Old Flames by Julian Nimmo is a role playing game supplement published by Chaosium Inc. through the Miskatonic Repository Community Content Programme for use with Call of Cthulhu, the horror role playing game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
The supplement is available as an 18 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover, one the front matter and some text about the author and the supplement and one the Table of Contents.
The Introduction explains that a burned house attracts unsuspecting visitors to their doom. The adventure takes place in 1920s Arkham. Keeper Information explains that a cult spawns fire vampires and uses them to compel Arkham residents to search for the house, where they will either be convinced to join or become flaming zombies. The Story explains that three Miskatonic University students searched for, and found, the house. Two escaped with some pages from a book belonging to the cult, which they gave to their professor.
Involving the Investigators states to determine which investigator has been influenced by the house. It’s suggested that a roll should determine this; the downside is that one is going to be affected, no matter what. There are suggestions as to how the investigators might get involved.
The Cult of the Old Flame describes the cult and its leader.
The investigators will probably start by meeting the police, after a burned body is found near the Orne Library, then investigate the body, the other students and the professor, before finally ending up confronting the cult at the burned house.
Conclusions has different ways the adventure could turn out; hopefully, the characters will manage to stop the cult’s ritual and escape alive and, with luck, unburned.
Spells and Tomes has two new spells and one new Mythos tome that has a nasty habit of erupting in flames.
NPC Stat Blocks has stats for the various NPCs and creatures encountered.
The last four pages of content have the handouts and a map of the burned basement.
Old Flames in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. The Table of Contents covers the major sections and is hyperlinked. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be mostly free of errors. Bar a couple of maps, there are no illustrations. Presentation could be better.
The adventure does have some events that are going to happen, but the characters could do some of their investigations in different orders. There are events that take place at specific times, though. Though none of the named characters are described in the official Arkham or Miskatonic University supplements, they don’t appear to contradict any of that information either, which means that it can easily be used with those. Fire poses a definite hazard in this adventure, especially given there are pages from a Mythos tome lying around that catch fire, damaging things but not the pages. Old Flames is a decent little adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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