The Doom from Below is a stand-alone (ish) Call of Cthulhu scenario from Super Genius Games. It can be, with minimum effort, tied directly to the events in their previous adventure Murder of Crows. The PDF weighs in at 38 pages (35 of these pages are pure meat) and seems quite generous for a one-shot adventure intended for four investigators.

First, a little blurb about the adventure itself. The Doom from Below takes investigators to the depths of a two-hundred foot chasm. The descent itself is semi-treacherous while The Things Not Meant To Be Seen at the bottom are even creepier.

Review by Todd Cash

Howard Phillips Lovecraft is one of the few authors of the horror genre who has been dissected rather thoroughly (Edgar Allen Poe being another). Kenneth Hite, who’s made much of his living as both a critic and a Lovecraft enthusiast, has a few things to say on the subject, and they make for very interesting reading. Tour de Lovecraft — the Tales is an engaging breakdown of all 51 of Lovecraft’s mature prose fiction, from 1917’s The Tomb to Lovecraft’s last work, the Haunter of the Dark from late 1935.

This is not a book of literary criticism, as I first assumed, but rather criticism of literary criticism. Hite takes pains to offer quotes and examples of criticism from a number of noted Lovecraft scholars, and offers his own opinions that don’t always mesh with those notions. In effect, the book breaks Lovecraft’s work down into what might be considered Hite’s Top-10 list of Lovecraft’s work. Hite spends time analyzing Lovecraft’s most effective tales.

Hardboiled Cthulhu is billed as an anthology of “Two-Fisted Tales of Tentacled Terror”, and mostly it delivers. However, the quality is quite uneven, though in some cases pretty creative. For example, “Eldritch Fellas” by Tim Curran, a “Goodfellas” pastiche with the Great Old Ones as mobsters, while initially amusing, was far too long. It wasn’t really clever enough to justify its genre-bending inclusion here.

Likewise “Day of Iniquity” by Steven Shrewsbury is neither particularly hard-boiled nor terrifying.

It is a good time to be a Cthulhu Gamer. Lots of very cool new stuff has hit the shelves in the last couple of weeks. I did a review of the new Cthulhu Rising board game from Twilight Creations last week.

The fun does not stop there, the Great Old One has been spotted all over the gaming world recently…

Everyone knows I’m a big fan of Skirmisher Publishing’s Cthulhu Live series and we have a handful of reviews on the site including The Old Man of Damascus and the 3rd Edition Core Book.

Well they just came out with a new script called Sight Unseen, which looks very, very cool.

That Which Lies… Deep in the New England woods lies a perfectly circular chasm plunging hundreds of feet into the earth. Is it a marvel of nature or the remnant of some ancient maleficence? As the investigators explore the depths of this haunted pit they face geologic dangers, bizarre subterranean creatures, and a message from […]

The stars are right and the time has come to summon Cthulhu from the watery depths…

A new fast play game from Twilight Creations feature the classic theme of cultists vs. investigators for two players. This particular game is quick to learn and plays pretty fast. The entire rules fit on a single sheet explaining different turns and victory conditions for each side.

The game board is simple with some fairly classic Lovecraft-inspired artwork.

When you listen to instrumental music or a movie soundtrack in the background while you’re playing game, it’s very challenging to find music that fits a Cthulhu game. Part of the problem is that there are a lot of droning, repetitious soundtracks that sound the same from song to song. The other side to that, of course, are the soundtracks so recognizable that no matter how softly you play them, every one of your players knows what songs you’re playing. In gaming, music often plays multiple roles to heighten or enhance a mood, to “speak” to the theme of the game and to be playable whether the dice is rolling or not. In a lot of ways, music played for any game has to have a lot of variety because there’s a lot of activity going on in game that will “drown out” the music playing in the background.

James Semple, sound designer and musician offers you four new contemporary tracks for your Esoterrorists game, or any game of contemporary horror. The music here incorporates contemporary rhythms, electric guitars and sound design elements in addition to the expected orchestral and cinematic elements.

“You’ve outdone yourself with the Esoterrorists and SSF themes. My reaction to the latter was, “I want to see this movie!”
– Robin D Laws, creator of the Esoterrorists

Dissonance: Music for Esoterrorists is available at RPGNow.com.

Horror author Scott Lette (Arkham Tales) brings us a tale of terror for the Halloween Horror collection. Scott gives us a glimpse of a man vs. nature story from Australia.

Have these creatures returned from someplace else, and if so, why?

Quinkana Prodigius

Created by Scott Lette

FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND TORN APART BY MONSTER CROC PLAGUE
Posted Sat. September 27, 2008 3.35pm AEST

“I have been in consultation with the Emergency Services Minister,” the Premier said during a Press conference in Brisbane today.

Lovecraft Aficionados are well aware of the pulp author’s use of large and obscure words; it was practically his trademark, and has befuddled eager young readers ever since he first began publishing his work in the 1920s. How appropriate then that there should be a word game using many of his creations as a backdrop — Unspeakable Words is a card-driven word game that challenges players to spell without going mad, and believe me, it isn’t easy!

Created by the talented game design team of James Ernest and Mike Selinker and produced by Playroom Entertainment (www.playrooment.com), Unspeakable Words begins with each of the players receiving a hand of seven cards.

Review by Bill Bodden

Paris at the end of the 19th century: a city of lights, music, excitement at the approach of the new century and aflame with the creative spirit of the Bohemian revolution. But for months the city has been locked in a state of fear as the brutal murderer known as the Raptor stalks the steep streets and narrow alleyways of the north-end hill neighborhood of Montmartre. Many refuse to leave their homes by night. Others frequent establishments such as “The Green Fairy,” an absinthe bar and popular meeting place for artists, actors, whores, criminals, and the well-to-do seeking to taste the thrills and pleasures of Montmartre. This evening, the patrons of “The Green Fairy” will be joined by a visitor beyond their darkest nightmares.

The Green Fairy is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop for $6.99.

Four Heart-Pounding Pulp Adventures for Trail of Cthulhu

The first supplement for Trail of Cthulhu this book has four new adventures written by Rodin D Laws. These pulp-style adventures are a good companion for the core book, helping folks get started with the Gumshoe system from Pelgrane Press. The book itself is 82 pages (including the handouts) and has a cover by the talented Jerome Huguenin. Most of the book’s layout is a three-column format with occasional sidebars and dark black-n-white images that show off some of the scenes for each adventure.

On with the adventures…One of the things I’m going to try to avoid in this review is revealing too many details about the adventures and the mysteries within them. That way, folks will still be surprised when they get the chance to play along. Hopefully I’ll still be able to provide enough information to let you know how useful the book is and whether or it will add to your Trail of Cthulhu game.

From the very depths of the blackest hell we’ve come to parlay with ye about International Talk Like a Pirate Day. All that it requires, is that ye talk like a pirate, for certain. But why stop there?

You see, mateys, after ye watch the Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy, to study up on the lingo, ye might find yerself in a strange predicament. One that involves dice, your fortuitous pirate accent and a night with your fellow pirate friends.

Four Shadows: Music for Trail of Cthulhu

“There in the narrow hall, outside the bolted door with the covered keyhole, I often heard sounds which filled me with an indefinable dread-the dread of vague wonder and brooding mystery.” -HP Lovecraft, The Music of Erich Zann

What better to set the tone of your Trail of Cthulhu game than some superbly crafted music? Talented musician James Semple has created four tracks specially for Pelgrane Press to enhance your horror roleplaying experience.

Four Shadows: Music for Trail of Cthulhu and more Gumshoe products are available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

For most people, the world appears to be a relatively safe place, filled with the usual problems associated with day to day living. There are no monsters beneath the bed, nothing waiting in the darkness…

But for others, there is the maddening truth; unimaginable horrors lurk in dark places beyond the world we know, horrific things who regard humanity as little more than cattle; insignificant creatures to be used and cast aside at their whim. Ever watchful, they seek to pry open the gates to this realm, to reclaim that which was once theirs.

Shadows of Cthulhu is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

He has exposed The Cainite Heresy, and dug up the Secrets of the Ruined Temple. He has broadcast the Suppressed Transmissions, and ventured through Infinite Worlds. Now, horror heresiarch Kenneth Hite, the author of GURPS Horror 3rd Edition and Nightmares of Mine, assembles the Dubious Shards of the Cthulhu Mythos!

Look for Dubious Shards at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

H.P. Lovecraft is known as the father of modern horror. His short fiction has inspired well-known writers like Stephen King to game designers like Pagan Publishing and Chaosium. In the spirit of Cthulhu and the Necronomicon, we’d like to provide you with a few, haunting places to visit and learn more about the writer who […]

Super Genius Games (SGG) is proud to announce that Murder of Crows will be available for purchase as a PDF beginning Wednesday, August 13.

“This is the first Call of Cthulhu product published under our license with Chaosium, Inc.,” said Hyrum Savage, President of SGG, “and we couldn’t be happier or more excited. We’ve been working on this and other Call of Cthulhu products for months, and it’s great to see them start to reach the audience at large.”

Cy is an ordinary guy with a beautiful fiancee — until his uncle’s suicide changes his life forever. Consumed with discovering the motive behind his relative’s sudden and painful death, he finds notes and scribblings about a nonsense word he doesn’t recognize… Cthulhu. Obsessed, he seeks out answers to questions he should have never asked. A horrifying glimpse into a modern day Lovecraftian world filled with nightmares and excursions into Lovecraft’s Dreamlands!

The Fugue collects the first several issues of the Fall of Cthulhu comic book series. This is a modern tale of the Cthulhu Mythos featuring several well-known elements of the setting that have been built up over the years in various novels, anthologies and role playing games. The treatment of Miskatonic University is a great background element throughout the story, for example.

I’ve been reading a lot of Mythos fiction lately. It started with my review of Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition, which was a lot of fun and renewed my interest in the genre once more. Since then I’ve picked up several books and was blown away by the Trail of Cthulhu RPG from Pelgrane Press. So I started digging into the fiction collections even more…

Frontier Cthulhu is a bit different, having characters explore the “frontier” throughout the ages and encountering dark, twisted horrors along the way.