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I was a little wary when I first took a look at the cover of GURPS Undead. After all, I've been pretty disapointed with the GURPS horror and occult line. GURPS Horror, GURPS Voodoo, GURPS Cthulhupunk, even GURPS Magic and Grimoire could have been much better in my eyes. And GURPS Places of Mystery? Well, the less said about that, the better. (For Steve Jackson Games, at least.)

GURPS Undead, however, written by Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch, was what I desired from a book about the undead, was what I expected from a GURPS book, and more importantly, came right on time for the fantasy game I was running.

While a person can read GURPS Undead with only the GURPS main book and Compendium I by their side, I do reccomend latching on to a copy of GURPS Religion, GURPS Magic and GURPS Grimoire. SJ Games also reccomends a copy of Voodoo, but if that's the kind of undead you're looking for I'd reccomend a Time/Life book on voodoo before I'd reccomend GURPS Voodoo.

That's enough background, I think. On with the review.

I was delighted to discover that GURPS Undead was more than just a bestiary of undead for the High-Fantasy and splatterhouse gamers. Rather, GURPS Undead was an intelligent book that focused on the things that influence the undead: magic, religion, even motivation, society and culture. In fact, the book doesn't even get into the mechanics of the undead until the third chapter.

Chapter one discusses the basic whys and wherefores of undeath. As standard (and expected) for supplements, this won't be the end all be-all for the game, at least not for the detail orientated GM. The chapter, does offer enough for someone to put together a one-shot undead game that does make sense, as well as allowing plenty of research possibilities. So as usual, the GM won't have to start from scratch. One of the best tidbits in the chapter was a clear definement of the differences between Fantasy undead and Horror undead. Good stuff, so far.

Chapter two details the mortal worlds dealings with the undead, from awakening them, to looking and dealing with them, to just putting them back in their place. The chapter was a bit shorter than I would have liked, and I thought there could have been a bit more detail put into the variety of strengths and weaknesses of the undead.

As tempting as it might be, I reccommend not just jumping straight into chapter three - no matter how tempting it is. The first to chapters are relatively short and worth reading. Chapter three, is of course, the meat of the book. The actual mechanics in creating the undead, for use as NPCs or even PCs. Which reminds me, I need to run another 'Beetlejuice' style game. The chapter includes more than just a 'body style' shop. There's important things like motivations, powers, disadvantages, and other constraints. Which means that two animated corpses of rotting flesh could be entirely different - which is a mean, but fun, trick to pull on PCs.

Chapter four contains a few packages and examples of the undead, including Zombies, Vampires, and my particular favorite - Wraiths. Nothing too special about this. But it was expected and handled without any dissapointment on my end. Also, this is the type of chapter that can be very handy on a one-shot game or if the GM arbitrarily desides that he wants some undead in the game - now!

Chapter four (part two) dealt with the non-human undead. This includes creating a racial package - and then killing it and reviving it as undead. Animal/Beast undead are also covered. I don't do a lot of racial undeads and I saw too much potential for abuse, so that portion of the chapter was a bit useless. I thought the animal/beast undead looked hastily put together. The next portion of the chapter, however, really caught my eye - weirder undead. Finally, a reference for how to create things like haunted trains as well as undead microbes and plants! Of course, if you want to create a haunted train, you might want to have the dissapointing GURPS Vehicles, but into every life a little rain must fall.

Chapter five, ah chapter five. This is the chapter that's neccessary for that 'Beetlejuice' style game I was talking about. Chapter five is all about the characters that deal with the undead, from the living to the non. It also threw in a couple undead character templates to add to the previously created undead templates. More importantly the chapter added the 1 point advantage Covenant of Rest, the 15 point disadvantage Necrophelia, and skills like Exorcism (M/H), Mortician (M/A), and Pathology (M/H).

Chapter six, the final chapter, was all about creating campaigns for or about the undead. It highlighted some of the important things to consider, such as the different types of undead campaigns. After all, if a game starts out as a splatterhouse game, it's going to be tough to turn it into a phychological horror game. The chapter also threw in some sample campaigns and how to work the undead in. I was pretty amused with the idea of the undead and the barely living cyborgs running around together in a cyberpunk campaign. ...Hmmm... 'Beetlejuice' in the future?

As standard for the folks at Steve Jackson Games, a biliography of reference, fiction, and film was included. And as standard for the films listed, I could only find about two-thirds of the listing at my local video rental. Those Roman Polanski films are hard to find!

All in all, GURPS Undead is a very handy book for anyone wanting to include the undead in their game. Which, of course, is what the book is all about. Some of the chapters were a bit short, but all in all it was a well put together book with plenty of game ideas and enough mechanics to make those ideas come to life. ...well, unlife.

Hopefully the rumored sister book, GURPS Spirits (it's on the SJ Games wish list), will not only be out soon, but be just as good.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)