Miskatonic Monday #450: Nightmares From The Depths

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Nightmares From The Depths: Cthulhu and the Mythos in Massachusetts is an epic campaign. Not of scope, not of scale, but of detail. Not of scope, because rather than taking the Investigators around the world on a globetrotting campaign against some inhuman and inhumane conspiracy, it dares not stray beyond the state lines of Massachusetts. Not of scale, because it does not involve an attempt by some crazed madman to bring about the end of the world as mankind knows it because the ‘Stars are Right’. Rather, its events may be seen as peripheral to such attempts. Nor will it encompass months of the Investigators’ time to complete. It begins on Tuesday 17th March, 1925 and ends on Thursday 2nd April, 1925. Fans of H.P. Lovecraft and his ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, will doubtless recognise the latter date, for it is the very day that Norwegian sailor, Gustaf Johansen, at the helm of the yacht, Alert, rammed it into “The Thing cannot be described…” In doing so, he drove great Cthulhu back under the sea to his tomb on the previously aeons-long sunken island of R’lyeh and thus disrupted the psychic signal that for weeks had been emanating the middle of the south Pacific and inflicted feverishly irrational nightmares upon psychics, artists, and occultists, whilst attracting the attention of his most devoted adherents and worshippers. In this perhaps, Nightmares From The Depths is a call-back to Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, the very first campaign for Call of Cthulhu. A call-back that is actually six times bigger than that 1982 release!

Nightmares From The Depths is a campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition published on the Miskatonic Repository. Inspired by the short, ‘The Horror at Martin’s Beach’ by H.P. Lovecraft and S. H. Greene, it is set over the course of fifteen very specific days in the March and April of 1925 and for the most part, is firmly set in Boston, from Brahmin high society and the shock of the new in its arts to the seedy seam of small time crime and greed and out to the bracing spray of sea and salt on the Massachusetts coast. This is a campaign on a par with A Time to Harvest: Death and Discovery in the Vermont Hills – A 1930s Era Campaign Across New England and Beyond and A Cold Fire Within: A Mind-Bending Campaign for Pulp Cthulhu, but far more geographically and chronologically constrained. Consisting of seven chapters, the campaign opens with ‘The Dreamer’ in which the Investigators as Private Detectives are hired by a family lawyer to find Kenneth ‘Kenny’ Jacobson, a poet, arts journalist for The Boston Herald, and Naval veteran of the Great War who has gone missing. The trail will lead from his work to his psychiatrist—it appears that Jacobson is possibly suffering from another bout of shellshock again—and into the orbit of one of the villains of the piece and his various contacts, rather than him directly. This is Ernest Armenfelt, a former Navy officer who served with Jacobson during the Great War. Initially, the campaign is more Film Noir than Mythos investigation, as barring a nasty side trek scenario, there is a little to no Mythos involvement at this stage. That changes with ‘The Murders’ as in some shocking acts of violence, the scenario’s antagonist moves amongst the avant-garde artworld of Boston, members of which have fallen under the influence of strange dreams. Following the acts of violence and their perpetrator leads to a nasty encounter with his acolyte in ‘The Shadow of Mather’. Both of these chapters do veer away from the actual search for Jacobson, but ‘The Lure of the Sea’ puts the Investigators back on track as a sighting sends them up the Massachusetts’ coast to the sleepy village of Pigeon Cove, where the inhabitants have their own problems and may benefit from the Investigators’ help. Though in some cases no less horrific these problems contrast with the malignity of the Mythos elsewhere. Primarily what the Investigators will learn is the location of Ernest Armenfelt and thus in ‘The Truth Revealed’ discover how far his greed has taken him. This is a short, one location chapter involving a confrontation in some fashion or another—Armenfelt versus the Mythos, Armenfelt versus the Mafia, or Armenfelt and the Mafia versus Mythos—which all depends on the actions of the Investigators. More news of Kenny Jacobson’s whereabouts returns the Investigators to ‘Death on the Coast’ and the coastal resort of Martin’s Beach. This is perhaps the most staged of the scenarios in the campaign as a torrential storm rolls in from the sea, the Investigators are split up to help lead search terms to save the villagers, and the Mythos runs wild as one of Cthulhu’s greatest servants smashes his way across the land Kaiju-style! Finally, in ‘A Bitter Pill To Swallow’, the Investigators confront the campaign’s villain as he seeks his ultimate triumph on Calf Island in Boston Harbour. It is a classic Call of Cthulhu finale, big, brawling, and bruising encounter held on an especially significant day, and though likely to be more physical than previous scenarios in the campaign, if successful will likely be most cathartic.

In addition, the campaign is supported by several Sidetrack Scenarios. All are optional, but the best brings out the monstrous in Humankind as well as the Mythos, some driven by the Mythos, others not. There are also two extra scenarios in Nightmares From The Depths which take place after the main campaign and are only tangentially connected to it. The first is the touloungeaphobic ‘The Sisterhood of Dreams’ which takes the Investigators to a Chicago under the thumb of Al Capone and his mob to investigate a series of murders at the hands of what turns out to be a feminist cult, whilst ‘The Stories of the Dead’ takes them further west to San Francisco and dark underbelly of Chinatown. Secrets of San Francisco will be both a useful reference and extra source of scenarios for ‘The Stories of the Dead’. These are two very solid scenarios, but they are extra to the campaign and if they had been omitted, it would not distract from the campaign as a whole.

Lastly, the campaign is supported with a set of six appendices. These in turn list new spells—Cast Away Flesh and Return to the Sea are particularly nasty, new artefacts, and Mythos tomes old and new specific to the campaign. There is also a list of scenarios set in Boston should the Keeper want to continue her own campaign beyond the pages of Nightmares From The Depths. The lists include those from Chaosium, Inc., from magazines, and from Stygian Fox Publishing as well as many from the Miskatonic Repository. Most notable are the ‘The Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight’ chapter from Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and ‘The Haunted House’/‘The Haunting’ which is currently in the quick-start for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, as well as ‘Boston’, the article in The Unspeakable Oath Issue 16/17 from Pagan Publishing. There is no advice, sadly, as to whether the scenarios listed are suitable to add to the Nightmares From The Depths campaign, though it is such a chronologically constrained campaign that there really is little room to add extra scenarios. Other appendices list all of the NPCs by chapter and give easy-to-read transcriptions of all of the campaign’s handouts, whilst the last presents six pre-generated Investigators. These are a good mix and there are notes too on how to adapt them to Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos.

If there is a downside to Nightmares From The Depths it is its size. It is four-hundred-and-fifty-four pages long and it does present the Keeper with a wealth of detail on Boston and its environs and it could very easily be argued that the campaign is probably the best sourcebook for the city of Boston in the Jazz to date for Call of Cthulhu, let alone Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Yet it is also an embarrassment of riches at times. Every place, every NPC, and so on is presented in detail and there is often too much information and that it is in places overwritten, both of which hinder the efforts of the Keeper to read and prepare the campaign.

Another issue is the campaign’s timeframe and structure. Although the campaign looks to be linear, threads link one scenario to another—as they should—actually create more of a sandbox and this can often lead to the Investigators following a lead into another scenario before finishing the immediate investigation. This is due to the lack of geographical constraints within the campaign. Since it is not a globe-spanning, world-trotting campaign there is no need to take a journey lasting days or weeks to follow a particular clue, the need to commit to such a journey invariably driving players and their Investigators to complete their inquiries in a particular location before moving onto the next. Almost all of Nightmares From The Depths is set in Boston which means that every location is just a taxi or tram ride away and there are no such geographical constraints.

The timeframe means that the Investigators need to be proactive in their inquiries. Although neither the players nor their Investigators know it, Nightmares From The Depths does have a deadline. So, the Keeper needs to push her players to investigate and to keep on investigating—literally to pick up the pace, as well as split up. The consequences of the need for this pace and geographical structure of the campaign means that the Keeper has to prepare a lot of the campaign upfront. That said, the content is decently organised with every NPC showcased at the start of each chapter, flowcharts to show connections, and indications of where threads link to and where they are linked from.

Physically, Nightmares From The Depths is impressively presented in sepia tones. It is profusely illustrated with period photographs of Boston and that in addition to the excellent maps and other period documents. The artwork, some of it by Paul Carrick and Earl Geier, is also good. The handouts are similarly very good. Some of the portraits of the NPCs do show evidence of some touch-up. The writing is clear, but overdone in places and it could have benefited from tighter editing.

Nightmares From The Depths is a really strong investigative scenario with lots of clues and strands to its mystery and mysteries. There is a lot here for players who like to play detective to get their teeth into, but it is a campaign for Call of Cthulhu and thus a horror campaign too. Nightmares From The Depths underplays its Mythos elements for much of the campaign, having them lurk at the periphery of the Investigators’ inquiries. This makes their presence and their influence when they do appear have much more of an impact and there are some great set pieces littered across the campaign. Such as discovering artist Maria Camhurst in her pain and agony; the séance at the Wavecrest Inn at Martin’s Beach which goes blazingly wrong; and the assault on the Boston docks warehouse by Deep Ones! Of course, the campaign does end in a big set piece, a summoning in classic Call of Cthulhu style.

Ultimately, Nightmares From The Depths is not a campaign about a madman working to summon a great evil in the demented service to his alien and uncaring master, although as the campaign progresses, that is its plot, but about the effects of the Mythos upon society at large. How the actions of the foolish and the greedy unleash consequences upon the innocent and how the emanations of a mind so incompatible with that of humankind bring out or exacerbate the worst in those it touches to the detriment of themselves and those around them. NPC after NPC suffers because of both and whilst that might be wearisome or overdone in another campaign, in Nightmares From The Depths it works because of the narrow timeframe, quite literally because the ‘Stars Are Right’ and so many can be touched by Cthulhu’s otherworldly influence. Other scenarios have touched upon it, but the authors of Nightmares From The Depths are to be commended for taking the dreams of “great Cyclopean cities of titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths.” described in H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ and building a whole campaign around it.

The truth is, Chaosium, Inc. could have published Nightmares From The Depths, as could any Call of Cthulhu licensee, and it would not have not only passed muster, it would have been recognised as a good campaign. That it is not published by an actual roleplaying publisher and put on its schedule of releases is all but astounding, because Nightmares From The Depths is almost as professional a product without it either being official or professional. That applies to the look and production values of the book as much as the campaign itself. Both are of a high standard.

Make no mistake, Nightmares From The Depths: Cthulhu and the Mythos in Massachusetts is an impressive and richly detailed campaign, horrendously human in its horror and monstrously malign in its application of the Mythos, and ingenious in exploring the vile influence of Cthulhu’s dreams at a signature point in Lovecraft’s fiction like no campaign or scenario before it. That it brings the city of Boston to life in the Jazz Age and gives the city its first campaign is a bonus.

Danger During Dunkirk

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! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is a scenario that takes Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 almost all of the way back to to the start of the Secret War. It opens in late May, 1940. The Nazi war machine is driving into France with its radical Blitzkrieg tactics and is retreating back to the Dunkirk on the French north coast, awaiting the beginning of Operation Dynamo and the evacuation from the beaches outside of the port. Alongside this is an effort by Section M to find and evacuate as much occult-related material as it can—tomes, artefacts, and more—before it falls into the hands of either Black Sun or Nachtwölfe. Unfortunately, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the German Luftwaffe has already caught up with Professor Guilbert Paschal, a Section M researcher operating in Normandy and racing to reach Dunkirk when his convoy was destroyed. From its field base in France, Section M sends its agents to investigate the ruins of the convoy, determine the fate of Professor Paschal, and recover his equipment and research. Whatever they are, they could be crucial in understanding Germany’s objectives in the Secret War.

The action begins with the agents of Section M—the Player Characters—roaring up to the site of the convoy’s destruction on British Expeditionary Force provided motorcycles. Time must be of the essence! The agents have time though to investigate the site and gather both clues and left-behind advanced British anti-Mythos technology before following the trail to the nearby ruins of a medieval castle, its towers ablaze with blue flashes of lightning. A contingent of Nachtwölfe troops has got there first though and the agents will need to get past them before climbing to the top of the castle and face another faction in the Secret War. After that, it is time to pack found so far and head home to dear old Blighty and tea and biscuits!

If this sounds a bit short, then that is because it is. Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is written as a demonstration scenario, one that can be run in an hour and showcase the roleplaying game’s background and 2d20 System mechanics. In terms of background the scenario is simple. There is a mission, it involves the occult, there are Nazis, and there are Mythos entities to face. Which means that at least three of the setting main elements are involved, the others being the other factions in the Secret War and the rivalries between them. If there is an issue here, it is that Nachtwölfe troops have no weapons or items of Blauer Kristall technology which the organisation’s signature.

In terms of the mechanics, the scenario’s three scenes guide the Game Master through the key mechanics that she needs to get her players used to. This starts off with a simple skill roll and the generation and use of Momentum, ways for the Game Master to complicate a scene, combat, the use of Fortune and Truths, and so on. None of it is complex and it is handled in an easy fashion. However, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is not a quick-start and the Game Master will need to know the rules and have access to them prior to play. That said, the Game Master can run the scenario using the rules in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide and the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, or she can use the rules found in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Quick-start. The latter is actually a good option, since it includes ‘A Quick Trip to France’. This scenario takes place in June, 1940 and sees the agents return to now occupied France mere weeks after the end of Operation Dynamo. Specifically, near the city of Rouen in Normandy, so potentially where the late Professor Guilbert Paschal was conducting his last mission. Effectively, although designed as a taster to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 and the Secret War, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum works very well as a prequel to the ‘A Quick Trip to France’.

As a demonstration scenario, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum includes four pre-generated agents. They consist of a German journalist and satirist who has fled the Nazis, a French spy/burglar/killer for hire, a French-Canadian female mechanic and bomb-maker, and a female occultist armed with a couple of Yog-Sothothery-style spells. These are decent enough, but could easily be replaced by agents of the players’ own design.

Physically, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is well presented. The map of the castle is excellent and each of the pre-generated agents is accompanied by a nice illustration.

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum is a simple affair by design. Since it is a one-hour demonstration scenario, it is not one that a Game Master is going to pick to run for her group when there are plenty of other options available for the roleplaying game, including of course, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Quick-start. However, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum comes into its own as a prelude to the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Quick-start, almost right at the start of of an Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20 campaign.

Island at the Top of the World

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! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold is a scenario that takes Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 back to North America, but not the Mid-West USA of Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter! or the ice cold of British Columbia, Canada of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Snowstorm. Instead, it takes the Agents out into the Bering Sea in winter, more than a year before the USA joined the war effort and two years before the establishment of Majestic. It is March 1940 and from intercepted radio transmissions, Section M has learned that Nachtwölfe has dispatched a secret expedition ferried board a disguised Russian trawler, the Yalina, into US territorial waters where it has anchored off an uncharted island known as Threshold in the US territorial waters of the Bering Strait. In response, British government has informed its US counterpart and very quickly, the two governments have agreed to launch a joint Anglo-US mission to investigate and interdict the Nazi expedition. This is before the US government establishes Majestic as its counterpart to Section M, so it recruits the soldiers and experts that Professor Richard Deadman, one of the key figures in the future operations of Majestic, perhaps supported by Section M operatives who have already had experience with Nachtwölfe, the Mythos, and the Secret War.

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold is not a complex scenario. It is a simple matter of climbing onto the island from the other side to the site of the Nachtwölfe expedition, traveling across the top, observing the expedition’s activities, taking images using the assigned experimental cameras, and deciding what to do. There are a couple of wrinkles along the way, such as the weather and a potentially nosy polar bear, but as the Agents film the site, it is obvious that whatever it is that Nachtwölfe is doing on the island, is going to come to fruition soon! It is up to the players and their Agents to decide how they react to that, whether that is scouting the site and the trawler out, or going in all guns blazing. Whatever they decide to do, the mission is going to end in a big fight—though the Agents will have no idea how big—because after all, Achtung! Cthulhu is a roleplaying game of shooting and punching Nazis, let alone blasting the Mythos. Stealth is the better option, since it enables the Agents to learn more, perhaps gain some allies, find the documentation they have been assigned to look for, and perhaps even capture one or two of the enemy. Either way, the way, the scenario will climax with a fight that is both silly and actually makes sense in terms of the Secret War. Plus, there is scope for another faction from the Secret War to join in the fracas if the Game Master wants to complicate things and that also makes sense.

The scenario is solidly supported with stats for all of the Nachtwölfe (and other) enemies, including the quite odd expedition leader, Professor Tedrich Sauber, and the thing that he is after. There are maps for both the island and the expedition site, but no image of the thing that Professor Tedrich Sauber is searching for—and that is pity, because it does deserve to be illustrated. There are no pre-generated Agents either.

Where Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold has the potential to be a little more sophisticated is when the Game Master decides to set it. By default, the scenario takes in 1940, early in the war when the USA was not yet involved. In terms of the Secret War, the scenario takes place mostly after the events of Shadows of Atlantis, yet before A Quick Trip to France and subsequent missions. This limits when the scenario can be run as part of a campaign, as does the fact that it requires more experienced Agents. One way in which it can be used is as a side mission that serves as an introduction to the Secret Wars for American Agents, potentially recruits to Majestic in a few months’ time.

Physically, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold is well presented. The area maps are serviceable, but otherwise, the scenario is not illustrated.

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Cold Threshold is a simple affair that can be run as a one-shot or a side mission—perhaps when not every player can attend a session—that will play out in a single session. Although it is set up as a classic Commando-raid-style mission, there are some some pleasing little nuances to it that make it a bit more interesting than the gun toting, spell blasting, Nazi-punching shootout that it is. Plus it has a really surprisingly big bad (one that you really really wish had been illustrated.)

Companion Chronicles #25: Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can be original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

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What is the Nature of the Quest?

Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies is an extended mini-campaign for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, twenty-four page, 2.01 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy, though it does need a slight edit.

Where is the Quest Set?

Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies is a scenario for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It does not have a specific year or geographical location, but should ideally be placed near the lands of the Player-knights’ liege lord where there could be two feuding lords whose lands border each other’s.

Who should go on this Quest?

Any type of Player-knight can go on this quest.

The Player-knights should have sufficient standing represent their liege lord. The Trusting and Suspicious Personality Traits will play a big role in the campaign.

What does the Quest require?

Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition Core Rulebook and the Pendragon: Gamemaster’s Handbook.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The events of Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies take place over the course of four years and concern the allegiance signed between the Player-Knights’ liege lord and Sir Cynwall of Brickwall Manor, who lives relatively close to the liege lord’s lands. The Game Master will need to decide upon the reason why the Player-Knights’ liege lord wants the alliance, but Sir Cynwall seeks the support of the Player-Knights’ liege lord because he has a feud with his neighbour, Sir Ulprus, over land use rights. Unfortunately, this feud will be the source of growing friction between and Sir Cynwall and Sir Ulprus that will be the cause of an actual war between the two knights. However, the situation in Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies is not as simple or as straightforward as it may seem. The Player-Knights may realise this early on if they succeed in a roll against their Suspicious Trait, whilst if they instead succeed in a roll against their Trusting Trait, it will be much later on in the campaign that their doubts will be raised.

The campaign begins in Year One with the Player-Knights at the signing of the treaty as their liege lord’s representatives. At the following banquets, they witness a miracle performed by a travelling pilgrim and establish a relationship with one of Sir Cynwall’s friends, Fray Senach. The scenario foreshadows the campaign as a whole, relying upon the Player-Knights’ Trusting and Suspicious Personality Traits to determine its flow and their reactions. Ideally, Year One will end with the Player-Knights having gained Sir Cynwall’s trust. They return to his castle in Year Two to follow up on the signing of the alliance and assess his defences. To everyone’s surprise, Sir Cynwall announces that he and his son, Sir Effin, will go on pilgrimage, but before they can, Fray Senach is found dead. The evidence points towards one of Sir Cynwall’s household as being responsible. This greatly upsets Sir Cynwall and in Year Three, he seeks to end his feud with Sir Ulprus. Tragically, as an agreement is about to be announced at a banquet, Sir Cynwall drops dead! He has been poisoned and surely, Sir Ulprus was responsible. Anger leads to war and Sir Effin lays siege to Sir Ulprus’ castle. By now, the Player-Knights may have their own suspicions as to who might be actually behind this, but may not have proof or their suspicions confirmed. Whether they do or not, in Year Four, they will gain confirmation—or revelation depending upon the players’ rolls—and hunt the villain down.

Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies is a scenario that demands that the players respect the rolls made against their Knights’ Personality Traits. Experienced players will probably quickly ascertain who the villain is, if not the motive of that villain, and need to roleplay against this knowledge. This is the scenario’s primary weakness, but good roleplayers should be able to cope.

Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies is best run mixed with other scenarios so that the players and their knights can focus on other events and adventures rather than solely on the events of this scenario. This allows its story to shift into the background as the Player-Knights get on with other duties, and then pop out again the next year. This grants the Game Master some flexibility in what she runs parallel to it whether that is single scenarios or parts of an ongoing campaign of her own.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

In places, Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies could have been more clearly written. For example, the explanation of the scenario could have been more clearly written for the benefit of the Game Master. However, this does not mean that it is necessarily harder to run, rather that it requires more preparation than it otherwise should. It demands good roleplaying from the players and that they cab keep their knowledge separate to what their Knights know. This can be challenging, but rewards careful play and the pay-off at the end when the villain behind it all is truly unmasked will be all the more delicious.

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.

Your SHIVER Blockbuster Starter

A good starter set has to do a number of different things. It has to introduce and explain the roleplaying game it is a starter set for, whether that is the roleplaying game’s setting, mechanics, or both. It has to both tell and show what the players and their characters are expected to do in the setting and how they do it, first with the rules and then with a scenario. It has to provide everything that a group needs to play—rules, scenario, pre-generated Player Characters, and dice—and ideally more. Maps, handouts, tokens, and the like are all items that will help bring the world of the roleplaying game’s setting to life and give the players something to look at and interact with. Above all, a good starter should showcase the roleplaying game and entice both Game Master and her players to want to roleplay more with the rules and in that setting by picking up the core rulebook, and if the contents of the start set support continued play, whether that is providing an extra set of dice or maps for the setting, then all the better.

—oOo—

“Welcome to Hollow World!” With this announcement, tech billionaire Linus Crick welcomes some of the world’s leading archaeologists and adventurers, park rangers and hunters, scientists and security experts, influencers and superfans, rebels, saboteurs, and green protestors to his greatest creation yet, a wonder of the age that showcases the wonders of the past! A theme park like no other. A theme park with dinosaurs. Real, living dinosaurs recreated through the wonders of genetic engineering. All the white-suit wearing entrepreneur his with perfectly coiffured hair and his shiny sunglasses, wants is to be endorsed and his venture to be a success. Or does he? Is setting up a dinosaur safari park beneath the Antarctic Longhorn Island enough for Crick? Will grizzled archaeologist Madison Stone, park ranger Obasi Mbacke, palaeontologist Doctor Hana Ueno, new wave scientist Malcolm Goldstein, eco-warrior Petal Moon, neanderthal clone Ug Ug, and dinosaur superfan Billy Wazowski discover if Crick is all he says he is or if he has ulterior motives? Will they survive long enough deep below the Antarctic when disaster strikes, everything goes wrong, and raptors attack to exit through the gift shop to safety?

This is the set-up for ‘Welcome to Hollow World’, the scenario in the SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set, one of two themed starter sets published by Parable Games for SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. The other is the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set. More specifically, the SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set ties in with the campaign supplement, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, in which the Player Characters are actors working for a small film studio in Hollywood, trying to make some blockbusters, get notice, and prove how good—or bad—they are and make Hollywood sit up and take notice! Effectively, in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, each player is roleplaying an actor who is playing a role in five different films, so five times—and slightly more—the roleplaying as in any other campaign or roleplaying game, unless they always play the same role and play it to the camera. Then, the best thing of all, a roleplaying game like Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown and thus SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, has got a budget bigger than any Hollywood studio. So, it can make any film and it will never blow the budget!

That budget though, does not get any bigger than ‘Welcome to Hollow World’. For make no mistake, ‘Welcome to Hollow World’ is a remake (or pastiche) of a 1993 film with a budget of $63 and a box office of a billion dollars! It should be no surprise to anyone reading this review that the film in question is Jurassic Park. There are a lot of plot similarities. A remote island, a genial billionaire, a sick stegosaurus to be found and cured, being chased by velociraptors, and a showdown in the visitor centre. Plus many of the pre-generated Player Characters are similar to the characters in the film. Some are not though, and further, there are plenty of scenes in the scenario along with a plot thread about the nefarious Crick (a nod to the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA), for ‘Welcome to Hollow World’ to not feel like they just recreating Jurassic Park. The scenario maintains a pleasing balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar so the players and their characters can knowingly play along with the pastiche in some scenes and then improvise as they normally would in other roleplaying scenarios.

The structure of the scenarios includes some well handled introduction scenes for each Player Character so that we get to see them in action before the plot gets rolling. Much like the film its takes its inspiration from, the early part of the scenario is on rails as they take a guided tour round the park. After that though, the players and their characters have more freedom.

The SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set contains two books, the ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ and the ‘Welcome to Hollow World’ scenario book, a set of seven pre-generated Player Characters, and a complete set of SHIVER dice. The ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ is a concise version of SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown rulebook and contains all of the rules necessary to run and play ‘Welcome to Hollow World’. Player Characters in SHIVER can advance up to Tier Ten, but the ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ only goes up as far as Tier Five. The SHIVER dice are of course, required to play, and one advantage of the SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set is that once the scenario has been played through, the gaming group has another set of dice to continue playing the roleplaying game.

The seven pre-generated Player Characters in the SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set match the roleplaying game’s seven Archetypes—the Warrior, the Maverick, the Scholar, the Socialite, the Fool, the Weird, and the Survivor—and each emphasises one of the six Core Skills and gives access to several Tiers of Abilities. The six Core Skills—effectively both skills and attributes—are Grit, Wit, Smarts, Heart, Luck, and Strange. Grit represents a character’s physical capabilities; Wit covers physical dexterity; Smarts is his intellect and capability with investigation and technology; Heart is his charisma and charm; Luck is his good fortune and the random of the universe; and Strange is his capacity for using magic, psychic powers, and so on. A Player Character also has a Luck Bank for storing Luck—one for all Archetypes, except for the Fool, who has space for three; a current Fear status—either Stable, Afraid, or Terrified; and a Lifeline—Weakened, Limping, Trauma, and Dead—which is the same for all Archetypes.

Mechanically, SHIVER uses a dice pool system of six-sided dice, their faces marked with the symbols for the roleplaying game’s six Core Skills—Grit, Wit, Smarts, Heart, Luck, and Strange. To these are added Talent dice, eight-sided dice marked with Luck and Strange symbols. When a player wants his character to undertake an action, he assembles a dice pool based on the action and its associated Core Skill plus Talent dice if the character has in that Core Skill. Further dice can be added or deducted depending on whether the Player Character has Advantage or Disadvantage, an Ability which applies, or the player wants to spend his character’s Luck, and on the character’s Fear status. The aim is to roll a number of symbols or successes in the appropriate Core Skill, the Challenge Rating ranging from one and Easy to five and Near Impossible. If the player rolls enough, then his character succeeds; if he rolls two Successes more than the Challenge Rating, it is a Critical Hit; and if a player rolls three or more dice and every symbol is a success, this is Full House. In combat, a Critical Hit doubles damage and a Full House triples it, but out of combat the Director can suggest other outcomes for both. If Luck symbols are rolled, one can be saved in the Player Character’s Luck Bank for later use, but if two are rolled, they can be exchanged for a single success on the current skill roll, or they can be used to turn the Doom Clock back by one minute.

A failed roll does not necessarily mean that the Player Character fails as he can use other means to succeed at the task if he rolls enough successes in another Core Skill for that task, though this requires some narrative explanation. However, a failed roll has consequences beyond simply not succeeding—each Strange symbol rolled pushes the Doom Clock up by a minute…

Combat uses the same mechanic with monsters and enemies—and the Player Characters when they are attacked—using the same Challenge Rating as skill tests. It is Turn-based, with the Director deciding whether each Player Character is acting First, in the Middle, or Last, depending upon their situation and what they want to do. Players are encouraged to be organised and know what their characters are capable of, the surroundings for the battle, and so on, in order to get the best out of their characters. With every Player Character possessing the same Lifeline (the equivalent of sixteen Health Points), combat can be simply nasty or nasty and deadly, depending upon the mode. Death is a strong possibility, no matter what the mode, and depending on the scenario, death need not be the end though. A Player Character could become a ghost and continue to provide help from the afterlife or even become an antagonist!

Fear in SHIVER uses the same Challenge Rating system and mechanics. A Fear Check is made with a Player Character’s Strange Dice, and if the player fails the check, the character becomes Afraid, and if Afraid, becomes Terrified. If Afraid, a Player Character loses one die from all Core Skills, and two if Terrified. This is temporary, and a Player Character can get rid of the effects of Fear by escaping or vanquishing the threat, steadying himself (this requires another Fear Check), or another Player Character uses an Ability to help him.

Narratively, SHIVER is played out against a Doom Clock. This is set at eleven o’clock at night and counts up minute by minute to Midnight and the Player Characters’ inevitable Doooommm! However, at ‘Quarter Past’, ‘Half Past’, ‘Quarter To’, and ‘Midnight’ certain events will happen, these being defined in the scenario or written in by the Director. Every scenario for SHIVER includes its own Doom Clock events. In general, the Doom Clock will tick up due to the actions of the Player Characters, whether that is because of a failed skill check with Strange symbols, a failed Fear Check, abilities for the Weird Archetype, Background Flaws, or simply interacting with the wrong things in game. What this means is that dice rolls become even more uncertain, their outcome having more of a negative effect potentially than just failures, but this is all in keeping with the genre. However, just as the Doom Clock can tick up to ‘Midnight’ through the Player Characters’ actions. It can also be turned back due to their actions. Rolling two Luck on skill checks, reaching Story Milestones, finding clues and important items, and certain Abilities can all turn the Doom Clock back.

‘Welcome to Hollow World’ is the scenario in the SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set. As mentioned above, it casts the Player Characters as the cast of a dinosaur disaster blockbuster. There is a good explanation of its set-up and advice on how to run the scenario. There is a list of the Doom Clock events for the scenario as well as a compendium giving the details of all of the items, NPCs, and monsters to be found in the scenario. The main mechanical addition is the inclusion of the Starring Role mechanic from SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream. This can be ‘The Leading Hero’, ‘The Stunt Performer’, ‘The Thespian’, ‘The Heartthrob’, ‘The Love Interest’, ‘The Comic Relief’, ‘The Method’, and more. Each Starring Role has a Star Power and Audience Expectation. The Star Power is a unique ability that the Actor can perform once per quarter of the Doom Clock, whilst the Audience Expectation is something that if done on screen will gain the Actor the favour of both the audience and the Director, and so boost his career. So, for ‘The Love Interest’, the Star Power is a ‘A Healing Heart’ that enables the Actor to make a Heart Check and regain Hit Points if they perform a romantic scene, whilst the Audience Expectation ‘Break Heart/Bow Minds’ in which the Actor wants the audience’s favour to fall in love with them and so will make romantic confessions, and have moments of passion or tear-jerking moments to get the audience to love them.

Depending upon how well an Actor performed, he or she can receive an Accolade or a Review. Both are awarded by the Director. Engage in both Star Power and Audience Expectation and an Actor will earn an Accolade, but if not, he or she may be in line for a Bad Review. Accolades include the ‘Performance Award’, ‘Hall of Fame’, ‘Rabid Fanbase’, ‘Top Billing’, and so on, whilst Bad Reviews include ‘Hamming It Up’, ‘Worst Actor Ever’, and ‘Boring Performance’. Accolades provide a minor benefit, whilst Bad Reviews act as minor disadvantage. For example, ‘Performance Award’ gives the Actor a piece of armour to use in the next film, but once used, it is gone, whilst ‘Looking Fit’ grants Advantage on acts of athleticism. The Bad Review, ‘Diva Reputation’ means that if the Actor fails a Check that would advance the Doom Clock, if they also fail a Strange Check, they suffer Soul damage.

Physically, the SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set is a good-looking box. The inclusion of the roleplaying game’s tables on the inside lid of the cover means that the Director has an easy rules reference and screen, whilst the dice do sit in their own niche in the bottom of the box. The books themselves are well-presented with excellent artwork done in a style similar to that of Mike Mignola and his Hellboy comic. The writing is clear, but could have done with an edit in places.

The SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set is a solid introduction to SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, whether or not the Director wants to run the SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream campaign. If not, it can be run as one shot scenario, but is probably a bit too long to be run in a single session. It is more more likely to last two sessions at least. The scenario, ‘Welcome to Hollow World’, is really entertaining and the will have a lot of fun playing it.

—oOo—

Parable Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place from Friday, 29th to Sunday 31st of May.

Cannibals in the Cold

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: Operation Snowstorm is a scenario that takes Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 back to North America, but not the Mid-West USA of Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter!. Instead, the action is in British Columbia, Canada, and involves agents of Majestic rather than Section M. The scenario is intended to be set late in the war after the USA has become involved, but does not specify a year. It is designed for mid-level play by a group of experienced Agents and the author notes that the scenario is intentionally deadly, so advises that players might not want to play it using their primary Agents. However, the scenario does not include any guidance as to what character types might be useful or appropriate, nor does it include any pre-generated Agents ready to play. This is a major oversight, since the location of the scenario in western Canada means that it is actually not that easy to get existing Agents there, let alone the fact that it is suggested that they not be used at all. This makes it difficult to add to an ongoing campaign. As ever, a good mix of skills and abilities will be required to overcome the threats in the scenario, but given the physical and environmental nature of the scenario, every Agent should have some combat skills and some survival skills too. Mechanical or technical skills as well as scientific knowledge will also be useful. This is effectively a one-shot scenario, one that will probably take two to three sessions to play through given its focus on combat. Decent sized floor plans of the outpost are provided. They could be used to play out the likely multiple combats that will take place during the scenario using miniatures if the Game Master and players want to.

The Agents’ mission is to travel to Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3, which lies a few miles outside of the town of Dunley in British Columbia. Recently, communication has been lost with the outpost, which the Agents’ bosses suspects is due to the severe blizzard which has settled on the area. The Agents are to re-establish contact and assess the current status of the research being conducted there. If there are no problems, then they only have to report back to headquarters. If there are issues, they are ordered to extract the research and return it to headquarters. Of course, this is a scenario for Achtung! Cthulhu, so there are going to be problems.

Those problems begin as soon as the Agents leave Dunley. Having outfitted themselves with weapons and cold weather gear, they must trek their way through the snow and up the side of the mountain where Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3 is sited. This is a bit of slog in and out of game. Multiple tests of the Survival (Orienteering) and Athletics (Physical Training) are required to get through the checkpoints representing the journey, which is expected to take just under three hours. Plus, after every hour, a Resilience test is required to avoid both fatigue and further coming under the ‘Influence’, the latter a complication due to the supernatural nature of the blizzard. Mishaps can cause delays, but Momentum can be spent to reduce the time it takes between each checkpoint and potentially reduce the overall time the journey takes and the number of Resilience tests the players have to make for their Agents. After a combat encounter, the players have the choice of a longer, safer way, which will mean further Resilience tests are required, a quicker, but potentially deadly route involving a climb up a cliff…

The aim of the ‘Influence’ is to inflict a growing hunger upon the Agents. This cannot be satisfied by any obvious means and will continue to inflict fatigue losses throughout the scenario. Worse, if an Agent is overcome by ‘Insatiable Hunger’, he will immediately attack the nearest living person—NPC or player Agent—and attempt to chow down on them! In other words, the Agent has been turned into a cannibal, and guess what has happened to the men and women assigned to Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3?

After an encounter the ‘Influenced’, the Agents can get into Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3. Inside, it is quickly clear that whatever research is being conducted has been disrupted. There are bloody bodies and signs of a desperate fight everywhere, but eventually the Agents will find a lone survivor, a French scientist working for Majestic. It should be obvious that both the scientist and whatever research survives needs to be evacuated. However, as the Agents are chased back down the mountain, help appears in the form of a team of indigenous people’s Pathfinder Demon Hunters, who have been hunting the Wendigo that now stalk the area. Once the fight is over, the Pathfinder Demon Hunters have a demand of the scientist and the Agents. It turns out the research being conducted was on artefacts taken from a nearby dig site that the staff at Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3 had recently excavated. The Pathfinder Demon Hunters warn the Agents that unless the artefacts are returned, the Prescence locked within the mountain will be unleashed and the blizzard will spread unchecked across the whole of North America. So, the Agents have a choice to make…

The scenario will end with either the Agents working with the Pathfinder Demon Hunters and saving the world or fighting the Pathfinder Demon Hunters and getting away with the research and so not saving the world. The latter is probably campaign ending as the blizzard keeps spreading and spreading, but the scenario does suggest the possibility of the greatest conflict in world history being turned on its head as all sides involved in the war suddenly must work together to defeat a new enemy which threatens everyone. This is of course left unexplored, but as a new campaign direction, it has interesting potential.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Snowstorm is a combat-focused scenario, one that is both straightforward and unless the players are new to the genre of Lovecraftian investigative horror, obvious in its choice of threat. There are points where there are opportunities to roleplay, but only a few and the choice presented to the Agents towards the end of the scenario is not an overly difficult one. One way in which greater roleplaying opportunities could have been added and perhaps the choice made more difficult is if the scenario had included a set of pre-generated Agents, complete with backgrounds tied to the situation in the scenario and to each other. This could have added tension and scope for roleplaying. Again, this is a missed opportunity, especially for what is effectively, a one-shot scenario.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Snowstorm is well presented. It is decently written and the floorplans of Majestic Research Outpost Epsilon-3 are more than workable. There is no area map and the scenario is not illustrated.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Snowstorm is unsophisticated in its plotting and obvious in its choice of threat, as well as being combat-focused and physical in nature. This does not mean that it is terrible scenario, but rather as decently done as it is, it could have been all the better with some good pre-generated Agents tied into the scenario’s plot and each other.