Miskatonic Monday #449: Whispers In The Frostbound Woods

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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Whispers In The Frostbound Woods – A 1940s Call of Cthulhu Scenario is an interesting scenario set at intriguing period in time and with two close, almost parallel storylines which can only be played by different groups. Set in February, 1941, it takes place in the deep winter of the frozen north on the border between the Soviet Union and Finland. An interim peace has broken out between the relatively new countries, uneasy after the Winter War of the previous two years which led to Finland being forced cede territory to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, these concessions are not enough for Moscow and it has intensified its espionage and infiltration activities across the border, especially in Karelia, parts of which it had gained from Finland in the settlement of the Winter War. To that end, it has been sending small groups of infiltrators, called ‘Desants’, often consisting of Fins living in the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (the former parts of Karelia gained from Finland), across the border. They are tasked with reconnaissance, sabotage, and disrupting Finnish efforts to maintain control over its borders. In response, Finland sent patrols of the Finnish Civil Guard to track and counter Desant operations.

At the start of Whispers In The Frostbound Woods, as part of Projekt Snegoviy Tsar—Winter King—an NKVD-led unit of desants has been dropped into Finnish Karelia to examine a location to determine whether it matches historical records and folklore descriptions and document any significant findings at the location, including photographs, sketches, and notes. Alerted by the sighting of parachutes and Soviet aeroplanes in Finnish airspace, a patrol of the Finnish Civil Guard has been ordered to locate and apprehend all foreign operatives that have landed in Finland. At the start of Whispers In The Frostbound Woods, the players are presented with a choice—play the Desants or the Finnish Civil Guard. Of the two, the story for the Desants is more fraught.

The scenario is supported with a lot of historical detail, which itself makes for an interesting read. All together, this covers the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union, recent history of Karelia, the history of the Desants and the Finnish Civil Guard, and the typical equipment used by both groups. There are not only descriptions for the Keeper for both groups involved in the situation in Whispers In The Frostbound Woods, but a detailed description of what each does if they are used as NPCs rather than as Investigators. There is also a guide to hypothermia taken from the pages of Malleus Monstrorum Volume I: Monsters.

Effectively, two storylines run through Whispers In The Frostbound Woods, one slightly behind the other. For example, Desant team will experience fully its parachute landing in Finland, whereas the Finnish Civil Guard patrol will discover it afterwards and get to examine it. Other scenes either group will experience the same. As they travel, they will experience horrors of both past and present, including some quite visceral scenes, a flashback to a sacrifice that took place more than a thousand years in the past is particularly nasty. Eventually, the Desants group will reach the location indicated by their orders with the Finnish Civil Guard patrol close behind. The latter will find the former in disarray, split by infighting, if not actually dead. This is driven by the strangeness that both groups have experienced, but also the Mythos entity which has been manipulating events all along—for both groups. It is up to the Keeper to decide where and when this manipulation directly takes place. Some advice is included to that end, but given that this does involve the direct manipulation of an Investigator, the scenario is best run by an experienced Keeper and played by experienced players.

Beyond the details of the Mythos threat—a rival to Ithaqua—Whispers In The Frostbound Woods includes a lot of support for both Keeper and players. This includes nine well-done handouts as well as eight Investigators for the Finnish Civil Guard patrol and seven Investigators for Desants. This is to allow for a ready supply of replacement Investigators no matter which group is being played. The appendices include lists of period names and clocks for tracking both body temperature in conjunction with the earlier rules for hypothermia and also the influence of the Mythos entity at the heart of the scenario. Perhaps the most important appendix is the one providing Keeper guidance on the mind control used in the scenario. The advice is decent, but perhaps could have been put together with the details of the scenario Mythos threat and the progress clocks so that it does not feel as if the scenario is avoiding giving any advice at all.

Physically, Whispers In The Frostbound Woods – A 1940s Call of Cthulhu Scenario is decently done. The artwork is serviceable, but the handouts and choice of photographs used are very good.

An ambitious pair of Keepers could actually run the two strands in Whispers In The Frostbound Woods – A 1940s Call of Cthulhu Scenario separate, but in parallel to each other. One running the Desant mission, the other the Finnish Civil Guard patrol, before the final confrontation at the end. It would involve careful staging, but it could be done. Another option would be one group to play through the scenario as the Desant mission, and then a second group play through the scenario as the Finnish Civil Guard patrol, encountering the events and whatever was left behind in the wake of the Desant mission’s passing. It is a pity that options like this are not addressed in the scenario. Of the two groups, the progress of the Desant mission will be more freeform, whilst the Finnish Civil Guard patrol will often be reacting to whatever the Desant group has left behind and so its progress is more structured.

Whispers In The Frostbound Woods – A 1940s Call of Cthulhu Scenario is a linear scenario, not once, but twice. First on an expedition scenario and second on a chase scenario, and whilst each also has its own different tone, both are wintery, unsettling, and disturbing in places. Although there is more potential to its structure than is explore in the scenario, there is a sharp, icy grip to Whispers In The Frostbound Woods – A 1940s Call of Cthulhu Scenario.

Hylophobia Horror

The Dark Forest – A Call of Cthulhu Scenario Set in the Modern Day is a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Published by Stygian Fox Publishing, it is the second release from the publisher as part of its Patreon programme. The scenario is a missing persons case—that of a child at a detention and rehabilitation centre for youth offenders—which takes the Investigators to Michigan state’s Upper Peninsula and deep into the Hiawatha National Forest where they will confront ancient gods and the pernicious influence of the Mythos, all hiding behind a façade of corporate greed and child rehabilitation. The set-up of the scenario means that The Dark Forest could easily be run using Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game as it can Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, although it introduces an agency of its own, The Advocacy, an independent consultancy which takes U.S. government contracts and investigates unusual events. However, the scenario does carry a ‘Contains Explicit Content’ warning and the advice that some players might find its mature themes disturbing, dealing as it does with rape, molestation, and institutional violence against defenceless teenagers. 

The Dark Forest – A Call of Cthulhu Scenario Set in the Modern Day begins with the Investigators being contacted by Martina Love. Her son, Donte, is nearing the end of his sentence at the P.J. Nelson Training School for Boys in Michigan state’s Upper Peninsula, but she has not heard anything from him, the staff say that he is at an external facility, and she is becoming increasingly worried. She asks the Investigators to find her son for her, but when the Investigators begin to make enquiries, they quickly learn that the youth correctional facility is currently in lockdown because several of the boys have absconded. All this and more will need to be determined before the Investigators arrive in northern Michigan, where the mobile phone network is unpredictable and connection to the Internet even worse. Beyond this however, there is relatively little to be learned through the research methods traditional to Lovecraftian investigative roleplay and consequently, the scenario has just the single handout. An alternative set-up for The Dark Forest is to have the Investigators be teachers at the P.J. Nelson Training School for Boys. This is a stronger set-up if the Keeper wants to run the scenario as a one-shot, but does require the Keeper to prepare and present a lot of information that the teachers would know upfront because they work at the facility, rather than delivering them piece by piece as Investigators coming from the outside conduct their enquiries. 

Once the Investigators get to Hiawatha Township and the P.J. Nelson Training School for Boys, the investigation takes place in three stages—interviews at the prison, at the prison’s work camps where the boys undergo vocational training for life beyond their sentence, and with the prison’s de facto warden, Bill Nelson. The Investigators are likely discover that the staff and inmates have grown used to the oddities of life in and around the Hiawatha National Forest, and are not necessarily hiding anything sinister, but simply corrupt. (Well, the scenario is set in a privatised prison system after all.) A radically transformative and horrid encounter with one of the missing boys definitely points to the former though, that is, if the Investigators survive the encounter, as it comes at a moment when they are unaware of what is to come and thus unprepared. The scenario does not deal with the fallout from this, but it will point towards something going on deep in the forest. 

Initially, there is an ethereal feel to the Investigators’ incursions into the forest, but as their search for answers continues and takes them in deeper and deeper, the feel becomes darker and darker, as well as literally as the foliage and canopy thickens, and the light fades… Ultimately, the Investigators will confront the evil at the heart of the scenario, a confrontation which will take them into the Finnish equivalent of the ‘Upside Down’. The change from the here to the ‘Upside Down’ is nicely handled, but the confrontation itself, although climatic, is one note—a fight. No other means of defeating the threat are suggested and the likelihood is that the antagonist will defeat the Investigators unless they are forewarned and thus well-armed. Unfortunately, that is not necessarily likely since Investigators do not have the opportunity to learn very much about what it is that they are facing, and less so if the Investigators are teachers at the P.J. Nelson Training School for Boys. The advice is that the Keeper should allow the Investigators to retreat and make a plan, before coming back to face the threat. Notably, at the end of the scenario, there is a Sanity reward for retreating from the threat, which is only slightly less than for defeating it. 

Physically, The Dark Forest – A Call of Cthulhu Scenario Set in the Modern Day needs an editor. 

Yet in other ways, The Dark Forest is a superbly presented book. It is done in quite a rich palette of earthy colours and the artwork is, for the most part, excellent. Besides the absence of editing, the book could have been better organised in places, but that is something that the Keeper can easily adjust to. 

As interesting as The Dark Forest is in reinterpreting the forces and influence of the Mythos through another mythology and pantheon, that of Finnish myths of the Kalevala, the execution is ultimately underwhelming. The Investigators are never quite able to prepare for, or understand, what they will face in the Finnish equivalent of the ‘Upside Down’, and the singular solution of violence is disappointing. The Dark Forest – A Call of Cthulhu Scenario Set in the Modern Day starts strong with an intriguing mystery and its presentation of mature themes is well-handled and there are some creepy scenes, but its dénouement leaves much to be desired.