The Cthulhu Hack is a standalone game of investigation and dealing with the sanity-shattering shock of facing Things Best Left Unknown.
For those moments when your players have taken the inevitable path away from whatever you have planned, From Unformed Realms provides the ideal tool for conjuring up a flash of inspiration. In 20 horror packed pages, the supplement provides myriad options for the random creation of horrific nightmares and unnameable monstrosities. You can either roll randomly with a 6-sided die or flick to a random page and choose a numbered section, then inflict the content on your appreciative players.
From Unformed Realms offers you a gathering of system-free random tables designed to provide a quick, but evocative, springboard for your creativity just when you need it most.
A 20-page system-free supplement.
Björn Lippold –
Fast formed monsters – a Mephisto review
From Unformed Realms
From Unformed Realms is a small, system-independent add-on to generate monsters of the eldritch horror genre or bizarre creatures for the Cthulhu Mythos. This extension is based on several random tables, which can be used to roll for different properties of the monsters. The resulting elements are primarily about the descriptive properties and characteristics of the monsters. Even if these characteristics can have game-relevant effects because they can be, e.g., natural weapons or similar features, no game statistics or rule mechanisms are presented here. The tables revolve around extremities (including natural weapons), sensory organs, skeleton, bodily fluids, appearance, and other features. Within these sections, there are always several subgroups, each with six traits, some of which can be further differentiated by additional rolls. For example, with body fluids such as saliva or sweat, there is the possibility that these are corrosive, poisonous, freezing cold, etc. All these characteristics have in common that they are bizarre, dangerous, or both.
The idea of From Unformed Realms is to define the appearance and bizarre features of such horrific creatures. This approach works fast on the one hand and generates hardly predictable monsters on the other. However, this expansion leaves the task of creating game statistics for the resulting creature to the game master.
As an appendix, a few additional random tables are presented to tie these creatures into a story and define certain backgrounds.
The rating of From Unformed Realms strongly depends on the individual attitude towards random tables. Those who like random tables and also want to generate eldritch monsters for their game round will get a comprehensive set of random tables to quickly and easily define bizarre monsters. Also, those who need general inspiration for describing their cthuloid horrors will find the tables a useful tool simply by using characteristics as a source of inspiration. However, those who value “canonical” Cthulhu monsters or for whom game statistics are more important than description will not enjoy this expansion.
(Björn Lippold)