Apathy Blogs

Becoming a patron of the Open Design Project The Red Eye of Azathoth has rekindled my interest in Call of Cthulhu. This led me to poke around at Yog-Sothoth, the best source for news and information about all things Lovecraftian. Eventually I noticed a new trilogy of modules called Curse of the Yellow Sign. It is written by fantastic writer John Wick. I’m most familiar with his work from my days playing Legend of the Five Rings, but after reading this module I’m inclined to hunt for more.

First let me talk about Call of Cthulhu. This RPG has been around for as long as I have been gaming. The game is based upon the works of H. P. Lovecraft and other authors that expanded upon his ideas. One overriding theme to Lovecraft’s work is that there are things in the universe that the human mind cannot comprehend. There are terrible beings who barely even notice humanity, even when they are incidentally destroying or upsetting millions of lives. Against this backdrop characters are often expected to investigate mysterious occurrences, ancient ruins, and bizarre dimensions. Since exploring the unknown is a common theme the game is often set in the 1920’s and 30’s, the era in which Lovecraft wrote. In a time before satellite maps of every continent there were still places in the world to explore. There was room for massive pyramids in the unexplored Antarctic or complex hidden cave systems in the mountains around Los Angeles.

Call of Cthulhu is currently in its 6th edition, but the core rules really haven’t changed much over the years. The system is primarily skill based, with a simple advancement scheme where characters improve the skills they’ve used during a scenario. Unlike most role-playing games, more pages are spent dealing with a characters mental health than to combat. As characters learn more about the horrible things that lurk at the fringes of reality, they slowly drift toward madness. Role-playing insanity is one of the highlights of playing in a Call of Cthulhu game. More often a character’s career will end in the asylum than the graveyard. I have always felt this made the game best suited for one-shots, scenarios that are played out in one or two sessions. I’ve heard of people having longer campaigns, but I have never seen one.

Curse of the Yellow Sign – Act 1: Digging for a Dead God is designed to be played in a single evening as a standalone scenario. This might seem a little odd for part one of a trilogy, but the series is related by theme more than specific characters. The scenario comes with six pre-generated characters and it really should not be played without them. Unlike some adventures where premade characters are merely a convenience to get a game started quickly, much of the module’s story is built around the characters. The tension comes from the motivations and relationships that come with the characters. Many of the terrifying acts will be performed by the PCs against each other. Did I mention the player’s will be taking on the roles of Nazis?

The setting really starts quite simply. The group is a Nazi expedition to Africa whose goal is to secretly gather diamonds from a mine in the jungle before the British become aware of their presence in the area. A door with a gold symbol is uncovered by the workers, and when it is opened they learn a terrible secret. From there it is up to the players (with careful nudges from the GM) to do what they can to survive, and perhaps escape with some of the gold.

The scenario is definitely a sandbox. Probably half the module is advice on being a GM for a horror game. I should also emphasize the horror nature of the story. Unlike many Call of Cthulhu modules, there isn’t much of a mystery to discover. The characters may learn some horrible truths, but that isn’t the point. The point is to horrify your players and get them to be terrible to each other. Play on the player’s suspicions of one another; making just one character believe that another is betraying them is enough to spark everything into action. Whether they survive the night isn’t really as important as letting them have good interactions with each other.

As an inexpensive module this one is well worth picking up. If you’ve never played Call of Cthulhu this is a great way to try it out in a single evening. Just reading it made me want to run it. I just need to find six of my friends that I want subject unspeakable things to. Actually, what I really want is for John Wick to come over and run this scenario for myself and friends. I don’t think I can do it justice, but I’ll try.

Apathy Rating: 4/5.

Tags: 4, cthulhu, rpg

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.