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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: Vive La Résistance is the ninth release for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20, and does something a little different. Most missions in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20, whether for Section M or Majestic sees the agents sent behind enemy lines, investigating the activities of the enemy in the Secret War, perhaps gaining the support of the homegrown resistance movement (itself, typically armed and supported by the SOE), thwarting those efforts, and subsequently returning back to base in dear old Blighty. But what of the resistance movements? What of these NPCs? They get to stay, hiding in the shadows, always moving, constantly in danger from being betrayed by collaborators, captured, interrogated, and worse. What is at stake is the freedom of their country from under the jackboot of the Nazi occupiers and oppressors. This is the subject of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance, presenting an overview of Resistance movements in Europe, new agent options, friends and foes, equipment—Mythos and mundane, and a quintet of missions and maps.

From the start, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance makes clear that campaigns involving the various resistance organisations will be different to normal campaigns for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20, darker in tone and more dangerous in play. Whilst the Player Characters may be the heroic protagonists of the story, they will be constantly watched and often hunted, whilst not always having the support of their fellow countrymen. Collaborators and traitors might betray them at any minute—and sometimes they can be family or colleagues. Thus, the atmosphere of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance is one of mistrust and paranoia rather than just its usual straightforward combination of heroic, pulp action and weird Secret War occultism. There is plenty of scope for that combination, often acts of sabotage and resistance snatched in the dead of night between hiding out in fear of capture, interrogation, and worse. What this means is that the discussion about the campaign’s themes and tone in Session Zero will be differ from that of a standard Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 campaign. Whilst the supplement does include a discussion safety tools, it is the standard discussion found in all Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 books rather than addressing issues specific to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance.

The overview and history of the various resistances movements is relatively brief. This is done nationality by nationality, in turn covering the French, Dutch, Polish, and Yugoslavian movements. The coverage of the German, Italian, and Jewish resistance movements is even briefer, as is the general support provided for all of them by the SOE. At best, it is a good introduction to the subject, but not much more.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance gives new Archetypes suitable for the underground war in Europe. They include the Assassin, Propagandist, Raider, Resistance Leader, and Saboteur, and all have their base attributes, skills, focuses, equipment, suggested Talents, and also a quick list of reasons why a player might want to play that role. To these can be added new Backgrounds that include Interrogator, Liberated Prisoner, Partisan, Striker, and Turncoat, and new Characteristics which include Anti-Fascist, Born Under a Bad Sign, Field Tester, Ruthless, and Sees Beyond the Veil. There are new Talents too, for example, Never Surrender! and Practised Skill are common Talents. Notably, the Weird Talent of Child of Carcosa means that the Player Character has been marked by the Yellow Sign and can mark it on others… If the Assassin Archetype perhaps looks too much like a femme fatale, the chapter is still a good mix of options, many of which can be used in a general Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 campaign, not just in a Resistance-based one.

These are accompanied by heroes and villains ready to be added to a Resistance-based campaign, and if their backgrounds do not fit the country where the Game Master has set her campaign, they can easily be adjusted. They include the usual mix of the named and unnamed, but notable amongst the former is Standartenführer Helmut Ziegler, a Black Sun occult practitioner who specialises in interrogations, whilst of the latter, Black Sun Silverwalkers are troopers tasked with tracking down magical practitioners equipped specially-tuned amulets forged from silver and captured Dreamlands energy to detect magical emanations. The most controversial addition to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance is that of Demons. The supplement does not confirm or deny whether they are actual infernal creatures or entities of the Mythos adopting their guise for the gullible, but treats them as Mythos creatures. Their inclusion expands the horror in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 and gives the Game Master more options, it is debatable whether either was needed given surely that the Mythos is enough.

The includes a mix of equipment, spells, and tomes. There are requisition rules in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 and these primarily come in to play during preparation for a mission, usually at a base. Members of the Resistance rarely have that luxury, so most of the time they default to being in the field, though they can request items from SOE in London. Equipment includes a range of new skill kits, such as a Poisoner’s Kit and a Safecracking Kit; a bicycle dynamo for charging and powering electrical devices and a one-shot pistol disguised as a smoker’s pipe(!); and experimental items like Glue Grenades and Charges developed by Polish alchemists, and a Grounding Spike, a pure iron, sigil marked spike created by the Parisian diabolic society, Loge de Flauros, to weaken summoned demons! The new tome and spells consist of a Demonology spellbook, Abjuration Of The Regal Star, and its associated spells. Of these the new equipment is likely to be of more use, depending upon whether the Game Master accepts demonology in her game.

For the Game Master, there are tables and charts, which she can use to create missions for her Player Characters. These can be used in conjunction with the Achtung! Cthulhu Gamemaster’s Toolkit. Lastly, she is provided with five missions that she can develop into full scenarios. These include stealing a Mythos tome from a grand exhibition of stolen art in ‘The Grotesque Gala’; concealing signs of Resistance activities when the Nazis raid a base of operations in ‘Home and Hearth’; investigate and sabotage Nachtwölfe operations in a factory in ‘The Industry of Storms’; recover dropped supplies before the Germans do in ‘Under Moonlit Skies’; and delay a convoy train in ‘War on the Rails’. All five are given a good page of details and adventure hooks as well as a full colour map. These maps are also provided unmarked for the players’ use.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance is well presented. The artwork is great and everything is well organised.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance is mechanically sound, but thematically underwritten in places. Whilst it does mention the differences in tone and style for a Resistance style campaign, it does not explore them in any depth and the lack of advice for the Game Master given those differences is disappointing. Another area where the supplement could have benefited is a bibliography, since the activities and stories of the various resistance groups are not as well known and the Game Master could have done with greater inspiration. And then there is the inclusion of Demonology? Does it fit? Does it not fit? Its inclusion pushes Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 towards more pulp horror, rather its usual Lovecraftian action horror, and it very likely not going to be for everyone. Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Vive La Résistance only touches the surface of its subject, leaving the Game Master with work to do to explore its themes.

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