Category Archives: Trail of Cthulhu

Call of Chicago: What We Talk About When We Talk About Leng

One of the joys of writing a whole new Cthulhoid core book (The Fall of Delta Green, and thank you for asking) is attempting yet another take on the old familiar Mythos legendry. The technothriller tone of Delta Green cries out for specifics and details and connections to our real world of war and terrorism, […]

Stories of Another Time and Place: The Importance of Getting it Right

by Victor J Raymond PhD [Editors’ Note: Victor Raymond acted as a cultural consultant on Trembling Giant, an adventure for Out of the Woods, our forthcoming collection for Trail of Cthulhu. Victor J. Raymond, PhD, is a sociologist, writer and longtime gamer.  A founding member and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Carl […]

Lost In Smoke

A Trail of Cthulhu scenario hook A man of means acquainted with your group’s dilettante character, or a likewise well-connected investigator, seeks help with his son. Widowed as a young man when his wife Cora died of pneumonia, Adrian Heppel has become listless, distracted, and barely able to fulfill his duties at the State Department. […]

Call of Chicago: Company Men

In the shadowy world of The Fall of Delta Green, you never know who’s got clearance, not to mention who’s got your back … and who’s got your back in his sights. The Company man – the man from the CIA – might fit any of those descriptions, or any other. That’s kind of the point, […]

Investigative Spends in Demo Scenarios

I ran two Trail of Cthulhu sessions over the weekend (a stealth proof-of-concept of a possible upcoming setting). At a three or four hour convention game, the pressure of time means every scene has to count. There’s little time for backtracking or encounters that don’t go anywhere, and that pressure’s compounded if you’ve got a […]

Call of Chicago: Hidden Humanoids of Vietnam

“Knowledge was knowledge a hundred thousand years ago, when our especial forbears were shambling about Asia as speechless semi-apes!” — H.P. Lovecraft, “The Last Test” It’s a new year, and time for the “Call of Chicago” column to seamlessly shift from endless iterations of Stuff We Left Out of The Dracula Dossier to endless iterations […]

That Tome with the Volvelle In It

As extensively, nay giddily, described in a recent episode of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, the two of us received a sneak peek at the books on display in the Royal College of Physicians’ current John Dee exhibition. Among the treasures we examined was Dee’s copy of Trithemius’ Polygraphie. Its pages include several volvelles, […]

Contemporary-Era Trail Ability List

  Ken’s upcoming Fall of Delta Green will get Trail of Cthulhu as far into the modern era as it’s likely to go for a while. In the meantime, here’s a quick and dirty ability list with which GUMSHOE investigators can learn too much about the Mythos in 2015 and beyond. With its forensic procedural […]

The Book of the New Jersualem

The Secret War is coming to England. Will you be ready? It is 1927.  As Britain continues her slow recovery, August Darcy, a young journalist, is seized with a strange obsession.  He must recover the very essence of England – her traditions, customs, and legends – and he must do that even at the cost […]

When Bribery Doesn’t Stick

In Raymond Chandler’s short story “Nevada Gas,” Johnny De Ruse, one of his proto-Marlowe protagonists, pays a hotel detective for answers to questions. In GUMSHOE terms, he’s clearly using the Bargaining ability. Before De Ruse gives him the dough, he extracts a promise not to tip off the man he’s investigating. A few beats later, […]

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