Fruits Of Your Labour

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 Mission: Operation Black Cap is a short adventure for the roleplaying game. It takes place in March, 1941. Section M has received word that a Ju 52 transport aeroplane crashed due to unseasonably bad weather in the mountains of Montenegro in Yugoslavia and that when it crashed, the transport aeroplane was carry the finds from a Black Sun archaeological dig in Italian East Africa. This includes a valuable occult object, one potentially connected to the cult of the Black Goat, Shub-Niggurath. The Agents are assigned the mission to infiltrate Yugoslavia, make contact with a local asset, proceed to the crash site, and once there, either recover what the object is or destroy it. This sounds straightforward enough, but there are complications. First, Black Sun is certainly going to want to recover the crash site and take repossession of whatever the transport aeroplane was carrying. Then there is the question of whatever it was that brought the Nazi aeroplane down. Lastly, there is the political situation in Yugoslavia, which is growing increasingly tense as the prince regent and the Yugoslavian government are put under pressure by the Nazi government in Berlin and fascists within the government to sign the Tripartite Pact and enter an enforced alliance. By the end of March, the prince regent would sign the Tripartite Pact and the military would stage a coup d’état in response, and within two weeks of that, Nazi Germany would invade. All that is to come, but in the meantime, the Yugoslavian army is on alert, its soldiers on edge, the Agents have to sneak in at the same time as a Black Sun contingent all but mounts a mini-invasion of its own!

The scenario is linear, taking the Agents from the beaches on the Adriatic Sea up into the mountains via a local contact to the crash site. Along the way, they will encounter Serbian army patrols to avoid—though the scenario includes an optional scene if the Agents are captured, and past two check points. One is manned by the Serbian army, the other by Black Sun troopers, and how they get past either checkpoint is up to the Agents. Things take a turn for the weird when the Agents reach the village of Glavica, near the crash site. It is clear that it has been the site of a battle, but the buildings are covered by vines hung with mishappen fruit and a black fungus covers almost everything. What few animals and inhabitants remain are odd and fearful. This though is a lull in the story before the action ramps up with the scenario’s final three scenes. The first of these plunges the Agents into the confrontation between the villagers—who of course, are deeply involved in the situation—and the Black Sun soldiers in a pitched battle at the crash site. The intervention of the Agents will tip the balance against the Black Sun, but this is no case of ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’, since the villagers are almost as evil and fanatical in their own way! Penultimately, there is a confrontation with cultists who brought the aeroplane down and their revenge upon the Agents for their intervention, and either their theft or destruction of the artefacts that the German transport was ferrying to Berlin. After that, the Agents need to hightail it back out of the mountains and then out of Yugoslavia. Several suggestions of varying complexity, are given as possible means of escaping Yugoslavia, with one of them nicely handling the desperate situation in the country.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Black Cap is cleanly and tidily laid out, and it does include a couple of good pieces of artwork. The maps are clear and easy to use, although the aeroplane at the crash site does not particularly look like a Ju 52 transport aeroplane—not one of its three engines in sight! Lastly, a map of the village might have been useful.

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Black Cap is a simple and direct affair, a snatch and grab whilst having to deal with battling factions of the Mythos. Easily played in a session or two, it is easy to slot into a campaign set early in World War II, although it is very time and setting specific. Combat focused, it is at its best when discovering the fecund malignancy in the village of Glavica, and then in confronting not one, but two factions of the Mythos.