Miskatonic Monday #438: Abracadabra!

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: Abracadabra!

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Steven Hernandez

Setting: New Jersey, 1926

Product: One-shot

What You Get: Thirty-eight page, 40.94 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Never try to fool children, they expect nothing, and therefore see everything.” – Harry Houdini

Plot Hook: There should be nothing magical about a missing boy
Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, five NPCs, five handouts, one map, one Mythos tome, one Mythos monster, and one boiled cabbage recipe.

Production Values: Good

Pros

# Solid double crime investigation

# Strong on investigation and interaction

# Horror of the Mythos versus horror of a distraught gangster father

# Easily adapted to other periods, especially Cthulhu by Gaslight

# Easily adapted to other cities

# Excitingly weird, but pacy finale

# Tycophobia

# Scelerophobia

# Rhabdophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# Not every location is mapped

# Finale needs careful study and staging

Conclusion

# Solid set-up leads to strong investigation and a race to the finish

# Police procedural which proves that Mythos and magic should never mix…