By Tim Huckelbery

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Hello there, Tim Huckelbery here, writing in as a guest for the designer diary this week. I’m happy to say that I’m one of the writers behind the new Creatures Anathema book for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Dark Heresy .

First, there was the phone call from Ross about a new book for Dark Heresy . The conversation went something like this:

“This new book is all about aliens and mutants and other cool stuff. You in?”

“You betcha! Can I do <really cool alien here> ?”

“Nope, sorry – already taken. How about <really cool daemon here> ?”

“Well sure, but what about <another cool creature> ?”

“Bzzzt, also already nabbed. But maybe you could do <several things so cool I didn’t even think to ask about them> ?”

Stunned silence a bit, then “I’m so there…”

“Oh yeah, and you also have to create some new things too.”

“Well, if you insist…”

And then it was on to lots of writing. My style is to first get every applicable source book out and scatter them on the floor all around my workstation at home, with tons of yellow stickies to bookmark bits I need. This one wasn’t as bad as for Dark Heresy or The Inquisitor’s Handbook (or the real mess currently all around my chair for Rogue Trader , but more on that later this year) but still pretty bad. Literally I have to carefully step into and out of my chair lest I crush some very old books!

Perhaps the best part of writing for Creatures Anathema though was not only breathing new life into some of the oldest critters in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, but making up some new ones. Our little corner of the sky (aka Calixis) is getting quite a few more nasties for players to encounter, including some new characters and entire fresh alien races. Our big goal for the new creatures was to make them feel perfectly a part of the 40K setting we all know and love, so that they had that “lived in” feel to them even though they will be new additions to the lore. Frankly doing both were fun – as an oldtime player it was a blast to address some of the old school monsters dating back to the original Rogue Trader book, and well nothing is quite like developing something new from scratch where everything about it is your creation. For GM’s looking for some new challenges for their players, I think you’ll find plenty here plus I’m sure things to spark creations of your own. For players, you’ll be seeing lots of new dangers and entire worlds to worry about in service to your Inquisitor.

So get ready – the nightmare world of the 41st Millennium is gonna get even darker and deadlier. Keep your faith in the Emperor strong and your bolter loaded and you might make it out alive. Or at least until your next mission…

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