Overall, this is a masterful melding of the Gumshoe system with classic Cthulhu Mythos gaming, an inspired match. There’s so much goodness in this that I’ll be back again and again, not just to play but to mine for ideas whatever I am doing.

Megan Robertson / rpgnow.com

“The Gumshoe system is an investigation-oriented one, and this orientation is well suited to many Mythos scenarios. We enjoyed playing our characters and didn’t have too much trouble picking up the system. I’d recommend it.”

Duncan Hunter / rpg.net

“With enough for everyone and a system flexible to have from a purely investigative adventure to a action fuelled Indiana Jones style game, if you like Lovecraft, you simply can’t go wrong with it.”

Paco G Jaen / G*M*S Magazine

.…I was concerned that my traditional style of low prep freeform gaming would have trouble with the GUMSHOE clue system included here… I quickly discovered that this was not an obstacle at all, … it was very easy to constantly push new clues through different Investigative Abilities. In fact, I found that the game worked spectacularly well with this style as the nature of these Abilities encouraged me to constantly engage each of the players thereby resulting in a mystery that was continuously moving forward to its PC driven conclusion. My play experiences have been far more satisfying than I would have expected, though my group has largely avoided physical conflict whenever possible.

CW Richeson / rpg.net

“By now it should be evident that I really love Trail of Cthulhu. I think it manages to capture the feel and style of HPL’s stories, particularly when played in Purist mode, with rules built to complement the stories. GUMSHOE is a perfect fit for investigative type adventures, and well-suited for a plotted out set of scenes. It also is simple enough to be run in a more “off-the-cuff” improvisational style and doesn’t require a great deal of prep on the part of the Keeper.”

Michael Harnish / RPG Geek

“This book is gorgeous; my copy is a lovely 248 page hardcover. Jérome Huguenin does a masterful job with art and layout. That art is consistent throughout– something not to be underestimated as a key to make a game feel complete … Worth buying for any gamer interesting in horror or Lovecraft.”

Lowell Francis / rpggeek.com

“…the section on the Cthulhu Elder Gods/Outer Gods is superb and packed with so many incredibly insane ideas for running plots it is hard to talk about it without waving hands around incoherently. One small sentence about Elder Gods as meme loads was so compelling it was a hot topic in my house for three days. If you’re into CoC at all, this is worth getting to juice up campaigns and take them to 11.”

Emily Dresner

Latest Articles

The Old Bank

A Trail of Cthulhu location Residents of Arkham have taken to referring to the abandoned [...]

Three New Trail of Cthulhu Campaign Frames

While personal hooks and drives ensure that your investigators are the ones to actually investigate [...]

The Trail to Trail

by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan At Gencon 2023, we proudly announced the advent of Trail of Cthulhu [...]

Jack Belkirk

A Trail of Cthulhu GMC in Armitage Files format Resort Owner Name: Jack Belkirk Physical [...]

Announcing: Trail of Cthulhu 2nd Edition!

“Labyrinthine complexity, involving curiously irregular differences in floor levels, characterised the entire arrangement; and we [...]

Thirteen Things Tucked Into That Grimoire

A blurry photograph of the room where the investigators found the tome. Shadow shapes that [...]

The Mystery & The Problem

In most mysteries, the investigator’s discovery of the crime restores the world to rights. The [...]

A Reappraisal of Th’rygh

For the last, er, twenty-five years or so, I’ve run a Cthulhu game every year [...]

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Pre-Rex

In the latest episode of their heavily armored podcast, Ken and Robin talk Magnum P.I. [...]

Latest Products

£16.95£32.95

Authors: Kenneth Hite, Robin D. Laws

Cover Artists: Jérôme Huguenin

Pages: 248

£15.95£28.95

Authors: Robin D. Laws, Kenneth Hite

Cover Artists: Jérôme Huguenin

Pages: 192

£20.95£36.95

Authors: Steve Dempsey

Cover Artists: Jérôme Huguenin

Interior Artists: William Blake, Steve Dempsey

Pages: 224

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Authors: Robin D. Laws, Kenneth Hite, Steve Dempsey

Cover Artists: Jérôme Huguenin, Sarah Wroot

Interior Artists: Tyler Clark, Ben Felten, Emilien Francois, Melissa Gay, Jérôme Huguenin, Leah Huete, Rachel A. Kahn, Anna Kryczkowska, David Lewis Johnson, Pat Loboyko, Rich Longmore, Jeff Porter, Patricia Smith, Jeff Strand, Sarah Wroot

£15.95£32.95

Authors: Kenneth Hite

Cover Artists: Jérôme Huguenin

Pages: 184

£20.95£40.95

Authors: Kenneth Hite, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, Becky Annison, Helen Gould, Ruth Tillman

Cover Artists: Gislaine Avila, Ethan Black, Gennifer Bone, Mark Bulahao, Wagner Chrissante, Tyler Clark, Kennedy C. Garza, Dean Engelhardt, Jorge Fernández Sanz, Quintin Gleim, Heather Landry, Jeff Porter, Georgia Roan, Anna Rogers, Ian Schofield, Patricia Smith, Kellianne Stakenas, Kyle Strahm, Piya Wannachaiwong

Pages: 368

£16.95£28.95

Authors: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

Cover Artists: Gislaine Avila, Jesús A. Blones, Marine Cegalerba, Jen McCleary, Kennedy Cooke-Garza, Lauren Covarrubias, Lee Dawn, Nyra Drakae, Marisa Erven, Quintin Gleim, Jérôme Huguenin, Ethan Lee, Erica Leveque, David Lewis Johnson, Amanda Makepeace, Valentina Filic (xAngelusNex), Georgia Roan, Anna Rogers, Karolina Wegrzyn

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Resources & Downloads

Here you’ll find official materials as well as useful game resources and play aids. A link to a third-party site doesn’t mean that we agree with or endorse all of the opinions on that site. The resources are available under the Community Use policy, and all are copyright Pelgrane Press Ltd unless otherwise noted.

  • Download the Trail of Cthulhu condensed rules PDF by Tony Williams
  • Download the Trail of Cthulhu condensed rules PDF, translated into Korean by W.W.
  • Trail of Cthulhu Cheat Sheet by Yunus Wesley
  • Vade Mecum de Vestigio Cthulhus, a quick reference rules guide by Tony Williams
  • Download a fillable PDF Investigator Matrix.
  • Download a Keeper’s Investigator Ability Matrix (A4) by Tony Williams.
  • Download a Keeper’s Investigator Ability Matrix (US letter) by Tony Williams.
  • Download a fillable Keeper’s Investigator Ability Matrix (A4) by Tony Williams.
  • Download a fillable Keeper’s Investigator Ability Matrix (US letter) by Tony Williams.
  • Download Stunning Eldritch Tales hand-outs.
  • Download a map of the Cleveland Torso Murders by Enrique Esturillo
  • High-resolution maps of Cleveland for the ToC example adventure.
  • Download Arkham Detective Tales hand-outs
  • The Armitage Files handouts (for purchasers for the Armitage Files only). The password of the zip file is how the innocent situations are described at the bottom of p. 37 of The Armitage Files.
  • The Armitage Files Excel spreadsheet of all the NPCs, organisations, places and magical tomes, thanks to Scott C Bourgeois. Download it here.
  • The Armitage Files mind map (note – contains spoilers!), created by Scott Nickell using FreeMind (external link). Download it here.
  • Download the character sheet and other forms as a small PDF.
  • Download the Cthulhu Apocalypse Character Sheet.
  • Download a character sheet formatted for A4 by Przemyslaw ‘Marksjus’ Ryba.
  • Download a two-page character sheet.
  • Download a character sheet that includes the Magic ability from Rough Magicks.
  • Download a simple, black-and-white character sheet with no background.
  • Download another two-page character sheet.
  • Download a fillable PDF character sheet, courtesy of Josh Clark – Myca in our forums
  • Download a fillable PDF character sheet (A4) by Tony Williams.
  • Download a fillable PDF character sheet (US letter) by Tony Williams.
  • Download a Pulp character sheet (A4) by Tony Williams.
  • Download a Pulp character sheet (US letter) by Tony Williams.
  • Download a Purist character sheet (A4) by Tony Williams
  • Download a Purist character sheet (US letter) by Tony Williams.
  • Download an antiqued blank character sheet by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download an antiqued character sheet with a period male character portrait by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download an antiqued character sheet with a period male character portrait by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download an antiqued character sheet with a period male character portrait by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download an antiqued character sheet with a period male character portrait by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download an antiqued character sheet with a period male character portrait by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download an antiqued character sheet with a period male character portrait by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download an antiqued character sheet with a period female character portrait by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download an antiqued character sheet with a period female character portrait by Joachim Stjernberger
  • Download Dreamhounds of Paris character sheets with surrealist images by John Potts
  • Download Dreamhounds of Paris character sheet (A4) by Tony Williams.
  • Download Dreamhounds of Paris character sheet (US letter) by Tony Williams.

Adventures and campaigns

  • Download a free adventure by Will Hindmarch, The Murderer of Thomas Fell, as a zip file from here.
  • Download Acéphale (Acephalous), a free 1930s pulp adventure with French language handouts by Steve Dempsey, as a zip file from here.
  • The RPGGeek GUMSHOE competition-winning Purist adventure, The Keepers of the Woods by Frederick Foulds, is available to download now.
  • Altus Affero is a campaign frame for Trail of Cthulhu, based around an occult journal.

Call of Cthulhu Adventure Conversions

Chaosium and other companies have very kindly agreed to let us put conversion notes for their excellent adventures up here for ToC users. You’ll need the original CoC adventure, of course! Special thanks to Arseny Kuznetsov for this section.

Trail of Cthulhu Adventure Conversions

And the other way around; here, our Trail of Cthulhu adventures have been converted for Chaosium’s classic Call of Cthulhu. You’ll still need the original Trail of Cthulhu adventures to play these!

  • An in-depth review of Trail of Cthulhu by wired.com
  • review of Trail of Cthulhu by orgecave.com
  • review of Trail of Cthulhu by shutupandsitdown.com

Be warned – these links will contain game spoilers, so if you haven’t read the campaign or you’re hoping to play it, don’t read these!

 

Latest Trail of Cthulhu articles

The Old Bank

A Trail of Cthulhu location Residents of Arkham have taken to referring to the abandoned [...]

Three New Trail of Cthulhu Campaign Frames

While personal hooks and drives ensure that your investigators are the ones to actually investigate [...]

The Trail to Trail

by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan At Gencon 2023, we proudly announced the advent of Trail of Cthulhu [...]

4 Comments

Jack Belkirk

A Trail of Cthulhu GMC in Armitage Files format Resort Owner Name: Jack Belkirk Physical [...]

Announcing: Trail of Cthulhu 2nd Edition!

“Labyrinthine complexity, involving curiously irregular differences in floor levels, characterised the entire arrangement; and we [...]

Thirteen Things Tucked Into That Grimoire

A blurry photograph of the room where the investigators found the tome. Shadow shapes that [...]

View all articles