C. J. Carella

Last updated
C.J. Carella
NationalityAmerican
Occupations RPG designer

Carlos J. Martijena-Carella is a role-playing game designer and novelist.

Contents

Career

RPGs

Following an introduction to GURPS in Steve Jackson's Man to Man, [1] C.J. Carella got his first work in the role-playing games industry on GURPS Martial Arts (1990) and freelance work for Steve Jackson Games. [2] : 340  Carella designed GURPS War Against the Chtorr (1993), which game designer Rick Swan called a "first-rate supplement for the GURPS game". [3] He also wrote GURPS Voodoo: The Shadow War , published in 1995.

Carella then became a staff member of Palladium Books. [2] : 340  He created the Nightbane setting and was involved in the production of Mercenaries and Pantheons of the Megaverse for Palladium's multigenre RPG Rifts . [4] While editor-in-chief at Myrmidon Press from 1993–1997, Carella also wrote Rifts Manhunter (1996), as a crossover between Rifts and Myrmidon's own science-fiction game Manhunter . [5] [2] : 340 

Myrmidon also published the first editions of Carella's role-playing games CJ Carella's WitchCraft (1996) and Armageddon: The End Times (1997). [2] : 340  [6] The games both used Carella's original Unisystem rules engine. [7] [8] [9]

Following negative experiences with the business side of Myrmidon Press, Carella decided to sell the rights to his games to another publisher. At the time, Eden Studios, Inc. founders George Vasilakos and M. Alexander Jurkat were fans of his work and talked with Carella about developing a crossover book for Conspiracy X and Witchcraft. [2] : 340  [10] [11] Since Conspiracy X supplement sales were dropping by 1998, Eden Studios wanted to add more lines to revitalize the business, and signed an exclusive license with Carella to publish his WitchCraft and Armageddon role-playing games. [2] : 340 

Following the success of the system used in WitchCraft, Carella created a simplified Unisystem variant for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Roleplaying Game (2002), named the "Cinematic" Unisystem. [2] : 342  Carella wrote Secret of the Ancients (2003) which was the final volume of the Odyssey adventures series from Eden. [2] : 342  Carella also co-designed Eden Studios' RPG Terra Primate . [12]

Novels

The New Olympus Saga:

  1. Armageddon Girl (2012) [13]
  2. Doomsday Duet [14]
  3. Apocalypse Dance [15]
  4. The Ragnorak Alternative(2015) [16]

noir-horror series where unlikely heroes battle an upcoming Lovecraftian apocalypse:

  1. Bad Vibes (2014) [17]
  2. Shadowfall: Las Vegas (2015) [18]
  3. Dante's Demons (2015) [19]

Warp Marine Series: mil-SF with some interesting Lovecraftian elements:

  1. Decisively Engaged (2015) [20]
  2. No Price Too High (2016) [21]
  3. Advance to Contact (2016) [22]
  4. In Dread Silence (2017) [23]
  5. Havoc of War (2017) [24]

References

  1. ↑ GURPS Voodoo. p. 4. C.J. Carella's love affair with GURPS began with the publication of Man to Man, and he has never looked back.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN   978-1-907702-58-7.
  3. ↑ Swan, Rick (March 1994). "Role-playing Reviews". Dragon (#203). Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: TSR: 86.
  4. ↑ GURPS Voodoo. p. 4. C.J. has lived in Peru ... His writing credits include ... Pantheons of the Megaverse,and Rifts Mercenaries for Palladium Books.
  5. ↑ Varney, Allen (1996-09-01). Gross, Dave (ed.). "The Current Clack (September 1996)". Dragon Magazine. XXI, No. 4 (233: Courts & Royalty). TSR, Inc.: 119–120. ISBN   9780786905621.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
  6. ↑ Varney 1996, pp. 119–120.
  7. ↑ Davenport, Dan (October 2002). "CJ Carella's WitchCraft (Review)". RPGnet . Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  8. ↑ Pyle, Marx. "Interview with M. Alexander Jurkat". Sci•Fi 411. Archived from the original on 2012-07-15. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  9. ↑ "Interview with CJ Carella". FlamesRising.com (webzine). 2005-01-10. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
  10. ↑ Bone, Marcus. "[Interview] M. Alexander Jurkat – Founding Owner of Eden Studios – Unbound Publishing" . Retrieved 2025-09-07.
  11. ↑ "Eden Studios Interview". www.scifi411.com. Archived from the original on 2005-05-08. Retrieved 2025-09-07.
  12. ↑ Burnaugh, Michael (October 2002). "Interview with C.J. Carella of Eden Studios". GamingReport.com. Archived from the original on 2006-10-18. Retrieved 2007-10-13.
  13. ↑ "C.J. Carella's Website - Fiction". www.cjcarella.com. Archived from the original on 2014-07-26.
  14. ↑ "Doomsday Duet". Archived from the original on August 27, 2022.
  15. ↑ "C.J. Carella's Website - Apocalypse Dance Sample". www.cjcarella.com. Archived from the original on 2014-10-21.
  16. ↑ The Ragnarok Alternative. Fey Dreams Productions, LLC. 7 October 2015.
  17. ↑ Bad Vibes. Fey Dreams Productions LLC. 31 July 2014.
  18. ↑ Shadowfall: Las Vegas. Fey Dreams Productions LLC. 25 February 2015.
  19. ↑ Dante's Demons. Fey Dreams Productions LLC. 19 August 2015.
  20. ↑ Carella, C. J. (28 December 2015). Decisively Engaged. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN   978-1522965862.
  21. ↑ No Price Too High. Fey Dreams Productions LLC. 22 June 2016.
  22. ↑ Advance to Contact. Fey Dreams Productions, LLC. 9 October 2016.
  23. ↑ In Dread Silence. Fey Dreams Productions, LLC. 25 March 2017.
  24. ↑ Havoc of War. Fey Dreams Productions LLC. 3 August 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.