White Wolf (1987) was a real surprise for me. I didn’t entirely realize it was a book. And I had no idea how awesome a book it was until I got it. It is, essentially, the third Stormbringer Companion, so a potpourri of random things, but it is easily the coolest and most useful of the three. 

First though, let’s admire the excellent Steve Purcell cover. I like it a lot. I also enjoy the eternal champion bicycle-like logo, which signals Chaosium’s largely unrealized ambition to create a whole line of games out of Moorcock’s interconnected fictional cosmos.

Three main things in here. Of least interest to me, tho still cool, is the robust ship rules. I like the comparative size chart. Second is an adventure, Escape from the Yellow Hell. I’m a bit iffy on this. On the one hand, it is super strange, involving a rescue attempt in one of many hells under the control of the Lords of Chaos. It has very nice Planescape weirdness vibes seven years before Planescape. On the other hand, it is a bit sillier than I want it to be? A lot of stuff seems played for laughs rather than horror. There are some solid demon encounters, though, and the rocks with mouths are…super creepy.

The main attraction, though, are the details on the temples. There are three flavors: Chaos, Law and elemental (in this case fire). All of them serve both as templates for your own temple creation and also very well realized points of interest you can just use from whole cloth. I enjoy Carolyn Schultz Savoy’s maps in general — she did a lot of work for Chaosium around this time — but these are far and away favorites. So much awesome.