Reviews from R'lyeh

Saturday, 31 October 2026

Miskatonic Monday #461: No Silver Linings

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.

—oOo—

Name: No Silver Linings

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Authors: Mark Corrigan

Setting: Co. Tipperary, Ireland, 1919

Product: Scenario

What You Get: Thirty-four page, 3.66 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Mystery & Murder on the Mountain by Moonlight

Plot Hook: If a man has been dead for months, can he die again?
Plot Support: Staging advice, six NPCs, six handouts, three maps, and five Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Solid investigation with strong social element

# Can be run in conjunction with Cthulhu Ireland

# Easy to adjust to other eras

# Scope for a sequel?

# Argyrophobia

# Kinemortophobia
# Selenophobia

Cons

# Slightly odd art

Conclusion

# Solid investigation that is easy to run and add to a campaign

# Suitable for a Cthulhu Ireland campaign

Friday, 30 October 2026

Miskatonic Monday #460: The Harlotville Horror

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Name: The Harlotville Horror
Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Andy Miller

Setting: Jazz Age New Mexico

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Sixty page, 35.90 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Southern Salem’s Lot
Plot Hook: What sickness causes those in Sanguis to suffer?
Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, six NPCs, four handouts, six maps and floorplans, five beasts, one Mythos tome, one Mythos spell, and thirteen Mythos monsters.
Production Values: Excellent

Pros
# Inspired by Robert E. Howard’s ‘Pigeons from Hell’
# Ghost town horror in the badlands of New Mexico
# Brings a strange new monster to Call of Cthulhu
# Good staging advice for the Keeper
# Highly detailed, well researched scenario
# Has a certain cinematic muscularity
# Enjoyable playtest notes
# Kinemortophobia
# Nyctophobia
# Agrizoophobia

Cons
# Needs a slight edit
# Highly detailed, well researched scenario

Conclusion
# Oil and redemption in New Mexico falls victim to murderous misandry
# It is a ghost town for a reason and the Investigators are going to suffer

Miskatonic Monday #459: Upstairs, Downstairs

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Name: Upstairs, Downstairs

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Authors: Gaz Bowerbank

Setting: Regency Era England

Product: One-shot

What You Get: Sixty-Two page, 17.62 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes, the masters really are the monsters

Plot Hook: Everything must be exact for the master’s and mistress’ perfect weekend for their guests
Plot Support: Staging advice, five (six) pre-generated Investigators, fourteen NPCs, eight handouts, one map, one Mythos ritual, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Radically different scenario for Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England

# House party horror in which the servants have to do all the work

# Some deliciously dreadful NPCs for the Keeper to roleplay

# Lots with which to torment the Investigators

# Can involve Investigator betrayal

# Erythrophobia

# Basilophobia
# Eisoptrophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit
# A busy affair with a lot going on

# Can involve Investigator betrayal

Conclusion

# They may be your elders and betters, but that does not mean that they know better

# A gallery of grotesques run rampant and the servants suffer; glorious

# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

Miskatonic Monday #458: House of the Setting Sun

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Name: House of the Setting Sun

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Steven Goodison

Setting: Edo period Japan (& 1982)

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-five page, 44.89 MB PDF

Elevator Pitch: The ghosts of the past collide with the ghosts of the future

Plot Hook: A missing girl and a reviled family inheritance

Plot Support: Staging advice, ten handouts, five maps, five NPCs, and six Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Underwhelming

Pros

# Set in Edo era Japan

# Fourth part of a five-part mini-campaign

# Sort of the end of the campaign

# Sequel to Thing Torments Poet, Daimyo calls on Greatest Help, Will the Players Fail?, The Kofun Closes to the West, and GOZU

# Could be adapted for use with Japan – Empire of Shadows: A Call of Cthulhu sourcebook for 1920s Imperial Japan

# Chronophobia

# Phasmophobia

# Hauntophobia

Cons

# Needs a good edit

# Sort of the end of the campaign

# No suggestions as to how to create the Investigators

# Does not clearly explain how the haunted house situation is resolved

Conclusion

# Sets up the radically different final part

# Short affair which needs a clearer explanation as to how the final scenes come to pass

Miskatonic Monday #457: Through the Sound of My Voice

uch 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.

—oOo—

Name: Through the Sound of My Voice

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Authors: Matt ‘Doc’ Tracey & Zachary Sokol

Setting: Waukegan, Illinois, 1939 & The Dreamlands

Product: Scenario

What You Get: Forty-page, 44.31 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: What if the illusion of magic is real?

Plot Hook: “Now, listen to me. Listen to me... Whenever I hear the voice say, ‘Now, listen to me,’ I will obey.” – Major Dalby, The IPCRESS File
Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, elven NPCs, eight handouts, one map, one Mythos spells, one Mythos spell, one Mythos artefact, and some Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Excellent

Pros

# Solid investigation built around a woozy sense of unreality

# Well written and presented scenario

# Excellent artwork and handouts

# Part of the Miskatonic Repository Halloween 2026 Collection

# Rhabdophobia

# Oneirophobia
# Athazagoraphobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# Keeper might want access to Cthulhu Through the Ages: Guidelines for Playing Call of Cthulhu in Seven Different Eras or H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands: Roleplaying Beyond the Wall of Sleep

# Underwhelming denouement in which the villain gets away

Conclusion

# From disaster to The Dreamlands (and back again?)

# Solid set-up and investigation let down by disappointing ending

Monday, 26 October 2026

Miskatonic Monday #456: Blank Canvas

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Name: Blank Canvas: A Duet for Call of Cthulhu

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Authors: Steve Anderson

Setting: Arkham, USA

Product: One-shot

What You Get: Thirty-four page, 8.52 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person.” – Frank Barron

Plot Hook: The death of an artist must be important. If only you could remember why?
Plot Support: Staging advice, three pre-generated Investigators, four NPCs, four handouts, twelve portraits, two Mythos tomes, and one Mythos spell.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# One Keeper, one Investigator scenario

# Pleasing adjustments to fit the twenties, fifties, and eighties

# Surprising degree of research

# Easy to adjust to other cities

# Part of the Miskatonic Repository Halloween 2026 Collection

# Artophobia

# Neophobia
# Athazagoraphobia

Cons

# Surprising degree of research

Conclusion

# Classic, but well done amnesia to revelation scenario

# When the madness of the muse is the madness
# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

Screen Shot XVII

How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is a essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM's notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, can be found either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed all that much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game’s screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and several publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition or Margaret Weis Productions’ Serenity and BattleStar Galactica Roleplaying Games? Or a reference work like that included with Chessex Games’ Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune or the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Perhaps scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack also published by Chaosium, Inc. In the past, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. That though is no longer the case and stronger and sturdier GM Screens are the norm today.

So how do I like my GM Screen?

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack.

The Invincible Superhero Roleplaying GM Screen for Invincible Superhero Roleplaying, the roleplaying game based on Invincible, the American comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley, and published by Image Comics, and subsequently developed as a television series on Amazon Prime, and published by Free League Publishing. It is a sturdy twenty-five-and-a-half by eleven-inch, three panel screen in portrait format. On the outside, its three player-facing panels showcase some of the art from the comic book, including Omni-man and the members of the original Guardians of Order and scenes from the brutal battle between Omni-man and his son, Invincible. Inside, the panels contain the tables for running the roleplaying game, mostly its action. Going from left to right, they breakdown the Full Actions and Quick Actions that the Player Characters and the NPCs can do in a round and then flowcharts for both Slugfest Shooting Attacks. In the middle there are armour values for doors and walls, damage for explosive, attribute score descriptions, and then a list of General, Slugfest, and Shooting Stunts. There is also a quick guide to making a purchase and a price list, whilst the third panel is dedicated to the end of a session or scenario. So, this includes the questions that the Game Master will ask the players to see if their characters earn or lose Karma, recovery times from damage, and potential Critical Injuries.

For the most part, there is no denying that the tables are useful, but arguably, the guide to making a purchase and the price could have been kept in the rulebook, since purchases are not something that occur in the game all that often whereas the Stunts come into play all the time. So perhaps the section on Stunts could have been expanded with their descriptions so that neither the player nor the Game Master need to refer to the rulebook.

Physically, the Invincible Superhero Roleplaying GM Screen is sturdy and well produced. The artwork is good just as you would expect.

The Invincible Superhero Roleplaying GM Screen is a standalone affair in that it does not come with anything else. So, no reference material, no forms or character sheet to copy, and no scenarios. This is the same as the Dragonbane Gamemaster Screen. Now licencing issues are likely the reason why nothing else is included with the Invincible Superhero Roleplaying GM Screen, so the absence of anything else is understandable. (Whereas the lack of anything with the Dragonbane Gamemaster Screen is more of an issue.) Either way, what it means is that the Invincible Superhero Roleplaying GM Screen is utilitarian, but no more.