View source for Farewell, My Sanity

==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.'''
<!-- DO NOT DELETE THE LINE IMMEDIATELY ABOVE -->

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.