Return to the Monolith by Michael LaBossiere is a role playing game supplement published by Chaosium Inc. through their Miskatonic Repository Community Content Program for use with Call of Cthulhu, the horror role playing game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
The supplement is available as a 14 page Pay What You Want PDF from RPGNow. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the Contents, two pages are handouts and one page is About the Author. The handouts, and the other images, are included in a separate zip file as well.
The brief Introduction explains that the scenario is intended to be a follow up to “People of the Monolith”, which was a bonus included in the 1982 Chaosium supplement Shadows of Yog-Sothoth (Shadows of Yog-Sothoth was later included in the compilation supplement Cthulhu Classics although People of the Monolith was not). That scenario was in turn based on Robert E. Howard‘s “The People of the Monolith”. This is a modern scenario.
The Keeper’s Background gives some information about the original toad-god worshippers in Hungary, then how in 2015 one member of a group of three that visited the monolith was driven insane and killed his companions up to the present day expedition by a company doing a television and web show about the monolith.
Getting the Investigators Involved has them hired by a representative of the show to accompany them on the expedition. The owner of the backing company has some knowledge of the Mythos and the investigators will be hired for their experience.
Investigation is the largest part of the scenario, at three and a half pages. This has extensive background that can be found in, rather well detailed, books and articles, information on the village close to the monolith, what can be discovered by speaking to the locals and what will happen when the stone is visited.
Action, at about half a page, is basically a single combat encounter with the man who went mad and the creature he has summoned.
Finally, the rest of the supplement has stats for the various NPCs.
Return to the Monolith in Review
The PDF is fairly well bookmarked with the major sections linked. It could be better with the minor sections linked as well, but this is a short supplement. The Contents is to a similar level of detail and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is decent for a short supplement.
The text maintains a two column format and only a couple of errors were noticed. There are black and white images of the various NPCs, portraits that would appear to be tweaked black and white photographs. The two handouts could also qualify as images. Presentation is okay.
The background for the adventure and the research information is very well detailed, with quite a lot of care paid to describing the books, articles and other information – to the extent that the actual final encounter feels like a bit of a letdown, given that is such as small part of the scenario. Perhaps a Keeper could elaborate on this bit and extend it; there is quite a bit of information in the supplement, as it’s very text-heavy. This might work best as a supplementary encounter in a larger campaign.
Return to the Monolith has a nice amount of information in it and it can be checked out for free by clicking here.
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