Splatbooks are sourcebooks devoted to a particular facet,

character class In tabletop games and video games, a character class is a job or profession commonly used to differentiate the abilities of different game characters. In role-playing games (RPGs), character classes aggregate several abilities and aptitudes, ...

, or fictional faction in a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

, providing additional background details and rules options. For example, a "swords and sorcery" fantasy game might offer splatbooks for each of the races in the setting: humans, dwarves, elves, and others. The first game to use such books was

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (T ...

, though not described as "splatbooks". The term originally rose to describe the sourcebooks published by

White Wolf Game Studio White Wolf Publishing was an American roleplaying game and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant

for its

World of Darkness ''World of Darkness'' is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with '' Vampire: The Masquerade'', '' Werewolf: The Apoca ...

games. Many of these books were titled using similar patterns: ''clan''books in Vampire: The Masquerade, ''tribe''books for Werewolf: The Apocalypse, ''tradition'' books for Mage: The Ascension, and so forth. In newsgroups, these were called ''*books'' (the

asterisk The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vo ...

on a computer keyboard being used as a

wildcard character In software, a wildcard character is a kind of placeholder represented by a single character, such as an asterisk (), which can be interpreted as a number of literal characters or an empty string. It is often used in file searches so the full n ...

). Since the asterisk is also known as a " splat", this gave rise to the term "splatbook".
Winn, Ross. 'The Vorpal Sword Went "Snicker-Splat"', RPG.net, Nov 11,2004 This term was subsequently used retrospectively for

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Several different editions of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy role-playing game have been produced since 1974. The current publisher of ''D&D'', Wizards of the Coast, produces new materials only for the most current edition of the ga ...

books such as ''The Complete Book of Dwarves'' and ''Complete Arcane'', or the numerous

Codices The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, ...

for ''

Warhammer Fantasy Battle ''Warhammer'' (formerly ''Warhammer Fantasy Battle'' or just ''Warhammer Fantasy'') is a tabletop miniature wargame with a medieval fantasy theme. The game was created by Bryan Ansell, Richard Halliwell, and Rick Priestley; it was publishe ...

'' and ''

Warhammer 40,000 ''Warhammer 40,000'' is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is the most popular miniature wargame in the world, and is particularly popular in the United Kingdom. The first edition of the rulebook was published in September 1987 ...

''. By extension, the term "splat" is used for the

described in a splatbook.

Notes

Role-playing game terminology

See also

Notes