Miskatonic Monday #411: The Disappearance in Montignac

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: The Disappearance in Montignac

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Thomas Baudart

Setting: France, 2015

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Ten-page, 1.58 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A missing persons case attracts a podcast squad

Plot Hook: Find the girl, make a podcast, get famous

Plot Support: Staging advice, no pre-generated Investigators, one NPC, two handouts, one map, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Simple investigation 

# Scope for development

# Family horror story

# Sciophobia

# Castlephobia

# Entomophobia

Cons

# Needs a good edit and localisation

# Some NPCs underdeveloped

# Why is the castle causing Sanity loss?

Conclusion

# Not enough time to really allow for an investigation

# Small village, family horror scenario that could benefit from development and clarification

The Other OSR: Miseries & Misfortunes V

Miseries & Misfortunes is a roleplaying game set in seventeenth century France designed and published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Luke Crane, best known for the fantasy roleplaying game, Burning Wheel. Notably, it is based on the mechanics of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Originally, Miseries & Misfortunes appeared as a fanzine in 2015, but its second edition has since been developed to add new systems for skills, combat, magic, and more. However, the underlying philosophy of Miseries & Misfortunes still leans back into the play style of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. For example, the differing mechanics of rolling low for skill checks, but high for combat rolls and saving throws. Plus, the Player Characters exist in an uncaring world where bad luck, misfortune, and even death will befall them and there will be no one left to commiserate or mourn except the other characters and their players. Further, Miseries & Misfortunes is not a cinematic swashbuckling game of musketeers versus the Cardinal’s guards. It is grimmer and grimier than that, and the Player Characters can come from all walks of life. That said, it is set in the similar period as Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, so will be familiar to many players. The other major inspiration for Miseries & Misfortunes is Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre, a set of eighteen etchings by French artist Jacques Callot that grimly depict the nature of the conflict in the early years of the Thirty Years War.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 5: Homage to Catalonia is the fifth of the roleplaying game’s rulebooks. The first, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 1: Roleplaying in 1648 gives the core rules for the roleplaying game, and the second, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux provides the means to actually create Player Characters, and together they make up the core rules. Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane expands on this with rules for magic and related Lifepaths, and Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères offers modes of play and further subsystems that also expand upon the core play, whilst Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 5: Homage to Catalonia provides something that that Miseries & Misfortunes has been missing to date—a scenario.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 5: Homage to Catalonia is an introductory scenario set in 1647 in the disputed region of Catalonia. Triggering The Reaper’s War in 1640 by declaring itself a republic independent of Spain, Catalonia then declared itself a county of France the following year, in the process acquiring a strong ally. France accepted and made King Louis XIII the count of the newly acquired region. Of course, Cardinal Richelieu was not doing this out of the goodness of his heart, but rather to keep the Spanish Habsburgs in check, adding one more conflict to those that Madrid faced in the Spanish Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, and South America. It is picaresque in nature, taking the Player Characters back and forth across Catalonia.

The set-up for scenario recommends that the Player Characters include at least one of their number to take either the Lifepath of Barber Surgeon, Doctor, Military Engineer, Miquelet, Officer, Petty Noble, Segador, or Soldier. Of these, the Miquelet, a member of the militia, and the Segador, one of the farmers that rose up during The Reaper’s War, are both detailed at the back of Miseries & Misfortunes Book 5: Homage to Catalonia, whereas the Barber Surgeon, Doctor, and Military Engineer are described in Miseries & Misfortunes Book 6: Paris, 1648. The players will have an advantage throughout the scenario if their characters come from a diverse range of backgrounds and social origins. At least one Player Character should have a high Precedence or Reputation. The players also need to decide on a motif, a reason why they are together. Several are suggested going back several years, including The Reaper’s War itself if the Player Characters are all Catalan.

The scenario is divided into twelve events, split into two parts. For an introductory scenario, it is a surprisingly lengthy affair, each half likely taking three sessions at least to play through. The scenario opens in the wake of the first defeat for the daring commander of the French forces, the Prince de Condé, his failure to capture the fortress city of Lerida. Despite the failure, the Player Characters have distinguished themselves—the players need to decide how before the start of play—and brought themselves to the attention of the Prince de Condé. They are invited to attend what turns out to be a rather subdued soirée and have the chance to mingle, learn various rumours about the recent battle and the attendees, and if they are of sufficient standing, pay their respects to the Prince de Condé. The event is interrupted with the arrival of a message from Paris—the Prince de Condé has been summoned home.

To prevent the possibility of a Spanish attempt to capture himself and his entourage, the Prince de Condé decides to play a ruse and a joke on them. Or rather on Governor Don Gregorio Brito of Portugal, the commander of the fortress at Lerida, with whom the Prince de Condé has a surprisingly cordial relationship. The Player Characters are volunteered for this important diversion, which is to accompany a mule train bearing gifts for Governor Don Gregorio Brito of Portugal with the ambitious Chevalier de Jumeaux riding as the stand in or decoy for the Prince de Condé.

The rest of this first half involves dealing with a pensive Chevalier de Jumeaux and a Spanish spy looking to take advantage of the Prince de Condé’s plans, unaware that it is actually a ruse. The spy will lead a force in an attempt to capture the Prince de Condé and steal all of his gifts for the governor of Lerida. This will result in a confrontation of some kind, with where and when depending on the actions and decisions of the Player Characters. The scenario details a dilapidated farmhouse where they might hold out against the Spanish assault, almost mirroring the French efforts at Lerida. If they survive this, the Player Characters will need to find a way of delivering the mules and the gifts they are bearing to Governor Don Gregorio Brito of Portugal, hopefully without ending up in gaol.

The second half of Miseries & Misfortunes Book 5: Homage to Catalonia begins with the Player Characters bearing another message, though one not requiring a mule train, to Bishop Duran in the town of Seu d’Urgell. He accepts the letter and also requests that they do some ‘dirty work’ for him. Bandits have plagued the area for some years and more recently they captured a Jesuit priest who was bringing the bishop a valuable bible for him to study and are now holding him to ransom. The bishop would like the Player Characters to free the Jesuit priest and gives them what funds he has free to pay the ransom. This though, is not the asking price the bandits are asking for in return for freeing the priest.

In order to deliver the ransom the Player Characters will need to ascend into the Pyrenees and Andorra via the La Pas de la Casa. Here is where the problems begin for the Player Characters. They run into a traffic jam at a bottleneck which the bandits are cleverly using to rob everyone entering the pass intending to go onto France. This includes the Player Characters! How they deal with this robbery will affect later interactions with the bandits, but the bandits will have the upper hand throughout this half of the scenario and they know the region and have restored a Roman watchtower as their holdout. The Player Characters are free to approach this in whatever way they want and the scenario covers a variety of actions, including going to the local lord and seeking his support in ridding the area of the bandits.

The scenario in Miseries & Misfortunes Book 5: Homage to Catalonia comes to a close with a discussion of the possible outcomes. Defeat at the hands of the bandits will be doubly disastrous as the Player Characters will also lose the patronage of the Prince de Condé. In addition, all of the NPCs that the Player Characters will directly interact with are given full write-ups, and there are new options for the Player Characters. These include the aforementioned Lifepaths of the Miquelet and the Segador, and these are joined by the Bruxia, a Catalan witch. Added to these are notes on Catalan skills, mentalities, politics, and religion, plus two types of Catalan magic. These are for the Bruxia, and consist of Bruixeria, which involves spellcasting by applying the Devil’s Unguent, and Felitico, which involves creating fetishes through which their power is channelled. There is plenty of potential as you would expect in these Lifepaths, but the Bruxia is going to have a tough time against devout Christians.

Physically, Miseries & Misfortunes Book 5: Homage to Catalonia is well presented and written. It is lightly illustrated with the major illustrations being used to locations where the scenario’s major confrontations take place. Each scene is very well organised with a detailed breakdown that provides an overview, details of patron, antagonists, supporting cast, opportunities, and outcomes. They do have ‘Mood and Bread’ ratings for each event, but these are for the Crowd rules from Miseries & Misfortunes Book 6: Paris, 1648. Footnotes throughout provide translations and further explanations as necessary.

Miseries & Misfortunes Book 5: Homage to Catalonia is no simple introductory adventure and even when it is presenting a situation typical to an introductory scenario, that is, dealing with banditry, there is no simple and direct method of dealing with them. They are, like all of the NPCs in the scenario, presented as intelligent persons and as having strong motives. Some of those accompanying the Player Characters will want to fight too readily, whilst others will avoid fights as best they can, and when it comes to the villains, if the players and their characters do defeat them, they should feel like they have achieved something. That Miseries & Misfortunes Book 5: Homage to Catalonia pulls away from the politics and mores of Paris typical of the Roleplaying genre by shifting to a little known conflict is also a plus. The scenario is also supported by a wealth of historical detail, including capturing some of the region’s radical politics.

Miseries & Misfortunes Book 5: Homage to Catalonia showcases how Miseries & Misfortunes and its genre can be more than the swashbuckling and the savoir faire and the politics and Paris so beloved of the genre. It includes a good mix of roleplaying and action in an unfamiliar land and conflict that will surprise many expecting a more traditional swashbuckling foray.

The Other OSR: Miseries & Misfortunes IV

Miseries & Misfortunes is a roleplaying game set in seventeenth century France designed and published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Luke Crane, best known for the fantasy roleplaying game, Burning Wheel. Notably, it is based on the mechanics of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Originally, Miseries & Misfortunes appeared as a fanzine in 2015, but its second edition has since been developed to add new systems for skills, combat, magic, and more. However, the underlying philosophy of Miseries & Misfortunes still leans back into the play style of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. For example, the differing mechanics of rolling low for skill checks, but high for combat rolls and saving throws. Plus, the Player Characters exist in an uncaring world where bad luck, misfortune, and even death will befall them and there will be no one left to commiserate or mourn except the other characters and their players. Further, Miseries & Misfortunes is not a cinematic swashbuckling game of musketeers versus the Cardinal’s guards. It is grimmer and grimier than that, and the Player Characters can come from all walks of life. That said, it is set in the similar period as Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, so will be familiar to many players. The other major inspiration for Miseries & Misfortunes is Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre, a set of eighteen etchings by French artist Jacques Callot that grimly depict the nature of the conflict in the early years of the Thirty Years War.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères is the fourth of the roleplaying game’s rulebooks. The first, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 1: Roleplaying in 1648 gives the core rules for the roleplaying game, and the second, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux provides the means to actually create Player Characters, and together they make up the core rules. Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane expands on this with rules for magic and related Lifepaths, whilst Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères offers modes of play and further subsystems that also expand upon the core play. As the introduction to the supplement states, what it it offers is ‘More Misery’, with the majority of the supplement intended for use by the Game Master, but all of the new rules will add detail and flavour to her campaign and affect the lives of the Player Characters in some ways.

The supplement opens in interesting fashion. If the majority of Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères is for the eyes of the Game Master, the opening essay should be read by player and Game Master alike. ‘Modernity’ provides the reader with an eye-opening perspective of what life was like and people believed in 1648. This includes the belief that the world was in decline, the high point having been classical Rome and Greece, that the science and philosophy of thought we know of today were not for the common man, history and its ideas were accepted truths, disease was spread by miasmas and worms, cities had yet to be transformed by the dictates of either mass or public transport and so streets remained as they did in the Medieval period, and so on. It is a fascinating read that does not swerve the worst that the era had to offer, including misogyny and ant-Semitism. This is not necessarily to enforce their presence in play, but rather acknowledge that they were part of the culture in 1648. This is an excellent start to the supplement.

The majority of Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères consists of two sections. One is ‘Mode de Jeu’, or ‘mode of play’, the other is ‘Petits Systémes’. ‘Mode de Jeu’ begins with ‘Moments’, which examines the structure of play in Miseries & Misfortunes, which is made up of the eponymous ‘Moments’ in time, essentially situations or scenarios that the Player Characters can involve themselves in. It divides them into two types—‘Historical’ and ‘Novel’. The first of these are based around actual events, the aim being to involve the Player Characters in their events, whilst the second are plots and events that the Game Master creates herself. The Game Master sets up a timeline of moments, a mix of both types, that he weaves a plot through. The players do not roleplay through them one after another in linear fashion, but have the freedom to dip in and out of the timeline, according to their needs and those of the plot. There is even a full breakdown of a Historical Moment, making you wish that there was a full book of such events for the Game Master to use. To mark the passage of time, after the playthrough of a Moment and any subsequent downtime, the play of Miseries & Misfortunes switches to narrative scenes in which the lives of the Player Characters’ dependents are examined to see what has happened to them in the meantime and how they might have been affected by the actions of the Player Characters.

To support the ‘Moments’, ‘Mode de Jeu’ breaks down two types of plots—quests and intrigues—and discusses how to prepare for play. This includes right at the start of a campaign and comes with some excellent suggestions, such as having the player recap the adventures and heroics of their characters, even just the one of their characters. There is good advice on creating antagonists and the supporting cast too and the chapter ends with a discussion on safety tools. Arguably, given the nature of the setting for Miseries & Misfortunes, this could have been placed earlier in the book.

‘Petits Systémes’ or small systems, provides a number of sub-systems that expands options and rules for Miseries & Misfortunes. These begin with ‘Favour’, the gaining of the patronage from notable figures, based on the traits that these potential patrons seek or value, such as charm or cleverness or piety. If the Player Characters perform tasks and missions in accordance with those traits, they will gain patronage and be rewarded. If not, the patron will feel disappointed and even feel betrayed. The Player Characters can have more than one patron and it is suggested that beyond the first or major patron, the players should each control and roleplay a patron rather than the Game Master in what is another shift to narrative style play.

Perhaps the new addition that most players will be interested is ‘Duello’, which are rules for duelling in Miseries & Misfortunes. This starts with the legal difficulties of duelling, having been outlawed by the king’s father and grandfather, versus the desire of the nobility to satisfy their honour, and goes on to cover issuing a challenge, employing a duellist, the duelling code, and more. A duellist’s Duelling skill is based on his Mêlée and how many Lifepath skills he has in Fencer. This greatly favours the latter as it should, hence the need for some to hire a duellist to protect their honour. Ideally, the duel should be played out on a grid of squares—which can be constrained by the location and its features—with the actual cut and thrust of the swordplay done as series of initiative tests to first see who can outmanoeuvre the other and the options then available to both, such as ‘Barbed Words’, ‘Break Grips’ if the duellists are in a tie, ‘Trip’, ‘Inside Cut’, and more. There is a pleasing back and forth flow to the rules, but whilst they allow for manoeuvre and movement, these are not duelling rules for swashbuckling and cinematic play. So, footwork, but not jumping and leaping. This is all about swordplay and honour, but as the rules suggest, not necessarily to the death. Lastly, ‘Duello’ points out there are legal ramifications for duelling even when a duel does not end in a death, such as a six-month prison sentence for the soufflet—the slapping of another in the face with a glove! Overall, ‘Duello’ adds a nice combination of skill and roleplay to Miseries & Misfortunes and is likely to be one of the most used rulesets in the supplement.

Penultimately, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères takes an unpleasant turn with ‘Disease’, an examination of maladies and infections in the period. As noted in ‘Modernity’ earlier in the book, disease was rife in the period. The best that a Player Character can hope for is rest and the hope that he receives proper treatment—or at least what can be regarded as the proper treatment of the day. There are three recognised sources of treatment—Barber, Chirurgy, and Physic—which provide different means to treat different diseases. The use of the improper source, insufficient skill (represented by Gnosis , the degree of knowledge a practitioner knows, as detailed in Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane), and even a complete of skill can result in Quackery, the ability to appear to be aiding the sufferer whilst not actually doing anything to help or even inflicting further suffering. This can include a range of tonics, baths, and pills—and even prayer! The section includes a full list of diseases, their symptoms, and cures—both legitimate and quack. It all makes for very grim reading and a player had best hope that his character does not fall ill, because having to roleplay the treatment, let alone the symptoms, is not going to be pleasant. Lastly, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères gives guidelines on communications and languages in ‘Communications’.

Physically, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères is well presented and written with lots of period artwork and etchings which helps impart its historical setting. It does lack an index, but this is not so much of an issue given the compartmentalised nature of its various subjects.

Ultimately, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères is the equivalent of a Miseries & Misfortunes miscellany or a Miseries & Misfortunes companion. Some of the content is more useful than others and some does add more detail and complexity than every group will want to in engage with. ‘Chevaux’ is an example of the latter, whilst ‘Duello’ is an example of the former. Then some of it is fascinatingly revelatory, like the ‘Modernity’ essay, and in the case of ‘Disease’, both revelatory and grim. Elsewhere, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères provides support for campaigns with its discussion of ‘Moments’ and ‘Favour’ that also at the same time do shift the roleplaying game away from its Old School Renaissance roots towards a slightly more narrative style of play. Ultimately, the ‘Duello’ chapter is what is going attract the Game Master and her players to the supplement, but there is a lot more misery in the pages of Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 4: Plus de Misères to explore and bring into play.

Mythos & Musketeers

The Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and the swashbuckling tales of Alexandre Dumas are closer than you think. Or at least, they can be moved closer than you think. After all, both involve conspiracies and secrets and assignations in the night and shocking revelations and dark organisations plotting to end the current regime–whether that is a total end to mankind or a change in who controls the fate of France. However, when it comes to roleplaying, it has not been a close fit, bar the very occasional scenario. In fact, the easiest way to do it has been to combine Leagues of Cthulhu, an expansion to Leagues of Gothic Horror for Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! with All For One: Régime Diabolique, because both are written for use with the Ubiquity System. Step forward–or swing through a window on a rope and land on its feet, rapier drawn–Nightfall Games, because the Scottish publisher has a much easier solution for you.

Musketeers vs. Cthulhu: A Simple Nightfall RPG Book is a campaign and sourcebook for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, published by Chaosium, Inc. It is based on ‘The Tablet’, a short story by Claudia Christian–yes, that Claudia Christian–and Chris McAuley from the anthology, Musketeers vs. Cthulhu in the Court of King Louis, from Black Ink. It is also based on The Three Musketeers and others in the series, includes some basic background, guidelines to creating Musketeers and other period Investigators, genre rules, and over twenty new manoeuvres, because after all, what would a game involving Musketeers be without the means to swash a buckle or two! As you would expect, it includes stats for all four Musketeers and those of the villains and villainesses they face in the course of Dumas’ classic novels. Of course, in Musketeers vs. Cthulhu, the Musketeers will face things that are much, much worse, and much more of a threat to France–and the world in general!

Musketeers vs. Cthulhu very quickly opens with the first part of its four-part campaign. It is set in 1626. King Louis XIII holds the throne with Cardinal Richelieu as his adviser, opposed to the influence of the Queen Mother, Marie de Medici, who was once regent for her son. ‘L’Affaire du Possion Rouge’ opens with the musketeers at a ‘dive’ bar on the Seine, meeting Damian De Salazar, a friend on behalf of Monsieur le Colonel de Tréville and then getting him away from the attentions of the Cardinal’s Guards and back to Musketeer headquarters. With barely enough time to take in the less than salubrious ambiance, disaster, or rather the Cardinal’s Guards strike! The clientele of the bar take strong exception to their presence and the first of the campaign’s many brawls breaks out. With the Cardinal’s Guards outside and a brawl inside, this is the perfect cover to make an escape, but in the process, the musketeers discover that the bar flies were hiding secrets of their own. Dark secrets.

At the end of the first scenario, the musketeers should have Damian De Salazar in tow, but where he ends up is down the musketeers. If they successfully get away from the bar, they should get him back to the care of Monsieur le Colonel de Tréville, but if they get captured, they find themselves before Cardinal Richelieu. If this happens, the rest of the scenario will play out as described in the book, but with the musketeers secretly beholden to the manipulative Cardinal.

The affair in the Possion Rouge sets the events of the campaign in motion as factions working beyond the shadows begin to plot against the King–and in the process against the King’s Musketeers and Cardinal Richelieu. De Salazar himself, is a scholar of the occult, and has recently decrypted and translated a document known as the Third Key of Solomon. Unfortunately, a faction of cultists known as the Court of Chaos has kidnapped De Salazar’s daughter and is demanding that he hand over the manuscript in return for her life.

In the second scenario, ‘The House of Hasteur’, the musketeers undertake a second task, the delivery of the manuscript in exchange for the life of De Salazar’s kidnapped daughter. Although they may have gained some slight awareness of the strangeness that these doings entail, it does not prepare them for the strange encounters in the house. This is not so much a ‘madhouse dungeon’ as a ‘Mythos madhouse’ in which their experiences verge into the hallucinogenic. If they succeed though, no matter who exactly they are working for–Monsieur le Colonel de Tréville or Cardinal Richelieu–the actions of the musketeers bring them to the attention of the King. He has another task for them, one that takes them to ‘The Courtyard of Miracles’ and into the Paris catacombs via a newly opened up entrance.

The fourth and final scenario, ‘Nuit d’Apocalypse!’, begins almost immediately after ‘The Courtyard of Miracles’ comes to a bloody close. The streets of Paris are rife with fear and fighting as it appears that the city is subject to a riotous assembly as Protestant Huguenots run amok, citizens either blockade the streets to prevent anyone from passing or hide behind locked doors, and dark forces take advantage of the chaos. A series of running street battles, including a standing battle with a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, build to a climactic showdown with the forces of the Court of Chaos and hopefully the opportunity to save Paris and thus all of France.

Musketeers vs. Cthulhu: A Simple Nightfall RPG Book is a short campaign. Some of the individual scenarios might only take a session to play through, though most will probably take two or three. They are also not investigative scenarios in the more traditional sense of Call of Cthulhu, so no consulting of ancient documents or perusing the shelves at libraries. Instead, the scenarios involve more interaction, and definitely more action and combat. In fact, a lot more of the latter, and although Musketeers vs. Cthulhu is written for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, it might actually be better to run it using the rules in Pulp Cthulhu, especially as there is a lot of combat and there are a lot of Mythos monsters.

The campaign can be played in one of two ways. First, the players can take the roles of the Musketeers from Dumas’ novels—Aramis, Athos, Porthos, and d’Artagnan—and Musketeers vs. Cthulhu provides full stats and background for all four. Second, they can create their own Investigators and play through the campaign. Thus, there is a guide to creating Investigators suitable for the period, beginning with Musketeer, but also including members of the Clergy, Spy, Courtier, and Occult Scholar. Along with a list of weapons appropriate to the period, there is guidance on playing with just one or two players. The given options allow for increased starting Luck, narrative style combat when fighting members of the supporting cast, and almost immediate adaptation to seeing the Mythos. The latter minimises the amount of Sanity lost for seeing a Mythos monster a second time—after all, once you have seen one Ghoul, you have seen them all!

To fit the other genre of Musketeers vs. Cthulhu, there is also a list of new Manoeuvres. These include ‘Charge’, ‘Counting Coup’, ‘Creative Flamboyance’, ‘Flipping a Table’, ‘Leaping onto a Horse’, and ‘Using a Cape’ or ‘Throwing a Drink to Blind an Opponent’. All enable the Investigators to engage in the type of swashbuckling action that their players will have seen on screen.

Lastly, there are full stats for both the other characters from the novels, such as Milady de Winter and Cardinal Richelieu—though no backgrounds as are given to the Musketeers, and all of the Mythos monsters that appear in Musketeers vs. Cthulhu. Add in the table of phrases and events and the Keeper has a few prompts with which to add colour to her depiction of seventeenth century France.

Physically, Musketeers vs. Cthulhu: A Simple Nightfall RPG Book is a short, buff, and unillustrated affair. It is well written and easy to read. It needs a slight edit in places and there are fun flourishes here and there. The cover though, is particularly eye-catching and feels not dissimilar in style to a certain series of very long running children’s story and reference books.

Musketeers vs. Cthulhu: A Simple Nightfall RPG Book leans into two things. First, the ‘Simple’ aspect of its title, the campaign being a straightforward confrontation with the forces of the Mythos rather than a convoluted investigation, and second, the swashbuckling action of The Three Musketeers. As a result, this is an action-orientated, often combat focused, Pulp-style campaign rather than a Purist scare fest. Musketeers vs. Cthulhu: A Simple Nightfall RPG Book is not just “All for one, and one for all”, but “All for one, and one for all—and all against the Mythos”, and the musketeer-mythos movie you never knew you wanted.

Ghoul Agglomeration

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It  pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a secret war against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

In addition to any number of scenarios for Achtung! Cthulhu, Modiphius Entertainment also publishes what it calls ‘Section M: Priority Missions’. These are smaller missions and scenarios intended to help a Game Master is hard-pressed for time or needs an alternate scenario when there are fewer players. Alternatively, they can be used as one-shots or woven into ongoing campaigns. Each though, provides a single mission that can be played in a single session as well as adventure hooks should the Game Master want to expand the scenario.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 1: Resurrection Men is the first entry in the series. As the frontlines shift between the Allied and Axis forces, Allied intelligence has learned of a network of Great War-era tunnels near an impending advance, whilst Section M suspects that it might actually be the site of Ghoul colony. The Section M agents are assigned to investigate the tunnel network, confirm its suspicions, and if necessary, wipe out the colony. The obvious location for the scenario is along the trench lines left over from the Great War, either in France or Belgium. It could also be shifted to the Italian/Austrian frontline from the Great War. Chronologically, if set in Northern France, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 1: Resurrection Men could be run during the operations of the British Expeditionary Force in Northern France in 1939 and 1940 or at any time after D-Day. One alternative to this, would be for the Player Characters to be all members of the French Resistance, which would make for a different scenario and mean that it would work better as a one-shot.

The scenario requires some preparation upon the part of the Game Master. There are no stats provided, so the Game Master will need to provide stats for the ghouls and a German patrol that the Agents might have to try and avoid, but that is all. What the scenario provides is a good map of the remains of the World War I tunnel network and some advice and suggestions. This covers how the ghouls will react to the presence of the Agents, what else the Agents might encounter, and a total of ten adventure hooks. This includes Allied forces being concerned about corpses vanishing, a former French officer-now ghoul with no love of the Nazis claiming to have intelligence to share, looking for an agent believed dead, but was supposed to have been carrying important information and now her corpse is missing. The ten adventure seeds are all decent ideas and all will need fleshing out by the Game Master. One alternative could be that Section M needs the information learned by a recently dead agent and the only way to learn that information is have some ghouls pick his brains! The variety also suggests the ways in which the Agents might go about fulfilling the mission—full out assault, a claustrophobic and tense series of close quarters bug-hunt style battles in the tunnels, or even approaching with an open hand.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 1: Resurrection Men is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the map of the tunnels that make up the ghoul nest is very nice.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 1: Resurrection Men is not quite ready to run, but it really only requires minimal preparation. Nor is it quite a full mission, but as a small location with lots of ideas as to how to use it, there can be no doubting its utility. For the Game Master wanting something quick to prepare and run, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 1: Resurrection Men is just the ticket, but if the Game Master has a bit more time, it can be made to be much more.

Fruits Of Your Labour

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It  pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a secret war against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Black Cap is a short adventure for the roleplaying game. It takes place in March, 1941. Section M has received word that a Ju 52 transport aeroplane crashed due to unseasonably bad weather in the mountains of Montenegro in Yugoslavia and that when it crashed, the transport aeroplane was carry the finds from a Black Sun archaeological dig in Italian East Africa. This includes a valuable occult object, one potentially connected to the cult of the Black Goat, Shub-Niggurath. The Agents are assigned the mission to infiltrate Yugoslavia, make contact with a local asset, proceed to the crash site, and once there, either recover what the object is or destroy it. This sounds straightforward enough, but there are complications. First, Black Sun is certainly going to want to recover the crash site and take repossession of whatever the transport aeroplane was carrying. Then there is the question of whatever it was that brought the Nazi aeroplane down. Lastly, there is the political situation in Yugoslavia, which is growing increasingly tense as the prince regent and the Yugoslavian government are put under pressure by the Nazi government in Berlin and fascists within the government to sign the Tripartite Pact and enter an enforced alliance. By the end of March, the prince regent would sign the Tripartite Pact and the military would stage a coup d’état in response, and within two weeks of that, Nazi Germany would invade. All that is to come, but in the meantime, the Yugoslavian army is on alert, its soldiers on edge, the Agents have to sneak in at the same time as a Black Sun contingent all but mounts a mini-invasion of its own!

The scenario is linear, taking the Agents from the beaches on the Adriatic Sea up into the mountains via a local contact to the crash site. Along the way, they will encounter Serbian army patrols to avoid—though the scenario includes an optional scene if the Agents are captured, and past two check points. One is manned by the Serbian army, the other by Black Sun troopers, and how they get past either checkpoint is up to the Agents. Things take a turn for the weird when the Agents reach the village of Glavica, near the crash site. It is clear that it has been the site of a battle, but the buildings are covered by vines hung with mishappen fruit and a black fungus covers almost everything. What few animals and inhabitants remain are odd and fearful. This though is a lull in the story before the action ramps up with the scenario’s final three scenes. The first of these plunges the Agents into the confrontation between the villagers—who of course, are deeply involved in the situation—and the Black Sun soldiers in a pitched battle at the crash site. The intervention of the Agents will tip the balance against the Black Sun, but this is no case of ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’, since the villagers are almost as evil and fanatical in their own way! Penultimately, there is a confrontation with cultists who brought the aeroplane down and their revenge upon the Agents for their intervention, and either their theft or destruction of the artefacts that the German transport was ferrying to Berlin. After that, the Agents need to hightail it back out of the mountains and then out of Yugoslavia. Several suggestions of varying complexity, are given as possible means of escaping Yugoslavia, with one of them nicely handling the desperate situation in the country.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Black Cap is cleanly and tidily laid out, and it does include a couple of good pieces of artwork. The maps are clear and easy to use, although the aeroplane at the crash site does not particularly look like a Ju 52 transport aeroplane—not one of its three engines in sight! Lastly, a map of the village might have been useful.

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Black Cap is a simple and direct affair, a snatch and grab whilst having to deal with battling factions of the Mythos. Easily played in a session or two, it is easy to slot into a campaign set early in World War II, although it is very time and setting specific. Combat focused, it is at its best when discovering the fecund malignancy in the village of Glavica, and then in confronting not one, but two factions of the Mythos.

Marseille Mirages

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a secret war against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Marseille is a short adventure for the roleplaying game. It takes place in the summer of 1941 in Southern France, then governed by the pro-Nazi Vichy government. Section M has learned from its Maquis contacts that soldiers of the Black Sun are about to perform a ritual which could unleash the power and influence of the Dreamlands on the port city of Marseille. Section M’s orders for its Agents are clear—disrupt the ritual, and then, if possible, eliminate both the Black Sun researcher, Eveline Schrötter, and her assistant, the Black Sun Master, Lisette Laurent, and destroy the research. They are then to take refuge in a Maquis safehouse—a book shop called Joie de Livres—for a few hours before proceeding to the harbour where evacuation has been arranged.

The operation begins en media res. The Agents are on site and the ritual is about to begin. Thus, the opening scene will be a big fight! With what might be the climax of any other scenario of Lovecraftian investigative horror addressed up front, the question is, what is the rest of Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Marseille all about? Simple—consequences and escape! All the Agents have to do is get from the ritual site at Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul to the safehouse, lay low for a few hours, and then make their way to the port, hop onto the already arranged boat, and sail to safety. Naturally, both the forces of the Black Sun and the Vichy authorities with its Armistice Army, will outlooking for the interlopers who sabotaged an important German research project. There are also members of the public who support the Vichy government and they will have no issue reporting the presence of foreigners to the authorities. That is to be expected. What is not to be expected is the increasingly weird series of hallucinations that the Agents begin to experience as they make their escape. Affected by Dreamlands energy from the ritual, the Agents will find themselves cast into blizzard-bound mountains where something unnatural hunts them; a chasm splits open the street and the Agents must climb out under a rain of iridescent burning spheres; and lastly, they must solve puzzles if they are to escape a Daliesque dinner party!

These three are not the only hallucinations that will beset the Agents as they attempt to escape the city—merely the major ones. The scenario’s second appendix details nine minor hallucinations that can affect the Agents. These include seeing a lurker in the dark which the Agent is sure is hunting him and the Dreamlands-appropriate ‘being pursued by cats’. Each minor hallucination is done as a handout and enforces the ‘Hallucinating’ Truth on the Agent imposed at the start of the scenario by the Black Sun ritual, a fact that means he can affected by it again and again. If they are repeated, the Game Master is advised to vary it slightly according to the situation. This condition cannot be removed by normal means. It is possible to do it within the scenario, but it requires a spellcaster, it is difficult, and more importantly, it takes time. Unfortunately, time is not something that the Agents have on their side. They need to escape the city and they are being hunted. Whilst laying low is likely to make it more difficult for the Vichy authorities and its Armistice Army forces to find the Agents, laying low is likely to make it easier for the Black Sun troopers to find them—they do have the means to do so! Lastly, the Agents must get to Port in Marseille, find their contact who arranged their evacuation, and make their escape from France across the Mediterranean. Of course, Black Sun will be chasing them all the way…

All of which is played out against the clock. Quite literally, as one of the handouts in the scenario’s first appendix is a pocket watch. The majority of the handouts consist of mathematical puzzles that the players and their Agents must solve during one of the hallucinations. Some of them are harder than others.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Marseille is well presented. There are no illustrations. However, the layout is big and bold and the handouts and the cartography—especially the latter—more than make up for the absence of any illustrations.

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Marseille combines fast-paced action with woozy weirdness as the Agents are hunted across a city under pro-Nazi control. It is playable in a single session (or two) and its en media res set-up makes it very easy to drop into or even start a campaign.

Tabulating the Tricolour

The very latest entry in the Ticket to Ride franchise is Ticket to Ride: Paris. Like those other Ticket to Ride games, it is another card-drawing, route-claiming board game based around transport links and like those other Ticket to Ride games, it uses the same mechanics. Thus the players will draw Transportation cards and then use them to claim Routes and by claiming Routes, link the two locations marked on Destination Tickets, the aim being to gain as many points as possible by claiming Routes and completing Destination Tickets, whilst avoiding losing by failing to complete Destination Tickets. Yet rather than being another big box game like the original Ticket to Ride, Ticket to Ride: Europe, or Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries, it takes its cue from Ticket to Ride: New York, Ticket to Ride: London, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam, Ticket to Ride: San Francisco, and Ticket to Ride: Berlin. Part of the ‘City’ series for Ticket to Ride, it is thus a smaller game designed for fewer players with a shorter playing time, a game based around a city rather than a country or a continent. The entries in the series are also notably different in terms of theme and period.

Published by Days of Wonder and designed for play by two to four players, aged eight and up, Ticket to Ride: Paris is easy to learn, can be played out of the box in five minutes, and played through in less than twenty minutes. As with the other entries in the Ticket to Ride ‘City’ series, Ticket to Ride: Paris sees the players race across the city attempting to connect its various tourist hotspots. All of entries in the ‘City’ series are both set in their respective period times and have a theme representative of their city. Thus, Ticket to Ride: New York had the players racing across Manhattan in the nineteen fifties via taxis; Ticket to Ride: London had the players racing across London in the nineteen sixties aboard the classic double-decker buses; Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam took the series back to the seventeenth century and had the players fulfilling Contracts by delivering goods across the Dutch port by horse and cart and claiming Merchandise Bonus if they take the right route; Ticket to Ride: San Francisco continued the lack of trains in the series by having the players travel around ‘The City by the Bay’ aboard its icon form of transportation—the cable car and in Ticket to Ride: Berlin, the series goes across the ‘Grey City’, either by the trams that crisscross the city or the underground which encircles it—or both! And all in the nineteen sixties. Ticket to Ride: Paris takes the players back to the ‘City of Lights’ during the Roaring Twenties, along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées after a visit to Le Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile and the Tour Eiffel—and they can find the Tricolour, they will be able to celebrate Fête nationale française, or Bastille Day.

Inside the small box can be found a small rectangular board which depicts the centre of Paris, from Père Lachaise Cemetery in the east to the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile and the Tour Eiffel in the west, and from Montmartre in the north to Montparnasse in the south.In between are numerous routes, none of them, notably, longer than three sections long. This means that a player will score no more than four points per route claimed. The scoring track, from zero to forty-nine, runs around the edge of the board and overall, the board has an art deco feel to it. Besides the board map, the box contains sixty Buses, fifteen in each colour—red, blue, white, and green, forty-six Transportation cards, twenty Destination Ticket cards, four Scoring Markers, and the rules leaflet. The Bus pieces are nicely sculpted and come in the standard colours for Ticket to Ride, but are illustrated with a different form of transport for each colour. So black is illustrated with a motor car, white with a river cruise boat (presumably along the Seine), yellow with a tram, purple with a delivery van, orange with a Métro carriage, and the wild card with a bus. This really makes the cards stand out and easier to view for anyone who suffers from colour blindness and the range of transport options give the game a greener feel. Similarly, the Destination Tickets are bright, colourful, and easy to read. Most score either four, five, or six points upon completion and the most that any one card will score is eight points. As expected, the rules leaflet is clearly written, easy to understand, and the opening pages show how to set up the game. It can be read through in mere minutes and play started all but immediately.

Play in Ticket to Ride: Paris is the same as standard Ticket to Ride. Each player starts the game with some Destination Tickets and some Transportation cards. On his turn, a player can take one of three actions. Either draw two Transportation cards; draw two Destination Tickets and either keep one or two, but must keep one; or claim a route between two connected Locations. To claim a route, a player must expend a number of cards equal to its length, either matching the colour of the route or a mix of matching colour cards and the multi-coloured cards, which essentially act as wild cards. Unlike many Ticket to Ride variants, the map for Ticket to Ride: Paris has no black routes and more importantly, it has no grey routes, which means that Transportation cards in the correct colour or wildcards, or a combination of the two, have to be played to claim any route.

The other difference between Ticket to Ride: Paris and other Ticket to Ride variants is that it introduces a new means of scoring points, a distinctly French means of scoring points. When a player claims a red, white, or blue Route, he can keep one of the Transportation cards that he played, except if the card played was a multi-coloured wild card or he already has a Transportation card of that colour. The Transportation card kept is placed in front of the player, face up. At the end of a player’s turn, if he has one red, one white, and one blue Transportation card in front of him, he has created the Tricolour and can celebrate Bastille Day. This scores him four points. All three cards are discarded and the player can start claiming red, white, or blue routes on subsequent turns.

However, the number of red, white, and blue routes are not equal. There are eleven white, twelve blue, and thirteen red. Both the red and the blue routes are one space in length, whilst the white routes are two spaces long. So, the former are going to be easier to claim than the latter, and white Transportation cards are a more important resource than the other colours because there are fewer routes of their colour. That said, Ticket to Ride: Paris cannot simply be won by creating the Tricolour again and again. Essentially, celebrating Bastille Day and scoring points in this way is a bonus.

Physically, Ticket to Ride: Paris is very nicely produced. Everything is produced to the high standard you would expect for a Ticket to Ride game.

As with other entries in the ‘City’ series for Ticket to Ride series, Ticket to Ride: Paris offers all of the play of Ticket to Ride in a smaller, faster playing version, that is easy to learn and easy to transport. This is one of the easiest entries in the ‘City’ series to learn and play, with the Tricolour scoring mechanic similarly being one of the easiest to learn and play. Plus it does not require any other components, such as extra tokens or multiple types of playing pieces. Of course, along with the world famous locations on the map board, the Tricolour scoring mechanic are what enforce the Parisian and the French theme of Ticket to Ride: Paris. Overall, Ticket to Ride: Paris has a Gallic simplicity that makes it a decent introduction to the ‘City’ series for Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride in general.

Miskatonic Monday #266: Monsieur Deloffre Has Gone Quite Mad!

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Monsieur Deloffre Has Gone Quite Mad!

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Cameron Hays

Setting: Paris, 1830

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-eight page, 24.24 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Les Misérables meets the Mythos (singing optional)

Plot Hook: Madness, Monarchy, & the Mob

Plot Support: Six pre-generated Investigators, six NPCs, two maps, one Mythos spell, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Excellent

Pros

# Intriguing historical background and setting

# Potential convention scenario

# Nicely done NPCs
# Nicely done pre-generated Investigators

# Dementophobia

# Submechanophobia

# Phasmophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# Plot outline could be clearer

# What does the invisible body feel like?

# No NPC stats

# No mob rule

Conclusion

# Intriguing background and set-up supports a solid plot

# Lack of mechanical development undermines the ease of use

The Other OSR: Miseries & Misfortunes III

Miseries & Misfortunes is a roleplaying game set in seventeenth century France designed and published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Luke Crane, best known for the fantasy roleplaying game, Burning Wheel. Notably, it is based on the mechanics of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Originally, Miseries & Misfortunes appeared as a fanzine in 2015, but its second edition has since been developed to add new systems for skills, combat, magic, and more. However, the underlying philosophy of Miseries & Misfortunes still leans back into the play style of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. For example, the differing mechanics of rolling low for skill checks, but high for combat rolls and saving throws. Plus, the Player Characters exist in an uncaring world where bad luck, misfortune, and even death will befall them and there will be no one left to commiserate or mourn except the other characters and their players. Further, Miseries & Misfortunes is not a cinematic swashbuckling game of musketeers versus the Cardinal’s guards. It is grimmer and grimier than that, and the Player Characters can come from all walks of life. That said, it is set in the similar period as Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, so will be familiar to many players. The other major inspiration for Miseries & Misfortunes is Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre, a set of eighteen etchings by French artist Jacques Callot that grimly depict the nature of the conflict in the early years of the Thirty Years War.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane is the third of the roleplaying game’s rulebooks. The first, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 1: Roleplaying in 1648 gives the core rules for the roleplaying game, and the second, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux provides the means to actually create Player Characters, and together they make up the core rules. Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane does two things. One is that it provides the rules for learning and casting various types of magic and the other is a set of Lifepaths for both religious and arcane character types. The Game Master can make use of some of the Lifepaths without making use of the rules for magic.

Magic in Miseries & Misfortunes can only be learned through the reading and studying of the written word. This is primarily from grimoires which contain hidden truths far beyond that of the two divine books of Christianity—the Book of God and the Book of Nature. This knowledge is called ‘Gnosis’ and it is required to perform rituals, cast spells, and mix formulae. Through Gnosis, a practitioner can study the physical and metaphysical properties of the world and learn to alter numerous substances through Chymistry; Goëtia to summon and command demons; Necromancy to affect the world, particularly spirits and the dead; Theology to understand and communicate with the divine to invoke prayers of one’s faith; and Theurgy to summon and bind aerial spirits or angels. There are parallels certainly in the study of ‘Gnosis’ and the Mythos of Call of Cthulhu, but with differences. One is that there is no Sanity loss for reading the grimoires in Miseries & Misfortunes, but the other is that where a Player Character will know how much Cthulhu Mythos knowledge his Investigator has, a Player Character in Miseries & Misfortunes does not. Instead, it is kept secret by the Game Master.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane lists some one-hundred-and-forty grimoires. Most have a language requirement to be read, and any attempt to read a grimoire can lead to a successful interpretation or a misinterpretation. The reader who misinterprets a grimoire can attempt to read it again, but the amount of Gnosis he can learn from it is reduced. If this happens too many times, the grimoire actually becomes useless. A reader’s Gnosis also needs to be high enough to be able to interpret the grimoire, which takes time. However, a failure to misinterpret can lead to a long period of meditation without learning anything, the learning of false knowledge, and again, the degradation of the text. The process takes time, whatever the outcome. Another way of gaining Gnosis is through appreciation of great art and beauty, though the Player Character needs to be open to this rather than being stubborn.

Once learned, Gnosis represents the degree of knowledge a practitioner knows, no matter which tradition he follows or studies, each of which has its own skill. Chymistry includes a list of chymical formulae; Goëtia comes with a list of demons, their form and office—the latter the purview of their powers, and Demons can only be summoned at certain times of the day; Necomancy a list of highly detailed spells; Theology divides its prayers between those used by Catholics and those used by Protestants; and Theurgy, a surprisingly short list of Angels and their offices. Notably, each of the practices has its own set of unintended results and catastrophic results, many of which are quite amusing. In addition to the major difficulties of learning and casting, there are social challenges in learning Gnosis. Many of the traditions have been declared heresy and practitioners are hunted by the Inquisition.

The particular tradition that a practitioner studies depends on the Lifepaths they have followed. Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane includes five new Lifepaths. These are Exorcist, Jesuit Priest, Occultist, Protestant Pastor, and Philosopher. Thus, the Exorcist studies Goëtia, the Jesuit Priest and the Pastor Theology, the Occultist both Goëtia and Theurgy, and the Philosopher, Chymistery. All five begin a six-sided die’s worth of Gnosis.

Physically, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane is well presented and written, and although it does include some examples, these feel underwritten in places. It is illustrated with a period artwork and etchings which helps impart its historical setting. If it is missing anything, it is an index, but at just forty pages, this is not too much of an issue.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane provides a solid set of rules for adding ‘magic’ to the world of Miseries & Misfortune, although it is not really magic or even as simple as magic. In many cases the practitioners are dealing with the profane and the heretical, so dangerous both metaphysically and socially. It also takes time to research and interpret, so it involves more effort and work than most magic systems, so more commitment upon the part of the players and their characters. Of the traditions, Theurgy does feel underwritten, but the others are nicely detailed, and if there is anything missing, it is a Nun Lifepath and notes for Gnosis studying NPCs. Otherwise, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane expands its Early Modern France setting both mechanically and thematically adding dangerous knowledge.