Minireview: The Realm of Shadows (Call of Cthulhu)
The Realm of Shadows is another Cthulhu campaign from John H. Crowe III, published by Pagan Publishing. It’s set in the 1940s and the slowly escalating World War II provides a nice backdrop – the war doesn’t directly impact many things here, but it does give interesting context to several things and explains some plot elements later on in the campaign. The book is (very) loosely connected with Coming Full Circle, a previous campaign by the same author, in that this one can be played as a continuation and some small plot links are provided. It’s an extremely loose connection, though, this campaign mostly stands on its own.
The plot here centers on ghouls and ghoul cults. Unlike many “big plots” in Cthulhu scenarios, there is no impending “rise of the Old Ones” or such end-of-the-world stuff here. If the PCs fail… nothing all that horrible happens, at least in the short run. In the longer run things get a bit more grim, and various small-scale victories (or losses) encountered here will of course be very significant to the PCs. This approach is quite refreshing, though it does bring with it a few problems with PC motivation; after the initial scenario, the GM needs to do some work to make sure the PCs are set up to have motivation enough to pursue hidden things on their own. Things which have been hidden for ages, and are very good at staying hidden.
Events begin with the PCs getting hired by a worried doctor in a small New England town, whose wife has run away and taken their daughter with her. Strange previous behavior by the wife, added to the strange physical deformities ailing their daughter, makes the doctor suspect something sinister is going on. Is it just a case of marital problems coming to a crisis point? Of course not, this is Cthulhu. It’s a clever opening for the campaign; it’s quite low-key but has plenty of potential for action and is quite open-ended in how the PCs may approach things. At the end of it all, the PCs will hopefully have leads on a possible ghoul cult infesting some parts of Massachusetts.
…which the PCs are expected to trace and foil, in the second scenario. As noted, this runs the problem of too little PC motivation, it’s easy enough to see the PCs just give up and do something else at this point. Depending on how the first part went, the GM may need to do some little legwork here. The scenario itself is quite solid, and assuming the PCs are clever or lucky enough they’ll get plenty of clues, many of them pointing towards South America. There is also a small linking scenario provided, which takes place in the Dreamlands and may provide critical additional clues and is important in piecing things together in the finale.
The last part takes place in French Guiana, location of the infamous “Devil’s Island” prison camp and also host to vast tracts of utterly hostile and mostly unexplored jungle. This last part also gets greatest mileage of the war in the background – flying there is expensive, but the cheaper ship option runs the risk of a submarine attack. Also, the war and the simultaneous dissolution of the French government has had a huge impact here: local prices are haywire, the political situation is anyone’s guess, and attitudes are tense. The PCs need to get there, hire a suitable guide or two (a non-trivial task in itself), and then head off into the jungle to face whatever lurks there.
The end game is potentially explosive, panicy and quite deadly, as befits a Cthulhu campaign. The PCs do have a chance at survival, but the probability of them dying noble (or not) deaths in the depths of the jungle is much higher. The opposition is strong, clever and entrenched, and the PCs need to be clever and careful (or have serious firepower, not easy to arrange) in order to have a chance.
As a whole, it’s really an excellent campaign. It starts up slowly but in a clever way, ramps things up with local investigation, provides mystical viewpoints via Dreamlands links, and finally throws the PCs directly at the heart of darkness. The only weakness, as I see it, is the motivation factor in the midpoint, but that should not be an issue provided the GM does some groundwork in the right direction. Another quality campaign from Pagan, in other words, with the slightly nonstandard 1940s timeframe spicing things up a bit. As typical for a scenario from this author (and Pagan Publishing in general), the attention to and level of detail is impressive. Also typical and awesome is the art by Blair Reynolds – very creepy and atmospheric. […]
Minireview: Coming Full Circle (Call of Cthulhu)
Coming Full Circle is another excellent Cthulhu campaign from Pagan Publishing and the author of Walker in the Wastes (John H. Crowe III). As the author notes in the foreword, it’s almost the polar opposite of Walker: instead of large-scale globetrotting investigation, this is a very small-scale and insular affair. It’s also purposefully not a Cthulhu mythos campaign; the antagonists have their basis in New England folklore and mythology, instead of the Cthulhu mythos as such. There are notes to tie this to the mythos, if the GM wants to… but that’s purely optional. It’s also somewhat unusual in its time period, being set from 1929 to 1939, a decade after the classic Cthulhu period and under the looming threat of the U.S. Great Depression.
Like many other books from Pagan, this is brimming with detail and historical notes on the period, and NPC descriptions are extremely good. This is important since this is a very character-driven and insular campaign, talking place in a (fictional) New England town. As noted in the intro section, this thing plays best if at least one of the PCs is a noted “psychic investigator” or some such, since the opening hook has a local widow contacting the PCs regarding a haunting. It’s assumed the PCs take the bait and go investigate, of course, and the rest of the campaign depends on the PCs forming some sort of relations with the family in question. This might get tricky for the GM; if the PCs just want to do a quick investigation and move on, much of the rest of this might fall flat – so it’s important that the GM uses the piles of local and NPC detail given to try to bring the town and the locals to life.
The campaign consists of four parts, taking place years apart and all (at least somewhat) connected to this certain family (though one of them is only very loosely connected and can be run as a stand-alone as needed). In a way it’s the story of a certain family and the dark things that haunt them, and it’s up to the PCs to figure out what’s behind it all. The final part, the titular “Coming Full Circle”, finally wraps things up and returns to the source of the evil… assuming the PCs are diligent and/or lucky. The opposition is quite dangerous and clever, here.
It’s good stuff, assuming you feel like running a small-scale historical supernatural game. As noted, Cthulhu mythos elements as such are missing here, which can be a good thing to throw players expecting “familiar” Cthulhu tropes off the track. Not quite all of them are missing, though, in order to make things interesting. The amount of detail given should make this fairly easy to prep for, though the GM does need to read and re-read a lot of the information; as noted, using that to flesh out the important NPCs is critical here. […]
Minireview: The Resurrected III: Out of the Vault (Call of Cthulhu)
Out of the Vault is a compilation of Call of Cthulhu scenarios from the pages of Pagan Publishing’s “Unspeakable Oath” magazine (issues of which can be hard to get hold of nowadays), with new layout and art. Possibly some tweaks / corrections also, not sure about that; I had read almost all of these previously from the magazines, but it’s been a while so can’t say about possible differences. In any case, it’s generally a very high-class compilation. There are 10 scenarios, mosty from the “classic” 1920s era, and most of them are pretty good. Some few are only so-so, and a few are truly excellent. Many are quite deadly, as is par for the course for Cthulhu one-shots.
Highlights for me were the bizarre and deadly “Within You Without You”, the cinematic “Blood on the Tracks”… and above all, the crazy and brilliant “In Media Res”. That last one is quite unusual for a CoC scenario and is close in theme and feel to the (also brilliant and unusual) Unknown Armies scenario “Jailbreak”. It throws the PCs (and players) into a very scary situation with no warning, and also wraps up before questions are answered. Creepy and very cool, and also very suitable for a short LARP session; in fact some people have apparently run it as such. […]
Minireview: A Resection of Time (Call of Cthulhu)
“Modern-day” Cthulhu scenarios aren’t too common, as compared to the “classic-era” 1920s ones…. and the ones that do exist tend to be set in the 1980s or 1990s, which was current when they were written. A Resection of Time is one the few available scenarios in this group – and it’s pretty damn good. Besides being a nice mini-campaign (it’s a bit long to be merely be called a “scenario”, but too short for “campaign”) for Call of Cthulhu, this one would also make a very decent Delta Green scenario with quite minimal modification.
Subtitled “The Strange Case of Kyle Woodson: A Scenario”, the scenario begins with the PCs being tasked to investigate the death of an archeologist specializing in ancient Mayan culture, one Kyle Woodson. As written, the scenario strongly suggests that at least one of the PCs have a strong past connection with Kyle, having been at a dig with him years back. It’s quite doable to have the whole PC group be old archeologist friends / workmates of Kyle (this has implications later on, though I’ll avoid saying what implications to avoid spoilers). Kyle was struck by a speeding car in what seems to be a hit-and-run, possibly an intentional one. However, the autopsy found something very disturbing, so… cue the PCs.
Opportunities for sanity loss abound, and the PCs will fast find that their interest in the case hasn’t gone unnoticed. In the end, it’s likely that the leads will point towards Belize and some old dig sites… and assuming the PCs go there, they’ll find out things they’ll sincerely wish they hadn’t. There is a very nice plot twist at one point, which is improved by some GM foreshadowing in the previous sections.
Like I said, this is a strong scenario. It’s not perfect; some of the initial data about Kyle’s death is a bit contradictory in what seems to be a genuine mistake by the author, but that’s easy enough to rectify. Also, the scenario really needs for at least one of the PCs to have had old connections with Kyle, and to have been on site at a dig with him. Reverse-engineering this into an ongoing campaign might be tricky.
Also as noted, a very competent scenario for Delta Green, with the caveats about PC past involvement still valid. […]
Minireview: Trail of Tsathogghua (Call of Cthulhu)
Trail of Tsathogghua is the original 1984 edition, later published in compacted (and revised) form as “The Compact Trail of Tsathogghua”. This first edition contains three scenarios: two interlinked ones set in Greenland & Canada, and one unrelated scenario. Unsurprisingly, the later edition left out the unconnected one, and also (as far as I know) slightly revised the two others. Don’t know the exact details there, I’ve only read this original one.
The scenarios are all quite good, though the first one feel a bit too abbreviated, especially near the end; some expansion there might be nice. That scenario, titled “The Trail of Tsathoggua”, concerns an expedition to examine some mysterious ancient glyphs found written on a cliff wall in Greenland. The main plot is interesting enough, and the fact that the PCs need to deal with Greenland Inuit culture is a nice plus. Unsurprisingly, the PCs will need to venture out on the ice at some point, and things might well take a very grim turn. Normal CoC scenario, in other words.
The second one is “The Curse of Tsathoggua”, which has the PCs venture into Canada to trace… a certain development from the previous scenario. I don’t want to give away spoilers here, suffice it to say that this adventure is a bit unusual and isn’t strictly speaking a “Cthulhu” tale. It’s a nice change of pace, and is quite free-form.
The last scenario is, as noted, totally unrelated. Titled “The Haunted House”, it concerns an investigation into a supposedly haunted house. While there is a lot for the GM to keep track of here, it reads like a very fun and atmospheric scenario – especially since it’s absolutely packed with red herrings. Actually figuring out what is going on is probably a very difficult feat, even though this scenario isn’t especially deadly as far as CoC scenarios go. Good stuff, and again slightly unusual. I think this scenario has also been published elsewhere (either in a CoC core book or some other scenario collection), but I’m not totally sure.
All three scenarios were written by Keith Herber. The haunted house scenario is arguably the best of the lot, but the Greenland/Canada “Tsathogghua” duo also seems fun – nothing spectacular, but very decent adventuring in slightly unusual locales. […]
Minireview: The Fungi From Yuggoth (Call of Cthulhu)
The Fungi From Yuggoth is a Call of Cthulhu campaign from 1984 (later reprinted three times, with two renamings). I’ve only read this first version and cannot compare with the later ones, but this one is quite a mess. To start off, it has almost nothing to do with the Fungi from Yuggoth… only one chapter out of eight features them. That’s probably the reason they renamed this later, first to “Curse of Cthulhu” and later “Day of the Beast” (with that last one being the most fitting title). The subtitle here is “Desperate Adventures Against the Brotherhood”, and that one at least has some bearings on the contents.
Utterly inappropriate title aside, the bigger problem here is the contents. The campaign, such as it is, consists of eight chapters loosely linked by dream-visions from a psychic. Now, in a smaller scale this might even work as the main plot driver, but here it’s supposedly the justification for the PCs to suddenly go to places like Peru, Egypt and suchlike. It makes no sense, and would require massive GM railroading in practice. The chapters themselves are a mixed bunch. Some are actually pretty good, while some go way out to the campy/pulp side, with the end chapter being especially pulpy. That’s not a bad thing as such, but I feel the play quality here is very uneven.
The main plot consists of foiling the schemes of a large, global cult called “The Brotherhood”. The cult itself is ok; while not the most original of plots, some of the details are nice.
You’re probably best off treating this as a collection of one-shot scenarios instead of a campaign, as such. As noted, some of the individual scenarios are quite decent. I think some of them were revised and expanded in the later editions, so the campaign thing may work better with those. […]
Minireview: Secrets of Kenya (Call of Cthulhu)
The “Secrets of” series for Call of Cthulhu has been a fairly high-quality one (what little of it I’ve read), and this book proves to be no exception to that. Secrets of Kenya (written by David Conyers) provides a look at 1920’s colonial Kenya – a very nice change of pace from the usual U.S. locations. It also ties in nicely with Masks of Nyarlathotep, which has a Kenya episode which – while good – is lacking in detail in places and is mostly based on a fantasy version of Kenya and Nairobi. This book provides a more realistic and historically accurate description, should the Keeper want that. Well, as much “historically accurate” as a Cthulhu sourcebook can be, anyway.
I was also interested in this book since I’ve visited Kenya quite a few times, having spent my childhood in nearby Ethiopia. In fact, my sister currently lives in Nairobi with her family. As a result, Kenya isn’t quite as “exotic and foreign” to me as it would be for most people. It was fun reading about locations that I’ve visited; I actually learned a lot of new stuff from this book. Kenya has an interesting and turbulent history.
The first half of the book gives a historical overview of the country, including a focus on Nairobi (which was a much smaller and rougher place in the 1920s). It’s well-written and there are lots of fun anecdotes scattered here and there, along with various Mythos bits. It seems nicely integrated, the connections the author has made to the Mythos (expanding on some details from Masks) do not seem out of place. The book talks a bit about character creation options – while the default might be to use this book to flesh out Kenya for visiting foreign Investigators, there is also the possibility of having the PCs be locals (either white, brown or black). “White”, “brown” and “black” were actually the categories used back in the day, and racism was automatic and accepted – “blacks” simply didn’t go into many “white” places. “Browns” (Indians etc) has some more freedom, but were also seen as inferior to “whites”. To its credit, the book doesn’t try to ignore the racism, but makes it an important story and plot point.
The book also provides some more general “African” data for use in Cthulhu games: animals, languages, tribes, and a list of general African Mythos sites. The focus stays in Kenya, but you can get some small mileage out of this for other African Cthulhu games, too.
The second half of the book contains four scenarios. They are a mixed bunch… some very nice, some so-so, some utterly deadly, some actually quite survivable.
The first one, “Madness of the Ancestors”, has the PCs getting involved with an archeological dig site. Someone has uncovered new evidence about the possible origins of mankind, and the PCs join the expedition to investigate an accident on the dig site. It’s a pretty good scenario, though it does assume the PCs don’t do some quite obvious things (trying to avoid spoilers here). Some GM gymnastics and modifications probably needed on this one, in order to handle the normal PC groups. This thing is also seriously deadly; if things progress to “end game” the chances of anyone surviving are slim. Or actually, high… but not in a good way. Again, avoiding spoilers. It’s a decent adventure but needs some tweaking in my opinion.
The second one is “Cats of Lamu”, and it’s an interesting and unusual item. For one, it’s not very deadly at all, and the location is also… unusual, as is the possible resolution of the problem. I liked it, maybe because it’s so unusual for a Cthulhu adventure. It’s a smallish scenario and can be inserted in the middle of things (though it’s designed to be run in Lamu).
Third, we have “Savage Lands”, which is perhaps the strongest item of the bunch. A settler’s wife is murdered by a leopard, which has dragged his children off into the bush. The official write it off as a “normal” wildlife attack and declares the children dead, but the man insists that things are not as they seem and that his children may still be alive. Enter the PCs. It’s a fairly strong (and dangerous) scenario, with only a few problems that struck out to me – I got the impression that the leopard was supposed to have dragged the children over a vast distance, which doesn’t seem likely and something that the local authorities would accept as reasonable. Maybe I just misunderstood some of the time and distance scales involved, this may not be an actual problem in the scenario as written. In any case, easy enough to fix if needed.
Last, there is “Wooden Death”, which is a bit weird. A trading agent contacts the PCs, and wants them to investigate strange goings on in the northwest. It starts out nicely enough, but then takes a weird turn which I’m not sure is quite fitting with the tone. It’s not bad as such, just… weird. In any case, this is another very deadly scenario.
The author also provides a support page for the book, with some extra material. Nice touch.
All in all, this is a quality book. While the scenarios won’t all be to everyone’s taste, there is something there for most everyone, and the detail on Kenya seems well-researched and is written in a very entertaining manner. The layout and organization are excellent. Recommended for anyone thinking about running a Cthulhu game set on the Dark Continent. […]
Targets of Opportunity is here (sort of)
The long-ago ransomed Delta Green book Targets of Opportunity is finally here. Well, as PDF anyway. All of us ransom participants got the PDF (link was in my Inbox this morning) and will get the printed hardcover book later when it materializes. The book is also available for normal pre-order now; the first printing will be a limited hardcover run of 1000 copies (most going to ransom participants), with a paperback retail edition to follow some time later.
A quick skim of the PDF gives a very good impression. It’s a bit over 300 pages, with the traditional Delta Green layout and nice, evocative art. Haven’t read it yet (obviously) and might wait until the printed book arrives to do so, but judging by the writers involved with this thing (Greg Stolze, Ken Hite, Dennis Detwiller, etc) I expect the textual contents to be top-notch.
The book contains:
- “Black Cod Island”, an Alaskan / American Indian scenario with related setting info
- “M-EPIC”, a Canadian counterpart to Delta Green
- “Disciples of the Worm”, a sinister group, with scenario
- “The DeMonte Clan”, a menace rooted in post-disaster New Orleans
- “The Cult of Transcendence”, one more sinister cult
- a bunch of appendixes about game rules tweaks and hints on how to run a DG game […]
Minireview: The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep (Call of Cthulhu)
(The Complete) Masks of Nyarlathotep is one of those campaigns that always seems to get a mention when “all time best rpg campaigns” are listed. It’s a classic, and now that I’ve read the thing I can see why. My copy is from the limited Chaosium hardcover reprint from… 2006? Sometime around that time, anyway. Like many other classic Chaosium campaigns, this can be a tricky book to get unless you feel like paying something like $150 for an eBay copy. I was lucky enough to get a copy from the reprint set (the hardcover is very nice), but I ordered mine the moment they were announced and as far as I know that set sold out pretty fast.
The cover image I included here is from the older edition, since I couldn’t find a picture of the hardcover reprint anywhere. It’s the same picture anyway, just with an expanded title and different font.
This thing was originally published as a boxed set, under the title “Masks of Nyarlathotep”. Later it was reprinted a few times in book form, with an added Australia chapter (and a “The Complete” prefix). The Australia chapter is fun, though by no means necessary to the already huge and sprawling plot (I think it was also published in Terror Australis, but I’m not sure, I don’t have that book).
So, it’s big, classic and somewhat hard to get hold of (without lots of cash, anyway). Besides that, what it is?
It’s a huge, globe-trotting and very “pulpy” Cthulhu campaign, in which the investigators track down the nefarious plans of various dark cults… or is it just one cult? The action starts up in New York, where someone connected to the PCs contacts them with critical information. Various bad things follow, and the PCs are then expected to go globetrotting. All this takes quite a bit of GM/PC prepwork. First off, the PCs need some real reason and motivation to pursue their leads to the opposite side of the globe – international travel in the 1920s was slow and definitely not “routine”. Also, the probable PC death rate here is… high. Unless the GM severely tones down several parts, there is a high probability of a total party kill in several places. The GM needs to set up possible continuations; the book helpfully suggests that the PCs send notes of their progress back to a “home base”, from which other “replacement” Investigators could join the survivors.
The great thing here is the totally open-ended nature of the campaign. The action is separated into various places (some in Africa, some in Asia, some Australia, some Europe), but while they are all part of the grand plot, they can be visited in any order whatsoever and many of them are totally optional. This means that the PCs can follow up their leads in whatever fashion they feel and the GM needs to do only minimal railroading. Of course, there is a downside to this: the probability of the PCs going off to pursue red herrings is also high, especially since the book deals out lots of deliberate distractions and red herrings. Running this thing will require a lot of GM prep, both before and during the campaign.
To sum, the “plus” points of this campaign are: totally freeform structure, nice pulpy action (including an honest to goodness spaceship!), endless hordes of cultists to evade, outsmart or gun down, and a nice excuse to travel all over the globe in a 1920s environment. You can easily add an almost unlimited number of “side quests” to this campaign, and it provides many of those as part of the package.
On the “minus” side: it’s deadly, and there will be PC deaths and possible TPKs. At times, the number of cultists and other baddies the PCs encounter verges on the ridiculous. The GM needs to prepare for this. Also, even though it’s a big campaign (200+ pages) it also covers a vast scope, so the GM will need to do quite a bit of prep to flesh out some bits here and there. Also, due to the freeform nature, it’s very likely the PCs will get sidetracked now and then and the GM will need to somehow get things “back on track” at times.
In the end, I can see why this one is a classic. It’s huge, complicated and probably a ton of fun in the right hands. […]
Minireview: Carrion Hill (Pathfinder)
Carrion Hill by Richard Pett is a newish Pathfinder module, with a somewhat unusual heritage: it’s a Pathfinder Cthulhu module. Sort of. It’s directly and deliberately influenced by Lovecraft, to the extent of using names from Lovecraft’s fiction and in having sidebars which direct people to also check out Chaosium’s “Call of Cthulhu” game. This isn’t the first time that Paizo has done something like this; there are lots of Lovecraft fans among the Paizo folk and some of the earlier modules have also contained some Cthulhu references. However, this is probably the most directly “Cthulhu” thing Paizo has done to date.
I have mixed feelings here. On one hand, it’s fun to mix and match genres a bit, and there are lots of nice scenes here. Also, the mechanic of the Big Bad’s strength depending heavily on what the PCs do is a nice one – if they just barge along without thinking, they may get their asses kicked.
On the other hand, D&D and Cthulhu are an uneasy mix. Cthulhu relies heavily on the PCs being totally out of their depth and generally helpless versus cosmic horrors, whereas D&D (which Pathfinder is a version of) is firmly in the see-monster-kill-monster genre. As a result, a lot of the potential creepiness is lost since the PCs can usually just draw swords and carve up the beastie into bite-sized chunks.
The story concerns what seems to be some sort on monster, rampaging in the misty small town of Carrion Hill. It may devolve into just a “bug hunt” but there is also food for a bit of investigation and non-combat playing here. The plot isn’t the most original of plots, but does read like a good bit of fun to play or run. The main problem, as noted, is the dilution of the horror elements in the D&D genre assumptions (i.e. “if we see it, we can kill it”). The lack of any sort of sanity mechanic in Pathfinder is also a small hinderance to this sort of thing. […]
