Grendel is a 1971 novel by John Gardner, a retelling of the Beowulf myth from the point of view of the monster. It’s excellent, but if you’ve picked it up thinking “ooh, I like axes and fighting monsters, and it’s a fantasy masterwork – this’ll be a rip-roaring read!” you may be somewhat surprised, and possibly disappointed. It’s a bit literary, as Gardner uses the myth to explore existentialism; in his own words, “What happened in Grendel was that I got the idea of presenting the Beowulf monster as Jean-Paul Sartre, and everything that Grendel says Sartre in one mood or another has said.”

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How you react to that quote will, I guess, determine whether you will enjoy the read. That said, existentialist philosophy aside, it’s a rip-roarer, with a real grasp of language, and whether you seek it out or not, there’s things here that are easily grabbed at for gaming. Here’s three of them!

Words, Myths, People

The book has a fantastic poetic quality, even when it’s describing a fairly simple, repetitious existence. It says some stuff about myth, and it’s great to see the monster/narrator wander again up to Hrothgar’s Mead Hall to attack some hapless men. The 

The games this made me think of were, directly, Age of Vikings and Pendragon – both big on mythical, “unkillable” monsters, and Mead-Halls (or the Cymric equivalent, castles). And, really, Mythic Bastionland – which I’ve somehow not managed to get to the table yet (I did play it – with the designer – as a playtester) – I’d suggest The Beast as the closest Myth to Grendel, although there are a few options you could use.

12 Chapter Structure

In Grendel, Gardner writes in 12 chapters, and links these both to astrological signs and characteristics of civilisation. This does account, if you’ve read it and not noticed or read this analysis, to the slight differences in style and viewpoint as you go through it.

But this made me think about how campaigns are structured, and whether there’s something in this as a creative constraint. I’ve run episodic campaigns before (it was a Star Trek Adventures game) where the first run was a spotlight episode for each PC, but what if we had a session/episode based on each element? What if each used a possible adventure structure from Robin Law’s Adventure Crucible? These have the potential to give variety alongside an over-arching narrative that could be really compelling… I’ll have to think!

Play the Monster

Of course, for most of the book Grendel, a brutish monster, is the protagonist. There are plenty of games that explore this theme (you’re thinking Vampire, right?) and this offers rich grist for this. The text really helps with some potential descriptions, when a poetic description of the sunlight landing on grass is juxtaposed by a matter-of-fact ripping of a man’s arm off – there’s plenty to make your description pop in here.

So, have you read Gardner’s book and used it as TTRPG inspiration? Have you played monsters, literally or figuratively, or explored existential crises through gaming? Let me know in the comments.