Propping up Nyarlathotep

Call of Cthulhu is a literary roleplaying game. Its play is predicated on the ability of the Player characters—or rather the Investigators—to be literate and so be able to read the array of clues to be found as part of the enquiries into the unknown. Newspaper reports, diary entries, letters, notes and marginalia, books and scrolls, and of course, the much-feared Mythos tomes such as the dread Necronomicon and Unaussprechlichen Kulten. Just as the Investigators—or at least some of them—are expected to be able to read them, then so are their players. Thus, we have clues and handouts, especially if the roleplaying game of our choice involves a mystery—mundane or Mythos related. There had been clues and handouts before, for example, U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the 1981 scenario for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition from TSR (UK), included a clue showing the pattern of signals needed to contact a smuggling ship, but Call of Cthulhu took the role of the clue and the handout to new heights as they became more and more integral to game play. And since newspaper reports, diary entries, letters, notes and marginalia, books and scrolls, and more are all modern, the Keeper can create her own—such as soaking paper in tea and then drying it to age it—and easily copy those provided in particular scenarios or campaigns. Which is what the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has done, and not just for its own campaigns, but your campaigns.

The Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set is a big box of handouts and clues designed to be used with Masks of Nyarlathotep, the classic campaign for Call of Cthulhu, often regarded as one of the greatest ever produced by the hobby. This no mere set of tea-soaked, faux-aged handouts and whatnot, for just as Call of Cthulhu took the role of the clue and the handout to new heights, the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set takes the clues and handouts for Call of Cthulhu to new heights. There are over one hundred props in the box—telegrams, letters, a match box—just like in the original boxed set for Masks of Nyarlathotep, maps, charts, diary and ledger entries, business cards, photographs, memos, and newspaper clippings, oh so many newspaper clippings. Then there are bonus props. 

Open up the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set and the first thing that you see is a scroll, from the Shanghai chapter. It is not simply presented as a scroll on heavy paper, but done on cloth with actual wooden rollers so that it can be unfurled with ease. Of course, few of the players are going to be able to read the Chinese script, though some of their Investigators might (so there is a translation), but putting that down on the table gives it an immediacy that no mere sheet of paper would. And once given to the players it is going sit there, a constant reminder of both just how brilliant the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set is and the fact that their Investigators really, really want to get it translated.

Alongside the scroll is an ‘Ediphone Wax Cylinder Case’ containing not a wax cylinder—as after all, who owns a device capable of playing one of those these days outside of a museum?—but a USB drive with eight MP3 audio recordings which can be played at the appropriate points in the campaign. And these are not done by anyone, but professional actors, so instead of having the Keeper portray Jack Brady telling the players and their Investigators what is going on once they eventually find him, the Keeper can play the recording and so pull them both into his story.

 

Below that are a set of six Nansen Passports, issued by the League of Nations and recognised around the globe plus a set of passport stamps. What this means is as a group begins the campaign, each player can record the details of his Investigator in the Nansen Passport and as he travels around the world as the part of the campaign, from Peru to New York to England to Cairo to Kenya to Australia to Shanghai and back again, the Keeper can affix the right stamps—which come on sheets designed to be peeled off and stuck in the passports—to indicate the Investigator’s entry and exit from each country. It is a fantastic physical record of an imagined travel and achievement, one that does not actually directly relate to the campaign itself, but it is a lovely bit of verisimilitude. As is the fact that the stamps include options for ‘Cancelled’, ‘Expelled’, ‘Deported’, ‘Return Forbidden’, ‘Code 1644 Psych. Hold’, and more is just a delight. Of course, six passports are not going to be enough unless the players and their Investigators are very lucky because Masks of Nyarlathotep is a notoriously deadly campaign and Investigator deaths, and retirements are highly likely. So, replacements are probably going to be needed.

Below that there is a double-sided sheet of paper detailing everything in the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set. This lists everything folder by folder, according to which chapter each handout appears in. Now unlike the props included in the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign itself, none of the props are numbered. Thus, they are more realistic and both Keeper and her players will need to keep track of which props their Investigators have discovered so far and which ones they have. Open up the first folder, for the new Peru chapter in the most recent edition of Masks of Nyarlathotep. A clipping has been torn from a newspaper, but it is no single article, there are others surrounding it as well as on the reverse. None of them have any bearing on the campaign, but they impart a sense of the wider world in 1925 and they are simply fun to read. The clipping is also on the right paper, so it has a flimsiness just as it should. Below that, there is a letter in Spanish, clearly torn from a notebook, then copies of period maps and of the scenario maps. The Peru chapter is quite short, but it sets up expectations for the rest of the campaign. The players will be wanting to see what is next and find out just how good each handout feels.

After Peru, the chapter of Masks of Nyarlathotep get progressively more complex and so each corresponding folder in the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set is thicker, the New York one notoriously so. The original start of the campaign in previous versions of Masks of Nyarlathotep, the discovery of Jackson Elias’ body in his Chelsea Hotel room is combined with a welter of clues and a corresponding torrent of handouts. So what the Investigators know about Jackson Elias, almost all of the front of a newspaper—with articles front and back, numerous other clippings, a business card or two, several slightly crumpled letters (one of which includes the letter it came in), a telegram, one photograph of Jackson Elias dead on his bed and another of the Dark Mistress in Shanghai (infamously poorly portrayed in previous versions of the campaign), a submission from Jackson Elias to his publisher, Prospero House, an excerpt torn from Nigel Blackwell’s Africa’s Dark Sects—complete with book stamp, maps of New York and Harlem, and even the book cover to Jackson Elias’ own work, ‘The Hungry Dead’. It all culminates in a folder containing the patient records for Roger Carlyle and the folder is sealed. That is just the one folder. There are seven folders, one for each chapter in the campaign, and they are all like that.

Physically, Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set is a superlative presentation of the clues and handouts to the campaign. The right paper, a letter slightly crumpled as if pulled from an envelope (plus the envelope torn open itself), papers ripped from a diary, but held together by a paper clip. Perhaps the plainest of handouts are the ones that provide written copies of the audio files and details of things that the Investigators already know. They are the simplest and they do break the in-game feeling of the campaign, but they are all necessary. 

The Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set is definitely not needed to run the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. It is entirely optional. Yet the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set is a physical reflection of the effort which Chaosium, Inc. put into upgrading the previous version of the campaign to Masks of Nyarlathotep, Fifth Edition. It would seem almost like an oversight for the Keeper to keep the campaign’s improvements in terms of its presentation and support to herself and not share them with her players through the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set. Then there is the fact that Masks of Nyarlathotep is likely to provide somewhere between sixty and seventy hours of gameplay, so why not match that investment in terms of time with the physical investment of the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set?

There is, of course, precedent for all of this. When Masks of Nyarlathotep was first published in 1984, it was a box set which famously included a matchbook from the Sleeping Tiger bar in Shanghai as amongst its first set of clues. It was an oddly physical thing to include, but it showed how clues and handouts could be presented and from that matchbook, H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has taken the idea and run and run with it… The resulting Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set is a magnificent presentation of the clues and handouts Masks of Nyarlathotep, bringing the investigation in the greatest roleplaying campaign ever published into a physical reality barely even imagined when it was first published in 1984.

Sinister Shanghai

Shanghai—the ‘Pearl of the East’ has been a distant star in the Call of Cthulhu firmament. Yet since 1984 with its introduction as a chapter in the superlative Masks of Nyarlathotep, it has been an all-too far away, exotic destination, rarely visited beyond the confines of that campaign. Arguably, it was too strange, too difficult to research effectively, and in more recent years fraught with the dangerous possibility of portraying the inhabitants of the great city—whether natives or incomes—as stereotypes. That said, in more recent years, writers—both professional and amateur—have taken Lovecraftian investigative horror to Shanghai in scenarios such as Robin D. Laws’ ‘Shanghai Bullets’ from the anthology Stunning Eldritch Tales for Trail of Cthulhu, examinations of the original campaign in the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion, and finally, in that campaign’s update, Masks of Nyarlathotep, for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Yet as these campaigns, scenarios, and supplements have in turn shed a light upon the forces of the Mythos and their activities in the city, there has yet to be a definitive supplement of Lovecraftian investigative horror which focuses entirely upon Shanghai. That is, until The Sassoon Files.

The Sassoon Files: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and GUMSHOE Role Playing Games was published by Sons of the Singularity following a successful Kickstarter campaign. With the initial print run being infamously destroyed by the Chinese authorities, it presents an overview and history of the city, a campaign framework and four scenarios which take place between 1925 and 1929. The four scenarios can be run as one-shots or together they work as a rough campaign, and are in addition supported by factional campaign set-ups and drivers each of which would put a very different spin upon the four scenarios.

Written by members of the China RPG community, The Sassoon Files opens with an overview and history of Shanghai, focussing in particular upon the ‘Century of Humiliation’ suffered by China at the hands of the Western powers which saw the rise of the city from a small town located in a swamp near the mouth of the Yangzi River into a metropolis, rent geographically and politically. Geographically between Concessions and Settlements controlled by the Western powers, and politically between the Communists, the nationalists of the Kuomintang—by 1925 led by Chiang Kai-Shek, and the meddling Japanese. All whilst the Triad gangs, such as the Green gang, led by the infamous Du Yue Sheng, ‘Big Eared Du’, feuded for control of the city’s gambling, prostitution, and opium rackets. This includes a timeline which runs from 2050 BCE to 1949 CE, a list of notable locations and buildings in the French Concession, the Chinese City, and the International Settlement—a merging of earlier British and American Concessions, and a list of the dramatis personae to found in the pages of The Sassoon Files. The latter includes historical figures and figures fictional to be found in the supplement’s quartet of scenarios, but it is one of these historical figures who is key to those scenarios.

Sir Victor Sassoon, 3rd Baronet of Bombay, is an enormously wealthy businessman, a historical figure who owned large swathes of Shanghai and built the famous Bund. Not only is he aware of the Mythos, but he is both corresponding with Doctor Henry Armitage of Miskatonic University and looking to thwart its influence and its agents’ activities in the city. Thus he engages the Player Characters—or Investigators—into looking into situations and cases of note, which he and often his equally rich friends believe to be odd or inexplicable. Essentially, Sir Victor will act as the Investigators’ patron who will call upon their services again and again.

The four scenarios follow the same format. This is as a spine of scenes and clues as is standard of Trail of Cthulhu, laid out at least in the first scenario, as a diagram. Throughout each scenario—and the book as a whole—mechanical elements for Trail of Cthulhu are in black as is the rest of the book, whilst those for Call of Cthulhu are in red. This makes them a lot easier to spot. Where particular locations are referenced, excerpts of the main map are used, and since the Investigators will be visiting several of these again, these map excerpts appear more than once. Throughout the Investigators will encounter actual historical figures and the supplement does include notes for the Keeper on how to roleplay them. 

The first of the scenarios in The Sassoon Files is ‘Strong Gates, Hidden Demons’. A strange body and a supposed cholera outbreak lead the Investigators on a MacGuffin chase between the International Settlement and the French Concession, to the site of a bloody massacre and back again. This is a fairly straightforward scenario, but begins to pull the Investigators into the city and its atmosphere. However, the second scenario, ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’ is a whole lot more complex, starting with a flashback, and then comes back to the present for an even bigger, even more complex Macguffin hunt—or hunts—as Victor Sassoon wants to recover a recent purchase at an auction house and find out why it was stolen from him. Although the scenario requires a little effort in terms of set-up, there is a bravura quality to it, involving as it does the last Empress of China and a lot of tea. This potential for some weird, creepy moments too and a ‘what the hell?’ moment once the Investigators and their players realise quite what is going on.

Inspired by a traditional Chinese folk song of the same name, ‘There is This One Girl’ also ups the action scene upon action scene as the Investigators are sent haring after a gangster who seems to be winning at the racing track and the card table with unerring accuracy, this time because friends of Sir Victor want to reduce their loses and cannot account for the gangster’s success. The scenario presents an alternate interpretation of a Call of Cthulhu entity classic to Shanghai, who may well not be inimical towards the Investigators, as well as the opportunity for them to potentially find allies in their efforts against the Mythos. ‘There is This One Girl’ is also really the first part to ‘Curse of the Peacock’s Eye’, the fourth and final scenario in  The Sassoon Files. This has a weird flashback and has a quite linear sequence which is repeated. Although ultimately, the Investigators have funny choices to make, which may lead to the end of the world or not…

In terms of tone, the four scenarios in The Sassoon Files are presented in Purist mode. However, some scenarios do push at the dividing line between Purist and Pulp modes, and it would be very easy for the Keeper to take the campaign into a Pulp style of play. Certainly, as a city, Shanghai lends itself to that and there is advice in places on how certain Pulp Cthulhu abilities would work in particular scenes. Doubtless, pushed into the Pulp mode of Trail of Cthulhu or run using Pulp Cthulhu, and The Sassoon Files could be run as a rip-roaring campaign in the ‘Pearl of the East’. Either way, the Keeper is advised to check the chase rules for whichever roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror she is running and probably prepare some obstacles suited to the streets of Shanghai.

Using The Sassoon Files is not without its challenge. Obviously its remote location means that its four scenarios are not easy to add to an ongoing campaign and the timeframe for those scenarios is fairly specific. The most obvious and the easiest way to use the supplement is a standalone campaign. However there are other possibilities. One is to run the scenarios as sequels to a campaign which has ended in Shanghai after playing Masks of Nyarlathotep. That campaign runs throughout 1925 and The Sassoon Files begins at the end of 1925, so there is crossover potential. If the Investigators decide to leave Shanghai after completing Masks of Nyarlathotep, then The Sassoon Files could be run as an alternate timeline, the final scenario in the quartet, ‘Curse of the Peacock’s Eye’, supporting that possibility.

Being spread out over the space of four years, the quartet of scenarios in The Sassoon Files make up a loose campaign, so there is scope for the Keeper to add other scenarios she had adapted or written herself in between the given four. The Sassoon Files is both helpful and unhelpful towards that end. Helpful because it includes ten scenario hooks which the Keeper will need to develop herself, unhelpful because it is not the definitive sourcebook for roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror on Shanghai and its environs, and so does not explore the presence of the Mythos in the city and beyond, leaving the Keeper to develop that her self.

Each of the four scenarios in The Sassoon Files is accompanied by five pre-generated Investigators. These are okay for the most part. More interesting is the discussion of the factions involved in the four scenarios. These include the Locals—consisting of Sir Victor and his fellow expatriates and allies, the Communists under Zhou Enlai—later first Premier of the People’s Republic of China, and the Green Gang—Shanghai’s largest Triad gang, Japan’s Genyosha or Dark Ocean Society, and others. The discussion is accompanied by the options, hooks, and drivers for each of the four scenarios in The Sassoon Files for the players to roleplay members of the Communist party or the Green Gang, as opposed to allies of the Locals. The supplement also adds ‘Lore Sheets’ which provide both backgrounds and act as a resource or dice pool, equal to a couple of points, which a player can use to gain an advantage related to the Lore Sheet, each one of which is kept secret by its player. Although the end mechanical reward for fulfilling the objectives on the Lore Sheets feels bland, at the very least they provide more personal backgrounds for the Investigators and background information for their players.

However the publishers do miss a trick or two. For a supplement of this type, weirdly, there is no bibliography. Also, there are no maps of individual locations, which would have made the scenarios easier to run, and whilst as the scenarios proceed it becomes clear that they form a campaign, it is not clear at the outset, which again means they need more effort to prepare. Another issue is that whilst The Sassoon Files does provide a detailed overview of Shanghai, it is lacking when it comes to the kind of details and flavour which would help the Keeper portray the city on an ordinary, day-to-day basis. It is almost if the supplement needs a table of random encounters and events which would have helped the Keeper bring the vibrant and raucous hurly-burly of the city to life.

Perhaps the biggest trick missed by The Sassoon Files is when it comes to Investigators. First, there is a dearth of advice when it comes to the players creating their own, which may leave less experienced players of Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu floundering for ideas and concepts. Second—and more disappointingly—the authors do not make enough of the Factions as playable options. Now yes, they are discussed and they do have their own section in the supplement, but not a single one of the pre-generated Investigators which comes after each of the four scenarios is from a different faction. All sixteen are essentially from the Locals faction, that is, the expatriate Europeans who serve as the Investigators’ patrons and their local allies, and as diverse a mix of ethnicities and genders as the represent, what this means is that there none from the suggested Triad gangs or Communist factions. For all that is made of the authors being part of the China roleplaying community and their being familiar with both the setting and the history, this really is a missed roleplaying opportunity upon their part.


Physically, The Sassoon Files is a generally well-presented book. It makes a great deal of use of period photographs and maps to present Shanghai, and is illustrated by some superb pieces of artwork. However, it is in places inconsistent in its layout and very much needs an edit.

There can be no doubt that Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying deserves—whether Call of Cthulhu, Pulp Cthulhu, or Trail of Cthulhu—a supplement dedicated to Shanghai. Unfortunately, The Sassoon Files is not the definitive guide to the Shanghai of the 1920s for any of those aforementioned roleplaying games. Yes, it presents a good, even comprehensive, overview of the city, but whilst this is enough to run the four scenarios in The Sassoon Files, it is not really quite enough from which the Keeper can develop her own scenarios or content without input from other sources. However, this is not to say that the background information will not serve as the spur or inspiration for the Keeper’s creativity.

Although far from perfect, and not really a definitive guide to the city, The Sassoon Files: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and GUMSHOE Role Playing Games does something that no other supplement for roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror does, and that is present a campaign in Shanghai. It successfully combines both the history and noted inhabitants of the city with the Mythos for a quartet of entertaining and engaging scenarios.

—oOo—

Currently, Sons of the Singularity has a Kickstarter campaign underway for Journal d’Indochine. This is a supplement of ‘Horror and Intrigue in French Colonial-Era Vietnam in a campaign for the Call of Cthulhu TRPG’.

The Greatest Roleplaying Campaign Ever?

Masks of Nyarlathotep is widely regarded as the greatest campaign ever written for any roleplaying game, let alone Call of Cthulhu. If not that, then by any stretch of the imagination it rightly deserves to be in the top three, for it is truly epic in scale—on any scale. Its scope is epic, being a global campaign which takes in seven locations, from New York to Shanghai via London, Egypt, Kenya, and Australia. Its antagonists are equally as epic, consisting of multiple cults dedicated to the various aspects or ‘masks’ of the Crawling Chaos himself, Nyarlathotep. Its plot is thus also as far reaching to match that scale. Likewise, the players and their Investigators will be faced by a huge number of clues that will enable them to deduce the true nature of the foes they face and what they are working towards. Which is of course, to bring about a Great Plan that will see the Great Old Ones walk the Earth once again. Masks of Nyarlathotep presents challenging foes, challenging investigations, and challenging game play which can last for some seventy hours—and more. If the first campaign for Call of Cthulhu, 1982’s Shadows of Yog-Sothoth set the blueprint which all subsequent campaigns for the roleplaying game would follow, then 1984’s Masks of Nyarlathotep set the standard by which every single one of those subsequent campaigns would be measured.

The campaign itself concerns the fate of the Carlyle Expedition. In 1919, notorious playboy Roger Carlyle left New York on an archaeological expedition to Egypt by way of London to conduct some research. He was accompanied by Hypatia Masters, society photographer, Doctor Robert Huston, psychiatrist to the rich, and Jack Brady, his bodyguard and confidante. In London, the party was joined by famed archaeologist, Sir Aubrey Penhew, and together they went on to Egypt where it is claimed that they made great archaeological finds. After some months the expedition decamped to the Crown Colony of Kenya, ostensibly to allow Roger to rest and the party a chance to get away from the glare of the press. Unfortunately, tragedy struck, as the entire expedition was first thought to lost on safari, but then then discovered to have been massacred by local tribesmen.

Five years pass and enter globetrotting author, Jackson Elias. In the January of 1925, he contacts a number of reliable friends—the investigators—and asks them to meet him in New York as he has information concerning the fate of the Carlyle Expedition. Jackson is able to provide the first in what will become a profusion of pointers: cult activity in New York, the trail left behind by the Carlyle Expedition as it travelled east, the trail left by Jackson himself as he followed the route taken by the Carlyle Expedition and beyond, building into a web of connections that will ultimately reveal a threat to mankind. Over the course of 1925, the investigators will travel the world, researching, uncovering, and encountering dangers both large and small, suffer losses in terms of their well-being, their sanity, and their friends. If they prevail—and enough of them survive—perhaps the investigators can thwart the plans of the Dark God and his minions, and so save the world!

Yet for all the high regard in which Masks of Nyarlathotep is held—it would win the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Adventure in 1996—it is not a perfect campaign by any means. First and foremost, it is a large campaign and it is a complex campaign, with multiple threads and numerous clues and NPCs for the Keeper to keep track of. Second, the campaign is correspondingly complex in terms of its multiple thread, plots, and clues for the players to handle. Third, it sets up an NPC—Jackson Elias—as a friend and makes that motive enough for the investigators to become involved in the campaign. Yet it never really identifies who he is and what his relationship is with the investigators, so he never really rises above being plot hook. Fourth, it never addresses how the investigators are expected to go around the world, let alone pay for it. Fifth, it cannot escape the fact that in many cases its depiction of the cultists at the heart of each chapter is as stereotypes, which some have found uncomfortable. It should be clear that this is neither intentional nor is it a case of racial stereotyping, but rather that all too often they often come across as skeevy natives, mad with dark power and knowledge. Much of this is really due to the sixth issue with the campaign, which are its Pulp undertones. Such stereotypical depictions are often part of the Pulp genre. That said, Masks of Nyarlathotep is not explicitly a Pulp campaign, but it certainly leans that way, though without really supporting it.

Masks of Nyarlathotep remains a great campaign though, great enough for many a Keeper to attempt to fix these issues herself in preparing to run it. Indeed, the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion is an attempt to address and answer many of the questions which have been asked over the years about Masks of Nyarlathotep and how to run it. That tome though, remains a fan-based corollary to the campaign and not the official answers to such questions. (This does not stop it from being a useful reference work running the campaign though.) However, such official answers do exist, for Chaosium, Inc. has undertaken the ambitious and daunting task of updating the campaign.

Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World, the fifth edition of the campaign, has been redesigned for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. The most obvious change to it is its size, up from of the two-hundred-and-twenty-four pages of the fourth edition of Masks of Nyarlathotep, released in 2010, to a total of six-hundred-and sixty-nine pages for this the fifth edition of Masks of Nyarlathotep. Almost three times the length. In fact, it is so large that it has been split into two volumes, the first covering up as far as Egypt, the second the rest of the campaign, with the resulting print version coming in a slip case. The other obvious change is that like all releases from Chaosium, Inc. now, it comes in full colour, including both layout and illustrations. This has enabled the artists to approach the campaign anew and provide some effective new illustrations, whether of the members of the Carlyle Expedition, the infamous scene in Jackson Elias’ hotel room, of Shantaks at Misr House, Miles Shipley’s paintings, or the Dark Pharaoh in all his menacing majesty. The result is sure to be a handsome and heavy pair of tomes, but these are the very least of the changes to Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World.

Fundamentally, Masks of Nyarlathotep consists of a sandbox adventure which contains several smaller, though still large sandboxes. Within each of these ‘smaller’ sandboxes—the individual America, England, Egypt, Kenya, Australia, and China chapters—the investigators are free to follow what clues and lines of enquiry they have as is their wont, though of course, certain clues will reveal certain information and so take them down certain paths. Yet the larger, overarching nature of the campaign also means that the investigators are free to go where they want. The investigation will start in New York in the America chapter, but the clues point to locations far and wide, and whilst there is a natural path to the campaign—the aforementioned order of chapters—the investigators are free to go where they will and to whichever chapter they want. Every campaign needs a beginning though and that is the first of the changes to the Masks of Nyarlathotep, Fifth Edition campaign.

In previous editions of the campaign, events began with the investigators arriving at Jackson Elias’ hotel door. That still happens in this edition at the start of the America chapter, but it also includes a prologue where the investigators can come together on an expedition of their own and first meet Jackson Elias as a fellow expedition member. This takes place in Peru in 1921. Here each investigator, for their own reasons—ten pre-generated investigators are provided to that end—has signed up with Augustus Larkin to locate and conduct an archaeological examination of a lost pyramid in Peru’s southern highlands. Larkin seems an odd sort, sweaty if enthusiastic, whilst his assistant, Luis de Mendoza, is gloweringly taciturn, but the other expedition member, Jackson Elias, is friendly and curious. If the investigators do not note the oddities concerning the expedition then Elias certainly will, for it seems that someone—or something—is taking a keen interest in the expedition and in preventing anyone from learning too much about it. Just who is stalking them and what does this have to do with the local legends of white vampires?

What the Peru prologue is, is a rehearsal for the forthcoming seven chapters of the main campaign. Like those, it does involve a ‘mask’ of Nyarlathotep, but a relatively minor one in comparison to the Bloody Tongue, the Black Pharaoh, the Horned Bat, and the Bloated Woman. Similarly, its scale is regional, rather than global, and it is all together a much smaller affair. It adheres to the template set by those seven chapters though—a distinct locale, a indigenous cult of a singular nature, locals afeared of said cult, academics will help with some persuasion, and so on. Then by introducing Jackson Elias it lays the groundwork for the campaign to come and forges the link that is fundamental to the campaign. The scenario itself is a nice play upon a traditional monster given a Mythos twist, which is accompanied by some well done illustrations. Throughout there is also good advice on handling Jackson Elias and keeping him friendly without becoming too overbearing, as well as how to keep him alive ready to request the investigators’ aid four years later.

There is one other thing that the Peru chapter and Masks of Nyarlathotep, Fifth Edition does for Jackson Elias and that is to define him as a character. Notably this includes making him an African American. Previously, the assumption was that he was Caucasian like his inspiration, Percy Harrison Fawcett, but this decision is an interesting one and it explains how Elias Jackson was able to go where other explorers might not have been able to. The following chapter, America, will also list Elias’ books. With the expedition in Peru having formed the basis for, and cemented their friendship, the investigators and thus their players do have a motive, an actual sense of friendship instead of a supposed one, for them to aid Jackson in his enquiries. It helps of course that Jackson, thanks to treasure found in Peru, can fund their investigations. This is the first of many additions to the campaigns.

These changes continue with more background on Harlem in the America chapter and expanding upon the activities of the Cult of the Bloody Tongue in Harlem. The inclusion of a scapegoat for the cult’s predations provides another plot strand to follow in New York and shows more of the cult’s machinations in the city. This extension of the background continues in the England chapter, with the authors revisiting ‘The Derbyshire Monster’ set in Lesser Edale. One of a number of sidetrek scenarios in London, this one always felt out of place because of its non-Mythos antagonist. In Masks of Nyarlathotep, Fifth Edition, the scenario is renamed ‘The Derbyshire Horror’, the nature of the threat is changed in a nice piece of ‘bait and switch’, and a second reason is provided for the investigators to go to Derbyshire with the introduction of Henson Manufacturing, which has been making the components necessary for the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh to complete its dastardly plan. The additions in the America chapter to Harlem and to Derby in the England chapter are more than welcome as they add depth and detail to their respective cult’s doings, serving to make them more than just murderous thugs.

The authors address the perceived stereotyping by emphasising the fact that cult membership is open to all, not just those native to a region and that if they can, the cults at the heart of campaign will prey on anyone, no matter their background or status. Also, changes are made to two important NPCs. In England, Tewfik al-Sayed, the proprietor of the Soho spice shop and rival priest to Edward Gavigan, is now Zahra Shafik, proprietor of Empire Spices and rival priestess to Edward Gavigan. Her motives and plans are also provided. In Kenya, the sadly named Tandoor Singh, proprietor of a Nairobi tea emporium and agent of the Bloody Tongue, is renamed Taan Kaur, female proprietor of a Nairobi tea emporium and agent of the Bloody Tongue. As well as avoiding stereotyping, this redesign enables the authors to re-examine these NPCs and their motives, making them more interesting, more rounded, and easier to bring into play.

To help and aid the Keeper run Masks of Nyarlathotep, advice is provided throughout the campaign. This starts with preparation and goes on to cover the campaign’s famed lethality, how to handle both its history and settings, and creating and replacing investigators. Within each chapter, connections are made to the greater campaign, clue diagrams show where each clue leads to, and at every location, the clues which lead to that location are listed. Which all helps the Keeper to keep track of the campaign’s very many clues. Similarly, all of the NPCs who will appear in a chapter are listed at its start, each accompanied by a thumbnail portrait in frame coloured according to their allegiance. Four appendices also cover travel in the period, as well as collating all of the campaign’s artefacts, spells, and tomes. There can be no doubt that there is a lot of things to keep track of in Masks of Nyarlathotep, but these changes address this challenge and make it easier to deal with. Another nice touch is that at the start of each chapter suggestions are given as to what books to read or television shows or movies to watch to get the feel of the forthcoming chapter.

One other aspect of the campaign is addressed throughout its very many pages—Pulp or not? With previous editions of the campaign and of Call of Cthulhu, this was not a question that a Keeper could have made with anything other than great difficulty. With the long-awaited publication of Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos, not only could the question be answered, it was a question that had to be answered. Thus, Masks of Nyarlathotep, Fifth Edition includes numerous options and suggestions for running the campaign in Pulp mode. Not just adding Pulp Talents to both the pregenerated investigators and a great many of the campaign’s NPCs, but also suggesting how to up the ante in a situation, whether that is arming cultists of the Bloody Tongue with African throwing knives, foregoing customs inspections when entering certain countries, moving the more dangerous aspects of Miles Shipley’s paintings to the Pulp mode, adding an NPC from a pair of Cthulhu by Gaslight supplements, or suggesting that of course, the best way to stage the events aboard the Mombasa to Nairobi journey is atop the flaming train! These all help the Keeper run the campaign in Pulp mode.

Rounding out the campaign is the ‘Grand Conclusion’, examining what happens in the wake of the campaign’s climax at the end of each of its seven main chapters. It also provides ‘The Ultimate Outcome’, a means to track the investigators’ progress and the outcome of their actions, so that ultimately, the Keeper can determine how well they and their players have done. This is a handy tool providing a concrete means of measuring their actions where previously it was down to the Keeper to judge.

Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World always was a campaign of herculean proportions, but now it becomes physically herculean in terms of its format. So what accounts for the huge increase in page count—by some 298%—from the previous edition? Obviously, the new chapter and scenario detailing the investigators first encounter with Jackson Elias in Peru, but also the additions to each of the seven main chapters and locations. Then there are the appendices—nine pages of spells, ten pages of tomes, and six pages of artefacts—and an index nine pages long! Across the campaign whole, there are forty-five pages of thematic handouts, thirty-eight pages of maps, thirteen pages of portraits, and eighty-five pages of NPC stats. (It should be noted that the handouts, maps, NPC portraits, and pregenerated investigators are available as separate PDFs for ease of reference.)

In terms of production values, Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World has never looked like this and has never looked as good. As with all new titles from Chaosium, Inc., it is done in full colour with some excellent, often dynamic new illustrations and maps. That said, some of the full colour illustrations are really rather ordinary in comparison to the sepia ones. The full colour cartography, in general, is also very good, especially of the various countries and regions, but there are maps which could have been better done. For example, the maps of M’Weru’s Cavern and The Great Temple in the Mountain of the Black Wind in the Kenya chapter are murky messes, whilst the map of the Great Chamber of Nyarlathotep in the Egypt chapter is just a bit too small for easy reference. Another issue with the maps is that locations on many of them are numbered in an odd order, making them a little cumbersome to use. The campaign though is well written, though a minor edit is needed here and there. Overall though, these are all minor issues in what is a well produced and presented pair of volumes.

In many ways, Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World, the fifth edition of the campaign, is the first major change to the campaign in some twenty years, following the addition of the scenario, ‘City Beneath The Sands’ from the supplement Terror Australis, to create 1996’s award winning The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep. But that was one substantial change, whereas multiple substantial changes have been made to Masks of Nyarlathotep, Fifth Edition, but like that change twenty years ago, these changes are all for the better, with many of them coming from the authors having run or played the campaign multiple times. As a result, the Keeper knows who Jackson Elias is and the players and their investigators can learn who he is by actually encountering him; there is more advice on running the campaign, whether in Pulp mode or not; there is more detail to add depth where needed; there is more structure for handling the campaign’s many clues and links; and the treatment of its huge cast is more balanced.

At the heart of all of the changes there remains the campaign itself. Masks of Nyarlathotep always was the ‘Grand Master’ of campaigns for Call of Cthulhu. The updates and adjustments to the campaign which take account of over thirty years of campaign design and play, ensure that the fifth edition, Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World, not only maintains that status, but is more accessible, easier to run, and better presented. If Masks of Nyarlathotep is the campaign by which all other Call of Cthulhu campaigns are measured, then Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World just raised the bar.