Cannibals in the Cold

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 2d20: Operation Snowstorm is a scenario that takes Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 back to North America, but not the Mid-West USA of Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter!. Instead, the action is in British Columbia, Canada, and involves agents of Majestic rather than Section M. The scenario is intended to be set late in the war after the USA has become involved, but does not specify a year. It is designed for mid-level play by a group of experienced Agents and the author notes that the scenario is intentionally deadly, so advises that players might not want to play it using their primary Agents. However, the scenario does not include any guidance as to what character types might be useful or appropriate, nor does it include any pre-generated Agents ready to play. This is a major oversight, since the location of the scenario in western Canada means that it is actually not that easy to get existing Agents there, let alone the fact that it is suggested that they not be used at all. This makes it difficult to add to an ongoing campaign. As ever, a good mix of skills and abilities will be required to overcome the threats in the scenario, but given the physical and environmental nature of the scenario, every Agent should have some combat skills and some survival skills too. Mechanical or technical skills as well as scientific knowledge will also be useful. This is effectively a one-shot scenario, one that will probably take two to three sessions to play through given its focus on combat. Decent sized floor plans of the outpost are provided. They could be used to play out the likely multiple combats that will take place during the scenario using miniatures if the Game Master and players want to.

The Agents’ mission is to travel to Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3, which lies a few miles outside of the town of Dunley in British Columbia. Recently, communication has been lost with the outpost, which the Agents’ bosses suspects is due to the severe blizzard which has settled on the area. The Agents are to re-establish contact and assess the current status of the research being conducted there. If there are no problems, then they only have to report back to headquarters. If there are issues, they are ordered to extract the research and return it to headquarters. Of course, this is a scenario for Achtung! Cthulhu, so there are going to be problems.

Those problems begin as soon as the Agents leave Dunley. Having outfitted themselves with weapons and cold weather gear, they must trek their way through the snow and up the side of the mountain where Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3 is sited. This is a bit of slog in and out of game. Multiple tests of the Survival (Orienteering) and Athletics (Physical Training) are required to get through the checkpoints representing the journey, which is expected to take just under three hours. Plus, after every hour, a Resilience test is required to avoid both fatigue and further coming under the ‘Influence’, the latter a complication due to the supernatural nature of the blizzard. Mishaps can cause delays, but Momentum can be spent to reduce the time it takes between each checkpoint and potentially reduce the overall time the journey takes and the number of Resilience tests the players have to make for their Agents. After a combat encounter, the players have the choice of a longer, safer way, which will mean further Resilience tests are required, a quicker, but potentially deadly route involving a climb up a cliff…

The aim of the ‘Influence’ is to inflict a growing hunger upon the Agents. This cannot be satisfied by any obvious means and will continue to inflict fatigue losses throughout the scenario. Worse, if an Agent is overcome by ‘Insatiable Hunger’, he will immediately attack the nearest living person—NPC or player Agent—and attempt to chow down on them! In other words, the Agent has been turned into a cannibal, and guess what has happened to the men and women assigned to Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3?

After an encounter the ‘Influenced’, the Agents can get into Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3. Inside, it is quickly clear that whatever research is being conducted has been disrupted. There are bloody bodies and signs of a desperate fight everywhere, but eventually the Agents will find a lone survivor, a French scientist working for Majestic. It should be obvious that both the scientist and whatever research survives needs to be evacuated. However, as the Agents are chased back down the mountain, help appears in the form of a team of indigenous people’s Pathfinder Demon Hunters, who have been hunting the Wendigo that now stalk the area. Once the fight is over, the Pathfinder Demon Hunters have a demand of the scientist and the Agents. It turns out the research being conducted was on artefacts taken from a nearby dig site that the staff at Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3 had recently excavated. The Pathfinder Demon Hunters warn the Agents that unless the artefacts are returned, the Prescence locked within the mountain will be unleashed and the blizzard will spread unchecked across the whole of North America. So, the Agents have a choice to make…

The scenario will end with either the Agents working with the Pathfinder Demon Hunters and saving the world or fighting the Pathfinder Demon Hunters and getting away with the research and so not saving the world. The latter is probably campaign ending as the blizzard keeps spreading and spreading, but the scenario does suggest the possibility of the greatest conflict in world history being turned on its head as all sides involved in the war suddenly must work together to defeat a new enemy which threatens everyone. This is of course left unexplored, but as a new campaign direction, it has interesting potential.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Snowstorm is a combat-focused scenario, one that is both straightforward and unless the players are new to the genre of Lovecraftian investigative horror, obvious in its choice of threat. There are points where there are opportunities to roleplay, but only a few and the choice presented to the Agents towards the end of the scenario is not an overly difficult one. One way in which greater roleplaying opportunities could have been added and perhaps the choice made more difficult is if the scenario had included a set of pre-generated Agents, complete with backgrounds tied to the situation in the scenario and to each other. This could have added tension and scope for roleplaying. Again, this is a missed opportunity, especially for what is effectively, a one-shot scenario.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Snowstorm is well presented. It is decently written and the floorplans of Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3 are more than workable. There is no area map and the scenario is not illustrated.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Snowstorm is unsophisticated in its plotting and obvious in its choice of threat, as well as being combat-focused and physical in nature. This does not mean that it is terrible scenario, but rather as decently done as it is, it could have been all the better with some good pre-generated Agents tied into the scenario’s plot and each other.