Splatbook

Splatbooks are sourcebooks devoted to a particular facet or fictional faction in a role-playing game. The term "Splatbook" came about from the dizzying array of sourcebooks published by White Wolf Game Studio for each of its World of Darkness games. The books were termed by series (Werewolf: The Apocalypse Tribe Books, Vampire: The Masquerade Clanbooks, Changeling: The Dreaming Kithbooks, Mage: The Ascension Tradition Books and so forth), which led to the derivation of the term: The asterisk on a computer keyboard, when used as a wild card character, is often called a "splat": *book for Clanbook, Tribebook, Kithbook, "Tradbook", et cetera.

Other games produce similar products, such as the race- and character class-specific sourcebooks for Dungeons & Dragons or the numerous Codices for Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, although the term "splatbook" is most directly associated with White Wolf's World of Darkness product line.

Splatbooks are alternately desired and reviled by gamers, who see them alternately as valuable resources for creating their characters and a craven attempt to milk players for extra money for things that should have been included in the main system resource books.