(Note: I have no actual evidence of drug use on behalf of the designers. I just like to think they were trippin' balls when they wrote Fantasy II.)
Fantasy II centers around a primitive group of hunter/gatherer type people known as Madlanders, their homelands (oddly enough called the Mad Lands), and their surrounding neighbors (Savarginia, Togeth, and the Whiteness). The Madlander culture is very defined and it covers everything from daily life, theological and philosophical outlook, sports and recreation, folk tales and heroes, to how the typical Madlander deals with people from the other nations, magic, and the gods. It even has a complete lexicon for the Madlander language. It's... very detailed in that regard with almost Gloranthan levels of detail.
What keeps me coming back to Fantasy II, though, are the monsters and the gods. Well, actually, some of the monsters (just the really frightening ones), the concepts behind the gods (the actual Mad Lands gods are kinda silly, with most being just gigantic, divinely intelligent animals actually rumored to be based on Winnie the Pooh), and the relationships between monsters and gods. I'll explain:
In the Mad Lands, the gods are insane and chaotic. They're not gods that you worship, they're gods that you fear. From time to time the gods will physically show up in the Mad Lands; when that happens their very presence warps everything around them. Monsters in the Mad Lands were all once human and have become monstrous because of close proximity to a god; when that happens, the god unintentionally takes something away from you, leaving you in a monstrous state. The truly frightening thing about monsters in the Mad Lands is not how horrible or scary they are, it's that you could fairly easily become one. While one can petition the gods for magical powers (becoming a shaman), only the truly insane would do such a thing; there's just as much of a chance that you'll become some sort of monster as you would get the power you're seeking. It's all very Lovecraftian in certain ways, which is something I really dig.
So there's the Fleshless, for instance, a horrible once-human creature that lived on after having all of its skin and muscle removed. Basically ambulatory skeletons with organs hanging off their ribcage, pulpy nerves and veins dangling from their bones, eyes in their sockets and tongues in their mouths, the Fleshless wander around trying to convince Madlanders that they're not monsters and going into murderous rages when they sense they're loathed or feared. Or the Skinless, who have had their skin removed through divine contact, their exposed muscle tissue glistening red in the sun, their blood dripping out of open capillaries leaving a trail behind them as they walk. Still in need of shelter and food, the Skinless view Madlanders as competition for living space and resources and raid them regularly. Or the pathetic Faceless, whose faces have been burned off by the touch of a god; a layer of soft, puffy tissue is all one sees where ears, eyes, nose, and mouth should be. The Faceless wander the woods forlornly, with no need to eat or drink, only able to sadly whimper. The Faceless imprint themselves upon the Madlanders they encounter, wrapping its arms around the victim, whimpering and holding on for dear life as if it were pleading for the Madlander to help it. Unfortunately, the Faceless bring horrendous bad luck to those upon whom they imprint as if it were a disease; once you've encountered a Faceless, escaping it usually isn't the end of the horror it brings. And that's only three of them.
So while GURPS Fantasy II: Adventures in the Mad Lands is probably considered a failure by Steve Jackson Games, it contains within it a lot of cool stuff that can easily be imported into other games (I once ran a GURPS Russia/Fantasy/Fantasy II game where the characters started off in GURPS Russia, went through the Banestorm to GURPS Fantasy, where GURPS Fantasy II gods and monsters were terrorizing the Northern Territories). And I like that. It's one of the reasons it remains one of my favorite GURPS books.
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