In 1979-80 I was hooked on RuneQuest. I was also, more importantly, a newlywed with all the emotions and new experiences involved. My friend, Steve, put me in contact with Greg Stafford, president of Chaosium (the publisher) and I told him I had created a lot of monsters for Runequest. He asked if there was enough for a whole book, and I thought there was.
Thus Gateway Bestiary was born. It was my VERY FIRST game publication. It’s “gateway” so Greg could disavow any of my creations which he didn’t want to have in his Glorantha canon. Like jabberwocks and polar bears (the latter are extinct in Glorantha for important mythic reasons).
Another “first” for the Bestiary was that it had a chapter of Lovecraft monsters – the very first official appearance of the Cthulhu mythos in any game as far as I know. (An article in Sorcerer’s Apprentice magazine is the only earlier find.) So I had shoggoths, deep ones, etc. all available for Runequest players.
When it was published, I was impressed to see that the word “Runequst” was misspelled right there on the cover. I blame the excellent artist Rick Becker, who did the entire cover as a single work of art.
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