Miskatonic Monday #372: The Impossible Chamber

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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There is a balance to find between knowing enough to be able to fight evil, versus not knowing enough and having it kill your or send you mad or knowing too much and having it send you mad, and worse have you betray society. This is the dilemma at the heart of heart of the Impossible Chamber, a secret society that knows just enough to know that what it knows is probably not enough and yet knowing more will compromise its mission. The tomes that it has had access to go back millennia, perhaps even more, but it is likely that its origins are only a few hundreds of years old. In more recent times, it may be connected to the Luminary Brotherhood of St. Joan which was established in Paris in the wake of the Affair of the Poisons that beset the city in the late seventeenth century. The Impossible Chamber was founded a few short years after the dissolving of the Luminary Brotherhood, just prior to the French Revolution. It managed to survive the turbulence of the years following the revolution and was even funded by Napoleon Bonaparte before his defeat at Waterloo and exile to St. Helena. By then, chapters had been established in both England and the United States of America. To its agents it provides the means to inform them of what they need to know to face the true horror of the universe and the means to fight it. Of course, it is never enough, despite the agents being the best informed and the best equipped to do so.

The Impossible Chamber is a supplement for Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England which presents the Impossible Chamber as an organisation and benefactor for its Agents. It details its history and gives a timeline as well as descriptions of its organisation, some of its facilities—from Paris to Ohio, the arms and equipment it gives its agents, how it communicates, and how its upper echelons decide what its members investigate. Several campaign set-ups are suggested, perhaps with one Investigator an agent of the Impossible Chamber or all of them. Either way, an agent needs to have the Mythos skill and may even know a spell. In an age when conspiracies are rife—or at least appear to be, it is of paramount importance that an agent keep his membership of the Impossible Chamber a secret lest he lose Reputation, though the Impossible Chamber can help an agent gain Reputation too. That said, the Impossible Chamber is egalitarian in that it recruits from all levels of society to ensure it has access to all strata. Several Mythos artefacts that the Impossible Chamber holds in its library are detailed, like the Balthazar Pistols, which fire bullets capable of affecting things that ordinarily cannot be harmed by the unnatural, but which also have a high chance of killing their wielder and Lady Ostend’s Parrot, a seemingly ancient Greek automaton capable of speaking in several languages, including ones unknown to most scholars. This is alongside numerous Mythos tomes and several new spells.

A ‘Agents of the Impossible Chamber Experience Package’ enables a player to create an Impossible Chamber. He automatically gains five points of Cthulhu Mythos knowledge, loses Sanity for it, has encountered one Mythos creature at least once and is thus partly inured to its appearance, is suffering from a phobia or mania consequently, and has reduced Reputation, Sanity, and or Power as well. If the players do not want to create their own Agents, then six pre-generated Agents are provided, although their mechanical details do need to be checked.

For the Keeper there is a handful of adventure seeds, each with multiple options that the Keeper can develop. These are set in Scotland and the United States as well as across Europe and ate back roughly fifty or so years. ‘The Catch Me Who Can Affair’ is a complete scenario involving the Impossible Chamber and which can be played using the earlier pre-generated Agents. It is set in London in 1808 and intended to be played by two to three players, though more may be added. The inventor and steam engineer Richard Trevithick opened his Steam Circus in Bloomsbury, in the St. Giles district of London in July of 1808, but within months it closed and reopened twice. Now it has closed a third time and the Impossible Chamber suspects that something strange is the cause. The Investigators quickly discover from the foul smell and the coffin being removed that someone ‘died’ at the venue, whereas the previous causes had been subsidence under the circular track layout. Research in the library of St. Giles-in-the-Fields reveals some of the history of the district, that it was once a site of regular executions before they were moved to Tyburn. As the investigation progress, it becomes clear that someone other the Impossible Chamber is interested in what has happened at the Steam Circus and the corpse removed from deep underneath it. The final scenes will take the Agents deep into the Rookery of Seven Dials, potentially chased in and perhaps beyond… The scenario is nicely detailed and there is a slightly grimy, seedy fell to it.

Physically, The Impossible Chamber is well presented. The artwork is decent as is the cartography. It does need an edit in places.

The Impossible Chamber is a combination sourcebook and scenario that shifts how Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England is played. In Regency Cthulhu, the Investigators are as much concerned with their Reputation as they investigating and thwarting the forces of the Mythos. As evidenced in the scenario, ‘The Catch Me Who Can Affair’, The Impossible Chamber moves the play back to a more traditional style of play—Call of Cthulhu rather than Regency Cthulhu—with less of an emphasis upon Reputation because the Agents are not actually as involved with the Bon Ton as they typically are with Regency Cthulhu scenarios. Without that emphasis, The Impossible Chamber is easier to run using standard Call of Cthulhu, while the organisation, the Impossible Chamber, lends itself to a campaign set-up where the Agents are more mobile and less concerned with their immediate neighbourhood.

Miskatonic Monday #371: Shadows in the Trees

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

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Name: Shadows in the Trees

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jared Tallis

Setting: Modern day Australia

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twelve-page, 10.25 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch:  Big cat horror on the Sunshine Coast

Plot Hook: Big cat hunt for your YouTube channel

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, three handouts, three maps, two NPCs, and two Mythos creatures.

Production Values: Good

Pros

# First in the ‘Short Cosmic Horror Collection’ series

# Short, intense encounter with the monsters you could become

# Parallels to Viral

# Can be adapted to other settings or time periods with cryptids

# Flexible running time up to a single session

# Good Keeper advice

# Ailurophobia

# Diokophobia

# Scoleciphobia

Cons

# Parallels to Viral

# Needs a slight edit

# Plain handouts

# Pre-generated Investigator motivations could be stronger

Conclusion

# Intense encounter with monsters and the Mythos on the Sunshine Coast

# Solid advice for the Keeper on how to dial it up or down

# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

Miskatonic Monday #370: Rryonn

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

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Name: Rryonn: The Room You Can’t Escape Without Eating Tangerines

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Choya

Setting: Tonight

Product: Tangerine Dream
What You Get: Eight-page, 360.25 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch:  “I must not fear fruit. Fruit is the mind-killer. Fruit is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fruit. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fruit has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” – With apologies to Dune, Frank Herbert

Plot Hook: An amber room with amber fruit

Plot Support: Staging advice.

Production Values: Orange

Pros

# The first Korean scenario translated into English?

# Could be run as a LARP

# Thirty-minute filler (dream sequence?)

# Very Korean

# Esperidoeidiphobia

# Fructophobia

# Chrysophobia

Cons

# Very Korean

# No Mythos

Conclusion

# Short and easy to run, but extremely Korean and extremely physical

# Fruit is the only fear

Miskatonic Monday #369: Operation Werewolf

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

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Name: Operation Werewolf

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: John Mack

Setting: Germany, May 1445

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Sixty-three page, full colour, 10.20 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Broken dreams on the eve of peace

Plot Hook: Werewolves at war, the Nazis strike back!

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, five handouts, two maps, twelve NPCs, one Mythos tomes, one Mythos artefact, three Mythos spells, and five Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Serviceable

Pros

# Plays on fears of Nazi resistance

# Includes World War II espionage Experience Packages and NPC Screen Hangers! 

# Detailed description of a village after war

# Detailed chase sequences included

# Well done pre-generated Investigators

# Oneirophobia

# Lycanthrophobia

# Pistanthrophobia

Cons

# Could use a stronger, clearer briefing for the players and their Investigators

# Some pre-generated Investigators are more complex than others

Conclusion

# Growing sense of paranoia as the werewolves strike again and again!

# Horrors of war versus the horrors of the night

Dangerous Disapora

When Malcolm Donnaughy, an aspiring Boston politician with links to Irish nationalism is found decapitated in his back yard, followed by Michael Cyr, a New York journalist who wrote about Irish War for Independence, hoping for a peaceful resolution, and then, Corinna Franz, a German immigrant in Boston, questions are asked. In the fractious and often hot tempered has ardent nationalism turned into a bloody vendetta for one faction against all others? Or is there something else going on. It is set in late 1920 in Boston and New York, and points between, as the USA stands on the brink of tremendous change in the aftermath of the Great War. As a result of their contributions to the war effort, women have already received the vote following the passing of the 19th Amendment, but many other groups campaign, raise funds, and foment for radical change. None more so than amongst the Irish diaspora in North America. As the Irish War of Independence rages on the other side of the Atlantic, the disparate groups amongst the Irish nationalists cannot agree on what they want exactly, even though they may share a common cause.

This is the set-up for The Wild Hunt: A Race Across the North-Eastern U.S. to Confound an Ancient Imported Evil, a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, published by Stygian Fox Publishing. It is set against a backdrop of radical change and often radical activism that the scenario takes the time to explain, not just for the benefit of the Keeper, but also for the player as several of the pre-generated Investigators are activists—radical and otherwise. Further, these activist roles are represented by some of the new Occupations included in The Wild Hunt, whilst others, no less political, represent the establishment. The political Occupations include the Activist, the Political Animal, and the Political Machine Lieutenant. The more mundane Occupations consist of the Bootlegger, the Knocker-Upper, literally someone who goes round the city waking people up by knocking on their windows, the Messenger/Runner, the Performer, the Pinkerton Agent, Prohibition Agent, and Travelling Salesman. The only outré Occupation is the Occultist. Some of these are new, others are variations upon those found in Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

Setting up the scenario in terms of the Investigators requires some decisions to be made by the Keeper. Some of the pre-generated Investigators are members of law enforcement, some are activists or political operators, others are journalists or connected to the book trade. Each is connected to the investigation in some way and the ten are equally divided between Boston and New York. Some care is required to get them involved and working together, especially if they come from different cities.

Once set up, the scenario proper begins with the discovery of Corrine Franz’s dead body, perhaps even by one of the Investigators. After this, the investigation begins to clip-clop along in a timely fashion, Corrine’s ex-student, turned book thief, toy boy boyfriend (and likely thief from the bookshop owned by one of the pre-generated Investigators) providing the first clues, leading to the dirtiest speakeasy ever (really, it is under a coke plant) and onto New York’s Book Row. Key to continuing the investigation is learning the names of one or more activists connected to what turns out to be an extreme wing of the Clan na Gael, a fundraising organisation dedicated to the establishment of an Irish free state. Once the names are known, the investigation can swing into high gear and multiple lines of inquiry open up. This includes tracking their activities before and after the Great War, having been very busy in the last two years. The Investigators may even have the aid of other Irish nationalists embarrassed at quite what these extremists are doing in the name of the cause.

Ultimately, the Investigators will have enough information to have some idea of what the Irish nationalists-turned-cultists have been trying to do and what they might have unleashed. It is possible for the Investigators to stumble into the final scenes, which will involve a confrontation with the cultists and then what they have summoned, but hopefully by the time they do so in the back woods of Massachusetts, they will have at least learned enough information to have a good idea what is going on. And what is going on, as the title of the scenario suggests, is that the cultists are attempting to summon and harness something out of Celtic myth as a means to aid the Irish nationalist. Of course, this being a Call of Cthulhu scenario, this has not gone well and now, the cultists are suffering the consequences, scared, almost mad, but coherent. Facing the summoned threat is challenging, again, dedicated research should be enough to forewarn and perhaps, even forearm the Investigators.

The scenario is very well supported. The clues and links are made clear, the NPCs are nicely detailed, and there are lengthy sections devoted to library research in both Boston and New York, and there are detailed write-ups of the Mythos tomes that appear in the scenario. There is also a handful of new Mythos spells too. The various handouts are very well done and do include a puzzle that the players may have to work out.

The Wild Hunt is not a Mythos scenario per se, but rather that its monstrous antagonists are a Mythos interpretation of Celtic myth, one that the scenario’s human antagonists believe too much in and fall foul of. This is then layered out over the American north-east of New York and New England, taking in a little of Lovecraft Country along the way, from the heights of academia to the lows of the dirtiest dives imaginable, and then out into the swamps. Around this is built a rich, meaty investigation that will be really enjoyable to conduct with numerous interesting NPCs to portray—even the minor ones. The jazz trio of Black American NPC investigators deserve not just a mention, but scenarios of their own, suggesting a link to Harlem Unbound, whilst there are links to Masks of Nyarlathotep in the scenario, and thematically at least to Cthulhu Ireland. The scenario is not dissimilar to The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts, which could even be run as a thematic sequel to The Wild Hunt.

Physically, The Wild Hunt is pleasantly presented. The layout is clean and attractive, though it could be tighter in places, and the maps are well done. What stands out is much of the artwork, done in pastels that gives it a distinctive look reminiscent of Edward Hopper.

The Wild Hunt: A Race Across the North-Eastern U.S. to Confound an Ancient Imported Evil explores a side of its default period rarely explored in Call of Cthulhu. Its presentation of activism and especially Irish nationalism is maturely handled, though warrants the ‘For Mature Gamers’ label on the cover. This is a very good investigative scenario, with a string emphasis on the investigation before the horror is confronted, mixed with an enjoyably unhealthy dose of politics.

Miskatonic Monday #368: The Ballad of Lost Danava

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

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Name: The Ballad of Lost Danava

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Kevin Kreiner

Setting: The far future

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 1.58 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: H.G. Wells’ The ‘Planet’ of Dr. Moreau

Plot Hook: Forced to land on a planet where no man has been before

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, one handout, three Mythos tomes and recordings, two Mythos monsters, and one dinosaur.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# 2nd Place Winner in Stars Are Right Scenario Outline Writing Contest

# Curiously old-fashioned Science Fiction feel

# Dinosaurs optional

# Decently done pre-generated Investigators

# Deinophobia

# Radiophobia

# Cleithrophobia

Cons

# Fairly obvious in its plotting

Conclusion

# Escape from H.G. Wells’ The ‘Planet’ of Dr. Moreau

# Short and easy to run, more of a classic stranded and escape situation than an investigation

Friday Fantasy: Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord

In the heavens there is a war between the Stars, between the stars of light and darkness, and of life and consumption. The black hole stars called ‘Photovores’ seek to consume all other Stars, and where they cannot, they cajole others to steal and enslave the other Stars. They are opposed by all other Stars, led by the wise White Dwarf Stars. When a Photovore dies, its death echoes across the heavens and echoes on worlds as lightning. On the world of Zós, the death of the most evil of Photovores, Pséphtes, struck a boy and in time, the ghost of Pséphtes corrupted him and helped him become Photiós, the King known as ‘The Pantokrator’. His most loyal and fouled servants, the Corrupted Men, spread and controlled time through their Timekeepers, interfaces between space and time, from which hatched The Pantokrator’s other minions, the Spider Lords. The Pantokrator raised armies and took to the skies, murdering Stars and enslaving Planets, even personally stabbing in the heart, Ánthraka, the much beloved Moon of Zós. In response to the rise of The Pantokrator’s empire, the Stars attacked its many colonies and even Zós itself. Their mightiest weapon was Átmos, the Stellar Wind, which brought an austere nuclear winter to every world it touched. A hatred for the Stars grew in the heart of Pséphtes and his puppet, The Pantokrator, and even as they were driven back to the world of Zós, they plotted to restore their empire. Yet as they do so, the Star whose light bathes Zós is dying and there are those who plot in spite of The Pantokrator, seeking to replace the Star with something manmade, a Sun whose light and warmth can be taxed and thus fund The Pantokrator’s desire for empire again. Even then there are those who would take advantage of this plot to instigate a seemingly never ending solar eclipse and elevate themselves to sit alongside Pséphtes!

This is the background for Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord, one of the strangest of adventures for Dungeons & Dragons—for any edition, let along Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Hit Point Press, it is based upon Astromythos: Book One – World Art Book, an epic mythology presented in heroic verse created by artist and author, Jon Sideriadis. Thankfully, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is not in heroic verse, but it is epic in scale and requirements. It is designed for a party of Tenth Level Player Characters, who by the end of the campaign, will reach Fifteenth Level. The scenario combines cosmic horror and—very—high fantasy in a universe that is biological on an astronomical scale and will see the Player Characters crossing the dead bones of a dying world and plunging quite literally into the heart and bowels of a mountain before ascending to the heavens to confront a mistress Spider Lord at the heart of her lair, from which she woven a web around the Sun and planet of Zós. All of which is depicted in stunning artwork which captures the cosmic mythology of the setting. And the Game Master is definitely going to want to show the artwork in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord to her players, so that they can grasp the alien grandeur of the Astromythos through which their characters are journeying. (There is, though, a deck of spell and item cards, which do show off the author’s artwork, but this is a campaign or scenario that really warrants a book of artwork to show the players, a la S1 Tomb of Horrors.)

There is, though, the matter of getting the Player Characters to the start of the scenario. The suggested hooks all boil down to the Player Characters beginning the scenario in the dungeons of King Photiós’ meteor castle on Zós and their being summoned to his court to be sent on a mission. They might be natives to Zós, but there is no suggestion as to what a native of Zós might look like in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition given in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord. The extremely otherworldly nature of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord lends itself to it being run as if it were a shared dream, but the reality of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord also suggests that it could be run in conjunction with any setting involving alternate planes or travel between the stars, most obviously the Planescape Campaign Setting or Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, or their more modern iterations.

At the beginning of the scenario, the Player Characters are directed by King Photiós to fetch Dulos, a man whom the rather unpleasant monarch tells them is key to the restoration of his kingdom. This requires a journey, first on a train pulled by a biomechanical heart—the Artery Railway—and then on foot through the Flayed Wood to Nanókora, a poisoned village of bone. There are few if any survivors, but Dulos is one of them, and whilst he will thank the Player Characters for rescuing him, he will also plead for their aid. He will tell them of the truth of King Photiós’ evil and that only by allowing the trees to grow once again can the world of Zós be saved from his poison. Dulos will join the Player Characters if they decide to help him—King Photiós will attempt to kill them as thanks for their help even if they decide otherwise, and Dulos will guide them through much of the rest of the scenario. Travelling under what is now a perpetual solar eclipse, Dulos directs the Player Characters up the nearby mountains to find someone who can help recultivate the trees, but when their way back down is blocked, they are forced to make a detour into the mountain itself. The caves themselves have a very organic feel and layout, though it may not necessarily be obvious to players and their characters unless they map it out.

Once they are free of the mountain, having been captured by a two-headed ogre of cratered rock and been thrown into his pot along the way in classic fantasy style, the Player Characters enter the Skeletal Wood and search for the Zenith Door, a magical door in the sky which should open at noon daily and allow travellers to be transported into orbit and beyond. However, the perpetual solar eclipse means that it remains permanently closed, so another route is needed. This is aboard a garbage barge, for which its captain which charge a fortune, but it will get the Player Characters to the heavens to first confront one Spider Lord, Lord Skurigelos, in his dead asteroid lair and then another, Lady Klevastis, his mistress in her Horned Moon Keep on the lunar surface, after having penetrated the moonflesh mines. As befitting their Spider Lords, both asteroid lair and castle are overrun by spiders and festooned with webs, although they are not the only threat that the Player Characters will face. There is the possibility of their being captured in the asteroid lair and having to escape a torture chamber, but the exploration in both locations will culminate in a confrontation with a Spider Lord. The final fight in the scenario is incredibly tough, and unless they spot and take advantage of Lady Klevastis’ weakness, there is the possibility of a total party kill. (If that happens, it is almost worth playing through this part of the scenario again, as it might emphasise the dream-like nature of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord.)

There are some suggestions as to how to continue the scenario, which will require no little development by the Game Master, but in this and the scenario itself, the Game Master is decently supported in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord, something that is really useful given how different the nature of the scenario really is. This includes a good overview of the background to the setting and the scenario itself, as well as a list and descriptions of the scenario’s named NPCs. The first of the scenario’s three appendices describes new magic items, the second its bestiary, and the third, its new spells. The new magic items include some fearsome weapons, like Bone Divider, a Moonflesh great axe that requires a Strength of twenty to wield, is enchanted by Tidal Force so that it knocks opponents back thirty feet with a blow, and on a natural twenty cleaves an opponent in two in a shower of sparks and stardust! The bestiary describes some twenty-seven new creatures, including ‘Clock Mites, Mites of Many Colours and Neon Corruptors of Time’, ‘Spider Ghouls, Half-Man/Half-Spider Failed Experiments of Lord Skurigelos’, and ‘Star-Slayers, Dreaded Warriors of the Pantokrator King and Superhuman Slayers of Stars’, some of which should find their way into other cosmic or planar settings for Dungeons & Dragons.

Physically, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is incredibly well presented with fantastic artwork that will amaze the reader. Depictions of things such as ‘Opticos, Asteroid Abomination, Lord of the Opticons and the Spies of Photovóros’, all blue-grey and beautiful eyes looking in different directions, is genuinely creepy, even Gilliam-esque, whilst elsewhere, there is a dark religiosity to the artwork.

Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is a linear scenario, one that is not difficult to run, but given the fearsome nature of many of the foes, difficult to overcome by the players and their characters. It is also difficult, or at least awkward, to add to a campaign easily, given the cosmic nature of its fantasy. Running it as a dream is likely the easiest way, since it requires the least explanation and will have the least effect upon an ongoing campaign, and it can be run alongside an existing campaign. In whatever way a Game Master decides to run it, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is a genuinely fantastical scenario played out on an astronomical-biomechanical scale with some amazing imagery.

Cosmic Changed

A new life awaits you in the far reaches of the galaxy! A chance to begin a life of adventure and excitement in a dark region of opportunity and adventure! There is no future for you at the heart of civilisation, let alone on some backwater planet. You can take the government scrip and the government slop and live an existence of hopeless lassitude. Or you can sign up with the Extracsa Conglomerate and receive training that will make you useful to the corporation and to society, contributing to the future of humanity. The operations of the Extracsa Conglomerate are expanding into the far reaches of the galaxy, a bleak region of space, dominated by a golden scar-like object known as the Glitch. Having completed your training, you have been assigned to this expansion area for the period of your indenture. Rumours swirl about your assignment, that the region is somewhere where life, technology and reality can become twisted and wrong. This is the set-up for Cosmic Dark, is a game of weird space horror from the designer of Cthulhu Dark and the highly regarded Stealing Cthulhu.

Cosmic Dark is a storytelling game of cosmic and Science Fiction horror that is significant in three ways. First, it offers a complete six-part campaign that can be played through in roughly twelve or so sessions. Second, it provides complete guidance for the Director—as the Game Master is known—to create more scenarios of her own. Third, it is designed to be played straight from the page with a minimum of effort, using a very light set of mechanics. The players learn the rules of the roleplaying game as they play, including Employee generation, although the Director will still need to read the rules and the scenario beforehand to get the best out of the story. Thankfully, the core rules run to just seven pages, requiring no more than some six-sided dice, preferably of different colours.

A Player Character—or Employee—is very simply designed. He has a Specialism, such as Medical Officer, Mining Engineer, Geologist, Comms Officer, and Team Leader, and then a series of stats on a one-to-six range. Changed represents how much space affects an Employee. It is rolled every time an Employee is hurt or something weird happens to him, and when it reaches six, he is broken and their story is over. In addition, he has a Reality Die and a Specialism Die. These are rolled when the Employee wants to investigate something. The highest result determines the amount of information the Employee gains. This is the bare minimum on a roll of one and everything the Employee can be expected to discover on a four. In addition, the Employee can also gain access to Records from Extracsa’s databases on a roll of five, but on a six, the Employee learns all of this and worse, gains a glimpse of the Anomaly, which may trigger a Changed roll. (The Director can hold a five or six if there is nothing appropriate in a scene.) If someone—which can be another player or the Director—thinks the story would be more interesting if the Employee failed, they roll a Failure Die against the Employee’ player. If the Failure Die rolls higher than the Employee’s die, the Employee fails. Combat is handled in this way, failure triggering a Changed roll. However, it should be noted that the focus of Cosmic Dark and its campaign is upon interaction and exploration and discovery, and not on combat.

In the long term, it is possible for an Employee to reduce his Changed. This might be through surgery, drugs, Memory Anaesthetic, or something else, but it is not guaranteed to work. However, an Employee’s Changed does reset to one at the end of an assignment. He also gains a new attribute, Burnout. This starts at one and is gained between assignments and potentially from moments when his mistrust in Extracsa Conglomerate is triggered or grows. If an Employee’s Burnout reaches six, he is unable to work anymore, gains one more scene, and he retires.

Mechanically then, Cosmic Dark is fast and simple. Obviously, this means that it leaves space for the Director to focus on the narrative and presenting the story and the setting.

The campaign of Cosmic Dark consists of six parts. Each part consists of a different assignment by the Extracsa Conglomerate. The first assignment, ‘Extraction’, begins by establishing who the Employees are, where they all grew up together, and more, elements of which will be reinforced again and again at the beginning of each assignment, and then pushes the players to use the rules to Comic Dark. This is intended as a learning process, though the Director should read through the rules at the end of the book as it is more directly presented. The Employees are assigned to excavate a never before mined asteroid and find it strangely invasive. They also find signs that it is not as pristine as promised. ‘Time Murder’ is a weird murder mystery where the Employees are assigned to sister-company to help harvest energy, whilst in ‘Transparency’ they are given a twenty-four-hour window to salvage what they can aboard an Extracsa Conglomerate starship. To their surprise, the Employees find survivors, but ones with unreliable memories of what happened to the starship. This Assignment does get gory in places, but it is a decently cosmic twist upon the ship in peril set-up. The fourth and fifth Assignments—‘Every Sunrise’ and ‘Every Sunset’—parallel and mirror each other, and can be played in any order, although they work slightly better in the order given. They explore the same or similar planets from different angles, one a desperate evacuation mission, the other a terraforming mission. The campaign comes to a close in ‘The Invisible Hand’ in which past discoveries give a chance for the Employees to put their employer on a different path—or has that already happened?

Cosmic Dark is a roleplaying game of weird space horror, in which life, technology, and reality break down, change, and go wrong. When not describing the situations that Employees find themselves and the outcomes of their actions, the Director is in many ways exactly that, someone who ‘directs’, and who does this through direct questions and prompts intended to provoke an emotional response, such as “What scares you most about space?” or “What is your most painful memory?” The advice for the Director suggests ways in which to do this and enhance the horror, building from the players’ answers to the prompts, but is also on how to write scenarios for Cosmic Dark as well as run it. Here the advice suggests creating situations that the Employees cannot correct and giving them choices where the only options are bad ones. Just as the questions to the players and their Employees are very direct, so too is the advice to the Director, pointedly telling her what to do as she takes the players and their Employees through the stages of a Cosmic Dark Assignment, first ‘Weird’, then ‘Dangerous’, before escalating into ‘Deadly’. All three stages are explored as are a variety of different situations, such as the Employees contacting the Extracsa Conglomerate, using the preceding scenarios as examples. What is clear from the advice throughout is that in each of the Assignments in Cosmic Dark there is a story to be told, one that the players and their Employees cannot easily deviate from or disengage from. In the case of the former, although the ending of any one story is not set in stone, there is still room to explore and investigate, and even add details to the world around the Employees, whilst in the case of the latter, the Director is told to make it clear when certain actions simply will simply not work. Conversely, where necessary—and especially if it enhances the horror—the Director is encouraged to work player suggestions into the story. Overall, the advice is strong and to the point.

Physically, Cosmic Dark is well presented with a clean and tidy layout. The book is black and white and lightly illustrated, but the artwork is starkly appropriate. As with previous books by the author, his voice shines through, especially in the advice for the Director.

To be clear, Cosmic Dark is in no way Lovecraftian in its cosmic horror. Its horror is environmental in nature, born of the clash between the alien spaces the Employees are instructed to explore and in the case of the Employees, the need to first understand them and then second, survive them, whilst in the case of the Extracsa Conglomerate, to exploit them. The Extracsa Conglomerate is not necessarily evil, but it is a corporate entity with all of the dispassionate, self-serving drive and scientific pride you would expect. The play of Cosmic Dark is interactive and investigative in nature, but also introspective given the number of questions that the Assignments and thus the Director is ordered to ask. Here it feels as if the author himself is asking them, but were it not for these questions, there would be an overwhelming sense of depersonalisation of each Employee by the Extracsa Conglomerate. What remains still serves to enhance the disconnection that the players and their Employees are likely to feel in the face of the Glitch as they are bounced from one Assignment to the next.

As a roleplaying game, Cosmic Dark is a simple set of rules combined with good advice and suggestions as to how to use prompts to elicit responses from the players and their Employees to drive good storytelling. As a campaign, Cosmic Dark depicts an uncaring universe and the consequences of Humanity interacting, unwittingly or not, with it. Together they showcase each other. Ultimately, Cosmic Dark presents a campaign of Science Fiction horror in which the only compassion belongs to the Employees and the real monsters might be humanity and its drive to explore and exploit.

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Cosmic Dark is currently being funded via Kickstarter.

Miskatonic Monday #353: Fear Jet 1975 – Hijack!

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

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Name: Fear Jet 1975 – Hijack!

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Andy Miller

Setting: 1975 USA and beyond...

Product: Expansion to Fear Jet
What You Get: Thirty-four page, 31.94 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A flight into The King in Yellow via hijack-horror horror!

Plot Hook: When fear of flying takes you out of this world with a gun to your head...

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, six Investigator portraits, and one handout.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Mad Men meets the Mythos

# Can be run as a convention scenario
# Can be run over and over until some Investigators escapes...

# Easy to adapt to other periods during the Age of Flight

# Pre-built tension and secrets

# Extensive playtest notes

# Xanthophobia

# Aerophobia

# Katagelophobia

Cons

# Very similar sequel to Fear Jet

# Challenging to run as a convention scenario

# What happens next?

Conclusion

# Mad Men meets the Mythos in mid-air

# Character-driven re-iteration that a group might not want to play again

Quick-Start Saturday: The God Beneath the Tree

Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens is the quick-start for Cthulhu Awakens, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian and Cosmic Horror investigative horror using the AGE System published by Green Ronin Publishing.

The time frame for The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens and thus Cthulhu Awakens is roughly one hundred years. It begins in the 1920s and runs up until the present day and is known as the ‘Weird Century’.

It is a forty-five-page, 22.36 MB full colour PDF.

How long will it take to play?
The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens and its adventure, ‘The God Beneath the Tree’, is designed to be played through in a single session, two at most.

What else do you need to play?
The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens needs three six-sided dice per player. One of the three dice must be a different colour. It is called the Stunt Die.

Who do you play?
The five Player Characters—or Character Types—in The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens consist of an immigrant athletic brawler and aspiring soldier, a stealthy refugee turned farmer, a volunteer farmer good with her hands, a cosmopolitan and observant merchant, and a veteran Soldier. The five Character Types represent a diverse range of backgrounds and origins, including a Black Briton and a Basque, whilst the veteran is a Sikh.

How is a Player Character defined?

A Character Type in The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens is defined by Abilities, Focuses, and Talents. There are nine Abilities—Accuracy, Communication, Constitution, Dexterity, Fighting, Intelligence, Perception, Strength, and Willpower. Each attribute is rated between -2 and 4, with 1 being the average, and each can have a Focus, an area of expertise such as Accuracy (Pistols), Communication (Persuasion), Intelligence (Medicine), or Willpower (Faith). A Focus provides a bonus to associated skill rolls and, in some cases, access to a particular area of knowledge.

A Talent represents an area of natural aptitude or special training. For example, ‘Brawling Style’ increases base damage when fighting unarmed, whilst ‘Scouting’ enables a player to reroll failed Stealth and Seeing tests. A Player Character also has one or more Relationships with other Player Characters or NPCs and Fortune Points to expend on adjusting die rolls. He is further defined by a Drive, Resources and Equipment, Health, Defence, Toughness, and Speed, and Goals, and Ties.

How do the mechanics work?

Mechanically, The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens uses the AGE System first seen in in 2009 with the publication of Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. If a Player Character wants to undertake an action, his player rolls three six-sided dice and totals the result to beat the difficulty of the test, ranging from eleven or Average to twenty-one or Nigh Impossible. The value for an appropriate Ability and Focus is added to this. If any doubles are rolled on the dice and the action succeeds, the value on the Stunt Die generates Stunt Points. The player can expend these to gain bonuses, do amazing things, and gain an advantage in a situation. Stunts are divided into Combat, Exploration, and Social categories. For example, ‘Lightning Attack’ is an Action Stunt which gives an extra attack, ‘Assist’ is an Exploration Stunt which enables a Player Character to help another with a bonus, and ‘Spot Tell’ is a Social Stunt which gives the Player Character an advantage when an NPC is lying to him.

How does combat work?
Combat in the The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens uses the same mechanics as above. It is a handled as ‘Action Encounters’ in which the Player Characters have one Minor Action and one Major Action per turn. Major Actions include attacks, running and chasing, rendering first aid, and so on, whilst Minor Actions can be readying a weapon, aiming, and so on. Damage suffered reduces a character’s Health, but a Player Character can also suffer a variety of conditions.

How does ‘Alienation’ work?

Although the genre for The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens and thus Cthulhu Awakens is that of Lovecraftian investigative horror, encounters with the unnatural, supernatural, or the weird do not cause madness in those that witness them. Instead, anyone who encounters the Mythos suffers from Alienation as his mind attempts to understand what he has witnessed actually disobeys the natural laws as mankind inherently understands them and forces us to challenge our preconception that mankind’s role in the universe matters.

Alienation can come from seeing Entities of the Mythos, from being confronted by Visitations from the Elder Gods and Great Old Ones, other Phenomena, and from Revelations contained in Mythos texts and other similar sources. A successful Willpower Test can withstand the immediate effects, but if this is failed, then the Player Character gains Alienation Bonds, one for the player and one for the Game Master. If either Alienation Bond exceeds five, it resets to one, but the Player Character suffers from distorted thinking. This can be roleplayed by the Player Character or the Game Master can provide false information based on the Player Character’s now flawed thinking.

The points in Alienation Bonds can be spent as bonuses. By the player as bonus Stunt Points in understanding and fighting the forces of the Mythos and by the Game Master as bonus Stunt Points to enhance the actions of the Mythos and its agents. Effectively, Alienation represents a Player Character’s capacity to confront the Mythos, but it also makes him more vulnerable to it.

What do you play?

The scenario in The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens is ‘The God Beneath the Tree’. This is based on a real historical mystery and takes place in 1940 at the height of the Birmingham Blitz during the Second World War in the nearby village of Hagley. The Player Characters are Home Front volunteers, ordered to keep an eye out for downed Luftwaffe airmen, or worse, German paratroopers, after the local Home Guard is ordered to help in Birmingham, which was badly bombed the previous night. As the Player Characters go about their duties of patrolling the town, there is some lovely period advice for the Game Master in terms of tone and they will be challenged with various tasks that will engender trust with the townsfolk who otherwise regard them as children. It is at this point, all very Famous Five, the Player Characters do begin to detect hints that something is amiss, but are not quite sure what. The scenario takes a dark turn when a storm descends on the village and a German aircraft crash-lands in the surrounding woods.

The scenario really consists of two parts. The first is primarily social, whilst the second is more exploratory and action-packed. Both halves are a lot of fun and all together, the scenario has knowing English sensibility to it. The scenario also provides an interesting explanation for the local and very real historical mystery. It is likely that players who are British and also have an interest in the oddities of history will get more out of ‘The God Beneath the Tree’ than those who are not.

Is there anything missing?
No. The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens includes everything that the Game Master and five players need to play through it.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens are easy to prepare. Anyone who has played or run an AGE System roleplaying game will adapt with ease.

Is it worth it?
Yes. The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens presents the basics for a fast-playing and slightly more action-orientated roleplaying game than most roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, and supports them with an enjoyably bucolic scenario that turns nasty when something is unleashed from deep in the woods.

The God Beneath the Tree: A Quickstart Playset for Cthulhu Awakens is published by Green Ronin Publishing and is available to download here.