An Invitation in Yellow by Patrick Viggo Moeller is a role playing game supplement published by Chaosium Inc. through their Miskatonic Repository Community Content Program. This is a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, the horror role playing game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
This is a fourteen page PDF which is available from RPGNow as a Pay What You Want supplement. One page is the front cover and one page the front matter.
The Keeper’s Information gives the background to the scenario. The investigators are invited to a meal at the villa of a friend of theirs, a medical doctor who used to be at Miskatonic University. The doctor had stumbled across some information on past life regression, and has been carrying out experiments. He wants to show the investigators something he has discovered.
Unfortunately, these experiments also resulted in the Great Old One Hastur being contacted. The subject of the regressions has been influenced, and things have gone badly wrong. The investigators arrive the day after the doctor is killed. They will need to stop the sacrifices to Hastur.
The Dramatis Persona lists the main characters, one of whom is actually a past life. Points of Interest gives an overview of the Gilmore Estate and the nearby town of Dartsmouth. There is also a Timeline of Events going back several years, related to the doctor’s experiments.
Player’s Information starts with A Likely Chain of Events, as the investigators arrive in Dartsmouth and go to the villa.
The villa is then described and one page is taken up by maps of it.
The Ritual and Conclusion have the investigators attempting to stop the sacrifice to Hastur.
NPC Stat Blocks and Skills give the stats for the primary NPCs.
Finally, the last three pages have handouts to give to the characters.
An Invitation in Yellow in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough that these would have been useful. Navigation is below average. The text maintains a two column format and quite a few errors were noticed, which would generally appear to be grammatical in nature. There are a couple of black and white stock images, as well as the villa’s map. Presentation is okay.
There are a couple of problems with the scenario. The first of these is the addition of the doctor the investigators are meeting as a long-time associate who they have never heard of before. This is a common problem in Call of Cthulhu adventures; investigators tend to be eliminated pretty quickly so it can be difficult seeding relationships well ahead of time.
The second is that the creature the investigators deal with is said to be vulnerable to such as firearms. So the Keeper needs to ensure that they don’t carry them. The suggested route – of saying that the characters wouldn’t need to carry firearms to dinner with an old friend – is probably going to make players highly suspicious and decide that they do need to take them. Which means either the scenario becomes a lot easier, or the Keeper has to by fiat state they aren’t carrying guns. The latter will not please players.
Apart from that main niggle, which an experienced Keeper may be able to get around, this is a perfectly decent little scenario. It could be slotted into an existing campaign, although the stated year of 1920 might need changing, as a diversionary scenario. An Invitation in Yellow can be checked out for free by clicking here.
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