Scouting for Scares

The concept of children versus Cthulhu is not new, but it is challenging when it comes to roleplaying, since it has to provide rules for playing children in Call of Cthulhu, a roleplaying game in which the Investigators are adults, and also make adjustments for the lethality of encountering its alien races and cosmic entities—both mentally and physically. Publisher Trepan’s The Haunted Clubhouse: The Little Play House of Horrors made few changes, whilst The Dare from Sentinel Hill Press stripped the rules back with ‘The Call of Kid-thulhu’. Both of those are single scenarios, whereas Golden Goblin Press’ The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection explored the young lives of scions of the Mythos, making adjustments in terms of the amount of Luck that the youthful Investigators can spend and receive and its campaign framework. Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu goes even further. Inspired by the likes of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, films E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Goonies, as well as the more recent Stranger Things and even Scooby Doo, Where Are You? presents rules for creating pre-teen and teenage Investigators, gives them an Investigator organisation, and the Keeper a complete setting and campaign that plays out over the course of several years.

As the title suggests in Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu, what the supplement for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition from Chaosium, Inc. does is make its Investigators the young members of a Scouting organisation. This gives them the reason to be together and bond together, because over the course of their time as Scouts, they will discover strange things in the ‘Westhaven Campaign’ about their hometown, things that few, if any, adults will believe. Then perhaps as result of their experiences in their formative years, they might become adults who will investigate the Cthulhu Mythos in the traditional sense and go on as adult Investigators looking into the mysteries of such campaigns as Masks of Nyarlathotep or A Time to Harvest. To do that, Campfire Tales and the ‘Westhaven Campaign’ shift the story back a few years from the Jazz Age of classic Call of Cthulhu, to the late 1910s and the end of the Great War. This will add its own tensions to the ‘Westhaven Campaign’ in terms of the relationships between the Scouts—both the junior Investigators and NPCs, and adults in the setting, but it also means that if the Scouts graduate from Campfire Tales, that they can attend college and gain some experience and life skills before diving into the myriad of options in terms of scenarios and campaigns set during the Jazz Age. Essentially, instead of a player describing his Investigator’s backstory, he and his fellow players can roleplay it.

Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu begins with an origin of the project and a history of the Scouting movement, and also the ‘Wayfarer Scouts’, the fictional organisation that the junior Investigators belong to in the campaign. Notably, the founder’s wife is a supporter of suffrage and thus the organisation allows both boys and girls as members. The Scout-Investigators will all be members of the same patrol and as they age and learn—and also play through the ‘Westhaven Campaign’, they will move through four ranks. These are ‘Wanderer’, ‘Rover’, ‘Ranger’, and ‘Warden’. As a ‘Wanderer’, a Scout-Investigator will be eleven or twelve years old, but by the time he is a ‘Warden’, he will be seventeen or eighteen. As he progresses, each Wayfarer Scout will learn new skills, improve the skills he already has, and earn badges. Badges provide an important benefit during play.

To create a Scout-Investigator, a player rolls for characteristics as normal, although Strength, Size, and Education will vary depending upon the Scout-Investigator’s age and rank in the Wayfarer Scouts. Instead of an Occupation, a Scout-Investigator has a Hobby, such as Amateur Sleuth, Farmhand, Junior Photographer, Junior Police Corps, Library Helper, Religious Assistant, or Shop Assistant. Each suggests the obligations that the Scout-Investigator has, lists eight skills, suggests an associated ‘Trusted Adult’, and a badge that the Scout-Investigator can start play with. All Scout-Investigators receive a set number of points to assign to their Hobby. The ‘Trusted Adult’, whether that is petty criminals or local police for the ‘Street Punk’ or a boat owner, fisherman, or navy veteran for the ‘Junior Sailor’, is an adult that at least will listen to what the Scout-Investigator has to say and trusts them, whereas other adults do not trust the Scout-Investigators and will be wary of them. Through events and roleplaying, a ‘Trusted Adult’ relationship can be soured, but it provides each player and his Scout-Investigator an NPC to interact with and the Keeper with an NPC to portray on a regular basis. In addition, the Scout-Investigator has a ‘Fear’ that can make certain situations for him more stressful.

Henrietta Brinded
Age 11, Hobby: Amateur Sleuth
Family Credit Rating: Average
Trusted Adult: Local Librarian
Badges: Wayfarer Scout Badge, Wanderer Badge, Reading Badge

STR 18 SIZ 36 CON 40 DEX 70
APP 75 INT 75 POW 65 EDU 30
Cool 65 Luck 80 Damage Bonus -2 Build -2
Move 8 HP 5

COMBAT SKILLS
Dodge 35%

SKILLS
Law 30%, Library Use 55%, Locksmith 26%, Persuade 35%, Read Lips 26%, Spot Hidden 50%, Stealth 45%, Track 35%
LANGUAGES
Other Language (French) 11%, Other Language (Latin) 11%, Own Language (English) 30%

BACKSTORY
Personal Description: Tall and skinny, sandy haired and freckled.
Treasured Possessions: Latin-English Primer, magnifying glass
Traits: Honest
Phobias: Heights

Mechanically, Campfire Tales makes a change to one skill and adds three others. The Credit Rating skill is shifted to reflect the status of the Scout-Investigator’s family rather than the Scout-Investigator himself, since he will likely have a few cents in his pocket. ‘Language (Signals)’ covers Semaphore and Morse Code; is imported from Cthulhu Dark Ages and replaces Psychoanalysis, but is more immediate in its effect; and Ride (Bicycle) is self-explanatory. Campfire Tales otherwise lists all of the skills in Call of Cthulhu, but many are marked as uncommon for Scout-Investigators or as suitable only for adults. Luck can be more readily spent to adjust skill rolls and if a Scout-Investigator gets stuck, the Keeper can ask for a ‘Leap of Logic’ roll, enabling the naïve eleven-year-olds to connect the dots in a televisual or cinematic way.

When out camping or hiking, a Scout-Investigator can suffer ‘Adversity’. This comes in the form of five forms—cold, hunger, lost, overburdened, and sore. Campfire Tales details their individual effects, but in addition, the more of them that a Scout-Investigator is suffering, the more penalty dice that a player has to roll for Cool rolls for his Scout-Investigator. However, if a Scout-Investigator overcomes one of the five adversities, it encourages the player to describe what his Scout-Investigator actually does to overcome them.

The major addition to Campfire Tales is that of ‘Badges’. All Scout-Investigators start play with the Wayfarer Scout Badge, Wanderer Badge, and an Ability Badge from his Hobby, and will go on to earn Rover, Ranger, and Warden Badges. Each of which will replace the previous rank Badge in terms of the ability it grants. Every badge gives the holder benefits, which will often alter traditional Call of Cthulhu play. The Wayfarer Scout Badge lets a Scout-Investigator spend Luck to help others; the Wanderer Badge enables Scout-Investigator to succeed at one roll once per session; the Rover Badge to refresh the Scout-Investigator’s Luck; and so on. The Ability Badges include Animal Friendship, Crafting, Cycling, Hiking, Knot-Tying, Nature, Orienteering, Public Speaking, Radio, Signals and Codes, Weather, and more. Each of the Ability Badges grants an increase in an associated skill and an extra bonus once per scenario. For example, the Animal Friendship Badge lets a Scout-Investigator understand whatever it is that a dog or cat is trying to tell him; the Camping grants a bonus to the Mechanical Repair skill; and the Weather Badge to correctly forecast the weather. All of these badges bring a strong narrative element to the play of Campfire Tales as well as enforcing the world of Scouting with its culture of self-improvement and self-reliance.

In terms of combat, Campfire Tales makes some pleasingly thematic changes that both account for the size of a Scout-Investigator and the Scouting ethos. Unlike traditional Call of Cthulhu, in Campfire Tales the Scout-Investigators can not only work together, but are encouraged to do so to gain the benefits of Assisted Fighting Manoeuvres. These are not set in stone, but dependent upon the situation, the imagination of the players, and the goal they want their Scout-Investigators to achieve. Examples given include entangling an enemy in a bedsheet to give time for the Scout-Investigators to run away or pushing an enemy down the stairs. The rules for handling Assisted Fighting Manoeuvres are slightly complex, relying upon the Scout-Investigators’ Builds to determine if they gain bonus or penalty dice, but they do include a fully worked out example which is helpful. Further most weapons are cumbersome for Scout-Investigators and require a Strength check to wield without a penalty. When hurt, a Scout-Investigator heals faster, ignores Major Wounds, and at zero Hit Points is unconscious, not dead. Unless a Scout-Investigator suffers damage equal to his maximum Hit Points in one go or under certain circumstances, he cannot die. Spending thirty points of Luck will also allow a Scout-Investigator to escape death.

The last big change to Campfire Tales is to Sanity. It replaces Sanity with ‘Cool’. A Scout-Investigator’s Cool is equal to his Power and unlike Sanity does not go up or down. Instead of losing Sanity points and going insane if a Cool roll is failed, a Scout-Investigator can suffer one of five involuntary reactions—‘Fawn’, ‘Fight’, ‘Flight’, ‘Flop’, or ‘Freeze’—which the player is free to choose from (though the Keeper can dictate which reaction a Scout-Investigator has), and his player must tick a Distress Box on the Scout-Investigator sheet. These are labelled ‘Stressed’, ‘Jumpy’, and ‘Upset’, but have no mechanical effect, though of course, they should be roleplayed. When all three are ticked, the Scout-Investigator is ‘Distressed’ and possibly subject to ‘Delusions’ as per standard Call of Cthulhu. A Scout-Investigator’s Fear will make a Cool roll harder. Ticks can be removed from Distress Boxes with a night of rest at home, a good night’s camping round the fire, or at the end of a scenario.

The setting for ‘Westhaven Campaign’ is Westhaven, a quiet town some forty miles west of Arkham, Massachusetts, near the border with New Hampshire. So, on the edge of Lovecraft Country. The notable locations, including the scout hut, and NPCs, including any ‘Trusted Adults’, are all detailed, as is the ‘Sons of Seth’, a branch of a secretive cult with Egyptian origins that governs the town. Also detailed are the members of a second, rival Wayfarer Scout squad in the town, a very helpful Hobo, Boxcar Jim, and there are also options for shifting the campaign to the relative metropolis of Arkham and the heart of Lovecraft Country.

The ‘Westhaven Campaign’ is divided into four parts, one for each Wayfarer Scout Rank and thus two years apart. All four scenarios include ‘Leads’—obscure and obvious clues—at the end of particular key sections to help the Keeper each run one. They start with ‘Tremors Below’, which is for Wanderer scouts. The Scout-Investigators are taking regular hikes to work towards their Hiking Badge in the nearby Orth-Beane Forest Preserve when the fog sets in and suddenly, Don Blackwell, the assistant scout leader in charge of the hike, is grabbed from below and pulled under the earth, leaving his scout hat behind. Lost out in the woods, the Scout-Investigators must find their way back to Westhaven, perhaps plagued by bad dreams and fears of what exactly it was that attacked Don Blackwell, but a friendly and desperate dog leads the Scout-Investigators to what is both a bloody discovery and a potential source of solutions. The scenario culminates in a chase back to town, the Scout-Investigators harried by the thing from below.

Two years later and the Scout-Investigators are Rover Scouts when one of their number’s curiosities are aroused by the arrival of a large car from which two men in dark suits deliver a wooden crate to the home of Colonel Grimm, local celebrity author and semi-retired explorer, and they seemed to be talking to the crate. The scenario plays better if one of the Scout-Investigators is related to Colonel Grimm since it makes it easier for him to gain access to his house and strengthens the reason why the Scout-Investigators want to, and otherwise, the Scout-Investigators will have to break in, which may not be in keeping with the Scouting code of conduct. The Scout-Investigators do have a potentially sympathetic ally in the house in the form of Colonel Grimm’s housekeeper, but they also have to get into Colonel Grimm’s study where the crate is kept. Get past the possible issues with the set-up and the scenario has some nasty secrets to unleash within the house, which the Scout-Investigators will need to battle to defeat.

As Ranger Scouts, the Scout-Investigators can discover the ‘Treasure of the Secret Way’ after Boxcar Jim gives them a map to an old mine marked with the word, ‘gold’. Worse, after some research, the Scout-Investigators learn that it is also haunted. This is an exploration scenario, as much like a dungeon as a children's adventure film from the eighties, one filled with secrets, some mundane, some connected to the Mythos and the history of nearby Westhaven.

More secrets of Westhaven are revealed in the fourth and final part of the campaign, ‘Shadow Over Westhaven’. This is a two-part scenario and will take longer to complete than the previous three scenarios. In the first part, ‘Lakeside Horror’, now Warden Scouts, the Scout-Investigators as well as the Scouts from the other patrol are invited on a three-day camping trip to New Hampshire’s Green Mountains, and everything seems to be going well when two Scouts go missing from their tent. This combined with the odd behaviour of the brother and sister hosts and strange discoveries made in the woods, puts everyone on edge, with good reason as the trip comes to a brutally nasty conclusion.

If the first part sees the Scout-Investigators acting directly against adults in the form of the sinisterly bucolic brother and sister, the second part escalates this as they act against many of the adults in Westhaven. In ‘Hands of Winter’, when they return to town, the Scout-Investigators find it in an icy grip—figuratively and literally—as fires are banned, the temperatures drop, and many of the townsfolk are driven to construct a series of wooden towers, whilst the rest cower in fear. The Scout-Investigators’ inquiries point to the home of the brother and sister hosts of their ghastly camping trip and potentially one of the creepiest scenes in the campaign. The scenario ends with a traditional summoning ceremony which requires careful staging by the Keeper. However, one advantage that the Scout-Investigators have is that they can ‘Be Prepared’ and have to hand many of the items and artefacts that they gathered in the previous three scenarios. The scenario includes notes on how each of them can be used in the finale to give them all manner of boons. The scenario does suggest what happens if the Scout-Investigators fail (and if they do fail, it could set up a more traditional Call of Cthulhu campaign with the town under the sway of an evil cult), as well as what happens if they succeed. A nice touch is that if they do succeed, the Scout-Investigators earn the respect of the adults in Westhaven.

Rounding out Campfire Tales is a set of four appendices. These provide extra scenario seeds, a glossary of Scouting terms, a list of spells in the campaign (including three new ones), and a quick reference guide for the campaign’s new rules. These are all useful.

In addition to the fact that it is designed to be played with teenage Scouts, the ‘Westhaven Campaign’ is not a traditional campaign for Call of Cthulhu. Its story is more physical than mental and what holds it together is not the Sons of Seth as a threat, but the presence of the Scout-Investigators and what they experience in and around the town. Indeed, the Sons of Seth as an organisation does not play a role in the campaign, though several of its members do. Where in a traditional campaign for Call of Cthulhuu, the Investigators would be directly making enquiries into the cult, here the Scout-Investigators are never given the opportunity and it is not part of the campaign as a whole. Consequently, the ‘Westhaven Campaign’ is more a series of adventures with some occurring adversaries, than a campaign with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The Mythos is also non-traditional until the very end.

The ‘Westhaven Campaign’ is relatively straightforward and the experienced Keeper could run it without reference to the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook (though the Keeper may want to refer to the Chase rules for the first scenario). However, Campfire Tales is not a standalone book. It just could have been. One thing it is missing is advice for the Keeper on writing and creating more for the genre. So, Campfire Tales is a campaign with a very specific set-up rather than a supplement. Had it had that advice it might better have lived up to its tagline.

Physically, Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu is well presented. In particular, the artwork is some of the best of any supplement for modern Call of Cthulhu. It is directly inspired by the work of Norman Rockwell—and this is intentional. Rockwell painted scenes of Americana and pastoralism and had a strong association with the Boy Scouts of America, illustrating covers for the organisation’s publications and calendars. So, it is fitting that his style is adhered to here.

Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu is the most radical campaign and supplement for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition since Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England. The latter forced the players and their Investigators to think about their social status and their reputation in investigating the Cthulhu Mythos, but Campfire Tales forces the players to think about investigating the Mythos from a very different position where the players cannot bring the force of the adult world to bear and must see things from a child’s perspective. It counters this with the narrative elements such as the effect of the Badges and the Assisted Fighting Manoeuvres that also reinforce the Wayfarer Scouts set-up and the Investigators as Scout-Investigators. Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu presents and supports a great set-up and a different way in which to play Call of Cthulhu, and does so with some entertaining scenarios rather than a campaign in the traditional sense.

Miskatonic Monday #343: Hope’s End

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.

—oOo—

Name: Hope’s End

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Steen Stahlhut

Setting: New England, 1914

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Forty-six page, 4.74 MB PDF

Elevator Pitch: Can a zombie be guilty of making a false instrument?

Plot Hook: New England in a time of cholera.
Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, nine handouts, three NPCs, three maps, one Mythos tome, one Mythos spell, and two monsters.

Production Values: Underwhelming.

Pros

# Scenario near Lovecraft Country

# Easy to adjust to other locations

# Historically inspired scenario

# Mythos elements pleasingly hidden under another investigation

# Nosophobia

# Necrophobia

# Kinemortophobia

Cons

# Why are grave diggers in Call of Cthulhu always drunk?

# Needs a good edit

Conclusion

# Medical turned Mythos investigation undermined by poor presentation

# Potentially a very serviceable investigation

Cthulhu Classics VII

From one week to the next, Reviews from R’lyeh writes reviews of new games and supplements with an emphasis on Call of Cthulhu and other games of Lovecraftian investigative horror. This series concentrates on Call of Cthulhu and other games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but not those recently released, but those of the past. There have been innumerable titles published over the years and this is an opportunity to appraise them anew, often decades after they were first released.

Having looked at the releases from Games Workshop, culminating with Green and Pleasant Land: The British 1920s-30s Cthulhu Source Pack, Reviews from R’lyeh now moves on to another early licensee for Chaosium, Inc. This is T.O.M.E. or Theatre of the Mind Enterprises, a publisher best known for the five titles it released for use with Call of Cthulhu and Gardasiyal: Adventures in Tékumel, the 1990s roleplaying game set in the world of Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne. Between 1983 and 1984, T.O.M.E. would publish five collections of scenarios—The Arkham Evil, Death In Dunwich, Pursuit To Kadath, Whispers From The Abyss And Other Tales, and Glozel Est Authentique!—for use with Call of Cthulhu, Second Edition. The first release though, and the subject of this review, is The Arkham Evil.

From the outset it is difficult to determine what The Arkham Evil actually is. The extent of the back cover blurb runs to, “THE STAGE IS SET… THE CURTAIN RISES… ON A MACABRE MYSTERY FROM THEATRE OF THE MIND ENTERPRISES, INC.” So there is no suggestion as whether it is an anthology of scenarios, a series of linked scenarios, or a campaign. In fact, it is actually more the latter than either of the former, a campaign to prevent the creation of a bridge into the physical world which will enable Nyarlathotep to enter our world. It is divided into three scenarios or acts—‘Act I: Into the Throat of the Beast’, ‘Act II: The Wanderer’, and ‘Act III: And the dogs shall know you’. The campaign also requires the players to use the pre-generated characters, a team of geologists, mining engineers, palaeontologists, cavers, and so on, who work for the College of Sciences at Miskatonic University.

The campaign begins with ‘Act I: Into the Throat of the Beast’, which is set in 1919. The team is asked to go to Gibsville, an Appalachian coal town in Pennsylvania where a strange crystal cave has been found inside of which are several sets of bones. The team is to investigate and survey both the caves and the bones, for both scientific and commercial reasons—the mine owners want the miners’ fears about the bones allayed so that coal can continue to be dug. The task is hampered by three factors. First is the political situation in the region, with the Molly Maguires conducting armed operations against the mine and its owner, whilst the owner has employed a detective agency to protect the mine, the miners, and suppress the Molly Maguires’ insurrection. Second are the suspicions of the miners themselves—the team works for the mine owner, so they are not to be trusted. Third is the worry amongst the community at the recent rash of disappearances of young girls from the surrounding area, each at the new Moon.

Over the course of a fortnight or so, the team will survey the cave, perhaps get involved in a local romance, and even get caught up in the local politics. At the end of this, the player characters are likely to come away with some knowledge of the weird crystal cave and the bones there, but it is unlikely that they will learn very much about the ghastly and inhuman plot that swirls about the region. ‘Act I: Into the Throat of the Beast’ keeps a great number of its outré events off camera—something which will become a feature of the campaign—and whilst it is possible to find evidence of them, the scenario makes it very difficult to do so. This is done to further the campaign’s and the cultists’ greater plot which the player characters will not really be facing until ‘Act III: And the dogs shall know you’. What this means is that there is very little threat to be faced in ‘Act I: Into the Throat of the Beast’, certainly in terms of the Mythos, and thus little in the way of Sanity loss or reward.

If the campaign at least starts well with ‘Act I: Into the Throat of the Beast’, then it seems to take a tangent—or possibly a nosedive—in terms of both tone and quality with ‘Act II: The Wanderer’. This second part of The Arkham Evil is notorious for the fact that it takes place in 1923, some four years after the first part. This is not its only problem. ‘Act II: The Wanderer’ sees the team being sent to Arizona to collect fragments of asteroid which have fallen to the Earth after its brush with with the Earth’s atmosphere on its highly unusual orbit. First the team will need to purchase—and even design as the fragments are likely to be highly radioactive—the equipment it will need to collect the fragments. In the process, the player characters are likely to come to the attention of—and learn of—others who are interested in obtaining the fragments. Who these others are is where 'Act II: The Wanderer' gets silly. One is a German Baron who is a member of the Bavarian Illuminati leading a force of ex-Great War Storm Troopers along with a circus of Fokker aeroplanes; one a French sorcerer-count of dubious reputation; and one a Serpent Man. It all seems a bit much, more so when the text states that the Baron, whose father served at Castle Zenda, learned of the coming of the asteroid from the mad ravings of one Professor Moriarty. None of which is relevant to the plot of The Arkham Evil, which itself of course, does not provide a means of the player characters finding this out.

At the end of ‘Act II: The Wanderer’, the player characters are likely to have got their chunks of highly radioactive rock and have managed to transport it back to Miskatonic University. They are not the only ones. Having acquired a chunk or two, the Baron now exits The Arkham Evil with the authors’ promise that he will return in a future supplement. The Count will also acquire his own chunk, but in the process will leave the team with a terrible gift—a traitor amongst their midst, which will have repercussions in the third act. What purpose either of them intends to use their chunks for is left undeveloped. Unfortunately, ‘Act II: The Wanderer’ feels little more than an excuse to present the player characters with a race and an excuse to have a fight. It does at least include an encounter with the Mythos and at least that Mythos threat has a credible motive compared to the human opponents in the act.

‘Act III: And the dogs shall know you’ at last brings The Arkham Evil and the player characters back to Arkham and Miskatonic University. A great scientific symposium is to be held about the returned radioactive rocks complete with prizes for the best papers presented during the event. With fierce competition for the best scientific papers, the player characters are encouraged to research and write an anthropological and historical paper on the rocks. Which would be okay except that none of the player characters are anthropologists or historians and their having to write a paper on those subjects undermines both their role in the campaign and their backgrounds. This is the initial focus of the scenario, but it quickly becomes a murder mystery as victim after victim is found dead on the streets of Arkham, having died of old age—despite the very youth of many of the victims. The number of murders will escalate, with the player characters possibly becoming suspects themselves, impeding their progress on their paper. There is little investigation to be had in ‘Act III: And the dogs shall know you’ despite it being a murder mystery and ultimately, the title of the act gives it all away in preparation  for showdown with the perpetrator.

The Arkham Evil has a reputation for not being a very good book. One definite issue with each of the three scenarios is their organisation. Each is roughly divided into two sections. The first section provides a rough timeline of scenes, whilst the second, actually an appendix—a very full appendix—contains descriptions of the NPCs and the locations. It also contains further details about background and the other storylines to each scenario. This not only gives The Arkham Evil three appendices, it also sets up the need to flip back and forth between the two sections for each and every scenario, making each awkward, if not outright difficult, to run.

Another issue is that the three scenarios and the role of the player characters in them are very much underdeveloped. This leaves the Keeper with a great deal to do in order to involve them in the events of each scenario and even despite that effort, the trilogy of scenarios keep their Mythos elements so much off stage that the player characters are unaware of them, let alone be placed in a position where they can thwart them. There is also relatively little investigation to be found across the three acts, such that for the most part, the player characters are called ‘Players’ through most of the book rather than the Investigators of traditional Call of Cthulhu, let alone player characters. Lastly, there is no advice for running the campaign with Investigators of the players’ own creation and the included pre-generated investigators are severely under-designed.

Physically, The Arkham Evil is disappointing. It needs editing, the organisation is terrible, and the artwork scrappy at best.

Yet The Arkham Evil is not without its merit. The campaign includes rules for improving skills in between scenarios, for suffering severe wounds, and for suffering the effects of radiation. The latter, in all likelihood, for the very first time—Cthulhu Now would not be released until 1987. Further, in ‘Act I: Into the Throat of the Beast’ there is the basis of a not unreasonable, even decent scenario. If a Keeper were to develop the missing girls plot strand further, setting both it and the Molly Maguires plot up with newspaper handouts and some clues and encounters, then the investigators could have stronger reasons to follow this up when the next girl is abducted. This could lead to showdown with the perpetrators of the plot and potentially, a chance that the player characters might defeat them and save the girl. Of course, this would as the scenario makes clear, thwart the plot which continues in ‘Act II: The Wanderer’ and ‘Act III: And the dogs shall know you’ and therefore negate the need for either act to be run. To fair, this would no bad thing as it at least involves the player characters in the plot and it highlights the best means of getting anything out of either ‘Act II: The Wanderer’ or ‘Act III: And the dogs shall know you’. Which would literally be to rewrite them.

Reviewing the campaign in Space Gamer #64 (July, 1983), William A. Barton—notable as the designer of Cthulhu by Gaslight—wrote, “The main problem I find in The Arkham Evil is with its organization. Too much important information is placed at the end of each scenario, requiring a lot of page flipping.” and “Some of the literary and historical references seem thrown in as references…” Despite describing it as not being as “well conceived or executed” as Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Barton was positive about The Arkham Evil and the “sanity-threatening sessions” it could offer in the hands of a competent Keeper. Similarly, Jon Sutherland, reviewing both The Arkham Evil and Death in Dunwich in Open Box in White Dwarf #48 (December, 1983), was not wholly taken with the campaign. He highlighted the tendency of the campaign’s second act to lapse into farce with “…[T]he idea of cavorting across Arizona avoiding German stormtroopers is pretty hard to swallow.”, describing the fact that it takes place four years after the first as awkward. Ultimately, Sutherland concludes that, “Arkham did not really live up to the expectations or the quality of the first part of the adventure.”, but despite this, he did award The Arkham Evil seven out of ten.

By the standards of the time—1983 with Call of Cthulhu just barely two years old—it is not difficult to see The Arkham Evil as a decent little mini-campaign. In fact, it might very well have been the first from a third party publisher for Call of Cthulhu. Yet even by the standards of the day, The Arkham Evil feels very much like the first release from a new company. Which it is. In  ‘Act I: Into the Throat of the Beast’ can be seen the beginnings of an ambitious campaign idea, supported by a scenario that it is not without promise. Yet it never delivers on that promise, primarily because it does not develop the hooks that would lead into a proper confrontation with the Mythos and worse, it shunts any confrontation with the Mythos as far from the investigators as it can, all in the service of a plot that the players and their characters are essentially kept away from until the ‘Act III: And the dogs shall know you’. And the less said of both ‘Act II: The Wanderer’ and ‘Act III: And the dogs shall know you’, the better.

It would be easy to wholly write The Arkham Evil off as an early, failed exercise in scenario and campaign writing. Which it is… Yet there is a kernel of something in there that could have been decent, even by the demanding standards of the here and now. It would though, take a great deal of effort upon the part of the Keeper to really develop that kernel into something more memorable for the better, rather than for the worse as The Arkham Evil is now.

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With thanks to Soren Boye Petersen for his aid in tracking down the review of The Arkham Evil from Space Gamer #64.