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Call of Cthulhu RPG
"Glozel Est Authentique!"
This volume is designed specifically for use with CALL OF CTHULHU, Chaosium, Inc.'s fantasy role playing game of the macabre.
Two scenarios steeped in the tradition of H. P. Lovecraft await the Keeper of Arcane Knowledge.
GLOZEL EST AUTHENTIQUE leads the adventurers to France where they will try to solve a puzzling acheological enigma. Strange secret societies watch their every move. The outcome will be totally unexpected.
Secrets of the Kremlin probes the depths of the ancient citadel and the mysteries of the early Czars. What hidden truth can be crafted by the Bolsheviks and translated into the terror of today?
Illustrations, maps and photocopy-ready props are included to vividly protray these two scenarios.
Two scenarios steeped in the tradition of H. P. Lovecraft await the Keeper of Arcane Knowledge.
GLOZEL EST AUTHENTIQUE leads the adventurers to France where they will try to solve a puzzling acheological enigma. Strange secret societies watch their every move. The outcome will be totally unexpected.
Secrets of the Kremlin probes the depths of the ancient citadel and the mysteries of the early Czars. What hidden truth can be crafted by the Bolsheviks and translated into the terror of today?
Illustrations, maps and photocopy-ready props are included to vividly protray these two scenarios.
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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June 22, 2023How? Part of my current Cthulhu collecting / reading; found on eBay for a reasonable amount.
What? Two adventures for Call of Cthulhu, published in 1984 by the third-party developer TOME (Theatre of the Mind Enterprises):
* "Glozel Est Authentique": The PCs are academics who are brought in as outside experts to weigh in on the (real-life) controversy of the Glozel artifacts: some of them look real, some look like fakes. What's going on?
* Secrets of the Kremlin: The PCs are journalists (there's a whole dumb system where the players can roll under their POW to belong to a publication they want, and if they fail, they have to choose a different publication; as far as I can tell, this has no bearing on the adventure) who get the tip that something is strange at the Kremlin (pre-WWII). Is that related to a kidnapping of a Russian emigre in Berlin?
Yeah, so? I wish Goodreads let you draw a graph to show your interest in a book; what you'd see in this case is a big bump up and then a steady decline. From the start, I loved how this book seemed like an artifact from a different time: the art is different, the layout is different, the font looks like it was directly typed by a typewriter. And that cover -- "Glozel Est Authentique!" is a unique Call of Cthulhu name, and those three chaps on the cover aren't the usual monstrosity or haunted house. From the start, it felt like a love letter by amateurs who loved the game. (TOME isn't quite amateurs, as they have a few Call of Cthulhu publications even by 1984.)
But then I read the first adventure, which is also very old, and missing some of the developments in RPG game writing we've since invented, like, oh, maybe giving the GM a summary of what's going on in the beginning. The second adventure is likewise a little odd, but more effective in building up dread through little fictions about what happened to this or that NPC.
But -- and spoilers -- here's the adventures: In "Glozel," the PCs may discover that there's an evil cult in the Glozel area, the remnants of the Templars -- which is interesting -- and that these evil cultists are trying to discredit the archeology of the find by spreading a bunch of fakes in the area -- which is... less interesting. Really, it feels like someone found out about the Glozel controversy (which is interesting) and then sort of fumbled their way into making it the premise of an adventure. It would be so much cooler if the horror was somehow related to whether those artifacts, which are essentially just the hook to get the PCs to the horrible village.
In "Secrets of the Kremlin" -- dumb and of their time "roll to see what newspaper you belong to" subsystems aside -- the adventure involves two secret cults fighting each other to get into the Kremlin. The evil cult wants to get the monster that Stalin is keeping there in the secret tunnels; the good cult wants to stop the monster. Again, a great and real historical issue -- that Ivan IV was said to have a secret library PLUS the tunnels under the Kremlin -- wedded to an adventure that doesn't quite work. (The climax is that the monster Stalin has found is helping to release a monster that Ivan the Terrible found, and that both rise up to rampage if they aren't stopped.)
I wondered if I was being harsh because of my historical position vis-a-vis this book, until I found a quote from a contemporaneous review: Stephen Kyle in the magazine White Dwarf (#59/1984) wrote "some of TOME's previous CoC adventure packs have been notable for their poor layout, terrible artwork and hordes of stereotypical Germans. Well, just for a change, this one has terrible layout, quite good artwork and hordes of stereotypical French and Russians."
What? Two adventures for Call of Cthulhu, published in 1984 by the third-party developer TOME (Theatre of the Mind Enterprises):
* "Glozel Est Authentique": The PCs are academics who are brought in as outside experts to weigh in on the (real-life) controversy of the Glozel artifacts: some of them look real, some look like fakes. What's going on?
* Secrets of the Kremlin: The PCs are journalists (there's a whole dumb system where the players can roll under their POW to belong to a publication they want, and if they fail, they have to choose a different publication; as far as I can tell, this has no bearing on the adventure) who get the tip that something is strange at the Kremlin (pre-WWII). Is that related to a kidnapping of a Russian emigre in Berlin?
Yeah, so? I wish Goodreads let you draw a graph to show your interest in a book; what you'd see in this case is a big bump up and then a steady decline. From the start, I loved how this book seemed like an artifact from a different time: the art is different, the layout is different, the font looks like it was directly typed by a typewriter. And that cover -- "Glozel Est Authentique!" is a unique Call of Cthulhu name, and those three chaps on the cover aren't the usual monstrosity or haunted house. From the start, it felt like a love letter by amateurs who loved the game. (TOME isn't quite amateurs, as they have a few Call of Cthulhu publications even by 1984.)
But then I read the first adventure, which is also very old, and missing some of the developments in RPG game writing we've since invented, like, oh, maybe giving the GM a summary of what's going on in the beginning. The second adventure is likewise a little odd, but more effective in building up dread through little fictions about what happened to this or that NPC.
But -- and spoilers -- here's the adventures: In "Glozel," the PCs may discover that there's an evil cult in the Glozel area, the remnants of the Templars -- which is interesting -- and that these evil cultists are trying to discredit the archeology of the find by spreading a bunch of fakes in the area -- which is... less interesting. Really, it feels like someone found out about the Glozel controversy (which is interesting) and then sort of fumbled their way into making it the premise of an adventure. It would be so much cooler if the horror was somehow related to whether those artifacts, which are essentially just the hook to get the PCs to the horrible village.
In "Secrets of the Kremlin" -- dumb and of their time "roll to see what newspaper you belong to" subsystems aside -- the adventure involves two secret cults fighting each other to get into the Kremlin. The evil cult wants to get the monster that Stalin is keeping there in the secret tunnels; the good cult wants to stop the monster. Again, a great and real historical issue -- that Ivan IV was said to have a secret library PLUS the tunnels under the Kremlin -- wedded to an adventure that doesn't quite work. (The climax is that the monster Stalin has found is helping to release a monster that Ivan the Terrible found, and that both rise up to rampage if they aren't stopped.)
I wondered if I was being harsh because of my historical position vis-a-vis this book, until I found a quote from a contemporaneous review: Stephen Kyle in the magazine White Dwarf (#59/1984) wrote "some of TOME's previous CoC adventure packs have been notable for their poor layout, terrible artwork and hordes of stereotypical Germans. Well, just for a change, this one has terrible layout, quite good artwork and hordes of stereotypical French and Russians."
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