Crappy Detour by Phanzar 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 a 17 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover and one the front matter. A second, five-page PDF has five character sheets and there are two zip files, one containing five handouts, all pngs, the other containing two png files, player and Keeper maps. There are also Brazilian Portuguese duplicates of all of these.
The opening paragraph explains that a road is blocked and a nearby small town offers shelter, but the bus station is overrun by pigeons.
Context explains this is a scenario for four investigators and set in 1991. It can be used as a campaign introduction, or as a one shot. The investigators all ended up on the same bus and ended up in the same town because of the road blockage. It explains why there are so many pigeons and the goal of the person responsible. Useful skills are given in a sidebar.
Pigeons Depot has the characters arrive at the bus station and chaos can result from the pigeons, though losing Sanity for being hit by pigeon droppings seems excessive.
Canary Inn is an inn in the town where they can stay.
Greasy Spoon Bar is a place to eat.
Alfred Habergam’s House details this location.
Abandoned Precinct is the police station which was decommissioned due to lack of reason to keep it open.
Cornfield is a farm.
Junkyard is what it sounds like.
Conclusion looks at wrapping things up and rewards.
Threats has new monsters.
Spells has new spells.
Tomes has a new Mythos tome.
The next three pages of content, Resources 1-3, have the Keeper’s map and handouts.
Resource 4: Character Sheets starts with a page on the pre-generated characters, followed by their details and character sheets.
Crappy Detour in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with the various sections and subsections linked. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. Bar the maps and handouts, there are no illustrations. Presentation is okay.
As presented, this is an adventure in which the characters can go where they like in town and find clues about what’s going on in various different places. However, a sidebar explains that time passes as they do this, and the final event will be reached at a specific time unless the characters stop it, and they may not be ready if it goes ahead, so spending too much time wandering around can cause issues for them. Crappy Detour can be found by clicking here.
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