The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Return to Dunwich is a must buy book. Haunt eBay for it if you have to, but this is one of the tightest role-playing books that I've seen in a good while. This is what I think of when I think of the best that Chaosium has to offer the perfect mix of localized spookiness, inbred locals, backwoods plots, and a ravening menace that threatens to destroy the entire Dunwich Valley if the investigators don't twig to what's going on. Hell, you could run an entire scenario on the non-Mythos events in town, just because of the strength of the characters. This is what White Wolf should use as a template the next time that they do a city book of any kind, just because this book is so remarkably confident in what it's doing.

Speaking of which, I think that it's time that Lee Gibbons is acknowledged as one of the best artitsts working in the field today. His cover painting is impressive, cominbing Lovecraft's concept of broken angles with a startling depiction of a normally conventional Mythos monster. I've never seen artwork that was less than terrifying from Gibbons; why he doesn't have his own art book is a complete and total mystery. I'd buy one in a quarter-second. Hint, hint.

The layout of the book is familiar to anybody who's been through the Lovecraft Country books the area is laid out by sections, with each section and building labelled by number. Each building has its own entry some short, some long, some expanding on facts laid forth in other sections.

But damn, any single entry is the seed for an adventure. Alcohol-soaked corpses waiting resurrection, horrible secrets contained within attics, weird behavior, diseased family pathologies, murders regular and supernatural varieties dark swamps, statuary dug up out of the ground, a hunt for the alchemical secret of gold, a local cult that isn't as sinister as expected and above all, hints pointing towards the awful thing behind it all, something that's deliberately pushing the town of Dunwich into a decaying backwoods. And oh, yeah, there's the star of "The Dunwich Horror" hanging around somewhere as well, although he's not the focus of the book.

And to boot, there's even an actual history of the town not just generalizations, but specific information on how the valley's character has developed. Rumors of Whately gold go back a long ways, resulting in assorted parties trying to get their hands on the secret; meanwhile, the local cultists are slowly learning how to manipulate magic, but haven't fallen into the gaping maw of Mythos worship. Yet. The Whateleys have been affecting this place for a while, but there's ample hints that there were people here before the locals moved in.

The book is laid out less along geographical lines as it is people, which is where the book really shines. There's enough material here to fill about two years worth of campaigning. The Dunwich Horror is assumed to have been dealt with, but there's a host of other problems manifesting themselves. For example, although there are a few generic families represented with a name and nothing more almost every building has a hook to it. This family may have two kids and a family dog, but it might also have skeletons buried in the basement that they don't know about; or maybe they can rent out hunting dogs; or maybe they found some old statuary in the field out back. Or maybe play the guitar, and can teach the skill. Or maybe they're cannibals. That's just a hint at the amount of detail that this book has.

The entries don't waste time most aren't much longer than a paragraph, but it's amazing what they've managed to put into a single paragraph. It only needs a paragraph to detail, say, Lewis Martin's naïve pride in being able to summon fish into his hand by magic alone, but the effect on players will be much more lasting. Some of the residents are paranoid, some of them think nothing's wrong, some of them are examples of just how far Dunwich is sliding into a nightmare state. The steady escalation of hints, dropped with each entry, is guaranteed to weird players out.

Is it perfect? Pretty close, but not quite. One problem noted in an earlier review of this product in The Unspeakable Oath is that the book doesn't bring all of the assorted subplots in the book together, which is unfortunate. The lack of focus allows the plots of the book to be discovered by both Keeper and player, but it would be nice to have a "cheat sheet" of what's going on. (You can make one yourself, but still...) The interior art is good, but suffers at points from excessive black-lining it looks impressive, and spooky, but it's also a little too atmospheric for its own good at times.

Is it worth buying? A thousand times yes; it's better than Masks of Nyarlathotep, in my opinion. I was always partial to the backwoods horror of Lovecraft, rather than the globe-spanning and occasionally ludicrous machinations of Masks. The only problem is organizational, but without this product, you'll never know just how good Chaosium can be at writing supplements. You'll also miss a good opportunity to give your players the shuddering heebie-jeebies.

-Darren MacLennan

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Return to Dunwich
Author: Keith Herber with Gibbons, Snyder, Triplett Category: game Company/Publisher: Chaosium Line: Call of Cthulhu Cost: $18 Page count: 132 ISBN: 0-933635-71-0 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 05/21/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Historical Horror Gothic	Return to Dunwich is a must buy book. Haunt eBay for it if you have to, but this is one of the tightest role-playing books that I've seen in a good while. This is what I think of when I think of the best that Chaosium has to offer the perfect mix of localized spookiness, inbred locals, backwoods plots, and a ravening menace that threatens to destroy the entire Dunwich Valley if the investigators don't twig to what's going on. Hell, you could run an entire scenario on the non-Mythos events in town, just because of the strength of the characters. This is what White Wolf should use as a template the next time that they do a city book of any kind, just because this book is so remarkably confident in what it's doing. Speaking of which, I think that it's time that Lee Gibbons is acknowledged as one of the best artitsts working in the field today. His cover painting is impressive, cominbing Lovecraft's concept of broken angles with a startling depiction of a normally conventional Mythos monster. I've never seen artwork that was less than terrifying from Gibbons; why he doesn't have his own art book is a complete and total mystery. I'd buy one in a quarter-second. Hint, hint. The layout of the book is familiar to anybody who's been through the Lovecraft Country books the area is laid out by sections, with each section and building labelled by number. Each building has its own entry some short, some long, some expanding on facts laid forth in other sections. But damn, any single entry is the seed for an adventure. Alcohol-soaked corpses waiting resurrection, horrible secrets contained within attics, weird behavior, diseased family pathologies, murders regular and supernatural varieties dark swamps, statuary dug up out of the ground, a hunt for the alchemical secret of gold, a local cult that isn't as sinister as expected and above all, hints pointing towards the awful thing behind it all, something that's deliberately pushing the town of Dunwich into a decaying backwoods. And oh, yeah, there's the star of "The Dunwich Horror" hanging around somewhere as well, although he's not the focus of the book. And to boot, there's even an actual history of the town not just generalizations, but specific information on how the valley's character has developed. Rumors of Whately gold go back a long ways, resulting in assorted parties trying to get their hands on the secret; meanwhile, the local cultists are slowly learning how to manipulate magic, but haven't fallen into the gaping maw of Mythos worship. Yet. The Whateleys have been affecting this place for a while, but there's ample hints that there were people here before the locals moved in. The book is laid out less along geographical lines as it is people, which is where the book really shines. There's enough material here to fill about two years worth of campaigning. The Dunwich Horror is assumed to have been dealt with, but there's a host of other problems manifesting themselves. For example, although there are a few generic families represented with a name and nothing more almost every building has a hook to it. This family may have two kids and a family dog, but it might also have skeletons buried in the basement that they don't know about; or maybe they can rent out hunting dogs; or maybe they found some old statuary in the field out back. Or maybe play the guitar, and can teach the skill. Or maybe they're cannibals. That's just a hint at the amount of detail that this book has. The entries don't waste time most aren't much longer than a paragraph, but it's amazing what they've managed to put into a single paragraph. It only needs a paragraph to detail, say, Lewis Martin's naïve pride in being able to summon fish into his hand by magic alone, but the effect on players will be much more lasting. Some of the residents are paranoid, some of them think nothing's wrong, some of them are examples of just how far Dunwich is sliding into a nightmare state. The steady escalation of hints, dropped with each entry, is guaranteed to weird players out. Is it perfect? Pretty close, but not quite. One problem noted in an earlier review of this product in The Unspeakable Oath is that the book doesn't bring all of the assorted subplots in the book together, which is unfortunate. The lack of focus allows the plots of the book to be discovered by both Keeper and player, but it would be nice to have a "cheat sheet" of what's going on. (You can make one yourself, but still...) The interior art is good, but suffers at points from excessive black-lining it looks impressive, and spooky, but it's also a little too atmospheric for its own good at times. Is it worth buying? A thousand times yes; it's better than Masks of Nyarlathotep, in my opinion. I was always partial to the backwoods horror of Lovecraft, rather than the globe-spanning and occasionally ludicrous machinations of Masks. The only problem is organizational, but without this product, you'll never know just how good Chaosium can be at writing supplements. You'll also miss a good opportunity to give your players the shuddering heebie-jeebies. -Darren MacLennan Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)