The Mad Priest by Marco Carrer is a free 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 supplement based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
This is a ten-page PDF that is available for free from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover, one the front matter and one the Table of Contents.
The brief Introduction explains that this is a scenario for 2-5 investigators set in the Viking era.
The Keeper Information explains that it is set in a small village near the volcano of Hekla, where a mad priest is attempting a ritual to call on Hel, daughter of Loki, an avatar of Nyarlathotep. The scenario uses Mythic Iceland as a reference and there is an optional rule on Extra HP gained through allegiance. Characters also have different character sheets, stated to be available from the Chaosium site, and different skills, stated to be in Cthulhu Through the Ages.
The adventure itself starts with the mad priest arriving at the characters’ village. He is imprisoned, but disappears in the night. The crops fail, the Chief’s baby is taken and the characters mist set off on a journey to find out what happened. There is an optional side quest and the scenario ends at the top of the volcano. There are two endings; the bad one has the ritual completed and the volcano erupts. The good one prevents this.
One and a quarter pages have NPC stats, part of the second page is a player handout and the final page has pre-generated characters.
The Mad Priest in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and they would have been useful. The Table of Contents is to a reasonable level of depth. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column two-colour format and quite a few errors were noticed. The single colour illustration is on the front cover and there are several pieces of black and white artwork inside. These appear to be custom. Presentation is decent.
This, despite having quite a few errors, is a decent little scenario. It is best suited as a one-shot, which is what it is intended to be, unless a Keeper is already running or plans to run a campaign in the Viking era; not hugely likely, as this isn’t one of the big Call of Cthulhu eras. It should run perfectly well by itself though. The Mad Priest is a nice little scenario and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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