Friday Fantasy: The House of Jade and Shadow

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #15: The House of Jade and Shadow is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the fourteenth scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, grimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #15: The House of Jade and Shadow, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild!

This is the set-up for Dungeon CrawlClassics Lankhmar #15: The House of Jade and Shadow, is a scenario for First Level Player Characters and is both an archetypal scenario for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. A stranger has come to the City of Seven-score Thousand Smokes. He says that has come from Far Kiraay, a realm considered near mythical by many Lankhmarts, but based upon the size of the baggage train and number of men and women he brought with him, as well as the home he has had built in the style of his homeland, where even now he holds parties for the wealthy and the nobility, intrigued as they are by his exoticism and his mystique, he is a rich man. Rumours swirl about his having been exiled from Far Kiraay for the deplorable acts of depravity and cruelty, that he keeps a king’s ransom in jewels, gems, and other valuables in a vault below his house, and that he hosts lavish masquerades for the rich and powerful at which introduces them to the pleasures of his homeland. Of course, every Lankhmart loves a good party and especially one that involves masks, since masks hide a person’s identity and when you happen to be stealing from the host, you definitely want to be keeping your identity a secret! Surprisingly, there is actually a lot of truth to the rumours flying about the Far Kiraayan nobleman, Master Fang-tzu, and both the household he keeps and the soirees he hosts, but there are definitely rumours that are not true and secrets he would not want revealed. Such as the fact that he is a leading member of fanatical cult dedicated to the Snake God, which is why he fled far Kiraary after an uprising, and having found a home in the City of the Black Toga, plans to suborn its rich and powerful as acolytes of the Cult of the Snake God!

However, Master Fang-tzu’s politics and vile practices have not travelled to Lankhmar alone as Xiang-li, a fellow Far Kiraayan has come to the city and wants to employ some local thieves to perform a job for him—in other words, the Player Characters. Suggested by a local contact (which the Judge will need to work into the campaign), Xiang-li wants the Player Characters to break into Master Fang-tzu’s and steal a set of seven jade stones that are necessary to ensure the rightful sovereignty of the ruler of Far Kiraay. Fortunately, the Player Characters’ contact has a way in—an invitation on a very fancy scroll to the very next party hosted by Master Fang-tzu.

Despite a lengthy backstory, the scenario focuses upon the event and Player Characters’ attendance, though they have time to case the joint and collect some rumours before arriving at the party. This enables them to pick up on a rumour or two and probably learn that Master Fang-tzu keeps some strange creatures in the grounds of his house. There is a table of random encounters provided should the Player Characters decide to check out the sewers beneath the house, as it is another possible means of the breaking in, but the route favoured and detailed by the scenario is using the invitation they already have. This enables them to look round the grounds without looking out of place and it also enables the Judge to run some fun roleplaying encounters at the party. Here the Player Characters can make some interesting contacts if they play their cards right. The encounters include being invited to dance by a brazen noblewoman and being called to duel as another nobleman’s champion. These are nice little encounters which give a player a chance to roleplay a scene and his character to do more than sneak around the house. There are only four such encounters as well as an optional one if a Player Character is caught red-handed committing a criminal act and the watch is called. More would have been useful, but these are about enough for the low player count required by the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #15: The House of Jade and Shadow is well presented. The artwork and cartography are both decent, but it would have been nice if a few more NPCs had been illustrated.

The sad new is that Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #15: The House of Jade and Shadow is the last release for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, but it is definitely not a bad scenario with which to bring the licence to a finish. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #15: The House of Jade and Shadow is a classic theft and mystery scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, in parts entertaining and horrifying. Plus, it really has some really fun roleplaying encounters. Unfortunately, it is a scenario for First Level Player Characters and there are enough of those for Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, which really could have done with more scenarios for higher Level Player Characters instead.

Miskatonic Monday #396: The Dionysian

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.

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Name: The Dionysian

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Christopher D. Leonard

Setting: Washington State, USA, 2018

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-two page, 11.83 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Bombs do not choose. They hit everything.”

– Nikita Khrushchev

Plot Hook: An unexpected murder spree over old ground

Plot Support: Staging advice, five NPCs, one Mythos tome, one Mythos artefact, and two Mythos entities

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Requires some knowledge of the Mythos

# There’s a bomb involved

# Would work easily with with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game

# Potential for sequels if the outcome is a success

# Ekrixphobia

# Capraphobia

# Herpetophobia

Cons

# Requires some knowledge of the Mythos
# There’s a bomb involved

# Could have detailed the killer’s telephone call

# No maps

Conclusion

# Serviceable investigation where one solution might be violence

# Underwritten introduction

Friday Fantasy: The Tomb of Grief

King Leland never wanted to be king, but he reluctantly took up his duty as others had before him. He found no favour with the lords and ladies of his court, heeding little of their advice or their wishes, and only entering into a marriage of convenience to appease them upon becoming king. Instead, he favoured Sir Eardwulf, a lowly knight who was at first a friend and then a lover, who he wished to raise to rank of Earl. This outraged the nobles of the court such that a faction led by Lord Blacklow moved against the king’s wishes, capturing and beheading Sir Eardwulf before his ennoblement could come to pass. King Leland was apoplectic with grief such that it fuelled years long retribution upon those lords who had conspired to kill his lover, soaking fields and forest in their blood. So he became known as the Red king. Now King Leland lies dead and his grief continues to be felt across the land. Crops fail, livestock dies, and the people are driven into madness by a sorrow that was never theirs. At the heart of this dolorous malaise stands the Tomb of Grief, the last resting place of King Leland. Can the curse be lifted? Which riches were buried with the Red King?

This is the set-up for The Tomb of Grief. This is an adventure written for use with ‘5E+’, so Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and Dungeons & Dragons 2024. It is a playtest adventure, the second, in an anthology of scenarios published by No Short Rests! called One Room One Shots. The first was Temple of the Forgotten Depths. Each entry in the collection is a short adventure themed around a single room or structure and intended to be slotted readily into a campaign or more readily, played in a single session with either no preparation or preparation required beforehand. This might be because some of a group’s players are unable to attend; because they want to play, but not want to commit to a longer scenario or campaign; or because a group wants to introduce new players to the roleplaying game. The Tomb of Grief is written for a group of Player Characters of First Level. The scenario has no other requirements beyond this and its setting, but both a Cleric and a Rogue will be useful, and a character of Noble background may have a minor advantage.

The scenario proper begins with the Player Characters at the entrance of the Tomb of Grief itself. Here amidst the rubbish-strewn floor and the broken, battered, and vandalised statues, the Player Characters can begin to search for hints and clues as to what lies in the burial chamber beyond. This search involves a variety of different skills, not just Investigation and Perception, so multiple Player Characters can be involved in the process. There is the challenge of how the Player Characters actually get past the heavy gate between the entrance and the tomb, but again, multiple means to get through are given and even when it feels like they are being punished, the scenario makes clear it is only temporary.

Inside, the tomb is embraced in darkness, resting over an abyss. The first challenge that the Player Characters face will be King Leland’s ‘Knight Protectors’, serving him in unlife. Thematically, each of the four is associated with the four stages of grief and this is applied not just in their special attacks, but also in their memories. For example, when a combatant hits or is hit by Sir Ben the Negotiator, there is a chance that they will be convinced that the ‘Knight Protectors’ are no longer a threat and that the everyone in the party should lay down their arms. This only lasts for a turn, but each effect of the different ‘Knight Protectors’ has a different attack.

The second part of the scenario focuses upon roleplaying. It consists of four, dedicated encounters consisting of memories of the ‘Knight Protectors’ who swore to serve the king and who the Player Characters have just defeated. Some are the significant memories that some of the ‘Knight Protectors’ have of the king they served, others are memories of significant events during his reign. All together, they chart the reign of King Leland. In each one, the Player Character will experience an event in a Knight Protector’s life and be tested in how the Knight Protector responded to it. There are three different responses per memory, each involving a different skill and each memory is also tied to several different Backgrounds. What this means is that the Dungeon Master can help tailor each roleplaying encounter to specific Player Character and test their skill accordingly. Of course, none of this will affect the outcome of scenario, or indeed, its set-up, since King Leland was sent mad with grief and took that grief out upon the land. What it will do though, is reveal the history of what brought about the fall of both King Leland and the land. This is a grim tale that gets ever grimmer, and what it will do ultimately, is influence how the players and their characters feel about King Leland and his actions.

The third and final part of the scenario is divided into two parts. In the first, the Player Characters face the real villain of the story and a giant of a knight hinted at the memories, whilst in the second they will confront the former king. How they decide that, ideally based upon the memories that revealed his history and characters, will determine the nature of the scenario’s conclusion. One last touch here is that the material reward that the Player Characters can earn, King Leland’s Sword of the Red King, will actually have different effects depending upon the outcome.

Physically, The Tomb of Grief is reasonably well presented. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent. It does need an edit and the map is rather too dark to read with ease, but simple enough that it should impede the Game Master too much. If there is an issue with The Tomb of Grief, as with the earlier Temple of the Forgotten Depths, it is that the text is small, making it a challenge to read!

The Temple of Grief delivers a solid, enjoyably thematic scenario for a good session’s worth of play. It is presented as a playtest adventure, but in truth, it is ready to play, whether that is as a one-shot for an evening or an encounter for a campaign, and ready to play with a minimum of effort. The Tomb of Grief sets out to tell a story and it is an epic story, such that it is surprising that the scenario manages to pack all of that story in a single session. Ultimately, it is a tragedy, one reminiscent of A Game of Thrones that if The Tomb of Grief is played as part of campaign, the Player Characters will be able to tell the truth of what happened during the reign of King Leland and so reveal that tragedy.

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One Room One Shots: Epic D&D Adventures in a Single Session! is currently on Kickstarter.

Miskatonic Monday #395: Alabaster Amphora – An Egyptian Adventure

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.

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Name: Alabaster Amphora – An Egyptian Adventure

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sean Liddle

Setting: The Nile, 1958

Product: Outline
What You Get: Sixteen page, 1.08 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Death on the Nile meets Without a Clue meets The Mummy

Plot Hook: A murder puts the Investigators in the frame

Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, two handouts, and two Mythos entities

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Pulp horror, murder mystery

# When the detective dies, someone has to step into his shoes

# Detailed outline ready for the Keeper to develop

# Krokodeilophobia

# Elaiophobia

# Thanatophobia

Cons

# Needs an edit
# Detailed outline that the Keeper will need to develop

# No NPC stats

Conclusion

# Death of a detective up the Nile and into horror!

# Detailed outline that needs development and some NPC stats

Miskatonic Monday #394: Hot Bro Summer

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.

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Name: Hot Bro Summer

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Rina Haenze & Evan Perlman

Setting: West Coast, USA

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-five page, 2.37 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Now you watch reality TV, you watch them in all those pools or Jacuzzis, and I say to myself, was I that stupid? But that was me then.” – Marcel Dionne

Plot Hook: A reality television series that is really going to work the body beautiful

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Himbos, two NPCs, six Mythos monsters, and a bevy of ‘Hot Young Things’.

Production Values: Serviceable

Pros

# Narcissistic horror in front of the world’s cameras (and beyond)

# Body beautiful versus body dysmorphic disorder

# Can the himbos be the heroes?

# Dysmorphophobia

# Venustraphobia

# Androphobia

Cons

# Some players are going to need ‘How to Himbo’ guide

# Single session stress test

# No house floorplans

# Needs a slight edit

Conclusion

# Himbo Horror! Mythos horror! Reality television! Which is worse?
# Quite possibly the biggest roleplaying challenge your players will ever face, bro!

Miskatonic Monday #393: From the Library of the Playhouse

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.

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It is true to say that titles such as De Vermis Mysteriis, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and of course, The Necronomicon lurk in the darkest corners of our collective gaming consciousness—and even beyond that, promising knowledge and power of the most profound and revelatory nature. Each exposes truths as to the nature of the cosmos and humanity’s place within that cosmos and the power to manipulate the cosmos, as well as the secrets of those who seek such power, who despite the revelations of humanity’s insignificance in cosmos still want to lord it over them, and who want to manipulate the universe in ways that no sane man would. Yet they also offer salvation if the reader is prepared to pay the price to his equilibrium and overcome the difficulty of finding and gaining access to works of such a dreadful and blasphemous nature that they have in the past, been banned, burned, locked away, or simply hidden. Let alone the fact that such a book might require the reader to know Latin, Ancient Greek, Arabic, or an obscure or lost language in order to read it. For as much as they offer truths that can set a man on the road to arcane and awful power, they may offer another man the means to thwart those who would tread such a path. Drawn from the imaginations of authors including H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Ramsy Campbell, they have appeared in fiction numerous times and in gaming likely as many times, if not more. The influence of Call of Cthulhu in spreading the names of such Mythos tomes cannot be underestimated and perhaps the best sourcebook for describing what they are, what their significance is, and what they contain, remains The Keeper’s Companion vol. 1.

From the Library of the Playhouse: a catalogue of Mythos tomes presents another sixty-five new titles that lie in wait, ready to illuminate, inform, and inculcate the overly curious and the immoderately ambitious. Most entries in the supplement are a page long each and most are illustrated, often to chilling effect such as the Prophecies of Cizin, written in Myan glyphs incised on human skin whilst the owner was still alive and later flensed, the illustration showing that skin hanging up.

Every tome is given a title and details of the language it was written in, who wrote it, and when. This is followed by a detailed description and the roleplaying game stats. They include the ‘Sanity Loss’ incurred for reading the book and the possible amount of ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ skill gained in the process, both the amount gained from an initial reading and later prolonged study. The ‘Cthulhu Mythos Rating’ represents the percentage chance of a reader finding a specific reference in a Mythos tome, whilst ‘Study’ is the actual needed to read the tome from start to finish. ‘Suggested Spells’ gives the spells that might be found in a Mythos tome, for which the Keeper will need access to the Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Rulebook. In addition, The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic will also be useful. Some entries have their own spells, new to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Lastly, each entry is categorised according to its ‘Rarity’ from ‘Common’—available in most book shops or libraries, to ‘Unique’—there only being one known copy.

The supplement is organised by era. These are Prehistoric (before 3000 BCE), Ancient (3000 BCE–499 CE), Medieval (500–1499), Early Modern (1500–1799), Late Modern (1800–1945), and Contemporary (1946 to present). The collection opens with Echoes of Eternity, the billions of years old pattern within the radiation left over from the Big Bang that might truly be understood only by reading the notes made by the Mi-Go and if thoroughly read might end in the instant death of the reader and ends with the Unknown Data Crystal found in the Polaris system in the twenty-third century that if meditated upon, will give answers to astronomical or navigational questions. In between, The Writing on the Wall can be found on great blocks of marble in the Australian desert, written in languages from far away, but encoded within is a hidden message that if read, will swap the reader’s mind of the Yithian scientist who wrote and allow him to escape his species’ doom; the Incolae Profundorum, a book found in the wake of the Venice floods of 1966 and which to this day remains damp and smelling of mould and salt and which describes the great benefits of aquatic civilisations; and the Isi Aldranna, the Norse runes carved into the hull of a Viking longship found quite well preserved found in an ice cave that tell the story of its great voyages, the inference being that they took the crew far beyond given that one of the spells it imparts is Brew Space Mead! There are versions of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Edmund Spenser’s Excursions into Faerie, and even The Book of Uncommon Prayer, whilst Le Culinaire Macabre is a book of macabre recipes written by the notorious ‘Cannibal Chef of Lyon’ that if cooked and eaten provide surprising benefits. Zimmer’s Marchen is a coda to Grimm’s Fairy tales, providing very much darker interpretations of the German folktales; Quaint and Curious Tales of Bodmin Moor collects Cornish tales of witches and the Devil and causes the reader to dream after reading a story of being visited by a witch, different each time, who offers the dreamer a new spell; and Brearley's Railway Time Tables and Assistant to Railway Travelling for September 1892 is so comprehensive a collection of railway timetables and local travel details that includes routes and stations that do not yet exist and includes the spell Ghost Train! Jahrila Phool—or Flowers of Death—is a cheap pulp novel in Hindi that imposes its plot upon the reader’s life; Hawker Brothers Ltd.’s Super Fun Party Time Activity Book is a children’s puzzle book with bizarre geometric join-the-dots puzzles (example included) and Oперация Mышеловка—or Operation Mousetrap—is set of microfilm canisters containing kompromat material on a large number of foreign dignitaries, celebrities, and world leaders performing unspeakable rites from just up until Glasnost and subsequently lost in the fall of the Soviet Union. Perhaps the weirdest is Nettleton’s Gourmet Alphabet Soup, a cheap, but popular brand of alphabet pasta shapes in tomato sauce that when heated forms messages of either forbidden knowledge or tips for cooking the perfect soup! The most delightful entry is An Ultharian Treasury: Prose and Poesy of Catkind, a collection of songs, stories, and poems from the literary and folk traditions of the Cats of Ulthar from The Dreamlands, all telling of their triumphs over the vile entities of the Mythos and meant to impart lessons of morality or practicality to young kittens. Of course, such tales are best appreciated when performed orally and in the language of Cat!

Threaded through the supplement, effectively serving as chapter or era breaks, is Ex Libris. This is a classic cautionary story of the dangers of taking too much of an interest in strange books. The conceit is that it takes place at the same theatre where the Miskatonic Playhouse—actually a podcast that performs content from the Miskatonic Repository—performs its plays. In addition, the first of two appendices summarises all of the Mythos tomes in the book, whilst the second provides a set of tables to ‘Build Your Own Tome’.

The second appendix does highlight the issue with From the Library of the Playhouse. One of the tables allows a Keeper to roll for the affiliation of the Mythos tome. However, there is no such affiliation listed for actual entries in the supplement, which would have made them easier to use. Physically, From the Library of the Playhouse is well presented and laid out, though it does need an edit in places.

From the Library of the Playhouse: a catalogue of Mythos tomes is an engaging showcase of invention and creativity. Its entries are as much additions to the Mythos as new iterations of it and its influence, but above all, it is a collection of potential hooks that might spur further creativity on the Miskatonic Repository. There in lies a challenge. How many of its entries will form the basis of new scenarios?

Miskatonic Monday #392: Calamity in Drywater Canyon

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.

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Name: Calamity in Drywater Canyon: A Wild Wet Call of Cthulhu Scenario

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Raul Longoria

Setting: Texas-New Mexico border, 1870s

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-one page, 27.28 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Butchery in the Badlands will lead to blood!

Plot Hook: Opportunities aplenty, but frontier fears face the unwary

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, two handouts, two maps, and four Mythos monsters, and a horse.

Production Values: Serviceable

Pros

# Invasion of the cannibal zombies in the Wild West!

# Open rather than plotted investigation

# Can be run using Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West

# Combat focus suggests that Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos could be an alternative rules set

# Osophobia

# Speluncaphobia

# Kinemortophobia

Cons

# Open investigation will careful handling by Keeper

# No backstory for the Investigators

Conclusion

# Hell comes to take a bite out of Drywater

# Rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ brawlin’ showdown against the forces of evil!

Miskatonic Monday #391: Where Dreams Take Root

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.

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Name: Where Dreams Take Root: A 1930s Call of Cthulhu Scenario

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Matt ‘Doc’ Tracey & Keeper Doc

Setting: 1930s Miskatonic University

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-two page, 91.36 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Little Shop of Horrors

Plot Hook: An ‘unofficial academic assignment’ turns into a nightmare

Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, seven NPCs, ten handouts, five maps, two Mythos tomes, and four Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Excellent

Pros

# Sweaty sense of unreality amidst academic ambition

# Excellent addition to any Miskatonic University-based campaign

# The Dreamlands as a threat, not a destination

# Almost psychedelic thirty years early

# Can be run as part of A Time to Harvest: Death and Discovery in the Vermont Hills – A 1930s Era Campaign Across New England and Beyond

# Oneirophobia

# Anthonophobia

# Botanophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# No bungalow map

Conclusion

# Paranoid puzzler turns into hothouse horror
# Unreal treatment of the ‘plant as invasive force’ theme
# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

Miskatonic Monday #390: The Forbidden Beat

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.

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Name: The Forbidden Beat

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Robert J Grieves

Setting: The Second Summer of Love, London

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-three page, 8.75 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A conspiracy of sound of Olympic proportions

Plot Hook: “Off with your head

Dance ’til you’re dead

Heads will roll

Heads will roll

Heads will roll

On the floor”

– Heads will roll, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s

Plot Support: Staging advice, ten NPCs, three maps, one ‘Mythos’ monster, and a playlist.

Production Values: Serviceable

Pros

# Hedonistic horror on the London rave scene

# Lowlife on the edge of national gentrification

# Opportunity to create some interesting Investigators

# Melophobia

# Pharmacophobia

# Chapodiphobia

Cons

# Needs an edit

# DJ Eric Z gives it all away
# No pre-generated Investigators

Conclusion

# Scuzzy Saturday Night Squatter’s Rites

# ‘All your base are belong to Azathoth’

Miskatonic Monday #389: The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors

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.

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The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors: A Role-Playing Scenario Set in the Classic 1920s Era is set in New York City and its surrounds in the summer of 1923. It opens in classic fashion a missing persons case, Mary Cobbler being concerned about the disappearance of her younger brother, John. She will alert the Investigators by telegram and then in person, they will learn that of later John has been sleeping poorly, spending time at the local library conducting research of some kind, and had received a letter that he avoided talking about. He has been gone a few days after leaving to conduct his sister thought was more research at libraries in New York. A simple search of his room turns up multiple clues as to his paranoid state of mind, a preoccupation, and some correspondence with a Doctor Edward Huntingdon who like the Cobblers, lives in New York suburb of Greenwich. Unfortunately, by the time the Investigators get to Doctor Huntingdon’s house, he is lying dead in a congealing pool of his own blood, on the floor of his office, his face and the front of his skull missing, as large, black maggots writhe in what remains of his brain!

It is a striking opening scene to the scenario—the earlier interview with Mary is more like an extended cold open—which sets the tone for the rest of the scenario. It is clear that there is something strange, not to say ghastly, going on and it is equally clear that John is somehow mixed up in it. This is confirmed when men come to the house shared by John and his sister and break into search it in the middle of the night. Ideally, the Investigators will be staying there, the default being they are actually based in Arkham, several hours’ travel away in New England, so that the Keeper can run a creepy cat and mouse encounter in the dark of the Cobbler residence. Further investigation upon the part of the Investigators will lead to a farm on the outskirts of Greenwich and into New York itself. There are other nasty encounters too, again with the strange men who broke into the Cobbler house, at a church and then later in a New York warehouse before the plot leads into scenario’s final revelation and climax in an unexpected location, some ‘distance’ from the city. A handful of endings to the scenario are given, at least one of them having a very nasty sting in tale.

So what is going on in The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors? The scenario revolves around an attempt by a group of occultists and members of an extended family, led by a wealthy industrialist, to lift a curse that has plagued the family for centuries. They are not the villains of the piece though. The villains are the cultists who originally placed the curse and the cultists that now want to keep it in place. There is a pleasing bait and switch here. The occultists and family members and their plans that John Cobbler has got himself wrapped up look like traditional Call of Cthulhu cultists at first, whereas they are merely well intentioned, and of course, misguided, since they are, after all, dealing with the Mythos. The actual cultists, the ones which want to prevent the industrialist and his cohorts from lifting the curse, are the evil, monstrous ones here. Effectively, this is not just a case of a bait and switch between occultists and cultists, but also what looks like cult on cult action. All of which is going to look mighty mysterious and downright confusing to the players—especially if they are veteran players of Call of Cthulhu—let alone their Investigators.

More than half of The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors is dedicated to supporting the Keeper. The Mythos monsters are surprisingly detailed, and the scenario includes thirty maps and handouts. The scenario also comes with six pre-generated Investigators including a biology professor at Miskatonic University, a private investigator, a journalist and author who writes about the occult, a boxing coach, a historian, and a vaudeville performer. All six come with detailed backstories, but how they are connected to each other, let alone John Cobbler, to come together to investigate his disappearance is a mystery in itself and really, the scenario’s biggest weakness.

Physically, The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors is very nicely presented with decent artwork and excellent maps and handouts. In fact, there are some thirty maps and handouts, and they are really very good. However, it does need an edit in places. It is decently organised, and each scene ends with the clues and links to other scenes and locations.

The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors: A Role-Playing Scenario Set in the Classic 1920s Era is a richly detailed, clue dense scenario that takes a classic Call of Cthulhu situation and switches things around to rightfully confusing effect. This is a surprisingly cunning, but well put together scenario.

Miskatonic Monday #388: Pulp Cthulhu: Heroes’ New Talents!

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.

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Name: Pulp Cthulhu: Heroes’ New Talents!

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Davide Quatrini

Setting: 1930s

Product: Supplement for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos
What You Get: Three page, 2.70 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: When some Talents are not enough, then you need more!

Plot Hook: More Pulp Action Talents for Pulp Action heroes.

Plot Support: Twenty-four Talents for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos 

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Twenty-four Pulp Cthulhu Talents

# Broken down into four categories—Alternate Physical Talents, Alternate Mental Talents, Alternate Combat Talents, and Alternate Miscellaneous Talents

# Some very specific, so suit specific character types, such ‘Miner’ who always knows depth underground and time of day outside, good for a miner or a spelunker

Cons

# Needs an edit

# Some very specific, so not always useful such as ‘Chopper’ which reduces fumble chances when using a chainsaw as a weapon or ‘True Singer’ which lets a character counter any music- or song-based spell or eldritch power with a Hard Art and Craft (Opera Singer) roll

Conclusion

# If you absolutely have to have more Pulp Cthulhu Talents

# Cheap