Author: Gary Sumpter (---.SpectraNet.Ca)
Date: 12-16-2001 17:53
A new Call of Cthulhu scenario (especially a free one!) always prompts interest - but in this case the results are, frankly, very disappointing.
Let's go through it step by step:
Wainsworth, "the son of an English aristocrat" stops off in Africa "prior to his return Stateside" after the war. Why wouldn't the son of an English aristocrat return to England? If he's an American of English ancestry, the text ought to make it plain. There's no excuse for such an obvious lack of continuity in a scenario of this size.
Categorizing Wainsworth as a member of the "Lost Generation" is problematic. On the one hand, the phrase refers to the hundreds of thousands of young British men who perished in the prime of life at the Battle of the Somme. A second meaning was coined by Gertrude Stein to describe the intellectuals, poets, artists and novelists who rejected the values of post-World War One America and relocated to Paris to live a bohemian lifestyle. Clearly, Wainsworth is neither of these.
The use of the word "querulously" to describe a restaurant patron's challenge to a British soldier is, perhaps, a poor choice. Querulously means (a) habitually complaining or (b) fretful or whining; the restaurant patron seems to be neither.
Speaking of the restaurant patrons, what do they do while the battle rages (for up to four hours, evidently)? Why would anyone - investigators included - venture out into such a maelstrom? And what happens when and if they do? They run around ducking bullets (which can't really harm them, apparently) and being led around by the nose until wandering into the one encounter that might dispel the battleground. Along the way, they encounter exploding pigeons and an anthropomorphic aeroplane - both of which get my vote for the most laughable entities ever encountered.
The appearance of a Valkyrie seems anachronistic: one might expect to see her appear in a scenario dealing with German soldiers, not British of American.
The image of the Purple Heart is also problematic. After the Revolutionary War, the medal was basically discontinued and was not reinstated until 1932. It is entirely out of place in a scenario dealing with the Great War and its aftermath. Attention to historical detail is paramount, and lapses like this utterly destroy any attempt at verismilitude.
The explanation for the magic box is so minimal it might as well be non-existent. As written, it sounds as though anyone wandering through Tangiers is apt to find one of these boxes. In fact, the acquisition and nature of the box is glossed over as an afterthought. While the details don't need to be made plain to the players, the keeper is owed, at the very least, a workable explanation.
The scenario has absoultely nothing to do with the Cthulhu Mythos - and while this in itself isn't a bad thing (and in more capable hands it might have been pulled off), it comes off here as an awkward and pointless conglomeration of murky, ill-fitting imagery.
There are many truly innovative scenarios yet to be written regarding the Great War - but this ain't it, folks. It's just plain dumb. I'm not impressed with this scenario in the slightest.
|
|
