Musketeers vs. Cthulhu: A Simple NightfallRPG 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.
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