Hydre - Chasseur de Monstres

Allan Quatermain, the hero of the novelist Haggard, enjoys killing buffalo by the hundred in Africa for fun. In England, children work in factories. Eugenics is seen as a science with a logical and promising direction. Our twenty-first-century eyes may hate those days, but they were the days of our great-great-grandparents, and they thought they were doing good.

In this awful world that thinks it's human, monster hunters are an extension of this ethnocentric vision: they eradicate monsters, simply because they're not human. In their eyes, they make the world safer, at the cost of destroying fantastic species. To the public, satyrs or werewolves are simply other forms of dodo or white rhino.

Even today, the Hydra Hunters' Club watches over the world, preventing the return of these terrible creatures. Your characters belong to this club and are the last guardians of the world's salvation.

In Hydra - Monster Hunters, you play in a world that's both historical and fantastical. Events are depicted according to the knowledge and technology available in 1889, but within this world, fantastic creatures of various folklores exist.

Most of the population is unaware of their existence, but to protect mortals and keep myths in their place as stories, humans and non-humans alike have set up secret organizations to protect their peoples.

You are agents of the Hydra. Logistics and equipment will never be a problem for you. At your request, the Club will charter locomotives, submersibles and zeppelins. In every major city of every country, you'll have access to black markets staffed by marvelous creatures who'll barter artifacts of all kinds with you... This powerful display of resources won't be a luxury, because every day you'll have to return a Sumerian god to the prison from which he escaped...

The book we're offering is "ready to play", i.e. it contains everything you need to get your players through a complete campaign (around 30 hours of adventures). You'll find a description of the world, an explanation of the rules, detailed instructions on how to create your characters and all the scenarios you'll need to play the campaign in Lyon, Rome, Greece, Turkey and Iraq (as well as the adventures you'll experience on your travels).

As for the game system, it's an in-house creation inspired by Chaosium's basic system, based on percentages of chances of success for an action. It is played with a D100 and is easy to learn. It has been particularly well thought out to ensure fluidity of narrative and combat.

Aesthetics: Steam Punk meets Dark Fantasy