The Thing at the Threshold by Paul McConnell is a role playing game supplement published by Chaosium Inc. for use with their Call of Cthulhu horror game based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft. The book is published by Chaosium, but it was actually created entirely out of house. This book is set in the typical 1920s era of Call of Cthulhu. The campaign is based on Lovecraft’s (although actually written by August Derleth based on Lovecraft’s works and notes) short story The Lurker at the Threshold and it starts in a fictional New England town not far from Arkham, which will be visited during the campaigns, as well as going overseas to Britain, Palestine and the Dead Sea, as the players work to defeat the plots of Nyogtha, although that is not revealed until near the end.
The supplement was originally published as a perfect bound softcover book, which is still available from sites such as Amazon, and it is also available as a PDF from RPGNow. The original book is the version reviewed. There are 80 numbered pages in the book. In addition, four pages are the front matter, Contents and a word from Chaosium explaining that the book was produced out of house (something similar is now done more easily these days, with the advent of digital publishing, through Chaosium’s Miskatonic University Monographs series) and two pages of Foreword and explanations of how the handouts are done as well as notes on running the campaign. The supplement also has two pages of adverts and sixteen pages of player handouts. The latter are all double sided, and would need copying from the printed book.
Keeper’s Information: Background Story has six pages of information years prior to the start of the campaign leading up to the present day and what previous events have happened.
Chapter One: The Inheritor is set in the fictional New England town of Davenham, which is on the coast between Arkham and Boston. They are hired to investigate a house that the occupant believes is haunted. This occupant’s story was explained in the Background Story, and has recently been released from a sanatorium. The house is not haunted as such, but does have a dangerous entity living in it that was summoned some years back.
Chapter Two: The Benighted sees the players get involved with two of the characters from the background story and revisiting the house in Davenham. There, they can end up being transported to the out of the way town of Tearnmouth in Britain, where they have to deal with a non-player character, and father of the individual from the first chapter, who is basically insane.
Chapter Three: The Dead Sea sees the players heading to Palestine and to where there is a temple to various Great Old Ones beside the Dead Sea. Should they make a mess of things, this could technically lead to the end of the world as we know it. No pressure then.
The Thing at the Threshold in Review
Although this book is published by Chaosium, it is written, produced and illustrated out of house. As a result of this it has a different appearance from most of the supplements produced by Chaosium, in the illustrations and in the layout. The colours are not purely black and white, but they use a lot less colour than would be seen in most of Chaosium’s products of the time, as the only other colour used is red and there is more use of black where a typical Chaosium product would use white (the exception is the Keeper’s Compendium, which has a very similar style). The interior illustrations and maps are also in black and white, and also in a different style to the majority of Chaosium’s products, whose maps tend to a hand drawn appearance and these do not. The illustrations, which are up to a full page in size, tend to be relevant to the associated text, although some appear to be fillers. There is a problem with the background images on some of the sidebars making them unduly difficult to read.
The Contents are a bit better than is typical for Chaosium products of this era, having the various chapters and the various maps, spells, magics and floor plans listed. Navigation is therefore slightly above average. The text is in a two column layout throughout, and there are a number of somewhat noticeable grammatical errors.
An event in Chapter Two follows the, unfortunately common in Call of Cthulhu scenarios, habit of railroading a player, as it assumes that one player is by themselves, a member of the Miskatonic University faculty, and knows a non-player character who is also a member of that faculty. In this chapter, there is a map of one room of the library at Miskatonic University; this doesn’t match up with the map in the Miskatonic University supplement. Keepers could possibly tweak that a little if they have the latter book.
The amount of background information is unusually extensive, practically a short story in length and makeup. There are sections of Player’s Information, which can be read out to players, and Keeper’s Information, which informs the Keeper as to what is actually going on. These could possibly have been highlighted better, perhaps with a slightly different coloured background, to make them stand out from the rest of the text. They are not always easily noticeable, even though they are labelled. The handouts also appear to have had a fair amount of care and attention lavished on their design. Overall, the background and feel for the campaign is pretty good. The results of failure in the last chapter may be a bit too destructive, if Keeper’s wish to use the campaign world again, although there are some options for fixing the problem by (other, as the originals are probably dead) characters, or for extending the adventure. The Thing at the Threshold is an interesting diversion from the typical style of Chaosium’s products for the time, and still worth picking up.
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