Mythos & Misdirection

Occam’s Razor: Seven Modern Era Adventures of Mystery and Death begins with a problem. The anthology is a collection of scenarios for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition from Stygian Fox Publishing, previously known for two other collections, Fear’s Sharp Little Needles:Twenty-Six Hunting Forays into Horror and the highly regarded Things We leave Behind. What its back cover blurb states is that the book is, “Seven modern era adventures of mystery and death taking investigators through a nightmare of unexpected outcomes, horrific dilemmas, and extreme cosmic horror.” However, the problem is that this statement is both inaccurate and misleading, and it completely fails to tell the prospective purchaser and Keeper what Occam’s Razor is. This problem is compounded by the complete absence of an introduction, which might have explained what Occam’s Razor is and what Occam’s Razor is not, and the key idea behind the anthology. It is not until the reader is fifteen pages into Occam’s Razor and at the end of the first scenario that it becomes clear what the anthology is and what the key idea behind it is. Which really is too late to discover, especially when the blurb promises the prospective purchaser and Keeper “extreme cosmic horror” and does not ‘exactly’ fulfil that promise.

Occam’s Razor: Seven Modern Era Adventures of Mystery and Death, published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, is an anthology of scenarios which involve the mundane rather than Mythos horror. In this they adhere to the principle of ‘Occam’s Razor’ that when faced with competing theories or explanations to a problem, the one with the fewest complications and thus the simplest is to be preferred. In fact, there is no fantastical horror involved in the scenarios in the anthology. So, no vampires or werewolves, let alone the Cthulhu Mythos. Instead, a pack of rabid dogs rather than werewolves (or Ghouls), murder rather than lake monsters (or Deep Ones), and mental illness rather than stalking (or cultists). However, in each case, the author provides options and suggestions in a ‘Must Have Mythos’ sidebar as to what Mythos threat might be added to make each scenario more of a traditional scenario for Call of Cthulhu. That though, would be undercut the point of the anthology, which would be to misdirect the players and their Investigators. To have them chasing hither and thither in search of a Mythos threat or solution to a situation, only for them to miss the obvious, but ultimately realise that the mundane solution can be just as horrifying.

Besides sharing mundane solutions with Mythos options, what the majority of the scenarios in Occam’s Razor share is a hook. Five out of the seven involve missing persons cases, which quickly becomes repetitive and means that whether running them using the mundane solution or the Mythos solution, the Keeper cannot use them one after another. Similarly, four out of the seven involve college students, and that too has a similar effect. All seven though are quite short, offering no more than a session or two’s worth of play, and all are really nicely detailed, the author having done a decent job of explaining each scenario’s plot and clues and ramifications and how each investigation should play out. Even the simplest is well thought through and this shows on the page. The author also adds advice and suggestions on how to run or stage each scenario in sidebars that are in an addition to the usually fulsome ‘Must Have Mythos’ sidebar. The scenarios in the anthology are all set in the modern day, so mobile phones and the Internet all feature fairly heavily, and it will probably be a good idea if at least one Investigator possesses a decent Computer skill—there are a lot of passwords to crack in the seven scenarios.

The anthology opens with ‘A Whole Pack of Trouble’. The parents of Kyle Alexander, a college freshman, believe that he has gone missing, but cannot persuade the campus or local police department that this is the case. Both believe that he is simply away on a break, but following the clues from his dorm room leads the Investigators out into the back wilds where they find Alexander’s car outside a long-abandoned asylum. So, the questions are, what was Kyle doing out there and where is he now? The solution here is a feral dog pack, which presents a genuinely nasty threat once the animals gain the Investigators’ scent.

The second scenario is ‘Eye of the Beholder’ and involves the second missing persons case in the anthology, again from a college. Amy Langan is an art student and once her movement is traced, she was last seen at a local art museum. The question is, where did she go after that? This is a constrained scenario, confined to the four walls of the museum, which has the scope to inject an unhealthy dose of the Mythos via a seemingly random art exhibition. This seems rather overdone in comparison to the mundane solution behind the disappearance. Whether the Keeper adds the Mythos or keeps the scenario mundane, it is possible to circumvent either and very quickly bring the scenario to a conclusion.

‘Frozen Footsteps’ takes the Investigators to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on the trail of a friend who failed to turn up for a regular lunch meeting. The friend is known to be an amateur scholar of the occult, so something must have caught his interest… Unfortunately, this is not an interesting scenario in itself, with or without the addition of the Mythos content. What sets this scenario apart is the wintery nature of the setting and time of year, and that the antagonists are actually more proactive than others in the scenarios in the anthology. Of course, the friend needs to be added to the campaign prior to the scenario to really work.

Fortunately, ‘Dark and Deep’ is much more interesting in almost every way. In a nod to the author’s own filmic interests, the Investigators receive—or are alerted to the existence of—what appears to be an exert from a snuff film, in which a young woman appears to be attacked by a monster in the waters near a lighthouse. Perhaps the monster could be a Deep One? There is an engaging plot to this scenario and plenty of potential for good roleplaying, and that is even before the Keeper thinks of adding the suggested Mythos content. Should she do so, this adds another level of engaging plot and the motivations of the Mythos threat actually fit the situation ever so neatly. Of all the scenarios in Occam’s Razor, ‘Dark and Deep’ is the one easiest to use in a standard Call of Cthulhu campaign without the Mythos feeling shoehorned in.

The scenarios return to college for ‘Visions from Beyond’ after one of the investigators receives a late-night telephone call from a young man who looks up to the Investigator and takes an interest in the Investigator’s occult-busting activities. The young man is distraught and upset, babbling about recent activities he has been involved in, but then the telephone goes. What has the young man been up to and where is he now? The Investigators must deal with the young man’s fraternity and the campus police before grasping some idea of what is going on… When the antagonists find out, they have a nasty way of turning on the Investigators and then everything gets really freaky! This scenario is nasty enough to not warrant the inclusion of the Mythos, and if it is, there would really be very little difference between the Mythos threat and the mundane one. The scenario needs some set-up beforehand, adding the young man as an NPC to the Keeper’s campaign. This is likely to work better here than in the earlier ‘Frozen Footsteps’, as the interaction with the young man brings an emotional immediacy to the scenario.

The most radical of the scenarios in Occam’s Razor is ‘The Watchers’. A young woman, Linda Lopez, hires the Investigators because she believes is being followed and her apartment is being watched, including by a tall shadowy figure. Of all the scenarios in the anthology, the solution to the situation in ‘The Watchers’ is the both the most mundane and certainly the saddest. This is because her fears are unfounded because she is mentally ill and suffering from schizophrenia. The scenario is designed to teach reckless Investigators and their players a lesson or two in not rushing into the situation and jumping to conclusions. Adding the Mythos to ‘The Watchers’ would ultimately undermine this intent, let alone the fact that the Mythos would not add anything of interest either. The treatment of the mental illness and the symptoms of schizophrenia are reasonably well handled, but there is no denying that ‘The Watchers’ has a brand of horror all of its very own, which makes for an uncomfortable scenario with potentially a difficult subject matter for some players and controversial for others.

The last scenario in ‘A Cleansing Flame’ goes back to college where an astronomer friend of the investigators is found burned to death. Does it have something to do with his research or is there something else going on here? As the Investigators tries to find out the truth, one of their number comes to the attention of someone who always seems to remain elusive and just out of the corner of their eye. Is this person related to the victim’s work or not, and just what is their interest in the Investigator? This is not an easy investigation and many of the NPCs will be unhelpful or simply difficult to deal with. In comparison to the other six scenarios in the anthology, ‘A Cleansing Flame’ is a looser affair and not as tightly structured or plotted, so it likely to require more time to play and more input from the Keeper. The scenario’s climax—as the author makes clear—also has the potential to kill all of the Investigators. Also, like some of the other scenarios in the anthology, adding the Mythos to ‘A Cleansing Flame’ does not add anything to its horror.

Rounding out Occam’s Razor is a series of newspaper articles which the Keeper can develop scenarios from herself or link to other adventures, especially those also published by Stygian Fox Publishing. The anthology also comes with a set of pre-generated Investigators, the owner and staff of the Sandings Investigative Agency. These are for the most part, decent enough.

Physically, Occam’s Razor is a handsome looking, but slim tome. The book is nicely illustrated throughout and the cartography is artfully done, arguably the best to appear in a Stygian Fox Publishing in some while. Not all of the illustrations match the maps—or vice versa—though, and the editing is uneven in places.

There have been anthologies for Call of Cthulhu before which present scenarios without the Mythos. Bumps in the Night from Pagan Publishing is one, as are Blood Brothers and Blood Brothers II, both from Chaosium, Inc. Occam’s Razor joins them, but wants to have its cake and eat it by including options to involve the Mythos, and in all too many cases, the presence of the Mythos does not add much, if anything at all, to a scenario. This is primarily because the presence of the Mythos is simply changing the motivations behind the antagonists’ actions, the exception being the best scenario in the book proving the point. ‘Dark and Deep’ stands very well up on its own, but the addition of the Mythos adds plot rather than motivation.

The collection though is not as easy to use because of its repeated hook of missing persons cases and the mundane nature of the antagonists. Rather than use them one after another, the scenarios need to spread across a campaign if their central conceit—that not all horrifying situations have a Mythos solution and the Investigators need to be reminded of that on occasion—is to work. Nevertheless, Occam’s Razor: Seven Modern Era Adventures of Mystery and Death presents a set of serviceable scenarios, with at least the one standout, but all seven are solidly plotted and well written.