Call of Poolthulhu by Anthony Beradine 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 system based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and is set in the 1920s.
This is a ten page PDF that is available from RPGNow as a Pay What You Want supplement. One page is the front cover, one the front matter and one the Table of Contents.
The Introduction starts with the Author’s Note which explains that the title is because the supplement was created for use at a pool party. As a result of the playing conditions it was designed for, skill checks are kept to a minimum.
The supplement is intended to be work as an introductory scenario and emphasises role playing more than it does skills or combat.
The adventure concerns a Miskatonic University professor, now retired, who had been influenced by a, now-dead, Chthonian. Once free of the Chthonian’s influence, the professor essentially went mad and got locked up as a result. The Chthonian’s dead body is now poisoning the local water supply, and people are dying.
The characters simply investigate the case, following up leads taking them to the Boston Globe, Miskatonic University, the farming town of Topsfield where the professor lives, his home and the place where the creature’s body is.
The final two pages have maps of Topsfield and the caverns containing the Chthonian and two handouts done to resemble newspaper cuttings.
Call of Poolthulhu in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks, which aren’t essential but would have been appreciated. The Table of Contents is thorough and navigation is okay. The text maintains a two column format and a number of primarily grammatical errors (largely misuse or failure to use the inverted comma) were noticed. There are a couple of stock images and making the two player handouts into ones that look like newspaper clippings is a nice touch. Presentation, as a result of these handouts, is pretty decent for a short supplement.
This is, as stated, an introductory scenario. There is no combat – which means all the investigators will probably survive – and a handful of skill checks related to gaining information and exploring. The characters do not need to stop the Chthonian, as it’s already dead, but finding its body will mean that they can perhaps help the authorities stop it from poisoning the water supply.
The investigators won’t gain any SAN from this scenario, although they will probably lose some. They can acquire some minor Mythos books – the professor’s diaries. There is also, deliberately, no monster to defeat. As an introductory scenario, it works decently well, but players unfamiliar with Call of Cthulhu will probably get a nasty shock when they do end up in combat. Call of Poolthulhu is a simple, easy scenario and it can be checked out for free by clicking here.
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