This past Saturday, Ben Aaronovitch announced a new RPG based on the world of his acclaimed, best-selling Peter Grant novels! Revealed at Dragonmeet, the game is in development with Chaosium, and they will be working in close concert with Ben to develop a fantastic game. We can’t wait to play!

‘I’ve been an RPG player since the original D&D,’ said Ben, ‘so I’m terribly excited and honoured to have Rivers of London turned into a proper roleplaying game and especially because it’s with Chaosium, who produced Pendragon and Call of Cthulhu and such brilliant adaptations as Elric!’

Here’s what Lynne Hardy, associate line editor for Call of Cthulhu and Rivers project lead, said about the upcoming RPG…

‘I started reading Peter Grant’s adventures a few years ago and knew right away that the Folly would make a marvelous setting for an investigatory fantasy game. Ben was intrigued about the potential for a Rivers of London RPG when I broached the idea at a book signing late last year. After a meeting in London in April, we entered negotiations to secure the license.’

We’ll be sure to share any bits of news about the game’s development as and when we can.

Ben’s Peter Grant novels are published in the UK by Gollancz, in North America by Del Rey and DAW Books, and are also available widely in translation. (See Ben’s page for more information about international editions.)

In case you have yet to read any of Ben’s novels (or the comics that are also based on his characters), here’s the synopsis for the first novel, RIVERS OF LONDON…

My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (and as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit – we do paperwork so real coppers don’t have to – and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluble, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England.

Now I’m a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden… and there’s something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair.

The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it’s falling to me to bring order out of chaos – or die trying.

(N.B.: The first novel is published in North America as MIDNIGHT RIOT.)

The next novel in the series, FALSE VALUE, is due to be published in February 2020 by Orion (UK) and DAW Books (North America).