RPG Review: Malleus Monstrorum for Call of Cthulhu


One of my favorite supplements for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG is Malleus Monstrorum. Though written for the 6th edition of the game, in my experience it can be converted on the fly to other editions. It is out of print, with physical copies selling in excess of $100.00. It is available digitally from Chaosium and DrivethruRPG.

The book is about 300 pages long and is illustrated in black and white, as was typical for pre-7th edition Chaosium books. Regrettably the book is not bookmarked, something that would have been rather useful. The artwork is somewhat unconventional - a combination of black and white photographs, sketches, pictographs, drawings of statues, etc.

Malleus Monstorum is essentially a "Monster Manual" for Call of Cthulhu. It is divided into various classifications, such as servitor races, independent races, gods, animals, etc. It has a lot of creatures from the works of HP Lovecraft, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, HG Wells, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, etc. Some of the species presented are quite surprising, like Wells' Martians and their Tripods from War of the Worlds.

Not only are the main deities of the Mythos included, but many of them have multiple avatars presented for them - with several for Cthulhu and even more for Nyarlathotep.

The book has a number of appendices - one of the more useful ones is advice for adapting creatures from other sources, such as creatures from Doctor Who and Star Trek.

The most logical 7th edition book to compare this with would be S. Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors. That work is a much more gorgeous book but is also more narrowly focused - it is more of a spotter guide with a much smaller number of creatures.

I greatly enjoy the Malleus Monstorum both for its game stats and as an inspiration. It is great to have stats for most every creature one could want for the game all in one place. I personally have a tendency to use these stats as a starting point, adjusting them to fit the needs of a given scenario. I'd love to see Chaosium release a version of the book for Roll20 - it'd be great to have a library of stats available for online play.

Malleus Monstorum is also a great book for inspiration. The non-traditional artwork, while not dense, serves as a great source of ideas, as do the sheer number of creatures. The descriptions of the creatures are also great for mining for scenario ideas. I've had many scenarios originate from spending some time with this book, coupled with contemplating interesting ways to use the beings within.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jules Verne Translations That Don't Stink

Image
Shortly after I graduated from college R. Talsorian published their fantasy steampunk RPG,  Castle Falkenstein. Having missed out on Space: 1889  when it first came out this was my first steampunk RPG, though I had been exposed to the genre by Gibson and Sterling's novel The Difference Engine (a novel which, though I though I found the setting compelling, I did not particularly care for - must reread some day). Jules Verne was one of the authors in the inspirational reading section of Castle Falkenstein.  Heck, the game also made him into France's scientific advisor, having him responsible for their massive Verne Cannons  which formed a sort of nuclear deterrent.  With that in mind, one Sunday afternoon I was at a Barnes & Noble bookstore my new girlfriend (now my wife of nearly 16 years!).  On a whim I decided to pick up a Jules Verne novel. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . That night I started reading it, never having read any of his works b...
Keep reading

Stepping Away and a New Beginning

Image
After maintaining this blog for nearly seven years (an eternity in internet time), I've decided to step away from it. When I first began I wasn't 100% certain what it would be about. For a while I thought it would be a blog related to OSR type RPGs but I found my own tastes not firmly rooted there. Looking at the history of the blog, I see a lot of Call of Cthulhu which is hardly surprising. However, some lack of consistency definitely made it tough for me find a defined niche and over the past few months I've been giving some thought to starting a new, more narrowly focused blog. The imminent end of Google+ played a part in these thoughts, with much of my traffic coming from that site. I write because I enjoy writing, but I do enjoy growing an audience. My plan to start a narrowly-focused blog took a turn when I had the opportunity to join the  Rolling Boxcars  blog. Talking with the contributors (one of whom I game with on Discord already) and going through thei...
Keep reading

Using the Force in D6 Star Wars

Image
Defending yourself with just 1D in Sense is not easy, as Luke discovers when training with a remote. My previous post discussed the proto-D6 System as found in the Ghostbusters RPG. For those unfamiliar with the D6 System and the way it does the Force (or for a brief review) the essentials are: You roll a bunch of six sided dice against a target number, typically ranging from 5-ish (easy) to 20 or even higher. Your rating is listed as something like 2D+2 which means roll 2d6+2. By default, most normal/non-heroic people have 2D in most stats.  Starting heroes will might have their best skill be at 5D or a touch higher. You can take as many actions as you want in a round. However, taking two actions in a round reduces all dice codes by 1D, taking three reduces all by 2D, etc. Starting with Force skills will lower a characters starting attributes. Unlike most skills they start off at 1D. There are three Force skills - control, sense, and alter. Control lets you contr...
Keep reading

Developing Boston for 1920s Call of Cthulhu

Image
While Chaosium has produced sourcebooks for many locations in Lovecraft Country (Kingsport, Arkham, and Innsmouth) as well as non-fictional cities of the 1920s (such as New York City and New Orleans), the nearby city of Boston, while being featured in many adventures, has never received its own full sourcebook. The most common era for my Call of Cthulhu  games has been in the 1920s - some campaigns have been in New York City while others have been in Lovecraft country. For those in Lovecraft Country, many adventures have been in nearby Boston. Over the years I've slowly been building up some expertise in the area and I thought it might be of interest to others gaming in the same setting - whether with Mythos horrors or a purely mundane game. First, let us investigate those official sources. While Boston has found its way into many adventures, I can think of two sources where it has been given a fair amount of detail. First, The Unspeakable Oath  double issue 16/17 has ...
Keep reading

Balancing Classes in Swords and Wizardry

Image
DM: "The box is the size of a small trunk; it is latched but not locked."  Dougal: "I'm looking for traps on the box."  DM (rolling for Dougal's "find traps" ability. The roll indicates that Dougal has failed to find the poisoned needle in the latch.) "You don't find a trap."  Morgan (the group's leader): "Black Dougal will open the box."  DM: "Black Dougal, you find out that you missed a tiny discolored needle in the latch. Roll a saving throw vs. Poison, please!"  Dougal (rolling): "Missed it!"  DM: "Black Dougal gasps 'Poison!' and falls to the floor. He looks dead."  Fredrik: "I'm grabbing his pack to carry treasure in." Game balance. It's a tricky concept in RPGs. D&D 3rd and 4th editions made a very strong effort to balance the character classes with one another as well as to balance encounters. For my purposes, they went too far. A...
Keep reading