Miskatonic Monday #447: The Black Tide

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: The Black Tide

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jeremy Clifford

Setting: The high seas, 1690

Product: Scenario

What You Get: Thirty-four page, 3.77 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: What foul blackness flows in with the tide?

Plot Hook: Some treasures are more trouble than they are worth.
Plot Support: Staging advice, four NPCs, and three Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Good

Pros

# High seas, supernatural horror

# Strong advice on running the scenario

# Not so much the ‘Black Spot’ as the ‘Black Oil’

# Could the island be R’lyeh?

# Melanophobia

# Elaiophobia

# Trypophobia

Cons

# No deck plans or maps

# No pre-generated Investigators

# No advice on creating piratical Investigators

# No NPCs detailed

# No crew manifest

Conclusion

# Solid, detailed outline undone by a lack of NPCs to empathise with

# Linear, survival horror scenario