Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: Legs

Legs by Jim Phillips is a role playing game supplement published for Chaosium Inc. by SOC Press through the Miskatonic Repository Community Content Program. This is a short scenario for use with Call of Cthulhu, the role playing game system based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, in a modern setting.

This is a 21 page PDF that is available for free from RPGNow. One page is the front cover, one the front matter and one page effectively an ad for SOC Press.

The Introduction explains that the player characters are attending a convention in Chicago celebrating the weird fiction author Harrison Paul Likenstuff (no, that name is not going to be a coincidence).

The Keeper’s Background explains that one of the attendees discovered some Dreaming Stones in a temple to Atlach-Nacha, the Spider God. He intends to send the entire hotel where the convention is being held into the Dreamlands.

The scenario essentially starts with a (not very good) film. That night, the plan to send the hotel into the Dreamlands is put into motion. That bit works, but nothing else goes the way intended.

Essentially, the investigators have to try and get out of the hotel – and the Dreamlands – which is under attack by Leng Spiders, including some very tiny ones that implant themselves into people and then grow quite a bit bigger before erupting out of the body.

There is a Bestiary at the end with stats for three stages of Leng Spider, and a brief overview of Atlach-Nacha but no stats.

One page has stats for half a dozen non-player characters – most of whom don’t really live long enough to need stats.

Three pages have maps of the hotel; it has ten floors but one map does for seven of them and another for two.

The last five pages of content have five pre-generated investigators.

The PDF has bookmarks, but these simply point to the covers and character sheets. Navigation is not very good. The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noticed. As well as the full colour front cover, there are several other images, which are not quite black and white, and all of which appear to be custom, as well as the maps. Presentation is very good for a short, free supplement.

This is very definitely a killer scenario the way it is set up. Yes, this is a common thread in Call of Cthulhu adventures, but this is even more so. If it is run as-is, half the investigators will die. A number might die anyway, given the danger and the infection by Leng Spiders, but one part is deliberately setup so that there is only a means for half of the investigators to get out alive. This could be all of them that are left by that point, true, but this is still a bit excessive.

Keepers who want investigators to have more of a chance should alter that bit to allow everyone a chance to get out alive, if they survive the spiders and the spider god. If this is not done, this scenario is definitely not a good one to run with existing characters or as part of a campaign. It would probably make a decent convention adventure or one-shot though. Legs is a scenario that is unfortunately designed to be too dangerous, but is otherwise decent and can be downloaded for free by clicking here.