Cthulhu Casebook is a role playing game supplement by a variety of different authors published by Chaosium Inc. for use with their Call of Cthulhu game based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft. The book contains nine different scenarios, of different lengths, all set in the 1920s, as well as four short essays and material on the game.
The book was originally available as a perfect bound softcover printed book, but it is not currently available new as either a PDF or as a hardcopy book. Copies of the original printed book are still available from places such as Amazon. The softcover book has 144 pages, with four pages being the front matter, one page the Contents, a slightly longer than one page Introduction, one page is taken up by filler art, there are four pages of double-sided player handouts, two pages a single-sided period map of the Austria and Hungary region, two pages a single-sided period map of Maine and two pages a single-sided character sheet. The Introduction gives a quick overview of the various scenarios and other material.
The Auction is set at an auction in Vienna, where players may think they are simply interested in getting some occult items, either for themselves or a patron, but another party is more dangerously interested in one of the items.
The Madman has an individual, perhaps one of the investigators, who has been driven mad. He know he has two sides to his personality; the good side does not know what is going on but the bad side is trying to summon Hastur. This gives the dilemma as how to deal with an individual who is not fully in control of their actions – and, indeed, literally doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Black Devil Mountain sees an investigator, or a non-player character, inheriting a property from a deceased relative. This happens during the winter in Maine, and the property is close to a rather dangerous place that the locals avoid.
The Asylum has a stereotypical mad scientist who is performing experiments on the patients in his asylum, after he get involved with some local cultists.
The Mauritania is set on the ocean liner of the same name, and may be used as a peaceful interlude, or have the players get involved in a number of problems during the journey.
In Gate From the Past, the investigators are hired by Miskatonic University to investigate some strange sightings on a hill west of Arkham. There is a map of Central Arkham which matches up with the one in Arkham Unveiled. A number of Elder Things are using a temporal gate to attempt to flee from the shoggoths.
Westchester House appears to be a standard haunted house story, but it actually isn’t – this adventure features normal villains.
The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn is, at about 30 pages, the longest scenario in the collection and is split into two parts. A Keeper is suggested to run one or two adventures between the two parts, although not full-fledged scenarios, such as Shadows of Yog-Sothoth (available separately, or in Cthulhu Classics), or Masks of Nyarlathotep, as they are both lengthy and lethal to characters. Instead, scenarios from supplements such as The Great Old Ones or Dreamlands are suggested. An archaeological professor is taken over by the spirit of a Great Old One.
Thoth’s Dagger takes the investigators to Egypt after a ceremonial dagger is stolen by Nyarlathotep cultists.
The essays and other material at the rear of the book only take up about twelve pages. These are:
The Ten Commandments of Cthulhu Hunting is a not entirely serious collection of advice for characters hunting Lovecraftian horrors.
Sinister Seeds is a set of eleven adventure seeds that could be fleshed out by a Keeper.
Death Reports provides descriptions of what the bodies of characters, or NPCs, would like when they are found after being killed by monsters from the rulebook and H. P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands.
Insta-Plots is a single page flow chart intended to create a quick plot for a Call of Cthulhu adventure. Simply start and then follow lines on the flow chart until an “end” box is reached. Some of the results are going to be a bit silly, and this does seem to be intentional to a degree.
Cthulhu Casebook in Review
The Contents covers the major sections as well as maps, plans and illustrations, which makes it better than normal, although it could still be improved upon. The book has full colour front and back covers and, unusually for the time, eight full colour plates in the centre relevant to events in the adventures. The rest of the illustrations are in black and white, being around a third of a page in size at the largest. Apart from a couple of fillers, these illustrations are all relevant to the associated text. The maps are also in black and white and, except for the period maps at the rear, the mapping style throughout the book varies quite a bit. Some maps appear hand drawn, some do not and some look to be a combination. There are a few minor grammatical and spelling errors throughout, but nothing major.
The scenarios are generally quite short and also not as lethal as longer adventures can be, which makes them suitable for slotting in to a larger campaign, with such as the trip on the Mauritania and the auction being quite easily adaptable, as they are the type of events that could occur during a normal campaign. Others may require slightly more work, but most should not be that difficult to add to a campaign. The hardest one will be The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn, with it being separated into two parts. Although longer, more lethal campaigns are not recommended, it is still possible for a vital character to die or go insane during the break, thus derailing the adventure. There is a typical addition of new monsters, new spells and new Mythos tomes in the supplement.
The Sinister Seeds can be useful, but probably not in the way it suggests. It’s suggested that these seeds can be used when the Keeper hasn’t designed their own scenario or read a pre-packaged one and consequently has nothing available to run. However, the seeds still need developing into scenarios, so they are hardly a substitute in themselves. Consequently, they are best used as a starting point to develop a scenario. However, the entire collection of material at the end feels tacked on as an afterthought to a scenario collection. It would perhaps have been better to collect more of these essays together and bundle them into one book, such as was done in the Keeper’s Companion than tag them at the end of a scenario collection (something similar was done in Fatal Experiments to this).
Cthulhu Casebook has a selection of useful, generally easy to incorporate, short scenarios as well as some interesting, but perhaps slightly out of place, other material, and on the whole is a decent collection.
Leave a Reply