Based on the hit TV show, the Primeval RPG is a modern-day game of intrigue, time travel and dinosaurs!

Anomalies are starting to appear, doorways in time to worlds we can barely imagine. The anomalies are conclusive proof that the past exists in a fourth dimension as real and solid as those we already know.

Your job is to predict and contain them.

You are part of an elite team of specialists. Your mission – keep prehistoric monsters in check, preserve the timeline, and

uncover the secrets behind the Anomalies. You must

protect the modern world from savage dinosaurs, primeval monsters and the horrors of the far future, but not everyone’s on your side.

Who can you trust?

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G A R E T H R Y D E R - H A N R A H A NA R O L E P L A Y I N G G A M E B Y

CB72000

www.cubicle7.co.uk $39.99 CB72000

Then, compare the number of the Result to a Difficulty number set by the GM. If the Result is greater than or equal to the Difficulty, you succeed. If the Result is less than the Difficulty, the attempt fails.

Finally (and optionally), determine how well you succeeded or failed by working out the difference between the Difficulty and the Result. You don’t have to follow this step for every roll, but it adds detail to important, dramatic rolls.

A NOTE ON DICESometimes, we’ll say something like an attack does 1 - 6 damage, or an event happens after 1 - 6 minutes. Just roll a dice to find the actual number. You’ll also run into more complex formula, like “2 dice +6”. Roll the listed number of dice, add them up, and then apply any modifiers.

SETTINGPrimeval takes place in our world, right now. Anomalies are gateways in time, linking our present day with the distant past—or future—of Earth. While there is evidence that Anomalies have opened before, the current outbreak is unprecedented.

In Series 1 of Primeval, the sighting of a mysterious creature in the Forest of Dean drew the attention of Dr. Nick Cutter, a palaeontology lecturer. There, he discovered

the existence of a glowing portal into the past. He also met Claudia Brown, an official from the Home Office tasked with investigating the creature sightings. As Cutter was the closest they had to an expert on the phenomenon, Brown convinced him to work with the Home Office to investigate these Anomalies. Cutter had his own reasons beyond scientific curiosity for pursuing the mystery—eight years previously, his wife Helen Cutter disappeared in the same area, and during their first expedition into the Anomaly, Cutter found a camera with photos of Helen. He also found a human skeleton—that of a male.

Under the direction of James Lester, a ‘government trouble-shooter,’ Cutter put together a team consisting of himself, Stephen Hart (Cutter’s lab assistant, an experienced tracker), Connor Temple (a student with a ‘first-class mind’) and Abby Maitland (a zoologist and reptile expert). Together with military support from the Home Office, and with Claudia Brown working as field liaison, the team started investigating the Anomalies—and pursuing Helen Cutter, who they discovered is not only alive, but is using the Anomalies for her own mysterious ends.

The Anomalies continued to appear across England, each one bringing new creatures and new dangers, like insects in the London Underground, mosasaurs exploding out of swimming pools, mysterious mind-controlling parasites, pterosaurs and killer birds. Containing the Swarms of time-shifted creatures became a full-time job for the team—and all the while, Helen Cutter watched them. She tried to convince her husband Nick and then her former

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lover Stephen to join her, but both rejected her advances. Nick found himself increasingly drawn to Claudia Brown.

Finally, Helen warned the team about a new threat—a predator not from the past, but from the future. These Future Predators are faster and more dangerous than any of the creatures previously encountered by the team. Using the homing instinct of one of the Predator’s young, the team discovered that the infant creature came out of a portal that leads to the Permian era in the past. A portal from the future must connect

to that era. Nick, Helen and a team of soldiers travelled back to eliminate the future predators, but they were ambushed and scattered by the predators. Nick realised that they had travelled back to a point before their first expedition. He had taken the photos of Helen, and the skeletal corpses were those of the soldiers.

Worse, when Nick escaped back to the present day, he discovered that history had changed. Some alteration of the past—perhaps the introduction of the future predators, perhaps the team’s own presence—had changed the timeline. Claudia Brown no longer existed.

Series 2: The disappearance of Claudia Brown was not the only change. Nick discovered that in this new timeline, the team isn’t an underfunded, ad hoc investigation—it’s a secret project run by the Home Office, with a large staff and a high-tech headquarters. Claudia Brown’s role on the team has been taken by Oliver Leek, Lester’s right-hand man. There was also a new member assigned to the team,

to deal with the media and to help cover up monster sightings. Her name was Jenny Lewis—she was physically identical to Claudia Brown, but possessing a different personal history and personality.

The team made progress in dealing with the Anomalies when Connor developed the Anomaly Detector Device, a powerful computer, networked to an array of radio receivers, that can locate new Anomalies the instant one opens. Using the ADD, the team tracked down Precambrian worms, sabre-toothed tigers, Silurian scorpions and other monsters. They also ran into a mysterious mercenary team in the Silurian era. Connor embarked on a relationship with a woman, Caroline Steel, who was secretly in the employ of Oliver Leek.

The mystery of Helen’s goals deepened; it turned out that she too was working with Oliver Leek. The slimy bureaucrat intended to use mind-control technology from the future to command a horde of monsters; he’d then cause a reign of terror and take over England. Helen didn’t care about his petty schemes—she wanted to learn how the Anomalies could be used to alter time, and to recreate the incident that changed Claudia Brown’s timeline. Leek captured the ARC team and attacked the ARC facility itself; Stephen Hart sacrificed his life to eliminate Leek’s army of monsters. Leek also died when his minions turned on him, but Helen escaped.

In Series 3, the team discovered that this century isn’t the first time Anomalies have opened within human history, when they found an Anomaly locked inside an Egyptian monument. This opened up several new routes of investigation—a historian, Sarah Page, joined the team when Cutter reasoned that tales of mythological dragons and monsters

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could actually be descriptions of time-shifted creatures. Using this extra informational vector, Cutter began work on a ‘matrix’, a method of predicting Anomalies.

Meanwhile, a shadow war was being fought across the timelines. Christine Johnson, a senior figure in British Intelligence, had access to an Anomaly leading to the future. She was opposed by Helen Cutter, aided by cloned servants produced using more future technology. The object of their struggle was a future artefact that contained the finished version of Nick Cutter’s matrix—a holographic map of the Anomalies throughout space and time. With this artefact, a time traveller could go anywhere and anywhen in Earth’s history.

Helen attacked the ARC, claiming that it is instrumental in wiping out humanity in the future. Nick stopped her, but at the cost of his own life. Jenny Lewis also left the team after she discovered a photograph of Claudia Brown, proving that Nick’s wild theories about changing timelines were true. The artefact from the future fell into the hands of the ARC team.

Nick’s replacement was Danny Quinn, a police officer whose brother Patrick vanished into an Anomaly many years previously. His approach was less cerebral and more direct than Cutter’s, but the team managed to stay on top of the Anomalies, aided by Connor’s discovery of a method for ‘locking’ the time portals.

The team rescued a mysterious woman from the future, Eve, and brought her back to the ARC. Eve was revealed to be Helen Cutter, using a holographic disguise. She stole the artefact and travelled to the future, hotly pursued by the team. Helen’s goal was to avert the nightmarish future era... by erasing humanity. She used the artefact and a future computer to calculate a route back through the Anomalies that would bring her to the Rift Valley in Africa, four million years ago, the birthplace of humanity. A few deaths there would erase our entire species...

Danny Quinn stopped her from wiping out the Australo-pithecus hominids—but when the Anomaly back home closes he, Connor and Abby are all trapped in the past.

EXAMPLE OF PLAYIn this example of play, there’s a GM and three players;

Adrian, Bob and Carol. Adrian’s playing Nick Cutter, Bob’s playing Connor and Carol is playing Abby Maitland. The team detected an Anomaly on the outskirts of the city and are driving to investigate.

GM: You’re getting closer to the Anomaly site now. It

looks like an old warehouse. The place is obviously long-abandoned, it’s all broken windows and graffiti-tagged walls. There’s no sign of anyone.

Adrian: Can we narrow down the location a bit, or do we have to search the whole place?

GM: Are you asking me, or are you saying that in character as Nick?

Adrian: Er, in character I guess. Putting on a terrible attempt at a Scottish accent. Och, Connor, can ye nae pin it down a wee bit?

Carol: To the other players Cutter’s obviously pining for the highlands.

Bob: As Connor Sure thing, professor. To the GM Can I pin it down?

GM: You can try. Roll Ingenuity + Technology please.

Bob: Can I add my Technologically Adept Trait bonus?

GM: Sure. You wave your Anomaly Detector about, fiddle with the settings, swing it in a wide arc...

Bob: Ok... Ingenuity 5, Technology 3, +2 for Technically Adept, and I rolled a 6... I get a total of 16.

GM: Ok, the Anomaly seems to be inside one of the bigger warehouses, but there’s something odd about it. Normally, the radio signal from an Anomaly would be a bit more erratic, with frequency spikes and so forth. This one’s a bit quieter than usual.

Bob: What could cause that?

GM: You’ve no idea.

Carol: Maybe it’s a really stable Anomaly. Or it’s already locked. To the GM While Connor’s playing with his geeky toys, Abby peers out the window of the car. Anything unusual out there?

GM: Roll Awareness +, er... I dunno. Survival or Ingenuity, whichever you prefer.

Carol: Eck. I rolled a 3, plus Awareness, plus Ingenuity... a whole 9.

GM: For a moment, you think you saw something move atop one of the buildings, but there’s nothing there now.

Carol: Just to be on the safe side, Abby takes her dart gun and checks that it’s loaded.

GM: Cool. What are you all doing?

Adrian: Let’s check out this Anomaly. We’ll leave the car and cautiously enter the warehouse.

GM: You’re all going?

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Bob & Carol: Yes.

GM: OK, you exit the car and make your way across the broken concrete towards the warehouse entrance. Inside, you find it’s a maze of old storage crates and debris. You’re getting closer to the Anomaly, according to the detector reading.

Carol: But we can’t see it?

GM: No. Give me Awareness + Survival rolls, everyone.

Everyone rolls. Carol gets the highest result.

GM: Abby notices a small animal corpse in one corner. It’s a rat.

Carol: I point it out to the others.

Adrian: As Nick. Rattus Norvegicus, common brown rat. I don’t think this is our incursion. To the GM. What killed it?

GM: The corpse is rigid and twisted.

Adrian: Poisoned, right?

GM: Probably.

Adrian: Any puncture wounds?

GM: How closely are you examining the dead rat?

Bob: As Connor. Guys, it’s a rat. Let’s get that Anomaly. To the GM I keep going.

GM: Bob, your character comes around the corner of a row of crates. You should be right on top of the Anomaly now, but there’s no sign of it, just more crates. Adrian, you’re examining the rat—give me an Awareness + Science roll. Carol, what are you doing?

Carol: I’m looking around warily.

Adrian: I get a 12 on my roll.

GM: Definitely poisoned. There’s no puncture wound, but the rat’s flesh is discoloured and the fur is matted, suggesting it was sprayed with something toxic.

Adrian: Did I touch it?

GM: Hmm... tell you what, I’ll give you a Story Point if you agree you touched the matted fur.

Adrian: I’m going to regret this...ok, Nick touched the rat with a bare hand.

GM: Your hand feels slightly numb. There are no penalties to Coordination or anything....yet.

Bob: I look for the Ano... wait, those crates. Anything odd about them?

GM: Looking around, you find a power cable running under a tarpaulin. There’s something electrical in use here.

Bob: I pull off the tarpaulin.

GM: Underneath, there’s some sort of radio transmitter. It looks home-made.

Carol: Oh no!

Adrian: What?

Carol: The weird Anomaly reading—that was because it’s not actually an Anomaly. It’s a fake signal. It’s a trap!

Bob: Who’d want to trap us?

GM: Carol, Abby’s watching the ceiling, and you see something big and cat-like moving up there. Actually, somethings—at least three of them. One of them hisses and makes this weird gurgling sound. Little droplets of spittle spray down from above, and where they touch your skin, it stings...

Will Nick and the others escape the trap? What are those cat-like things with poisonous spittle? Is Nick already poisoned? If the Anomaly’s fake, where did the monsters come from? Who faked an Anomaly? And why? The only way to find out the answers is to play...

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❂ Permission granted to photocopy for personal use ❂

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ATHLETICS

ANIMAL HANDLING

CONVINCE

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KNOWLEDGE

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SCIENCE

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SURVIVAL

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TRANSPORT

Traits

AttributesAWARENESS

COORDINATION

INGENUITY

RESOLVE

PRESENCE

STRENGTH

Equipment

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Notes