A

R O L E P L A Y I N G

G A M E

B Y

GARETH RYDER-HANRAHAN

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Primeval
Credits
WRiting
Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan
Creative Director
Dominic McDowell-Thomas
Additional WRiting
John M. Kahane
Editing
Jenni Hill
Graphic Design
Lee Binding

Proof-Reading
John M. Kahane
Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan
Dominic McDowall-Thomas
Line Manager
Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan
Special Thanks
Impossible Pictures
Angus Abranson
Craig Oxbrow
John M. Kahane
Andrew Peregrine
Kit Kindred
Nathaniel Torson

Additional Design
Edel Ryder-Hanrahan
Layout
Simon Lucas
Edel Ryder-Hanrahan

Game System
based on Doctor Who: Adventures in
Time and Space, Designed and Writen
by David F. Chapman.

Playtesters
John M. Kahane
Kathy Bauer
Steve Bauer
Joanne Clarke
Angela Marsh
David Matchuk
Douglas McMillan
Tammy Powers
Nick Roberts
Tom Robinson
Steven Ross

Primeval is published by Cubicle

7 Entertainment Ltd. (UK reg. no.
6036414). Find out more about us and
our games at www.cubicle7.co.uk
Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd. 2012
Primeval (word marks, logos
and devices) are trade marks of
Impossible Pictures and are
used under license.

INTRODUCTION

Contents
Introduction................... 1

Groups & Bases........................ 44

The Basics......................... 4

Bad Group Traits..................... 47

Characters................................ 4
Rules ........................................ 6

The ARC........................... 49

Setting....................................... 7

The Anomaly Research Centre.. 50

Creating A Group.................... 11

ARC Characters........................ 51
Operational Resources............ 61

Genesis........................... 11

Villains................................... 63

Creating Your Character ....... 14

Playing In The ARC Framework. 65

Attributes............................... 15
Skills....................................... 17

Dinosaur Hunters.......... 66

Skills List................................ 19

The Cryptid Hunter.................. 67

Traits...................................... 24

Dinosaur Hunter Characters... 68

Traits List................................ 25

Operational Resources............ 72

Bad Traits............................... 34

Villains................................... 74

Story Points............................ 40

Playing in the Dinosaur Hunters

Framework............................. 75

Our final character sheet looks

like this:.................................. 42
Finishing Touches.................... 43

ii

Good Group Traits.................. 44

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Playing the Game.......... 76

Cover-Ups..................... 132

Advanced Techniques............... 79

Exposure .............................. 135

Action............................ 83

Investigators........................ 139

The Basic Rule.......................... 84

Anomalies.................... 146

How A Roll Works................... 87

A Field Guide To Anomalies.... 147

Complications......................... 90

Time Travel & Anomalies....... 148

Combat & Extended Conflicts... 92

Anomaly Theories.................. 152

Chases..................................... 98

Temporal Damage .................. 154

Losing A Fight: Getting Hurt...101

Mental Or Social Conflicts.... 103
Losing A Mental Or
Social Conflict...................... 106
Healing.................................. 107
Story Points.......................... 108
Gaining Story Points..............110
Max Story Points................... 111
Learning & Improvement........ 111
Leaving The Game....................112

Equipment.....................113
Weapons.................................115
Future Technology................ 129

Deep Time...................... 160

Precambrian..........................161
Cambrian...............................161
Ordovician.............................161
Silurian................................. 162
Devonian............................... 162
Carboniferous....................... 163
Permian................................ 163
Triassic.................................. 163
Jurassic................................. 164
Cretaceous............................ 165
Paleocene.............................. 165
Eocene................................... 165

iii

Oligocene.............................. 166

Two (and Three) Part Stories.230

Miocene................................. 166

Series Plots........................... 231

INTRODUCTION

Pliocene................................. 166
Pleistocene.............................167

Conspiracies................ 235

Holocene ................................167

Making a Conspiracy ........... 236

Identifying a Time Period...... 168

Investigating the Conspiracy.240

Creature Rules...................... 169

Conspiracy Traits.................. 242

Monsters..................... 169

Conspiracy: Christine Johnsons

Organisation......................... 243

Skills..................................... 172
Threat .................................. 173
The Creature List................... 177
Creating Creatures................ 201
Creature Traits & Powers...... 203
Identifying a Creature.......... 206
Humans................................. 207

GameMastering........... 210
Bringing the Past to Life........216
Players...................................219

Conspiracy: Future Survivors... 246

Conspiracy: Celava................... 251

The Future.................... 254

The Near Future..................... 255
The Mer Era........................... 257
The Far Future....................... 258
Future Creatures................... 258
Creating Your Own Future
Creatures.............................. 267

Primeval Woodlands... 269

Adventures.................. 222
Components........................... 222
Building The Adventure......... 226

iv

Character Sheet........... 284

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Introduction

Dinosaurs.
Terrible Lizards. Thats what the word means.
When their bones were found, people wondered if they
were the remains of biblical giants and dragons.
Today, after decades of scientific investigation and
research, we know that life on this planet is billions of
years old, and has taken many formssuch as the titanic,
savage dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs were wiped out in one of the periodic extinctions
that strike our world. Theyve been gone for sixty-five million
years.
What if they came back?

Primeval
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. Our job is to predict and contain them.
In Primeval, there are Anomalies, rips in the fabric of
space and time that connect our world to the distant
past. Anomalies can open anywhere, at any time, dropping
velociraptors into shopping centres and Mammoths on
the motorway. These Anomalies are happening more
frequentlyevery day brings more and more sightings of
prehistoric beasts invading the present.
The Anomaly Research Centre (ARC) is a governmentrun team of scientists, soldiers, explorers and other

specialists, tasked with investigating the origin

of these Anomalies and containing the threat to
the public. The existence of these rips in space/
timenot to mention the rampaging T-Rexes and
other beastsmust be kept secret or it would
cause mass panic.
In their work, the ARC team has discovered three
vital facts about the Anomalies.

INTRODUCTION

First, the Anomalies can go forward as well as

back. There are gateways to our future as well as
our past.
Second, at some point in the near future, humanity
is driven extinct by an unknown catastrophe, possibly
a new species of super-predators. We may only have
a few years, or possibly only a few months left.
Third... time is mutable. History can be changed.
Extinction can be averted.
Thats where you come in.

Whats Primeval?
Primeval is an action-filled science-fiction TV series
about a team working for the Anomaly Research
Centre. Under the leadership of Dr. Nick Cutter (and,
after his death, ex-cop Danny Quinn), they investigate
the mysterious Anomalies and contain the ferocious
prehistoric monsters that have intruded into the
modern world.
Cutters estranged wife Helen is the teams
nemesisshe vanished into an Anomaly eight
years ago and now has her own agenda for human
evolution.
The first three series of Primeval were shown on
ITV from 2007 to 2009; Series Four and Five were
shown in 2011. This book covers the first three
seriesa future supplement will fill in details from
Four and Five.

Whats A Roleplaying Game?

Youre probably familiar with computer roleplaying
games, where you play a character in some fantasy
setting. You wander around doing quests, levelling
up, talking to other characters and getting new gear.

Tabletop roleplaying games are similar, but theres

one key difference. Instead of a computer running
the game, theres a human Gamemasterand that
changes everything.
Instead of being limited to what the game allows
you to do, you can do anything you can imagine.
Lets say you need to get past a guarded door. A
computer game might only give you the option of
fighting the guard or stealing a pass. In a tabletop
game, you can try anythingmaybe you can
persuade the guard to let you past, or bribe him, or
sneak through the sewers, or forge a fake pass, or
even convince the guard that he should be on your
side. The Gamemaster (or GM) describes the world,
the players decide what they want to do, and then
the GM decides whether or not they succeed.
In Primeval, you can play Nick Cutter, Connor,
Abby and the other familiar characters from the
Anomaly Research Centre, or you can create your
own characters to work alongside Nick & co. in the
ARC. You can even explore other possibilities in the
Primeval universe, like dinosaur hunters or time
wanderers.

The Basics
Firstly, you need a few friends to play the Primeval
rpg. One of you will be the Gamemaster, and the rest
of you will be the players. The game works with as
few as two people (one GM, one player), but its best
with three to five players. (By the way, if you havent
decided whos going to be the GM, then the owner of
the book should take on that responsibility.)
Secondly, youll need to be familiar with the
contents of this book. You dont need to memorise
the whole thing, but you should understand how the
basic rules (Chapter 2 The Basics) work, and how
to make characters (Chapter 3 Genesis).
Thirdly, youll need a few dice (the normal, six-sided
ones). When an outcome is in doubt, youll be rolling
dice to see whether or not your character succeeds.
Lets say you want to scramble over a fence to
escape the slavering gorgonopsid thats hot on your
heels. Youd add your characters Coordination and
Athletics scores together, and then roll two dice.
If the total of the dice plus your Coordination and
Athletics is higher than a difficulty number set by the
GM, you make it over the fence in time. If you roll
badly... well, youre a gorgonopsid snack, unless you
spend a Story Point.

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Fourth, youll need a way to keep track of Story Points and
Threat Points. Story Points are a way for you to change a
bad roll or alter the story in your favour. Youll be getting
and spendinga lot of Story Points, so youll need a pile of
tokens. Threat Points are for monsters, and measure how
aggressive and dangerous a creature is. Pennies, glass
beads, jelly beans, cardboard chits, anything like that will
do.
Fifth, youll need a few pencils, and copies of the
character sheet (page 284). Alternatively, you can use the
pre-generated characters on pages 51 60 if you want to
play the characters from the TV series.
Got all that? Good. Lets get moving.

How To Use This Book

The first part of this book (once you get past this
introduction) is all about set-uphow to come up with
a framework for your group, and how to roll up your
individual characters. A framework explains why all
your characters are working together, and how they
deal with the temporal Anomalies.
All Primeval games involve time travel and ferocious
monsters, but you dont have to be part of the
Anomaly Research Centre. You could be independent
researchers, or a group of hitch-hikers who got lost in
the past, or a secret government team dedicated to
preserving our timeline. There are some suggested
group frameworks on page 12.
Next, theres the rules section. This covers everything
hazardous and nasty that your characters might
come acrosswhat happens when you try to shoot
a dinosaur, what happens when the dinosaur tries
to eat you, sneaking around, investigating mysteries
and gaining new Skills and Traits. There are also
detailed rules for two of the most important aspects
of Primevalconcealing the truth from the public, and
dealing with Anomalies.

Wheres Matt?
Series 4 & 5
The new characters and monsters from Primevals
fourth and fifth seasons arent in this book. Matt,
Jess, Emily Merchant, Gideon and the other new
characters will be covered in a future supplement!

After that, the Dangers section describes many different

prehistoric monsters and time periods. Players can also
read that sectionassuming their characters are expert
palaeontologists or are just really interested in dinosaurs.
Finally, theres the Gamemasters section. This is full
of advice and tips for running the game, suggestions for
series outlines, rules for dealing with Anomalies, time travel
and alterations of the time line, and other strangeness,
along with a sample adventure to get you started. The
Gamemasters section also covers the Future time period.
Players are allowed to read everything apart from the
GMs sectionif you spoil the secrets in there, the game
might not be as much fun for you.
Gamemasters can read the whole book.

Playing The Game

Primevals designed to be played in a series of game
sessions. Each game session takes up an evening. Think
of each game session as an episode of your own TV
series. Most of the events in a game session will be selfcontainedyoull fight the monster-of-the-week and deal
with the problems surrounding the current Anomalybut
there will be plot elements, mysteries and conspiracies
that continue from episode to episode. Keep the metaphor
of the television series in mind as you play the gameits
a good guide for both players and Gamemasters.