Review of Malleus Monstrorum - Kreaturen, Götter und Verbotenes Wissen
As I general rule, I prefer to read all books in
their original language. In most cases, the translated texts just can't
come close to the original - too many words have double meanings, or no
equivalent in the target language. Translation is a constant battle
against confusion and inaccuracy, with the translator and the reader on
the loosing side - and that doesn't even cover deliberate omissions and
alterations! In the end, no one who is capable of reading both
languages would prefer the English-language Sussex manuscript over the
orgininal Arabic Al-Azif, or the Golden Goblin Press edition of
"Nameless Cults" above the German "Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten".
Therefore I started with mixed feelings about recieving a review copy of Malleus Monstrorum - Kreaturen, Götter, und Verbotenes Wissen, the German translation of the The Creature Companion for Call of Cthulhu, a book that I already owned. What could possibly be of interest to an international audience (such as the average reader of RPGNet) that already had easy access to the original, English version?
As it turns out, plenty.
But let's start from the beginning. The Creature Companion fills the role of the "Monster Manual" for Call of Cthulhu. The important distinction to its D&D counterpart is that in most cases, these aren't critters for the PCs to fight and overcome, but beings to run away from, to be driven insane by, or (in the best case scenario) to be sealed away so that they won't trouble humanity for the time being - until some hapless victim or insane cultist releases them yet again.
To gather this Menagerie of Madness, the original authors combed through most fiction associated with the Mythos, and extrapolated useful game information from them where possible - and made up the details where it wasn't. In the Creature Companion, the individual entries for the creatures started with the title of the original story, the author of that story, and a short quote from the same story where the creature made its appearance. This is followed by a short description of that creature, including its behaviour, its cult (in the case of a deity), and how it acts and reacts in combat. Full game statistics in the same format as in the Call of Cthulhu main book end the entries. A small illustration of the entity accompanies each entry.
In the Malleus Monstrorum, several changes are readily apparent. First of all, the short quotes from the stories are replaced with more lengthy (and as far as I can tell, new and original) vignettes that give accounts of hapless victims and investigators who encounter these beings. What's more, each entry ends with an additional vignette - which describes how the next round of disbelieving investigators discovers the remains of the first victim. These vignettes usually give a very good idea of how to introduce the monsters in your adventures.
The second main change concerns the illustrations. One of the main criticisms leveled against the standard illustrations in the Call of Cthulhu game was that the illustrations that showed what the Mythos entities actually looked like were not conductive to horror if shown to the players (also known as the "What? We are being attacked by Silly Putty with Tentacles?"-Syndrome). For this reason, the Malleus Monstrorum did away with these - and instead introduces a wide range of period artwork from all ages of history, photographs of sculptures and weird phenomena, strange X-Ray images, ads for historical movies, shows, seances, and many, many more. All images strongly hint at the creature detailed in the main entry without explicitly showing it.
The art staff at Pegasus Spiele have done a simply amazing job here, and in allmost all cases it is impossible to tell which images are the real, historical ones, and which ones are doctored.. My favorites include an excerpt from the "uncut original edition" of Struwwelpeter of 1845 made in the style of 19th Century German children's books (the "Children of the Green God" entry), an X-ray of a patient with a weird parasite in her brain and upper spine (the "Traveller" entry), and a movie poster for "Der König In Gelb" by Fritz Lang ("The King in Yellow" entry), and all make me deeply envious of the historical art resources of Pegasus Press.
What else has changed in the German edition? Well, the entire layout has changed to the usual high standards of Pegasus Press. What's more, the book is now hardcover, and includes a bookmark like you find in the classier and bigger hardcovers, thus enhancing the "Forbidden Tome" feel. Many monsters from various newer CoC publications, both German (pretty much all monsters from the entire German product line, as far as I can tell) and American (the main baddy from "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" gets its own entry, for example). The various diary entries of Sir Hansen Poplan that are essentially mini-essays on various aspects of the Cthulhu Mythos remain, but we also get many boxed entries with short adventure seeds that feature some of the creatures (mercifully, only few are of the clichéd "Friend in Distress" type...). About the only thing missing from the original are a few full-color pages with gorgeous illustrations of several Mythos deities, but given the other improvements, this is a trade-off well worth it.
All in all, if you don't own the Creature Companion yet and are able to read German, there is no reason not to pick up the Malleus Monstrorum - and even if you do, the changes might be worth it to you.
What's more, you might consider buying it even if you can't read German - for with it, you get more than 150 ready-made handouts (one for each entity) that will add lots of atmosphere to your Call of Cthulhu game.
Therefore I started with mixed feelings about recieving a review copy of Malleus Monstrorum - Kreaturen, Götter, und Verbotenes Wissen, the German translation of the The Creature Companion for Call of Cthulhu, a book that I already owned. What could possibly be of interest to an international audience (such as the average reader of RPGNet) that already had easy access to the original, English version?
As it turns out, plenty.
But let's start from the beginning. The Creature Companion fills the role of the "Monster Manual" for Call of Cthulhu. The important distinction to its D&D counterpart is that in most cases, these aren't critters for the PCs to fight and overcome, but beings to run away from, to be driven insane by, or (in the best case scenario) to be sealed away so that they won't trouble humanity for the time being - until some hapless victim or insane cultist releases them yet again.
To gather this Menagerie of Madness, the original authors combed through most fiction associated with the Mythos, and extrapolated useful game information from them where possible - and made up the details where it wasn't. In the Creature Companion, the individual entries for the creatures started with the title of the original story, the author of that story, and a short quote from the same story where the creature made its appearance. This is followed by a short description of that creature, including its behaviour, its cult (in the case of a deity), and how it acts and reacts in combat. Full game statistics in the same format as in the Call of Cthulhu main book end the entries. A small illustration of the entity accompanies each entry.
In the Malleus Monstrorum, several changes are readily apparent. First of all, the short quotes from the stories are replaced with more lengthy (and as far as I can tell, new and original) vignettes that give accounts of hapless victims and investigators who encounter these beings. What's more, each entry ends with an additional vignette - which describes how the next round of disbelieving investigators discovers the remains of the first victim. These vignettes usually give a very good idea of how to introduce the monsters in your adventures.
The second main change concerns the illustrations. One of the main criticisms leveled against the standard illustrations in the Call of Cthulhu game was that the illustrations that showed what the Mythos entities actually looked like were not conductive to horror if shown to the players (also known as the "What? We are being attacked by Silly Putty with Tentacles?"-Syndrome). For this reason, the Malleus Monstrorum did away with these - and instead introduces a wide range of period artwork from all ages of history, photographs of sculptures and weird phenomena, strange X-Ray images, ads for historical movies, shows, seances, and many, many more. All images strongly hint at the creature detailed in the main entry without explicitly showing it.
The art staff at Pegasus Spiele have done a simply amazing job here, and in allmost all cases it is impossible to tell which images are the real, historical ones, and which ones are doctored.. My favorites include an excerpt from the "uncut original edition" of Struwwelpeter of 1845 made in the style of 19th Century German children's books (the "Children of the Green God" entry), an X-ray of a patient with a weird parasite in her brain and upper spine (the "Traveller" entry), and a movie poster for "Der König In Gelb" by Fritz Lang ("The King in Yellow" entry), and all make me deeply envious of the historical art resources of Pegasus Press.
What else has changed in the German edition? Well, the entire layout has changed to the usual high standards of Pegasus Press. What's more, the book is now hardcover, and includes a bookmark like you find in the classier and bigger hardcovers, thus enhancing the "Forbidden Tome" feel. Many monsters from various newer CoC publications, both German (pretty much all monsters from the entire German product line, as far as I can tell) and American (the main baddy from "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" gets its own entry, for example). The various diary entries of Sir Hansen Poplan that are essentially mini-essays on various aspects of the Cthulhu Mythos remain, but we also get many boxed entries with short adventure seeds that feature some of the creatures (mercifully, only few are of the clichéd "Friend in Distress" type...). About the only thing missing from the original are a few full-color pages with gorgeous illustrations of several Mythos deities, but given the other improvements, this is a trade-off well worth it.
All in all, if you don't own the Creature Companion yet and are able to read German, there is no reason not to pick up the Malleus Monstrorum - and even if you do, the changes might be worth it to you.
What's more, you might consider buying it even if you can't read German - for with it, you get more than 150 ready-made handouts (one for each entity) that will add lots of atmosphere to your Call of Cthulhu game.
