Big Easy Noir

Deadlands: The Weird West, the alternate history Wild West/horror RPG published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group is so good that it merited an Origins Award—twice. First for the original RPG in 1997, and then again in 2007 for Deadlands: Reloaded, the latter employing the Savage Worlds RPG rules that were derived from Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars, the skirmish rules that were themselves derived from Deadlands: The Weird West. It has been subjected to a pair of sequel RPGs, both set in the far future. The first was Deadlands: Hell on Earth, published in 1998 and more recently re-released as Hell on Earth: Reloaded; the second was Deadlands: Lost Colony, published in 2002. More recently though, the Deadlands franchise received another entry that explored the future of a North America in which the old United States of America were divided by the Civil War, California was cracked into a maze, the mysterious ‘Ghost Rock’ literally fuelled an explosion of inventions, and magic was known and feared. This future is not one to come, but one that pushes the Deadlands: The Weird West setting forward by fifty-five years into something not a little familiar. That entry is Deadlands Noir.

Published in 2012 via Kickstarter, Deadlands Noir is a Savage Worlds setting that takes the Deadlands setting way down south and along the shadow framed streets of the Big Easy. As a setting, New Orleans is perfectly ripe with gaming possibilities—it has all the exoticism of a European city on American soil, it is the heart of the practice of Voodoo, its politics come as dirty as they can, corruption is a way of life, and it has the gentility of a Southern city.  Which is exactly what the New Orleans of Deadlands Noir is, for it lies south of the Mason-Dixie Line in the Confederate States of America. It is a city in which the dead do walk at night, as well as many nastier things in the shadows. Worse, it is 1935 and like the rest of the world, New Orleans is deep in the Depression. Making a dishonest living, let alone an honest one, is a real struggle. Nevertheless, there are mysteries to be uncovered, truths to be told, people to be conned and robbed, entertaining to be done—now that Prohibition is over (though some states and counties are still dry), and new devices to be patented. That is if you do not fall foul of the law—like the C.S.A.’s Texas Rangers and their campaign against magic or the city’s organised crime—such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Black Hand, or the Voodoo gang known as the Red sect…

Apart from the shift in time and tone—from 1880 to 1935, from Weird West Horror to Pulp Noir Horror, the obvious differences between Deadlands Reloaded and Deadlands Noir are its character options. Bootleggers, members of the clergy, con artists, dilettantes, doctors, entertainers, escorts, lawyers, parapsychologists, private investigators, reporters, vagabonds, and writers all point to a distinctly urban setting. The Arcane Backgrounds available are also different. Grifters are supreme swindlers, capable of conning arcane power from dark spirits, though not without daily indulging in a vice such as alcohol or dice. Houngans and Mambos practise strange rituals that pay tribute to the loa and in return, can create small miracles. Patent Scientists are inventors, constantly striving to create and sell new devices that will make their name and reputation, although they are unknowingly tapping into the otherworld for their inspiration. They are renowned not just for their creations, but for the delusions they typically suffer.

What is not available to play is Deadlands Reloaded’s Huckster, their having been hunted to near extinction by the Agency in the North and the Texas Rangers in the South. Grifters have taken up their legacy. Faith has been driven to an all-time low by the events of the Great War and the Depression, so preachers capable of casting true miracles are all but unknown. Mad Scientists are now Patent Scientists, whilst Indian Shamans are very rarely seen in cities like New Orleans and the practitioners of Eastern martial arts have gone underground. Similarly, two Arcane Backgrounds are rare in New Orleans—the Blessed and the Syker, but both are described in the Deadlands Noir Companion. (It should be noted that the latter volume has a higher page count and is more expensive than Deadlands Noir itself).

Other new Edges that Deadlands Noir adds to fit the setting include Comfortable, Veteran of the Concrete Jungle, Hitman, Sleuth, and Grit. New Hindrances include Corrupt, Grim Servant of Death, Night Terrors, Schmuck, and Smart Mouth. It should be noted that all characters start with the Poverty Hindrance to represent the economic difficulties of the Depression. Plus a character also needs to describe his worst nightmare.

One last option available is the Weird Edge, Harrowed. A member of the Harrowed is all but dead, having refused to give up on this mortal coil. What keeps a Harrowed from finally dying is the pact he enters with a demon from the Hunting Grounds to enable him to keep his body moving. The Harrowed has not only suffered in hell, he must constantly battle with demon for control of his body, is marked by the wound that killed him, must consume meat to heal, and can actually pickle himself with alcohol as a means to preserve his body. A Harrowed can use other Arcane Backgrounds, though not faith-based ones like Voodoo if the demon is in control…

Our sample character is such one Harrowed. Antony Delvecchio never wanted to get involved with the Black Hand, New Orleans’ mafia family, but when your father is a ‘made man’, you have little choice. Antony though, wanted to be something else—to be a writer. This was much against the wishes of his father, and whilst he had the support of his mother, he could not avoid being forced to study law at Tulane. Antony was a good student, but still wanted to party and that took him deep into New Orleans. It was on one of these off-campus jaunts that he came to the attention of the Red Sect, who saw in him an opportunity, one that might see him turned against their criminal rivals. Antony found himself drunkenly inducted into the worship of the loa. It was something that he fought hard to keep from his father, but he could not hide his decision to not practice the law after graduating, despite passing the bar. His father called him a wastrel and resolved to bring back into the family fold, but despite his mother’s attempts, relations with his father and the rest of the family broke down. Antony found himself cut off and penniless, struggling to make ends meet through his writing. Who exactly fired the shot and why, Antony does not know, but it might have been one his father’s button men or someone from the Red Sect because he proved to be not as useful as they had hoped. Right now Antony is looking for his killer while he supports himself from submissions to the Tombstone Epitaph about the outré side of life in the Big Easy.

Name: Antony Delvecchio Nationality: American 
Rank: Novice Occupation: Revenant Writer
Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigor d6 
Skills: Driving d4, Fighting d4, Intimidation d8, Knowledge (Law) d6, Knowledge (Occult) d4, Notice d4, Perform (Writing) d6, Persuasion d6, Shooting d4, Voodoo d6 
Charisma: 0
Pace: 6; Parry: 4; Toughness: 5
Power Points: 10 Dominion: 0
Hindrances:  Night Terrors (Major), Obligation (Minor), Short Temper (Minor)
Edges: Arcane Background – Harrowed, Arcane Background – Harrowed, Talented
Harrowed Edge: Spook
Spells: healing, warrior’s gift

Mechanically, it no surprise that Deadlands Noir uses Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s latest edition of Savage Worlds. What this means is that Deadlands Noir is a Pulp action game as well as a Pulp Noir one, and to support the latter, rules are provided to handle detective work—both hitting the books and legwork, knockout blows, gaining a second wind in a fight, tailing a suspect, and social conflict and interaction. In particular, interrogations and using patter; the latter nicely underlining the genre convention that any good shamus should be able to talk his way out of trouble—at least sometimes.

Beyond character creation and the new genre mechanics, Deadlands Noir supports its setting with an extensive description of the city and its neighbourhoods, from Tremé and the Lower Ninth to the French Quarter and the Garden District. Each of the descriptions of the city’s neighbourhoods is expanded upon in the GM’s section, itself some two thirds of the book. These descriptions include numerous individual locations and persons of note—many of the latter illustrated with images of those who pledged towards the Kickstarter for Deadlands Noir. (This does result in a lot of NPCs having beards which feels slightly out of keeping with the 1930s). What is mechanically interesting about descriptions of these neighbourhoods is that each is assigned a Fear Level, from normal and ordinary (Fear Level 0) to Deadlands (Fear Level 6). This is a measure of how weird each district is and how scared the inhabitants are of where they live. It also affects any Fear check that a character has to make whilst in the neighbour. One of the player characters’ aims in Deadlands Noir is to lower these Fear Levels, though this should not be obvious to the characters or their players, but rather should come about by their doing good—solving mysteries, rescuing dames, and so on.

The GM’s section also includes an explanation of the setting’s secrets, an array of its monsters and NPCs—major and minor; advice on running the game and handling mysteries. The latter is accompanied by a set of lists with which a GM can create a case with the roll of a few dice and some thought as to what clues might be found. These consist of five rolls to generate the Hook, the Event, the Perpetrator, the Motive, and the Evidence, with optional rolls for the Location and the Twist. Our sample Mystery begins with this set of rolls:

1. The Hook—Stranger
2. The Event—Kidnapping
3. The Perpetrator—Friend
4. The Motive—Political Gain
5. The Evidence—Testimonial
6. The Location—Riverside
7. The Twist—Dark Secret (Silent Patron)
   
   A woman comes to the player characters. She wants help that she cannot gain from the police. Her husband, the project commissioner for the James McKendrew Memorial Bridge, has been kidnapped and she has been given the characters’ names as being of those who might be able to help. The kidnappers want a package which they claim her husband has, but she knows nothing about it or where it is. (The truth of the matter is that her husband has been kidnapped by her boyfriend, who is also his business partner. What they are after is a recording of Mayor McKendrew accepting bribes in return for the position of project commissioner, but in reality, the kidnapper is in league with the Mayor in return for something else).

Deadlands Noir includes not only fourteen individual Savage Tales, each tied to one of the locations described earlier in the book. These follow a full campaign adventure—‘Red Harvest’. It begins with a missing woman, a large debt, and a big score, before going onto reveal at one of Deadlands Noir's big secrets. It is a solid affair, with room aplenty for the GM to insert individual Savage Tales of his own, or the ones included in the book.

Physically, Deadlands Noir is by contemporary standards, a slim hardback. It is done in full colour and illustrated throughout. The artwork is decent, though occasionally it slips into a cartoon-like style. The map of the city is slightly difficult to read in places, but the other maps in the book are clear and easy to read. One nice touch is how the sidebars are each framed against a strip of film that with their black-silver wash emphasises the book’s noir theme.

One obvious use for Deadlands Noir would be to unplug the ‘Deadlands’ element and in its place put the Cthulhu Mythos of Reality Blurs’ Realms of Cthulhu. The result would be a Pulpy mish-mash of genres, but it could certainly handle something akin to HBO’s Cast a Deadly Spell. That is one option of course, but with the ‘Deadlands’ element kept in, Deadlands Noir feels complete in and of itself, presenting a well-written continuation of Deadlands Reloaded without repeating itself—a problem that Deadlands has not always avoided in the past. Above all, Deadlands Noir is as enjoyable a genre mix of pulp horror with Film Noir as the original Deadlands was of Wild West and horror.

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Tales of the Star Guard III

One of my favourite RPGs from 2011 is Cosmic Patrol, Catalyst Game Labs’ Science Fiction RPG inspired by the Golden Age broadcast Science Fiction of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and X MINUS ONE as well as the writings of Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and E.E. “Doc” Smith. It is a light storytelling RPG in which the characters are stalwart members of the Great Union’s last line of defence against a dangerous universe. As Patrolmen, members of the Cosmic Patrol, the player characters crew rocketships sent out to explore the galaxy, to investigate its strange phenomena, protect the Solar System, and respond to emergencies as necessary. The mechanics are kept light with everyone taking it turn to narrate scenes in the current adventure with heroics being encouraged. Plus the little rulebook is a work of art itself, looking exactly like a handbook for the Cosmic Patrol itself.

Having previously reviewed Into the Cosmos: A Cosmic Patrol Sourcebook, the first supplement for Cosmic Patrol, it only seems fair that I should also review the second, more recently released supplement. Although plenty of patrol encounters and scenarios are presented in both Cosmic Patrol and Into the Cosmos, what Cosmic Patrol is yet to present is something that fulfils its promised grandeur and scope. This void is negated by the publication of The Moon Must Be Ours! A Cosmic Patrol Campaign that pitches the men and women of the Cosmic Patrol against a threat that has been disrupting Grand Union activities for decades—making objects and people disappear, directing activities and experiments with false readings, and generally being a nuisance. Further, the Moon Men forbid anyone from landing on the Lunar surface, ever since the Rocketship EM disappeared! 

This has been done without their being seen, all through their strange powers of Dynamo-Psychism. They present a threat to humanity and the Grand Union like no other—so Director Roderick Dyson has assembled the largest flotilla of ships in the history of the Cosmic Patrol and given the order: “The Moon Must Be Ours!”

The Moon Must Be Ours! is a complete campaign that throws the player characters into the Cosmic Patrol’s operation to conquer the Moon and put an end to the Moon Men as a threat. The invasion begins disastrously—Cosmic Patrol ships suddenly vanish from the flotilla, some explode or are impaled by previously unknown and powerfully destructive weapons, whilst others career off course and crash or collide with other vessels. The upshot is that very few Patrol vessels manage to reach the Moon’s surface—much of this is described in the supplement’s opening fiction, ‘Retaking the Sky’. The player characters’ vessel is one of those few. With their rocketship having crashed, they are the Patrol’s only hope and must penetrate the labyrinth of rooms under the lunar surface to discover the secrets of the Moon Men.

Cosmic Patrol is played without a dedicated GM, instead each player takes a turn being Lead Narrator. Although the Lead Narrator needs to be fair in presenting a challenge to his fellow players, what it means is that the players are all playing against the game rather than the game as presented by a GM. The Moon Must Be Ours!  pushes this aspect further in presenting a ‘Choose Your Adventure Path’ scenario that the players plays together. In comparison to The Warlock of Firetop Mountain or the more recent Blood of the Zombies, the locations and paragraph entries are few in number, consisting primarily of forty-two rooms that are played one after another, even in linear fashion—depending on the difficulty setting that the group decides to play the campaign at.

Each room consists of a two-page spread that contains Objectives, Cues, Tags, and Exits, as well as Opening Narration, Room Description, and Enemies and Obstacles. Each room gives seven or eight exists divided between the difficulty settings. Typically three each for an Easy setting, two for Normal and Hard settings, but just the one for the Insane setting. The latter because the players have no choice in what room they choose next—it must be the next room in sequential order, from one to forty-two. In order to complete The Moon Must Be Ours! at Easy difficulty, the group needs to overcome nine or ten rooms, thirteen or fourteen at Normal difficulty, and twenty-two at Hard. The idea is that once a group has completed The Moon Must Be Ours! at one difficulty, it should then try and play it again at a higher difficulty. Again, another aspect of the campaign that feels like a ‘Choose Your Adventure Path’ scenario.

A Room Tracker is provided so that no room is repeated. Also included are sample hero character dossiers and dossiers for the campaign’s villains, advice for the Lead Narrators—particularly on handling character death, and plot twists. Tables give random Dynamo-Psychism powers and random adversary creation, the latter including what is probably the best gun in Science Fiction—the Godwinization Ray. Its effect? It makes the affected target irrelevant! (If a player character, then he is Knocked Out for the length of his player’s next stint as Lead narrator). Many of the villains presented in The Moon Must Be Ours! veer towards to the weird and wacky, including an incredibly silly villain towards the end…

The Moon Must Be Ours! is well presented. It is not as liberally illustrated as previous books, but that is primarily because the book consists of rooms and these are not illustrated in Cosmic Patrol. The campaign itself, is probably too combat orientated, so the rules and suggestions for character death are likely to be necessary.

The Moon Must Be Ours! A Cosmic Patrol Campaign presents the chance to delve back into the history of the Grand Union. It possesses a slightly creepy, almost Lovecraftian sense of the unknown that might be difficult to maintain with multiple Lead Narrators, whereas its joyous embrace of 1950s retro-futurism will be easier to keep up. Above all, it provides a Cosmic Patrol crew with a big adventure, mysteries to be solved, and the chance to be heroic.

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Tales of the Star Guard II

One of my favourite RPGs from 2011 is Cosmic Patrol, Catalyst Game Labs’ Science Fiction RPG inspired by the Golden Age broadcast Science Fiction of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and X MINUS ONE as well as the writings of Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and E.E. “Doc” Smith. It is a light storytelling RPG in which the characters are stalwart members of the Great Union’s last line of defence against a dangerous universe. As Patrolmen, members of the Cosmic Patrol, the player characters crew rocketships sent out to explore the galaxy, to investigate its strange phenomena, protect the Solar System, and respond to emergencies as necessary. The mechanics are kept light with everyone taking it turn to narrate scenes in the current adventure with heroics being encouraged. Plus the little rulebook is a work of art itself, looking exactly like a handbook for the Cosmic Patrol itself.

The first supplement for Cosmic Patrol is Into the Cosmos: A Cosmic Patrol Sourcebook. As befits a first supplement, it is a companion volume to the core rules. It adds further detail to the setting of Cosmic Patrol, presenting further threats and rumours, a guide to the rocket ships and other vessels to be found in the Great Union and beyond, detailed dossiers to support many of the threats, and almost two dozen Mission Briefs—enough to keep a Cosmic Patrol campaign going for session after session. As with the core rules, Into the Cosmos is presented as a small red handbook, lightly illustrated with solid line art. Unlike the core rules, Into the Cosmos has much more the feel of being a roleplaying game supplement and less of the feel being the Cosmic Patrol handbook.

It opens with ‘When in Doubt, Doubt’, a short piece of fiction about a Cosmic Patrol Intelligence Service agent infiltrating a Hakhaze base. A solid little tale, it throws a different light on Cosmic Patrol operations, one that is borne of necessity give the realities of the situation out in the Deep Black. It introduces a new race, the Hakhaze, which is one of the new races detailed in Into the Cosmos’ Gazetteer. The Hakhaze are a humanoid symbiotic species consisting of a reptile with a fungoid outer shell, which like many species the Great Union has encountered, is extremely warlike. Others include the mysterious Ro-Men, who not only capture other intelligent species, they also make them wear helmets that both make them slaves and dissolve their skulls! The Gazetteer also discusses the uses and dangers of the Fractum Drive which powers all Great Union interstellar rockets, what might be out there in the galaxy, the exploration of the jungle world that is Neptune, the Cat People of Annora, the Great Union’s manufactory behind Mercury, and an update about the Automen on Venus. All in all, it is an eclectic mix, but each of these little essays is informative and adds interesting detail to the Cosmic Patrol setting. Many are of them are further supported by the Dossiers section, which include Hakhaze, Ro-Men, Neptunian Frog Men, escaped Robots, and more, all written up and ready to bring to a game.

Of the eight vessels described in Into the Cosmos, three are particularly suitable for use by the player characters in Cosmic Patrol. They include the three-man Patrol Cutter, the twenty-five man Patrol Cruiser, and the one-man Intel Rocketship, the latter introduced earlier in ‘When in Doubt, Doubt’. Deck plans are given for each, but given the genre, it seems disappointing that the decks are horizontal along the length of each ship, rather than organised deck by deck vertically down the ship. This also means that these rocketships land on their bellies rather than on their tails, which would seem more in keeping with the genre. Other ships described include an Eiger Empire Attack Saucer, an Uth Hive, a Pirate Rocketship, and a Ro-Men Spereship.

Rounding out Into the Cosmos is a collection of twenty-three missions. Each consists of a narrative introduction, setting details, the scenes, plus a listing of its Objectives, Clues, and Tags. They begin with ‘Vo’s Fractum Cat’ in which the crew of Patrol Ship must go to the rescue of vessel with malfunctioning experimental equipment and ‘The Great Green Blight’ in which they must find out why the wary Frogmen of Neptune have turned aggressive. Other Mission Briefs will find the crew making mail runs, surveying asteroids, investigating both Eiger and Uth activity, going after pirates, going to dinner, and more. The almost two dozen run the gamut of genre clichés, but this should not be held against them. After all, certain clichés are part of the genre, and anyway, it is what the players and their characters do with them in the course of play that matters.

Despite it being a little book, just one-hundred-and-thirty-eight pages long, Into the Cosmos could do with an index. Finding things can be difficult. Another issue is the cost—it is not an inexpensive book. Nevertheless, Into the Cosmos provides excellent support for any group’s Cosmic Patrol game. Not just the Mission Briefs, which provide immediate support, but cues and inspirations aplenty with the support material.

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The Lion After The Serpent

If you were wondering what had become of The Day After Ragnarok, the 2009 Savage Worlds setting created and written by Ken Hite and published by Atomic Overmind Press, then you are not alone. The award-winning post-WW2, post-apocalypse, post-Ragnarok campaign setting, which has since been adapted for use with Hero Games’ Hero Sixth Edition and more recently for use with Evil Hat Games’ Fate Core, has not received the support that it truly deserves. Ideally, that would be a Plot Point campaign, but in the meantime, the setting has been supported with a half dozen ‘One-Sheet’ adventures and three entries in the Serpent Scales: Fragments From The World After The Serpentfall series. To date, these have visited the rise of the Klan in Serpent Scales #1: The New Konfederacy; examined the STEN Gun in Serpent Scales #2: (Happiness is a) Sten Gun; and even gone ashore in Serpent Scales #3: Return to Monster Island. Now there is a fourth entry in the series, one which comes with a little bit of history of its own.

Available for Savage Worlds and Fate Core, Issue #4 in the Serpent Scales: Fragments From The World After The Serpentfall series is The Lion in Fimbulwinter: Sweden After the Serpentfall. It began life as a Ken Hite authored contribution to the Swedish gaming magazine FENIX for its ‘post-holocaust’ issue, and after all, there is no post-holocaust setting like The Day After Ragnarok. Atomic Overmind Press has taken Hite’s original article and developed it into this fourth entry in the Serpent Scales series. It describes the events in the July 1945 Serpent Fall as they fell upon Sweden, taking them up to the current situation in Sweden in 1948.

Of all the countries of Scandinavia, Sweden is the only one to survive nearly intact. To the west, Denmark and Norway took the brunt of the tsunami that flowed east and west in the wake of Jörmungandr’s atomic-fire induced plummet to earth. Sweden could not avoid the earthquakes or the torrential rain that followed, but despite hundreds of thousands that died, Sweden survived as a nation, although a politically unstable one. Placed east of the Serpent Curtain, Sweden is almost but not quite a client state of Moscow, which cannot be said of its neighbours – Norway and Denmark are both People’s Republics garrisoned by Soviet troops, whilst Stalin incorporated Finland into the USSR directly as the Karelo-Finnish SSR. At home, Sweden remains a monarchy although King Gustav VI Adolf or ‘Comrade G’ was forced to retreat from public life by a Communist government that has since been replaced by a left wing alliance that avoids making radical decisions that might break the government and force external intervention…

Meanwhile, the king’s son, Crown Prince Gustav Adolf, has decamped to the once-German island of Heligoland in the North Sea with much of the Swedish Navy and air force, and declared himself the Royal Governor of Heligoland. It has become a major staging post for ships of the British Royal Navy and for refugees getting out of Soviet occupied Germany – whatever their ‘former’ political allegiances. The British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, supports anti-Communist activities in Sweden, the country serving as the perfect jumping off point to get spies through the Serpent Curtain and back out again. This activity includes research into the oldest runic symbols in Europe; the very ones that the Ahnenerbe scholars are said to have used to summon the Midgard Serpent! Monsters are everywhere, just like the rest of the world, whether that be sinuous serpents newly returned to Sweden’s lakes or the trolls and even more fearsome troll wives that do the bidding of their Frost Giant masters.

Just ten pages long, The Lion in Fimbulwinter is a 2.42 Mb, black and white PDF. It not includes a succinctly written, but nevertheless rich description of a country that is rarely visited in gaming. This presents a fraught nation, desperately trying to rebuild following the Serpentfall whilst staving off the seemingly inevitable Soviet annexation. Although it maintains the high quality in terms of content – content that should spark ideas aplenty for the GM – seen in previous The Day After Ragnarok titles, barring a somewhat silly final scenario seed, what The Lion in Fimbulwinter really lacks is ‘the Top Five’ lists begun in The Day After Ragnarock – such as Top Five Places To Stomp Nazis and Top Five Secret Bases. That said, it is a shorter piece than other titles in the series.

What Serpent Scales #4: The Lion in Fimbulwinter – Sweden presents is the Berlin of the post-Ragnarok world. Which is a little odd given that Hite has already described the city of Tehran, as detailed in his Tehran – Nest of Spies, as being Berlin’s equivalent in The Day After Ragnarok setting, it being the closest non-Soviet capital with an accessible border to the Soviet Union. Perhaps the Berlin of the North of the post-Ragnarok world? If there is a thematic similarity, then the flavour and the tone of The Lion in Fimbulwinter are very different, not as exotic, much dryer, even starker, and colder than Tehran – Nest of Spies. 

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Curse of Chaosium IV

After a lacklustre 2011, Chaosium, Inc. surprised everyone by publishing not one, but two titles in 2012 for its flagship RPG, Call of Cthulhu. The first was the much lauded Cthulhu by Gaslight, marking the welcome return of the Mythos to the Victorian Era of the 1890s. The second was the surprise. Terror from the Skies: A Race to Save Humanity from a Dark Future presented an all new campaign for Call of Cthulhu, the first from Chaosium since Tatters of the King, published in 2006.  Like that highly regarded campaign, Terror from the Skies takes place during the RPG’s classic period of the 1920s and is primarily set in England, although events will take the investigators much further afield.

Like its forebears, Terror from the Skies is a world-spanning campaign, albeit one that is on a much smaller scale. It begins small, with a single scenario set in the South East of England where the investigators are to attend a wedding. If the villagers are to believed, the wedding and subsequent marriage will not be a happy one; but is this mere superstition or do the lack of weddings held at the local church lend credence to their claims? This is an engaging little affair with an array of detailed NPCs that is designed primarily to introduce the investigators to the NPC who will get them involved in the main part of the campaign. 

From Kent, the campaign moves onto the North-East where most of it is set. Lured by a letter from the NPC and by reports of vampire attacks in the Yorkshire town of Whitby, the player characters are asked to aid a friend who has been investigating certain mysteries of an outré nature. This being Whitby, the first thoughts upon the players’ minds should be Bram Stoker’s most famous creation, but thankfully the author avoids such clichés, the threat being more in keeping with the game. That said, there are some notable parallels between Dracula and the campaign’s true villains, which will slowly become apparent as the investigation takes the player characters first across the North Yorkshire Moors and then further north to the cities of Durham and Newcastle. Eventually enough will be hinted at to suggest to the investigators that various persons are co-operating with an intelligence to engineer a very dark threat.

For its antagonists Terror from the Skies chooses a foe ill-used outside of Delta Green – the insect-like, interstellar refugees known as the Shan. For the most part they are well used, their plot being woven around a very tight schedule in the summer of 1929. A major aspect of their role as protagonists is that once they become aware of the investigators’ interest in their plan, the Shan will come after them, not only looking into their activities, but at times, also moving directly against them. This is one of the campaign’s strengths, along with both the aforementioned tight schedule which will force the investigators to keep moving and the concept behind the campaign itself.

Although initially the campaign has a Purist feel, as it progresses, Terror From The Skies takes on an increasingly Pulpy feel. This is particularly evident where combat is involved, a subject that the author does not address directly, despite the fact that it being set mostly in England will influence the role and effect of combat in the campaign. In other words, the laws regarding combat and firearms in the United Kingdom are different, as is the selection of available weaponry, but none of this is addressed. All it would have required is a side box addressing the issue. It is also evident in certain sequences that possess not the structure of an investigative scenario, but a big puzzle box, one that is almost Dungeons & Dragons-like. Some of these sequences also suffer from a bloat of dice rolling at odds with the simplicity of the Call of Cthulhu mechanics.

If much of this sounds good in concept, then it is. There is the makings of a pulp action campaign in Terror from the Skies. The villains and their plans are interesting, and they are for the most part, reasonably well handled. Unfortunately, the execution does not so much leave much to be desired, as it does leave everything to be desired. The first hint at this comes when the campaign’s introduction wanders randomly into its prequel scenario. The second comes in the opaque nature of the link between this prequel and the bulk of the campaign. The third comes in elements and parts of the campaign being mentioned in one chapter without any accompanying explanation, the Keeper being at a loss until he finds said explanation, an NPC’s name, and so on, in the next chapter. All too quickly, reading Terror from the Skies becomes an exercise in frustration as not enough is explained in the text when it should be and this just gives it a discordant feel.

Cartographically, Terror from the Skies also presents the Keeper with nothing but consternation. Not by the quality of the maps included in the book, but by the absence of maps. In the course of the campaign, the investigators visit at least eight towns and villages, not in passing, but in the course of active investigation. There is not a single map of any one of these places in the book. The text does describe the routes that the investigators will take from one place to the next within these locations, which is essentially providing a narrative for Keeper and players alike, but a narrative without a reference. Without that reference it is almost as if the author is directing Keeper and players alike rather than allowing either the agency to run or play campaign as they see fit and move around within the campaign. Worse still, the investigators are required to visit numerous locations and undertake various actions at each. For example, the act of burglary is a frequently discussed option that the investigators can undertake, but again, not a single map has been provided of these locations where it is suggested as an option. 

Worse, the culmination of the campaign takes place on an airship, but no plans are provided of the airship in question. In the case of this airship, the events aboard which the author devotes the best part of two chapters to, there is not even a description of its deck plans. Or its crew – let alone their game stats.

It has to be asked, but why is this campaign missing so many of its important maps?

As mentioned, the campaign does not provide game stats for the crew of the airship. Sadly this is only an omission amongst many, for once past the introductory scenario, not one of the campaign’s many minor NPCs – NPCs that the investigators are expected to interact with, even fight – is given their set of game stats. There is a set of minimal stats for some cultists, plus advice to reuse them, but this not only leaves more effort on the part of the Keeper to undertake, it also depersonalises the NPCs. Many of the NPCs who are given stats and write-ups are overdone, sometimes ludicrously so when it comes to the Cthulhu Mythos.

The campaign does come with plenty of hand outs. With many of them, an effort has been made to make them look authentic and there is some artistry on show here. Unfortunately the newspaper articles will never look like newspaper articles because they are printed over a newspaper background rather than as newspaper articles, and the hand outs that attempt to look handwritten still look as they have been done onscreen because of the cursive typefaces employed. In addition, some of the hand outs are too dark to read clearly and many of the later hand outs amount to little more than printouts. As to the suggestion that some of them might have been written in an alien script, this falls flat unless there is some new mystery to Times New Roman.

Besides the missing maps and NPC stats, Terror from the Skies is also all too often missing the small details that matter – the details that add verisimilitude and the details that support elements within the campaign. For example, the investigators at one location might find a newspaper belonging to an NPC that he brought with him from his home country, but this newspaper is not named. It would be a simple matter to give the name of a newspaper and so add to the reality of the game. Similarly, the investigators are visiting another country and are presented with gifts – what are these gifts? In either instance the players will ask what their characters have found or been given. Not having this information ready for the Keeper the campaign dismisses the investigators’ actions.

In terms of layout, Terror from the Skies looks to be clean and tidy. Yet that is only upon a cursory glance, as it quickly apparent that physically there is no finesse to the book or its layout. This is only exacerbated by the editing, which completely fails to address any of the issues with the campaign – where the various elements of a chapter should go, where the explanations should go, the Call of Cthulhu format, inserting lists of the campaign’s clues and the parts of the plot that they link to, the small details that that enhance the campaign, and so on. All of which is in addition to spelling and format errors that litter the book.

The truth is that Terror from the Skies was never going to be a great campaign. It could have been, however, a solid campaign, one that was ready to play with relatively little preparation. It is even possible to imagine this as a starter campaign, though of course, it is set rather late in Call of Cthulhu’s Classic period of the 1920s for that. The accompanying truth is that Terror from the Skies was never going to be that solid a campaign. Not with these editors. Not with this layout artist. Not with Chaosium.

The terrible truth to Terror from the Skies is twofold. Terror from the Skies feels like an unfinished book and Terror from the Skies feels like a publisher’s first book. In this, Terror from the Skies is also a frustrating book. Frustrating because it leaves so much for the Keeper to do in preparing the campaign for play. Frustrating because in the hands of competent editors and developers, so many of its issues could have been addressed, if not to make it perfect, but to make it much, much better.

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Pulp Cthulhu

It should be remembered that for twenty years, the only way to play Lovecraftian investigative horror was Chaosium Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu. In 2002, Wizards of the Coast’s d20 Cthulhu

 offered another option, and in the last decade we have been offered PelgranePress’ clue orientated Trail of Cthulhu; Reality Deviant Publications’ more structured Shadows of Cthulhuusing the d20 System distilled True20; CthulhuTech, a combination of science-fiction and horror roleplaying from Wildfire LLC; Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s bureaucratic approach to fighting the Mythos with The Laundry; as well as Reality Blurs’ Realms of Cthulhu, which in being written for use with Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Savage Worlds, actually pre-empted the arrival of Pulp Cthulhu, a supplement that is yet to arrive for Call of Cthulhu. That supplement promises a new approach to playing Call of Cthulhu, one that is more action orientated, more cinematic, more adventurous… In the absence of that supplement, Realms of Cthulhu is quite possibly the pretender to its throne.

First published in 2003, Savage Worlds is a light, fast playing RPG that sets out to do two things – cinematic action and mass combat as well as handle roleplaying. In the past ten years, it has been used to power an array of settings and campaigns, the best known being Fifty Fathoms and Deadlands Reloaded, both also from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. For much of that time, Savage Worlds has been available in an Explorer Edition, a handy sized, inexpensive rulebook that provided the basics of the rules. The rules have since been republished in a new ThirdEdition, which saw some changes that do mean that Realms of Cthulhu is slightly incompatible with the new version of the rules, since Realms of Cthulhu was published in 2009. That said, the differences are slight.

The changes to Savage Worlds in order to make it one of Lovecraftian investigative horror start with character generation. The process in Savage Worlds involves assigning points to improve the die types for a character’s five traits and then more points to purchase skills, which are again measured by die type. Thus a skill of Shooting d8 is better than a Shooting of d6. In addition characters can have Edges and Hindrances – the equivalent of Advantages and Disadvantages in other RPGs – that set them apart from ordinary men and women. Apart from the addition of the skill, Knowledge (Mythos) – the equivalent of the Cthulhu Mythos skill in Call of Cthulhu, the major addition to character creation in Realms of Cthulhuis that of “Defining Interests.” In Savage Worlds a character usually speaks a number of languages equal to half of his Smarts die type, so three languages for Smarts d6 and so on, but in Realms of Cthulhu a character has a number of “Defining Interests,” hobbies, knowledges, crafts, and so on, again also equal to half of his Smarts die type. This factor also has to take a character’s languages as well, and for each Defining Interest, for example, Archaeology, City Knowledge (Boston), Electrical Repair, Oratory, and so on, he gains a bonus to his Common Knowledge rolls (this being the equivalent of a character’s Know roll in Call of Cthulhu). Now a character’s Defining Interests also encompass what languages that he knows, which does mean that a character has to choose between focusing on one or the other. That said, the addition of these Defining Interests takes into account the fact that Lovecraftian investigative horror is primarily about what you know, rather than what you can do. In contrast, Savage Worlds tends to be more about what you can do than what you know, which is the case with Call of Cthulhu.

The sample character is Henry Brinded, one of my signature characters that I have used several times over the last decade or so. Indeed, he will be appearing as one of the starting pre-generated investigators in the forthcoming Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion for Call of Cthulhu. Of Boston Brahmin stock, Henry Brinded is a former Classics scholar at Yale who served as an artillery officer in the Great War. He returned partially deaf and with an aversion to loud noises, and unable to withstand the stress of continuing his studies, used his inheritance to open a small, antiquarian bookshop in his native Boston. He enjoys painting and sailing where he used to enjoy hunting, and employs one member of staff, Mrs. Rutherford, to help source and restore rare books.

Henry Brinded

Agility d6 Smarts d8 Spirit d6 Strength d4 Vigor d6

Edges:Linguist, Noble, Scholar

Hindrances:Curious (Major), Hard of Hearing (Minor), Pacifist (Minor)

Skills:Boating d4, Guts d6, Investigation d4, Knowledge (Ancient Greek) d6, Knowledge (History) d8, Knowledge (Latin) d8, Notice d4, Persuasion d4, Shooting d4

Defining Interests:Archaeology, Book Restoration, Etiquette, Painting

Languages:Arabic, French, German, Hebrew

Pace 6

Parry: 4 Charisma+2 Toughness 5

Sanity 5 Corruption0

The second addition is the Sanity factor, which works much like Toughness. When inflicted physical damage exceeds a character’s Toughness, he can be “Shaken.” If the damage exceeds a character’s Toughness by a large amount, then he can be Wounded. When faced with a shocking incident or entity, a character will often be asked to make a Guts skill check. This is modified by the Terror or Fear strength of the situation or entity faced (Terror is actually explained on p.117 of Realms of Cthulhu, a fact that should be noted as it is not mentioned in the index and it is mentioned long before this). For example, encountering a Deep One forces a Guts skill check at a Terror penalty of –1. If the Guts skill check is failed, the mental damage inflicted on the frightened character is called Mental Anguish, which for the Deep One is “Spirit+d4” with the Deep One Spirit trait being d6. This means that both dice are rolled and result compared to the character’s Sanity. For every four points that the Mental Anguish roll exceeds his Sanity by, then the character suffers a point of Madness. A player character can suffer no more than four points of Madness before going insane. Each point of Madness inflicts a –1 penalty on a character’s Pace (movement) and all trait and skill rolls. This Madness can be addressed within the hour with immediate rest, reassurance, and the application of the Knowledge (Psychology) skill, success leading to the positive loss of points of Madness, or in time with recuperation. If driven insane though, a base Spirit roll is required by the character. Essentially, this roll is in effect made to determine how long the Mental Disorder suffered lasts for.

Although Realms of Cthulhu adds a number of new skills, edges, and hindrances, perhaps the most important addition is Knowledge (Mythos) – the equivalent of the Cthulhu Mythos skill in Call of Cthulhu. The treatment of knowledge of the Mythos in Realms of Cthulhu is perhaps where this version of Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying begins to diverge radically from the base line that is Call of Cthulhu. In Realms of Cthulhu, Knowledge (Mythos) is treated like any other skill, except that it is initially gained through certain circumstances during the play of the game, such as being sent insane for the time after encountering a Mythos entity or reading a Mythos Tome. Just as in Call of Cthulhu. Yet where in Call of Cthulhu an investigator receives “Cthulhu Mythos 05%,” in Realms of Cthulhu, he receives Knowledge (Mythos) d4. This does not sound like much, but when you consider that the base target for any skill roll in Savage Worlds

 is 4, then the character has a 1 in 4 chance of rolling that on his skill of Knowledge (Mythos) d4. This high degree of knowledge is further exacerbated because of how player characters make rolls in Savage Worlds. In the game, player characters are special and known as Wild Cards, and Wild Cards always roll an extra d6 – known as the “Wild Die” – and the highest die roll counts towards the total, then it is clear that even for a relatively minor encounter with the Mythos, an investigator can gain an awful lot of knowledge. This is further confirmed by the Realms of Cthulhu/Call of Cthulhu conversion guide, which lists a skill of d4 of being equal to 25% in Call of Cthulhu. That is a lot of Cthulhu Mythos…!

By reading further Mythos tomes or critically failing a Guts skill check as a result of an encounter with the Mythos, a character can gain further points of Knowledge (Mythos). Initially this will grant him a +1 bonus to any Knowledge (Mythos) check, but each time the bonus rises to +2, it changes the die type of the skill, from d4 to d6, to d8, and so on. Each rise in die type increases an investigator’s Corruption. Each point of Corruption decreases an investigator’s Sanity, further weakening his resolve against the Mythos. It is possible to increase an investigator’s Sanity, but it is difficult.

The given means of handling shock and horror in Savage Worlds has never been truly satisfying, and the Sanity mechanic in Realms of Cthulhu provides a more robust treatment of the subject. What the acquisition of the Knowledge (Mythos) skill demonstrates is the effect on Lovecraftian investigative horror from one system to another, from one ethos to another, from one style to another. The move from Call of Cthulhu to Savage Worlds is one of Purism to Pulp, of a binary yes/no realism to something a little more forgiving in terms of mechanics and player character survivability, and most of all, one of a granular mechanic and feel to one that is broader, but with a corresponding loss of detail. Which to be fair, is to be expected, given that Savage Worlds is a cinematic, Pulp genre, action orientated RPG. Yet the designer of Realms of Cthulhu gives the very means to counter this shift in tone and ethos.

Realms of Cthulhu gives the Keeper the tools to set the tone of his campaign, by setting its Physical and Mental play factors, either Gritty or Pulpy. The Pulpy option is essentially the Savage Worlds default, but the Gritty option gives a more Purist, harsher, and less survivable gaming experience. By setting the two play factors, a Keeper can access four different play styles, from the Physical Pulpy/Mental Pulpy of Heroic Horror with its high action adventure to the Physical Gritty/Mental Gritty of Dark Spiral, with its dangerous descent into madness and maiming when faced with the Mythos. Obviously, the first represents the Pulpy style of play, whilst the latter is Purist. Between two are the Slippery Slope (Physical Pulpy/Mental Gritty) and Dangerous Action (Physical Gritty/Mental Pulpy) styles. The first of these allows for investigators who can take a punch or two, but not the stress of encountering the Mythos, whilst the second is deadlier, but the Mythos has a less deleterious effect. These are only the base lines for the four campaign style, the Keeper being given a number of further options with which to tweak his campaign’s style.

The four styles are further discussed in the Keeper’s Section, primarily in the context of period – the 1890s, the 1920s, and the here and now – and the bond which brings the investigators together. Supporting this discussion is a quartet of Campaign Frameworks, one for each of the three eras and one that could be run in any era. The more original of the four lie at the extremes. The Heroic Horror framework is “Seekers of Lost Fortune,” in which the investigators must obtain and destroy dangerous artefacts in the 1920s; while the pleasing “The Frequency of Madness” is a Dark Spiral framework that can be set in any period and casts the investigators as incarcerated asylum inmates who have experience of the Mythos and escape to save not just mankind, but themselves too. Every character in this framework starts play with both the Knowledge (Mythos) skill and a mental disorder.

As expected for an RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror, Realms of Cthulhu includes the expected sections on magic and spells, tomes, and Mythos entities. Oddly the spells section includes those such as Armour, Bolt, Greater Healing, and Stun, all listed under Combat Spells and all taken from the Savage Worlds rules. Unless the style of game is extremely Pulpy, these are really out of place within Lovecraftian investigative horror, and even if the Keeper deems them appropriate, it is suggested that they are kept well away from player access.

Where Realms of Cthulhu is really useful for the Keeper is in the next set of tools it gives him. These are Mythos generators, which with a few rolls, a Keeper can create a Mythos Tale, a Mythos Creature, and a Mythos Tome. Or rather the broad outline, as the Keeper still has to flesh each of these out. For example, generating a Mythos Tome, which is detailed first in Realms of Cthulhu has the Keeper roll for its language, period of publication, Arcane Lore (essentially how easy it is to learn from it), and possible number of spells and type of spells – the Keeper will need to refer to the book’s chapter on magic for actual details of the tome’s spells. Beyond these basics, the Keeper will need to decide the book’s author, year of publication, title, and content. The Keeper will need to do the same when generating a Mythos Tale or Mythos Creature, the latter covering not just “Tainted” humans (as in my example), complete with “Dark Gifts,” but also Servitors and Independent Races, and who if at all, they serve. Pleasingly, with a few rolls and a bit of thought, a Keeper can switch back and forth between the three sets of tables using the results of each create a Tome, a Creature, and a Tale. 

The Lure of the Long Beasts

Hook: Caught up in Events

Lynchpin: Person

Location: Important Building/Landmark
Plot Type: Descension
Ally: Policeman
Plot Complication: Discovery
The investigators are on holiday in the county of Derbyshire. Following a tourist guide they decide to visit the world famous Blue John Caves near the town of Castleton, but get caught up in a disagreement between the locals and a visiting team of archaeologists from nearby Victoria University of Manchester, led by Professor Terence Chile Oakley. The professor is interested in the folklore and pre-Christian history of the area after reading a monograph entitled Secretis Druidum. The locals object to the professor’s interests and his plans to enact Druidic rites near the caves and the situation has developed into a stand-off between the two groups. The archaeologists have reported attacks in the night and possessions being stolen, and some of the students report suffering from headaches, but the local constable, Herbert Atteberry is at a loss as to what is going on.

Secretis Druidum: Trans Specubus veracis Populis Western Britanniam
Privately published in 1912, this monograph describes the folklore of the rural inhabitants of the British Isles, particularly around mountainous or hilly regions known for their network of caves. It includes several legends about enormous serpents that live underground and who worship one giant serpent, and how in the past the druids actually worshipped and sacrificed to both. The author lists several chants that he states that he was warned against uttering at particular cave mouths at certain times of the year. The author was last seen in the Derbyshire Peak District in England in 1914. The book is bound in oddly translucent leather. The only copy known to exist can be found in the anthropology section of the library of Victoria University of Manchester.
Author: Nicholas Checkley

Language: Latin

Year: c. 1912

Arcane Lore: +2

Spells: Claudens diu bestia (Elder Sign), Fascino lamina (Enchant Blade), Vocate ad diu bestia (Contact Chthonian), Longa ferae Domini invocabo (Contact Shudde M’ell)

Jack Royse(Seasoned)

Agility d8 Smarts d4 Spirit d4 Strength d8 Vigor d8

Edges:Brawny, Mighty Blow, Quick

Hindrances:Death Wish, Mean

Gifts:Immunity to Cold (Minor), Low Light Vision (Minor)

Skills: Climbing d8, Fighting d8, Guts d4, Intimidation d8, Knowledge (Mining) d6, Knowledge (Mythos) d6, Repair d4, Stealth d6

Pace 6

Parry: 6 Charisma-2 Toughness 7

Sanity 2 Corruption2

A native of Derbyshire, Jack Royse is a “Tainted” human who worships the long beasts below and follows their directives exactly. A miner by trade, under his masters’ influence he will do anything. Some would say that he has spent too much time in the caves below, but not to his face. He almost never seems to blink, but dislikes bright light and he seems unnaturally muscular.

In terms of actual Mythos Tales, Realms of Cthulhu is a mixed bag, consisting of four short two-page Tales and one long twelve-page one. The first two-page tale is “Fragments of Mu,” which is nothing more than an slightly extended encounter in purely Pulp vein, whilst “Paradise Lost” is a more pleasing Lovecraftian encounter with a classic feel, though despite what it says, it is set in the Arctic – no Eskimos in the Antarctic! “False Idols” feels more like a modern, grittier affair, but at two pages feels like it was shoehorned into place. The last of the quartet of shorts is the best, “Bayhaven Lights,” a still slight tale, but one with a weird vibe and a subtlety that is missing from the others. The Mythos Tales are rounded with “Mysteries of Drake Manor,” which describes the estate and inhabitants of Drake Manor, as well the mysteries that surround both before describing a few short tales that suggest how the set up can be used. Unfortunately, there is no subtlety to “Mysteries of Drake Manor” which overeggs both the mysteries and the Mythos content. If there is a real issue with these Mythos Tales, it is that apart from “Paradise Lost” all are set in Charleston, South Carolina. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, as Lovecraftian investigative horror only infrequently strays below the Mason–Dixon Line, and visiting a new city is always interesting. What is wrong with this choice is that the designer tells us nothing about Charleston whatsoever when a single page of information could have covered all three periods…

Physically, Realms of Cthulhu is a relatively thin if sturdy hardback. The book on the whole is well written and decently presented in full colour with some nice illustrations. Some of the content could have been better organised though, some terms and elements being mentioned far before they are actually explained, this not being helped by a sometimes unhelpful index.

Overall, Realms of Cthulhu is a likeable, if far from perfect product. One of the issues with Realms of Cthulhu is the lack of advice on investigator generation. This is necessary because creating and playing an investigator is very different to doing either in most other RPGs. There is advice, it is true, but it amounts to list of roles that a player could create rather than actual, useful advice on doing so. The most useful advice on investigator generation is placed some twenty pages away from the rules on actual character generation, all but an afterthought. Another issue is that it is Americentric when Lovecraftian investigative horror tends to be more Anglophile in outlook. Realms of Cthulhu does feel in places as if it is written solely with an American audience in mind.

Perhaps the biggest issue with Realms of Cthulhu is in its choice of rules system. This is not denigrate the Savage Worlds rules, as they offer solid mechanics that emulate a slightly Pulp style, cinematic style of play, and there is, of course, nothing wrong in that. The issue is more whether or not the Savage Worlds rules can handle Lovecraftian investigative horror, and arguably, they cannot. At least not without a degree of tweaking and adjustment to advance the rules to a grittier style of game, and with that tweaking and adjustment comes more rules and more complexity, both of which are at odds with the “Fast! Furious! and Fun!” the Savage Worlds rules. Even with said degree of tweaking and adjustment, Realms of Cthulhu is still not a wholly Purist RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror. There is still a little of the Pulp left, which is unsurprising given that it is written into the soul of the Savage Worlds rules.

Yet when Realms of Cthulhu reins in Savage Worlds back towards its natural inclination, the result does not feel as forced. In its natural state it can do “Pulp Cthulhu” and do it well, offering a means handle a more action orientated game that offers its player characters a degree of survivability and elasticity in their actions that the binary mechanics of Call of Cthulhulacks. The investigators are no longer ordinary men and women, but more special, more heroic. In addition, for the Savage Worlds GM, Realms of Cthulhu also grants access to the Cthulhu Mythos, its contents easily plugging into Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Weird Wars: Tour of Darkness and Weird Wars: Weird War II supplements, as well as the Savage Worldsversions of Modiphius Press’ Achtung! Cthulhu line. And of course, Realms of Cthulhu does give Savage Worlds a bona fide Sanity mechanic, something that it has lacked since its first edition.

In terms of support for the Keeper and the player, Realms of Cthulhu is underwhelming, this most obvious in the given Mythos Tales and the advice for the player. Where Realms of Cthulhu works is not just as a cinematic, action-orientated treatment of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but as a set of tools to create and run a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror in the Pulp mode.

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Brains, Bullets, & Sanity

Guns. Guns. Guns. They are a gamer’s best friend. When it comes to roleplaying in any historical period from the nineteenth century onwards, in the contemporary here and now, or some way into the future, one of the common questions a roleplayer will find himself asking is, “Can I have a gun?” followed by, “What is the coolest gun that I can have?” Never more so than in Call of Cthulhu, a game in which, if set in its classic period of the 1920s, has fewer limitations upon gun ownership and use than there are today. Of course, when it comes to Call of Cthulhu, guns are really only a sort of psychological crutch. Yes, they and the bullets that they fire will work against those insane enough to worship the creatures and entities that lie just beyond the true nature of reality, and it is possible that some of the lesser creatures that the player characters might encounter as part of their investigations, might be susceptible to a case or two of high velocity, hot leading poisoning, but not all. And certainly not the utterly alien, utterly incomprehensible “gods” that threaten to return to our world again.

Still, players do like their player characters to have their guns. Even if it is have one last bullet with which to apply an emergency trepanation so as to save their characters from madness. Which leaves the Keeper with a tiny headache – though not one caused by the emergency trepanation. Rather it is this. The Call of Cthulhu rulebook does not go into a great of depth when it comes to firearms. To be fair, it is not its focus, and when the game’s publisher has addressed the subject, it has all too often, been in a piecemeal fashion. Indeed, the only single supplement devoted to the use of firearms in Call of Cthulhu is Pagan Publishing’s The Weapons Compendium, and that has been out of print for almost two decades. Further, when firearms do appear in scenarios, supplements, and campaigns, they are often glossed over, mentioned by calibre and thus by damage type, rather than make or model. Now some Keepers will argue that such details do not matter. That firearms do not matter. Which is an admirable point of view, and one that could not be more wrong. Firearms do matter because they matter to the investigators. If they matter to the investigators, then the futility of their reliance upon them can be demonstrated in the game. They also matter because if detailed correctly and handled correctly, not only can this futility be demonstrated more readily, their presence can add verisimilitude to a game.

The answer to this omission for Call of Cthulhu comes courtesy of the first release from British publisher, Sixtystone Press Limited. Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s is written by, Hans-Christian Vortisch, who as a firearms expert has authored Cthulhu – Waffen-Handbuch, the only other firearms supplement available for Call of Cthulhu, but unfortunately only available in German, as well as GURPS High-Tech, GURPS Martial Arts: Fairbairn Close Combat Systems, and GURPS Tactical Shooting for Steve Jackson Games. It carries the subtitle, “the Complete guide to Bean-shooters, choppers, gats, heaters, mohsakas, pieces, rods and roscoes” and describes and gives game statistics for some twenty-five handguns, nine rifles, eight shotguns, two submachine guns, two machine guns, and their variants, as well as explosives, flamethrowers, and grenades. It contains not just these weapons, but also expanded rules for their use, expanded background that examines how to obtain them and the legal aspects of doing so, and in purely game terms, suggests the guns that not only each Occupation would typically wield, but also those that cultists might arms themselves with, continent by continent.

It is specifically written for use with Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition, and makes use of the 1920s Investigator’s Companion, the 1990s Handbook, and both the Keeper’s Companion and Keeper’s Companion 2 as well as various other supplements and sourcebooks. That said, this book is compatible with any version of Call of Cthulhu and with any Basic Role Play driven RPG.

Before I continue with the review, it should be pointed out that my name is listed in the credits. My contribution to the book was as part of a Peer Review group that read and reviewed each part of the book as it was written. That said, my influence over and input into this volume bar working through my Call of Cthulhu library in the name of research is minimal, enough such that I am comfortable in reviewing it.

Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s comes as a one-hundred-and-thirty-two page, 19.06 Mb PDF done in black and white with a colour cover. Chris Huth’s cover feels a little too cartoon-like, but it nevertheless captures the desperate flavour and feel of a Call of Cthulhu shoot out. Inside, the book is cleanly laid out and suitably illustrated with a range of photographs and period adverts. If there is an issue with the writing, it is that it is a little stilted in places, but to be fair, the author’s English is infinitely superior to either my Danish or my German. Nevertheless, the rules write-ups for each weapon and each variant are very clear and easy to read, and avoid any problems that could come with listing one similar firearm after another. A nice touch is that the weapons listed on the contents page are linked directly to their actual entries, so the reader can go straight to them with a simple click.

Every gun is presented in a standard format. Accompanied by an illustration and appropriate quote, each firearm is given a full write-up that covers everything from its history and list of users to its dimensions and suitability as an investigator’s weapon of choice. In addition, a simple guide to using the gun is given along with a discussion of the major variants and a list of films in which it can be seen being used. Each firearm and variant is accorded one stat. A line below this gives the weapon’s appropriate Skill, Base Chance, Damage, Base Range, Rate of Fire, Capacity, Hit Points, and Malfunction. As mentioned above, these lines are very easy to read, even when there are multiple variants, such as the seventeen given for the Mauser Gewehr 98 or the eighteen for the Mauser C96.

As to the guns themselves, the entries include the familiar, from the Colt Government (M1911) and Mauser C96 to the Colt M1918 BAR and Holland & Holland Royal Double (the so-called “elephant gun”) via the Enfield SMLE Mk III and the Auto-Ordnance Model 1921 Thompson. They also include the less familiar Colt Vest Pocket, Nambu Shiki, Remington MK III, Riverside Arms Model 315, and Bergmann M.P.18,I. Call of Cthulhu player favourites are also listed, for example, the Webley-Fosbery Automatic revolver also so beloved of fans of The Maltese Falcon, whilst other more obscure entries, such as the Lebman Machine Pistol, a fully automatic version of the Colt Government (M1911) deserve to become a player favourite.

The mix of firearms listed means that a Keeper should be able to easily arm the antagonists in his scenario wherever they happen to be encountered, whether that be Germany or Canada. This is intentional, not just in terms of actual global geography, but also in terms of Call of Cthulhu’s geography. The USA figures strongly here, since most of the scenarios for the game are set there, but Call of Cthulhu also happens to take the investigators to the United Kingdom, Australia, India, China, Africa, and numerous points elsewhere. In this way, it also supports the various points of call that the typical Call of Cthulhu campaign, such as the Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep, takes its investigators to. Besides the actual guns themselves, this aspect of the supplement is expanded upon with a lengthy section devoted to firearms and the law, detailing weapons permits and how to obtain a gun in various countries, the pitfalls of travelling with a gun, the exchange rates for various currencies in 1925, as well as actually giving the addresses of various major gun dealers from San Francisco to Shanghai and all points in between – in both directions! What this brings to the fore is the fact that buying and obtaining a firearm can actually be very simple or quite difficult, depending upon the desired firearm.

Dotted around all of the weapon entries are separate sections that detail new skills like Craft (Gunsmith) and Demolitions, describe the National Rifle Association in the 1920s – which it turns out, was a very handy place to learn Martial Arts (!), body armour, weapon lights, sound suppressors, and more. Besides all of the background detail, the Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s addresses the rules for their use in Call of Cthulhu. Primarily these are with a series of optional rules that cover skill competencies, concealment, quick draw, called shots, and automatic fire, as well as rules for shooting under various environmental conditions. All in cases, these rules are clear and simple, and supported with examples.

First though, the author addresses the confusing, frightening, and often deadly nature of gunfights. There are some radical suggestions here, most notably the rules for an investigator being surprised when fired upon from ambush, the likelihood that an investigator will simply fire as many shots as possible in the confusion of a gunfight, and imposing Sanity checks upon an investigator when he shoots someone. These are not unreasonable suggestions. After all, they add to the realism of the game, divorcing it from the concept of the Hollywood shootout, and they add another element of horror to the game.

So far, the Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s has been useful for both player and Keeper, but the Keeper also receives a section all of his very own. This addresses how guns can be brought to bear on the Mythos and their effects on its creatures and entities, which to be honest, can be best summed up as “woeful.” It suggests that some Mythos creatures should be able to dodge, just as the investigators can, and that any kind of aimed shooting at any Mythos entity, should involve a Sanity check. That is, if the investigator has not made one already. It also looks at how other types of ammunition might affect these beings and how certain types of magic might be applied to firearms. This option though, is really for a more Pulp style game.

Rounding out the supplement is a full set of tables that list every weapon and variant in the game. These are followed by summaries of its new rules and a new investigator sheet specifically designed for use in combat. These also come separately when the PDF version of the book is purchased.

It should be noted that although the Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s is written with Call of Cthulhu in mind, when divorced of the mechanics, the supplement’s descriptive and background detail should be useful for any RPG set in the period. This of course, includes other games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, such as Realms of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, or Cthulhu Hero. Perhaps, there is a possibility in there being a version of this supplement for each of these rules?

A perennial problem when it comes to running Call of Cthulhu is how exactly the rules for firearms work. Not that they do not work, but rather that players disagree how they should work. Much of it born of the fact that they have experience themselves with guns, but that is not necessarily the experience of their investigators. Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s addresses this problem, adding realism and detail in how Call of Cthulhu is played when it comes to guns and in the process adding flavour too. It does so in an immensely readable and informative fashion, and its contents are not only a ready resource for Call of Cthulhu players and Keepers alike, they are also useful for Call of Cthulhu writers and editors too. Whilst not every Keeper’s Call of Cthulhu campaign necessarily focuses on this aspect of the game, without a doubt, Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s is the definitive sourcebook when it comes to classic Call of Cthulhu and firearms.

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Tales of the Star Guard

In many reviews an RPG’s designer rarely gets a mention, and even if when he does, it invariably comes a long way into the review and even then not by name. His contribution usually gets mentioned in passing or obliquely, but for this review I am going to mention a name. Matt Heerdt. It is not a name that I have encountered before, though it has to be said that I rarely check those details, and to be honest, that is unlikely to change. Nevertheless, that name is Matt Heerdt. His design for Cosmic Patrol, the latest RPG from Catalyst GameLabs of which he is also the author, captures its genre to perfection with just seventeen words and one image. Done in a simple two tone design, the front cover looks exactly the manual that every good Cosmic Patrol cadet should have in his locker, whilst the back cover looks exactly like a recruiting poster for the Cosmic Patrol. It is also beautifully simple.

Anyway, Cosmic Patrol, of which Matt Heerdt is also the author. Thirty years ago in the Pre-Cosmic Era, the Earth was hit by the fragments of a comet that upon impact disgorged a horde of alien “lizardmen” known as the “Uth.” It took a united effort to wipe out the rampaging raiders who in their wake left not only a united Earth, but also a cache of advanced, disparate, but stolen technology. In order to both study this and protect the Earth from further cosmic threats, the united world government forms scientific space program known as the “Cosmic Patrol.” Within a decade, Cosmic Patrol expeditions to Mars and Venus discover humans on both worlds; within two decades, the governments of Earth, Mars, and Venus would agree to form a single organisation known as the Great Union; and within three decades, Cosmic Patrol rocketships, equipped with the revolutionary “Fractum Drive” would not only explore the outer reaches of our Solar System, but also far out into the cosmos itself, quickly discovering an on-going intergalactic war whose sides it cannot quite yet determine.

This is the setting for Cosmic Patrol, a story-telling RPG of “Rockets and Rayguns!” set in a retro future based on the Golden Age of science fiction. Inspired by the covers of classic science fiction pulp magazines, the works of E.E. “Doc” Smith, Harry Harrison, Robert Heinlein, and Philip Francis Nolan, and classic science fiction radio series like X Minus One and Dimension X, Cosmic Patrol with its mantra of “Rockets • Rayguns • Robots” is not the Buck Rogers RPG, but it could be. Nor is it the Flash Gordon RPG or the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet RPG, but again, it could be. As the Grand Union’s first and last line of defence against a dangerous galaxy, the players take the roles of Patrolmen of the Cosmic Patrol crewing rocketships that set out to explore the galaxy, investigating its strange phenomena, and responding to emergencies as necessary. They could be cocky, stalwart heroes from Earth; Red Amazon warriors from Mars armed with their infamous red steel axes; or high thinking Venusian scientists, but whatever their origins, they are not only members of the Grand Union, but as members of the Cosmic Patrol, they are its first line of defence against the universe.

Cosmic Patrol is played in a series of Mission Briefs, each beamed to the characters’ rocketship from Cosmic Patrol headquarters. It might be that a ship has gone missing in the asteroid belt or that a survey team is under attack on the surface of Venus, but in game terms each Misssion Brief consists of a setting and one or more scenes that present the patrolmen with a series of enemies and obstacles. Each scene is further down into a number of turns, the number of turns depending upon the number of players. This is because each player will undertake the role of the Lead Narrator once during a scene. As Lead Narrator, a player not serves as the GM and presents the NPCs and environment just as you would expect in most RPGs, he also ensures that each of the characters has a chance to act in the turn. In serving as the Lead Narrator, a player does not ignore his own Patrolman, but allows him to act, though he always goes last in a turn. This completes the turn and narration passes to the next player, who then becomes the Lead Narrator and sets the scene for the new turn.

Narration can be taken from events in previous Turns, but also from “cues,” little suggestions and descriptions that the Lead Narrator can take inspiration from. Cues are given for Mission Briefs as well as Patrolmen and NPCs of all stripes. Narration can also to an extent be co-operative in that a player can turn to his fellows if he is bereft of inspiration and ask for advice. If a player wants to grab the narration then he can spend a Plot Point, which can also be expended by a player to modify dice rolls – either way, regain health points, and of course, to add a plot twist! The role of Lead Narrator also has its own pool of Plot Points, which passes from player to player as the role does. A Lead Narrator can only spend Plot Points to aid the NPCs and add plot twists, but not to impede the Patrolmen. Players earn their Plot Points through good narration, whilst the Lead Narrator earns one whenever a player expends one.

Player character actions that require dice come in two types. A Challenge handles actions against an inanimate object, while a Test is against another person, be it another player character or an NPC. To undertake a Test or Challenge a character adds the results of a twelve-sided die, an appropriate attribute die, plus modifiers to beat a target roll determined by a twenty-sided die. The modifiers are set by the Lead Narrator. For example, “in a blizzard” (-1), “Experienced” (+1), “the right tools” (+1), “already performed a scan” (+1), and so on, which with the character below having to perform emergency field surgery on an important NPC, might give the result of D12 + Medicine D10 + modifiers of +2 against the Lead Narrator’s roll of a D20. The end result of 1 (D12) + 6 (D10) +2 versus 4 (D20) means that the character has succeeded.

Character creation involves assigning various dice types to four attributes – Brawn, Brains, Charisma, and Combat; a Special Die or a D10 to something that the character is particularly good at; and determining his Luck. The latter is not a Die type, but a number between one and twelve, which when rolled on any die during any test or challenge means that a character always succeeds. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of character generation in Cosmic Patrol is the creation of a Patrolman’s Cues, and Disposition. The first are prompts from which a player can draw inspiration when it comes to his narration, whilst the latter more describe his manner. “Doc” Mulligan only has thirteen Cues, leaving room for a player or Lead Narrator to add more. This Patrolman also has Tags, essentially descriptors that give the Lead Narrator the gist of the character were he to be used as an NPC.

REGINALD MULLIGAN/ROCKETSHIP DOCTOR
VITAL FACTORS
Name: Reginald “Doc” Mulligan Age: 29
Homeworld: Earth Rank: Doctor
Tags: > Earthman > Friendly > Curmudgeon
> Brilliant > Medicine > Manners > Scottish
Brawn: D6 Brains: D8 Charisma: D10 Combat: D8
Medicine D10 (SPECIAL) Luck: 11
Armour: 17
Health: 3/3/3/2/1
Equipment: antique Webley Revolver, Install MK. VII anatomical scanner, classic doctor’s black bag, and bottle of 13 year old single malt
Cues: Och no! I am just a country doctor; Quiet! I’m trying to think!; This thing isn’t even a sasanach – I need time to analyse it; I’ll drink to that; Yes Ma’am; There are things that an Autosurgeon will not repair; This might not be a single malt, but she’ll do; My word as a gentleman; Captain, you just can’t blow it to bits; It’s a man’s place to grumble – it proves he’s alive; As my old aunt Jenny would say…; By Jupiter’s Trojans!
Disposition: Trustworthy, Ever the Gentleman, Exasperated at the lack of scientific training in the Patrol, Cautious

The setting for Cosmic Patrol is sketched in broad detail from the inner most worlds of the Solar System to the Outer Planets and beyond into the Deep Black with its Coalsack Dead Zone, some twenty astrons in diameter; the Eiger Empire with its army of triple-eyed clones; and the rumoured meddling of the cosmic beings that the Patrol has named the Metatherions. Whilst there are mysteries and intrigues galore to be placed by the Lead Narrator and unravelled by the player Patrolmen, there is still room aplenty for those and more within the Solar System itself. To support the setting, the Lead Narrator is given an array of pre-generated characters, some of whom can be used as player characters, the rest being a set of entertaining NPCs that should keep a game going for a while. An octet of Mission Briefings of increasing difficulty is certainly more than enough to get a game and thus a season of Cosmic Patrol going. Rounding out the book is a good, though unexplored, bibliography of suggested reading and viewing.

Perhaps if Cosmic Patrol as a game has a weakness, it is that the advice for the GM or Lead Narrator is underwritten. Which in what has leanings towards being a storytelling game, does seem odd. Yet whilst those leanings are present, this is not an RPG that focuses like so many storytelling RPGs on handing the players narration rights in order to tell a particular type of story. Nor should that be taken as a criticism of that type of game. Rather, Cosmic Patrol is all about a lightness of touch that encourages the players to work together to tell of adventures of “derring do” against a backdrop of Golden Age Science Fiction. It does include suggestions as to how it could be run using a single Lead Narrator, but to be fair, the narration duties in Cosmic Patrol are far from onerous, especially given how those duties are about everyone taking responsibility for telling a good story.

As has already been pointed out, physically, Cosmic Patrol is well done. The book is cleanly laid out and the artwork thoroughly excellent. The lack of an index is irksome.

Cosmic Patrol has three paragraphs devoted to the Theremin. That is enough for me to recommend this RPG. The fact that this game made me want to read some of the fiction suggested in the bibliography is also indicative of how much I like Cosmic Patrol, despite the fact that the book I re-read after some thirty years was Robert Heinlein’s Space Cadet, which is not in the bibliography. Having re-read it, I would suggest that it should be. In truth, I have wanted a good Golden Age Science Fiction RPG for a long time. Cosmic Patrol is not that RPG – it is better. Rather Cosmic Patrol captures its genre of Golden Age Science Fiction to not just perfection; it does so with charm and gusto.

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