Miskatonic Monday #321: Wicker Hollow

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: Wicker Hollow

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Matthew Hepler

Setting: New Hampshire, Modern Day

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-eight page, 1.69 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: It’s like The Wicker Man, but in New Hampshire and with students, not Edward Woodward

Plot Hook: Hiking horror fails to overcome a horror of weeks before

Plot Support: Staging advice, nine handouts, three maps, and two NPCs.

Production Values: Scruffy

Pros

# Dramatic set-up

# Fast playing one-shot

# Non-Mythos folklore horror

# Easy to add the Cthulhu Mythos

# Easy to transfer to other Call of Cthulhu times and settings

# Pyrophobia

# Thanatophobia

# Samhainophobia

Cons

# Needs an edit
# Layout is awkward to read and needs to be toned down

# No pre-generated Investigators

# Underwritten NPCs

# Obvious in its inspiration

Conclusion

# One-session one-shot survival horror

# All too obvious in its inspiration