This work is a collection of material and resources designed to enhance your game. There are chapters on environmental hazards, anomaly mapping and survival, a couple of new campaign frameworks and some conspiracies, complete scenarios and even some new monsters. Plenty to get your teeth into.

First up, Environmental Hazards. Just because there is a dinosaur snapping at your heels it doesn't mean that you are safe from other threats, after all! It runs through quite a lot of other problems like bad weather and natural disasters that can cause you to wish you had stayed at home that day. In every case as well as describing the nature of the hazard, the applicable game mechanics are also supplied, along with a useful sidebar for GMs on calibrating damage and notes on how to use hazards in your game to best effect (preferably without killing off the party, at least not until they've had fair warning and ignored opportunities to prepare themselves!).

Next, Survival looks at the challenges of surviving in a prehistoric world (or indeed anywhen else when you are far from civilisation). Taking the four priorities for survival – water, food, fire and shelter – it looks at each in turn showing why they are necessary and what the party can do about making sure that they get them. There's a useful note on what you ought to have in a survival kit. For characters who spend too long in a survival situation – like being trapped in prehistory – there are a couple of new bad Traits that can be applied. These model the veneer of civilisation being stripped away as the character’s focus shifts to staying alive at all costs.

Both these chapters are applicable to any game, but the next – Mapping Anomalies – is pure Primeval. Mainly for GMs, this provides a system for being logical about when and where they pop up. Will the party spot the pattern? Will they be able to make use of it? Up to them...

Next we have a couple of campaign frameworks which you might like to try out if you are tired of having the party involved with the ARC. The first is Operation George, set at the beginning of World War 2. There's a brief history, sample characters and the interesting thought that even if you don't chose it as your framework, maybe it did happen and traces of it will turn up whatever your party is investigating! The other is The Village. This is centred on a present-day (but ancient) village situated near an equally historic wood in which strange lights are sometimes seen and, it is rumoured, strange creatures as well. There's a group called the Wardens, locals who watch over the wood and protect the village from monsters. Your group can play the Wardens… or again, this may be something that is stumbled across in the course of other adventures.

These are followed by two 'conspiracies' - the Panacea Corporation and the Mathers Gang - organisations that have an interest in anomalies and seek to exploit them for their own ends. Then there's a chapter full of More Monsters, mostly new dinosaurs (using the term quite loosely), all with full descriptions, stat blocks and other notes – often a picture as well, although these are long on teeth and claws and short on biological detail!

Finally, the adventures. Message in an Anomaly which starts with the characters dealing with what seems to be a typical incursion until they find a note HELP ME. That's when things start getting complicated. With plenty of scope for interaction and investigation, this should prove fun. Next is The Devil and Mr Sutton. This involves stories of a ghost train, but of course there's a fair bit more to it than that! Another richly-detailed adventure with plenty of investigation to keep curious characters busy. The third adventure is Earth Serpent, which can be used to kick off a whole new story arc in your game. It's all about this artefact, you see...

There's a lot here and most groups will find uses for at least some of it… and the adventures are fun, catching the spirit of the game well.

Return to Primeval RPG Companion page.

Reviewed: 28 April 2016