Glenn Arthur Rahman

Glenn Arthur Rahman
Full Name	Glenn Arthur Rahman
Pseudonym(s)	J. A. McKraken James A. McKraken Glenn Arther Rahman Arthur Rahman Glenn A. Rahman Glen Rahman Glenn Arthur Rahman Glenn Rahman
Connection to the Mythos	Author, Game Designer
Birth Date	1949
Genre	Fantasy Horror
Years Active	1977-?

Glenn Arthur Rahman is an author and games designer. He is known for his collaborations with Richard L. Tierney and for co-creating what's been "the first successful transference of H. P. Lovecraft’s style of supernatural literature into a modern role-playing format."

Overview

Rahman was born in 1949, one of six children, and for grade school attended a one-room country schoolhouse in Minnesota. In high school, he mainly read history, mythology, and comic books like Conan the Barbarian, Howard the Duck, and Tomb of Dracula. In college, he discovered pulp fiction, devouring authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, and a little later H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. He graduated from Minnesota's Winona State College with a BA in Geological Science.

Rahman has written a number of stories for a variety of genres, although he specialises in fantasy, and his output includes contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos through his work on Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.

Rahman has co-written stories featuring Simon of Gitta with Simon's creator, Richard L. Tierney. These include "The Wedding of Sheila-Na-Gog" (1985), The Gardens of Lucullus (2001) and the unpublished Path of the Dragon. He wrote a solo novel set in the Simon of Gitta continuity, Heir of Darkness (1989).

With his brother Philip (co-founder of the publishing house Fedogan & Bremer), Rahman published "The Lovecraft Variant" in the Summer 1980 issue of Sorcerer's Apprentice, a set of rules for running Lovecraftian scenarios with the Monsters! Monsters! roleplaying system. It was later described as "a full system for investigating strange occurrences and uncovering ancient secrets, all while struggling to maintain the characters' sanity in the face of unimaginable terrors." The Summer 1981 issue of Sorcerer's Apprentice included a sequel, "The Monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos." The two pieces were packaged together as The Lovecraft Variant by Bolt Thrower Press.

Selected Bibliography

Fiction

• Heir of Darkness (1989)
• A Feast of Ambrosia: The Adventures of Bingor and Donalbain (2023)

With Glenn Rahman:

• "The Temple of Nephren-Ka" (1977)
• "The Minneiska Incident" (1978)
• "The Quest for Unknown Amherst" (1979)
• "Manitu Rock" (1989)

With Richard L. Tierney:

• "The Wedding of Sheila-Na-Gog" (1985)
• "The Rune-Sword of Jotunheim" (1985)
• "Barrows and Stones" (1999)
• The Gardens of Lucullus (2001)
• Path of the Dragon (forthcoming)

Non-Fiction

• "The Lovecraft Variant" (1980)
• "The Monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos" (1981)
• "The History of Averoigne?" (1984)

Games Supplements

• Alone Against the Wendigo (1985)
• Alone Against the Frost (2019)

External Links

• G. Arthur Rahman at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• G. Arthur Rahman at Goodreads
• Author spotlight at DMR Books