Achtung! Ardennes

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: Forest of Fear is the seventh release for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20, and the second campaign following on from Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. It shifts the action forward by three years as previous releases for the roleplaying game are set earlier in the war, even during part of the Phony War, in 1939, 1940, and 1941. It is set in the Ardennes, in the weeks and days leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in late November and early December of 1944. It is also a sequel of sorts, to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train, which the Game Master can run as prologue to the main campaign, although that will be with pre-generated Player Characters, or Agents. The campaign, presented in eleven parts, requires experienced Agents with a good range of skills, including ideally, an Occultist with the ability to cast magic. At several points in the campaign, there are scenes of mass combat, so the Game Master may want to check the rules for handling such incidents in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. The campaign also differs from more traditional campaigns of Lovecraftian investigative horror in four ways. First, it is heavily directed. Being a military-style campaign, the Agents will find themselves being either ordered to investigate and act by their superiors or being asked for help by the forces of local Resistance, rather than directing or leading the investigation themselves. Second, the campaign environs are limited to under the canopy and under the ground of the forests of Ardennes. This gives it much more of a localised feel than the traditional globetrotting campaign, which is what Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is. Third, the campaign develops into two parallel plot strands, one of which explores the relatively recent—in Mythos terms—history of the Ardennes as the German factions in the Secret War—Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, dig and in some cases, quite literally, bulldoze their way into the region’s prehistoric past. Four, the Agents will find themselves making alliances with some very strange bedfellows…

The set-up for the campaign echoes that of the Ardennes Offensive launched by Nazi Germany at the end of 1944 to stop further Allied advances and attempt to bring them to the table to negotiate. The desperation of Germany extends to its two factions in the Secret War—Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, and despite having been rivals for years, the need to defeat the Allies has driven them to do the unthinkable, that is, to co-operate. Their plan is known as Operation Brute Stärke, or Brute Strength, a secret coda to Hitler’s Operation Watch on the Rhine. The Agents are operatives for the British Section M sent to a field base ten miles behind Allied lines. There, Major Archibald Strang, codenamed Hunter, will brief them about the disappearance of Resistance leader Marta Archambaud—as detailed in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train, about the sightings and co-operation of Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, and the lack of intelligence about the region coming from Majestic, the American equivalent to Section M. Could the Americans be up to something? Major Strang would appreciate anything that the Agents can learn, but their primary orders are to investigate Nazi activities behind enemy lines in conjunction with the Resistance.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear starts with a good introduction to and explanation of the campaign and its background, along with some decent staging advice. The campaign proper begins with the Agents being sent behind enemy lines to ascertain enemy activity in the region. After making contact with the Resistance, they will be led to a remote farmhouse that serves as their base of operations for the campaign. In comparison to the missions to come, it is an intentionally quiet opener, but the Game Master is given several adventures to enliven the Agents’ stay at the farmhouse or visits to the nearby village. These can be used throughout the campaign, although the timeframe does tighten up near the end. The majority of the missions call upon the Agents to investigate archaeological sites, castles, ritual sites, and so on, often hiding entrances to cave networks that lead deep underground to the discovery of the Elder Thing undercity of Karvarteeli, which the Nazis have been surveying and plundering. The Agents will often find the Nazi efforts in disarray, the enemy either under attack by or having been attacked by eldritch forces. The often-brute force method of the Nazis have unleashed the dread servants of the Elder Things—the Shoggoth! Later in the campaign, it will become apparent that the Shoggoth—or at least the means to manufacture them—are what the Nazis are after, as well as the fact that not all of the Shoggoth are loyal to their former masters. There is even the possibility that the Agents might be able to communicate with the rebels, with one of the more horrifying moments in the campaign being faced by a Shoggoth holding a German soldier up like a puppet and having penetrated its brain, using him as a communications device!

In addition to investigating Nazi activities, the Agents are asked by their Resistance contact, Gaston Moreau, a Druid and secret follower of the goddess Arduinna, to help him in the ongoing fight between the Ardui, Ardenne Forest’s native Celtic deities, and the Crimson Brothers, a cult of evil monks, led by the Cowled Sorcerer, who want to free the Sleeping Horror, Chartotharkis, a godling imprisoned within the catacombs of a nearby ruined abbey. This is the second strand to the campaign, with the missions alternating between the two over its eleven missions, including the Agents actually meeting the Goddess Arduinna and the Ardui in person in their Sacred Grove (though this does involve a fair amount of exposition). The primary aim of the Ardui followers is to prevent the Crimson Brothers from succeeding and securing possession of three artefacts sacred to the Ardui—The Cauldron Which Never Empties, Flesh Drinker Sword, and Trident of the Dark Lake. One problem here is that the Agents cannot succeed in this. The Crimson Brothers do get hold of all three despite the Agents’ efforts and only in the final confrontation do they have a chance to reclaim all three.

The addition of the Ardui is not out of place in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear as Achtung! Cthulhu has always had a folkloric and pagan element whose traditions have run parallel to that of the Mythos and which an Agent Occultist has been able to draw upon to be able to cast spells of his own. Often based upon Celtic and Viking traditions, as well as Hermetic traditions, the presence of the Ardui in the campaign brings this aspect of the roleplaying game to the fore and enables the Agent Occultist to interact more directly with those he owes fealty to—especially if he follows Celtic traditions.

The final confrontation with the Crimson Brothers also suggests an interesting interaction with the Nazis as an option. This is to form a temporary alliance with them in order to defeat the Crimson Brothers. It is suggested that this will add extra spice and roleplaying opportunities, the latter in a campaign where roleplaying and interaction with NPCs and the enemy is underplayed in favour of exploration, stealth, and combat. Of course, that is the nature of a more action-focused and combat driven roleplaying game like Achtung! Cthulhu. Nevertheless, it also highlights the underwritten nature of the campaign’s enemy NPCs in terms of roleplaying and their portrayal. Ultimately, if the Agents can help defeat the Crimson Brothers and prevent the summoning of Chartotharkis, they will gain the aid of Ardui in the final confrontation with the Nazis.

Penultimately, the Agents do have a chance to rescue Resistance leader Marta Archambaud, who was captured as detailed in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train. This is a big battle, potentially one of the most confusing ones to stage in the whole campaign as it involves a lot of forces. However, much of the battle takes place just slightly offstage to the Agents, so the Game Master could simply narrate it or she cut back and forth between the action. This would work well if the players were given control of the different forces on the Allied side. This also involves the Americans and forces from Majestic, the only time they appear in the campaign and even then, the mystery of what the Americans and Majestic are up to in the region, alluded to as a potential issue at the start of the campaign is never really explored—here or in the rest of the campaign. The campaign itself will come to a climax in a Nazi base atop a mountain, complete with cable car, so it ends more in the style of Where Eagles Dare than the style of the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that pervades the rest of the campaign.

Each mission follows the same format. Each starts with an introduction and a brief summary, before breaking the mission down scene by scene. There are typically details of encounters along the way, scene Threat spends for the Game Master, lists of adversaries, details of Truths that can come into play, and perhaps most importantly, the ‘Key Intelligence’, which summarises the important information that the Agents will learn as result of their completing the mission. Throughout there are also ‘GM Tip’ sections which give further information and advice. Some of these can quite extensive.

Rounding out Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is set of six appendices. These in turn list all of the spells and spellbooks; treasures, artefacts, and tomes; arcane and esoteric technology; both allies and adversaries of the Ardennes; and handouts. The ‘Treasures, Artefacts, and Tomes’ in particular provides the details of artefacts sacred to the Ardui—The Cauldron Which Never Empties, Flesh Drinker Sword, and Trident of the Dark Lake, whilst the ‘Arcane & Esoteric Technology’ includes numerous Elder Thing devices which the Agents can recover, such as the Sensory Augmenter, Stasis Field Projector, and Ultrasonic Wardstone. For the Nazis, there are detailed write-ups of the Grendel Earth Mover, which Nachtwölfe used to bulldoze into the ruins and cavern systems of the Ardennes, and the Panzer VII Sabre Tooth Tiger, with which Nachtwölfe and Black Sun aim to stop the Allied advance on Germany. The handouts consist primarily of maps of locations where the action of the campaign takes place. All together the six appendices take up a fifth of the book.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is cleanly and tidily laid out. The illustrations and the maps are excellent. However, there are two omissions in terms of the campaign’s items and NPCs. None of the new items and certainly none of the NPCs, whether an ally or an adversary, is actually illustrated. This is a less of a problem for the various items, but for the NPC, it is more of a problem, especially for the campaign’s main villains. It does not help that their physical descriptions are limited, leaving a lot for the Game Master to do in trying to impart to her players what their Agents’ foes look like.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is a big bruising campaign, played out on an ever-bigger scale even though it is geographically limited to the Ardennes forest. The authors admit the campaign is linear and that is certainly true. This is very much a campaign where the players and their Agents are not going to direct the action, rather the reverse, being directed on missions and then fighting out the action. Once at a location, the Agents will have more agency, but on a strategic level, none at all. This has the possibility of frustrating players and it is not helped by the occasional heavy doses of exposition and travelogues before their Agents can get to the action. In effect, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is more a series of connected big scenes and confrontations in which the Agents get to battle it out with ever bigger threats. If the players are happy uncovering ever nastier secrets and punching out ever nastier Nazi threats, then there can be no doubt that Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear delivers that and delivers that very well, but any Game Master or player wanting more will be disappointed.

An Achtung! Cthulhu Anthology I

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It  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 Mission Dossier Volume One: Behind Enemy Lines brings together the first five scenarios published for Achtung! Cthulhu. They will take the Agents from the White Cliffs of Dover and the coast of east Scotland to the coast of the Netherlands and into the mountains of Romania, as well as to a baseball game in the USA. In addition, there is an extra mission, new to Achtung! Cthulhu, that will involve the Agents conducting a mission that parallels Operation Chariot, the raid on St. Nazaire. All six missions can be run as one-shots, but most of them can be run in chronological order and woven into a Game Master’s ongoing campaign that will take the Agents from the Phony War of 1939 through to the height of Nazi and Axis power occupation around the world. With care, this includes being worked into and around a campaign such as Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. Two of the scenarios are not designed for this, the one set on the home front in the USA and the new addition, both being set after the events of the campaign and one of them being designed as a one-shot, suitable for convention use. Both though, offer changes of pace and tone, enabling players to experience the Secret War in other places and with other types of character.

The six missions follow the same format. Each begins with a Synopsis for the Game Master, a Mission Briefing & Goals for the Agents, and some Historical Background to provide context. This is followed by the actual scenario itself, divided into its various acts, and ending for the Agents with a Debriefing. For the Game Master there the stats for the NPCs—both enemies and allies—and monsters that the Agents will encounter over the course of the mission.

The anthology opens with the short, sharp Under the Gun. This is set both atop and in the White Cliffs of Dover, where the army, preparing fortifications against a much-feared German invasion, discover strange stone pillar which seems to make everyone feel at least queasy, if not leave them suffering nightmares… Of course, the pillar is not just of interest to Black Sun, but also the local villagers, who possess a certain goggle-eyed appearance. Effectively, this is a mini-encounter with parallels with The Shadow Over Innsmouth—or at least the 1928 raid on the town—and it is combat focused, more so than other scenarios for Achtung! Cthulhu. Its short length also makes it easy to add to a campaign or to serve as a combat-focused interlude.

The second scenario is Operation Vanguard, which could thematically carry on from ‘Under the Gun’ as the links to Deep Ones are more obvious. The action, more detailed and involving stealth and investigation, as well as combat, switches to the Dutch coast and the Dutch fishing town of Nermegen. Section M has learned of a strange installation being constructed at both St. Olaf’s lighthouse and on the nearby Skellen Island and of the presence in the town of Nachtwölfe. This is a commando-style mission, right down to having to paddle ashore in folboats—or folding canoes, as used in Operation Frankton and made famous by the film, The Cockleshell Heroes. Whether making contact with the local Resistance or investigating Nachtwölfe activities, the emphasis is on stealth and that also goes for getting into both the lighthouse and the Nazi installation on the island. In the latter, the Agents will discover what Nachtwölfe has been up to, which has been experimenting on captured Deep Ones! The scenario will end in a big, bruising battle as the escaped Deep Ones take their revenge on their Nachtwölfe scientist and soldier captors. Throughout, the Deep Ones are kept implacable and mysterious, so although the players will know what they are facing, their Agents will not. One option here is have the players handle the Deep Ones as well as their Agents in combat so that the Game Master is not rolling too many dice, especially when it comes to the monsters of the Mythos versus the Nazis.

Operation Falling Crystal takes place on the east coast of Scotland where an archaeological dig discovered a strange blue crystal in nearby caverns. The archaeologists have no idea what it is, but Section M does! It is Blauer Kristall—or Blue Crystal—much coveted by Nachtwölfe, which uses it to fuel its increasingly weird weapons of war. Section M would very much like to get its hands on some of the strange mineral so that it can study it and perhaps develop a means to counter the strange technology being fielded by Nachtwölfe. With its set-up of something strange being discovered under the ground and it attracting the attention of the Nazis and as well as Section M, this scenario is very similar to the earlier ‘Under the Gun’. However, it does go beyond this, if only a little. There is both scope for investigation beyond the archaeological dig itself and for interaction with the Mythos beyond running away or blasting it to bits. This lifts what is otherwise adequate scenario that the Game Master would not want to run too soon after ‘Under the Gun’.

The Romanian Imperative leans into the Pulp sensibilities of Achtung! Cthulhu by sending the Agents into the unstable situation of the Balkans chasing after a Zeppelin! Jokingly referred to as a “wee holiday” by Section M, the Agents are to reconnoitre the area to determine why Nachtwölfe has sent a Zeppelin to a mining village in the Mures Mountains in Romania, discover what it is doing there, and take action. This entails a flight to Belgrade, in Yugoslavia, via Athens in Greece and from there a lengthy drive across the border into Romania and to the mountains, guided by a friendly smuggler. Dealing with checkpoints—Romanian and German—will be the least of the Agents’ problems, but once they reach the village, they will be able to learn a little about what has happened recently and also in the past. This, when combined with the opportunity to observe the work camp below the nearby castle over in the next valley, gives the players and their Agents all the information they need to make their next move. Ideally, this should start with contacting the locals who have been hired to rework the mine, but can also involve investigating the ruins of the castle, the work camp, and ultimately, getting aboard the Zeppelin itself, stationed, unmoored, and unnaturally immobile above the camp. The Zeppelin, enhanced by Nachtwölfe technology, is fully detailed and comes with a set of deck plans. The scenario should end with a fight aboard the Zeppelin—although a very careful one since nobody wants to set it alight—and with the chance that the Agents capture it and fly it back to Britain. They will be handsomely rewarded for their efforts if they do. This is a fun and exciting adventure that fully plays into the Pulp action of Achtung! Cthulhu.

‘Operation Eastbourne’ is the first of the two scenarios in the anthology intended as a change of pace and the only new scenario. Thematically, it can be run as a sequel to both ‘Under the Gun’ and ‘Operation Vanguard’, but need not be. It is effectively two missions in one. The Agents make up ‘Team Beta’ accompanying ‘Team Alpha’, a unit of commandos who will assault a gun battery as part of Operation Chariot, the raid on the French port of St. Nazaire intended to put its dry dock out of action and so prevent German navy ships like the Bismarck or Tirpitz being repaired there. This means that it is set later than the other missions in the book, so the Game Moderator may want to save it for later in her campaign. However, assaulting the gun battery is not the Agents’ objective. Instead, they will investigate a Black Sun archaeological dig and determine what the Nazis are up to. The players will play through both missions as part of the scenarios, the idea being that not only do they roleplay their Agents, but also the commandos (stats for the latter are provided to enable them to do so). The Agents can stick together or they can mix and match, so the players will be roleplaying mixed group of Agents and commandos for each mission. What this means is that either team could come to the help of the other if it gets into difficulty and since, unnaturally, both missions will involve encounters with the Mythos, roleplaying the commandos will remind the players that not everyone has encountered the Mythos before and will not necessarily be quite so blasé about it.

Although divided into the three traditional acts of an Achtung! Cthulhu scenario, ‘Operation Eastbourne’ need not necessarily be run in linear fashion, but could instead be run with the action in parallel, switching back and forth between the different missions at dramatically appropriate moments. In whatever way it is run, ‘Team Beta’ should meet up with ‘Team Alpha’—or even come to the rescue of—in the third and final act when the Black Sun operatives bring their plans to fruition on the rocky beaches of the Atlantic coast. This sets the stage for a big fight as the Nazis attempt a summoning, the Allies attempt to stop them, and all hell breaks loose! It is another grand finale which plays out more like a miniatures game and which calls for big heroic action. A very classic Achtung! Cthulhu scenario.

The last scenario in Achtung! Cthulhu Mission Dossier Volume One: Behind Enemy Lines is Seventh-Inning Slaughter! This switches the action to the USA and a game in the All-American Girls Baseball League which is being attended by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Unfortunately, so is Jörg Becker, a Nazi sorcerer, determined to prove both himself a capable agent to his Black Sun masters and thus get promoted, and that no-one is safe from the reach of Nazi Germany, not even thousands of miles away on American home soil. This is the second of the two scenarios in the anthology intended to as a change of pace and is probably the best one suited as a one-shot. To that end, it comes with four pre-generated Player Characters, divided between two baseball players, a war correspondent, and a would-be technical genius, and a plot that is played out innings by innings, with weirder and weirder things happening from one innings to the next. Food spoils and writhes with worms, a foul ball hits a member of the crowd, a lightning storm gathers, a dog goes crazy, there is spontaneous vomiting, the same man keep disappearing and reappearing, and so on. Although there is not much that the Player Characters can do to thwart Becker’s efforts until it is almost too late, they will be kept busy dealing with all of the other weird issues as they pop up until then. Effectively, this is a firefighting mission against the Mythos until the Player Characters can root out, and are prepared, to face the cause. This is a different style of scenario to the others in the anthology, offering a change of pace and location that works as a one-shot, a convention scenario, or respite from the main campaign.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu Mission Dossier Volume One: Behind Enemy Lines is cleanly and tidily laid out. The illustrations and the maps are excellent, although it does need an edit in places.

Initially, the title of Achtung! Cthulhu Mission Dossier Volume One: Behind Enemy Lines reads like a misnomer. After all, not all of the scenarios take place behind enemy lines—at least not as far as the Allies and Section M are concerned. Once you get Black Sun and Nachtwölfe involved, then three of the scenario do take place behind enemy lines on British and American soil! If there is anything missing from the anthology it is advice on when to run the scenarios in relation with Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis, as most of its scenarios would work well with the campaign. Otherwise, Achtung! Cthulhu Mission Dossier Volume One: Behind Enemy Lines is a solid collection of scenarios that offers plenty of punching, bullet flying, Pulp-action against the Nazis.

Let’s Kill Hitler!

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: Assault on the Fuhrer Train shifts the action forward by three years. Previous releases for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20, such as Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis, are set earlier in the war, even during part of the Phony War, in 1939, 1940, and 1941. This, the fifth release for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 takes place in November, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge and involves an incredible operation against the Nazis. As the title suggests, in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Fuhrer Train, the Player Characters—or Agents—will attempt a dramatic attack on the Führersonderzug, Hitler’s personal armoured train, known as ‘Brandenburg’. The Agents are not members of Britain’s Section M or the United States’ Majestic, but of the Resistance that has been operating in Europe ever since it fell under the Nazi yoke. For most of the war, the Ardennes has been a sleepy backwater, noted more for the archaeological digs conducted by the Nazis in their continued search for proof of Ayran purity, but now that has changed. Military activity has increased in the wake of D-Day only five months previously and the Resistance has become aware of the existence of both Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, and the foul means by which both are fighting the war. As the scenario opens, the Resistance members learn of an amazing opportunity. A high-ranking Nazi official is due to arrive on a special armoured train at 4 pm that very day—and even better, their informant believes it could be someone important, maybe even the Nazi Führer himself! Could the Resistance cell be the men and women to strike a blow for freedom, perhaps end the war itself, and become the renowned and revered Resistance fighters who killed Hitler?

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Fuhrer Train can be run as an exciting, action-packed one-shot, but is actually intended as a prequel to the campaign, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear, which exposes the desperation of both Nachtwölfe and Black Sun as they actually work together in order to defeat the Allies and win their Secret War. The scenario comes with five pre-generated Resistance members to use as Player Characters. They are a good mix and include a leader, an expert in sabotage and railway engineering, an assassin, a disguise expert, and an academic, who unbeknownst to the other Resistance members is actually a practicing druid and spellcaster, though the sickle on his belt might be a giveaway! All five Resistance members are nicely done and each is accompanied by a rather good illustration.

The scenario is linear, and of course, once the Agents get aboard the train, quite literally so. From the initial briefing, the Agents have to recover an arms cache previously dropped by the SOE and then hidden. This requires that they get past a German guard post, but it does tool them up for the big battle to come. They have two options when to comes to getting aboard the train. One, in true Resistance fashion, is to blow up the tracks and climb aboard, and whilst this stops the train from going anywhere, it alerts everyone aboard! The other, in true action movie fashion, is to leap aboard, which means they retain the element of surprise. From the back of the train, they can then proceed up its length, from car to car to the compartments where Hitler is located.

The cars on the train go from the militaristic to the austere to the really very swanky—that is, if you like your swank with full on Nazi regalia. As the Agents move from the Anti-Aircraft Carriage to the barracks to the Communications Carriage to the War Room and beyond, the cars get more and more opulent, and they will encounter a mix of soldiery and servants, some belonging to Black Sun or Nachtwölfe, others not. Perhaps the most fun encounter is an optional one—a fully staffed kitchen headed by a chef who will complain very, very loudly about the presence of the Agents! Even if the Game Master decides not to use this encounter, not everyone aboard the train is Black Sun or Nachtwölfe, or even members of the military. There are civilians too. Everyone aboard the train is also going about their daily business, which means that not everyone will be on duty. So, there is scope here for the Agents to employ stealth and guile rather than simply go in guns blazing. This would suit two of the pre-generated Agents, as they have silenced pistols. In addition, there is scope to investigate and look for clues to gather more information. The Game Master is provided with some handouts for the Agents to find and not everyone aboard the train is a diehard fanatic, so if questioned, they will talk.

Besides the handouts and the stats for the various NPCs, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Fuhrer Train has floorplans for the train itself. In the chapters, these are presented as blueprints, but they are given in plain black and white at the end of the scenario. Given that this is a very action-orientated scenario, what the Game Master could do is copy and enlarge the floor plans ands run the scenario with miniatures, which would enhance its action film style play!

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Fuhrer Train is big and it is exciting. However, it does not deliver on its premise, or rather its hook. In other words, the Agents believe they have an opportunity to kill Hitler, this is not going to happen—and for two reasons. The first is that the whole set-up is a lure to get the Agents aboard the train. In other words, it is a trap! The second is that the scenario is written as a prequel to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear, setting up the storyline for that campaign. So as a one shot, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Fuhrer Train does not deliver because ultimately, the Agents are set up to fail in readiness for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear. As a one-shot, the scenario could have better supported that option if the Game Master was not planning to run Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear. Perhaps put in decoy Hitler to reveal as fake at the end? And if he survives to the end, have the evil, evil Nazis kill him off, just because?

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Fuhrer Train is cleanly and tidily laid out. The illustrations and the maps are excellent.

Ultimately, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Fuhrer Train  works better as a grand prequel to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear, than it does as standalone, one-shot, because that is how it is intended to be used. Nevertheless, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Fuhrer Train is great fun, embracing its World War 2 action film action and big fight on a Nazi train action (and yes, that is a lot of action) like levels from the video games Call of Duty and Medal of Honour.

Scares Under Scotland

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It 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: Operation Falling Crystal takes place on the Home Front with the Player Characters, or Agents, suddenly rushed to the Scottish coast where a strange discovery has been made. With the Battle of France over and the Nazi war machine readying itself for Operation Sea Lion, Britain is frantically preparing defences against imminent invasion. In Scotland, this includes teams of coast watchers keeping an eye for roving U-boats, whilst just inland, near the sleepy village of St Abbs, an archaeological dig led by Professor Angus MacLeary, has made a discovery in an ancient cave system below a hill that sits behind a megalithic stone circle that stands looking over the sea. This is a highly valuable cache of the Blauer Kristall—or Blue Crystal—much coveted by Nachtwölfe, which uses it to fuel its increasingly weird weapons of war. Section M has been alerted to the discovery and quickly despatches a team of Agents, that is, the Player Characters, north to investigate and secure what could be a war-winning resource for analysis by the boffins at Clemens Park.

From the outset, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal sounds quite a bit like Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under the Gun and in a great many ways, it is. Both scenarios are set on the Home Front and both take place in August—Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under the Gun in August, 1940 and Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal in late August/early September. Both scenarios are intended as sequels to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard, and thus both scenarios have the issue of the latter taking place in August, 1940. So there is a tight timeline involved. Both scenario involve a discovery being made underground which first attracts the attention of Section M, then the associated forces of the Mythos—in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun it is Deep Ones, whereas in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal, it is the Mi-Go—and both end in a three-way tussle between the Agents, the agents of the Mythos, and one of the Nazi factions in the secret war. Surprisingly, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal, it is Black Sun and not Nachtwölfe. Since it involves the Black Sun, it can be run after the events of ‘A Quick Trip to France’ found in the Achtung! Cthulhu Quickstart: A Quick Trip to France.

This is not to say that there are no differences. The Agents will have the opportunity to engage a little with the locals at the village pub at one in the scenario and there is an engagingly Hitchcockian feel to the train journey from London to Scotland. The Agents will also have their first encounter proper with the Mi-Go, one of the utterly alien factions in the Secret War, and may be able to parley with them in order to persuade them to work as allies, if only temporarily, against the Black Sun soldiery which has landed on the coast to take control of everything. There is more scope for roleplaying too, with the villagers, with the members of the coastal watch, with the members of the archaeological team, and even with the Mi-Go! What Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal also does is introduce the Agents to both two more factions in the Secret War—Black Sun and the Mi-Go—and to the fact that the relationship between the Nazi factions, Black Sun and Nachtwölfe, is actually a rivalry.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is another short, sharp scenario which can be completed in a single session. There is a bit of clean-up in terms of what happens to the members of the archaeological dig and any captured Black Sun agents or troops, and the success of the Agents is measured in just how much and who they can get back to London. Success is not guaranteed through as the Agents face some tough Black Sun forces for a small group and they may make any potential successes less guaranteed by not making allies in the scenario. This a tough little scenario, high on combat and action over investigation.

Although Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is not a complex scenario, like the previous Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun, its climax does involve a big battle with multiple opponents and factions, so it does feel a little like a mini-wargame rather than the climax of a roleplaying scenario. Certainly, the Game Master might want to have the factions involved in this tunnel and cave-based confrontation divided between herself and the Player Characters to make it easier to run and give her fewer dice to roll and NPCs to keep track of.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the maps of the various locations are decently done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is a short and serviceable scenario, more action and combat than investigation. Its main problem is that it feels too much like Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun, so the Game Master may want to run at least one scenario, if not more between the two if she is running the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 scenarios in chronological order. Otherwise, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is an easy scenario to add to an early war campaign for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20.

Danger Under Dover

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It 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: Under the Gun takes place on the Home Front with the Player Characters, or Agents, suddenly rushed to the Kent coast where a frightening discovery has been made. With the Battle of France over and the Nazi war machine readying itself for Operation Sea Lion, Britain is frantically preparing defences against imminent invasion. This includes the fortification of the Kent coast, specifically in and around Dover and its famous, chalk cliffs which stand at the closet point between England and France. There are news reports that excavations have unearthed an ancient British fort, but this only a cover story. What an archaeologist and several British army engineers have discovered is a strange stone pillar which seems to make everyone feel at least queasy, if not leave them suffering nightmares, seeing things out of the corners of their eye, and if that is not odd enough, suffering bouts of ichthyophobia! Those that have been suffering the worst have been hospitalised. As agents of Section M, the Player Characters are ordered to investigate the site at St. Andrew’s Cliff.

With a little care, the Agents have the opportunity to learn what happened to the men digging at St. Andrew’s Cliff and perhaps conduct a little research locally. Very quickly, the Agents are rushed to the site, now a combination of fortification in the making and archaeological dig site, both semi-abandoned. The Agents have the afternoon to investigate the site before events take a sudden and highly confrontational turn. The site, including the Agents and the few members of the British Army left to guard the site are attacked—not once, but twice! First by locals from the nearby village and then by Nazis. The Agents may already have discovered the legends about the nearby village of St. Andrews, but what they find out in the confrontation is that the legends are true, that, “Them St. Andrew’s folk aren’t right — flat-faced, goggle-eyed devils!” In other words, Deep One Hybrids. The Nazis are members of Black Sun, though only a small team that has landed by glider on the cliffs nearby. This is a big fight—though small in the scheme of things—over who has access to the strange stone pillar in the case of the Black Sun unit and who should be punished for defiling the strange stone pillar in the case of the villagers.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun is a short, sharp scenario which can be completed in a single session. It does leave the question of what to do with a village of Deep One Hybrids on the English coast up to the Game Master. Either raid the village and intern everyone as per the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps raid on Innsmouth in 1928 or actually recruit them as allies in the Secret War against the Nazi occult? Both options are valid and both would make for interesting developments, especially the latter. More so if the Game Master is planning to run Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard. The events of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun take place in June, 1940, whereas the events of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard take place in August, 1940. Both involve Deep Ones, so they are thematically linked and thus Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard can be run as a possible sequel to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun. Since it involves the Black Sun, it can be run after the events of ‘A Quick Trip to France’ found in the Achtung! Cthulhu Quickstart: A Quick Trip to France.

Although Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun is not a complex scenario, its climax does involve a big battle with multiple opponents and factions, so it does feel a little like a mini-wargame rather than the climax of a roleplaying scenario. Certainly, the Game Master might want to have the factions involved in this fog-bound confrontation divided between herself and the Player Characters to make it easier to run and give her fewer dice to roll and NPCs to keep track of.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the maps of the various locations are decently done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun is a short, sharp encounter with the multiple forces of the Mythos that also manages to pack in a little investigation as well. It can be played in a single session and this makes it easy to drop into a campaign, especially taking place early in the war.

North Sea Nasties

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It 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: Operation Vanguard is designed for a group of Player Characters who have one or two basic adventures under their collective belt, likely Achtung! Cthulhu Quickstart: A Quick Trip to France. In ‘A Quick Trip to France’, the Agents were assigned to investigate the activities of a Black Sun Master in the village of Saint Sulae, southwest of the city of Rouen. That mission takes place in June, 1940, merely weeks after the invasion of the Low Countries and the fall of France. Barely two months pass and in August, 1940, the Agents are sent on another mission into enemy occupied territory. This time, the Netherlands. As the country’s general populace begins to adjust to the shock of being invaded, the newly formed resistance has already begun to report to London where Queen Wilhelmina and her government are now in exile. These reports percolate throughout the various offices and departments of British intelligence, the odder stories ignored by all except Section M. One such report is from the small Dutch fishing town of Nermegen and tells of a strange installation being constructed at both St. Olaf’s lighthouse and on the nearby Skellen Island and of the presence in the town of Nachtwölfe. The rivals to the Black Sun, they are likely just as dangerous. For Section M, this is the first known sighting of the Night Wolves, and it wants it confirmed by the Agents. Their mission to travel by submarine to the Dutch coast and make landfall by folding canoes. There, they are to make contact with the local Resistance movement, avoid all contact with the German garrison, investigate Nachtwölfe activities in and around Nermegen, before proceeding to Skellen Island and determining what the secret organisation is up to. Any and all intelligence is to be gathered with expediency.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard is a straightforward mission and scenario. The Agents are first given some training in the use of the folboat—or folding canoe, used in Operation Frankton and made famous by the film, The Cockleshell Heroes—and the Player Characters the basic skill in them as a nice bonus, before the mission begins. The process of the mission is presented in some detail, including making contact with the Resistance and gathering rumours about the Nazi activities in and around the town, the latter of which will lead to another location on the coast where Nachtwölfe was seen operating and a local drunken fisherman who might know a lot more than they had imagined! Ultimately, this should prime the Agents to investigate first St. Olaf’s lighthouse and then nearby Skellen Island. Both locations are fortified, the scenario including full details of the defences and the enemy numbers stationed at both. For the most part, stealth is probably the most useful skill that the Player Characters will need as a full out assault will alert the garrison and any Nachtwölfe nearby. That will change once the Agents are on Skellen Island and have broken into the base there, ‘Installation 41’, a big bruising fight the likelihood, helped by some unexpected allies.

If the players have been paying attention, by the time their Agents get into ‘Installation 41’, they will have some idea of whatever it is that Nachtwölfe is up to, it involves the Deep Ones. The latter are a major faction in the Secret War, and just as Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard is designed as the first encounter that the players and their Agents have with Nachtwölfe, it also their first with any other faction of the Secret War. The likelihood is that the Agents are not going to be able to communicate with the Deep Ones—an option that the scenario does not really explore—but they are going to see them in action against the scientists and soldiers of Nachtwölfe. There is the option to add more Deep Ones if the Agents are floundering, but either way, the best way to run this fight is for the players to roll for the Deep Ones as well as their Agents, so as to keep the action flowing and the Game Master from rolling for too many NPCs.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard does involve Nachtwölfe, though not necessarily the key to its power and the means to power its many advanced weapons of war, the vibrantly blue Blauer Kristall. This and the fact that it takes place in August, 1940, means that it takes place after the events of the campaign, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis, which ends in May or June of that year. It could be run as a sequel, but it could also be shifted to earlier in the war and countries under German occupation that bit earlier. Denmark and Norway are good candidates and if used, Operation Vanguard could be run during April 1940. If the Game Master decides not to run Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis,or is running for different group of Agents, then she can simply run this scenario as is.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the maps of the various locations are decently done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard feels inspired by Operation Biting, the 1942 raid to capture German radar equipment from near the village of Bruneval in Normandy. Then again, it could been inspired by any number of World War 2 films or commando missions! Overall, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard combines a good mix of the Mythos and the military and is a solid stealth and assault mission that includes a little investigation as well.

Airstrip Assault

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It 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…

In addition to any number of scenarios for Achtung! Cthulhu, Modiphius Entertainment also publishes what it calls ‘Section M: Priority Missions’. These are smaller missions and scenarios intended to help a Game Master is hard-pressed for time or needs an alternate scenario when there are fewer players. Alternatively, they can be used as one-shots or woven into ongoing campaigns. Each though, provides a single mission that can be played in a single session as well as adventure hooks should the Game Master want to expand the scenario.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is the third entry in the series and the second to be set in North Africa. Its premise is very simple. A mysterious Luftwaffe aircraft has been spotted making a forced landing at an airstrip in North Africa following an engagement with the RAF where it is undergoing repairs in a hangar on site. The LRDG, or Long Range Desert Group, which conducted the reconnaissance, indicated in its report that the aircraft resembled the Junkers G 38 bomber, a model based on a 1929 large, four-engined transport. However, there are significant differences. This aircraft has only two engines, both of them rear-facing, and there is no rear fuselage or tail boom. Whatever the aeroplane is, it must be experimental, because what it resembles is a flying wing! The report also contained one other fact: the damaged aircraft seemed to flicker in and out of sight as it landed. Could it be some new radical prototype? The RAF was sceptical. It was just one unidentified aeroplane and the fact that the report said it seemed to flicker in and out of sight as it landed was ridiculous. The report was filed away.

However, the very fact that this strange aircraft was said to have flickered in and out of sight as it landed was more than enough to attract the attention of Section M. Especially when its hears each disappearance was marked by an intermittent burst of blue light! This is definitely more than a simple prototype. Whatever is in that hanger at the airstrip is definitely connected to Nachtwölfe or Black Sun. Likely a wunderwaffe of the former or some devilry of the latter. The mission is simple. The Player Characters have to get to the airstrip, sabotage or steal the aircraft, and then report back!

The LRDG operated in North Africa between 1940 and 1945, which gives a wide time frame in which to run the mission. Ideally though, it should be after the events of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire and early on in the war when Nachtwölfe was a relatively unknown force in the Secret War. It would also mean that it could be easily run as a side mission for part of the campaign, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. The campaign involves Nachtwölfe and its third mission is set in Cairo and Egypt. Either way, the fact that the damaged engine is flickering with a blue light probably means Nachtwölfe involvement.

As with other ‘Section M: Priority Missions’, the focus on Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is on detailing the location and mapping what and who is there. As an active airfield there are a lot of personnel. There are over fifty members of the Luftwaffe and twelve members of Nachtwölfe assigned to operate and monitor the newly designed prototype. There are also fifteen vehicles, primarily used for transport in and around the airfield, plus, of course, several Bf-109 fighters. The map of the airfield is nicely done, showing both how widely spaced out the various locations are for the safety of the men and the aeroplanes in case of attack or explosion and how temporary the landing strip is, with only two buildings. One is a modern concrete command post; the other is an old fortress. There is also a single hanger and a machine shop. These and the other locations are lightly described and there are no internal maps of the command post, fortress, hanger, or machine shop. The Game Master will need to do some research or improvise if the Player Characters want more information or floor plans. That said, these locations should be familiar to anyone who has seen a few World War 2 films!

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is a strike mission. It is military in nature and it will involve a lot of stealth. Plus, if the Player Characters are to steal the strange prototype, then one of their number should include a pilot. The focus on the strike mission, that is, get in, steal or destroy the prototype, means that there is little in the way of variation in terms of hooks or how the Player Characters get involved. Instead, three possible outcomes are discussed, including destroying the aeroplane, alerting the base personnel, and escaping aboard the aeroplane, ready to fly it back to Allied territory. In addition, several ‘Encounter Escalation’ options are suggested. These are all thematically appropriate such as a sudden downpour of rain that turns the airfield into a muddy quagmire or a flight of Allied bombers attacks the aircraft!

However, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 saves its best for last—“Who’s the big feller?” This is Egypt, there are Nazis, so there has to be big bruiser of an NCO ready to duke it out with one of the Player Characters with his fists! And if that NCO is played by the late Pat Roach, then all the better. His inclusion, though, points to the obvious inspiration for the Priority Mission, and that is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Another is that the mysterious aircraft which initiates the plot is based upon the Blohm and Voss BV-38 ‘Flying Wing’ that appeared in that film. Another possible inspiration is Captain America: The First Avenger in the design and modification of the aeroplane.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the map of the airfield is nicely done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is more military than Mythos, more stealth and action than cosmic horror. As a military operation though, it is actually easier to prepare and run and thus easy to slip into an ongoing campaign or run when a backup scenario is needed. Despite the lack of Mythos in the scenario, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is fun and its playing around with its inspirations is engaging.

Atlantis Abides

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It pitches the Allied Agents of 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: Shadows of Atlantis is a world-spanning campaign and the fourth release for Achtung! Cthulhu. An adaptation to the 2d20 System of the earlier version for Call of Cthulhu, the release of a campaign so early in the line makes sense chronologically. It takes place between August, 1939, before the start of the war and May/June, 1940, the period of the Phoney War when full hostilities had yet to break out and France was not yet invaded. The campaign will take the Player Characters or Agents from Vienna to Greenland via Rome, Cairo, Nepal, India, Persia, and more, in a desperate effort to prevent an incredibly ancient artefact from falling into Nazi hands. The period is rife with tension, but the Player Characters have a greater freedom of movement than might be imagined during the rest of the war and whilst they are not in danger of running into German military forces, they will be stalked in the shadows by Nachtwölfe agents and encounter many of their proxies.

In addition to being set early in the war, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis not just the first campaign for Achtung! Cthulhu, but also the first campaign for the Game Master and her players. This shows most obviously in the series of three sets of boxed text. ‘Roving Red Line’ handles the travels of the Agents around the world, summarising the options, but also giving a nod to those interstitial moments of map movements in the Indiana Jones series of films; ‘U.L.T.R.A.’ gives the Game Master extra details about NPCs and plot information; ‘Basic Training’, a simple guide to handling the mechanics of the 2d20 System in Achtung! Cthulhu in a particular scene as well as possible Threat expenditures for the Game Master to make the Agents’ more challenging. It also shows in the path and tone of the campaign. Apart from a framing device, the individual chapters of the campaign are not connected and there is no set path from its start to its end, so there is much less of an emphasis upon the collection and analysis of clues to move from one chapter to another. The tone is muscular, very much more action-orientated and in the realm of the Pulp genre rather than the horror genre. This is not to say that the campaign is not lacking in monsters or scary situations, but Shadows of Atlantis primarily involves encountering Nachtwölfe agents and its local, sometimes indigenous proxies as well as monsters based on local legends. Thus, there is a marked lack of monsters and entities drawn from the Cthulhu Mythos. In fact, almost none of the classic creations from H.P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre appears in Shadows of Atlantis. This does not mean that there is not a Mythos presence in the campaign, since Nachtwölfe plays a major role in the campaign, whilst Black Sun plays a minor role, but it remains offscreen for much of the campaign and the backstory to the campaign is unlikely to be revealed to the Agents. This does, however, fit the period, that of the Phoney War, when there is a high degree of uncertainty as to the nature of the enemy faced by the Allies and what that enemy would do next.

The campaign opens in August 1939. The Agents are in Vienna, Austria, working for Section D before what becomes Section M is established, to contact a German agent who feels betrayed by her masters following the death of her husband, Doctor Botho Ehrlichmann, under strange circumstances. He was a noted archaeologist and she believes that he was killed to keep his research a secret. This research concerned the translation and study of the scripts carved on an ancient black stone found in Egypt by a previous German archaeological team. Now his notes are missing and his wife does not want the Nazis to have them. The paper chase will lead the Agents across Vienna with the Nazis at their heels and subsequently out of Austria, south to Rome. By this time, war will have broken between Germany and Great Britain, but no such state exists between Italy and Great Britain. Nevertheless, Italy under Mussolini is a police state and the Nazis are already in Rome, conducting an archaeological dig deep under the streets of the Eternal City. By now, the preliminary research that the Agents will have done into Ehrlichmann’s notes reveals that the stone was linked to a powerful ancient artefact that was split up into five parts and hidden in various locations around the world. One of the locations was in Rome, which is why the Germans were digging into the tunnels under the city.

This sets up the framework for Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. Researchers back in Section D in England will continue to translate and decode Doctor Ehrlichmann’s notes. This provides the clues as to the next location where another part of the device can be found and what it is called. These assignments will take the Agents to Cairo, Nepal, India, and Persia, but beyond Vienna, these can be tackled in any order. In many cases, the Agents will find that the Nazis already have their own operatives or proxies on the ground, conducting archaeological excavations, often oblivious or uncaring of the dangerous consequences they are triggering. All involve fantastically monstrous situations, whilst the Cairo and Nepal chapters stand out for their weirdness. The Nepal chapter takes the Agents to an almost Shangri-La-like location, whilst the Cairo chapter sends the Agents into a version of the Dreamlands. The latter is the more engaging of the two, the other often exposition heavy and reading more like a travelogue.

Prior to the campaign finale in Greenland—and beyond, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis includes an extra location, new to this version of the campaign. This is British Honduras. With the Agents busy in Asia and the Middle East, when Section M learns of the location of another part of the artefact, it sends another team to secure it. Unfortunately, nothing has been heard from this team, ostensibly conducting an archaeological dig, for quite some time, so Section M arranges for a second expedition to locate the missing team and recover the piece of the artefact. However, word has got out about the missing team and the authorities have already agreed to an offer of help in finding it from the German Ambassador. Though this is with the proviso that neutral observers accompany the rescue mission. The twist here is that these neutral observers will not be the Agents who have been following up on details from Doctor Ehrlichmann’s notes in Vienna, Cairo, Nepal, India, and Persia, that is, in the rest of the campaign. They will instead be entirely different and new Player Characters. This is intended to provide a change for the players, both in terms of perspective and challenge, in roleplaying other characters, but it is a jarring shift. It is also a shift in tone, since the characters and the players will be dealing with Germans and German agents, not as direct threats, but as individuals—supposedly—helping to find missing archaeologists. So, this sets up some tensions between the Player Characters and the NPCs, as well as presenting more roleplaying opportunities than in the other chapters. However, the chapter does take the campaign to an off-scene location and so out of the flow of the campaign’s story. Alternatively, it provides a change of pace and focus before the big finale.

The finale takes place in Greenland and beyond—way beyond. The finale delivers on the title of the campaign and drops the Agents into the most mythological of places. In other words, Atlantis. Since this is Atlantis, this is on its last day, the day of its collapse. As the city falls apart around them, the Agents need to rush through the panicking and fleeing citizenry to stop Nachtwölfe from bringing its plans to fruition. It is a big, exciting conclusion to the campaign and there are some pleasing payoffs to the rest of the campaign as well as little Easter eggs for Achtung! Cthulhu as a whole. The campaign finale discusses various outcomes including failure upon the part of the Agents.

In terms of support, the appendices for Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis provides stats for the major NPCs and monsters in the campaign and details of the new tomes, spells, and artefacts that appear in the campaign, including the one that forms the major driver for the campaign. There are also several related scenario seeds, quite detailed, but take place after the events of the campaign, all of the handouts, and four pre-generated Agents. They consist of a German émigré Private Investigator, an American secret agent, a British engineer and explosives expert, and an Irish-Czech circus performer turned mystic! If the players are choosing to create their own, then an Agent with knowledge of archaeology will be useful, as will a mystic.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is a great looking book, neatly laid out and illustrated with some excellent artwork. It is also well organised, each chapter opening with a Mission Overview, followed by its three scenes, and then brought to a close with a Debriefing. Where the campaign is lacking is in illustrations of the moving parts of the campaign, all the parts that the Agents will interact with. So there are no illustrations or portraits of the NPCs (though some do appear in the artwork) and certainly no illustrations of the various objects and parts of the artefact to be found. This is a major omission in either case, as the illustrations would make the identification of both objects and NPCs faster and easier and so made the campaign more real for the players and their Agents. There is also very little in terms of text to be read out or paraphrased by the Game Master, leaving her with quite a lot of description for her to parse and present to her players. Overall, given that Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is intended as a first campaign, certainly for Achtung! Cthulhu, the campaign is not always as helpful as it could or should be.

Given the Pulpy tone of the campaign, what is surprising about Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is the lack of good NPCs. Or the lack of scenery-chewing villains who appear over and over to make the lives of the Agents difficult before making their escape vowing to have their revenge after being defeated by the Agents. Part of this is due to the lack of illustrations to help the NPCs to life in general, but it is also due to the true villains of the piece working through proxies—often over-the-hill archaeologists with questionable morals—so they do not get a chance to strut their stuff as much as the style of the campaign warrants it.

Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is a campaign of the opening moves in the secret occult war between the Allies and Nazi Germany, but very much one of Lovecraftian action horror rather than Lovecraftian investigative horror. Not without its moments of intrigue and stealth, especially in the opening chapters in Vienna and Rome, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is action-orientated, fists-flying, pedal to the metal, cosmic horror.

Monks & Mythos

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It 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…

In addition to any number of scenarios for Achtung! Cthulhu, Modiphius Entertainment also publishes what it calls ‘Section M: Priority Missions’. These are smaller missions and scenarios intended to help a Game Master is hard-pressed for time or needs an alternate scenario when there are fewer players. Alternatively, they can be used as one-shots or woven into ongoing campaigns. Each though, provides a single mission that can be played in a single session as well as adventure hooks should the Game Master want to expand the scenario.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire is the second entry in the series. It opens with the Player Characters having been sent to Cairo by Section M to investigate a monastery belonging to the Order of St. Barbara, patron saint of miners. The monks of this monastery are known to wear brooches that depict a serene female face and are notably carved from a strikingly blue stone. Section M has been sent one of these brooches and has identified the stone as being Blauer Kristall. Nachtwölfe is known to have an extreme interest in this rare mineral and constantly scours the world for sources from which it can develop science, technology, progress, biological enhancements, and wonder weapons powered by Blauer Kristall. The monastery, located a few miles outside of Cairo, is also said to be home to a relic, a skull of similar blue stone, purported to be the cranium of the saint, transfigured in sapphire. The Player Characters are ordered to get into the monastery and determine if the skull really is made of Blauer Kristall and if the monks have a bigger source.

The scenario primarily consists of a map of the monastery and a description of its various buildings. The map, along with an unlabeled one for the players, is nicely done. The basic details of what is going on in the Order of St. Barbara is also described, but without any discussion of the motivations of either the monks or their Mythos allies. There are also no stats, so the Game Master will need to consult the Gamemaster’s Guide and alter the Truths as necessary. Some possible motivations and suggestions as to what might be going is instead suggested in the several adventure seeds included in the scenario. At the most basic, the monks are innocent of any Mythos connection, but Nachtwölfe are definitely interested in gaining possession of whatever Blauer Kristall is being held in the monastery. Other seeds see the Player Characters tracking Mi-Go through tunnels under Cairo and find themselves in the caves below the monastery; Nachtwölfe is there when the Player Characters arrive and they have to stop the Nazis getting away with the Blauer Kristall; and Cairo is haunted by the ‘Ghost of St. Barbara’, a glowing blue apparition stalking the streets of the city, whose appearances seem to coincide with a series of thefts of ancient manuscripts from antiquities museums and private collections.

One other way to use the scenario is as a side mission for the campaign, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. The campaign involves Nachtwölfe and its third mission is set in Cairo and Egypt. Yet in whatever way in which the Game Master decides to use Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire, she will still need to develop some motivations for both the monks and the Mythos presence at the monastery. This will vary depending upon how strong the links are between the monks and the Mythos. The stronger they are, the more the scenario will need the Game Master to develop those motivations and the more the scenario needs this attention, the more input is required from the Game Master, and the less immediately useful the scenario is as written.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the map of the monastery is nicely done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire is not quite ready to run, and depending upon how the Game Master wants to use it, needs more input and development than it necessarily should. Consequently, it is not quite the download and play scenario that the publisher intended.