Scares Under Scotland

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 Falling Crystal takes place on the Home Front with the Player Characters, or Agents, suddenly rushed to the Scottish coast where a strange discovery has been made. With the Battle of France over and the Nazi war machine readying itself for Operation Sea Lion, Britain is frantically preparing defences against imminent invasion. In Scotland, this includes teams of coast watchers keeping an eye for roving U-boats, whilst just inland, near the sleepy village of St Abbs, an archaeological dig led by Professor Angus MacLeary, has made a discovery in an ancient cave system below a hill that sits behind a megalithic stone circle that stands looking over the sea. This is a highly valuable cache of the Blauer Kristall—or Blue Crystal—much coveted by Nachtwölfe, which uses it to fuel its increasingly weird weapons of war. Section M has been alerted to the discovery and quickly despatches a team of Agents, that is, the Player Characters, north to investigate and secure what could be a war-winning resource for analysis by the boffins at Clemens Park.

From the outset, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal sounds quite a bit like Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under the Gun and in a great many ways, it is. Both scenarios are set on the Home Front and both take place in August—Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under the Gun in August, 1940 and Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal in late August/early September. Both scenarios are intended as sequels to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard, and thus both scenarios have the issue of the latter taking place in August, 1940. So there is a tight timeline involved. Both scenario involve a discovery being made underground which first attracts the attention of Section M, then the associated forces of the Mythos—in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun it is Deep Ones, whereas in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal, it is the Mi-Go—and both end in a three-way tussle between the Agents, the agents of the Mythos, and one of the Nazi factions in the secret war. Surprisingly, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal, it is Black Sun and not Nachtwölfe. Since it involves the Black Sun, it can be run after the events of ‘A Quick Trip to France’ found in the Achtung! Cthulhu Quickstart: A Quick Trip to France.

This is not to say that there are no differences. The Agents will have the opportunity to engage a little with the locals at the village pub at one in the scenario and there is an engagingly Hitchcockian feel to the train journey from London to Scotland. The Agents will also have their first encounter proper with the Mi-Go, one of the utterly alien factions in the Secret War, and may be able to parley with them in order to persuade them to work as allies, if only temporarily, against the Black Sun soldiery which has landed on the coast to take control of everything. There is more scope for roleplaying too, with the villagers, with the members of the coastal watch, with the members of the archaeological team, and even with the Mi-Go! What Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal also does is introduce the Agents to both two more factions in the Secret War—Black Sun and the Mi-Go—and to the fact that the relationship between the Nazi factions, Black Sun and Nachtwölfe, is actually a rivalry.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is another short, sharp scenario which can be completed in a single session. There is a bit of clean-up in terms of what happens to the members of the archaeological dig and any captured Black Sun agents or troops, and the success of the Agents is measured in just how much and who they can get back to London. Success is not guaranteed through as the Agents face some tough Black Sun forces for a small group and they may make any potential successes less guaranteed by not making allies in the scenario. This a tough little scenario, high on combat and action over investigation.

Although Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is not a complex scenario, like the previous Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun, its climax does involve a big battle with multiple opponents and factions, so it does feel a little like a mini-wargame rather than the climax of a roleplaying scenario. Certainly, the Game Master might want to have the factions involved in this tunnel and cave-based confrontation divided between herself and the Player Characters to make it easier to run and give her fewer dice to roll and NPCs to keep track of.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the maps of the various locations are decently done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is a short and serviceable scenario, more action and combat than investigation. Its main problem is that it feels too much like Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun, so the Game Master may want to run at least one scenario, if not more between the two if she is running the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 scenarios in chronological order. Otherwise, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is an easy scenario to add to an early war campaign for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20.