame Mr. Levi for inverted pentagrams, meandering 19th century verbosity and inspiring the great beast himself... but you gotta love him, and Baphomet too.

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  2. Norman J. Harman Jr.5:06 AM

    Ok, so when can we expect the retro-clone version of this beauty?

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  3. Mark6:28 AM

    And to think, I could have picked up this gem of a game for $5 at a local convention earlier this year...

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  4. Daniel "Theophage" Clark6:13 PM

    I owned this book, it was awesome! Unplayable (at least I couldn't quite figure it out) but awesome nevertheless.

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  5. James9:52 PM

    The book has some great info on medieval society; worth picking up for this reason alone. I actually have an extra book club edition of this, though it's a bit beat up and missing the dustjacket. If anyone wants it, I'll send it out via media mail to the first person who emails. It might take me a week or two, but I'll send it.

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  6. Malcadon1:07 PM

    I remember seeing that book in the local library years ago! Looking at all the complex combat charts and math tables, I knew it was unplayable off the bat. But it did have some interesting stuff - so I made photocopies! I really like all the coinage (mostly as a reference for non-generic D&D coinage), and (after some alteration) I found the random Character Traits Table (called "Bogey table") to be useful in D&D (mostly for NPCs, but sometimes the players would use it too).

    It a good reference, but nothing else - that more that I can about F.A.T.A.L.! (yes, I made that poster)

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  7. Mike Kuciak1:40 PM

    I took out a copy of this from the Des Plaines Library bookmobile. I recall two things: a) he tosses in some snark about how "other games" have monsters sitting in underground rooms with no clear means of survival (food, water, air, etc.), and 2) the monster list included a bull that shot fire out of its butt.

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  8. Norman J. Harman Jr.2:57 PM

    Did the fire out the bull butt look like this?

    And you had a much cooler library than I had as a youngin.

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  9. Levi4:58 PM

    For no intelligible reason, google alerts decided that I really ought to read this page.

    I am amused.

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  10. Sean11:00 PM

    I have a copy of this book. No game that falls into my hands ever escapes. It was given to me by a friend, possibly when he decided to become 'Born Again' (a decision this book might have had something to do with).

    Like Malcadon, I knew right away it was unplayable, but the art isn't bad (cover not withstanding), and it does have a cool, obsessive-compulsive vibe to it.

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  11. Jayson11:05 PM

    Fantasy Wargaming has stats for the bonnacon?
    (makes "howbout that?" face)

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  12. Anonymous1:51 AM

    The gild is facing problems with much laws. This has to go licit and
    it's necessary to be classified at the early.
    Rubic
    wow gold

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  13. BiffTheYounger10:44 PM

    You know, somehow I just knew the Bovine Assblaster had to be made up in the middle ages

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  14. Aaron11:06 PM

    The Bonnacon was a critter from Roman/Medieval bestiaries, that was thought to have extremely caustic dung that "burns pursuers as though they had touched fire." (The fact that it could project a stream of the stuff over acres at a time was pretty impressive, too.) Any game that purports to be set in the Middle Ages should have a selection of creatures that people then thought were real (or had been real, at some point). Its a creature that people love to mock, but it's not the game designers that made it up. Blame Roman travelers and naturalists.

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  15. Norman J. Harman Jr.12:33 AM

    Based on comments here I just bought a copy off of ebay for $5.75 shipped.

    Thanks for contributing my addiction guys.

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  16. GB Steve5:55 PM

    Isn't this the book with the stats for Jesus, God and Mary?

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  17. Classicdnd6:52 PM

    Yeah, it's un-playable. But it's got an awesome gritty Mediaeval vibe. I especially love the feel of the game's magic system. Check out the lengthy FW thread over at Dragonsfoot:

    http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12045

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  18. Anonymous10:36 PM

    Whang digga dang didang didang...

    - Calithena

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  19. Anonymous10:37 PM

    "If you're really cool, you just call them 'the Mary Chain'".

    ReplyDelete

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