Lurking Fears by Michael Szymanski and Scott Aniolowski is a roleplaying game supplement published by Triad Entertainments. This is a licensed product for use with Chaosium Inc.‘s Call of Cthulhu horror role playing game based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft and is a collection of six scenarios set in the 1920s.
The book was originally published as a perfect bound softcover, which can still be purchased from sites such as Amazon. Apart from the original printed book, the supplement does not appear to be otherwise available. The book has 122 numbered pages of which one is the front matter and one the Table of Contents and Welcome. Another page is the index to the Handout Section. The Handout Section itself is comprised of 36 pages. 25 of these are single sided and 10 are both double sided and comprise an entire journal, approximately A5 in size, which, when assembled, has 17 numbered pages. Most of the handouts are also duplicated throughout the rest of the book, with the primary exception of the journal.
Rise of the Sleeper sees players being sent to the Florida Everglades to see an inheritance comprising of a parcel of land that one has just received from a distant cousin. The house is in a village that was settled by immigrants from Dunwich, and the scenario entangles the players in the machinations of a Great Old One.
Caller in the Desert sees the players stranded in a village in Egypt after their tour bus breaks down. The village is at risk from a member of it who has made a fairly destructive bargain with a serpentfolk sorcerer.
The Sundial of Amen-Tet is set in Buffalo, New York, and sees a player receive a phone call from their sister as her son, the character’s nephew, has disappeared. A psychic is making very successful predictions of the future, due to having obtained an ancient Egyptian time machine – magical, naturally.
Sorrow’s Glen sees the players lured to an archaeological site at the aforementioned Sorrow’s Glen, where a dig has discovered a temple to Ghatanothea, a Great Old One once worshipped by the inhabitants of Mu. The lure is a ploy that ties in with the next adventure, The Starshrine.
The Icosahedron – A History is not an adventure but two pages of details on the Icosahedron from Sorrow’s Glen which is a major component of the next adventure, The Starshrine.
The Starshrine follows on from Sorrow’s Glen. The individual who lured them to the site – who is, unusually for Call of Cthulhu, a vampire – vampires are not a common occurrence in the game, despite being listed in the rulebook – plans to use the Icosahedron already mentioned to get twenty Great Old Ones to possess twenty important humans, with fairly devastating consequences if he is successful. The adventure concludes in Egypt.
The Devourer is set in Arkham where a professor at Miskatonic University accidentally discovered an alien life form which has since devoured him, and will eventually devour everything else, if left unchecked.
Lurking Fears in Review
The covers of the book are in colour and the internal illustrations and maps are in black and white. The illustrations themselves range up to a full page in size, and are appropriate for the related text. The text itself is in a two column format throughout and is largely error free. Given that this wasn’t produced by Chaosium, it has a different feel and style to the company’s own work of the period. However, although this may be a third party product, both of the authors have also written material for Chaosium directly; this would appear to be the first work produced independently.
There are a number of new minor Mythos works and new spells, which is quite common in scenarios of this type, and the occasional new monster. There is a potentially unbalancing piece in The Starshrine, as the players can discover a library that has a copy of almost every Mythos tome in existence. Rather than allow players to gain access to such a hoard of knowledge, even if it has the potential to drive them insane, the Keeper should probably try and arrange its accidental destruction at the hands of the Fire Vampire present.
Unfortunately, like so many Call of Cthulhu scenarios, several of these follow the customary practice of railroading characters into long-standing relationships with non-player characters which they never knew of before. Including the addition of close family members. This is a common problem, presumably intended to give players a reason for being involved in an adventure, but it isn’t always appreciated. Trying to foreshadow such relationships ahead of time can be tricky with the system, as characters frequently don’t survive from one scenario to the next. One of the adventures that doesn’t suffer from this type of railroading, Caller in the Desert, lacks any real reason why the players would be traipsing around Egypt on a sightseeing trip.
Some of the scenarios have definite locations, others do not, and The Devourer can be more flexible in its location if desired, and with a bit of work, although it is suggested that having the Miskatonic University supplement would be a help, and it is possibly best set in New England. Many have the, not uncommon, potential to be quite lethal to characters in the process. The Starshrine in particular has the potential to be lethal to the world at large, although given the time period, the Keeper is suggested to use it as an excuse for World War II if required (something that has cropped up in other Call of Cthulhu adventures).
Some of the adventures could be used as interludes in a larger campaign, or as unconnected side trips, with a bit of work, although care would need to be taken to ensure that these side trips aren’t so lethal that they derail the main campaign. Sorrow’s Glen and The Starshrine are effectively a mini-campaign in themselves. Overall, Lurking Fears is a useful collection of smaller adventures by two authors who over the years wrote a lot of material of Chaosium.
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