Editing Sandy Petersen

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{{topquote|I have no problems with the demons in [[Doom|the game]]. They're just cartoons. And, anyway, ''they're'' the bad guys|Ol' Sandy himself}}

'''Sandy Petersen''' (full name Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen) is a game designer, best known for his work in creating the [[Call of Cthulhu]] roleplaying game, as well as providing supplements for [[Runequest]] 3rd edition. He has also worked on numerous [[/v/]] games, and authored a regular computer and console gaming column for [[Dragon Magazine]] back in the day. 

Despite being a practicing Mormon, [[Awesome|he sees no conflict between his faith and the use of satanic and Lovecraftian elements in his works]]. 

==Tabletop Gaming==
As stated above, Petersen is mostly of interest to [[/tg/]] for his involvement in Call of Cthulhu, which was born of a combination of his childhood fascination with the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] created by [[H.P. Lovecraft]] and his interest in [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. He can be considered a spiritual successor to the tradition of Lovecraft and his friends freely trading names and concepts with each other and then expanding upon whatever they had taken to make the wider canon more fleshed out; through Call of Cthulhu, he has repeatedly taken the rather sparsely described and detailed monsters or civilizations of Yog-Sothery and expanded them to give them defined descriptions and depiction.

Basically, pick any Mythosian monster you like. Odds are good that something like 90% of the lore and details you think you know about them was actually cooked up by Petersen and his team.

Petersen is also the author of four specific RPG books:
* S.Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters: Expanded lore and artwork for a selection of various "generic" Mythosian monsters.
* S.Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands: Expanded lore and artwork for a selection of Mythosian monsters associated with Lovecraft's "[[Dreamlands]]" [[plane]].
* S.Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors: A compilation of the previous books, with updated art and slightly reordered positioning of the monsters. The only real downside is lacking the gorgeous map of the [[Dreamlands]] from the "Creatures of the Dreamlands" field guide.
* [[Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos]]: [[Splatbook]] for [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]] and [[Pathfinder]] First Edition, providing Mythosian monsters, deities, spells, magic items, subclass options and PC races for other systems.
* [[Planet Apocalypse]]: A [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]] [[splatbook]] about adding post/mid-apocalyptic elements to your setting, specifically of the "fiendish invasion" variety... basically, it's a crossover book for merging D&D with [[DOOM]].

==Video Games==
Petersen's earliest [[/v/]]-related work consists of involvement in several Microprose games: Darklands, Hyperspeed, Lightspeed, Sid Meier's Pirates! and Sword of the Samurai, as well as making minor contributions to [[Civilization]]. 

He joined Id Software due to his interest in [[Wolfenstein]] 3D, doing so 10 weeks before the December 1993 release of [[Doom]]; he is credited with creating 19 levels for Doom 1, 15 levels for Doom 2, and 7 levels for the spiritual successor [[Quake]], as well as influencing some of the monster design in these games. In June 1997, he moved on to Ensemble Studios, where he became a designer for several of their Age of Empires titles, specifically Rise of Rome, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, and Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion. He was a frequent poster on the Heavengames forums under the username ES_Sandyman. He ran an extremely popular series of threads, "Ask Sandyman", where forum-goers could ask him about anything they wanted (though there were some questions he did not answer).
[[Category: Cthulhu Mythos]]