Miskatonic Monday #420: Lamps for the Lost

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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Name: Lamps for the Lost

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: David Waldron & Reshmi Lahiri-Roy

Setting: 1890s Ballarat, Australia

Product: scenario
What You Get: Fifty-eight page, 51.48 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Grave consequences of caste, corruption, and crime in Victorian-era Australia

Plot Hook: Is bigotry hiding a serious crime?

Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, four NPCs, six handouts, and two ‘monsters’.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Scenario for Cthulhu by Gaslight

# Lots of interesting historical background

# Diverse cast of pre-generated Investigators

# Casts a light on the Indian experience in Australia

# Phasmophobia

# Thalassophobia

# Homichlophobia

Cons

# Rushed in places

# Needs an edit

# No maps

# Historical background needed to be handouts

# Separation of the historical background and the scenario could have been better

# Should there be a Ballarat source and/or campaign now?

Conclusion

# Rushed, but well-researched historical ghost story

# A classic horror story of Victorian cultural indifference and bigotry