Xanthophobia

Call of Cthulhu is big in Japan. Bigger than Dungeons & Dragons and the Japanese devotees of Call of Cthulhu have their official campaign from Chaosium, Inc., that enables them and devotees around the world to explore a significant period in recent Japanese history. In doing so, they find a country at the height of its economic dominance at the end of the electronic era, unknowingly threatened by insidious memetic virus that finds vectors in prayer books and manga and dreams, mapping on its pattern onto the psyches of its victims who then will seek to spread it wider. It wraps itself around faith and culture and hope, but is utterly alien. That threat is the King in Yellow, drawn from the short story collection by R.C. Chambers, The King in Yellow, and re-interpreted for the ‘Bubble Economy’ period in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising as the Prince of Pale Leaves. This is not the first time that Call of Cthulhu and Chaosium, Inc. have visited Japan, the supplement, Secrets of Japan being published in 2005. In more recent years, the Miskatonic Repository has become an outlet for titles written by Japanese authors, such as Japonism 2024. Similarly, it is two decades since Chaosium, Inc. explored Hastur and the mythos of the King in Yellow with the campaign, Tatters of the King, published in 2006.

The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising: Encountering the King in Yellow in 1980s Japan is a published by Chaosium, Inc. for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and notable for a number of factors. One is that it is a modular campaign, that can be expanded with The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest, simply ran as is, or run as sperate, standalone scenarios. The second is that the supplement is co-written by residents of Japan, including the Sons of Singularity—responsible for The Sassoon Files: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and GUMSHOE Role Playing Games and Journal d’Indochine—and Chaosium, Inc. Which gives it an authenticity and a strong sense of place. Third, almost like a meme itself, the scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising can be played over and over again, as the players and their (new?) Investigators search for an alternate ending. Of course, the Prince of Pale Leaves can twist and change and learn, so that what might have worked in a previous playthrough (alternate timeline?) is not guaranteed to work in the current one.

What The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising is not, is a sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu in Japan in the late eighties. It does contain a glossary of terms in the appendix and it does contain source material and useful they are too. The source material covers Japan and its work-orientated culture during the period, examines the life of the working adult and the student, the divide between the generations and its consequences, organised crime, transportation, and more. That more focuses on the technology available, noting that personal computers and pagers are widely available, the Internet has yet to appear, mobile phones are rare, and weapons even rarer! So, no firearms, and despite what some might think, no swords—and definitely no Ninja! The downside to The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising not being a sourcebook book for Call of Cthulhu in Japan in the late eighties is that there is little in the way of advice for creating Investigators for the period. Even then, it only extends as far as telling the Keeper that Investigator should be able to speak Japanese and players to avoid the discriminatory cultural biases endemic to the period, though that was beginning to change. This leaves the Keeper and her players to be inventive should they want to create their own Investigators or have to create replacements in the event of Investigator death. That said, several pre-generated Investigators are provided and they represent a good mix of Japanese and non-Japanese characters.

There are two notable additions in terms of the mechanics specific to the campaign. The first is Exposure Points gained through exposure to the Sutra of Pale Leaves, whether through glancing at it, reading it, hearing it being read, and so on. As they are gained—whether by an Investigator or NPC—those exposed begin to fixate on Sutra of Pale Leaves, suffer dreams and altered perception, gain creative inspiration, and even begin to see the Prince of Pale Leaves. These are the very least of the effects of continued exposure, whilst The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising suggests that Sanity loss and severe orders suffered are ‘side effects’. Surprisingly, being exposed can have its rewards such as unexplained luck and being immune to Sanity loss, though these come at the cost of more Exposure Points. All this reflects the effects of the memetic virus rewriting the code in the sufferer’s brain. Exposure Points are kept secret from the players and count up in contrast to Sanity points counting down. The second addition is more distinctly defined and numbered ‘Endings’. Running from ‘0: Party Wipe (Failure)’ and up, these categorise player success in a scenario and are a common feature of scenarios in Japan where they enable players to simply communicate how well they did in a scenario. Strangely, this number gives a scenario what are effectively ‘winning conditions’, which is at odds with almost any description of how roleplaying works. However, they explicitly support the replay value of the scenarios and campaign since having achieved an Ending and a value in one playthrough, the players can playthrough the scenario with the aim of achieving a different Ending and ideally a higher value.

In addition to being different in how it spreads its influence, the ‘Mythos’ threat and its associated cult are also different in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising. The cult—the Association of Pale Leaves—is mad and dangerous, but it is not murderous. In other words, no sacrifices before altars at the dead of night at propitious times of the year. It can resort to violence when protecting its interests and its assets, but in the main, what it wants to do is proselytise. To that end, the Sutra of Pale Leaves and its different versions play a bigger role in the campaign than the cult itself, and although the cult is detailed, the focus of the scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising is not on the cult itself, but rather on the twistings of the memetic transmission of its master’s message. This also means that there is no real beginning, no real ending to The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising—and that feels wholly appropriate, even though some players may be disappointed.

Similarly, the Prince of Pale Leaves is surprisingly human in its form and face even if it is alien. It is also calm, calculating, and confident, never angry, never Machiavellian, but it is manipulative and several of the scenarios revolve around the Prince of Pale Leaves’ manipulation of the Investigators. In other words, it has none of the sardonic and manipulative qualities of Nyarlathotep, and so perhaps requires much more subtle roleplaying upon the part of the Keeper.

Narratively, the campaign adds ‘Confidants’. These are inspired by Jackson Elias of Masks of Nyarlathotep fame and are designed to serve as hooks, facilitating the involvement of the Investigators in the plots. Several are given, both general and scenario-specific, but the main one is a special agent of the Public Security Intelligence Agency, the equivalent of Japan’s FBI, but the others include a Buddhist monk and abbot, and heiress-turned anti-occult crusader. Their use is not mandatory, but they will flavour and influence how the Investigators are introduced to each scenario and potentially grant them access to various resources. For the players, the campaign includes Lore Sheets which provide them with information about Japan and its culture that their Investigators would ordinarily know.

The trilogy of scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising opens with ‘Dream Eater’. The Investigators are asked to look into an outbreak of insomnia in the historic town of Ikaruga. Sufferers also report having been tormented by a six-legged, purple tapir-like beast in their dreams when they do sleep. The incidences seem have started in a particular district of the town, significant only for a recent road accident in which an old man accidentally knocked down and killed a young girl. The old man is a master of traditional Japanese calligraphy. Interviewing him reveals that he is still remorseful, but is not affected by the sleeplessness affecting the rest of the town because a monk gave him a book of scripture to recite from. This is, of course, the Sutra of Pale Leaves, and will be the Investigators’ first exposure to it… What is interesting here is that the Investigators are inadvertently investigating two things at once, both cause and solution, and likewise working for two opposing masters without realising it. This is a scenario where the Investigators are going to be presented with a lot of information fairly quickly and the challenge is what to do with information rather than finding it out. There are hints and intimations throughout that not all is as straightforward as the situation at first might seem and both players and their Investigators need to be on their toes to realise this.

The second scenario, ‘Fanfic!’ explores the world of amateur manga artists and creators as the Investigators are asked to look into a new horror title that has become a much in demand underground hit amongst its ardently devoted teenage fans—and could be propaganda for a cult! Helped by a reserved young manga creator, the Investigators attend a Manga Market to try and find the creator of the subversive comic book. Again, there is the element of misdirection in dealing with a threat that is very much a danger, but not the whole threat. The danger here is that the misdirection actually works and the Investigators fail to realise quite what the other threat is. More than the other two scenarios in the book, ‘Fanfic!’ deserves repeat play to get beyond that misdirection, identify the other threat, and confront it atop a Tokyo landmark. This is an interesting exploration of a Japanese subculture that plays on the nature of viruses and gives it a sharp twist in applying it to the concept of memes.

The third and final scenario is the shortest. ‘The Pallid Masks of Tokyo’ begins with the discovery in an alley of a corpse with no face, or rather no facial features. The body, almost marked with deep and regular scars, is that of a Yakuza foot soldier and his boss will tell the investigators is that the dead man had been associating with a lieutenant called ‘Crazy Kazu’, who had gone rogue after spending time in the Secure Unit of the Tokyo Metropolitan Psychiatric Hospital. The latter is the focus of the latter half of the scenario and is a fittingly creepy location made all the more so by the influence of the Prince of Pale Leaves. Any investigation of Crazy Kazu will lead there and the Investigators might even receive an invitation to visit at night. Here they will find ‘Chateau Carcosa’, the Prince of Pale Leaves’ strongest manifestation on Earth. It brings a weird scenario to surprisingly direct conclusion, but not to the ongoing threat of the Prince of Pale Leaves and Sutra of Pale Leaves.

Physically, The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising is very well presented and written. The artwork ranges from the ukiyo-e style of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries to modern manga and much in between.

What The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising is not, is a campaign in the traditional sense for Call of Cthulhu. It is instead a framework that sets up a different interpretation of the King in Yellow mythos and showcases how that interpretation can be presented in three different scenarios and three different aspects of Japanese culture. And then further expanded with the companion volume, The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest. Unreal and uncanny, The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising: Encountering the King in Yellow in 1980s Japan is superb introduction to an unearthly devious threat whose full range of manifestations and vectors yet remain to be fully revealed and explored.

Sinister Shanghai

Shanghai—the ‘Pearl of the East’ has been a distant star in the Call of Cthulhu firmament. Yet since 1984 with its introduction as a chapter in the superlative Masks of Nyarlathotep, it has been an all-too far away, exotic destination, rarely visited beyond the confines of that campaign. Arguably, it was too strange, too difficult to research effectively, and in more recent years fraught with the dangerous possibility of portraying the inhabitants of the great city—whether natives or incomes—as stereotypes. That said, in more recent years, writers—both professional and amateur—have taken Lovecraftian investigative horror to Shanghai in scenarios such as Robin D. Laws’ ‘Shanghai Bullets’ from the anthology Stunning Eldritch Tales for Trail of Cthulhu, examinations of the original campaign in the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion, and finally, in that campaign’s update, Masks of Nyarlathotep, for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Yet as these campaigns, scenarios, and supplements have in turn shed a light upon the forces of the Mythos and their activities in the city, there has yet to be a definitive supplement of Lovecraftian investigative horror which focuses entirely upon Shanghai. That is, until The Sassoon Files.

The Sassoon Files: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and GUMSHOE Role Playing Games was published by Sons of the Singularity following a successful Kickstarter campaign. With the initial print run being infamously destroyed by the Chinese authorities, it presents an overview and history of the city, a campaign framework and four scenarios which take place between 1925 and 1929. The four scenarios can be run as one-shots or together they work as a rough campaign, and are in addition supported by factional campaign set-ups and drivers each of which would put a very different spin upon the four scenarios.

Written by members of the China RPG community, The Sassoon Files opens with an overview and history of Shanghai, focussing in particular upon the ‘Century of Humiliation’ suffered by China at the hands of the Western powers which saw the rise of the city from a small town located in a swamp near the mouth of the Yangzi River into a metropolis, rent geographically and politically. Geographically between Concessions and Settlements controlled by the Western powers, and politically between the Communists, the nationalists of the Kuomintang—by 1925 led by Chiang Kai-Shek, and the meddling Japanese. All whilst the Triad gangs, such as the Green gang, led by the infamous Du Yue Sheng, ‘Big Eared Du’, feuded for control of the city’s gambling, prostitution, and opium rackets. This includes a timeline which runs from 2050 BCE to 1949 CE, a list of notable locations and buildings in the French Concession, the Chinese City, and the International Settlement—a merging of earlier British and American Concessions, and a list of the dramatis personae to found in the pages of The Sassoon Files. The latter includes historical figures and figures fictional to be found in the supplement’s quartet of scenarios, but it is one of these historical figures who is key to those scenarios.

Sir Victor Sassoon, 3rd Baronet of Bombay, is an enormously wealthy businessman, a historical figure who owned large swathes of Shanghai and built the famous Bund. Not only is he aware of the Mythos, but he is both corresponding with Doctor Henry Armitage of Miskatonic University and looking to thwart its influence and its agents’ activities in the city. Thus he engages the Player Characters—or Investigators—into looking into situations and cases of note, which he and often his equally rich friends believe to be odd or inexplicable. Essentially, Sir Victor will act as the Investigators’ patron who will call upon their services again and again.

The four scenarios follow the same format. This is as a spine of scenes and clues as is standard of Trail of Cthulhu, laid out at least in the first scenario, as a diagram. Throughout each scenario—and the book as a whole—mechanical elements for Trail of Cthulhu are in black as is the rest of the book, whilst those for Call of Cthulhu are in red. This makes them a lot easier to spot. Where particular locations are referenced, excerpts of the main map are used, and since the Investigators will be visiting several of these again, these map excerpts appear more than once. Throughout the Investigators will encounter actual historical figures and the supplement does include notes for the Keeper on how to roleplay them. 

The first of the scenarios in The Sassoon Files is ‘Strong Gates, Hidden Demons’. A strange body and a supposed cholera outbreak lead the Investigators on a MacGuffin chase between the International Settlement and the French Concession, to the site of a bloody massacre and back again. This is a fairly straightforward scenario, but begins to pull the Investigators into the city and its atmosphere. However, the second scenario, ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’ is a whole lot more complex, starting with a flashback, and then comes back to the present for an even bigger, even more complex Macguffin hunt—or hunts—as Victor Sassoon wants to recover a recent purchase at an auction house and find out why it was stolen from him. Although the scenario requires a little effort in terms of set-up, there is a bravura quality to it, involving as it does the last Empress of China and a lot of tea. This potential for some weird, creepy moments too and a ‘what the hell?’ moment once the Investigators and their players realise quite what is going on.

Inspired by a traditional Chinese folk song of the same name, ‘There is This One Girl’ also ups the action scene upon action scene as the Investigators are sent haring after a gangster who seems to be winning at the racing track and the card table with unerring accuracy, this time because friends of Sir Victor want to reduce their loses and cannot account for the gangster’s success. The scenario presents an alternate interpretation of a Call of Cthulhu entity classic to Shanghai, who may well not be inimical towards the Investigators, as well as the opportunity for them to potentially find allies in their efforts against the Mythos. ‘There is This One Girl’ is also really the first part to ‘Curse of the Peacock’s Eye’, the fourth and final scenario in  The Sassoon Files. This has a weird flashback and has a quite linear sequence which is repeated. Although ultimately, the Investigators have funny choices to make, which may lead to the end of the world or not…

In terms of tone, the four scenarios in The Sassoon Files are presented in Purist mode. However, some scenarios do push at the dividing line between Purist and Pulp modes, and it would be very easy for the Keeper to take the campaign into a Pulp style of play. Certainly, as a city, Shanghai lends itself to that and there is advice in places on how certain Pulp Cthulhu abilities would work in particular scenes. Doubtless, pushed into the Pulp mode of Trail of Cthulhu or run using Pulp Cthulhu, and The Sassoon Files could be run as a rip-roaring campaign in the ‘Pearl of the East’. Either way, the Keeper is advised to check the chase rules for whichever roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror she is running and probably prepare some obstacles suited to the streets of Shanghai.

Using The Sassoon Files is not without its challenge. Obviously its remote location means that its four scenarios are not easy to add to an ongoing campaign and the timeframe for those scenarios is fairly specific. The most obvious and the easiest way to use the supplement is a standalone campaign. However there are other possibilities. One is to run the scenarios as sequels to a campaign which has ended in Shanghai after playing Masks of Nyarlathotep. That campaign runs throughout 1925 and The Sassoon Files begins at the end of 1925, so there is crossover potential. If the Investigators decide to leave Shanghai after completing Masks of Nyarlathotep, then The Sassoon Files could be run as an alternate timeline, the final scenario in the quartet, ‘Curse of the Peacock’s Eye’, supporting that possibility.

Being spread out over the space of four years, the quartet of scenarios in The Sassoon Files make up a loose campaign, so there is scope for the Keeper to add other scenarios she had adapted or written herself in between the given four. The Sassoon Files is both helpful and unhelpful towards that end. Helpful because it includes ten scenario hooks which the Keeper will need to develop herself, unhelpful because it is not the definitive sourcebook for roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror on Shanghai and its environs, and so does not explore the presence of the Mythos in the city and beyond, leaving the Keeper to develop that her self.

Each of the four scenarios in The Sassoon Files is accompanied by five pre-generated Investigators. These are okay for the most part. More interesting is the discussion of the factions involved in the four scenarios. These include the Locals—consisting of Sir Victor and his fellow expatriates and allies, the Communists under Zhou Enlai—later first Premier of the People’s Republic of China, and the Green Gang—Shanghai’s largest Triad gang, Japan’s Genyosha or Dark Ocean Society, and others. The discussion is accompanied by the options, hooks, and drivers for each of the four scenarios in The Sassoon Files for the players to roleplay members of the Communist party or the Green Gang, as opposed to allies of the Locals. The supplement also adds ‘Lore Sheets’ which provide both backgrounds and act as a resource or dice pool, equal to a couple of points, which a player can use to gain an advantage related to the Lore Sheet, each one of which is kept secret by its player. Although the end mechanical reward for fulfilling the objectives on the Lore Sheets feels bland, at the very least they provide more personal backgrounds for the Investigators and background information for their players.

However the publishers do miss a trick or two. For a supplement of this type, weirdly, there is no bibliography. Also, there are no maps of individual locations, which would have made the scenarios easier to run, and whilst as the scenarios proceed it becomes clear that they form a campaign, it is not clear at the outset, which again means they need more effort to prepare. Another issue is that whilst The Sassoon Files does provide a detailed overview of Shanghai, it is lacking when it comes to the kind of details and flavour which would help the Keeper portray the city on an ordinary, day-to-day basis. It is almost if the supplement needs a table of random encounters and events which would have helped the Keeper bring the vibrant and raucous hurly-burly of the city to life.

Perhaps the biggest trick missed by The Sassoon Files is when it comes to Investigators. First, there is a dearth of advice when it comes to the players creating their own, which may leave less experienced players of Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu floundering for ideas and concepts. Second—and more disappointingly—the authors do not make enough of the Factions as playable options. Now yes, they are discussed and they do have their own section in the supplement, but not a single one of the pre-generated Investigators which comes after each of the four scenarios is from a different faction. All sixteen are essentially from the Locals faction, that is, the expatriate Europeans who serve as the Investigators’ patrons and their local allies, and as diverse a mix of ethnicities and genders as the represent, what this means is that there none from the suggested Triad gangs or Communist factions. For all that is made of the authors being part of the China roleplaying community and their being familiar with both the setting and the history, this really is a missed roleplaying opportunity upon their part.


Physically, The Sassoon Files is a generally well-presented book. It makes a great deal of use of period photographs and maps to present Shanghai, and is illustrated by some superb pieces of artwork. However, it is in places inconsistent in its layout and very much needs an edit.

There can be no doubt that Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying deserves—whether Call of Cthulhu, Pulp Cthulhu, or Trail of Cthulhu—a supplement dedicated to Shanghai. Unfortunately, The Sassoon Files is not the definitive guide to the Shanghai of the 1920s for any of those aforementioned roleplaying games. Yes, it presents a good, even comprehensive, overview of the city, but whilst this is enough to run the four scenarios in The Sassoon Files, it is not really quite enough from which the Keeper can develop her own scenarios or content without input from other sources. However, this is not to say that the background information will not serve as the spur or inspiration for the Keeper’s creativity.

Although far from perfect, and not really a definitive guide to the city, The Sassoon Files: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and GUMSHOE Role Playing Games does something that no other supplement for roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror does, and that is present a campaign in Shanghai. It successfully combines both the history and noted inhabitants of the city with the Mythos for a quartet of entertaining and engaging scenarios.

—oOo—

Currently, Sons of the Singularity has a Kickstarter campaign underway for Journal d’Indochine. This is a supplement of ‘Horror and Intrigue in French Colonial-Era Vietnam in a campaign for the Call of Cthulhu TRPG’.