Miskatonic Monday #328: Japonism 2024

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.

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Despite its popularity in Japan, it is surprising that there is so little support for it as a setting in Call of Cthulhu. Barring Secrets of Japan from Chaosium, Inc. in 2005, which was a modern-set supplement, most of the handful of scenarios set in Japan have been placed their tales of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying firmly in the feudal period, so enabling the Samurai, the classic Japanese warrior to go up against the Mythos. For example, ‘The Iron Banded Box’ from Strange Aeons II from Chaosium, Inc. and ‘The Silence of Thousands Shall Quell the Refrain’ from Red Eye of Azathoth from Kobold Press. Incursions into Japan in Call of Cthulhu’s classic period of the Jazz Age are almost unknown, Age of Cthulhu VI: A Dream of Japan from Goodman Games being a very rare exception. It is a trend that continues on the Miskatonic Repository, Chaosium Inc.’s community content programme for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Here, A Chill in Abashiri – A 1920s Taisho-Era Japan Scenario is the exception alongside titles such as Thing torments poet, Daimyo calls on greatest help, Will the players fail? and After the Rain. Even Japan has its very own supplement devoted to the Taisho-Era of the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, in the form of ‘クトゥルフと帝国’ or ‘The Cthulhu Mythos and the Empire’, published in 2011 by Kadokawa. More recently, the well received Japan – Empire of Shadows: A Call of Cthulhu sourcebook for 1920s Imperial Japan further explored the Japan of the Jazz Age in much more detail. However, nearly all of this was one way. Despite popularity of Call of Cthulhu in Japan, few if any scenarios originating in Japan have been translated into English. With the release of Japonism 2024 – Three Modern Day Japan Call of Cthulhu Scenarios, all that changes.

Japonism 2024 – Three Modern Day Japan Call of Cthulhu Scenarios presents three scenarios originally published in Japan in 2019. All three are set in the 2020s, involve technology to some degree or another, and have a running time of three to four hours, making them suitable for one-shots or as convention scenarios. The introduction provides a guide to modern Japan, covering its geography and climate, language and religion, money, education, getting a driver’s licence, ownership of firearms—exceedingly rare and the police, and more. Much of this could easily been discovered with some research upon the part of the Keeper, but it is handy to have it all here. In addition to individual scenarios themselves, the supplement provides an overview of each of the three cities—Tokyo, Kyoto, and Yamaguchi—where the three scenarios are set.

The first of the anthology’s trio is ‘Do Gods Dream Of Digital Drugs?’. Written by Byoushin, it is set in November in Tokyo and it opens in shockingly bloody fashion. The Investigators are meeting a friend who is participating in the ‘Hills Music Festa’, which they are also attending, when the friend as he goes to leave, suddenly screams and then begins stabbing himself in the face, inflicting multiple wounds upon himself before he dies. Investigating the death reveals that the events company organising the music festival and its staff have been the subject of threats and protests from a cult—the Church Of Serialism—and that the friend was not the first to die in similar circumstances. The investigation is hampered by the presence of security guards at many of the locations involved, but in most cases, there are NPCs who will talk to the Investigators who are patient and polite. The threat is tied into cutting edge technology, which if gets out could lead to a series of mass suicides similar to that suffered by the Investigators’ friend. Music related skill such as Art/Craft (Piano) and both Computer Use and Electronics will be useful in resolving this Science Fiction-themed horror scenario which very nicely draws on contemporary fears. If the Investigators fail, the climax of the scenario is even more shocking than the opening scene, one that the media will likely put down to mass hysteria, but of course, the Investigators will likely know better.

The second scenario is Lom’s ‘Sutra Chanting Network’, which continues the Science Fiction horror of ‘Do Gods Dream Of Digital Drugs?’ This takes place in Kyoto with the Investigators being invited to attend a ceremony at Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto by a relative who is a priest there. The ceremony is the ‘Tsukinamisai’, conducted at the beginning of every month, in which participants pray to the enshrined deity, Kamomioyasume Omikami, for the prosperity of the Imperial Household and peace for the nation. The Investigators have a chance to see Kyoto first, but at the ceremony, the Shinto prayer that the priest is chanting suddenly changes and the attendees are wracked with pain and a feeling of being drained, some actually falling unconscious. Examination of the priest reveals that he has a cut on the back of neck and with further examination that he has had a foreign object implanted in his neck, which turns out to be a computer chip! The son of the priest is actually a hardware engineer. So, could he know something about this? Again, this scenario involves cutting edge technology, this time the Internet of Things, but with a Mythos twist which sees that Internet of Things expanded to include people. And also, again, the scenario involves a threat that can be spread or work through a mass medium. The climax of the scenario is a confrontation not only with the villains of the piece, but also quite possibly the silliest threat that anyone has faced in Call of Cthulhu. Nevertheless, as silly as it sounds, having to fight a mechanised shrine hall as if it was a mini-kaiju feels very Japanese.

The trio comes to an end with ‘Unseasonable Blooming And Minuet’ by Aka with Lom. This takes place in December in the fictional Chugoku-region city of Hodaka in the modern-day Yamaguchi Prefecture. It has a more traditional feel in terms of its threat, drawing upon Japanese history and folklore, but as with the previous two scenarios, uses modern technology and concerns about that technology as vectors to spread its threat. In this scenario, the technology is social media. The Investigators are invited by a friend and his sister, to visit Hodaka, the city where they grew up which is known for the Hodaka Tenmangu Shrine and Mount Hodaka, and not long after they all arrive, the sister goes missing. Her disappearance is not the first of young girl in the city and upon looking into the matter, the Investigators will learn that the disappearances all linked to a particular social media account and the images of a blossoming plum tree posted on the account. This has a horrifying combination of the modern with the traditional and has a very chilly ending, so the Investigators had better come dressed for the cold.

Physically, all three scenarios in Japonism 2024 are reasonably presented, although a little untidy in terms of layout. The writing is dense in places, so the Keeper will need to give the three a careful read through and study.

Japonism 2024 – Three Modern Day Japan Call of Cthulhu Scenarios presents three good, richly detailed scenarios set in Japan. All three share common threads in terms their fears of technology and the ways in which it be twisted—advertently or inadvertently—by the influence of the Mythos to become a mass media threat. Although all three require a little extra time to study and prepare, the scenarios in Japonism 2024 – Three Modern Day Japan Call of Cthulhu Scenarios will very well as one-shots, or even better, convention scenarios.