Chaosium Inc.

Our website: www.chaosium.com
Our forums: http://basicroleplaying.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chaosium_Inc
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The Chaosium was founded by visionary game designer Greg Stafford in 1975.

"The first published RPG was Dungeons & Dragons, shortly followed by some other imitative games. Chaosium, however, was never content to imitate but published games that were original in style of play, content and design. We quickly became renowned for our originality and creativity, and were responsible for introducing many things to the hobby that are standard today." - Greg Stafford

The roleplaying games RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, King Arthur Pendragon, HeroQuest – as well as such classic board and card games as White Bear & Red Moon (later called Dragon Pass), Nomad Gods, Arkham Horror, Credo, and Mythos all originated at Chaosium.

Many of Chaosium’s product lines are based upon literary sources. Most notably, H.P. Lovecraft’s 1920’s horror fiction provides the basis of Sandy Petersen’s classic Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game line. Call of Cthulhu has won so many awards that we have lost count (though we do know that there are more than 90 of them - including a swag of awards in the 2017, 2018, and 2019 ENnies, and being inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Art and Design Hall of Fame). The Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos also provides the inspiration for many of the books in our Chaosium Fiction line.

We also publish Basic Role Playing (BRP), the core of our roleplaying game systems, and the first to use skills based upon the d100 mechanic. Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest and most of our other RPG lines use BRP as the basis of their rules. Once you’ve learned to play one of these, you've learned to play the others.

In July 2015, the four principals of Diana Jones Award-winning Moon Design Publications (Rick Meints, Jeff Richard, Neil Robinson and Michael O'Brien) joined the Chaosium ownership and now run the company. Greg Stafford served as chair of the company board and creative consultant until his passing in October 2018. Sandy Petersen acts as a creative consultant for the company, as does original RuneQuest creator Steve Perrin.

While Stafford himself has been described as "one of the most decorated game designers of all time" and "the grand shaman of gaming", many other notable game designers have written material for Chaosium. These include David Conyers, Matthew Costello, Larry Ditillio, David A. Hargrave, Rob Heinsoo, Keith Herber, Jennell Jaquays, Katharine Kerr, Reiner Knizia, Charlie Krank, Robin Laws, Penelope Love, Mark Morrison, Steve Perrin, Sandy Petersen, Ken Rolston, Ken St. Andre, Jonathan Tweet, and Lynn Willis, among others.

One of the very first RPGs by a female lead designer was published by Chaosium—Kerie Campbell-Robson’s Hawkmoon (1986). LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman's first paid job was as an editor at Chaosium, when he was 12 years old.

2021 marks the 40th anniversary of Call of Cthulhu.