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Call of Cthulhu RPG
Curse of the Chthonians: Four Odysseys Into Deadly Intrigue
Things aren't always as they seem. Is the little Rhode Island carnival just a place of innocent playfulness, or does it house dark secrets? Is the newest exhibit at the Museum of Natural History a crude representation of an elephant, or is it a thing from out of the depths of time? Who would kill for a ceremonial dagger? What mere vision is powerful enough to kill a wizened rabbi? Curse of the Chthonians contains four detailed scenarios for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game, plus an examination of the Kabbalistic science of Gematria—which seeks to derive secret or mystical meaning from the very letters that form the words of Scripture and occult texts.
154 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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March 13, 2025How? My Cthulhu collection -- probably eventually shrunken collection.
What? Four adventures, two of them related:
"Dark Carnival" by David Hargrave;
"The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn" by Bill Barton;
"Thoth's Dagger" and "The City Without a Name" by William Hamblin.
Yeah, so? The Wiki article on this has some contemporary reviews, all pretty positive. I found this pretty dreadful, and not in a good way.
"Dark Carnival" involves some people going missing from near an amusement park. Surprise! Everyone who works for the amusement park is evil. Which makes this less a mystery and more a survival horror scenario. I might just not be the audience for this, since carnivals are so overdone for me -- but no, I think this is actually boring.
"The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn" is, like, almost a good story: a professor "stole" an idol, which is really a god, from some Tcho-Tcho tribesmen; it cursed him, but he found a way to swap his mind with his daughter to work against the curse; until he accidentally swapped at the moment that the god destroyed the mind that was in his body, which sent him (now in his daughter's body) over the edge. So first the PCs are working for the daughter (when she is herself), and then they work against her (when she is her mad father).
"Thoth's Dagger" starts with an auction for a magical dagger that then brings the PCs on a quest to Egypt, to go into the tombs, blah blah. There's also a native who belongs to a good organization dedicated to fighting evil. "The City Without a Name" then has the PCs follow some clues to another member of that organization and then to the nameless city of Irem. Honestly, both of these adventures are fine, but they boil down to "go here and fight the ghouls/sandpeople."
I was chatting with a friend who is a big Chaosium fan, and I asked him if I was wrong or if this stunk, and his blanket statement was that a lot of the early stuff stinks. So I'm not alone, even if the contemporary 80s reviews were positive.
What? Four adventures, two of them related:
"Dark Carnival" by David Hargrave;
"The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn" by Bill Barton;
"Thoth's Dagger" and "The City Without a Name" by William Hamblin.
Yeah, so? The Wiki article on this has some contemporary reviews, all pretty positive. I found this pretty dreadful, and not in a good way.
"Dark Carnival" involves some people going missing from near an amusement park. Surprise! Everyone who works for the amusement park is evil. Which makes this less a mystery and more a survival horror scenario. I might just not be the audience for this, since carnivals are so overdone for me -- but no, I think this is actually boring.
"The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn" is, like, almost a good story: a professor "stole" an idol, which is really a god, from some Tcho-Tcho tribesmen; it cursed him, but he found a way to swap his mind with his daughter to work against the curse; until he accidentally swapped at the moment that the god destroyed the mind that was in his body, which sent him (now in his daughter's body) over the edge. So first the PCs are working for the daughter (when she is herself), and then they work against her (when she is her mad father).
"Thoth's Dagger" starts with an auction for a magical dagger that then brings the PCs on a quest to Egypt, to go into the tombs, blah blah. There's also a native who belongs to a good organization dedicated to fighting evil. "The City Without a Name" then has the PCs follow some clues to another member of that organization and then to the nameless city of Irem. Honestly, both of these adventures are fine, but they boil down to "go here and fight the ghouls/sandpeople."
I was chatting with a friend who is a big Chaosium fan, and I asked him if I was wrong or if this stunk, and his blanket statement was that a lot of the early stuff stinks. So I'm not alone, even if the contemporary 80s reviews were positive.
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