S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands: An Album of Entities from the Land Beyond the Wall of Sleep

Call of Cthulhu RPG

by Sandy Petersen, Mark J. Ferrari (Illustrator), Lynn Willis

Chaosium Stock #5107

An Album of Entities From the Land Beyond The Wall of Sleep... * Accurate and Up-to-date Information * Over Two Dozen Often-Dreamt Creatures * Quick-Reference Monster ID Key * 26 Evocative Full-Page Paintings * 3 Pages of Full-Color Maps * 50+ Illustrations and Silhouettes * Uniform Presentation of Data * Special Size Comparisons * Habitat, Distribution, and Life Cycles * Similar Lifeforms Distinguished * Latest Preternatural Scholarship * Observer Warnings as Needed * Bibliography * Faithful to Lovecraft

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Horror, Art, Fiction, Gaming, Coffee Table Books

64 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1989

About the author

Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of RuneQuest and creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. He later joined id Software where he worked on the development of the Doom franchise and Quake. As part of Ensemble Studios, Petersen subsequently contributed to the Age of Empires franchise.

Reviews

[Mathew]

Nostalgia Box part six

One of my all time favorite art books that had the cool benefit of being a companion piece to the call of Cthulhu RPG I played growing up. The illustrations and layout are absolutely delicious, giving this book a super information dense feel despite it's modest page count. I've love the size charts and the other small infographics that accompany the main illustrations and also support the text. I actually knew Sandy growing up, (Sandy, we still love and appreciate your forever inner 10 year old!) but as a kid his writing was so far over my head that I couldn't appreciate the subtle pokes and digs, not to mention incredible parody of a biological field guide he'd written. Reading it now, it's very very fun. If you ever find one of these GRAB IT, they are very very out of print I'm sure.

Also this book was indispensable when actually trying to read the clusterfuck that is the Dreamland sequence by Lovecraft. I never would have made it through without these illustrations to help guide me through the imbroglio of hyper prolix that is Lovecraft at his worst.


Personal story--
My best friend's dad while growing up just happened to be the president of Chaosium games. So many of us rug rats got to go and see what a publisher did and got tons of loot, usually in exchange for free labor. There were also the added fun little nerd claims to fame like getting our names in the list of test players for various new books.

So, it's like 2004ish and Charlie Krank says "Hey matt want to go drive out to AZ to see B? I could use the company" So of course I jump at the chance, and spend the next two days having a really great conversation with one of the biggest cosmic horror nerds of all time. At one point we're sharing stories about the various books that Chaosium had published and I mentioned how great the illustrated field guides were for the dreamlands and mythos monsters. Charlie looked at me and agreed but also said it's unlikely we'll make any like that again. The artist has gone missing, completely dropped off the face of the earth. We've tried to find him again and again, because he actually never got paid for doing the art in the dreamlands book."
I asked "so...did maybe he know too much?" Charlie smiled that knowing furtive smile he has, and we drove off into the profound red silence of the Arizona desert, both of us with a deepening sense that perhaps the stars were indeed right.

[Matthew J.]

A companion to the other S. Petersen's Field Guide, this focuses on the strange and mystical creatures of the Dreamlands. Lovecraft's Dreamlands stories were more in line with Lord Dunsany or Clark Ashton Smith than his Cosmic Horror tales. Consequently there's a bit more whimsey, even if its tainted with some grim darkness. Like the other Field Guide, the physical book is not of a quality I like. It's oversized, softcover, but the cover is stiff and easy to crease, and the glue binding feels like it's going to give way at any moment. And these books have always felt like this, even on the day I bought them 25 years ago. It's too bad they aren't available in hardcover. I love the art. The writing is OK. The art is the star.

[Joel Jenkins]

I discovered this in a secondhand store in the San Juan Islands. It was pretty battered, but I was surprised when the clerk only charged me 25 cents. I was also surprised to find out that it was signed by the writer. Cool book!

[Patrick Stuart]

Charming largely for its brevity and its wonderful illustrations.

[Ikoy ･ ･ﾟ*☆ ☽]

I haven't read any of HP Lovecraft's books nor do I know anything about the Dreamlands. But the artworks and creatures are stunning and otherworldly.

[Andrew]

Ok another one to add to my guilty pleasure list here. Years ago as I started to read H P Lovecrafts books I started to wonder what some of those monsters and nightmares would look like. The descriptions were creative and amazing and really brought the atmosphere and feel of the story to life. Then I started to wonder more about that - what they looked like, what they did, after all the authors had gone to great lengths to bring them to life - after all many of the stories are more about the creatures than they are of the people who encounter them.
Then I discovered that in the tradition of Dungeons And Dragons there was a paper based role playing game based on the world of Call of Cthulhu and I was hooked.
Now years later (too many if you ask me) and I am older and maybe not much wiser but I still have fond memories of those days. And yes the game maybe passed but the material that was written to support it still stand since it relates to the original stories too.
These two field guides are perfect examples of that wonderful work. And even now I love to read and remember the worlds they invited you to.