Minireview: The Mysteries of Mesoamerica (Call of Cthulhu)

Mysteries of Mesoamerica (publisher link) is a new Cthulhu sourcebook from Pagan Publishing, somewhat of a rarity in itself. Once again Pagan fails to disappoint – assuming you are feeling like some 1920’s Cthulhu set in politically stormy Central America, this book’s for you.

It’s a pretty hefty tome, contentwise. The page count is “only” in the 220 region, but in the Pagan fashion it’s crammed full of info in a readable but fairly compact font. Lots of very cool art, too, which sets the mood nicely. The first third or so of the book goes into setting detail: politics, geography, history. It’s a pretty nice crash course into what’s what and who’s who in that area in the 1920s. The rest of the book is filled up by four scenarios, all good.

The first one, “The Well of Sacrifice”, concerns an archeological expedition which stumbles upon something dangerous – par for the course in Cthulhu. It’s quite compact and also quite deadly. It’s not strictly speaking a Cthulhu scenario at all, but fits in with the mood. The second scenario (“Menhirs in the Grotto”) is a lot more complicated; there is again an archeological dig, but this time the context is quite different as are the dangers. Local social contacts feature heavily, here. Thirdly we have “The Heretics”, which (once again!) has a loose archeological theme to start things off with, but quickly changes into something much more contemporary. Last, there’s “Temple of the Toad”, which fails to break from the “archeological find” pattern but once again goes off in a different direction.

I quite liked the scenarios, though the first and last ones are quite compact and fairly straightforward. One could fault them for all having some sort of archeology context, but that’s mitigated by the fact that archeology is just such a natural reason for PCs to be in that region during that time, and also by the fact that the scenarios all go in somewhat unpredictable directions. All are also quite dangerous. The good thing with having a unifying startup theme for all the scenarios is that they could be combined for the same set of PCs, as long as those PCs were into archeology.

One amusing addition were the numerous PC character “R.I.P.” sidebars scattered among the scenarios. Apparently the death toll during playtests was on the high side… the author of the first scenario notes that both playtest sessions resulted in total party kills… even though he hadn’t intended for the thing to be quite so lethal. So be warned: some of these may be more suitable for one-shot use than as inclusions in a campaign.

Overall, this is yet another quality book from Pagan. This is far from the “soft” direction some Cthulhu writers have gone towards – these scenarios are mean, nasty and bloody. If the PCs survive to talk about it afterwards, they’ll have won a victory.

“El Diablo! Vamos! Vamos!” […]

Minireview: The Doom from Below (Call of Cthulhu)

The Doom from Below is a loose sequel to the first Cthulhu module from Super Genius Games, Murder of Crows, written by the same author (“Stan!”). It’s quite different; where Crows was a small-town investigation with some light Twin Peaks feel, this one is a… dungeon delve. Sort of.

Presumably while tracing the clues which led to the events in that earlier module, the PCs either find or hear of a huge sinkhole, off in the depths of the forest. This adventure assumes the PCs want to go spelunking, since the whole thing happens underground in the caves below that sinkhole. The reasons why the PCs might decide to do that are mostly given as “scientific curiosity”, so some work may be needed there with some player groups who (suprise!) think venturing underground may be a bit… dangerous. And would be correct in that thinking.

I want to avoid spoilers here, suffice to say that there are things to be found in the depths that aren’t of just the “rock formation” variety. The connection to the earlier module is quite lightweight, so you could easily run this as a standalone. It’s also not very dependent on the time period; you should be able to run this as a “modern” scenario with quite minimal changes. In a way, this is a “dungeon crawl for Cthulhu”…. but that’s not as bad as it sounds, since it avoids the main D&D “dungeon crawl” fixture, mainly endless combat scenes. The challenges here are much more suited for Cthulhu, and as is the norm it’s quite possible to get a total party kill out of this one. It’s not horribly lethal, though.

It’s not bad. I don’t think it’s quite as good as Murder of Crows, but it’s a bit difficult to compare the modules since they are very different. The bonus here is that it’s extremely portable to other locales, time periods or even game lines. Need a mysterious cave for you PCs to explore? Here’s one. […]

Elder Sign!

Brilliant. Though probably not quite as funny if your Cthulhu Lore skill is at 0%… […]

Minireview: Death in Luxor (Call of Cthulhu)

Death in Luxor is the first entry from a new Cthulhu licensee, Goodman Games. Up to now Goodman has been known for their “Dungeon Crawl Classics” series of D&D modules (among others), so I’m sure I wasn’t the only one a bit unsure of how their Cthulhu adventures would work out – dungeon crawls and Cthulhu don’t mix too well, though some have obstinately tried in the past.

Well, I need not have worried too much. While it is extremely pulpy, Death in Luxor is no dungeon crawl. It’s a pretty nice pseudo-freeform investigative thing set in 1920’s Luxor, with plenty of opportunities for combat (and for avoiding such, which is always a nice touch). The players are called to Luxor (from abroad) by a scientist acquaintance/friend who has made some sort of major find. Well, to seasoned Cthulhu players it will come as no great surprise that things have gone horribly wrong… there are bodies all over the place and various factions seem to be chasing… something. The showdown is suitably Cthulhu-like, in that it’s quite possible for all the PCs to die and for them to “win”.

Due to the size of the module, no background on Luxor is provided. This is natural of course, but does make running this module a bit of a challenge without some external source of info. For example, the adventure has a scene where the PCs go to a low-life bar, and that bar contains a (western) woman who is drinking heavily. How believable would that be, for Luxor in 1920? No idea. Would there even be “bars”? So… some additional historical/background material will probably be needed for this one if the GM wants to flesh out the surroundings.

The whole thing is event and scene -based, and is nicely non-linear. Kudos for that. While some links between scenes are slightly iffy, as a whole it seems pretty coherent and quite flexible. The maps and player handouts are very nice, though the sepia/red-toned ink used here makes for extremely poor contrast on some of them – some of the map details are somewhat hard to make out. Still, lots of handouts is good, and the art on those is nice. The pregenerated PCs all have nice links to the events and are all very different, so running this as a one-shot should be quite easy.

One especially nice touch is a certain scene which happens if the PCs seem to get bogged down. It’s not quite “ninjas kick in the door”, but it has that flavor. Having something like that available is good, especially in a freeform event-based scenario like this where that players could easily end up chasing all sorts of red herrings.

While this adventure is maybe a bit too pulpy for my taste, it does show that Goodman Games isn’t just a “dungeon crawl” company. There are some hints in this module that point to it being the first in an interlinked series; I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next from this “Age of Cthulhu” line. For a first foray into Cthulhu, this is a very strong showing. […]

Minireview: The Terror, by Dan Simmons

A couple of things, first off: It’s no accident that I read this right after The Walker in the Wastes; one of my reasons for buying this book was the fact that the basic plot centers around the same subject. Secondly, The Terror is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

I might class it as a “historical horror story”. In a way it’s a Cthulhu story without actually being a Cthulhu story, in the sense that the best tales of “Lovecraftian horror” tend to center around the theme of man versus a hostile and totally uncaring universe. That theme is very strong here.

The book takes the story of the lost Franklin Expedition, keeping quite close to known historical details, and then continues with what might have happened out on the ice after the known facts stop. There is a supernatural menace involved, but much of the horror comes from the (extremely) hostile environment: after getting trapped in the ice due to bad command decisions, the crew are harassed by poisonous food supplies, inadaquate equipment, crushing ice, and the constant freezing cold. Add in a… thing that (also) wants to kill them, and things become grim, fast.

It’s an extensively researched book, the amount of period detail is impressive. Told in unlinear fashion, the tale jumps from an “in medias res” beginning where the crew is already trapped to earlier times when the expedition is still in the process of starting off, then back again. In the hands of a lesser author things might have become confusing, but here the tale flows along and gains solidity despite jumping back and forth in time while switching the narrator voice with each jump. The characters are well-realized – I have no idea how well they correspond to the actual historical people in the personality department, but it doesn’t really matter; this is a work of fiction, not a history book. Franklin himself is portrayed as being hopelessly incompetent for the task assigned to him, though he is shown in somewhat positive light in past flashbacks. Sadly, this “leaders are incompetent and arrogant fools” theme seems to have been a real-life reality for much of the history of British arctic exploration (with some notable exceptions).

This is a thick book, both in page count and in content. It’s also quite brutal and dark. With those disclaimers, I can easily recommend this one. As noted, it was one of the best books of 2008 for me. […]

Minireview: Walker in the Wastes

Walker in the Wastes is the first big Cthulhu campaign published by Pagan, and it can be quite difficult to find nowadays. I hunted eBay for quite a while before finding my copy, and it wasn’t exactly cheap. I do wish Pagan would do a reprint of this one…

Besides “rare”, what, then, is it? Well, it’s a huge “classic era” (1928 to be exact) campaign for Call of Cthulhu, kicking off with an expedition to the same area where the legendary lost Franklin Expedition vanished in the ice and the wind, 80 years previously. While extensive historical research points to the expedition having perished to a combination of starvation, scurvy, exposure and lead poisoning, this scenario posits that there may have been something more to that list of horrors. What starts off as a fairly mundane scientific expedition slowly becomes more sinister in true Cthulhu fashion. Something dangerous and non-human stalks the icy wastes, and the native “Eskimo” tribes on the ice aren’t talking much and aren’t necessarily all that friendly either.

The first expedition to the ice is intended to kick off a series of escalating events, some of which require the players to go globetrotting in search of clues. Clues to what? Why, a cult that wants to awaken an ancient god, of course! This is Cthulhu, after all, gotta have those cultists! I do have to say that the cult here is quite intelligently portrayed, and is quite far from the stereotypical “bunch of morons in robes” scene. I’d expect the body count on the PC side to rise fast, unless they are very careful.

This campaign will require a lot of GM prep to run. While it’s interesting and contains a lot of stuff (it’s over 200 pages long), the scope of this one is just so huge that those 200 pages are nowhere enough. Don’t expect to just pick this one up and run it… the author (John H. Crowe III) says that about four years of research went into writing this thing, and while you won’t need four years of GM prep in addition to that, you will need to do some amount of work. The campaign says it’s intended for “experienced Keepers and players”, and that’s a fair enough warning. I think this would be a really cool game to run or to play in, though, so I think that prepwork will probably be very much worth it.

After a fairly linear start the campaign becomes extremely freeform. At times I had trouble figuring out why exactly the PCs would go to a given remote corner of the globe – but to the author’s credit, the campaign doesn’t assume all the leads will be uncovered or followed. The end will be less likely to result in a total party kill if most leads are followed – but I can see this one branching in lots of different directions. Most of them deadly to the PCs, of course.

In sum… a huge, complex and demanding campaign, but one which probably rewards effort put into it. This and Beyond the Mountains of Madness are the two big arctic-focused Cthulhu campaigns that exist… and both are justly famous.

Oh, and this one has zeppelins in it. Can’t go wrong with those. […]

Minireview: Final Flight

Will wonders never cease? We now have an actual new adventure module from Pagan Publishing. Between this and the resurrection of Delta Green, things are looking great on that front.

Unlike the previous Cthulhu scenario I read (Murder of Crows) Final Flight is not suitable as the beginning of a campaign – since it’s very doubtful there will be any characters left alive to start said campaign with. For the same reason, plopping this in the middle of a campaign might also not be the brightest of ideas… this thing is lethal. I think it would work best as a one-shot, with maybe a continuation campaign if any characters actually manage to survive.

The story has the PCs setting out to attend an archeological conference in South America, aboard the (prop-driven) Flight 101. This is a “classic era” scenario, so “modern technology” isn’t all that modern. Things go awry, and when I say “awry” I mean “crash in the middle of the jungle”. Hilarity ensues, as characters with skills more suited for academia try to survive hostile sort-of-natives, the hostile environment, other passengers, and other fun stuff. As noted, the probablity of any of them making it back to civilization are on the lowish side. Never underestimate the ingenuity of players, of course….

While I don’t think this is quite up to past Pagan quality, that’s purely because that quality has been so very high. The scenario is quite good, and goes in a “survival horror” direction that isn’t the most usual theme in Cthulhu. I think the biggest problem is that it’s quite sparse; the GM needs to do quite a bit of prepwork for this one and figure out how he/she wants to make the jungle lethal – no rules support is provided here. A somewhat bigger page count, with some additional detail, would have helped. That said, the price point is very low, so you are getting plenty of bang for your buck.

So… not a “must buy”, but not bad at all. If you want some jungle horror in your Cthulhu, take a look. […]

Minireview: Murder of Crows

Chaosium has recently licensed Cthulhu to various rpg companies, and the first fruits of that are now appearing on store shelves. Murder of Crows is a “classic era” Cthulhu scenario from Super Genius Games, set in the fictional town of Bethlehem, New Hampshire. The town has transmuted itself from an up-in-the-mountains lumber town into a fashionable wilderness retreat for city folks – which is now threatened by a plague of crows, in the thousands, in true Hitchcock “Birds” fashion. Who can save the day? Why, an intrepid group of investigators, of course!

This is a “low-level” scenario, well suited for starting off a campaign. The Mythos involvement is fairly minor and no special skills are really required. Some connection to the town via backstory etc would of course make the PC involvement feel a bit more natural. That’s actually one of the minor flaws in this otherwise very good scenario; the beginning is a bit weak and needs some GM work. Another minor flaw is that the “bad guy(s)” are pretty obvious, the PCs are almost saturated with clues pointing in the correct direction. I would personally make things a lot more muddled and add some red herrings here and there. Depends on group, of course.

I liked this. It’s well-written (bar some editing glitches) and engaging, and the town is a well-realized locale. Nice Twin Peaks vibe going on. I gather there are mode adventure modules on the way from these guys, with apparently one being a sequel of sorts to this one. I’m probably byuing them, this was a very good initial effort from a new Cthulhu licensee. […]

Minireview: Toast, by Charles Stross

Toast is a collection of Stross’ older short stories. You can clearly see ideas and influences here that he later expanded and used in his novels. In particular, Lobsters later got expanded into the first chapter of Accelerando. The vision of virtual reality and such as the “next frontier” is one that he has used a lot, too.

The stories vary in quality, but all are at least “ok”. Standouts include the excellent near-future Cthulhu story A Colder War and the clever Antibodies, but there’s a lot of other good stuff here, too. In all fairness his novels are better, but this collection is well worth reading (especially so if you already are a fan of his books).

Some of the stories are already quite dated, as noted by the author in the afterword. That’s the problem when you write about high-tech… it becomes “retro” faster than you can blink.

Pick this one up if you like Stross. Cthulhu fans may also want to read the book just for A Colder War, it’s a fun extrapolation of At the Mountains of Madness. […]