Petersen, Sandy
Entry updated 21 September 2026. Tagged: Author, Game.
Working name of Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen (1955- ), US games designer active in Role Playing Games since the mid-1970s and involved with more than 100 published games. At Chaosium he created the H P Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos-based RPG Call of Cthulhu (1981); at id Software he was among the developers of the First Person Shooter Videogames Doom (1993) and Quake (1996), the latter incorporating various Lovecraftian elements including Shub-Niggurath as the "final boss" Monster to be defeated.
Petersen's non-game publications include a cod guidebook (see Travel Guides) to Cthulhu Mythos creatures, Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters: A Field Observer's Handbook of Preternatural Entities (graph 1988 chap) with Tom Sullivan (illustrator) and Lynn Willis. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands (graph 1989 chap) with Mark J Ferrari, Tom Sullivan (illustrator) and Lynn Willis deals similarly with creatures from H P Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (in Beyond the Wall of Sleep coll 1943; 1955) and related tales. [DRL]
Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen
born St Louis, Missouri: 16 September 1955
works
nonfiction
- Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters: A Field Observer's Handbook of Preternatural Entities (Albany, California: Chaosium, 1988) with Tom Sullivan, Lynn Willis and others [nonfiction: chap: graph: illus/pb/Tom Sullivan]
- Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands (Albany, California: Chaosium, 1989) with Mark J Ferrari, Tom Sullivan and Lynn Willis [nonfiction: chap: graph: illus/pb/Tom Sullivan]
links
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