Two Crows Were Observed Perched Silently Atop A Street Light During A Misty Morning In Coastal California.

Two crows were observed perched silently atop a street light during a misty morning in coastal California. ♡

Genuinely did not realised the French RPG scene had so much of an influence/impact!

I remember the release of In Nomine being a big deal (in the UK, at least) but not much beyond that - it's fascinating to see at what point some of the English-language staples (like the Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf books), as well as seeing some of the less well know series such as Way of the Tiger, and Grailquest being included in the Un livre dont vous êtes le héros series!

Remember last time, when I posted about this excellent roleplaying guide, and shared various info about the French history of RPGs? Well I come back with more. Enjoy!

One of the big influences and helpers of the RPG genre in France was a series of books published by Folio Junior/Gallimard from the 1984 onward. This series was usually what introduced many people to the roleplaying game experience as a whole: and it is the line Un livre dont vous êtes le héros, "A book of which you are the hero". Thing is, this line actually gathered and united numerous English-speaking series into one whole. What I mean is that the French "A book of which you are the hero" (sometimes translated as "You are the hero") line wasn't just one translation, but a compilation of Fighting Fantasy (by Livingstone and Jackson), of Steve Jackson's Sorcery!, of Joe Dever's Lone Wolf, of James Herbert Brennan's Grailquest, and more...

Another game that deeply marked the early years of RPG in France was L'Oeil Noir, "The Black Eye". It is not an American game, however: it was a German game, Das Schwarze Auge, created by the Fantasy Productions group, itself founded by Ulrich Kiesow, Werner Fuchs and Hans Joachim Alpers. This game was created after the group had translated two American roleplaying games in German: D&D, of course, but also Tunnels & Trolls. Released in Germany in 1984, this game had a HUGE success in Europe, so much that it overshadowed the sales of D&D in some countries! In France, the game was notably purposefully sold in the same format and aesthetic as the Un livre dont vous êtes le héros - again, French folks wanted to give a cohesive look to all of these games.

The first two French RPGs were both flawed, but in opposite ways. The first one, L'Ultime Epreuve (The Ultimate Trial) was written by Fabrice Cayla and published by Jeux Actuels in 1983. It took place within a medieval fantasy setting (which even at the time felt a bit "recycled" and "already seen") and was about adventurers (the players) fighting various monsters while gaining power and strength, to finally vanquish the creatures that guard the gates of the Valhalla - it is the "ultimate trial" of the title. And then... That's it. The game is over. This game was very simplistic - too simplistic - but one of its originalities relied in its system of experience point. Or rather its absence of XPs: to have characters evolve, the players needed to spend money during "training sessions".

The other "primal RPG", Légendes, was created by a collective of five authors - Stéphane Daudier, Marc Deladerrière, Philippe Mercier, Jean-Marc Montel and Guillaume Rohmer. Published by Descartes in 1983, it is sometimes referred to as "Légendes celtiques" - which is actually incorrect... "Celtic Legends" was only the world-setting offered with the basic set/starting box - but it is just one possibility among many (the line also includes "Légendes des Milles et Unes Nuits" for an Arabian Nights setting ; and "Légendes de la Table Ronde" for an Arthurian setting). However, this game was far too complex: its rules were very heavy and very convoluted, and so the game was not fit for beginners. In fact, Descartes, understanding this, published in 1987 a lighter, simplified version called "Premières Légendes" (First Legends)

In 1985 was published Denis Gerfaud's Rêve de Dragon (Dragon's Dream). Described as an "oniric fantasy" game, this RPG is a strange and fascinating experience where each new adventure plunges the players in an entire new world, created out of the dreams of dragons. Every character was dreamed up by a dragon, and if they die during a game session, their "archetype" will be rencarnated under a new shape once the dragon goes back to sleep. The game ingenuously uses the symbolism of the Zodiac, the Tarot cards and more for its playing system. Gerfaud managed to create a very inventive, very poetic but also quite humoristic game. The first edition of the game was notably illustrated by Bernard Verlhac (aka Tignous), who was unfortunately murdered during the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack... Dragon Dream was a real "author game" where Gerfaud showed his talents as a writer, but it suffers from quite austere rules, definitively coming from the 80s, and which "chain" the dream rather than encourage the players' imagination... The problem was solved when a simplified version of the game was released in 2001, called Oniros. More recently, the game had a luxury re-edition at the Scriptarium editions, in 2018. As for Denis Gerfaud, he published only one other RPG, just as innovative and strange: Hystoire de fou, in 1998.

Christophe Réaux, alias "Croc", is another French author of RPGs. He first self-published games under the label Futur Proche. He created Bitume, about a post-apocalyptic world a la Mad Max, half-destroyed by the Halley comet ; and then Animonde, a poetic fantasy universe where all weapons and all technologies have an animal origin. Croc was quickly hired by the team of the Siroz Productions to create a game. Siroz Productions was founded by two members of a roleplaying circle of the Viroflay town (Parisian region) known as the "club 20 naturel" (nat 20 club), Nicolas Théry and Eric Bouchaud - a club to which Christophe Réaux belonged. Siroz Productions started out as a minor editor named "Théry-Bouchaud et Cie", but became quite famous due to its games relying on very strong, very contextualized concepts, and satirical humor - tackling issues such as the decay of suburbs, evolutionism, totalitarism, the misuse of ideologies and other futuristic predictios: Zone, Silrin, Whog Shrog, Berlin XVIII...

The game Croc and Siroz created was In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas. This game of biting humor is about the players embodying angels and demons infiltrated among humanity, and waging there a secret war for either heaven or hell... Except, as it turns out, both sides use the same methods and the same tactics. Unfortunately, Siroz found itself in a bad situation right before the game's release: drowned in debts, about to close, to survive the publishing house had to agree to the involvment of new investors, and a full restructuration. Siroz Productions became Idéojeux, under the leadership of Marc Nunès. It was under Idéojeux that INS/MV was first published - inaugurating a long line of RPGs written by Croc. Heavy Metal, Bloodlust, Scales, Nightprowler, COPS... Later, Idéojeux renamed itself Asmodée... From the name of the Demon Prince of Gaming within INS/MV, Asmodeus. While the society has gone away from the RPG world, it still forms today one of the big players within the French game industry - in fact, even within the international world of games! Since not only did they buy several French publishing houses (such as Descartes), but they also recently absorbed the American editor Fantasy Flight Games...

While it is quite rare, sometimes French RPGs are brought over to the United-States! It was the case with In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas, which in 1997 was published by Steve Jackson Games under the title In Nomine. However it wasn't a translation, but an adaptation: rewritten by Derek Pearcy, the American game is much darker, less serious and less parodic than the French game. The second edition of Rêve de Dragon was translated in English in 2002, under the title Rêve: The Dream Ouroboros.

I'm jumping a lot of things, because this book has so much info... But there is a cover about the "renewal" or "renaissance" of the RPG game from the late 2000s onward. It contains a brief segment about France. Among the numerous new editors that popped up during this "shifting era", when the old generation of gamers left the ground for a new, younger one, one famous is the Black Book Editions, created in 2004 in Lyon, and currently one of the biggest French editors of games. They are behind the French creations of Pavillon Noir, Chroniques oubliées, Polaris, and Héros & Dragons ; but they also are the ones in charge of bringing to France the American monsters that are Pathfinder, Shadowrun, and even (for a brief time) D&D5. The other emblematic editor of this era was Sans-Détour, created in 2008, which became the new French publisher of Call of Cthulhu and helped "renew" it and give it a "younger", "fresher" energy (unfortunately Chaosium removed the license from Sans-Détour in 2018 due to a case of unpaid royalties). A third unmissable name would be Le 7e Cercle, with a diverse and memorable catalogue including games such as Qin, Yggdrasill or Carpharnaüm.

Love this! Thank you for reminding me exactly how much I love guineafowl (although I'm more familiar with the helmeted variety) - I find their noises cute, but I can see how their keening call could be interpreted as a lament;

YouTube

Afande vulturine guineafowl calling for a gathering #birdsounds #shorterisbetter

"It is my intention to paint a picture of the Hratgrog, whose wings are sheathed in silver and whose tail has the pale colour of gold."

I think this is the nicest opening to a Maniculum Bestiaryposting Challenge entry we've had so far. If the Hratgrog is what I think it is, the description is much more poetic and friendly than anything you'd hear about this specific bird nowadays, which is a shame.

We get a lot of colours: Silver or sapphire wings "marked by traces of shining white", a golden tail, red feet, saffron-coloured eyes and a body "the colour of a wild sea". The "mixture of snow-white and sapphire", as it is described, made me think of the vulturine guineafowl, so this is what I very loosely based my drawing on. It's a very stylish bird! Also, the bestiary entry specifically states that the Hratgrog "does not feed on corpses", and why would you need to point that out unless the bird looks very much like it would feed on corpses, but doesn't actually do so? Additionally, guineafowl are social birds, and the Hratgrog "flies in groups".

The last bit of the entry is a list of attributes, and I've tried to fit as many of them into the drawing as possible. On the left side, we see that the Hratgrog "likes to kiss" and "nests in holes in rocks", in the middle, that "instead of song it brings forth a lament", and on the right, we see one flying off to fetch some "better-quality grain", carrying a coin in its beak, because the Hratgrog "does not live by theft".

The stylized plants are inspired by some of the examples from the Aberdeen Bestiary we've seen on previous entries, like the Fekthrud.

Unreasonable Ideas

Happy International Museums Day to the following people:

The guy who called me the Whore of Babylon for teaching kids about Ancient Egypt as I stood there and nodded.

The woman who was deeply incensed that staff wouldn't open the cases so she could touch the organic objects.

The one guy who made me translate hieroglyphs on a stele for him, then was mad because it didn't say what he wanted it to say, and reported me for 'lying' to the public.

The parents who objected to the taxidermied animals having taxidermied genitalia because it was unseemly.

Those kids on a school trip who got on the floor in front of a mummy and started chanting 'we worship Ra' as their teacher desperately tried to get them to leave.

That one guy who...uh...really liked geodes. No, they were not a special interest. He really, really liked geodes.