THE STARS ARE RIGHT is a board game produced by Steve Jackson Games. Inspired by the Lovecraft mythos, the object of the game is to “summon” ten points worth of servitors and gods before your opponent.

After playing through the game multiple times, I feel that in order to get a sense for what the game is about, you really need to play through it twice. To set the game up, you place the cardboard stars in rows of five by five, for a total of twenty-five. Each player gets five cards to start; I highly recommend giving each player a Turn Sequence card to help keep the movements straight. On the card there are a series of symbols that are used at different points in the Turn Sequence. There are two types of symbols, primarily. The directional symbols allow you to change the way the board is arranged; the pieces are double-sided so there’s a lot of different variations on how the pieces are set up.

On Saturday, October 17th, FlamesRising.com was on hand to celebrate the launch of LITTLE FEARS during Madison Games Day 2. We had a great turn out and several people were on hand to play games and take lots of pictures. There are quite a few floating around; you can see a number of photos through the Madison Games Day Yahoo! Group.

To celebrate the birthday of LITTLE FEARS: NIGHTMARE EDITION, there were two really awesome cakes on hand.

This new collection of horror scenarios for the Call of Cthulhu role playing game features five tales of horror and the weird, set within the green and pleasant land of England. Each scenario focuses upon a different time period, from the streets of Victorian London to the far future when the End is almost nigh.

Although each scenario can be played as part of an existing campaign, they also come with a set of pre-generated player characters, allowing all to be played and run with the minimum of effort.

Cthulhu Britannica is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Witchfinder, an adventure for Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition, is designed for a large group to explore some Nazi evil-doings. Stay with me as this is my first true LARP review, so my format may be a little different. This adventure is written for roughly thirty players; however, the writers do make concessions for larger or smaller groups. The PDF comes in several formats. For the purposes of this review, I worked from the grayscale option.

Witchfinder’s layout is really cool, even when toned down. Each page looks burnt and aged around the edges. For the pages of props (Morse Code transcripts), this style will look nice for players. The character sheet handouts also have this border, but are also inset with key information required for the game. The characters’ histories can be folded back or cut off after the information is gleaned. Also, icons for the various (there are quite a few) factions in the game highlight each character insert.

Imagine being free. Free from everything that defines you, that makes you easily recognizable as who you are. Inside you’ll find Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers alongside a knight of the Round Table. The stock market will crash in a whole new, terrifying way. You’ll follow along as heroes go head-to-head with eldritch horrors from Lovecraft’s universe. From Greek legends to Captain Nemo, from gangsters to brokers; from prisons to palaces, dead moons to South American jungles… No one is safe; nowhere is safe. This is a Mythos collection unlike any other. This is Lovecraft in many colors, many guises.

Cthulhu Unbound vol. 2 is available at Amazon.com.

The Introduction dives straight in to the basic premise, that ancient and insane deities exist and are still trying to invade Earth and that someone has to stop them, whatever the cost to life and sanity. It then moves on to the burning question: there’s already a Call of Cthulhu RPG dealing with just that, so why a new game? The answer lies in the Gumshoe ruleset, developed by Pelgrane Press for the purpose of running games based around investigation and discovery, and built so that any adventure depending on certain clues being found will have those clues found! It’s designed for people – Keepers and players alike – who want to concentrate on figuring out what the clues mean, rather than having to wonder if they actually have all the clues. This game also aims to enable two styles of play – the Purist style of intellectual analysis which enjoys watching the horror unfold knowing that it will end in madness; and the Pulp style which allows for a more physical approach, value the actual struggle against evil… and pays a bit more regard to character survival. The best games mix a bit of both – certainly Lovecraft’s writing did! – but as parts of the rules favour one or the other style, they are marked so players can choose the bias they prefer, if any.

Recently, we had the chance to sit down with industry veteran Kenneth Hite, who is a horror game designer, author and columnist. You may have read some of Ken Hite’s columns through Weird Tales or Out of the Box at Indie Press Revolution. In this interview, we talk a little bit about the Origins-award winning title Tour de Lovecraft and the recent release of The Day After Ragnarok, horror as a genre versus mood, the Windy City, his upcoming projects and much, much more!

“The Malleus Monstrorum: Creatures, Gods & Forbidden Knowledge” is a supplement for the Call of Cthulhu RPG by Chaosium Inc. The book includes entries on all of the creatures described in the works of H.P. Lovecraft as well as other authors who dabbled in the Cthulhu Mythos, such as Ramsey Campbell and Clark Ashton Smith. Also included are some of the critters created specifically for CoC adventures and supplements.

Overall the Monstrorum is an excellent book, not only for CoC players, but for any fan of Lovecraft or the Mythos. It is a great source of adventure ideas just in reading the creature descriptions and story excerpts. Fans of the source material will enjoy having so many bizarre creatures in one volume, while those new to the Mythos will find themselves looking up the source material to learn more about the Elder Gods and their servants.

Review by Michael Erb

In Jaws, Roy Scheider’s character tells us that “we’re gonna need a bigger boat.” That is
the chief message underlying CthulhuTech. We’ll explore the meaning of this later on. The Cthulhu mythos has seen some amazing variations since it’s conception nearly thirty years ago. The core rules evolved through six editions, not including solid side ventures like Delta Green. One of the hallmarks of these games is the sheer horror that comes when facing something you, well, can’t really beat. Chuck your stick of dynamite, hope you blow it up before you blow your sanity roll, and get the heck out of Dodge. I’ve always felt that these games were the Anti-Dungeons and Dragons based simply on the bleak outlook of the mythos and the mindset of the players.

Review by Todd Cash

Adamant Entertainment is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with Chaosium Inc. to produce supplements and adventures for the CALL OF CTHULHU roleplaying game.

“Call of Cthulhu has long been a touchstone in my personal gaming history,” said Gareth-Michael Skarka, owner and director of Adamant Entertainment. “It was one of the first games that I played, and I continue to come back to it through the years, so I’m incredibly excited to be able to add Adamant’s voice to the Call.”

Adamant will be releasing two new settings for the game: THIS SCEPTER’D ISLE, which brings the horrors of the Mythos to Elizabethan England; and SHADOWS OF THE RED HAND, a full treatment of 1920s gangland Chicago. Award-winning game designer and mythos author Ken Hite will be developing Adamant’s line of CALL OF CTHULHU products, which should be released in late 2009 and early 2010.

Imagine being free. Free from everything that defines you, that makes you easily recognizable as who you are. Welcome to a place where bleak noir cityscapes share a Technicolor sky with combat fighters, where you can find gunslingers from the Old West and a lost chapter from a literary classic, all with something in common: Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. This is a place where the Crawling Chaos has to solve his own murder and the Old Ones come up against the Gods of Las Vegas, a place where the new player in London’s underground isn’t human and masked heroes go toe-to-tentacle with eldritch horrors. This is a Mythos collection unlike any other. This is Lovecraft in many colors, many guises. This is Cthulhu–Unbound!

Pre-Order your copy of Cthulhu Unbound today at Amazon.com.

Fat Dragon Games is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with Chaosium to create 3D gaming terrain sets for the Call of Cthulhu role playing game. These cardstock terrain sets will feature some of the best known locations of the Cthulhu mythos, complete with gaming stats using the Basic Roleplaying system.

“It is an incredible privilege to bring these iconic settings to life for Call of Cthulhu fans,” said Tom Tullis, owner and lead designer of Fat Dragon Games. “Call of Cthulhu is one of my all time favorite RPGs, and I look forward to working with the legendary creative minds at Chaosium on these model sets.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing Call of Cthulhu terrain from our friends at Fat Dragon Games. I’ve always wanted to own a little piece of Innsmouth. Now I can!” said Dustin Wright of Chaosium Inc.

Once in a while a movie comes along so epic, so terrifying, that its review requires two authors. Call of Cthulhu (2005) is just such a movie. Produced by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, this modern silent film treatment of the classic Lovecraft tale is remarkably effective: creepy but not gory, atmospheric but well-paced. The film is in black and white “Mythoscope,” meaning it’s artificially aged so as to seem vintage, and the soundtrack may be played in “Mythophone”, so that the music seems aged to match the film. Bill and Tracy offer their views below; Bill is a longtime Lovecraft aficionado, while Tracy prefers monsters of the Universal or Japanese vintage.

“Midnight Harvest” (OWC4003) is the second of three Call of Cthulhu adventures currently available from Super Genius Games. While “The Doom From Below” suggested ways to tie the other two adventures to it, this adventure does not. In this modern-day adventure designed for four to eight investigators, players are introduced to the town of Five Lanterns, Rhode Island (suggestions for running the adventure in either the 1890s or 1920s strengthen the book’s introduction) as it celebrates its annual Halloween bash. Of course, this is a CoC adventure so expect cultists, mad dreams, and more from the Things Man Is Not Meant To Know.

I like to start out with the book’s artwork and layout. The book’s cover art by Zak Plucinski depicts a group of trick-or-treaters going on their merry way while a dread skeletal figure looms just beyond their reach.

Review by Todd Cash

Age of Cthulhu fans, here is your chance to play Death in Luxor using Trail of Cthulhu! Death in Luxor is the exciting new Call of Cthulhu adventure from Goodman Games, officially licensed to use the BRP rules from Chaosium. This conversion document allows you to use the Trail of Cthulhu rules from Pelgrane Press […]

Goodman Games has a new Age of Cthulhu series, which starts with Death in Luxor. Set in 1924, this adventure centers around a group of investigators as they explore a murder/suicide and the events that could have provided the catalyst for the violence. This adventure comes in at exactly fifty pages (including cover art) and, due to its structure, is a hefty read.

The author, Harley Stroh, also directed the game’s art, which is one of its strongest features. The cover art provided by Eddie Sharam depicts the adventure’s more Sanity-blowing moments and is, quite simply, one of the better cover pieces I’ve seen in ages.

Review by Todd Cash

Arcanum Imperii is a Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition script set in ancient Rome designed for a dozen or more players that includes introduction, timeline, prop, and costume information and character stats and bios for more than 30 characters. This download comes with three different variants of the game script — color, black-and-white, and background-free — and each of these comes in low-resolution screen-friendly and high-resolution printer-friendly versions.

Arcanum Imperii is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

I was so excited to learn that an RPG treatment of the sanity-blasting horror of H. P. Lovecraft had been made available using the True 20 rules that I went online and bought a copy within days of the discovery. Shadows of Cthulhu, designed by Russell Brown and published by Reality Deviant Publications, is a great way to introduce D&D gamers to a taste of something different without forcing them to learn an entirely new game system. In that vein its important top note that Shadows is not a complete game in itself: a copy of the Green Ronin Publishing’s True 20 Revised Rules will be required in order to play Shadows of Cthulhu.

In the age of the pharaohs, a great and unfathomable evil rose from the murky depths to cast its gibbous shadow over ancient Egypt. At the cost of his empire, Ramesses III imprisoned the horror beneath the sands of Luxor, where it has slumbered ever since.

In 1924, a team of visiting archeologists unearthed the last remaining testament of that ancient mystery, only to unleash a terror from out of time. Now death stalks the dusty streets of Luxor and a new age of horror is at hand. Can your investigators succeed where the mightiest of pharaohs have failed? Or will they fall victim to Luxor’s secret past?

Death in Luxor is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Goodman Games’ first Age of Cthulhu adventure, Death in Luxor, is at the printer now.

While we all await its arrival, Goodman Games has posted previews to help you explore the mysteries of Luxor, starting with the mysterious Old Persian (pdf preview).