[YSDC] Into The Deep - User contributions [en]

Death by Misadventure

2019-11-15T16:18:20Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:Terrors From Beyond.jpeg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Pages:''' 36-63

'''Author(s):''' [[Glyn White]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[David Conyers]], [[David Lee Ingersoll]], [[David Grilla]]

'''Editor(s):''' [[David Conyers]], [[David Grilla]]

'''Setting:''' [[1920s]]

'''Appears in:''' [[Terrors from Beyond (Supplement)|Terrors from Beyond]]

==Summary==
East Anglian art collector Charles Stanhope has died in a shotgun accident at his house, killed by the faulty discharge of his weapon. His friends are called to his funeral and learn that Stanhope had returned in terror to his house shortly before his death.

==Links==
Link to outside reviews or helpful pages.
*[http://www.ogrecave.com/reviews/terrors_from_beyond.shtml Ogre Cave review (no real spoilers)]
*[http://lostcoastmythos.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/review-terrors-from-beyond-chaosium.html Lost Coast Mythos review (SPOILERS)]

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


===Synopsis===
Stanhope has been murdered. His interest in local history and amateur archaeology led him to investigate 19th-century resident Joseph Crascall, and explore Crascall's ruined castle. In fact, the sorcerer Crascall was driven through a dimensional gate by an angry mob, and Stanhope's fumbling broke the seal and allowed his return, accompanied by inhuman beings called l'gy'hxians. They hunted down Stanhope, ransacked his library to learn about this century, and retreated to the castle.

The funeral and will-reading provide an opportunity for Investigators to receive various handouts describing Stanhope's last moments, his archaeological interests, and some historical letters giving background.

A further murder occurs when Crascall goes to retrieve some buried items, now beneath a farmer's land. He has also subverted a local dentist, who turns to self-harm and, if visited by Investigators, is caught in the process of mutilating a patient.

Eventually the Investigators will find the sorcerer Crascall lurking beneath the castle with his alien companions, where a final and extremely violent confrontation may allow them to seal the gate and destroy Crascall.

===References===
'''Player Handouts:'''
# Charles Stanhope's last note
# Archaeology at Ravensby
# Extracts from the journal of Charles Stanhope
# Letter 1792
# History of Wisbech Castle
# Letter C19th
# Sites of Rare Historical and Supernatural Interest in East Anglia
# Gruesome murder
# The Clarksons
# Extract from history of the Cistercians
# Extract from the Livre D'Ivon
# Extract from The Mythology & Folk Tales of the Norse People

'''Locations:''' [[Wisbech]], Ravensby

'''Creatures:''' [[Inhabitant of L'gy'hx]]

'''Tomes and Artifacts:''' [[black stone]], Horvald's Torc, l'gy'hxian weapons

===Comments===
# Map of south-east England
# Map of Wisbech town centre
# Map of Wisbech museum
# Map of Ravensby
# Timeline of events
# Map of Ravensby Abbey
# The Black Stone (artefact)
# Summon Black Dog (spell)
# Map of Wisbech castle
# Map of underground Wisbech
# [[Inhabitant of L'gy'hx|L'gy'hxian]] weapons
# New Mythos race: the [[Inhabitant of L'gy'hx]]

===Keeper Comments===
The scenario suffers from a jumbled layout that makes it difficult to follow. Handouts are not numbered in the order they appear in the scenario, and handouts, notes and maps are placed eratically throughout the scenario.

The connections (geographical and historical) between several important locations in the scenario are as clear as they might be, despite the maps - partly because the maps aren't necessarily near the locations depicted. The Norman castle no longer exists, which means the dungeons where Crascall lurks are accessed from the grounds of a dentists' surgery in Wisbech whose building is nevertheless referred to as "The castle". Access is also possible via the sewers.

There are a couple of potent and dangerous NPCs who are nevertheless entirely irrelevant to the scenario. The sorcerer-lawyer Bowman seems a peculiar choice; given his stated motivation in the scenario, it seems he'd be better off investigating himself with the assistance of his murderous henchman. On the other hand, using him as a PC (suggested if there are more than 4 players) requires careful roleplaying, creates an obvious conflict of interests, and could have unforseen effects. For example, his access to Dominate potentially allows him to overcome NPC obstacles, and also allows him to trivially turn the l'gy'hxians against Crascall. In general, having four players running relatively ordinary people, while one runs a spell-wielding sorcerer with a psychopathic henchman, seems likely to lead to odd dynamics.

The other is that henchman, the chauffeur Brassic. Having an NPC who may randomly decide to murder one of the Investigators, ''with no connection to the scenario in play'' and no particular indication that he cannot be trusted, seems an unwelcome wildcard. If it doesn't occur, as is likely, then the feature contributes nothing to the scenario. If he does attempt murder, whether successful or not, it seems likely to completely derail the scenario, because players can naturally assume that attempted murders are related to the plot. If an Investigator is randomly murdered by a passing chauffeur, this is rather like dying by falling down a flight of rickety stairs - unsatisfactory. It's also odd that he'll only attack women, as this doesn't reflect his backstory.

In fact, the party can investigate such a murder, discover Brassic's guilt, and then follow the chain up to his suspicious magic-using boss; at this point Investigators and players have every reason to believe the pair are responsible for Stanhope's death as well, and the existence of the intended plot may well prove a surprise.

The murderous dentist may prove an unwanted distraction, but can easily be dispensed with. A dentist who takes to mutilating patients is going to attract a lot of attention, and may even be blamed for the two previous murders. Also, assuming the group intervene (and aren't too badly mutilated in the process), their next move really should be to fetch the police, rather than go and explore the sewers. Rather than distract the group, create a public sensation, and potentially delay the game with with questioning by police, he could display any number of other debilitating insanities to reflect his forced contact with the aliens.

The final confrontation appears to be necessarily violent, and Crascall is a powerful sorcerer backed by two dangerous aliens. It's unfortunate that none of the usual PCs have any combat ability whatsoever, nor any weapons. In contrast, using the two "additional" PCs offers a competent shotgun user and a sorcerer who can force the l'gy'hxians to kill Crascall. It's not clear how the Investigators might be expected to survive the encounter, let alone win it and slay or banish Crascall. Escape is explicitly made very difficult, blocking most escape routes with substantial obstacles. Should they survive, they will be tracked down by Crascall, who can cast the Summon Black Dog spell, which is likely to slaughter the entire party unless they are extremely lucky.

The Black Stone is an extremely potent artefact thrown in with no obvious purpose. Like Brassic, it is likely not to come up, but has a small chance of immediately annihilating an Investigator with a vision of Azathoth. Such a powerful item seems deserving of a more central place in a scenario.

It is not clear how Investigators are actually supposed to conclude the adventure. Crascall is only the immediate threat, and is difficult to deal with. The scenario mentions sealing the gate, but this requires Investigators to visit the museum, closely examine the Egyptian stones, notice a sigil that has been deliberately placed so nobody will see it, and then pass a Cthulhu Mythos roll to identify it as an Elder Sign. Only one of the intended Investigators has any Mythos, and that 5%. They will need to overcome Crascall and the aliens before the seal can be placed.

Given the difficulty of succeeding, it would be useful to know what is expected to happen if Crascall is victorious. He is busy destroying the seal in the dungeon, but the gate to L'gy'hxia is already open. Crascall is apparently seeking a new body to inhabit, but the purposes of the l'gy'hxian's are not explained, though we are told they are only roughly compatible with Crascall's.

[[Category:CoC:Scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:1920s scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Archaeology scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Sorcerer scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Alien scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Suspicious death scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:High-lethality scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Combat-heavy scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Mythos-moderate scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:One-shot scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios set in Cambridgeshire]]
[[Category:CoC:Small town scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Pregen scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios set in Cambridgeshire]]

__NOTOC__

Farewell, My Sanity

2019-11-15T16:03:47Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Farewell-My-Sanity.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0346

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 120

'''Cover Price:''' $20.00

'''Author(s):''' [[Aaron Vanek]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[David Milano]]; Layout concept and design by [[K. Hageleit]]

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

Adventures of the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency

Enter the noir world with two adventures set in and around Los Angeles during the early 1920’s. [[Under The Boardwalk]] concerns a teenage girl lost among the roller coasters and rum-runners in the amusement park city of Venice.

The second scenario, [[An Enchanted Evening]] explores a mysterious concert on the paradisiacal isle of Catalina off the shore of Southern California. Both investigations are based on historical facts and extensive research.

Farewell, My Sanity was designed around a specific cast of pre-generated characters: the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency, however, any characters from the 20's can be used.

This monograph is presented for use with the Basic Roleplaying System, but includes instruction for d20 Call of Cthulhu system as well.

'''Scenarios:''' [[Under The Boardwalk]], [[An Enchanted Evening]]

==Front Cover Text==
Two Los Angeles Adventures Involving
the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency

==Back Cover Text==
FAREWELL, MY SANITY

In the black and white world
within these pages are two noir-style
Call of Cthulhu adventures set in 1920's Los Angeles.
Written by Lovecraft filmmaker Aaron Vanek, these scenarios
star the Guzman-Willent detective agency struggling
against the ancient evil of the
Great Old Ones

==Comments / Trivia==
Unlike most MULA Monographs, this volume is lavishly illustrated with a professional-quality page layout. The monograph makes heavy use of
fonts and other materials produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

==Links==
There is a review under articles on the site, but an edited version of the content is now posted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__

This monograph offers two 1920s scenarios (with D20 support) set in Los Angeles. Both scenarios have detailed background for their specific settings (Venice, California and Catalina Island) allowing them to stand alone or work as supplements to the Secrets of Los Angeles book (not seen).

The monograph is well-written and also well-designed, using italics, bold type and a different font to indicate different sorts of information. It is also full of illustrations (often period photos) and maps. There are 16 good quality single page handouts that could be pulled out of the book and used as is. The same applies to the distinctive character sheets for the agency characters of the subtitle.

Review of the Scenarios [SPOILERS]

Under The Boardwalk
An atmospheric evocation of the California seaside forms the setting for a case for the Guzman-Willent agency in 1920. A girl has disappeared, her desperate mother pleads for help. The clues should lead the detectives to investigate the building of Venice's new canals and to prevent the victim being used as a sacrifice to bring about a Mythos infestation. There is good potential for a disturbing encounter at the architect's office, for menace in the sewer tunnels of the new town, and for an exciting chase scene on the boardwalk. The climax, however, brings in the big guns. My feeling is that experienced CoC players might find the coastal setting a bit too much of a clue, but the scenario is up for messing with their expectations and challenging metagaming through its suggestive naming of the culprits. The climax, though not unlike part of the San Francisco section of the Day of the Beast campaign, potentially produces a scene more like the end of a Godzilla movie and may put any group of players on the back foot.

An Enchanted Evening
In this case, set in 1923, the agency is hired by a record company executive to record an innovative new band 'The Pharoah and his Nile Orchestra' who are soon to perform on the offshore Island of Catalina. A good premise and a top notch setting, which requires the investigators to work fast in order to know what they're dealing with and which gives a rich background the island and the journey there, possibly on Syd Chaplin's airline. A barmy bandleader with a line on the music of Erich Zann is the source of the danger, but the consequences of the players standing back, and not being swift-acting anti-mythos commandoes might be the arrival of a certain sphere-congerie GOO. Potentially another big ending.

Summing Up [More SPOILERS]
The writer is also a filmmaker and is keen to point out opportunities to use atmosphere and by directing sound effects throughout and providing regular passages to be read out by the GM. The plots are also somewhat cinematic, or, to put it another way, the feel of Farewell, My Sanity is somewhat pulpy (as its title suggests) and demands roleplaying to the hilt. Two scenarios leading to encounters with GOOs might be seen to be a little over the top, since there seems to be little middle ground between the ordinary openings of the cases and a sanity blasting conclusion (especially in the second scenario). In this respect the implied continuity with the same characters might seem like wishful thinking. These scenarios lack the subtlety of the same author's recent New England scenario in Worlds of Cthulhu #.5. On the other hand, as with most scenarios for CoC, the outcome is down to the character's investigative success opposed to the brinkmanship of the GM.

Overall, Farewell, My Sanity offers some entertaining possibilities, and may be an excellent place to begin a West Coast-based campaign that might draw on Secrets of Los Angeles, Secrets of San Francisco and even John Tynes' 'Dream Factory' scenario from Pagan Publishing's Mortal Coils.

Farewell, My Sanity

2019-11-15T16:00:49Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Farewell-My-Sanity.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0346

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 120

'''Cover Price:''' $20.00

'''Author(s):''' [[Aaron Vanek]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[David Milano]]; Layout concept and design by [[K. Hageleit]]

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

Adventures of the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency

Enter the noir world with two adventures set in and around Los Angeles during the early 1920’s. [[Under The Boardwalk]] concerns a teenage girl lost among the roller coasters and rum-runners in the amusement park city of Venice.

The second scenario, [[An Enchanted Evening]] explores a mysterious concert on the paradisiacal isle of Catalina off the shore of Southern California. Both investigations are based on historical facts and extensive research.

Farewell, My Sanity was designed around a specific cast of pre-generated characters: the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency, however, any characters from the 20's can be used.

This monograph is presented for use with the Basic Roleplaying System, but includes instruction for d20 Call of Cthulhu system as well.

'''Scenarios:''' [[Under The Boardwalk]], [[An Enchanted Evening]]

==Front Cover Text==
Two Los Angeles Adventures Involving
the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency

==Back Cover Text==
FAREWELL, MY SANITY

In the black and white world
within these pages are two noir-style
Call of Cthulhu adventures set in 1920's Los Angeles.
Written by Lovecraft filmmaker Aaron Vanek, these scenarios
star the Guzman-Willent detective agency struggling
against the ancient evil of the
Great Old Ones

==Comments / Trivia==
Unlike most MULA Monographs, this volume is lavishly illustrated with a professional-quality page layout. The monograph makes heavy use of
fonts and other materials produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

==Links==
There is a review under articles on the site, but an edited version of the content is now posted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
Description of contents
This monograph offers two 1920s scenarios (with D20 support) set in Los Angeles. Both scenarios have detailed background for their specific settings (Venice, California and Catalina Island) allowing them to stand alone or work as supplements to the Secrets of Los Angeles book (which I have not seen).

The monograph is well-written and also well-designed, using italics, bold type and a different font to indicate different sorts of information. It is also full of illustrations (often period photos) and maps. There are 16 good quality single page handouts that could be pulled out of the book and used as is. The same applies to the distinctive character sheets for the agency characters of the subtitle.

Review of the Scenarios [SPOILERS]

Under The Boardwalk
An atmospheric evocation of the California seaside forms the setting for a case for the Guzman-Willent agency in 1920. A girl has disappeared, her desperate mother pleads for help. The clues should lead the detectives to investigate the building of Venice's new canals and to prevent the victim being used as a sacrifice to bring about a Mythos infestation. There is good potential for a disturbing encounter at the architect's office, for menace in the sewer tunnels of the new town, and for an exciting chase scene on the boardwalk. The climax, however, brings in the big guns. My feeling is that experienced CoC players might find the coastal setting a bit too much of a clue, but the scenario is up for messing with their expectations and challenging metagaming through its suggestive naming of the culprits. The climax, though not unlike part of the San Francisco section of the Day of the Beast campaign, potentially produces a scene more like the end of a Godzilla movie and may put any group of players on the back foot.

An Enchanted Evening
In this case, set in 1923, the agency is hired by a record company executive to record an innovative new band 'The Pharoah and his Nile Orchestra' who are soon to perform on the offshore Island of Catalina. A good premise and a top notch setting, which requires the investigators to work fast in order to know what they're dealing with and which gives a rich background the island and the journey there, possibly on Syd Chaplin's airline. A barmy bandleader with a line on the music of Erich Zann is the source of the danger, but the consequences of the players standing back, and not being swift-acting anti-mythos commandoes might be the arrival of a certain sphere-congerie GOO. Potentially another big ending.

Summing Up [More SPOILERS]
The writer is also a filmmaker and is keen to point out opportunities to use atmosphere and by directing sound effects throughout and providing regular passages to be read out by the GM. The plots are also somewhat cinematic, or, to put it another way, the feel of Farewell, My Sanity is somewhat pulpy (as its title suggests) and demands roleplaying to the hilt. Two scenarios leading to encounters with GOOs might be seen to be a little over the top, since there seems to be little middle ground between the ordinary openings of the cases and a sanity blasting conclusion (especially in the second scenario). In this respect the implied continuity with the same characters might seem like wishful thinking. These scenarios lack the subtlety of the same author's recent New England scenario in Worlds of Cthulhu #.5. On the other hand, as with most scenarios for CoC, the outcome is down to the character's investigative success opposed to the brinkmanship of the GM.

Overall, Farewell, My Sanity offers some entertaining possibilities, and may be an excellent place to begin a West Coast-based campaign that might draw on Secrets of Los Angeles, Secrets of San Francisco and even John Tynes' Dream Factory from Pagan Publishing's Mortal Coils.

Mysteries of Hungary

2019-11-15T15:59:42Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Mysteries-Of-Hungary.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0340

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 72

'''Cover Price:''' $14.00

'''Author(s):''' [[László Dózsa]]

'''Artist(s):'''

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' yes

==Contents==

An understanding of the thousand-year history of Hungary is vital for a good background. During the centuries, four nations have tried to rule the area now known as Hungary. German-Roman emperors brought the Hungarian crown into their treasury. In the eleventh century their attacks stopped, due to huge casualties. In 1241 the Tartars came and burned the land, after they crushed the Royal knights near Muhi. They too were eventually defeated. The Turks, and then the Austrian Habsburg family, came to dominate the country in the sixteenth century.

Finally a new state was formed by mutual accord. It would not stand long, for the Great War began in 1914.

MYSTERIES OF HUNGARY describes the land, the history, and the people of Hungary.

Chapters include:
* History and Legends,
* Economy and Standard of Living,
* Budapest,
* Lake Balaton and Region,
* Adventuring in Hungary,
* Mythos in Hungary,
* Professor of Nygotha, and
* Hungary in Other Eras.

This work was written by László Dózsa, resident of the region.

==Front Cover Text==
History, Legends and Background for
Adventuring in 1920s Hungary

==Comments / Trivia==
This monograph is has been '''roughly''' translated into English from Hungarian.

==Links==
There is an article/review for this monograph on the site, but the content is pasted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__

This monograph is a sourcebook for CoC adventuring in Hungary and includes the basics of an introductory 1920s scenario set there.

The material is neatly laid out, but is noticeably written by someone who does not use English as a first language. Illustrations are restricted to the chapter title pages. These look good and are atmospheric but on closer inspection there is at least one typo in every title page text paragraph. A map features in the imagery of the title page for Chapter 5, but not on a scale that is usable and there are no other maps.

Review of Content

A lot of historical background is provided for the nation, the capital (Budapest) and a selected region around Lake Balaton. It may be an effect of my struggling with the use of English, but I didn't feel the history was particularly clear. The massive trauma of being on the losing side in the Great War and having your empire dismembered is skipped over rather than emphasised. This is partly due to the need to focus on Hungary of its present geographical boundaries (i.e. the ones we will find on the maps we will have to look up) rather than its various earlier manifestations. The focus on the regular CoC eras also produces gaps; we are given at least an idea of the present but the communist period from the end of World War Two to the beginning of the 1990s is nearly invisible.

The mythos is inserted into Hungary's historical and geographical background with the nation treated as a blank canvas. This ignores other game writings might have been used as reference points; 'Castle Dark' in Day of the Beast is set in Transylvania which is, today, in Romania; and 'People of the Monolith' a three-page scenario with an Hungarian setting based on a R.E. Howard short story and which appears in Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. An apparent lack of familiarity with game products is the beginning of some problems here. Algernon Blackwood's 'The Willows' (HPL's favourite tale of cosmic horror) which is set in Hungary is also unreferenced.

The mythos presence includes Yithians in caves, Mi-Go mining remnants, sand dwellers and chapters of the Order of Dagon, which was founded in Hungary in 1397, apparently. You perhaps didn't know that there was a Kitab Al-Azif in multiple copies in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Not very convincing. Worse still is the take on Attila. The following quotation will also illustrate the slightly awkward English:

"Attila is the chosen of Cthulhu, he is one of the Great Old One's main servants on Earth. [...] Attila was in main position in Cthulhu's plans, with his death, the plans about the Great Old One's return collapsed. In fact, that's why the cult of Cthulhu isn't very common in the present era."

Judge for yourself whether this thwarted schemer acting through human agents much resembles Lovecraft's version of the foundational figure of the mythos.

Insensitivity to the mythos is one thing. Insensitivity to real world groups is another. The writer treads carefully around Hungarian Anti-Semitism but blunders by making all Gypsy communities essentially consist of thieves led by magic users. We should not perhaps take this too seriously, because it occurs in the chapter that features the sheer impossibility, on several levels, of there being four FBI agents based in 1920s Hungary.

The scenario 'Professor of Nygotha' is a strange, statistic-less affair about a sort of Hungarian ninja cult hunting down those who have inadvertently learned the spell Dismiss Nygotha in a university class. The climax separates the characters from the person they are protecting by the use of drug-soaked parquet [!] in a house they will investigate. They wake up in hospital after 'an unidentified woman has called the fireworks'. That's as much as you need to know.

To say a few more positive words, the writer likes magical artefacts and these are often interesting. The Appendix about spell duels is the most intriguing and unusual in the book.

Summary
What seems to have happened here is that the author has taken what he could from CoC and inserted it into Hungarian settings for his players. The surprising familiarity of the three 'Hungarian Investigators' listed on pages 44-5 with a virtual roll-call of mythos entities suggests a long running campaign. The information provided shows an emphasis on magic items and powerful magic users suggesting a campaign style of play somewhere between pulpy and powergaming. Eventually, CoC in its Hungarian guise eventually gets exported back to the centre, and this largely redundant monograph is the result.

Despite such a largely negative review, with a lot more work and proper editing, there could have been a perfectly decent job made of the subject. Whether there would be a demand to justify the extra work is another issue.

The monograph line is designed to accommodate offbeat projects and the repeated blurb points out that Chaosium don't do much with the content. Unfortunately, in this instance, there has been no quality control at all. If Chaosium aren't going to do quality control on monographs, we have to do it ourselves, on sites like this.

For all practical purposes, this monograph isn't worth your money or time. It is badly written, doesn't contain the sort of material you would expect (like a map of the country or of the capital city) and what material there is flawed and unconvincing. Mysteries of Hungary simply isn't up to the standard of the majority of the other monographs published.

Mysteries of Hungary

2019-11-15T15:59:10Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Mysteries-Of-Hungary.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0340

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 72

'''Cover Price:''' $14.00

'''Author(s):''' [[László Dózsa]]

'''Artist(s):'''

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' yes

==Contents==

An understanding of the thousand-year history of Hungary is vital for a good background. During the centuries, four nations have tried to rule the area now known as Hungary. German-Roman emperors brought the Hungarian crown into their treasury. In the eleventh century their attacks stopped, due to huge casualties. In 1241 the Tartars came and burned the land, after they crushed the Royal knights near Muhi. They too were eventually defeated. The Turks, and then the Austrian Habsburg family, came to dominate the country in the sixteenth century.

Finally a new state was formed by mutual accord. It would not stand long, for the Great War began in 1914.

MYSTERIES OF HUNGARY describes the land, the history, and the people of Hungary.

Chapters include:
* History and Legends,
* Economy and Standard of Living,
* Budapest,
* Lake Balaton and Region,
* Adventuring in Hungary,
* Mythos in Hungary,
* Professor of Nygotha, and
* Hungary in Other Eras.

This work was written by László Dózsa, resident of the region.

==Front Cover Text==
History, Legends and Background for
Adventuring in 1920s Hungary

==Comments / Trivia==
This monograph is has been '''roughly''' translated into English from Hungarian.

==Links==
There is an article/review for this monograph on the site, but the content is pasted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__

This monograph is a sourcebook for CoC adventuring in Hungary and includes the basics of an introductory 1920s scenario set there.

The material is neatly laid out, but is noticeably written by someone who does not use English as a first language. Illustrations are restricted to the chapter title pages. These look good and are atmospheric but on closer inspection there is at least one typo in every title page text paragraph. A map features in the imagery of the title page for Chapter 5, but not on a scale that is usable and there are no other maps.

Review of Content

A lot of historical background is provided for the nation, the capital (Budapest) and a selected region around Lake Balaton. It may be an effect of my struggling with the use of English, but I didn't feel the history was particularly clear. The massive trauma of being on the losing side in the Great War and having your empire dismembered is skipped over rather than emphasised. This is partly due to the need to focus on Hungary of its present geographical boundaries (i.e. the ones we will find on the maps we will have to look up) rather than its various earlier manifestations. The focus on the regular CoC eras also produces gaps; we are given at least an idea of the present but the communist period from the end of World War Two to the beginning of the 1990s is nearly invisible.

The mythos is inserted into Hungary's historical and geographical background with the nation treated as a blank canvas. This ignores other game writings might have been used as reference points; 'Castle Dark' in Day of the Beast is set in Transylvania which is, today, in Romania; and 'People of the Monolith' a three-page scenario with an Hungarian setting based on a R.E. Howard short story and which appears in Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. An apparent lack of familiarity with game products is the beginning of some problems here. Algernon Blackwood's 'The Willows' (HPL's favourite tale of cosmic horror) which is set in Hungary is also unreferenced.

The mythos presence includes Yithians in caves, Mi-Go mining remnants, sand dwellers and chapters of the Order of Dagon, which was founded in Hungary in 1397, apparently. You perhaps didn't know that there was a Kitab Al-Azif in multiple copies in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Not very convincing. Worse still is the take on Attila. The following quotation will also illustrate the slightly awkward English:

"Attila is the chosen of Cthulhu, he is one of the Great Old One's main servants on Earth. [...] Attila was in main position in Cthulhu's plans, with his death, the plans about the Great Old One's return collapsed. In fact, that's why the cult of Cthulhu isn't very common in the present era."

Judge for yourself whether this thwarted schemer acting through human agents much resembles Lovecraft's version of the foundational figure of the mythos.

Insensitivity to the mythos is one thing. Insensitivity to real world groups is another. The writer treads carefully around Hungarian Anti-Semitism but blunders by making all Gypsy communities essentially consist of thieves led by magic users. We should not perhaps take this too seriously, because it occurs in the chapter that features the sheer impossibility, on several levels, of there being four FBI agents based in 1920s Hungary.

The scenario 'Professor of Nygotha' is a strange, statistic-less affair about a sort of Hungarian ninja cult hunting down those who have inadvertently learned the spell Dismiss Nygotha in a university class. The climax separates the characters from the person they are protecting by the use of drug-soaked parquet [!] in a house they will investigate. They wake up in hospital after 'an unidentified woman has called the fireworks'. That's as much as you need to know.

To say a few more positive words, the writer likes magical artefacts and these are often interesting. The Appendix about spell duels is the most intriguing and unusual in the book.

Summary
What seems to have happened here is that the author has taken what he could from CoC and inserted it into Hungarian settings for his players. The surprising familiarity of the three 'Hungarian Investigators' listed on pages 44-5 with a virtual roll-call of mythos entities suggests a long running campaign. The information provided shows an emphasis on magic items and powerful magic users suggesting a campaign style of play somewhere between pulpy and powergaming. Eventually, CoC in its Hungarian guise eventually gets exported back to the centre, and this largely redundant monograph is the result.

Despite such a largely negative review, with a lot more work and proper editing, there could have been a perfectly decent job made of the subject. Whether there would be a demand to justify the extra work is another issue.

The monograph line is designed to accommodate offbeat projects and the repeated blurb points out that Chaosium don't do much with the content. Unfortunately, in this instance, there has been no quality control at all. If Chaosium aren't going to do quality control on monographs, we have to do it ourselves, on sites like this.

So I'm sorry to have to say that, for all practical purposes, this monograph isn't worth your money or time. It is badly written, doesn't contain the sort of material you would expect (like a map of the country or of the capital city) and what material there is flawed and unconvincing. Mysteries of Hungary simply isn't up to the standard of the majority of the other monographs published.

Mysteries of Hungary

2019-11-15T15:57:08Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Mysteries-Of-Hungary.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0340

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 72

'''Cover Price:''' $14.00

'''Author(s):''' [[László Dózsa]]

'''Artist(s):'''

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' yes

==Contents==

An understanding of the thousand-year history of Hungary is vital for a good background. During the centuries, four nations have tried to rule the area now known as Hungary. German-Roman emperors brought the Hungarian crown into their treasury. In the eleventh century their attacks stopped, due to huge casualties. In 1241 the Tartars came and burned the land, after they crushed the Royal knights near Muhi. They too were eventually defeated. The Turks, and then the Austrian Habsburg family, came to dominate the country in the sixteenth century.

Finally a new state was formed by mutual accord. It would not stand long, for the Great War began in 1914.

MYSTERIES OF HUNGARY describes the land, the history, and the people of Hungary.

Chapters include:
* History and Legends,
* Economy and Standard of Living,
* Budapest,
* Lake Balaton and Region,
* Adventuring in Hungary,
* Mythos in Hungary,
* Professor of Nygotha, and
* Hungary in Other Eras.

This work was written by László Dózsa, resident of the region.

==Front Cover Text==
History, Legends and Background for
Adventuring in 1920s Hungary

==Comments / Trivia==
This monograph is has been '''roughly''' translated into English from Hungarian.

==Links==
There is an article/review for this monograph on the site, but the content is pasted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__

This monograph is a sourcebook for CoC adventuring in Hungary and includes the basics of an introductory 1920s scenario set there.

The material is neatly laid out, but is noticeably written by someone who does not use English as a first language. Illustrations are restricted to the chapter title pages. These look good and are atmospheric but on closer inspection there is at least one typo in every title page text paragraph. A map features in the imagery of the title page for Chapter 5, but not on a scale that is usable and there are no other maps.

Review of Content

A lot of historical background is provided for the nation, the capital (Budapest) and a selected region around Lake Balaton. It may be an effect of my struggling with the use of English, but I didn't feel the history was particularly clear. The massive trauma of being on the losing side in the Great War and having your empire dismembered is skipped over rather than emphasised. This is partly due to the need to focus on Hungary of its present geographical boundaries (i.e. the ones we will find on the maps we will have to look up) rather than its various earlier manifestations. The focus on the regular CoC eras also produces gaps; we are given at least an idea of the present but the communist period from the end of World War Two to the beginning of the 1990s is nearly invisible.

The mythos is inserted into Hungary's historical and geographical background with the nation treated as a blank canvas. This ignores other game writings might have been used as reference points; 'Castle Dark' in Day of the Beast is set in Transylvania which is, today, in Romania; and 'People of the Monolith' a three-page scenario with an Hungarian setting based on a R.E. Howard short story and which appears in Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. An apparent lack of familiarity with game products is the beginning of some problems here. Algernon Blackwood's 'The Willows' (HPL's favourite tale of cosmic horror) which is set in Hungary is also unreferenced.

The mythos presence includes Yithians in caves, Mi-Go mining remnants, sand dwellers and chapters of the Order of Dagon, which was founded in Hungary in 1397, apparently. You perhaps didn't know that there was a Kitab Al-Azif in multiple copies in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Not very convincing. Worse still is the take on Attila. The following quotation will also illustrate the slightly awkward English:

"Attila is the chosen of Cthulhu, he is one of the Great Old One's main servants on Earth. [...] Attila was in main position in Cthulhu's plans, with his death, the plans about the Great Old One's return collapsed. In fact, that's why the cult of Cthulhu isn't very common in the present era."

Judge for yourself whether this thwarted schemer acting through human agents much resembles Lovecraft's version of the foundational figure of the mythos.

Insensitivity to the mythos is one thing. Insensitivity to real world groups is another. The writer treads carefully around Hungarian Anti-Semitism but blunders by making all Gypsy communities essentially consist of thieves led by magic users. I might be taking this too seriously, because this occurs in the chapter that features the sheer impossibility, on several levels, of there being four FBI agents based in 1920s Hungary.

The scenario 'Professor of Nygotha' is a strange, statistic-less affair about a sort of Hungarian ninja cult hunting down those who have inadvertently learned the spell Dismiss Nygotha in a university class. The climax separates the characters from the person they are protecting by the use of drug-soaked parquet [!] in a house they will investigate. They wake up in hospital after 'an unidentified woman has called the fireworks'. That's as much as you need to know.

To say a few more positive words, the writer likes magical artefacts and these are often interesting. The Appendix about spell duels is the most intriguing and unusual in the book.

Summary
What seems to have happened here is that the author has taken what he could from CoC and inserted it into Hungarian settings for his players. The surprising familiarity of the three 'Hungarian Investigators' listed on pages 44-5 with a virtual roll-call of mythos entities suggests a long running campaign. The information provided shows an emphasis on magic items and powerful magic users suggesting a campaign style of play somewhere between pulpy and powergaming. Eventually, CoC in its Hungarian guise eventually gets exported back to the centre, and this largely redundant monograph is the result.

Despite such a largely negative review, with a lot more work and proper editing, there could have been a perfectly decent job made of the subject. Whether there would be a demand to justify the extra work is another issue.

The monograph line is designed to accommodate offbeat projects and the repeated blurb points out that Chaosium don't do much with the content. Unfortunately, in this instance, there has been no quality control at all. If Chaosium aren't going to do quality control on monographs, we have to do it ourselves, on sites like this.

So I'm sorry to have to say that, for all practical purposes, this monograph isn't worth your money or time. It is badly written, doesn't contain the sort of material you would expect (like a map of the country or of the capital city) and what material there is flawed and unconvincing. Mysteries of Hungary simply isn't up to the standard of any of the other monographs I've seen.

Parapsychologist's Handbook

2019-11-15T15:52:27Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Parapsychologists-Handbook.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0302 (was originally released under product code 85)

'''Publishing Year:''' 2003

'''Pages:''' 112

'''Cover Price:''' $19.00

'''Author(s):''' [[Chris Jerome]]

'''Artist(s):''' Cover by [[Meghan McLean]]; Illustrations by [[Simon Monk]], Jessica Billman.

'''Setting(s):''' [[1890s]], [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

This monograph reveals the real-world science of the paranormal, Parapsychology (its history and methods), how to play a parapsychologist, how to run a Call of Cthulhu campaign centered around a ghost-hunting group, and how to simulate various non-Mythos entities and psychic powers in your campaign.

'''Parapsychology Exploring New Prontiers of Science'''

* Parapsychology
* Parapsychology in the Laboratory
* Generating a Parapsychologist Character

'''Phenomena'''

* Paradigms—Theories of the Unexplained
* Ghosts and Hauntings
* Investigating Poltergeists
* Spiritualism and Mediumship
* Psychical Research

'''Secrets Mankind Was Not Meant to Know'''

* Running a Parapsychological Campaign
* Ghosts: a Keeper's Guide
* The Poltergeist Scenario
* Mediumship Explored
* Psychics
* Cthulhu Rising: Cthulhu and the Psychic

'''Appendix A: Sinister Seeds'''

'''Appendix B: New D20 Cthulhu Psychic Feats'''

'''Appendix C: Parapsychological Literature, 1882–1930'''

==Front Cover Text==
A New Occupation For
Call Of Cthulhu

==Comments / Trivia==
List dedication, color plates, rarity of the book, etc.

==Links==
There is an article/review for this Monograph on the site, but an edited version of its content is inserted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__

A sourcebook for all eras (though focusing on the historical ones) providing background and game information for creating parapsychologist characters, scenarios and campaigns (with D20 stats in bold).

The monograph is competently presented (2 columns ranged right) for the most part, but is only sparingly illustrated (usually on quite a small scale). The writing style is functional though there irritations in terms of incorrect punctuation and typos. This was the first monograph I acquired and the drop in quality from the appearance of Chaosium's CoC books was very noticeable at the time. My copy is an early one with a card cover, white back cover and taped binding. I believe current printings will have the slicker glossy cover. There will have undoubtedly been opportunities to correct the typos and layout errors, but I don't know whether this has been done.

Review of Content
There is a lot of information presented here, all of which is pertinent to creating parapsychologist characters, making them effective, rational scientists and illustrating the sort of phenomena they are customarily interested in. The intellectual paradigms are laid out clearly and the author knows his material, essentially the history of parapsychology, throroughly (as far as a layman can tell). Spiritualism, mediumship, psychics, ghost and poltergeist phenomena are all covered. There are timelines listing famous cases and fascinating descriptions of historical personalities from the world of psychic research. The Society of Psychic Research is shown to be a key institution and cultural impact of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century 'boom' in interest in the area is brought home to the reader. This isn't developed to the same degree for the present, which is a shame but is understandable from the point of view of potential litigation and/or the requirements of someone actually involved in the field.

The parapsychological material is tied to the mythos in a number of ways; from quotations from Lovecraft's 'The Lurking Fear' to references and tie-ins to well-known Chaosium scenarios and campaigns. These links are occasionally a little tenuous and there are moments of uncertainty about how the handbook is to be used (sections for Keepers and players) but such hesitancies are to be expected in what was only the second monograph produced.

Conclusion
The material is intrinsically intriguing and suggestive. The monograph doesn't actually demonstrate how a shift of focus to the parapsychological would play out by providing scenario or campaign beyond a two-page appendix of sinister seeds (and hooks sprinkled throughout). I'm sure some readers would say that they like their sourcebooks to be sourcebooks and their scenario books to be scenario books, but in this instance I feel it is a flaw. They lack of additional monographs offering parapsychological scenarios or campaigns of this type might be telling us something.

This monograph is probably the bestseller of the line, according to Chaosium site stats, but one can't help feeling (uncharitably) that it may often be sold to non-gamers hooked on Most Haunted and shows of that ilk. Those purchasers get their money's worth, too, in the 'Selecting Equipment', 'How to' and recurrent phenomena sections and with the history of the field included here. In gaming terms this monograph offers essential material for parapsychologist characters and scenarios but the package doesn't ultimately offer enough to make me consider it more than a well-developed background for an occupation or, if you like, character class. Would a parapsychological campaign be 'CoC lite'? After all, the scenario that introduces many of us to the game, 'The Haunted House' in the rulebook, comes on like a spirit manifestation but soon gets much, much deadlier.

Overall, the monograph is the best format for this addition to the game in that, while it offers a lot of supplementary background, it is very far from the core of the game. If, however, you are at all interested in developing a parapsychological angle to your games this is the one-stop shop.

Parapsychologist's Handbook

2019-11-15T15:45:48Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Parapsychologists-Handbook.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0302 (was originally released under product code 85)

'''Publishing Year:''' 2003

'''Pages:''' 112

'''Cover Price:''' $19.00

'''Author(s):''' [[Chris Jerome]]

'''Artist(s):''' Cover by [[Meghan McLean]]; Illustrations by [[Simon Monk]], Jessica Billman.

'''Setting(s):''' [[1890s]], [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

This monograph reveals the real-world science of the paranormal, Parapsychology (its history and methods), how to play a parapsychologist, how to run a Call of Cthulhu campaign centered around a ghost-hunting group, and how to simulate various non-Mythos entities and psychic powers in your campaign.

'''Parapsychology Exploring New Prontiers of Science'''

* Parapsychology
* Parapsychology in the Laboratory
* Generating a Parapsychologist Character

'''Phenomena'''

* Paradigms—Theories of the Unexplained
* Ghosts and Hauntings
* Investigating Poltergeists
* Spiritualism and Mediumship
* Psychical Research

'''Secrets Mankind Was Not Meant to Know'''

* Running a Parapsychological Campaign
* Ghosts: a Keeper's Guide
* The Poltergeist Scenario
* Mediumship Explored
* Psychics
* Cthulhu Rising: Cthulhu and the Psychic

'''Appendix A: Sinister Seeds'''

'''Appendix B: New D20 Cthulhu Psychic Feats'''

'''Appendix C: Parapsychological Literature, 1882–1930'''

==Front Cover Text==
A New Occupation For
Call Of Cthulhu

==Comments / Trivia==
List dedication, color plates, rarity of the book, etc.

==Links==
There is an article/review for this Monograph on the site, but an edited version of its content is inserted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
Review of Content
A sourcebook for all eras (though focusing on the historical ones) providing background and game information for creating parapsychologist characters, scenarios and campaigns (with D20 stats in bold).

The monograph is competently presented (2 columns ranged right) for the most part, but is only sparingly illustrated (usually on quite a small scale). The writing style is functional though there irritations in terms of incorrect punctuation and typos. This was the first monograph I acquired and the drop in quality from the appearance of Chaosium's CoC books was very noticeable at the time.*

Review of Content
There is a lot of information presented here, all of which is pertinent to creating parapsychologist characters, making them effective, rational scientists and illustrating the sort of phenomena they are customarily interested in. The intellectual paradigms are laid out clearly and the author knows his material, essentially the history of parapsychology, throroughly (as far as a layman can tell). Spiritualism, mediumship, psychics, ghost and poltergeist phenomena are all covered. There are timelines listing famous cases and fascinating descriptions of historical personalities from the world of psychic research. The Society of Psychic Research is shown to be a key institution and cultural impact of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century 'boom' in interest in the area is brought home to the reader. This isnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t developed to the same degree for the present, which is a shame but is understandable from the point of view of potential litigation and/or the requirements of someone actually involved in the field.

The parapsychological material is tied to the mythos in a number of ways; from quotations from Lovecraft's The Lurking Fear to references and tie-ins to well-known Chaosium scenarios and campaigns. These links are occasionally a little tenuous and there are moments of uncertainty about how the handbook is to be used (sections for Keepers and players) but such hesitancies are to be expected in what was only the second monograph produced.

Conclusion
The material is intrinsically intriguing and suggestive. The monograph doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t actually demonstrate how a shift of focus to the parapsychological would play out by providing scenario or campaign beyond a two-page appendix of sinister seeds (and hooks sprinkled throughout). I'm sure some readers would say that they like their sourcebooks to be sourcebooks and their scenario books to be scenario books, but in this instance I feel it is a flaw. They lack of additional monographs offering parapsychological scenarios or campaigns of this type might be telling us something.

This monograph is probably the bestseller of the line, according to Chaosium site stats, but I canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t help feeling (uncharitably) that it may often be sold to non-gamers hooked on Most Haunted and shows of that ilk. I think those purchasers get their moneyÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s worth, too, in the 'Selecting Equipment', 'How to' and recurrent phenomena sections and with the history of the field included here. As a gamer, I've got less out of it. This monograph offers essential material for parapsychologist characters and scenarios but the package doesn't ultimately offer enough to make me consider it more than a well-developed background for an occupation or, if you like, character class. I'm not convinced that a parapsychological campaign wouldn't be 'CoC lite'. After all, the scenario that introduces many of us to the game, The Haunted House in the rulebook, comes on like a spirit manifestation but soon gets much, much deadlier.

Overall, I feel the monograph has been the best format for this addition to the game in that, while it offers a lot of supplementary background, it is very far from the core of the game. If, however, you are at all interested in developing a parapsychological angle to your games this is the one-stop shop.

* My copy is an early one with a card cover, white back cover and taped binding. I believe current printings will have the slicker glossy cover. There will have undoubtedly been opportunities to correct the typos and layout errors, but I don't know whether this has been done.

More Adventures in Arkham Country

2019-11-15T15:44:17Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:More Adventures in Arkham Country.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Publisher:''' [[Miskatonic River Press]]

'''Product Code:''' 0007

'''Publishing Year:''' 2010

'''Pages:''' 182

'''Cover Price:''' $29.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Scott David Aniolowski]], [[Brian Courtemanche]], [[Adam Gauntlet]], [[Bret Kramer]], [[Tom Lynch]], [[Oscar Rios]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Santiago Caruso]], [[Reuban Dodd]], [[Jason C. Eckhardt]], [[Steff Worthington]] (maps)

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format(s):''' Softcover and PDF

==Contents==

There remains, in the state of Massachusetts, a group of communities nestled along the banks of the Miskatonic River. Those who live there soon learn to accept that their region is a place of long shadows, old legends, and deep mystery. Best not to dwell on it, better to focus on the day-to-day struggles of life. Everything is fine, isn't it? However, the truth is that in the historic university city of Arkham, in the misty seaside resort of Kingsport, in the depressed farming community of Foxfield, and in the decrepit squalor of Innsmouth, things are far from fine.

Welcome to ''More Adventures in Arkham Country''. Within you will find a collection of six scenarios for ''Call of Cthulhu''. "Shades of Tomorrow Lost" and "Ghost of Florentina" take investigators to Kingsport where they encounter threats from the past, and possibly the future. We return to Foxfield to look into the mystery of "The Crystal Cavern." On the road the investigators may experience "Engine Trouble." "Spare the Rod" and "The Hopeful" take the investigators to Arkham, and possibly Innsmouth, as they struggle to bring horrific legacies to a close.

Miskatonic River Press is very proud to present one of the authors featured in the original Adventures in Arkham Country, Scott David Aniolowski (''Malleus Monstrorum, Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood'') with his first published scenario in fifteen years! Welcome back to Arkham Country.

'''Scenarios:''' [[Shades of Tomorrow Lost]], [[Ghosts of Florentina]], [[The Crystal Cavern]], [[Engine Trouble]], [[Spare the Rod]], [[The Hopeful]]

'''Additional:''' Short Fiction, Conversion notes for Trail of Cthulhu, Maps, Player Handouts

==Front Cover Text==
Six New Scenarios for Classic Call of Cthulhu

==Back Cover Text==
More Adventures in Arkham Country

''"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island in the midst of black seas of infinity and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." -- H.P. Lovecraft

There remains, in the state of Massachusetts, a group of communities nestled along the banks of the Miskatonic River. Those who live there soon learn to accept that their region is a place of long shadows, old legends, and deep mystery. Best not to dwell on it, better to focus on the day-to-day struggles of life. Everything is fine, isn't it? However, the truth is that in the historic university city of Arkham, in the misty seaside resort of Kingsport, in the depressed farming community of Foxfield, and in the decrepit squalor of Innsmouth, things are far from fine.

Welcome to ''More Adventures in Arkham Country''. Within you will find a collection of six scenarios for ''Call of Cthulhu''. "Shades of Tomorrow Lost" and "Ghost of Florentina" take investigators to Kingsport where they encounter threats from the past, and possibly the future. We return to Foxfield to look into the mystery of "The Crystal Cavern." On the road the investigators may experience "Engine Trouble." "Spare the Rod" and "The Hopeful" take the investigators to Arkham, and possibly Innsmouth, as they struggle to bring horrific legacies to a close. It is with great pride that we welcome Scott David Aniolowski back to Lovecraft Country. His work appeared in ''Adventures in Arkham Country'' back in 1993, now he returns in
''More Adventures in Arkham Country.''

MRP0008

==Comments / Trivia==
'''Dedication:''' This book is wholly and completely dedicated to the memory of Keith "Doc" Herber. He founded Miskatonic River Press, and
passed away long before we were ready. We hope to make him proud with our efforts.

==Links==
There is a review article about this monograph on the site, but the content is now added to the section below: 'Keeper's Eyes only', slightly edited.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:Supplements]]
[[Category:CoC:Lovecraft Country]]
__NOTOC__
This is a new collection of six scenarios for the Lovecraft Country campaign setting.

The collection has a great, atmospheric cover of Innsmouth by Santiago Caruso, and numerous excellent interior illustrations by Jason Eckhardt. The handouts are really excellent, among the best I've seen for a published scenario. These come courtesy of the HPLHS and are part of the package this time rather than an online supplement, as was the case in New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley (though the HPLHS does host deluxe colour versions of the ones for MAiAC!) The handouts appear both in the text for the GM and in larger formats at the end for copying. The second major improvement is in the quality of maps. Chaosium has allowed Miskatonic River Press to use (reduced) maps of the towns in their sourcebooks (Arkham, Kingsport, Innsmouth) which is very helpful. Steff Worthington has originated scenario maps and developed the one for Foxfield. The building maps for the first two scenarios are genius and there are helpfully bigger scale versions of the later maps in the handouts section.

There are six scenarios: two set in Kingsport, one taking investigators to Innsmouth, one set entirely in Arkham, one in Foxfield and one set generically in the backroads of Lovecraft country. Apart from Scott David Aniolowski, who contributed to Chaosium's early 1990s Lovecraft Country sourcebooks and collections, the scenario authors are a new generation of CoC authors. All the scenarios are easily read and understood. Worthwhile efforts have been made to copyedit and only the tiniest errors have crept through (e.g. "inflicted" instead of "infected" on page 10).

For Trail of Cthulhu playing groups there are extensive conversion notes for all the scenarios. I'm not in a position to evaluate these, but I can note that, at 21 pages, they take up the space of an entire additional scenario for me the conversion notes' compiler, Christopher Smith Adair, would have been the man to write it. But this is a selfish complaint.

The book's opening and closing with pages offer a fictionalised introduction and conclusion about stalwart investigators battling on despite losing an inspirational colleague. Clearly this is a version of Tom Lynch and Osk Rios keeping the MRP show on the road after the loss of Keith Herber to whom the book is dedicated. With collections of this calibre, they are doing him proud. Most keepers would like to run three or four of these scenarios (which 3 or 4 will vary) and some promise to be highly memorable adventures. The scenarios themselves might not all quite hit the highs of a couple in NTotMV but the quality of the package as a whole is much better.

Shades of Tomorrow Past by Scott David Aniolowski

Drawing on Clark Ashton Smith's Martian Dreamlands tales, the scenario also references real world sleeping sickness epidemics of the period to provide a good hook and a plausible (in game context) link to Kingsport. The threat is Vulthoom's heavy metal pollen and the human villain is the plant expert advising the authorities on the outbreak. The villain and his staff are given convincing psychologies while the opposition muscle is the mysterious (Martian-in-disguise) thug Mr Black. To provide additional aid or hindrance there is the eastern cult of They Who Never Sleep dedicated to opposing Vulthoom's machinations.

There are three Dreamlands episodes in the scenario providing clues and prefiguring (suitably cloaked) the action. If loved ones become affected by the sleeping sickness there is a good hook for the investigators, but the scenario envisions investigators are affected by it and I see this as problematic, dividing the group into those who gain dream clues (but are virtually imprisoned by the authorities as disease carriers) and those who are allowed to act in the real world. This could be pretty frustrating but, helpfully, alternate ways of involving investigators are suggested.

The stakes are high in this scenario and investigators who become known to the authorities may soon burn all their bridges in Arkham Country. Of course, saving the world from Vulthoom ought to come first.

Ghosts of the Florentina by Bret Kramer

Also set in Kingsport, Ghosts of the Florentina is more directly Lovecraftian and much more low key. The investigators are offered lots of red herrings as the ghosts apparently haunt the eponymous Kingsport theatre are a fraud by the crooked developer, stalling for time as he hopes to find money to bail out his scheme. However, underneath the superficial manifestations are the genuine problem of an infestation of well-motivated rat things bound by a long dead sorcerer to defend his former lair. Nothing is black and white here and there are a variety of possible 'solutions', plenty of opportunities for scary underground encounters and surface role-playing. Extremely well supported with handouts and maps this scenario looks a treat.

The Crystal Cavern by Brian Courtemanche

Set in MRP's own (Lovecraft-inspired) Foxfield, investigators are drawn in by another developer (an honest one this time) finding his contractors' efforts to mine the mineral wealth of a cheaply acquired rural property thwarted by a mysterious beast. In fact the fox-like beast is not the real threat but guardian of wards trapping a Lesser Outer God and much the lesser of the two evils. Investigators will come up against variously motivated locals and other interlopers (a big game hunter reminiscent of a character in House of Leaves) providing a number of ways for the climax to be triggered. The (literally) underlying threat reminded me that the Serpent Mound of Ohio (apparently) sits on a geological cryptoexplosion: Foxfield has established itself at the site of an ancient conflict between Hyperboreans and Mi-Go and this may mean it gets wiped off the map, much to the investigators' (SAN) cost. As a pseudo-Dunwich, closer to Arkham, Foxfield can be disposed of with much less expense (in terms of scenarios that cannot be played in campaign continuity), but best to have played Keith Herber's Foxfield scenario from New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley before this one, just in case. Investigators can learn some valuable lessons here, but one of them might be that (in this scenario) they can't win.

Engine Trouble by Tom Lynch

This is both the shortest and the oddest scenario in the collection. It can be easily sprung on any group of investigators travelling through Arkham country at night as they encounter a truck crashed into a bridge, and so far, so good. Then we find out that the truck was carrying an Armageddon device, a massive automata constructed by a disgruntled Niccolo Da Vinci (Leonardo's elder brother!). While this might be intriguing, it doesn't really belong in Arkham country, and would be better as the germ of an Italian-set scenario. No (benign?) American professor is really going to be able to extract such a large artefact from a field in fascist Italy and spirit it to Massachusetts. Furthermore, Armageddon is a bit of a heavy consequence for something introduced casually, without build up, into a campaign.

Really, the scenario is an excuse to attack the investigators with the harrowers, a nasty flying monster, with some redneck supporting cast. Keepers will have to make sure the players win if they want the campaign narrative this is inserted in to carry on. They may also wish to consider one outcome that would be that the investigators now have custody of an Armageddon machine!

This scenario is not for me though elements of it (the-set-up, the backstory, the monsters) might come in handy elsewhere.

Spare the Rod by Adam Gauntlett

This is an Arkham-set scenario which uses its ghouls and witch spirit in residence, Goody Fowler, as counter-investigators, with their own evil agenda searching for the real villain. The 'new' villain is Samuel Seaton, a schoolmaster who was Fowler's dupe and accuser, back from the dead a second time after his warded corpse has been disturbed. Seaton is the monster teacher, an undead fiend whose serial-killing casts ghastly blight on Arkham.

The scenario has an episodic structure providing a number of scenes that are sure to chill.

In some ways the villain is a version of Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Kruger, shorn of his dream powers, in other ways the story is an extension of cautionary tales for children such as the original Struwwel-Peter, but the villain here is dysfunctional and confused and doesn't always target the 'right' children. Some groups will, reasonably, baulk at a game scenario where the horror involves the flaying, dismemberment and murder of schoolchildren.

Plot-wise there seems to be a flaw in that when the undead Seaton was first stopped by a group of parents they seem not to have foreseen his return, despite the temporary nature of their wards, and have provided no information of back-up plan for future generations. The solution the investigators have to discover is instead dependent on Seaton's connections to Fowler and their finding artefacts that belonged to her.

Overall, this is a creepy, even alarming, scenario which may not be to everyone's taste.

The Hopeful by Oscar Rios

This scenario, which leads investigators from Arkham to Innsmouth is probably a better introduction to that fishy place than The Crawford Inheritance, the introductory scenario offered in the Innsmouth sourcebook, Escape from Innsmouth. The Hopeful is on a par with Bless the Beasts and the Children in Adventures in Arkham Country and Freak Show in Tales of the Miskatonic Valley and, like them, tops everything in Chaosium's Before the Fall (though it has similarities with 'Mary', therein). Plausibly involving established mundane investigators (i.e. no specialism in 'the weird' required) it has Esther Marsh as the key villain, making her significance in the raid on Innsmouth slightly more plausible, and introduces a great crew of new supporting baddies. The use of period is excellent and metagaming is nicely circumvented. For me, this is the highlight of the collection.

SUMMARY: Having only read the book, there are three strong scenarios, two that may or may not appeal to keepers depending on the nature of their version of Arkham country, and one that might work if you are stuck for a one-off. All are well presented, illustrated and fully supported with maps and handouts and this an impressive, good value collection.

More Adventures in Arkham Country

2019-11-15T15:43:10Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:More Adventures in Arkham Country.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Publisher:''' [[Miskatonic River Press]]

'''Product Code:''' 0007

'''Publishing Year:''' 2010

'''Pages:''' 182

'''Cover Price:''' $29.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Scott David Aniolowski]], [[Brian Courtemanche]], [[Adam Gauntlet]], [[Bret Kramer]], [[Tom Lynch]], [[Oscar Rios]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Santiago Caruso]], [[Reuban Dodd]], [[Jason C. Eckhardt]], [[Steff Worthington]] (maps)

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format(s):''' Softcover and PDF

==Contents==

There remains, in the state of Massachusetts, a group of communities nestled along the banks of the Miskatonic River. Those who live there soon learn to accept that their region is a place of long shadows, old legends, and deep mystery. Best not to dwell on it, better to focus on the day-to-day struggles of life. Everything is fine, isn't it? However, the truth is that in the historic university city of Arkham, in the misty seaside resort of Kingsport, in the depressed farming community of Foxfield, and in the decrepit squalor of Innsmouth, things are far from fine.

Welcome to ''More Adventures in Arkham Country''. Within you will find a collection of six scenarios for ''Call of Cthulhu''. "Shades of Tomorrow Lost" and "Ghost of Florentina" take investigators to Kingsport where they encounter threats from the past, and possibly the future. We return to Foxfield to look into the mystery of "The Crystal Cavern." On the road the investigators may experience "Engine Trouble." "Spare the Rod" and "The Hopeful" take the investigators to Arkham, and possibly Innsmouth, as they struggle to bring horrific legacies to a close.

Miskatonic River Press is very proud to present one of the authors featured in the original Adventures in Arkham Country, Scott David Aniolowski (''Malleus Monstrorum, Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood'') with his first published scenario in fifteen years! Welcome back to Arkham Country.

'''Scenarios:''' [[Shades of Tomorrow Lost]], [[Ghosts of Florentina]], [[The Crystal Cavern]], [[Engine Trouble]], [[Spare the Rod]], [[The Hopeful]]

'''Additional:''' Short Fiction, Conversion notes for Trail of Cthulhu, Maps, Player Handouts

==Front Cover Text==
Six New Scenarios for Classic Call of Cthulhu

==Back Cover Text==
More Adventures in Arkham Country

''"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island in the midst of black seas of infinity and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." -- H.P. Lovecraft

There remains, in the state of Massachusetts, a group of communities nestled along the banks of the Miskatonic River. Those who live there soon learn to accept that their region is a place of long shadows, old legends, and deep mystery. Best not to dwell on it, better to focus on the day-to-day struggles of life. Everything is fine, isn't it? However, the truth is that in the historic university city of Arkham, in the misty seaside resort of Kingsport, in the depressed farming community of Foxfield, and in the decrepit squalor of Innsmouth, things are far from fine.

Welcome to ''More Adventures in Arkham Country''. Within you will find a collection of six scenarios for ''Call of Cthulhu''. "Shades of Tomorrow Lost" and "Ghost of Florentina" take investigators to Kingsport where they encounter threats from the past, and possibly the future. We return to Foxfield to look into the mystery of "The Crystal Cavern." On the road the investigators may experience "Engine Trouble." "Spare the Rod" and "The Hopeful" take the investigators to Arkham, and possibly Innsmouth, as they struggle to bring horrific legacies to a close. It is with great pride that we welcome Scott David Aniolowski back to Lovecraft Country. His work appeared in ''Adventures in Arkham Country'' back in 1993, now he returns in
''More Adventures in Arkham Country.''

MRP0008

==Comments / Trivia==
'''Dedication:''' This book is wholly and completely dedicated to the memory of Keith "Doc" Herber. He founded Miskatonic River Press, and
passed away long before we were ready. We hope to make him proud with our efforts.

==Links==
There is a review article about this monograph on the site, but the content is now added to the section below: 'Keeper's Eyes only', slightly edited.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:Supplements]]
[[Category:CoC:Lovecraft Country]]
__NOTOC__
This is a new collection of six scenarios for the Lovecraft Country campaign setting.

The collection has a great, atmospheric cover of Innsmouth by Santiago Caruso, and numerous excellent interior illustrations by Jason Eckhardt. The handouts are really excellent, among the best I've seen for a published scenario. These come courtesy of the HPLHS and are part of the package this time rather than an online supplement, as was the case in New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley (though the HPLHS does host deluxe colour versions of the ones for MAiAC!) The handouts appear both in the text for the GM and in larger formats at the end for copying. The second major improvement is in the quality of maps. Chaosium has allowed Miskatonic River Press to use (reduced) maps of the towns in their sourcebooks (Arkham, Kingsport, Innsmouth) which is very helpful. Steff Worthington has originated scenario maps and developed the one for Foxfield. The building maps for the first two scenarios are genius and there are helpfully bigger scale versions of the later maps in the handouts section.

There are six scenarios: two set in Kingsport, one taking investigators to Innsmouth, one set entirely in Arkham, one in Foxfield and one set generically in the backroads of Lovecraft country. Apart from Scott David Aniolowski, who contributed to Chaosium's early 1990s Lovecraft Country sourcebooks and collections, the scenario authors are a new generation of CoC authors. All the scenarios are easily read and understood. Worthwhile efforts have been made to copyedit and only the tiniest errors have crept through (e.g. "inflicted" instead of "infected" on page 10).

For Trail of Cthulhu playing groups there are extensive conversion notes for all the scenarios. I'm not in a position to evaluate these, but I can note that, at 21 pages, they take up the space of an entire additional scenario for me the conversion notes' compiler, Christopher Smith Adair, would have been the man to write it. But this is a selfish complaint.

The book's opening and closing with pages offer a fictionalised introduction and conclusion about stalwart investigators battling on despite losing an inspirational colleague. Clearly this is a version of Tom Lynch and Osk Rios keeping the MRP show on the road after the loss of Keith Herber to whom the book is dedicated. With collections of this calibre, they are doing him proud. Most keepers would like to run three or four of these scenarios (which 3 or 4 will vary) and some promise to be highly memorable adventures. The scenarios themselves might not all quite hit the highs of a couple in NTotMV but the quality of the package as a whole is much better.

Shades of Tomorrow Past by Scott David Aniolowski

Drawing on Clark Ashton Smith's Martian Dreamlands tales, the scenario also references real world sleeping sickness epidemics of the period to provide a good hook and a plausible (in game context) link to Kingsport. The threat is Vulthoom's heavy metal pollen and the human villain is the plant expert advising the authorities on the outbreak. The villain and his staff are given convincing psychologies while the opposition muscle is the mysterious (Martian-in-disguise) thug Mr Black. To provide additional aid or hindrance there is the eastern cult of They Who Never Sleep dedicated to opposing Vulthoom's machinations.

There are three Dreamlands episodes in the scenario providing clues and prefiguring (suitably cloaked) the action. If loved ones become affected by the sleeping sickness there is a good hook for the investigators, but the scenario envisions investigators are affected by it and I see this as problematic, dividing the group into those who gain dream clues (but are virtually imprisoned by the authorities as disease carriers) and those who are allowed to act in the real world. This could be pretty frustrating but, helpfully, alternate ways of involving investigators are suggested.

The stakes are high in this scenario and investigators who become known to the authorities may soon burn all their bridges in Arkham Country. Of course, saving the world from Vulthoom ought to come first.

Ghosts of the Florentina by Bret Kramer

Also set in Kingsport, Ghosts of the Florentina is more directly Lovecraftian and much more low key. The investigators are offered lots of red herrings as the ghosts apparently haunt the eponymous Kingsport theatre are a fraud by the crooked developer, stalling for time as he hopes to find money to bail out his scheme. However, underneath the superficial manifestations are the genuine problem of an infestation of well-motivated rat things bound by a long dead sorcerer to defend his former lair. Nothing is black and white here and there are a variety of possible 'solutions', plenty of opportunities for scary underground encounters and surface role-playing. Extremely well supported with handouts and maps this scenario looks a treat.

The Crystal Cavern by Brian Courtemanche

Set in MRP's own (Lovecraft-inspired) Foxfield, investigators are drawn in by another developer (an honest one this time) finding his contractors' efforts to mine the mineral wealth of a cheaply acquired rural property thwarted by a mysterious beast. In fact the fox-like beast is not the real threat but guardian of wards trapping a Lesser Outer God and much the lesser of the two evils. Investigators will come up against variously motivated locals and other interlopers (a big game hunter reminiscent of a character in House of Leaves) providing a number of ways for the climax to be triggered. The (literally) underlying threat reminded me that the Serpent Mound of Ohio (apparently) sits on a geological cryptoexplosion: Foxfield has established itself at the site of an ancient conflict between Hyperboreans and Mi-Go and this may mean it gets wiped off the map, much to the investigators' (SAN) cost. As a pseudo-Dunwich, closer to Arkham, Foxfield can be disposed of with much less expense (in terms of scenarios that cannot be played in campaign continuity), but best to have played Keith Herber's Foxfield scenario from New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley before this one, just in case. Investigators can learn some valuable lessons here, but one of them might be that (in this scenario) they can't win.

Engine Trouble by Tom Lynch

This is both the shortest and the oddest scenario in the collection. It can be easily sprung on any group of investigators travelling through Arkham country at night as they encounter a truck crashed into a bridge, and so far, so good. Then we find out that the truck was carrying an Armageddon device, a massive automata constructed by a disgruntled Niccolo Da Vinci (Leonardo's elder brother!). While this might be intriguing, it doesn't really belong in Arkham country, and would be better as the germ of an Italian-set scenario. No (benign?) American professor is really going to be able to extract such a large artefact from a field in fascist Italy and spirit it to Massachusetts. Furthermore, Armageddon is a bit of a heavy consequence for something introduced casually, without build up, into a campaign.

Really, the scenario is an excuse to attack the investigators with the harrowers, a nasty flying monster, with some redneck supporting cast. Keepers will have to make sure the players win if they want the campaign narrative this is inserted in to carry on. They may also wish to consider one outcome that would be that the investigators now have custody of an Armageddon machine!

This scenario is not for me though elements of it (the-set-up, the backstory, the monsters) might come in handy elsewhere.

Spare the Rod by Adam Gauntlett

This is an Arkham-set scenario which uses its ghouls and witch spirit in residence, Goody Fowler, as counter-investigators, with their own evil agenda searching for the real villain. The 'new' villain is Samuel Seaton, a schoolmaster who was Fowler's dupe and accuser, back from the dead a second time after his warded corpse has been disturbed. Seaton is the monster teacher, an undead fiend whose serial-killing casts ghastly blight on Arkham.

The scenario has an episodic structure providing a number of scenes that are sure to chill.

In some ways the villain is a version of Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Kruger, shorn of his dream powers, in other ways the story is an extension of cautionary tales for children such as the original Struwwel-Peter, but the villain here is dysfunctional and confused and doesn't always target the 'right' children. Some groups will, reasonably, baulk at a game scenario where the horror involves the flaying, dismemberment and murder of schoolchildren.

Plot-wise there seems to be a flaw in that when the undead Seaton was first stopped by a group of parents they seem not to have foreseen his return, despite the temporary nature of their wards, and have provided no information of back-up plan for future generations. The solution the investigators have to discover is instead dependent on Seaton's connections to Fowler and their finding artefacts that belonged to her.

Overall, this is a creepy, even alarming, scenario which may not be to everyone's taste.

The Hopeful by Oscar Rios

This scenario, which leads investigators from Arkham to Innsmouth is probably a better introduction to that fishy place than The Crawford Inheritance, the introductory scenario offered in the Innsmouth sourcebook, Escape from Innsmouth. The Hopeful is on a par with Bless the Beasts and the Children in Adventures in Arkham Country and Freak Show in Tales of the Miskatonic Valley and, like them, tops everything in Chaosium's Before the Fall (though it has similarities with 'Mary', therein). Plausibly involving established mundane investigators (i.e. no specialism in 'the weird' required) it has Esther Marsh as the key villain, making her significance in the raid on Innsmouth slightly more plausible, and introduces a great crew of new supporting baddies. The use of period is excellent and metagaming is nicely circumvented. For me, this is the highlight of the collection.

SUMMARY: Of the scenarios, from the point of view of having only read the book, I count three strong ones, two that may or may not appeal to keepers depending on the nature of their version of Arkham country, and one that might work if you are stuck for a one-off. All are well presented, illustrated and fully supported with maps and handouts and this an impressive, good value collection.

More Adventures in Arkham Country

2019-11-15T15:33:16Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==
[[Image:More Adventures in Arkham Country.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Publisher:''' [[Miskatonic River Press]]

'''Product Code:''' 0007

'''Publishing Year:''' 2010

'''Pages:''' 182

'''Cover Price:''' $29.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Scott David Aniolowski]], [[Brian Courtemanche]], [[Adam Gauntlet]], [[Bret Kramer]], [[Tom Lynch]], [[Oscar Rios]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Santiago Caruso]], [[Reuban Dodd]], [[Jason C. Eckhardt]], [[Steff Worthington]] (maps)

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format(s):''' Softcover and PDF

==Contents==

There remains, in the state of Massachusetts, a group of communities nestled along the banks of the Miskatonic River. Those who live there soon learn to accept that their region is a place of long shadows, old legends, and deep mystery. Best not to dwell on it, better to focus on the day-to-day struggles of life. Everything is fine, isn't it? However, the truth is that in the historic university city of Arkham, in the misty seaside resort of Kingsport, in the depressed farming community of Foxfield, and in the decrepit squalor of Innsmouth, things are far from fine.

Welcome to ''More Adventures in Arkham Country''. Within you will find a collection of six scenarios for ''Call of Cthulhu''. "Shades of Tomorrow Lost" and "Ghost of Florentina" take investigators to Kingsport where they encounter threats from the past, and possibly the future. We return to Foxfield to look into the mystery of "The Crystal Cavern." On the road the investigators may experience "Engine Trouble." "Spare the Rod" and "The Hopeful" take the investigators to Arkham, and possibly Innsmouth, as they struggle to bring horrific legacies to a close.

Miskatonic River Press is very proud to present one of the authors featured in the original Adventures in Arkham Country, Scott David Aniolowski (''Malleus Monstrorum, Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood'') with his first published scenario in fifteen years! Welcome back to Arkham Country.

'''Scenarios:''' [[Shades of Tomorrow Lost]], [[Ghosts of Florentina]], [[The Crystal Cavern]], [[Engine Trouble]], [[Spare the Rod]], [[The Hopeful]]

'''Additional:''' Short Fiction, Conversion notes for Trail of Cthulhu, Maps, Player Handouts

==Front Cover Text==
Six New Scenarios for Classic Call of Cthulhu

==Back Cover Text==
More Adventures in Arkham Country

''"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island in the midst of black seas of infinity and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." -- H.P. Lovecraft

There remains, in the state of Massachusetts, a group of communities nestled along the banks of the Miskatonic River. Those who live there soon learn to accept that their region is a place of long shadows, old legends, and deep mystery. Best not to dwell on it, better to focus on the day-to-day struggles of life. Everything is fine, isn't it? However, the truth is that in the historic university city of Arkham, in the misty seaside resort of Kingsport, in the depressed farming community of Foxfield, and in the decrepit squalor of Innsmouth, things are far from fine.

Welcome to ''More Adventures in Arkham Country''. Within you will find a collection of six scenarios for ''Call of Cthulhu''. "Shades of Tomorrow Lost" and "Ghost of Florentina" take investigators to Kingsport where they encounter threats from the past, and possibly the future. We return to Foxfield to look into the mystery of "The Crystal Cavern." On the road the investigators may experience "Engine Trouble." "Spare the Rod" and "The Hopeful" take the investigators to Arkham, and possibly Innsmouth, as they struggle to bring horrific legacies to a close. It is with great pride that we welcome Scott David Aniolowski back to Lovecraft Country. His work appeared in ''Adventures in Arkham Country'' back in 1993, now he returns in
''More Adventures in Arkham Country.''

MRP0008

==Comments / Trivia==
'''Dedication:''' This book is wholly and completely dedicated to the memory of Keith "Doc" Herber. He founded Miskatonic River Press, and
passed away long before we were ready. We hope to make him proud with our efforts.

==Links==
There is a review article about this monograph on the site, but the content is now added to the section below: 'Keeper's Eyes only', slightly edited.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:Supplements]]
[[Category:CoC:Lovecraft Country]]
__NOTOC__
This is a new collection of six scenarios for the Lovecraft Country campaign setting originated by Keith Herber while at Chaosium.

The collection has a great, atmospheric cover of Innsmouth by Santiago Caruso, and numerous excellent interior illustrations by Jason Eckhardt. Both cover and illustrations are slightly superior to those from the same artists for New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley but it is in two other areas where MRP has really raised its game. First, the handouts are really excellent, among the best I've seen for a published scenario. These come courtesy of the HPLHS and are part of the package this time rather than an online supplement, as was the case in New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley (though the HPLHS does host deluxe colour versions of the ones for MAiAC!) The handouts appear both in the text for the GM and in larger formats at the end for copying. The second major improvement is in the quality of maps. Chaosium has allowed MRP to use (reduced) maps of the towns in their sourcebooks (Arkham, Kingsport, Innsmouth) which is very helpful. Steff Worthington has originated scenario maps and developed the one for Foxfield. The building maps for the first two scenarios are genius and there are helpfully bigger scale versions of the later maps in the handouts section.

There are six scenarios: two set in Kingsport, one taking investigators to Innsmouth, One set entirely in Arkham, one in Foxfield and one set generically in the backroads of Lovecraft country. Apart from Scott David Aniolowski, who contributed to Chaosium's early 1990s Lovecraft Country sourcebooks and collections, the scenario authors are a new generation of CoC authors. All the scenarios are easily read and understood. Worthwhile efforts have been made to copyedit and only the tiniest errors have crept through (e.g. "inflicted" instead of "infected" on page 10). I think most keepers would like to run three or four of these scenarios (which 3 or 4 will vary) and some promise to be highly memorable adventures.

The scenarios themselves might not all quite hit the highs of a couple in NTotMV but the quality of the package as a whole is much better.

For Trail of Cthulhu playing groups there are extensive conversion notes for all the scenarios. I'm not in a position to evaluate these, but I can note that, at 21 pages, they take up the space of an entire additional scenario for me the conversion notes' compiler, Christopher Smith Adair, would have been the man to write it. But this is a selfish complaint.

The book's opening and closing with pages offer a fictionalised introduction and conclusion about stalwart investigators battling on despite losing an inspirational colleague. Clearly this is a version of Tom Lynch and Osk Rios keeping the MRP show on the road after the loss of Keith Herber to whom the book is dedicated. With collections of this calibre, they are doing him proud.

Shades of Tomorrow Past by Scott David Aniolowski

Drawing on Clark Ashton Smith's Martian dreamlands tales, the scenario also references real world sleeping sickness epidemics of the period to provide a good hook and a plausible (in game context) link to Kingsport. The threat is Vulthoom's heavy metal pollen and the human villain is the plant expert advising the authorities on the outbreak. The villain and his staff are given convincing psychologies while the opposition muscle is the mysterious (Martian-in-disguise) thug Mr Black. To provide additional aid or hindrance there is the eastern cult of They Who Never Sleep dedicated to opposing Vulthoom's machinations.

There are three Dreamlands episodes in the scenario providing clues and prefiguring (suitably cloaked) the action. If loved ones become affected by the sleeping sickness there is a good hook for the investigators, but the scenario envisions investigators are affected by it and I see this as problematic, dividing the group into those who gain dream clues (but are virtually imprisoned by the authorities as disease carriers) and those who are allowed to act in the real world. This could be pretty frustrating but, helpfully, alternate ways of involving investigators are suggested.

The stakes are high in this scenario and investigators who become known to the authorities may soon burn all their bridges in Arkham Country. Of course, saving the world from Vulthoom ought to come first.

Ghosts of the Florentina by Bret Kramer

Also set in Kingsport, Ghosts of the Florentina is more directly Lovecraftian and much more low key. The investigators are offered lots of red herrings as the ghosts apparently haunt the eponymous Kingsport theatre are a fraud by the crooked developer, stalling for time as he hopes to find money to bail out his scheme. However, underneath the superficial manifestations are the genuine problem of an infestation of well-motivated rat things bound by a long dead sorcerer to defend his former lair. Nothing is black and white here and there are a variety of possible 'solutions', plenty of opportunities for scary underground encounters and surface role-playing. Extremely well supported with handouts and maps this scenario looks a treat.

The Crystal Cavern by Brian Courtemanche

Set in MRP's own (Lovecraft-inspired) Foxfield, investigators are drawn in by another developer (an honest one this time) finding his contractors' efforts to mine the mineral wealth of a cheaply acquired rural property thwarted by a mysterious beast. In fact the fox-like beast is not the real threat but guardian of wards trapping a Lesser Outer God and much the lesser of the two evils. Investigators will come up against variously motivated locals and other interlopers (a big game hunter reminiscent of a character in House of Leaves) providing a number of ways for the climax to be triggered. The (literally) underlying threat reminded me that the Serpent Mound of Ohio (apparently) sits on a geological cryptoexplosion: Foxfield has established itself at the site of an ancient conflict between Hyperboreans and Mi-Go and this may mean it gets wiped off the map, much to the investigators' (SAN) cost. As a pseudo-Dunwich, closer to Arkham, Foxfield can be disposed of with much less expense (in terms of scenarios that cannot be played in campaign continuity), but best to have played Keith Herber's Foxfield scenario from New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley before this one, just in case. Investigators can learn some valuable lessons here, but one of them might be that (in this scenario) they can't win.

Engine Trouble by Tom Lynch

This is both the shortest and the oddest scenario in the collection. It can be easily sprung on any group of investigators travelling through Arkham country at night as they encounter a truck crashed into a bridge, and so far, so good. Then we find out that the truck was carrying an Armageddon device, a massive automata constructed by a disgruntled Niccolo Da Vinci (Leonardo's elder brother!). While this might be intriguing, it doesn't really belong in Arkham country, and would be better as the germ of an Italian-set scenario. No (benign?) American professor is really going to be able to extract such a large artefact from a field in fascist Italy and spirit it to Massachusetts. Furthermore, Armageddon is a bit of a heavy consequence for something introduced casually, without build up, into a campaign.

Really, the scenario is an excuse to attack the investigators with the harrowers, a nasty flying monster, with some redneck supporting cast. Keepers will have to make sure the players win if they want the campaign narrative this is inserted in to carry on. They may also wish to consider one outcome that would be that the investigators now have custody of an Armageddon machineâ€¦

This scenario is not for me though elements of it (the-set-up, the backstory, the monsters) might come in handy elsewhere.

Spare the Rod by Adam Gauntlett

This is an Arkham-set scenario which uses its ghouls and witch spirit in residence, Goody Fowler, as counter-investigators, with their own evil agenda searching for the real villain. The 'new' villain is Samuel Seaton, a schoolmaster who was Fowler's dupe and accuser, back from the dead a second time after his warded corpse has been disturbed. Seaton is the monster teacher, an undead fiend whose serial-killing casts ghastly blight on Arkham.

The scenario has an episodic structure providing a number of scenes that are sure to chill.

In some ways the villain is a version of Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Kruger, shorn of his dream powers, in other ways the story is an extension of cautionary tales for children such as the original Struwwel-Peter, but the villain here is dysfunctional and confused and doesn't always target the 'right' children. Some groups will, reasonably, baulk at a game scenario where the horror involves the flaying, dismemberment and murder of schoolchildren.

Plot-wise there seems to be a flaw in that when the undead Seaton was first stopped by a group of parents they seem not to have foreseen his return, despite the temporary nature of their wards, and have provided no information of back-up plan for future generations. The solution the investigators have to discover is instead dependent on Seaton's connections to Fowler and their finding artefacts that belonged to her.

Overall, this is a creepy, even alarming, scenario which may not be to everyone's taste.

The Hopeful by Oscar Rios

This scenario, which leads investigators from Arkham to Innsmouth is probably a better introduction to that fishy place than The Crawford Inheritance, the introductory scenario offered in the Innsmouth sourcebook, Escape from Innsmouth. The Hopeful is on a par with Bless the Beasts and the Children in Adventures in Arkham Country and Freak Show in Tales of the Miskatonic Valley and, like them, tops everything in Chaosium's Before the Fall (though it has similarities with 'Mary', therein). Plausibly involving established mundane investigators (i.e. no specialism in 'the weird' required) it has Esther Marsh as the key villain, making her significance in the raid on Innsmouth slightly more plausible, and introduces a great crew of new supporting baddies. The use of period is excellent and metagaming is nicely circumvented. For me, this is the highlight of the collection.

SUMMARY: Of the scenarios, from the point of view of having only read the book, I count three strong ones, two that may or may not appeal to keepers depending on the nature of their version of Arkham country, and one that might work if you are stuck for a one-off. All are well presented, illustrated and fully supported with maps and handouts and this an impressive, good value collection.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley

2019-11-15T15:29:58Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Publisher:''' [[Miskatonic River Press]]

'''Product Code:''' 0003

'''Publishing Year:''' 2008

'''Pages:''' 136

'''Cover Price:''' $29.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Keith Herber]], [[Kevin A. Ross]], [[Tom Lynch]], [[Christopher Smith Adair]], [[Oscar Rios]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Santiago Caruso]], [[Jason C. Eckhardt]], [[Tom Lynch]] (maps)

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format(s):''' Softcover and PDF

==Contents==

Return to Lovecraft Country with this collection of six all-new adventures set in the [[Miskatonic Valley]] region. Investigators will visit favorite haunts such as [[Arkham]], [[Kingsport]], and [[Dunwich]], as well as less familiar destinations like [[Foxfield]].

* [[The Reeling Midnight]], by [[Tom Lynch]]
* [[Wasted Youth]], by [[Christopher Smith Adair]]
* [[Spirit of Industry]], by [[Oscar Rios]]
* [[Proof of Life]], by [[Keith Herber]]
* [[Malice Everlasting]], by [[Oscar Rios]]
* [[The Night War]], by [[Kevin A. Ross]]

'''Scenarios:''' [[The Reeling Midnight]] ([[Arkham]]), [[Wasted Youth]] ([[Arkham]]), [[Spirit of Industry]] ([[Dunwich]]),
[[Proof of Life]] ([[Foxfield]]), [[Malice Everlasting]] ([[Kingsport]]), [[The Night War]] ([[Kingsport]])

'''Additional:''' Preface (by Keith Herber), Player Handouts

==Front Cover Text==
No additional text.

==Back Cover Text==
for Call of Cthulhu licensed by Chaosium, Inc.

'''New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley'''

Six all-new scenarios set in the fictional New England of H.P. Lovecraft. Written by veterans ''Keith Herber'' and ''Kevin Ross'', and
new Call of Cthulhu voices ''Christopher Smith Adair, Tom Lynch,'' and ''Oscar Rios''. Cover art by ''Santiago Caruso'' and interior illustrations by
''Jason C. Eckhardt''.

In Arkham, Tom Lynch's "[[The Reeling Midnight]]" introduces players to Arkham's truly decadent party scene.

Christopher Smith Adair's "[[Wasted Youth]]" explores the roots of juvenile delinquency, culminating in a wild chase through the wilderness.

"[[Spirit of Industry]]" takes players back to the village of Dunwich, where Oscar Rios explores old murders and an ancient mystery.

[[Foxfield]] is the setting for Keith Herber's "[[Proof of Life]]," a tale of extortion and madness in a brand new Lovecraft Country town.

Oscar Rios is back for seconds, this time exploring Kingsport and old grudged with "[[Malice Everlasting]]."

Kevin Ross, author of ''[[Kingsport:_The_City_In_The_Mists_(Supplement)|Kingsport, City in the Mists]]'', [[The Night War|revisits his creation]] when a veteran of the Great War is suddenly haunted by deadly nightmares.

==Comments / Trivia==
Dedication (by Keith Herber): For [[Lynn Willis]], long the backbone of Call of Cthulhu and a mentor I never expected. Thanks for all the lessons, I try to pass them on as best I can.

Playtesters were: Dave Sokolowski, Tony Neff (as Bertie), Jaime Chamberlain (as Silas and Buffy), Bruce Stephenson (as Flora), Mike Peck (as Randolph), Mark Irons (as Nells).

==Links==
There is an article/ review on the site that might be linked here, but the content is now attached to the section 'Keeper's Eyes' Only' below.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:Supplements]]
[[Category:CoC:Lovecraft Country]]
__NOTOC__
This collection of six scenarios set in Arkham country is plainly and clearly laid out. It has and atmospheric cover by Santiago Caruso and twenty internal illustrations by Jason Eckhardt. The handouts and maps are functional but a deal with the HPLHS means that there is online access to considerably more characterful handouts, too.

The scenarios are 1920s set, and playable in almost any order, focusing on Arkham, Dunwich, Foxfield and Kingsport. What isn't stated anywhere, perhaps because it is so obvious to anyone who would be interested in the collection, perhaps because it might imply this wasn't a stand-alone product, is that there are large sourcebooks published by Chaosium for Arkham, Dunwich and Kingsport which Keepers can use to support New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley. These books are not necessary for the keeper to run these scenarios but they do, unavoidably, tie in for anyone like this reviewer who has read them previously. Perhaps even more significantly there exist several scenario collections set in Arkham country such as Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Adventures in Arkham Country, and Dead Reckonings. How does New Tales stand up against these?

The Scenarios [SPOILERS throughout]

The Reeling Midnight by Tom Lynch
A con being played on Arkham's decadent social scene becomes deadly because of a mythos infestation of a participant. All the investigative angles are covered though the disturbing climax and its aftermath seem unavoidable. There are no loose ends but there is a loose beginning in that the involvement of the Great Old One, encountered by its victim in the Dreamlands, appears unmotivated and arbitrary. This is something of a moot point because the scenario will work perfectly well without adjustment, but it does mean the scenario lacks grounding in its setting. Arkham-based investigators will have no trouble getting involved but the scenario could easily be moved to another town, too, and perhaps might fit a larger one better.

Wasted Youth by Christopher Smith Adair
This scenario grounds itself very effectively in Arkham and requires the investigators to do some detective and journalistic work in order to discover what is sending some local kids off the rails before it delivers an exciting chase climax. Some reviewers might whinge about the victims being young persons but this can be fully played out with the investigators having to face the consequences of any over-hasty responses. The pursuit section features a creature that appears to be pure Keith Herber and promises to be exhaustingly enjoyable.

Spirit of Industry by Oscar Rios
The investigators are dragged to Dunwich by a journalist friend to investigate a supposed haunting at an old sawmill. This scenario would be an ideal inclusion in the Chaosium Dunwich sourcebook (written by Keith Herber) which has always lacked proper scenarios. The major plot elements of Dunwich are put in to play here very effectively and in a way that leaves lots of (unnatural) life in the setting.

Proof of Life by Keith Herber (with thanks to John Pitman)
The small community of Foxfield is the setting and a death threat is the hook. Investigators have to penetrate the smalltown politics to find the horror and madness underneath. Innocents fallen into the pincers of the Mi-Go are the cause of clandestine and murderous actions. There are several effective touches here as the inhuman nature of the antagonists is revealed but it seems that these are a group of rogue Mi-Go who risk revealing their existence by carelessly relying on human agents and simply by not giving up their base. (Compare A Night on Owlshead Mountain by Dennis Detwiller or even The Doom from Below by Stan!). As with The Reeling Midnight, this should be no obstacle to any group having a great time with this scenario but in terms of Keith Herber's work its more Trail of the Serpent than The Sanitorium. Released as a PDF file before the book it is a selling point but is not the high point of the collection.

Malice Everlasting by Oscar Rios
For me, this is the best scenario in the book joining Fade to Gray and Dead in the Water as classic Kingsport scenarios. It follows, roughly, the sorceror's revenge plot exemplified by Keith Herber's The Condemned though there is more variety and there are plenty of clue trails and options for the Keeper to play up intrigue or horror at points along them. As some have noted this scenario shares, with 'Wasted Youth', an underage villain but it is really well developed and distinct in both cases (just don't play them back to back). The background and handouts for this scenario are great, there is a full-on climax in which Y'golonac shows up but even this does not end the intriguing possibilities set up. It promises to be a real blast.

The Night War by Kevin Ross
With Kevin Ross the originator of the Kingsport book and of The Dreamlands as a game setting this is an authoritative scenario and will be for some the standout scenario in the collection. As my previous comments infer I'm less keen on it, but this is because, for me, a predominance of Dreamlands is too much. Drawing on the prose and fate of W.H. Hodgson this scenario pitches the investigators into a deadly, phantasmagoric Great War trenches setting and strongly motivates them to seek a therapeutic solution. This equals a crafty way to put characters not eligible for the front line in a combat setting and challenges them to understand the damaged mind of a real veteran (see also the work of Bruce Ballon). It's a striking scenario but not one everyone will enjoy playing.

Overall verdict [NO SPOILERS]

There are two great scenarios in this collection, three good ones and one marmite love/hate scenario. Your mileage may vary but other reviewer's verdicts seem to run about the same even if we may disagree which scenarios are best. The whole point of a collection is to provide something for everyone.

The collection has few frills but the excellent Eckhardt illustrations have a great feel for the 1920s and combine horror and comedy with great facility. It's a shame the great handouts of the HPLHS could not have been in the book; those that are seem a little bland, but this is a minor gripe.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley stands up well with the earlier Arkham Country collections.

Return of the Ripper (Monograph)

2019-11-15T15:22:44Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Return-Ripper.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0339

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 124

'''Cover Price:''' $21.00

'''Author(s):''' [[William A. Barton]]

'''Artist(s):'''

'''Setting(s):''' [[1890s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' yes

==Contents==

An 1890s Scenario for Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu by Gaslight

Return of the Ripper takes place in London, beginning in late summer to early autumn of 1893. It involves a new series of killings perpetrated by Jack the Ripper. The Ripper has returned to London to continue his bloody work after a five-year absence. Working in league with the Ripper are other occult horrors with which investigators must deal. At least one of these is far more formidable - and deadly - than the Ripper himself!

The scenario presents a series of clues, encounters, and locations that, explored to their fullest, lead Investigators to the identity - and terrible secrets - of Jack the Ripper. A number of peripheral dangers are encountered along the way that may either be dealt with during the course of the scenario or, in some cases, sidestepped to be handled at a later time - provided Investigators retain life and sanity enough to do so. A number of red herrings are also present, designed to mislead and confuse the investigators. Some of these might lead to entire side adventures of their own; others will simply throw investigators momentarily off the track of their quarry

'''Scenarios:''' [[Return of the Ripper (Scenario)]]

'''Additional:'''

==Front Cover Text==
An 1890s Scenario for Call of Cthulhu
and Cthulhu by Gaslight

==Comments / Trivia==
List dedication, color plates, rarity of the book, etc.

==Links==
There is an article/review on this monograph on the site, but the content is now edited and pasted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__

This monograph contains a large scenario but also claims, in a sub-sub-title, to be a sourcebook for Victorian London's East End. As part of the investigation the monograph provides background on the original Ripper murders.

The monograph is professionally laid out and written. A few original character portraits are supplemented by a number of period images now in the public domain (like the cover). The Appendices contain detailed maps of London and Whitechapel.

About the Scenario [SPOILERS]

In Appendix D: Designer's Notes, the author reveals that the material in this supplement was written for the original boxed set of Gaslight CoC but it grew too large and has since languished for twenty years despite a number of false starts in other directions. This explains the 'Old School' feel of the piece. The scenario style is exactly the same as Barton's The Yorkshire Horror. We are in good hands a writer who can deal with all eras (Barton's other CoC work includes The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn in The Cthulhu Casebook, The Killer Out of Space in Cthulhu Now).

The scenario, set in 1893, has the original perpetrator return to England and start killing East End prostitutes again. The scenario assumes the investigators to be detectives or journalists of one type or another, keen to investigate or to be hired to do so.

There is lot of investigating to do and Investigators will have their hands full. There is a full sub plot including a Madam in league with Ghouls and now an avatar of Y'golonac. Then we have the (distant) Tcho-Tcho who created the Psychic Vampire responsible in post-colonial revenge, the giant Sumatran Rat (from the title of an untold Holmes Case) and the monster in the wax museum. Then there is a lively cast of supporting characters from Inspector Abberline (very non-Depp) to the 'Whitechapel Vigilance Committee'. The author's obsession with Sherlock Holmes is dealt with in a small aside (a page or so) though Holmes' 'hated rival of the southern shore', Cyrus Barker, is on hand to confound or assist the player characters.

The investigation is allowed to develop by player actions but with a large number of random (or Keeper choice) encounters available to provide clues and atmosphere along the way. Incautious investigators roaming the East End are likely to get mugged, rolled or infected at the very least. Those exploring the sewers (again numerous encounters provided) risk worse fates. It is instructive that the savvy Barker packs a LeMat pistol!

A key point that will sway some for or against is the way the scenario appropriates the real murders, a point which the Designer's Notes suggest, perhaps disingenuously, was a reason Chaosium didn't go with an edited version of the scenario. This takes us in to a debate often had on YSDC forums about the problems of explaining real world horror by means of the mythos in the game. My general preference would be to set up parallels to real life events as I find this works better than appropriating them directly as here. The shockingly brutal original murders, detailed for background investigation herein, don't actually get scarier for having being committed by a mythos being acting under the command of a Psychic Vampire.

Those, like me, troubled by the monograph's approach to the original case can easily find ways around it. For example, there would be a way to make the scenario's culprit not the original Ripper but a man warped by investigative knowledge of the crimes given supernatural means of recreating them. The differences between the first and second waves then become points of focus and it is the original investigators who need investigating!

Summary [spoilers]
There is enough material in this monograph for playing a Gaslight campaign without any other supplement than the rulebook [BRP that is; D20 stats are not included]. If your group will enjoy playing Gaslight as a gruesome romp there is considerable mileage here.

Overall, this Gaslight monograph is up to the standards of Chaosium's non-monograph releases and constitutes excellent value. As an introduction to Gaslight settings it is as good, if not better, than the same author's The Yorkshire Horror scenario.

Return of the Ripper (Monograph)

2019-11-15T15:22:26Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Return-Ripper.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0339

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 124

'''Cover Price:''' $21.00

'''Author(s):''' [[William A. Barton]]

'''Artist(s):'''

'''Setting(s):''' [[1890s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' yes

==Contents==

An 1890s Scenario for Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu by Gaslight

Return of the Ripper takes place in London, beginning in late summer to early autumn of 1893. It involves a new series of killings perpetrated by Jack the Ripper. The Ripper has returned to London to continue his bloody work after a five-year absence. Working in league with the Ripper are other occult horrors with which investigators must deal. At least one of these is far more formidable - and deadly - than the Ripper himself!

The scenario presents a series of clues, encounters, and locations that, explored to their fullest, lead Investigators to the identity - and terrible secrets - of Jack the Ripper. A number of peripheral dangers are encountered along the way that may either be dealt with during the course of the scenario or, in some cases, sidestepped to be handled at a later time - provided Investigators retain life and sanity enough to do so. A number of red herrings are also present, designed to mislead and confuse the investigators. Some of these might lead to entire side adventures of their own; others will simply throw investigators momentarily off the track of their quarry

'''Scenarios:''' [[Return of the Ripper (Scenario)]]

'''Additional:'''

==Front Cover Text==
An 1890s Scenario for Call of Cthulhu
and Cthulhu by Gaslight

==Comments / Trivia==
List dedication, color plates, rarity of the book, etc.

==Links==
There is an article/review on this monograph on the site, but the content is now pasted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__

This monograph contains a large scenario but also claims, in a sub-sub-title, to be a sourcebook for Victorian London's East End. As part of the investigation the monograph provides background on the original Ripper murders.

The monograph is professionally laid out and written. A few original character portraits are supplemented by a number of period images now in the public domain (like the cover). The Appendices contain detailed maps of London and Whitechapel.

About the Scenario [SPOILERS]

In Appendix D: Designer's Notes, the author reveals that the material in this supplement was written for the original boxed set of Gaslight CoC but it grew too large and has since languished for twenty years despite a number of false starts in other directions. This explains the 'Old School' feel of the piece. The scenario style is exactly the same as Barton's The Yorkshire Horror. We are in good hands a writer who can deal with all eras (Barton's other CoC work includes The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn in The Cthulhu Casebook, The Killer Out of Space in Cthulhu Now).

The scenario, set in 1893, has the original perpetrator return to England and start killing East End prostitutes again. The scenario assumes the investigators to be detectives or journalists of one type or another, keen to investigate or to be hired to do so.

There is lot of investigating to do and Investigators will have their hands full. There is a full sub plot including a Madam in league with Ghouls and now an avatar of Y'golonac. Then we have the (distant) Tcho-Tcho who created the Psychic Vampire responsible in post-colonial revenge, the giant Sumatran Rat (from the title of an untold Holmes Case) and the monster in the wax museum. Then there is a lively cast of supporting characters from Inspector Abberline (very non-Depp) to the 'Whitechapel Vigilance Committee'. The author's obsession with Sherlock Holmes is dealt with in a small aside (a page or so) though Holmes' 'hated rival of the southern shore', Cyrus Barker, is on hand to confound or assist the player characters.

The investigation is allowed to develop by player actions but with a large number of random (or Keeper choice) encounters available to provide clues and atmosphere along the way. Incautious investigators roaming the East End are likely to get mugged, rolled or infected at the very least. Those exploring the sewers (again numerous encounters provided) risk worse fates. It is instructive that the savvy Barker packs a LeMat pistol!

A key point that will sway some for or against is the way the scenario appropriates the real murders, a point which the Designer's Notes suggest, perhaps disingenuously, was a reason Chaosium didn't go with an edited version of the scenario. This takes us in to a debate often had on YSDC forums about the problems of explaining real world horror by means of the mythos in the game. My general preference would be to set up parallels to real life events as I find this works better than appropriating them directly as here. The shockingly brutal original murders, detailed for background investigation herein, don't actually get scarier for having being committed by a mythos being acting under the command of a Psychic Vampire.

Those, like me, troubled by the monograph's approach to the original case can easily find ways around it. For example, there would be a way to make the scenario's culprit not the original Ripper but a man warped by investigative knowledge of the crimes given supernatural means of recreating them. The differences between the first and second waves then become points of focus and it is the original investigators who need investigating!

Summary [spoilers]
There is enough material in this monograph for playing a Gaslight campaign without any other supplement than the rulebook [BRP that is; D20 stats are not included]. If your group will enjoy playing Gaslight as a gruesome romp there is considerable mileage here.

Overall, this Gaslight monograph is up to the standards of Chaosium's non-monograph releases and constitutes excellent value. As an introduction to Gaslight settings it is as good, if not better, than the same author's The Yorkshire Horror scenario.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley

2019-11-15T14:16:30Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Publisher:''' [[Miskatonic River Press]]

'''Product Code:''' 0003

'''Publishing Year:''' 2008

'''Pages:''' 136

'''Cover Price:''' $29.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Keith Herber]], [[Kevin A. Ross]], [[Tom Lynch]], [[Christopher Smith Adair]], [[Oscar Rios]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Santiago Caruso]], [[Jason C. Eckhardt]], [[Tom Lynch]] (maps)

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format(s):''' Softcover and PDF

==Contents==

Return to Lovecraft Country with this collection of six all-new adventures set in the [[Miskatonic Valley]] region. Investigators will visit favorite haunts such as [[Arkham]], [[Kingsport]], and [[Dunwich]], as well as less familiar destinations like [[Foxfield]].

* [[The Reeling Midnight]], by [[Tom Lynch]]
* [[Wasted Youth]], by [[Christopher Smith Adair]]
* [[Spirit of Industry]], by [[Oscar Rios]]
* [[Proof of Life]], by [[Keith Herber]]
* [[Malice Everlasting]], by [[Oscar Rios]]
* [[The Night War]], by [[Kevin A. Ross]]

'''Scenarios:''' [[The Reeling Midnight]] ([[Arkham]]), [[Wasted Youth]] ([[Arkham]]), [[Spirit of Industry]] ([[Dunwich]]),
[[Proof of Life]] ([[Foxfield]]), [[Malice Everlasting]] ([[Kingsport]]), [[The Night War]] ([[Kingsport]])

'''Additional:''' Preface (by Keith Herber), Player Handouts

==Front Cover Text==
No additional text.

==Back Cover Text==
for Call of Cthulhu licensed by Chaosium, Inc.

'''New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley'''

Six all-new scenarios set in the fictional New England of H.P. Lovecraft. Written by veterans ''Keith Herber'' and ''Kevin Ross'', and
new Call of Cthulhu voices ''Christopher Smith Adair, Tom Lynch,'' and ''Oscar Rios''. Cover art by ''Santiago Caruso'' and interior illustrations by
''Jason C. Eckhardt''.

In Arkham, Tom Lynch's "[[The Reeling Midnight]]" introduces players to Arkham's truly decadent party scene.

Christopher Smith Adair's "[[Wasted Youth]]" explores the roots of juvenile delinquency, culminating in a wild chase through the wilderness.

"[[Spirit of Industry]]" takes players back to the village of Dunwich, where Oscar Rios explores old murders and an ancient mystery.

[[Foxfield]] is the setting for Keith Herber's "[[Proof of Life]]," a tale of extortion and madness in a brand new Lovecraft Country town.

Oscar Rios is back for seconds, this time exploring Kingsport and old grudged with "[[Malice Everlasting]]."

Kevin Ross, author of ''[[Kingsport:_The_City_In_The_Mists_(Supplement)|Kingsport, City in the Mists]]'', [[The Night War|revisits his creation]] when a veteran of the Great War is suddenly haunted by deadly nightmares.

==Comments / Trivia==
Dedication (by Keith Herber): For [[Lynn Willis]], long the backbone of Call of Cthulhu and a mentor I never expected. Thanks for all the lessons, I try to pass them on as best I can.

Playtesters were: Dave Sokolowski, Tony Neff (as Bertie), Jaime Chamberlain (as Silas and Buffy), Bruce Stephenson (as Flora), Mike Peck (as Randolph), Mark Irons (as Nells).

==Links==
There is an article/ review on the site that might be linked here, but the content is now attached to the section 'Keeper's Eyes' Only' below.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:Supplements]]
[[Category:CoC:Lovecraft Country]]
__NOTOC__
This collection of six scenarios set in Arkham country is plainly and clearly laid out. It has and atmospheric cover by Santiago Caruso and twenty internal illustrations by Jason Eckhardt. The handouts and maps are functional but a deal with the HPLHS means that there is online access to considerably more characterful handouts, too.

The scenarios are 1920s set, and playable in almost any order, focusing on Arkham, Dunwich, Foxfield and Kingsport. What isn't stated anywhere, perhaps because it is so obvious to anyone who would be interested in the collection, perhaps because it might imply this wasn't a stand-alone product, is that there are large sourcebooks available for Arkham, Dunwich and Kingsport which Keepers can use to support New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley. These books are not necessary for the keeper to run these scenarios but they do, unavoidably, tie in for anyone like this reviewer who has read them previously. Perhaps even more significantly there exist (not always in print) several scenario collections set in Arkham country such as Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Adventures in Arkham Country, and Dead Reckonings. How does New Tales stand up against these?

The Scenarios [SPOILERS throughout]

The Reeling Midnight by Tom Lynch
A con being played on Arkham's decadent social scene becomes deadly because of a mythos infestation of a participant. All the investigative angles are covered though the disturbing climax and its aftermath seem unavoidable. There are no loose ends but there is a loose beginning in that the involvement of the Great Old One, encountered by its victim in the Dreamlands, appears unmotivated and arbitrary. This is something of a moot point because the scenario will work perfectly well without adjustment, but it does mean the scenario lacks grounding in its setting. Arkham-based investigators will have no trouble getting involved but the scenario could easily be moved to another town, too, and perhaps might fit a larger one better.

Wasted Youth by Christopher Smith Adair
This scenario grounds itself very effectively in Arkham and requires the investigators to do some detective and journalistic work in order to discover what is sending some local kids off the rails before it delivers an exciting chase climax. Some reviewers might whinge about the victims being young persons but this can be fully played out with the investigators having to face the consequences of any over-hasty responses. The pursuit section features a creature that appears to be pure Keith Herber and promises to be exhaustingly enjoyable.

Spirit of Industry by Oscar Rios
The investigators are dragged to Dunwich by a journalist friend to investigate a supposed haunting at an old sawmill. This scenario would be an ideal inclusion in the Chaosium Dunwich sourcebook (written by Keith Herber) which has always lacked proper scenarios. The major plot elements of Dunwich are put in to play here very effectively and in a way that leaves lots of (unnatural) life in the setting.

Proof of Life by Keith Herber (with thanks to John Pitman)
The small community of Foxfield is the setting and a death threat is the hook. Investigators have to penetrate the smalltown politics to find the horror and madness underneath. Innocents fallen into the pincers of the Mi-Go are the cause of clandestine and murderous actions. There are several effective touches here as the inhuman nature of the antagonists is revealed but it seems that these are a group of rogue Mi-Go who risk revealing their existence by carelessly relying on human agents and simply by not giving up their base. (Compare A Night on Owlshead Mountain by Dennis Detwiller or even The Doom from Below by Stan!). As with The Reeling Midnight, this should be no obstacle to any group having a great time with this scenario but in terms of Keith Herber's work its more Trail of the Serpent than The Sanitorium. Released as a PDF file before the book it is a selling point but is not the high point of the collection.

Malice Everlasting by Oscar Rios
For me, this is the best scenario in the book joining Fade to Gray and Dead in the Water as classic Kingsport scenarios. It follows, roughly, the sorceror's revenge plot exemplified by Keith Herber's The Condemned though there is more variety and there are plenty of clue trails and options for the Keeper to play up intrigue or horror at points along them. As some have noted this scenario shares, with 'Wasted Youth', an underage villain but it is really well developed and distinct in both cases (just don't play them back to back). The background and handouts for this scenario are great, there is a full-on climax in which Y'golonac shows up but even this does not end the intriguing possibilities set up. It promises to be a real blast.

The Night War by Kevin Ross
With Kevin Ross the originator of the Kingsport book and of The Dreamlands as a game setting this is an authoritative scenario and will be for some the standout scenario in the collection. As my previous comments infer I'm less keen on it, but this is because, for me, a predominance of Dreamlands is too much. Drawing on the prose and fate of W.H. Hodgson this scenario pitches the investigators into a deadly, phantasmagoric Great War trenches setting and strongly motivates them to seek a therapeutic solution. This equals a crafty way to put characters not eligible for the front line in a combat setting and challenges them to understand the damaged mind of a real veteran (see also the work of Bruce Ballon). It's a striking scenario but not one I personally would enjoy playing or inflicting on my group.

Overall verdict [NO SPOILERS]

I calculate that there are two great scenarios in this collection, three good ones and one marmite love/hate scenario. Your mileage may vary but other reviewer's verdicts seem to run about the same even if we may disagree which scenarios are best. The whole point of a collection is to provide something for everyone.

The collection has few frills but the excellent Eckhardt illustrations have a great feel for the 1920s and combine horror and comedy with great facility. It's a shame the great handouts of the HPLHS could not have been in the book; those that are seem a little bland, but this is a minor gripe.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley stands up well with the earlier Arkham Country collections.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley

2019-11-15T14:14:24Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Publisher:''' [[Miskatonic River Press]]

'''Product Code:''' 0003

'''Publishing Year:''' 2008

'''Pages:''' 136

'''Cover Price:''' $29.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Keith Herber]], [[Kevin A. Ross]], [[Tom Lynch]], [[Christopher Smith Adair]], [[Oscar Rios]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Santiago Caruso]], [[Jason C. Eckhardt]], [[Tom Lynch]] (maps)

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format(s):''' Softcover and PDF

==Contents==

Return to Lovecraft Country with this collection of six all-new adventures set in the [[Miskatonic Valley]] region. Investigators will visit favorite haunts such as [[Arkham]], [[Kingsport]], and [[Dunwich]], as well as less familiar destinations like [[Foxfield]].

* [[The Reeling Midnight]], by [[Tom Lynch]]
* [[Wasted Youth]], by [[Christopher Smith Adair]]
* [[Spirit of Industry]], by [[Oscar Rios]]
* [[Proof of Life]], by [[Keith Herber]]
* [[Malice Everlasting]], by [[Oscar Rios]]
* [[The Night War]], by [[Kevin A. Ross]]

'''Scenarios:''' [[The Reeling Midnight]] ([[Arkham]]), [[Wasted Youth]] ([[Arkham]]), [[Spirit of Industry]] ([[Dunwich]]),
[[Proof of Life]] ([[Foxfield]]), [[Malice Everlasting]] ([[Kingsport]]), [[The Night War]] ([[Kingsport]])

'''Additional:''' Preface (by Keith Herber), Player Handouts

==Front Cover Text==
No additional text.

==Back Cover Text==
for Call of Cthulhu licensed by Chaosium, Inc.

'''New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley'''

Six all-new scenarios set in the fictional New England of H.P. Lovecraft. Written by veterans ''Keith Herber'' and ''Kevin Ross'', and
new Call of Cthulhu voices ''Christopher Smith Adair, Tom Lynch,'' and ''Oscar Rios''. Cover art by ''Santiago Caruso'' and interior illustrations by
''Jason C. Eckhardt''.

In Arkham, Tom Lynch's "[[The Reeling Midnight]]" introduces players to Arkham's truly decadent party scene.

Christopher Smith Adair's "[[Wasted Youth]]" explores the roots of juvenile delinquency, culminating in a wild chase through the wilderness.

"[[Spirit of Industry]]" takes players back to the village of Dunwich, where Oscar Rios explores old murders and an ancient mystery.

[[Foxfield]] is the setting for Keith Herber's "[[Proof of Life]]," a tale of extortion and madness in a brand new Lovecraft Country town.

Oscar Rios is back for seconds, this time exploring Kingsport and old grudged with "[[Malice Everlasting]]."

Kevin Ross, author of ''[[Kingsport:_The_City_In_The_Mists_(Supplement)|Kingsport, City in the Mists]]'', [[The Night War|revisits his creation]] when a veteran of the Great War is suddenly haunted by deadly nightmares.

==Comments / Trivia==
Dedication (by Keith Herber): For [[Lynn Willis]], long the backbone of Call of Cthulhu and a mentor I never expected. Thanks for all the lessons, I try to pass them on as best I can.

Playtesters were: Dave Sokolowski, Tony Neff (as Bertie), Jaime Chamberlain (as Silas and Buffy), Bruce Stephenson (as Flora), Mike Peck (as Randolph), Mark Irons (as Nells).

==Links==
There is an article/ review on the site that might be linked here, but the content is now attached to the section 'Keeper's Eyes' Only' below.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:Supplements]]
[[Category:CoC:Lovecraft Country]]
__NOTOC__
This collection of six scenarios set in Arkham country is plainly and clearly laid out. It has and atmospheric cover by Santiago Caruso and twenty internal illustrations by Jason Eckhardt. The handouts and maps are functional but a deal with the HPLHS means that there is online access to considerably more characterful handouts, too.

The scenarios are 1920s set, and playable in almost any order, focusing on Arkham, Dunwich, Foxfield and Kingsport. What isn't stated anywhere, perhaps because it is so obvious to anyone who would be interested in the collection, perhaps because it might imply this wasn't a stand-alone product, is that there are large sourcebooks available for Arkham, Dunwich and Kingsport which Keepers can use to support New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley. These books are not necessary for the keeper to run these scenarios but they do, unavoidably, tie in for anyone like this reviewer who has read them previously. Perhaps even more significantly there exist (not always in print) several scenario collections set in Arkham country such as Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Adventures in Arkham Country, and Dead Reckonings. How does New Tales stand up against these?

The Scenarios [spoilerS throughout]

The Reeling Midnight by Tom Lynch
A con being played on Arkham's decadent social scene becomes deadly because of a mythos infestation of a participant. All the investigative angles are covered though the disturbing climax and its aftermath seem unavoidable. There are no loose ends but there is a loose beginning in that the involvement of the Great Old One, encountered by its victim in the Dreamlands, appears unmotivated and arbitrary. This is something of a moot point because the scenario will work perfectly well without adjustment, but it does mean the scenario lacks grounding in its setting. Arkham-based investigators will have no trouble getting involved but the scenario could easily be moved to another town, too, and perhaps might fit a larger one better.

Wasted Youth by Christopher Smith Adair
This scenario grounds itself very effectively in Arkham and requires the investigators to do some detective and journalistic work in order to discover what is sending some local kids off the rails before it delivers an exciting chase climax. Some reviewers might whinge about the victims being young persons but this can be fully played out with the investigators having to face the consequences of any over-hasty responses. The pursuit section features a creature that appears to be pure Keith Herber and promises to be exhaustingly enjoyable.

Spirit of Industry by Oscar Rios
The investigators are dragged to Dunwich by a journalist friend to investigate a supposed haunting at an old sawmill. This scenario would be an ideal inclusion in the Chaosium Dunwich sourcebook (written by Keith Herber) which has always lacked proper scenarios. The major plot elements of Dunwich are put in to play here very effectively and in a way that leaves lots of (unnatural) life in the setting.

Proof of Life by Keith Herber (with thanks to John Pitman)
The small community of Foxfield is the setting and a death threat is the hook. Investigators have to penetrate the smalltown politics to find the horror and madness underneath. Innocents fallen into the pincers of the Mi-Go are the cause of clandestine and murderous actions. There are several effective touches here as the inhuman nature of the antagonists is revealed but it seems that these are a group of rogue Mi-Go who risk revealing their existence by carelessly relying on human agents and simply by not giving up their base. (Compare A Night on Owlshead Mountain by Dennis Detwiller or even The Doom from Below by Stan!). As with The Reeling Midnight, this should be no obstacle to any group having a great time with this scenario but in terms of Keith Herber's work its more Trail of the Serpent than The Sanitorium. Released as a PDF file before the book it is a selling point but is not the high point of the collection.

Malice Everlasting by Oscar Rios
For me, this is the best scenario in the book joining Fade to Gray and Dead in the Water as classic Kingsport scenarios. It follows, roughly, the sorceror's revenge plot exemplified by Keith Herber's The Condemned though there is more variety and there are plenty of clue trails and options for the Keeper to play up intrigue or horror at points along them. As some have noted this scenario shares, with 'Wasted Youth', an underage villain but it is really well developed and distinct in both cases (just don't play them back to back). The background and handouts for this scenario are great, there is a full-on climax in which Y'golonac shows up but even this does not end the intriguing possibilities set up. It promises to be a real blast.

The Night War by Kevin Ross
With Kevin Ross the originator of the Kingsport book and of The Dreamlands as a game setting this is an authoritative scenario and will be for some the standout scenario in the collection. As my previous comments infer I'm less keen on it, but this is because, for me, a predominance of Dreamlands is too much. Drawing on the prose and fate of W.H. Hodgson this scenario pitches the investigators into a deadly, phantasmagoric Great War trenches setting and strongly motivates them to seek a therapeutic solution. This equals a crafty way to put characters not eligible for the front line in a combat setting and challenges them to understand the damaged mind of a real veteran (see also the work of Bruce Ballon). It's a striking scenario but not one I personally would enjoy playing or inflicting on my group.

Overall verdict [NO SPOILERS]

I calculate that there are two great scenarios in this collection, three good ones and one marmite love/hate scenario. Your mileage may vary but other reviewer's verdicts seem to run about the same even if we may disagree which scenarios are best. The whole point of a collection is to provide something for everyone.

The collection has few frills but the excellent Eckhardt illustrations have a great feel for the 1920s and combine horror and comedy with great facility. It's a shame the great handouts of the HPLHS could not have been in the book; those that are seem a little bland, but this is a minor gripe.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley stands up well with the earlier Arkham Country collections.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley

2019-11-15T14:12:56Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

More Adventures in Arkham Country

2019-11-15T14:10:03Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:More Adventures in Arkham Country.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Publisher:''' [[Miskatonic River Press]]

'''Product Code:''' 0007

'''Publishing Year:''' 2010

'''Pages:''' 182

'''Cover Price:''' $29.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Scott David Aniolowski]], [[Brian Courtemanche]], [[Adam Gauntlet]], [[Bret Kramer]], [[Tom Lynch]], [[Oscar Rios]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Santiago Caruso]], [[Reuban Dodd]], [[Jason C. Eckhardt]], [[Steff Worthington]] (maps)

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format(s):''' Softcover and PDF

==Contents==

There remains, in the state of Massachusetts, a group of communities nestled along the banks of the Miskatonic River. Those who live there soon learn to accept that their region is a place of long shadows, old legends, and deep mystery. Best not to dwell on it, better to focus on the day-to-day struggles of life. Everything is fine, isn't it? However, the truth is that in the historic university city of Arkham, in the misty seaside resort of Kingsport, in the depressed farming community of Foxfield, and in the decrepit squalor of Innsmouth, things are far from fine.

Welcome to ''More Adventures in Arkham Country''. Within you will find a collection of six scenarios for ''Call of Cthulhu''. "Shades of Tomorrow Lost" and "Ghost of Florentina" take investigators to Kingsport where they encounter threats from the past, and possibly the future. We return to Foxfield to look into the mystery of "The Crystal Cavern." On the road the investigators may experience "Engine Trouble." "Spare the Rod" and "The Hopeful" take the investigators to Arkham, and possibly Innsmouth, as they struggle to bring horrific legacies to a close.

Miskatonic River Press is very proud to present one of the authors featured in the original Adventures in Arkham Country, Scott David Aniolowski (''Malleus Monstrorum, Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood'') with his first published scenario in fifteen years! Welcome back to Arkham Country.

'''Scenarios:''' [[Shades of Tomorrow Lost]], [[Ghosts of Florentina]], [[The Crystal Cavern]], [[Engine Trouble]], [[Spare the Rod]], [[The Hopeful]]

'''Additional:''' Short Fiction, Conversion notes for Trail of Cthulhu, Maps, Player Handouts

==Front Cover Text==
Six New Scenarios for Classic Call of Cthulhu

==Back Cover Text==
More Adventures in Arkham Country

''"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island in the midst of black seas of infinity and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." -- H.P. Lovecraft

There remains, in the state of Massachusetts, a group of communities nestled along the banks of the Miskatonic River. Those who live there soon learn to accept that their region is a place of long shadows, old legends, and deep mystery. Best not to dwell on it, better to focus on the day-to-day struggles of life. Everything is fine, isn't it? However, the truth is that in the historic university city of Arkham, in the misty seaside resort of Kingsport, in the depressed farming community of Foxfield, and in the decrepit squalor of Innsmouth, things are far from fine.

Welcome to ''More Adventures in Arkham Country''. Within you will find a collection of six scenarios for ''Call of Cthulhu''. "Shades of Tomorrow Lost" and "Ghost of Florentina" take investigators to Kingsport where they encounter threats from the past, and possibly the future. We return to Foxfield to look into the mystery of "The Crystal Cavern." On the road the investigators may experience "Engine Trouble." "Spare the Rod" and "The Hopeful" take the investigators to Arkham, and possibly Innsmouth, as they struggle to bring horrific legacies to a close. It is with great pride that we welcome Scott David Aniolowski back to Lovecraft Country. His work appeared in ''Adventures in Arkham Country'' back in 1993, now he returns in
''More Adventures in Arkham Country.''

MRP0008

==Comments / Trivia==
'''Dedication:''' This book is wholly and completely dedicated to the memory of Keith "Doc" Herber. He founded Miskatonic River Press, and
passed away long before we were ready. We hope to make him proud with our efforts.

==Links==
There is a review article about this monograph on the site, but the content is not added to the section below: 'Keeper's Eyes only', slightly edited.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:Supplements]]
[[Category:CoC:Lovecraft Country]]
__NOTOC__
This is a new collection of six scenarios for the Lovecraft Country campaign setting originated by Keith Herber while at Chaosium.

The collection has a great, atmospheric cover of Innsmouth by Santiago Caruso, and numerous excellent interior illustrations by Jason Eckhardt. Both cover and illustrations are slightly superior to those from the same artists for New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley but it is in two other areas where MRP has really raised its game. First, the handouts are really excellent, among the best I've seen for a published scenario. These come courtesy of the HPLHS and are part of the package this time rather than an online supplement, as was the case in New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley (though the HPLHS does host deluxe colour versions of the ones for MAiAC!) The handouts appear both in the text for the GM and in larger formats at the end for copying. The second major improvement is in the quality of maps. Chaosium has allowed MRP to use (reduced) maps of the towns in their sourcebooks (Arkham, Kingsport, Innsmouth) which is very helpful. Steff Worthington has originated scenario maps and developed the one for Foxfield. The building maps for the first two scenarios are genius and there are helpfully bigger scale versions of the later maps in the handouts section.

There are six scenarios: two set in Kingsport, one taking investigators to Innsmouth, One set entirely in Arkham, one in Foxfield and one set generically in the backroads of Lovecraft country. Apart from Scott David Aniolowski, who contributed to Chaosium's early 1990s Lovecraft Country sourcebooks and collections, the scenario authors are a new generation of CoC authors. All the scenarios are easily read and understood. Worthwhile efforts have been made to copyedit and only the tiniest errors have crept through (e.g. "inflicted" instead of "infected" on page 10). I think most keepers would like to run three or four of these scenarios (which 3 or 4 will vary) and some promise to be highly memorable adventures.

The scenarios themselves might not all quite hit the highs of a couple in NTotMV but the quality of the package as a whole is much better.

For Trail of Cthulhu playing groups there are extensive conversion notes for all the scenarios. I'm not in a position to evaluate these, but I can note that, at 21 pages, they take up the space of an entire additional scenario for me the conversion notes' compiler, Christopher Smith Adair, would have been the man to write it. But this is a selfish complaint.

The book's opening and closing with pages offer a fictionalised introduction and conclusion about stalwart investigators battling on despite losing an inspirational colleague. Clearly this is a version of Tom Lynch and Osk Rios keeping the MRP show on the road after the loss of Keith Herber to whom the book is dedicated. With collections of this calibre, they are doing him proud.

Shades of Tomorrow Past by Scott David Aniolowski

Drawing on Clark Ashton Smith's Martian dreamlands tales, the scenario also references real world sleeping sickness epidemics of the period to provide a good hook and a plausible (in game context) link to Kingsport. The threat is Vulthoom's heavy metal pollen and the human villain is the plant expert advising the authorities on the outbreak. The villain and his staff are given convincing psychologies while the opposition muscle is the mysterious (Martian-in-disguise) thug Mr Black. To provide additional aid or hindrance there is the eastern cult of They Who Never Sleep dedicated to opposing Vulthoom's machinations.

There are three Dreamlands episodes in the scenario providing clues and prefiguring (suitably cloaked) the action. If loved ones become affected by the sleeping sickness there is a good hook for the investigators, but the scenario envisions investigators are affected by it and I see this as problematic, dividing the group into those who gain dream clues (but are virtually imprisoned by the authorities as disease carriers) and those who are allowed to act in the real world. This could be pretty frustrating but, helpfully, alternate ways of involving investigators are suggested.

The stakes are high in this scenario and investigators who become known to the authorities may soon burn all their bridges in Arkham Country. Of course, saving the world from Vulthoom ought to come first.

Ghosts of the Florentina by Bret Kramer

Also set in Kingsport, Ghosts of the Florentina is more directly Lovecraftian and much more low key. The investigators are offered lots of red herrings as the ghosts apparently haunt the eponymous Kingsport theatre are a fraud by the crooked developer, stalling for time as he hopes to find money to bail out his scheme. However, underneath the superficial manifestations are the genuine problem of an infestation of well-motivated rat things bound by a long dead sorcerer to defend his former lair. Nothing is black and white here and there are a variety of possible 'solutions', plenty of opportunities for scary underground encounters and surface role-playing. Extremely well supported with handouts and maps this scenario looks a treat.

The Crystal Cavern by Brian Courtemanche

Set in MRP's own (Lovecraft-inspired) Foxfield, investigators are drawn in by another developer (an honest one this time) finding his contractors' efforts to mine the mineral wealth of a cheaply acquired rural property thwarted by a mysterious beast. In fact the fox-like beast is not the real threat but guardian of wards trapping a Lesser Outer God and much the lesser of the two evils. Investigators will come up against variously motivated locals and other interlopers (a big game hunter reminiscent of a character in House of Leaves) providing a number of ways for the climax to be triggered. The (literally) underlying threat reminded me that the Serpent Mound of Ohio (apparently) sits on a geological cryptoexplosion: Foxfield has established itself at the site of an ancient conflict between Hyperboreans and Mi-Go and this may mean it gets wiped off the map, much to the investigators' (SAN) cost. As a pseudo-Dunwich, closer to Arkham, Foxfield can be disposed of with much less expense (in terms of scenarios that cannot be played in campaign continuity), but best to have played Keith Herber's Foxfield scenario from New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley before this one, just in case. Investigators can learn some valuable lessons here, but one of them might be that (in this scenario) they can't win.

Engine Trouble by Tom Lynch

This is both the shortest and the oddest scenario in the collection. It can be easily sprung on any group of investigators travelling through Arkham country at night as they encounter a truck crashed into a bridge, and so far, so good. Then we find out that the truck was carrying an Armageddon device, a massive automata constructed by a disgruntled Niccolo Da Vinci (Leonardo's elder brother!). While this might be intriguing, it doesn't really belong in Arkham country, and would be better as the germ of an Italian-set scenario. No (benign?) American professor is really going to be able to extract such a large artefact from a field in fascist Italy and spirit it to Massachusetts. Furthermore, Armageddon is a bit of a heavy consequence for something introduced casually, without build up, into a campaign.

Really, the scenario is an excuse to attack the investigators with the harrowers, a nasty flying monster, with some redneck supporting cast. Keepers will have to make sure the players win if they want the campaign narrative this is inserted in to carry on. They may also wish to consider one outcome that would be that the investigators now have custody of an Armageddon machineâ€¦

This scenario is not for me though elements of it (the-set-up, the backstory, the monsters) might come in handy elsewhere.

Spare the Rod by Adam Gauntlett

This is an Arkham-set scenario which uses its ghouls and witch spirit in residence, Goody Fowler, as counter-investigators, with their own evil agenda searching for the real villain. The 'new' villain is Samuel Seaton, a schoolmaster who was Fowler's dupe and accuser, back from the dead a second time after his warded corpse has been disturbed. Seaton is the monster teacher, an undead fiend whose serial-killing casts ghastly blight on Arkham.

The scenario has an episodic structure providing a number of scenes that are sure to chill.

In some ways the villain is a version of Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Kruger, shorn of his dream powers, in other ways the story is an extension of cautionary tales for children such as the original Struwwel-Peter, but the villain here is dysfunctional and confused and doesn't always target the 'right' children. Some groups will, reasonably, baulk at a game scenario where the horror involves the flaying, dismemberment and murder of schoolchildren.

Plot-wise there seems to be a flaw in that when the undead Seaton was first stopped by a group of parents they seem not to have foreseen his return, despite the temporary nature of their wards, and have provided no information of back-up plan for future generations. The solution the investigators have to discover is instead dependent on Seaton's connections to Fowler and their finding artefacts that belonged to her.

Overall, this is a creepy, even alarming, scenario which may not be to everyone's taste.

The Hopeful by Oscar Rios

This scenario, which leads investigators from Arkham to Innsmouth is probably a better introduction to that fishy place than The Crawford Inheritance, the introductory scenario offered in the Innsmouth sourcebook, Escape from Innsmouth. The Hopeful is on a par with Bless the Beasts and the Children in Adventures in Arkham Country and Freak Show in Tales of the Miskatonic Valley and, like them, tops everything in Chaosium's Before the Fall (though it has similarities with 'Mary', therein). Plausibly involving established mundane investigators (i.e. no specialism in 'the weird' required) it has Esther Marsh as the key villain, making her significance in the raid on Innsmouth slightly more plausible, and introduces a great crew of new supporting baddies. The use of period is excellent and metagaming is nicely circumvented. For me, this is the highlight of the collection.

SUMMARY: Of the scenarios, from the point of view of having only read the book, I count three strong ones, two that may or may not appeal to keepers depending on the nature of their version of Arkham country, and one that might work if you are stuck for a one-off. All are well presented, illustrated and fully supported with maps and handouts and this an impressive, good value collection.

More Adventures in Arkham Country

2019-11-15T14:02:37Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

Mysteries of Hungary

2019-11-15T13:57:17Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Mysteries-Of-Hungary.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0340

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 72

'''Cover Price:''' $14.00

'''Author(s):''' [[László Dózsa]]

'''Artist(s):'''

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' yes

==Contents==

An understanding of the thousand-year history of Hungary is vital for a good background. During the centuries, four nations have tried to rule the area now known as Hungary. German-Roman emperors brought the Hungarian crown into their treasury. In the eleventh century their attacks stopped, due to huge casualties. In 1241 the Tartars came and burned the land, after they crushed the Royal knights near Muhi. They too were eventually defeated. The Turks, and then the Austrian Habsburg family, came to dominate the country in the sixteenth century.

Finally a new state was formed by mutual accord. It would not stand long, for the Great War began in 1914.

MYSTERIES OF HUNGARY describes the land, the history, and the people of Hungary.

Chapters include:
* History and Legends,
* Economy and Standard of Living,
* Budapest,
* Lake Balaton and Region,
* Adventuring in Hungary,
* Mythos in Hungary,
* Professor of Nygotha, and
* Hungary in Other Eras.

This work was written by László Dózsa, resident of the region.

==Front Cover Text==
History, Legends and Background for
Adventuring in 1920s Hungary

==Comments / Trivia==
This monograph is has been '''roughly''' translated into English from Hungarian.

==Links==
There is an article/review for this monograph on the site, but the content is pasted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'.

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
Description of Contents
This monograph is a sourcebook for CoC adventuring in Hungary and includes the basics of an introductory 1920s scenario set there.

The material is neatly laid out, but is noticeably written by someone who does not use English as a first language. Illustrations are restricted to the chapter title pages. These look good and are atmospheric but on closer inspection there is at least one typo in every title page text paragraph. A map features in the imagery of the title page for Chapter 5, but not on a scale that is usable and there are no other maps.

Review of Content
Let me say up front that I'm interested in Eastern Europe as a setting for CoC and was certainly willing to give this monograph a try.

A lot of historical background is provided for the nation, the capital (Budapest) and a selected region around Lake Balaton. It may be an effect of my struggling with the use of English, but I didn't feel the history was particularly clear. The massive trauma of being on the losing side in the Great War and having your empire dismembered is skipped over rather than emphasised. This is partly due to the need to focus on Hungary of its present geographical boundaries (i.e. the ones we will find on the maps we will have to look up) rather than its various earlier manifestations. The focus on the regular CoC eras also produces gaps; we are given at least an idea of the present but the communist period from the end of World War Two to the beginning of the 1990s is nearly invisible.

The mythos is inserted into Hungary's historical and geographical background with the nation treated as a blank canvas. This ignores other game writings might have been used as reference points; Castle Dark in Day of the Beast is set in Transylvania which is, today, in Romania; and People of the Monolith a three-page scenario with an Hungarian setting based on a R.E. Howard short story and which appears in Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. An apparent lack of familiarity with game products is the beginning of some problems here. Algernon Blackwood's The Willows (HPL's favourite tale of cosmic horror) which is set in Hungary is also unreferenced.

The mythos presence includes Yithians in caves, Mi-Go mining remnants, sand dwellers and chapters of the Order of Dagon, which was founded in Hungary in 1397, apparently. You perhaps didn't know that there was a Kitab Al-Azif in multiple copies in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. I didn't find any of this very convincing. Worse still, I think, is the take on Attila. The following quotation will also illustrate the slightly awkward English:

"Attila is the chosen of Cthulhu, he is one of the Great Old One's main servants on Earth. [...] Attila was in main position in Cthulhu's plans, with his death, the plans about the Great Old One's return collapsed. In fact, that's why the cult of Cthulhu isn't very common in the present era."

Judge for yourself whether this thwarted schemer acting through human agents much resembles Lovecraft's version of the foundational figure of the mythos.

Insensitivity to the mythos is one thing. Insensitivity to real world groups is another. The writer treads carefully around Hungarian Anti-Semitism but blunders by making all Gypsy communities essentially consist of thieves led by magic users. I might be taking this too seriously, because this occurs in the chapter that features the sheer impossibility, on several levels, of there being four FBI agents based in 1920s Hungary.
The scenario 'Professor of Nygotha' is a strange, statistic-less affair about a sort of Hungarian ninja cult hunting down those who have inadvertently learned the spell Dismiss Nygotha in a university class. The climax separates the characters from the person they are protecting by the use of drug-soaked parquet [!] in a house they will investigate. They wake up in hospital after 'an unidentified woman has called the fireworks'. That's as much as you need to know.

To say a few more positive words, the writer likes magical artefacts and these are often interesting. The Appendix about spell duels is the most intriguing and unusual in the book.

Summary
What seems to have happened here is that the author has taken what he could from CoC and inserted it into Hungarian settings for his players. The surprising familiarity of the three 'Hungarian Investigators' listed on pages 44-5 with a virtual roll-call of mythos entities suggests a long running campaign. The information provided shows an emphasis on magic items and powerful magic users suggesting a campaign style of play somewhere between pulpy and powergaming. Eventually, CoC in its Hungarian guise eventually gets exported back to the centre, and this largely redundant monograph is the result.

I'm uncomfortable giving such a largely negative review and would like to say that, with a lot more work and proper editing, there could have been a perfectly decent job made of the subject. Whether there would be a demand to justify the extra work is another issue.

The monograph line is designed to accommodate offbeat projects and the repeated blurb points out that Chaosium don't do much with the content. Unfortunately, in this instance, there has been no quality control at all. If Chaosium aren't going to do quality control on monographs, we have to do it ourselves, on sites like this.

So I'm sorry to have to say that, for all practical purposes, this monograph isn't worth your money or time. It is badly written, doesn't contain the sort of material you would expect (like a map of the country or of the capital city) and what material there is flawed and unconvincing. Mysteries of Hungary simply isn't up to the standard of any of the other monographs I've seen.

Mysteries of Hungary

2019-11-15T13:53:19Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

Return of the Ripper (Monograph)

2019-11-15T13:50:39Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Return-Ripper.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0339

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 124

'''Cover Price:''' $21.00

'''Author(s):''' [[William A. Barton]]

'''Artist(s):'''

'''Setting(s):''' [[1890s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' yes

==Contents==

An 1890s Scenario for Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu by Gaslight

Return of the Ripper takes place in London, beginning in late summer to early autumn of 1893. It involves a new series of killings perpetrated by Jack the Ripper. The Ripper has returned to London to continue his bloody work after a five-year absence. Working in league with the Ripper are other occult horrors with which investigators must deal. At least one of these is far more formidable - and deadly - than the Ripper himself!

The scenario presents a series of clues, encounters, and locations that, explored to their fullest, lead Investigators to the identity - and terrible secrets - of Jack the Ripper. A number of peripheral dangers are encountered along the way that may either be dealt with during the course of the scenario or, in some cases, sidestepped to be handled at a later time - provided Investigators retain life and sanity enough to do so. A number of red herrings are also present, designed to mislead and confuse the investigators. Some of these might lead to entire side adventures of their own; others will simply throw investigators momentarily off the track of their quarry

'''Scenarios:''' [[Return of the Ripper (Scenario)]]

'''Additional:'''

==Front Cover Text==
An 1890s Scenario for Call of Cthulhu
and Cthulhu by Gaslight

==Comments / Trivia==
List dedication, color plates, rarity of the book, etc.

==Links==
There is an article/review on this monograph on the site, but the content is now pasted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
Description of Contents
A large scenario which also claims, in a sub-sub-title, to be a sourcebook for Victorian London's East End. As part of the investigation the monograph provides background on the original Ripper murders.

The monograph is professionally laid out and written. A few original character portraits are supplemented by a number of period images now in the public domain (like the cover). The Appendices contain detailed maps of London and Whitechapel.

Review of Scenario [SPOILERS]
In Appendix D: Designer's Notes, the author reveals that the material in this supplement was written for the original boxed set of Gaslight CoC but it grew too large and has since languished for twenty years despite a number of false starts in other directions. This explains the 'Old School' feel of the piece. The scenario style is exactly the same as Barton's The Yorkshire Horror. We are in good hands a writer who can deal with all eras (Barton's other CoC work includes The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn in The Cthulhu Casebook, The Killer Out of Space in Cthulhu Now).

The scenario, set in 1893, has the original perpetrator return to England and start killing East End prostitutes again. The scenario assumes the investigators to be detectives or journalists of one type or another, keen to investigate or to be hired to do so.

There is lot of investigating to do and Investigators will have their hands full. There is a full sub plot including a Madam in league with Ghouls and now an avatar of Y'golonac. Then we have the (distant) Tcho-tcho who created the Psychic Vampire responsible in post-colonial revenge, the giant Sumatran Rat (from the title of an untold Holmes Case) and the monster in the wax museum. Then there is a lively cast of supporting characters from Inspector Abberline (very non-Depp) to the 'Whitechapel Vigilance Committee'. The author's obsession with Sherlock Holmes is dealt with in a small aside (a page or so) though Holmes' 'hated rival of the southern shore', Cyrus Barker, is on hand to confound or assist the player characters.

The investigation is allowed to develop by player actions but with a large number of random (or Keeper choice) encounters available to provide clues and atmosphere along the way. Incautious investigators roaming the East End are likely to get mugged, rolled or infected at the very least. Those exploring the sewers (again numerous encounters provided) risk worse fates. It is instructive that the savvy Barker packs a LeMat pistol!
A key point that will sway some for or against is the way the scenario appropriates the real murders, a point which the Designer's Notes suggest, perhaps disingenuously, was a reason Chaosium didn't go with an edited version of the scenario. This takes us in to a debate often had on YSDC forums about the problems of explaining real world horror by means of the mythos in the game. My general preference would be to set up parallels to real life events as I find this works better than appropriating them directly as here. The shockingly brutal original murders, detailed for background investigation herein, don't actually get scarier for having being committed by a mythos being acting under the command of a Psychic Vampire.

Those, like me, troubled by the monograph's approach to the original case can easily find ways around it. For example, there would be a way to make the scenario's culprit not the original Ripper but a man warped by investigative knowledge of the crimes given supernatural means of recreating them. The differences between the first and second waves then become points of focus and it is the original investigators who need investigating!

Summary [spoilers]
There is enough material in this monograph for playing a Gaslight campaign without any other supplement than the rulebook [bRP that is; D20 stats are not included]. If your group will enjoy playing Gaslight as a gruesome romp there is considerable mileage here.

Overall, this Gaslight monograph is up to the standards of Chaosium's non-monograph releases and constitutes excellent value. As an introduction to Gaslight settings it is as good, if not better, than the same author's The Yorkshire Horror scenario.

Return of the Ripper (Monograph)

2019-11-15T13:48:08Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

Farewell, My Sanity

2019-11-15T13:44:21Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Farewell-My-Sanity.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0346

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 120

'''Cover Price:''' $20.00

'''Author(s):''' [[Aaron Vanek]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[David Milano]]; Layout concept and design by [[K. Hageleit]]

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

Adventures of the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency

Enter the noir world with two adventures set in and around Los Angeles during the early 1920’s. [[Under The Boardwalk]] concerns a teenage girl lost among the roller coasters and rum-runners in the amusement park city of Venice.

The second scenario, [[An Enchanted Evening]] explores a mysterious concert on the paradisiacal isle of Catalina off the shore of Southern California. Both investigations are based on historical facts and extensive research.

Farewell, My Sanity was designed around a specific cast of pre-generated characters: the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency, however, any characters from the 20's can be used.

This monograph is presented for use with the Basic Roleplaying System, but includes instruction for d20 Call of Cthulhu system as well.

'''Scenarios:''' [[Under The Boardwalk]], [[An Enchanted Evening]]

==Front Cover Text==
Two Los Angeles Adventures Involving
the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency

==Back Cover Text==
FAREWELL, MY SANITY

In the black and white world
within these pages are two noir-style
Call of Cthulhu adventures set in 1920's Los Angeles.
Written by Lovecraft filmmaker Aaron Vanek, these scenarios
star the Guzman-Willent detective agency struggling
against the ancient evil of the
Great Old Ones

==Comments / Trivia==
Unlike most MULA Monographs, this volume is lavishly illustrated with a professional-quality page layout. The monograph makes heavy use of
fonts and other materials produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

==Links==
There is a review under articles on the site, but the content is now posted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
Description of contents
This monograph offers two 1920s scenarios (with D20 support) set in Los Angeles. Both scenarios have detailed background for their specific settings (Venice, California and Catalina Island) allowing them to stand alone or work as supplements to the Secrets of Los Angeles book (which I have not seen).

The monograph is well-written and also well-designed, using italics, bold type and a different font to indicate different sorts of information. It is also full of illustrations (often period photos) and maps. There are 16 good quality single page handouts that could be pulled out of the book and used as is. The same applies to the distinctive character sheets for the agency characters of the subtitle.

Review of the Scenarios [SPOILERS]

Under The Boardwalk
An atmospheric evocation of the California seaside forms the setting for a case for the Guzman-Willent agency in 1920. A girl has disappeared, her desperate mother pleads for help. The clues should lead the detectives to investigate the building of Venice's new canals and to prevent the victim being used as a sacrifice to bring about a Mythos infestation. There is good potential for a disturbing encounter at the architect's office, for menace in the sewer tunnels of the new town, and for an exciting chase scene on the boardwalk. The climax, however, brings in the big guns. My feeling is that experienced CoC players might find the coastal setting a bit too much of a clue, but the scenario is up for messing with their expectations and challenging metagaming through its suggestive naming of the culprits. The climax, though not unlike part of the San Francisco section of the Day of the Beast campaign, potentially produces a scene more like the end of a Godzilla movie and may put any group of players on the back foot.

An Enchanted Evening
In this case, set in 1923, the agency is hired by a record company executive to record an innovative new band 'The Pharoah and his Nile Orchestra' who are soon to perform on the offshore Island of Catalina. A good premise and a top notch setting, which requires the investigators to work fast in order to know what they're dealing with and which gives a rich background the island and the journey there, possibly on Syd Chaplin's airline. A barmy bandleader with a line on the music of Erich Zann is the source of the danger, but the consequences of the players standing back, and not being swift-acting anti-mythos commandoes might be the arrival of a certain sphere-congerie GOO. Potentially another big ending.

Summing Up [More SPOILERS]
The writer is also a filmmaker and is keen to point out opportunities to use atmosphere and by directing sound effects throughout and providing regular passages to be read out by the GM. The plots are also somewhat cinematic, or, to put it another way, the feel of Farewell, My Sanity is somewhat pulpy (as its title suggests) and demands roleplaying to the hilt. Two scenarios leading to encounters with GOOs might be seen to be a little over the top, since there seems to be little middle ground between the ordinary openings of the cases and a sanity blasting conclusion (especially in the second scenario). In this respect the implied continuity with the same characters might seem like wishful thinking. These scenarios lack the subtlety of the same author's recent New England scenario in Worlds of Cthulhu #.5. On the other hand, as with most scenarios for CoC, the outcome is down to the character's investigative success opposed to the brinkmanship of the GM.

Overall, Farewell, My Sanity offers some entertaining possibilities, and may be an excellent place to begin a West Coast-based campaign that might draw on Secrets of Los Angeles, Secrets of San Francisco and even John Tynes' Dream Factory from Pagan Publishing's Mortal Coils.

Farewell, My Sanity

2019-11-15T13:43:01Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Farewell-My-Sanity.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0346

'''Publishing Year:''' 2007

'''Pages:''' 120

'''Cover Price:''' $20.00

'''Author(s):''' [[Aaron Vanek]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[David Milano]]; Layout concept and design by [[K. Hageleit]]

'''Setting(s):''' [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

Adventures of the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency

Enter the noir world with two adventures set in and around Los Angeles during the early 1920’s. [[Under The Boardwalk]] concerns a teenage girl lost among the roller coasters and rum-runners in the amusement park city of Venice.

The second scenario, [[An Enchanted Evening]] explores a mysterious concert on the paradisiacal isle of Catalina off the shore of Southern California. Both investigations are based on historical facts and extensive research.

Farewell, My Sanity was designed around a specific cast of pre-generated characters: the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency, however, any characters from the 20's can be used.

This monograph is presented for use with the Basic Roleplaying System, but includes instruction for d20 Call of Cthulhu system as well.

'''Scenarios:''' [[Under The Boardwalk]], [[An Enchanted Evening]]

==Front Cover Text==
Two Los Angeles Adventures Involving
the Guzman-Willent Detective Agency

==Back Cover Text==
FAREWELL, MY SANITY

In the black and white world
within these pages are two noir-style
Call of Cthulhu adventures set in 1920's Los Angeles.
Written by Lovecraft filmmaker Aaron Vanek, these scenarios
star the Guzman-Willent detective agency struggling
against the ancient evil of the
Great Old Ones

==Comments / Trivia==
Unlike most MULA Monographs, this volume is lavishly illustrated with a professional-quality page layout. The monograph makes heavy use of
fonts and other materials produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

==Links==

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
Description of contents
This monograph offers two 1920s scenarios (with D20 support) set in Los Angeles. Both scenarios have detailed background for their specific settings (Venice, California and Catalina Island) allowing them to stand alone or work as supplements to the Secrets of Los Angeles book (which I have not seen).

The monograph is well-written and also well-designed, using italics, bold type and a different font to indicate different sorts of information. It is also full of illustrations (often period photos) and maps. There are 16 good quality single page handouts that could be pulled out of the book and used as is. The same applies to the distinctive character sheets for the agency characters of the subtitle.

Review of the Scenarios [SPOILERS]

Under The Boardwalk
An atmospheric evocation of the California seaside forms the setting for a case for the Guzman-Willent agency in 1920. A girl has disappeared, her desperate mother pleads for help. The clues should lead the detectives to investigate the building of Venice's new canals and to prevent the victim being used as a sacrifice to bring about a Mythos infestation. There is good potential for a disturbing encounter at the architect's office, for menace in the sewer tunnels of the new town, and for an exciting chase scene on the boardwalk. The climax, however, brings in the big guns. My feeling is that experienced CoC players might find the coastal setting a bit too much of a clue, but the scenario is up for messing with their expectations and challenging metagaming through its suggestive naming of the culprits. The climax, though not unlike part of the San Francisco section of the Day of the Beast campaign, potentially produces a scene more like the end of a Godzilla movie and may put any group of players on the back foot.

An Enchanted Evening
In this case, set in 1923, the agency is hired by a record company executive to record an innovative new band 'The Pharoah and his Nile Orchestra' who are soon to perform on the offshore Island of Catalina. A good premise and a top notch setting, which requires the investigators to work fast in order to know what they're dealing with and which gives a rich background the island and the journey there, possibly on Syd Chaplin's airline. A barmy bandleader with a line on the music of Erich Zann is the source of the danger, but the consequences of the players standing back, and not being swift-acting anti-mythos commandoes might be the arrival of a certain sphere-congerie GOO. Potentially another big ending.

Summing Up [More SPOILERS]
The writer is also a filmmaker and is keen to point out opportunities to use atmosphere and by directing sound effects throughout and providing regular passages to be read out by the GM. The plots are also somewhat cinematic, or, to put it another way, the feel of Farewell, My Sanity is somewhat pulpy (as its title suggests) and demands roleplaying to the hilt. Two scenarios leading to encounters with GOOs might be seen to be a little over the top, since there seems to be little middle ground between the ordinary openings of the cases and a sanity blasting conclusion (especially in the second scenario). In this respect the implied continuity with the same characters might seem like wishful thinking. These scenarios lack the subtlety of the same author's recent New England scenario in Worlds of Cthulhu #.5. On the other hand, as with most scenarios for CoC, the outcome is down to the character's investigative success opposed to the brinkmanship of the GM.

Overall, Farewell, My Sanity offers some entertaining possibilities, and may be an excellent place to begin a West Coast-based campaign that might draw on Secrets of Los Angeles, Secrets of San Francisco and even John Tynes' Dream Factory from Pagan Publishing's Mortal Coils.

Gatsby and the Great Race (Scenario)

2019-11-15T13:40:35Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==

'''Pages:''' 120

'''Author(s):''' [[Paul Fricker]], [[Rik Kershaw-Moore]], [[Mike Mason]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Paul Fricker]]

'''Setting:''' [[1920s]]

'''Appears in:''' [[Gatsby and the Great Race (Monograph)]].

'''Campaign:'''

==Summary==
A Garden Party & The Running of the Great Race

You know Julian Gatsby. He recently inherited the family home following the sad demise of his father. Julian is a free-spirited young man, in his mid-20s, and a new fan of the horse races. You arrive for a fabulous garden party and are shown to your room. Other guests arrive shortly after. In a few hours you will gather in the garden for an enjoyable afternoon of food, drink, stimulating conversation, and the radio broadcast of the Great Race.

This scenario has the capacity for up to 32 people to be involved, playing in several overlapping games. On the surface this scenario is in the traditional Call of Cthulhu mold, based at a country house in the late 1920s. It can be run as a single game with one keeper and up to six players, in the usual manner, but what sets it apart is that it is designed to be run as two or more parallel games. To date it has been run successfully with four simultaneous games, using a total of seven keepers and twenty-four players. Whichever option you go for, the basic game concept remains the same: Julian Gatsby has meddled in matters that he should not have, leaving the players and himself to experience strange and mysterious events -- until the players find a solution.

==Links==
There is an article review for this Monograph on the site

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


===Synopsis===
Gatsby and the Great Race is a unique Call of Cthulhu scenario, not because of its plot but because of the format of the adventure and the opportunities for running multiple concurrent versions of the game.

The plot is straightforward: Julian Gatsby is a 1920s playboy descended from a wealthy family but which has fallen on hard financial times. Rummaging through some old things his grandfather brought back from travels around the world decades ago, Gatsby discovers a ritual that promises the ability to jump backwards in time. The spell sends the caster back only about an hour, and from there they must relive the hour they have skipped backwards across. With the knowledge of this ability, Gatsby conceives a plan to make his riches by waiting until a horse race occurs in which a total outsider wins, jumping backwards and placing a large bet on the horse in question.

On the same day as the particular race which turns out to present the best opportunity for such gain, Gatsby happens to be hosting a garden party at which all the characters are guests. After listening to the race, Gatsby excuses himself and disappears to cast the ritual. Which is when things begin to go wrong. By accident, during the ritual the ceramic disc which forms its focus gets knocked over and breaks into several parts. This causes an odd thing to occur -- rather than simply transporting Gatsby, the ritual places the entire house into a time loop in which everyone endlessly relives the same hour. Furthermore, the mystical forces of the ritual cause the fragments of the disc to be strewn across several different parallel realities.

The task of the characters is to figure out some way to escape the loop.

As written, the game offers the unusual opportunity of running up to four concurrent versions of the same scenario, with each group of players living out one of the parallel realities into which a disc fragment has been sent. The different groups play in different (but nearby) rooms with different Keepers. The characters in each game are similar but different: some have the same name, others have slightly different names. The relationships between the characters also differs. The layout and decor of Gatsby's house is also different in each version of the game.

Initially the parallel games run entirely independently, but later events cause players to end up skipping from one game to another. The primary mechanism by which this happens is possession. In addition to the various versions of reality which are being played, there are other splintered versions of reality in which the characters have figured out more of what is occurring, and also how to hold a seance to "summon up" the personality of a character from a different reality. When this happens, the player whose character has been contacted is removed from the game in which they are playing, blindfolded and taken to yet another room where a different keeper runs a short solo exchange between the character and the group holding the seance. After this possession has been played out, the player re-enters one of the games, but not the one they were originally part of.

As well as offering this parallel mode of presentation, there is also a way to run it with a single group.

===References===
'''Player Handouts:''' Card describing effects of Amnesia, Letter to Gatsby from his grandfather

'''Locations:''' The house of Julian Gatsby can be located in either England or America.

'''Creatures:''' The disc used in Gatsby's time travel ritual is somehow associated with [[Yog-Sothoth]].

'''Tomes and Artifacts:''' Gatsby's Time-Jump Disc.

'''Campaigns / Scenarios:'''

===Comments===
The book title is a little deceptive -- The Great Race it refers to isn't the Mythos race of that name but rather the horse race that Gatsby plans to bet on to win his fortune.

Included are three floorplans for different versions of Gatsby's house as well as pre-generated characters for three different parallel versions of the game (with eight characters per game). The scenario requires these characters be used.

===Keeper Comments===
Running the parallel concurrent version of the scenario obviously requires a lot of careful planning, however the book contains detailed instructions, obviously honed by several convention runs of the adventure.
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:1920s scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Estate scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Guest scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Seance scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Trapped and stranded scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Time-travel scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios suitable for very large groups]]
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios referencing Yog-Sothoth]]
[[Category:CoC:Party, gathering and celebration scenarios]]
__NOTOC__

Gatsby and the Great Race (Scenario)

2019-11-15T13:40:19Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==

'''Pages:''' 120

'''Author(s):''' [[Paul Fricker]], [[Rik Kershaw-Moore]], [[Mike Mason]]

'''Artist(s):''' [[Paul Fricker]]

'''Setting:''' [[1920s]]

'''Appears in:''' [[Gatsby and the Great Race (Monograph)]].

'''Campaign:'''

==Summary==
A Garden Party & The Running of the Great Race

You know Julian Gatsby. He recently inherited the family home following the sad demise of his father. Julian is a free-spirited young man, in his mid-20s, and a new fan of the horse races. You arrive for a fabulous garden party and are shown to your room. Other guests arrive shortly after. In a few hours you will gather in the garden for an enjoyable afternoon of food, drink, stimulating conversation, and the radio broadcast of the Great Race.

This scenario has the capacity for up to 32 people to be involved, playing in several overlapping games. On the surface this scenario is in the traditional Call of Cthulhu mold, based at a country house in the late 1920s. It can be run as a single game with one keeper and up to six players, in the usual manner, but what sets it apart is that it is designed to be run as two or more parallel games. To date it has been run successfully with four simultaneous games, using a total of seven keepers and twenty-four players. Whichever option you go for, the basic game concept remains the same: Julian Gatsby has meddled in matters that he should not have, leaving the players and himself to experience strange and mysterious events -- until the players find a solution.

==Links==
There is an article review for this Monograph

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


===Synopsis===
Gatsby and the Great Race is a unique Call of Cthulhu scenario, not because of its plot but because of the format of the adventure and the opportunities for running multiple concurrent versions of the game.

The plot is straightforward: Julian Gatsby is a 1920s playboy descended from a wealthy family but which has fallen on hard financial times. Rummaging through some old things his grandfather brought back from travels around the world decades ago, Gatsby discovers a ritual that promises the ability to jump backwards in time. The spell sends the caster back only about an hour, and from there they must relive the hour they have skipped backwards across. With the knowledge of this ability, Gatsby conceives a plan to make his riches by waiting until a horse race occurs in which a total outsider wins, jumping backwards and placing a large bet on the horse in question.

On the same day as the particular race which turns out to present the best opportunity for such gain, Gatsby happens to be hosting a garden party at which all the characters are guests. After listening to the race, Gatsby excuses himself and disappears to cast the ritual. Which is when things begin to go wrong. By accident, during the ritual the ceramic disc which forms its focus gets knocked over and breaks into several parts. This causes an odd thing to occur -- rather than simply transporting Gatsby, the ritual places the entire house into a time loop in which everyone endlessly relives the same hour. Furthermore, the mystical forces of the ritual cause the fragments of the disc to be strewn across several different parallel realities.

The task of the characters is to figure out some way to escape the loop.

As written, the game offers the unusual opportunity of running up to four concurrent versions of the same scenario, with each group of players living out one of the parallel realities into which a disc fragment has been sent. The different groups play in different (but nearby) rooms with different Keepers. The characters in each game are similar but different: some have the same name, others have slightly different names. The relationships between the characters also differs. The layout and decor of Gatsby's house is also different in each version of the game.

Initially the parallel games run entirely independently, but later events cause players to end up skipping from one game to another. The primary mechanism by which this happens is possession. In addition to the various versions of reality which are being played, there are other splintered versions of reality in which the characters have figured out more of what is occurring, and also how to hold a seance to "summon up" the personality of a character from a different reality. When this happens, the player whose character has been contacted is removed from the game in which they are playing, blindfolded and taken to yet another room where a different keeper runs a short solo exchange between the character and the group holding the seance. After this possession has been played out, the player re-enters one of the games, but not the one they were originally part of.

As well as offering this parallel mode of presentation, there is also a way to run it with a single group.

===References===
'''Player Handouts:''' Card describing effects of Amnesia, Letter to Gatsby from his grandfather

'''Locations:''' The house of Julian Gatsby can be located in either England or America.

'''Creatures:''' The disc used in Gatsby's time travel ritual is somehow associated with [[Yog-Sothoth]].

'''Tomes and Artifacts:''' Gatsby's Time-Jump Disc.

'''Campaigns / Scenarios:'''

===Comments===
The book title is a little deceptive -- The Great Race it refers to isn't the Mythos race of that name but rather the horse race that Gatsby plans to bet on to win his fortune.

Included are three floorplans for different versions of Gatsby's house as well as pre-generated characters for three different parallel versions of the game (with eight characters per game). The scenario requires these characters be used.

===Keeper Comments===
Running the parallel concurrent version of the scenario obviously requires a lot of careful planning, however the book contains detailed instructions, obviously honed by several convention runs of the adventure.
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:1920s scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Estate scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Guest scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Seance scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Trapped and stranded scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Time-travel scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios suitable for very large groups]]
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios referencing Yog-Sothoth]]
[[Category:CoC:Party, gathering and celebration scenarios]]
__NOTOC__

Machine Tractor Station Kharkov-37

2019-11-15T13:36:00Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Machine-Tractor-Station.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0310

'''Publishing Year:''' 2004 (minor revision 2007; corrected and expanded through the addition
of character sheets for the major characters of the adventure)

'''Pages:''' 113

'''Cover Price:''' $20.00

'''Author:''' [[Bret Kramer]]

'''Artists:''' [[Mithras]], with cartoon containing elements from [[Goomi]]

'''Setting:''' 1930s (U.S.S.R.). Mentions [[Delta Green]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

A Scenario Set in Stalin's U.S.S.R.

Life for the average soldier in the Red Army is never easy, but it is a better life than for most Russians in the late-winter of 1933. You have a bed, steady rations, and place of security in a dangerous time. There are duties to perform, yes, and sometimes they are hazardous. They are the price you pay for what you have.

But now there are new orders — to repair the telegraph lines at a distant outpost. It seems like a simple task, but you have doubts. Why not wait until the roads have cleared? Why send the Army to do what prisoners should do, even if at gunpoint? Why haven’t our comrades at the station repaired the line themselves? Why are the Telegraph Agency men wearing pistols?

There are horrors enough in the Worker’s Paradise. The new collective farms have failed to provide as was promised, and famine stalks the land. A knock at the door might mean death in the gulag. In distant Moscow there are rumors of a coming purge of enemies, both real and imagined.

And yet . . . there are worse things to be found at Machine Tractor Station Kharkov-37.

Machine Tractor Station Kharkov-37 is a Call of Cthulhu scenario set in the 1930s era Soviet Union. It comes with six pre-generated characters and extensive handouts. It is intended for, at most, a few sessions of play.

==Front Cover Text==
A CTHULHU SCENARIO SET IN STALIN'S USSR

==Comments / Trivia==
The 2007 revision contains several changes:
-Glossy cover
-Removal of a number of typos and text errors
-Improved character sheets, created by [http://www.mad-irishman.net/index.html Patrick Murphy]

Dedications: "For my father and his copy of Grof Conklin's ''Omnibus of Science Fiction''.

==Links==
Th first of these does not work, but the material is posted below under 'Keeper's Eyes Only'
* [http://www.yog-sothoth.com/articles.html/_/main/reviews/machine-tractor-station-kharkov-37-mula-r1695/ Review on Yog-Sothoth.com]
* [http://ideologyofmadness.spookyouthouse.com/drivethru-rpg-reviews-machine-tractor-station-kharkov-37-a-perfect-adventure/ Review by James on Ideology of Madness]
* [http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login/article.cgi?5301/ Review by Matthew Pook in Pyramid] (Subscription to [[Pyramid Online]] required.)
* [http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=226774/ Run-through by Kinnygraham]

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
Review of Contents
This monograph does what it says on the tin; it gives us an unusual one-off scenario set in Soviet Russia in 1933. Pregenerated characters are provided with character sheets and detailed backgrounds.

The writing is sound and the material is well organised. The scenario is adorned throughout by flavourful imagery – Social Realist propaganda art and archive photos – as well as maps, handouts and illustrations generated for the project.

Review of the Scenario [SPOILERS]
The characters are investigating the disappearance of an earlier mission to the remote agricultural station of the title under the cover of being communications men. This being Stalin's Russia nothing is as it seems with there being layers of secrecy to this mission (some characters are undercover), to the one they are investigating, and, of course, to the horrific mythos visitation in the area that has interested the state in it in the first place. What the investigators will find is bleak, disturbing, gruesome and likely to be fatal.

The scenario, playtested at least thrice, is well worked out. It uses an hierarchical beaucratic/military structure but allows it to play out in a way that doesn't result in the PCs ordering minions to do all the work. All the evidence is still there for the players to piece together what has gone wrong and how the first state intervention exacerbated the disaster. There is every opportunity for challengingly paranoid role-playing as the unearthly nature of the real threat becomes apparent.

The author has done his homework in every aspect of the scenario from the historical setting to checking all game connections and redeveloping the monster in line with the original Lovecraft story (The Colour Out of Space) in order to make it work more efficiently for the purposes of the scenario.

Perhaps a little more information or suggestions about running this setting would have been advantageous. Calling each other 'Comrade' constantly, as one YSDC poster suggested, would be a good start, but then the monograph never claims to be a sourcebook on Stalin's Russia. We are given what we need, with plenty of handouts indicating how this fragment of Stalin's Russia was meant to work.

Although this is quite an early entry in the monograph line, I have a recent copy with a glossy two-colour cover that looks good but which would look better if the cover image was sharper. Some of the handouts are a little blurred, too, though everything functions. The illustrations made for the book are IMHO substandard except for the adapted illustration on page 99 of Lenin sweeping the globe of Goomi GOOs which is hilarious. This is carping criticism because the standard of art I'm judging against is that of non-monograph publications. The majority of images are fine and the reproduction quality issues were probably caused by teething troubles in the monograph process. That these problems are still around is at least a lesson for monograph writers and designers that they will have to live with what emerges.

Summary [More Spoilers]
This book has been reprinted numerous times (that is, it's well on its way to selling 200 copies rather than it hitting that target several times) and its sales, all to Keepers one imagines, are predicated on good word of mouth. This is deserved.

This monograph provides a great one-off scenario that will stick in the mind enough to make the Keeper consider the possibilities of a campaign in this setting. The feel of the piece is not unlike Delta Green set in the 1930s. The expressed intent, to create a scenario that is no more than survivable, does indeed follow the spirit of Lovecraft's inspirational tale and, through taking us into a society that is almost as inscrutable and deadly as the mythos, perhaps exceeds that spirit in that there is no homely New England to retreat to.

Machine Tractor Station Kharkov-37

2019-11-15T13:34:12Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

Parapsychologist's Handbook

2019-11-15T13:31:19Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-Parapsychologists-Handbook.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0302 (was originally released under product code 85)

'''Publishing Year:''' 2003

'''Pages:''' 112

'''Cover Price:''' $19.00

'''Author(s):''' [[Chris Jerome]]

'''Artist(s):''' Cover by [[Meghan McLean]]; Illustrations by [[Simon Monk]], Jessica Billman.

'''Setting(s):''' [[1890s]], [[1920s]]

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

This monograph reveals the real-world science of the paranormal, Parapsychology (its history and methods), how to play a parapsychologist, how to run a Call of Cthulhu campaign centered around a ghost-hunting group, and how to simulate various non-Mythos entities and psychic powers in your campaign.

'''Parapsychology Exploring New Prontiers of Science'''

* Parapsychology
* Parapsychology in the Laboratory
* Generating a Parapsychologist Character

'''Phenomena'''

* Paradigms—Theories of the Unexplained
* Ghosts and Hauntings
* Investigating Poltergeists
* Spiritualism and Mediumship
* Psychical Research

'''Secrets Mankind Was Not Meant to Know'''

* Running a Parapsychological Campaign
* Ghosts: a Keeper's Guide
* The Poltergeist Scenario
* Mediumship Explored
* Psychics
* Cthulhu Rising: Cthulhu and the Psychic

'''Appendix A: Sinister Seeds'''

'''Appendix B: New D20 Cthulhu Psychic Feats'''

'''Appendix C: Parapsychological Literature, 1882–1930'''

==Front Cover Text==
A New Occupation For
Call Of Cthulhu

==Comments / Trivia==
List dedication, color plates, rarity of the book, etc.

==Links==

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
Review of Content
A sourcebook for all eras (though focusing on the historical ones) providing background and game information for creating parapsychologist characters, scenarios and campaigns (with D20 stats in bold).

The monograph is competently presented (2 columns ranged right) for the most part, but is only sparingly illustrated (usually on quite a small scale). The writing style is functional though there irritations in terms of incorrect punctuation and typos. This was the first monograph I acquired and the drop in quality from the appearance of Chaosium's CoC books was very noticeable at the time.*

Review of Content
There is a lot of information presented here, all of which is pertinent to creating parapsychologist characters, making them effective, rational scientists and illustrating the sort of phenomena they are customarily interested in. The intellectual paradigms are laid out clearly and the author knows his material, essentially the history of parapsychology, throroughly (as far as a layman can tell). Spiritualism, mediumship, psychics, ghost and poltergeist phenomena are all covered. There are timelines listing famous cases and fascinating descriptions of historical personalities from the world of psychic research. The Society of Psychic Research is shown to be a key institution and cultural impact of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century 'boom' in interest in the area is brought home to the reader. This isnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t developed to the same degree for the present, which is a shame but is understandable from the point of view of potential litigation and/or the requirements of someone actually involved in the field.

The parapsychological material is tied to the mythos in a number of ways; from quotations from Lovecraft's The Lurking Fear to references and tie-ins to well-known Chaosium scenarios and campaigns. These links are occasionally a little tenuous and there are moments of uncertainty about how the handbook is to be used (sections for Keepers and players) but such hesitancies are to be expected in what was only the second monograph produced.

Conclusion
The material is intrinsically intriguing and suggestive. The monograph doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t actually demonstrate how a shift of focus to the parapsychological would play out by providing scenario or campaign beyond a two-page appendix of sinister seeds (and hooks sprinkled throughout). I'm sure some readers would say that they like their sourcebooks to be sourcebooks and their scenario books to be scenario books, but in this instance I feel it is a flaw. They lack of additional monographs offering parapsychological scenarios or campaigns of this type might be telling us something.

This monograph is probably the bestseller of the line, according to Chaosium site stats, but I canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t help feeling (uncharitably) that it may often be sold to non-gamers hooked on Most Haunted and shows of that ilk. I think those purchasers get their moneyÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s worth, too, in the 'Selecting Equipment', 'How to' and recurrent phenomena sections and with the history of the field included here. As a gamer, I've got less out of it. This monograph offers essential material for parapsychologist characters and scenarios but the package doesn't ultimately offer enough to make me consider it more than a well-developed background for an occupation or, if you like, character class. I'm not convinced that a parapsychological campaign wouldn't be 'CoC lite'. After all, the scenario that introduces many of us to the game, The Haunted House in the rulebook, comes on like a spirit manifestation but soon gets much, much deadlier.

Overall, I feel the monograph has been the best format for this addition to the game in that, while it offers a lot of supplementary background, it is very far from the core of the game. If, however, you are at all interested in developing a parapsychological angle to your games this is the one-stop shop.

* My copy is an early one with a card cover, white back cover and taped binding. I believe current printings will have the slicker glossy cover. There will have undoubtedly been opportunities to correct the typos and layout errors, but I don't know whether this has been done.

Parapsychologist's Handbook

2019-11-15T13:29:52Z

Malcojones: /* Details */

The Beloved Dead

2019-11-15T13:25:30Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==

'''Pages:''' 14

'''Author(s):''' [[Sara Newton]]

'''Artist(s):''' (artist uncredited, possibly [[Marco Caradonna]], artist for [[The Chronicles of Future Earth|Chronicles...]]?)

'''Setting:''' [[The Chronicles of Future Earth|Far Future]] [[Urth]], [[Halloween|Belomas]]

'''Appears in:''' [[Bride of Halloween Horror]]

'''Campaign:''' [[The Chronicles of Future Earth]]

==Summary==
This year the tiny fishing village of Mormouth sits uneasy at [[Halloween|Belomas]], the Festival of the Dead, the quiet good cheer of previous years replaced by fear of strangers and the dark. Since the start of the Festival three villagers have died in horrible circumstances, their bodies found in the early morning drenched in water and lakeweed, their lungs filled with water, a look of stark terror on their faces. It is a terrible omen, and no one knows what to do. Desperate, the village council has sent to the city of [[Urth|Korudav]], a day’s ride hence, for help. The PCs - either sent by their superiors or simply traveling through - arrive in the village the day after the third body has been found.

==Links==
Link to outside reviews or helpful pages.

The link below doesn't work, but the review is now included in the 'Keeper's Eyes Only' section of the Wiki page on the Monograph itself.
*[http://www.yog-sothoth.com/articles.html/_/main/reviews/bride-of-halloween-horror-nine-dread-encounter-r1860 Review from YSDC by malcojones]

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


===Synopsis===
{{spoiler|
The Beloved Dead is a love story a century old, now approaching its conclusion. Whether it ends peacefully, or in tragedy, is in the hands of the PCs. Several weeks ago the ruler of Mormouth mounted an expedition to the nearby island of Starrit Cay, in search of an ancient shipwreck and the key to a long-unsolved matter of family honor. He found the shipwreck, but in doing so unearthed long-buried remnants of an undead legion. Several of the expedition members were slain by the undead, and the ruler possessed by a malevolent spirit, before the expedition could escape back to the mainland. Since then, the spirit possessing the Chelarch (baron) has taken control of his body by night to roam the village, searching for the possessing spirit's life-long love, and those who encounter this restless soul are found dead in the morning. In the course of this adventure the PCs piece together clues to understanding this mystery, and in so doing bring this century-old tragedy to its fateful conclusion.
}}

===References===
'''Player Handouts:'''
* Map of the Mormouth and Environs
* Map of the Village of Mormouth
* Map of the Chelarch's Manse
* Map of the Island of Starrit Cay
* Assorted Rumors and Legends (not presented as hand-outs, but could probably be printed/copied and cut up for use as hand-outs, with some occasional minor modification)

'''Locations:''' [[Urth]] in/around the village of Mormouth and the island of Starrit Cay, in a far-future setting

'''Creatures:'''
* The Restless Soul of Fymor (a sort of wraith or ghost which has possessed the Baron (Chelarch))
* [[Ghost]] of Elessa (friendly)
* [[Lich]]-Lord Verabilis
* [[Ghost]]s (the Dispossessed)
* Mud [[Zombie]]s
* Sand Wraiths

'''Tomes and Artifacts:''' (none?)

'''Campaigns / Scenarios:''' [[The Chronicles of Future Earth]]

===Comments===
"Tie a ribbon to the door / And light a candle in the glass / For all the dead that died before / Are coming home this [[Halloween|Belomas]]" - Children's rhyme, [[Urth|Korudav Province]]

===Keeper Comments===
Comments to Keepers about this scenario;
Possibly how to run it successfully.
Keep general DISCUSSION on the talk page.

As written, "The Beloved Dead" takes place in the [[The Chronicles of Future Earth]] Chaosium campaign setting, on the world of [[Urth]]: the fantastic, far future of our planet Earth, a world of ancient civilizations, weird sorceries, and half-forgotten technologies. At the same time, the events of The Beloved Dead are sufficiently setting-neutral that GMs can easily transpose them to other campaign settings (the Short Glossary at the end of this adventure explains any terms particular to the Chronicles setting.) The [[Dreamlands]] seems a natural alternative, though the plot could fit just as well in [[Dark Ages]], [[Invictus]], or even more traditional Call of Cthulhu settings.

The scenario is rather light on Mythos Elements, beyond an offhand reference to the default setting's version of Deep Ones; it's primarily a Gothic mystery involving ghosts and possibly some undead, and could theoretically be reset to any BRP-based setting with supernatural elements.

Dependence on Halloween: None, really, beyond an off-hand reference to the events occurring on the setting's loose equivalent, [[Halloween|Belomas]], the Festival of the Dead. There's really no reason this festival couldn't be written out of the adventure if the group has no Halloween "buy-in", but really no point in taking the trouble (due to the exotic setting, this may be the least challenging thing a keeper might want to do to adapt the setting for the keeper's audience).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beloved Dead, the}}
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Halloween_scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Far_future_scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Undead_scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Ghost_scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Gothic scenarios]]
__NOTOC__

The Beloved Dead

2019-11-15T13:24:54Z

Malcojones: /* Links */

==Details==

'''Pages:''' 14

'''Author(s):''' [[Sara Newton]]

'''Artist(s):''' (artist uncredited, possibly [[Marco Caradonna]], artist for [[The Chronicles of Future Earth|Chronicles...]]?)

'''Setting:''' [[The Chronicles of Future Earth|Far Future]] [[Urth]], [[Halloween|Belomas]]

'''Appears in:''' [[Bride of Halloween Horror]]

'''Campaign:''' [[The Chronicles of Future Earth]]

==Summary==
This year the tiny fishing village of Mormouth sits uneasy at [[Halloween|Belomas]], the Festival of the Dead, the quiet good cheer of previous years replaced by fear of strangers and the dark. Since the start of the Festival three villagers have died in horrible circumstances, their bodies found in the early morning drenched in water and lakeweed, their lungs filled with water, a look of stark terror on their faces. It is a terrible omen, and no one knows what to do. Desperate, the village council has sent to the city of [[Urth|Korudav]], a day’s ride hence, for help. The PCs - either sent by their superiors or simply traveling through - arrive in the village the day after the third body has been found.

==Links==
Link to outside reviews or helpful pages.

The link below doesn't work, but the review is now included in the 'For the Keeper' section of the Wiki page on the Monograph itself.
*[http://www.yog-sothoth.com/articles.html/_/main/reviews/bride-of-halloween-horror-nine-dread-encounter-r1860 Review from YSDC by malcojones]

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


===Synopsis===
{{spoiler|
The Beloved Dead is a love story a century old, now approaching its conclusion. Whether it ends peacefully, or in tragedy, is in the hands of the PCs. Several weeks ago the ruler of Mormouth mounted an expedition to the nearby island of Starrit Cay, in search of an ancient shipwreck and the key to a long-unsolved matter of family honor. He found the shipwreck, but in doing so unearthed long-buried remnants of an undead legion. Several of the expedition members were slain by the undead, and the ruler possessed by a malevolent spirit, before the expedition could escape back to the mainland. Since then, the spirit possessing the Chelarch (baron) has taken control of his body by night to roam the village, searching for the possessing spirit's life-long love, and those who encounter this restless soul are found dead in the morning. In the course of this adventure the PCs piece together clues to understanding this mystery, and in so doing bring this century-old tragedy to its fateful conclusion.
}}

===References===
'''Player Handouts:'''
* Map of the Mormouth and Environs
* Map of the Village of Mormouth
* Map of the Chelarch's Manse
* Map of the Island of Starrit Cay
* Assorted Rumors and Legends (not presented as hand-outs, but could probably be printed/copied and cut up for use as hand-outs, with some occasional minor modification)

'''Locations:''' [[Urth]] in/around the village of Mormouth and the island of Starrit Cay, in a far-future setting

'''Creatures:'''
* The Restless Soul of Fymor (a sort of wraith or ghost which has possessed the Baron (Chelarch))
* [[Ghost]] of Elessa (friendly)
* [[Lich]]-Lord Verabilis
* [[Ghost]]s (the Dispossessed)
* Mud [[Zombie]]s
* Sand Wraiths

'''Tomes and Artifacts:''' (none?)

'''Campaigns / Scenarios:''' [[The Chronicles of Future Earth]]

===Comments===
"Tie a ribbon to the door / And light a candle in the glass / For all the dead that died before / Are coming home this [[Halloween|Belomas]]" - Children's rhyme, [[Urth|Korudav Province]]

===Keeper Comments===
Comments to Keepers about this scenario;
Possibly how to run it successfully.
Keep general DISCUSSION on the talk page.

As written, "The Beloved Dead" takes place in the [[The Chronicles of Future Earth]] Chaosium campaign setting, on the world of [[Urth]]: the fantastic, far future of our planet Earth, a world of ancient civilizations, weird sorceries, and half-forgotten technologies. At the same time, the events of The Beloved Dead are sufficiently setting-neutral that GMs can easily transpose them to other campaign settings (the Short Glossary at the end of this adventure explains any terms particular to the Chronicles setting.) The [[Dreamlands]] seems a natural alternative, though the plot could fit just as well in [[Dark Ages]], [[Invictus]], or even more traditional Call of Cthulhu settings.

The scenario is rather light on Mythos Elements, beyond an offhand reference to the default setting's version of Deep Ones; it's primarily a Gothic mystery involving ghosts and possibly some undead, and could theoretically be reset to any BRP-based setting with supernatural elements.

Dependence on Halloween: None, really, beyond an off-hand reference to the events occurring on the setting's loose equivalent, [[Halloween|Belomas]], the Festival of the Dead. There's really no reason this festival couldn't be written out of the adventure if the group has no Halloween "buy-in", but really no point in taking the trouble (due to the exotic setting, this may be the least challenging thing a keeper might want to do to adapt the setting for the keeper's audience).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beloved Dead, the}}
[[Category:CoC:Scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Halloween_scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Far_future_scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Undead_scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Ghost_scenarios]]
[[Category:CoC:Gothic scenarios]]
__NOTOC__

Bride of Halloween Horror

2019-11-15T13:21:41Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:MULA-The-Bride-Of-Halloween-Horror.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' CHA0364

'''Publishing Year:''' 2008

'''Pages:''' 112

'''Cover Price:''' $18.95

'''Author(s):''' [Sarah Newton]], [[Ed McGlinn]], [[Harris Burkhalter]], [[John W. Thompson]], [[John D. Kennedy]], [[Oscar Rios]], [[Simon Yee]], [[Nick Davison]], [[Garnett Elliot]]

'''Artist(s):'''

'''Setting(s):''' [[Ancient Rome]], [[Dark Ages]], [[1920s]], [[Modern]], Future

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

'''Released as PDF:''' Yes

==Contents==

Autumn — the time of the Festival of the Dead, when the veil between the worlds is thinnest and prayers to ancestors easiest made. Pumpkin cakes are left in the Ancestors’ Niche in every house, and children tie black and orange ribbons to the doors and put candles in the windows of their houses so their dead ancestors can easily find their way home.

It is a quiet time, after the harvest and before the first snows of winter arrive. It can be a lonely time.

This Halloween adventure monograph is here just in time for your traditional Halloween Call of Cthulhu or Basic Roleplaying game! Here are nine numbing Halloween-themed adventures — winners and honorable mentions of the 2008 Chaosium.com Halloween Adventure Contest.

[[The Beloved Dead]] by Sarah Newton. This year the tiny fishing village of Mormouth sits uneasy at Belomas, the quiet good cheer of previous years replaced by fear of strangers and the dark. Since the start of the Festival three villagers have died in horrible circumstances, their bodies found in the early morning drenched in water and lakeweed, their lungs filled with water, a look of stark terror on their faces.

[[Cain's Clan]] by Ed McGlinn. Three years ago, something terrible happened. On Halloween night, Margot Alfredsen was brutally murdered. No killer was caught, and it was hoped that he had moved on. On Halloween night two years ago Bob and Janet Cawley were killed in the same fashion. But still there were no clues and no leads. Just last Halloween, Danica Andersen and Officer Lars Skoller were murdered, again in the same brutal fashion. Again, no killer was caught. Halloween is again approaching, and fear is gnawing at the pit of the stomachs of the good people of Jakob’s Bluff.

[[A Chill Down Your Spine]] by Harris Burkhalter. Members of the Anoka County Historical Society are approached by a confused teen asking about the history of the area — he thinks he is seeing ghosts. His later disappearance and strange investigation leads to the dream work of Dr. Kline and his sole surviving patient. A clue lies on the grounds of a historic sanitarium, where a corn maze has been constructed. As snow begins to blow in the icy breeze, dream begins to merge with reality.

[[The Dragon and the Wolf]] by John W. Thompson. A cool autumn wind shakes leaves from the trees as you enter the village of Wroxeter. It is said that this was once one of the largest Roman cities in Britain. Now, fragments of a great wall and some crumbling foundations are all that remains. Interspersed within and around these shadows of yesterday’s greatness is a humble village of just a dozen or so families. They watch you cautiously as you approach, men, women and even children with a bow or knife at hand, ready to fight. These villagers are hard, strong folk of Saxon heritage. These are the ones who stayed after the more fearful have fled to Shrewsbury. Yet, even in their eyes, you can see the hint of fear. This Black Wolf must be a fierce beast indeed to trouble these folk.

[[Earth: Rest Stop, Body Shop]] by John D. Kennedy. Man has sought for centuries to determine it’s own worth. Philosophers and priests have spent countless hours arguing about man’s spiritual worth, or the worth of its deeds. The one question that few have touched upon however, is what is man’s worth—as resources. In the more remote places in the galaxy, there exists a predator which exists to use its prey to its fullest.

[[Longa Obscuritas]] by Oscar Rios. For the Romans it was the end of the growing season and a time of harvest. It was a busy time, when those working the land gathered in the fruits of their labor and made ready for the long dark months of winter. It was an important time because if the growing season was poor those there would be many hardships ahead.

For the natives here in Britannia, it was all that and much more. To them this was a sacred time, the start of their New Year. It was also when those who had died during the year made their way to whatever afterlife these people believed in. A time when they believed that all manner of ghoulies and ghosties, and long legged beasties were free to enter our world.

[[Jubai Kaidan]] by Simon Yee. Today is the Halloween party at the Occidental Annex in the Izu Prefecture. Professor Fumio Shimano is a well respected teacher at Izu College and is the head provost to the Occidental Annex. Shimano tries to celebrate western holidays to enrich his student’s cultural understanding and to let his foreign instructors feel more at home. The party starts at 7:00 pm and is expected to end at midnight. Everyone is encouraged to wear a costume and families with children are expected to leave at 8:00. The players are invited after the party to his presentation of a traditional Japanese ghost story.

[[Revenge of the Hei People]] by Nick Davison. The investigators are the cast and crew of a movie being made in the nearby Dockyard who are visiting Fort Amherst for a Halloween Horrors event. This is the set of their latest movie, The Zombie Army of Napoleon. The other characters are screen writer (John), an SFX technician (Fi), a stuntman (Brent) who is playing the zombie, and Bambi’s stylist (Georgio).

[[Who's That Knocking?]] by Garnett Elliot. College Media Arts major Alan Breen decides to get some live footage for a "shaky-cam" horror movie he’s filming. He invites a group of college students out to an abandoned farmhouse he’s rigged with cameras and shotgun mikes for a Halloween party. Aided by a crew of fellow students/actors who share his vision for guerilla filmmaking, he plans to put the partygoers through a series of staged, "horrific" events, and add the footage to scripted scenes. The resulting opus, Who’s That Knocking?, will become a hit at the independent movie festivals. Fame and offers from established studios are sure to follow.

Or so he thinks.

'''Scenarios:''' [[The Beloved Dead]], [[Cain's Clan]], [[A Chill Down Your Spine]], [[The Dragon and the Wolf]],
[[Earth: Rest Stop, Body Shop]], [[Longa Obscuritas]], [[Jubai Kaidan]], [[Revenge of the Hei People]], [[Who's That Knocking?]]

==Front Cover Text==
List all the text from the front cover.

==Comments / Trivia==
List dedication, color plates, rarity of the book, etc.

==Links==
* [http://www.yog-sothoth.com/articles.html/_/main/reviews/bride-of-halloween-horror-nine-dread-encounter-r1860/ Review by malcojones on Yog-Sothoth.com]
* [http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=2446/ Listing in Chaosium catalog]

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__
This monograph is a collection of nine unconnected scenarios by nine different authors all entered in the 2008 Halloween Horror contest. As such (and as implied by the title) it is one of a series and therefore it is unlike the usual monograph in that Chaosium have clearly undertaken some editorial role in the selection of scenarios, their arrangement in the book and in the choices of illustration. The editorial work remains anonymous, however, and there are signs of the project being rushed through for Halloween with typos throughout and the lack of maps in most of the scenarios.

I'll deal with the scenarios individually below in enough detail that there will probably be spoilers, but this paragraph gives a general overview. Halloween is the linking theme but the scenarios span a wide variety of settings including a fantasy future, Cthulhu Invictus, Cthulhu Dark Ages and, mainly, the present taking us to Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin as well as unspecified generic mid-West USA, the UK and Japan. The focus on the contemporary is logical for horror stories, as authorities such as M.R. James and (following James) Sandy Peterson have argued. This means that, despite the number of scenarios, this collection neglects Classic 1920s and Gaslight periods. Obviously, Chaosium can't determine what is submitted to their competition, but some editorial comment in an introduction or in the blurb would help potential purchasers evaluate the product. Instead, what we get as blurb is nothing but cunningly tweaked flavour text from the first scenario.

The Beloved Dead by Sarah Newton
In many ways this scenario is a plug for the author's Chronicles of Future Earth BRP campaign setting. For me, this is a problem since it can't really be played without that book: Page 5 describes races that the PCS may be from but no character creation information is supplied. Reading between the lines, Chronicles of Future Earth isn't science fiction but D'n'D-style fantasy centred on a recogniseable human society with alternative words for things we know (there is a glossary). The scenario offers up the nicely mapped village of Mormoth which is full of unstatted characters who may lead the PCs past a number of dead ends to BRP statted encounters with 'The Chelarch', servant and dogs, a ghost and, eventually, a lich on a nicely mapped island. The most intriguing potential investigation here is whether it was Chaosium or the author who thought this would be a viable and appropriate scenario for a Halloween Horror competition. I don't agree and think the effort to make it work would be wasted since it will never be a genuine Halloween encounter and the fantasy setting is unconducive to horror.

Cain's Clan by Ed McLinn
This scenario begins unpromisingly with a description of an Indian brave fighting Nyogtha. It sets up a contemporary dilemma in which the PCs are consultants helping the local police deal with the prospect of a 4th year of Halloween night murders. It turns out that a resident has been contaminated by a severed part of Nyogtha, though why it only compels them to kill at Halloween isn't really explained. Nevertheless, the scenario is as plausible as many contemporary horror films. I rather liked the sinister sub-plots with another, unexpected, contaminated victim and the contaminated wildlife in the forest. Overall, though, I donâ€™t see any solution offered unless the PCs arrive very heavily armed. A lethal contemporary CoC scenario might, however, be just what you need for Halloween, even without maps.

A Chill Down Your Spine by Harris Burkhalter
Set in the self-proclaimed Halloween Capital of the World in Minnesota and keyed to an actual Halloween blizzard from 1991 this is a well-grounded and interesting scenario with the strongest HPL elements in the collection, including a Dreamlands-based threat and marauding nightgaunts. The hook is a missing person and investigators are involved by their membership of a local historical society. No maps again, but there are 5 decent handouts (though the handwritten ones show signs of scanning resolution problems) and a list of resources and help on Yog-Sothoth.com!

The Dragon and the Wolf by John W. Thompson
Set in (unmapped) Wroxeter during the (Cthulhu) Dark Ages this scenario has the PCs as wolf-hunters who will find a sorceror, a werewolf and a dragon (of sorts) during their investigation. Like the first scenario this one has a strong D'n'D vibe, but is much grittier and realistic. The role-playing challenge is to trust instincts and find the real villain before things go badly wrong and Nyarlathotep gets involved, potentially initiating a really horrific and bleak outcome.

Earth: Rest Stop, Body Shop by John D. Kennedy
In contemporary Michigan an unpronounceable alien that uses organic technology has established itself near an outlying settlement and gained a human collaborator who has virtually taken over the town. This scenario has been done better or at least with much better resources (see Worlds of Cthulhu 6), but this is a pulpy Hollywood-friendly scenario. The final combat crawl to put an end to the threat is something that movie characters (rather than sane investigators) might feel motivated to do.

Longa Obscuritas by Oscar Rios
A British-set, Cthulhu Invictus scenario by Invictus campaign writer Oscar Rios and MRP stalwart probably sells itself. Itâ€™s well-structured and offers a convincing Romano-British setting. Though I've seen a few too many variations on 'the little people' recently, they're well done here and the scenario offers a number of interesting resolutions. I particularly like the serpent men ruins to be found in the woods, even though their "geographical" shapes should have been "geometrical". No maps.

Jubai Kadain by Simon Yee
This scenario uses the Secrets of Japan setting to plausibly place the PCs (whether familiar with the setting or not) at an occidental party in a university annexe and pitch them into the realm of J-horror. Though there are lots of references to the sourcebook everything necessary is included here. In fact, there are rather too many monster options, with profusion likely to confuse the investigators, but it is clear that the GM can mix and match in whatever way is effective. Both maps and flavour illustrations are provided â€“ it can be done!

Revenge of the Hei People by Nick Davison
Set in Chatham/Medway, UK in 2007 this scenario has a British horror film crew hunted by scarecrows and their more powerful 'king'. The PCs are statted here and the actor characters are given imdb.com style pages full of fun postmodern self-referentiality. There are six short appendices giving background information and an unlucky 13 one line handouts to tip the humour into horror. In fact the scenario would be ready to run if it did not lack they key map of Chatham's Napoleonic Fort Amherst which is referred to extensively on pages 90-1. This is highly frustrating and seems like it is Chaosium's blunder. It would be nice if the absence could be addressed by some online source.

Who's That Knocking? by Garnett Elliot
Similarly self-reflexive in its film references to the previous scenario, this one has the PCs unwittingly caught up in a Blair Witch style shoot at an abandoned farmhouse that turns out to be really haunted. There are lots of opportunities for creepy fun here as ghost hoax and ghost reality are revealed. The threat is manageable and potential problems are fully adressed in a troubleshooting section. As ever, a map would have been nice.

Conclusion
Overall, this is not a bad collection of one-offs with some welcome support for pre-gunpowder eras. Not all the scenarios are worth your while, though YMMV, but there is enough viable material for several Halloweens here, as long as you're happy to make your own maps or wing it without.

Colonial Terrors

2019-11-15T13:14:12Z

Malcojones: /* Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only */

==Details==
[[Image:mula-colonial-terrors.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' 0405

'''Publishing Year:''' 2011

'''Pages:''' 60

'''Cover Price:''' $12.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Jeff Woodall]]

'''Artist(s):''' Matt Zeilinger

'''Setting(s):''' Colonial America

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

==Contents==

''"The times were lawless and the men who had flouted the King's Revenue forces for years were not the ones to balk at sterner things when duty impelled."''<br> —H.P. Lovecraft "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"

Colonial Terrors is a Call of Cthulhu campaign taking place in New England just prior to the American Revolution. The investigators are patriot smugglers.

In this Age of Enlightenment great progress is made in science, politics, and philosophy. Many, but not all, of the shackles of previous eras are shaken free.

This is a land where old gods grow new again.

'''Campaigns:''' [[Colonial Terrors (Campaign)]]

'''Scenarios:''' Scenario 1, Scenario 2, ...

'''Additional:''' Introduction?, Player Handouts?

==Front Cover Text==
Call of Cthulhu Adventures Prior to the American Revolution

==Links==

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Review:
The cover tells us that the author of any given monograph is responsible for editorial and layout but these are so far short of the mark that the 'significant value and entertainment' also promised on the cover are not delivered. The review is going to be critical throughout, not because I am measuring this against professional work by Kevin Ross set in the same era (currently held by Sixtystone Press) which I have been lucky enough to see, but because it doesn't meet minimum expectations for a published product. There are frequent typos, missing statistics and unfinished sentences throughout. One building location is crudely mapped but there are no others on any scale. There are roughly four pages of sourcebook material which, to indicate the lack of detail, would only tell you the damage, rate of fire and range of a musket without going into any of the issues around using black powder. The scenarios are each introduced with most of a column of italicised flavour text, but lack overviews for the keeper so that new elements keep appearing. It's not well laid out and the amount of errors and gaps suggests we are looking at a draft rather than something that was intended to be finished.

SPOILERS

The linked scenarios all assume the investigators are smugglers, operating outside British colonial law, encountering gruesome and mythos-driven events. Annoyingly, the scenarios begin without saying much about motivation. It seems to be to please John Hancock. Instead most of a column is spent suggesting that it might be an idea to have the investigators time-travelling back from the twentieth or twenty-first century. This is a good indicator that not much engagement with the actual period (1768) is expected. The discovery of the innkeeper as a cannibal and the zombie victim in the first scenario shows some promise. Unfortunately the suggestion that the villain simply gained this aberration from "a village of cannibals" in Africa is offensive. After this an encounter with British forces is offered to "give the players a bit of a break from dealing solely with mythos encounters". The section ends with a pointless list of names of minor characters that might have been intended to be statted.

The second section introduces the main villain thus: "Caleb Durmont is a middle-aged man with graying hair and blues that seemed privy to a private jest a full of mischief" (sic) The smugglers search Newport to investigate the disappearance of one of their contacts (imprisoned by Durmont) and encounter all sorts of red herrings: A missing doctor, another missing smuggler, ghouls, a ghoul cult, a voodoo cult, a female vampire and entourage, another sorcerer and a haunted house, before facing Durmont and his zombie pirates. Not a graveyard smash, at least for me.

The third linked scenario is set in occupied Saundersville where an inept ally of Durmont's has conjured formless Spawn of Tsathoggua (Sanity loss 1/1d0!) that now stalks and consumes its way through the town's inhabitants. There is again a long list of names without stats. Even the captain of the troops has 'Str, Con, Size' etc. listed with no values.

Vengeance of the Soldier's Wife sends the surviving smugglers back to Hancock to investigate the deaths of two tough allies, who were involved in the murder of a British sargeant whose wife has witch-like powers. This scenario, which takes the investigators into a pocket universe where they will be inside a doll's house stalked by murderous dolls, is surprising and potentially interesting but is very poorly executed. None of the Dollmaker's stats are filled in, for example, and all we learn is that she is "a quite woman who is actually quite disturbed" (sic).

Smugglers Cove is extremely desultory, telling us in two and a half sides that there is an island with a lighthouse which contains the ruins of a serpent man city recently used as the nest for a Chthonian. A French Werewolf in New England does what it says in the title, but relies on investigators not being live to the possibility of a double bluff.

Three of the five "pre-gens" in the Appendix don't actually have stats. Some 11 occupations are usefully listed before the last paragraph suggests the campaign could continue. There are a set of by-the-numbers word-processed handouts.

VERDICT:
Overall, this is a very frustrating monograph. There is, despite all my criticism, the sense that Jeff Woodall knows how to run a fun session or series of sessions of play but, as a writer, he hasn't really got the tone of Call of Cthulhu, the attention to detail or the historical feel that would make this monograph begin to touch the potential of the colonial period. As a result there is ultimately nothing to recommend about this monograph and, despite the provisos on every monograph cover, purchasers should expect a more complete product than this.

Colonial Terrors

2019-11-15T13:12:49Z

Malcojones: /* Front Cover Text */

Colonial Terrors

2019-11-15T13:12:16Z

Malcojones: /* Front Cover Text */

Colonial Terrors

2019-11-15T13:11:34Z

Malcojones: /* Front Cover Text */

Colonial Terrors

2019-11-15T13:10:43Z

Malcojones: /* Comments / Trivia */

==Details==
[[Image:mula-colonial-terrors.jpg|thumb|''Front Cover'']]

'''Product Code:''' 0405

'''Publishing Year:''' 2011

'''Pages:''' 60

'''Cover Price:''' $12.95

'''Author(s):''' [[Jeff Woodall]]

'''Artist(s):''' Matt Zeilinger

'''Setting(s):''' Colonial America

'''Format:''' [[CoC:MULA Monographs|MULA Monograph]]

==Contents==

''"The times were lawless and the men who had flouted the King's Revenue forces for years were not the ones to balk at sterner things when duty impelled."''<br> —H.P. Lovecraft "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"

Colonial Terrors is a Call of Cthulhu campaign taking place in New England just prior to the American Revolution. The investigators are patriot smugglers.

In this Age of Enlightenment great progress is made in science, politics, and philosophy. Many, but not all, of the shackles of previous eras are shaken free.

This is a land where old gods grow new again.

'''Campaigns:''' [[Colonial Terrors (Campaign)]]

'''Scenarios:''' Scenario 1, Scenario 2, ...

'''Additional:''' Introduction?, Player Handouts?

==Front Cover Text==
Call of Cthulhu Adventures Prior to the American Revolution

Review:
The cover tells us that the author of any given monograph is responsible for editorial and layout but these are so far short of the mark that the 'significant value and entertainment' also promised on the cover are not delivered. The review is going to be critical throughout, not because I am measuring this against professional work by Kevin Ross set in the same era (currently held by Sixtystone Press) which I have been lucky enough to see, but because it doesn't meet minimum expectations for a published product. There are frequent typos, missing statistics and unfinished sentences throughout. One building location is crudely mapped but there are no others on any scale. There are roughly four pages of sourcebook material which, to indicate the lack of detail, would only tell you the damage, rate of fire and range of a musket without going into any of the issues around using black powder. The scenarios are each introduced with most of a column of italicised flavour text, but lack overviews for the keeper so that new elements keep appearing. It's not well laid out and the amount of errors and gaps suggests we are looking at a draft rather than something that was intended to be finished.

SPOILERS

The linked scenarios all assume the investigators are smugglers, operating outside British colonial law, encountering gruesome and mythos-driven events. Annoyingly, the scenarios begin without saying much about motivation. It seems to be to please John Hancock. Instead most of a column is spent suggesting that it might be an idea to have the investigators time-travelling back from the twentieth or twenty-first century. This is a good indicator that not much engagement with the actual period (1768) is expected. The discovery of the innkeeper as a cannibal and the zombie victim in the first scenario shows some promise. Unfortunately the suggestion that the villain simply gained this aberration from "a village of cannibals" in Africa is offensive. After this an encounter with British forces is offered to "give the players a bit of a break from dealing solely with mythos encounters". The section ends with a pointless list of names of minor characters that might have been intended to be statted.

The second section introduces the main villain thus: "Caleb Durmont is a middle-aged man with graying hair and blues that seemed privy to a private jest a full of mischief" (sic) The smugglers search Newport to investigate the disappearance of one of their contacts (imprisoned by Durmont) and encounter all sorts of red herrings: A missing doctor, another missing smuggler, ghouls, a ghoul cult, a voodoo cult, a female vampire and entourage, another sorcerer and a haunted house, before facing Durmont and his zombie pirates. Not a graveyard smash, at least for me.

The third linked scenario is set in occupied Saundersville where an inept ally of Durmont's has conjured formless Spawn of Tsathoggua (Sanity loss 1/1d0!) that now stalks and consumes its way through the town's inhabitants. There is again a long list of names without stats. Even the captain of the troops has 'Str, Con, Size' etc. listed with no values.

Vengeance of the Soldier's Wife sends the surviving smugglers back to Hancock to investigate the deaths of two tough allies, who were involved in the murder of a British sargeant whose wife has witch-like powers. This scenario, which takes the investigators into a pocket universe where they will be inside a doll's house stalked by murderous dolls, is surprising and potentially interesting but is very poorly executed. None of the Dollmaker's stats are filled in, for example, and all we learn is that she is "a quite woman who is actually quite disturbed" (sic).

Smugglers Cove is extremely desultory, telling us in two and a half sides that there is an island with a lighthouse which contains the ruins of a serpent man city recently used as the nest for a Chthonian. A French Werewolf in New England does what it says in the title, but relies on investigators not being live to the possibility of a double bluff.

Three of the five "pre-gens" in the Appendix don't actually have stats. Some 11 occupations are usefully listed before the last paragraph suggests the campaign could continue. There are a set of by-the-numbers word-processed handouts.

VERDICT

Overall, this is a very frustrating monograph. There is, despite all my criticism, the sense that Jeff Woodall knows how to run a fun session or series of sessions of play but, as a writer, he hasn't really got the tone of Call of Cthulhu, the attention to detail or the historical feel that would make this monograph begin to touch the potential of the colonial period. As a result there is ultimately nothing to recommend about this monograph and, despite the provisos on every monograph cover, purchasers should expect a more complete product than this.

==Links==

==Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only==
'''Players should not read any further.'''


Comment here to Keepers about this book.
Comments on specific Scenarios and Campaigns
go on their respective pages.
Keep DISCUSSION on the talk page.

[[Category:CoC:MULA Monographs]]
__NOTOC__

Colonial Terrors

2019-11-15T13:09:17Z

Malcojones: /* Details */