The 1920 murder of Joseph Bowne Elwell asks the question: who would want to kill a womanizing bridge expert and gambler with interests in the worlds of horse racing and Wall Street speculation? When hacked from the history books as a Trail of Cthulhu scenario premise, we can answer the question with a Lovecraftian spin. […]
Tag Archives: Trail of Cthulhu
I must confess that I love handouts in roleplaying games. I love them a little too much. In the upcoming expanded Hideous Creatures, we’re doing player-facing documents for each monster, hinting at some aspect of the creature in an oblique way. Some tips on their creation and use… Handouts are Artefacts Handouts must feel real. […]
by Tony Williams (Download a crib sheet for this variant rule). Greetings. I am a fan of GUMSHOE and, more specifically, Trail of Cthulhu. I’ve been playing RPGs since the early eighties and skew mostly towards Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu. I enjoy Trail so much I have created several items to try […]
“Then Hallowe’en drew near, and the settlers planned another frolic—this time, had they but known it, of a lineage older than even agriculture; the dread Witch-Sabbath of the primal pre-Aryans, kept alive through ages in the midnight blackness of secret woods, and still hinting at vague terrors under its latter-day mask of comedy and lightness.” […]
It is 1927, and August Darcy, a young journalist, is seized with a strange obsession to recover the very essence of England – her traditions, customs, and legends. Sketches of English life, in his unique style, are interspersed with private letters and diary extracts to offer an extraordinary insight into the victim of England’s most notorious […]
by Steve Dempsey Fearful Symmetries contains tools and support for the Keeper who wants to run a folklore-inspired magical campaign in 1930s England. The first part of the book is about setting up the game and running a Campaign. This is the long view of the drama as it develops across several Series and the Episodes […]
A land that is thirstier than ruin A sea that is hungrier than death Heaped hills that a tree never grew in Wide sands where the wave draws breath. — Algernon Swinburne, “By the North Sea” (1880) At some point around 1230 (perhaps during the “St. Luke’s Storm” of 1228 when the people of London […]
Carnivals have always exuded a faint fetor of menace. Itinerant strangers come to town, some of them dressed as clowns, and try to trick you or exploit the basest depths of your curiosity. They exist to break down boundaries, give you permission to indulge, and then move on, leaving you, the seemingly innocent townsfolk, to […]
Since the first outbreak in 1905, the city of Great Arkham has struggled to contain the spread of an unusually virulent and dangerous form of typhoid. All vehicles leaving the city must be inspected by the transport police. These officers wear heavy gas masks and protective clothing to minimise their exposure to the toxic disinfectant […]
See Page XX A column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws Since Cthulhu Confidential’s arrival in foyers and post office boxes worldwide, a couple of folks have asked me how one might go about combining GUMSHOE One-2-One with Trail of Cthulhu’s standard multiplayer format. The short answer is, uh, I didn’t design them to fit […]