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Arkham has traditionally been the mainstay of Lovecraftian fiction a clearinghouse town that has more than its share of horrific secrets, where old bookstores sit side by side with the modern conveniences of the 1920's. It's essentially an investigator's best friend, clogged with mystic books in musty antique stores, training in dozens of skills and access to all manner of helpful things. Then again, it's not an investigator haven, either. It can become hostile in a hurry, and a city with this amount of Lovecraftian activity isn't going to be "safe" all of the time.

This is the first Lovecraft Country citybook published as a matter of fact, the version that I'm reviewing has since been supplanted by the Compact Arkham Unveiled, which sounds as if it has the city entries without the four adventures contained in the back of the book. That's a pity the four adventures are easily worth the extra money.

The first half of the book are composed of numerically ordered entries for almost every building within Arkahm tobacconists, antique book stores, water supplies, teaching hospitals, docks, school, speakeasies anything and everything that an investigator might want access to. There's an index both by number and by business of each building, so Keepers can find, say, a dairy in a hurry.

Despite my listing of the most irrelevant-seeming businesses in the town, almost every entry has some potential to it. For example, the local stonecutter wouldn't seem to know much, but the entry has him aware of both ghouls and the local ghost. A boarding house has both access to rooms and a scholar of the occult who's seen one Mythos horror too many. Even the most unlikely person probably knows something about the Mythos, just because Arkham is a town plagued by its proxmity to Mythos activity.

There's also many, many oppurtunities for investigators to train in, instead of trusting in lucky skill rolls in order to increase skills. You can pretty much name a skill and be able to find training in it the only problem is that training courses take about six months, which is not only a huge chunk of campaign time, but is also not really worth it given the average lifespan of a Call of Cthulhu investigator. I'd be wary of handing out huge increases in skills too, but six months for a measly 1d6 increase is god-awfully inefficient. (I imagine that the updated version of Arkham Unveiled has changed this rule, since 5th edition changed the rules for learning skills.) The ability to take more than one course at once mitigates this problem, but it still seems stingy.

There's also access to Miskatonic University, which has also been supplanted by another standalone product. There's lots of information available here, including access to the indomitable Dr. Armitage and his cronies whose experiences at the hands of the Dunwich Horror have left him shaken and other unlucky protagonists of Lovecraft's stories. There's old books in the library, although actually finding them is going to be a problem. There's access to experts, for when investigators are stymied in their scientific research. To boot, there's tons of useful NPCs in the event that a Keeper needs an NPC who's good for something more than carrying the investigator's guns and getting eaten by the monster.

One thing that I especially disliked is a particular NPC whose writeup includes a discussion of how he's likely to drug and rape any female investigator who happens to wander into his parlor alone. Although it's handled with restraint, and although the NPC is presented as a flat-out villain, I would have preferred that something as incredibly touchy as sexual assault be left out of the book entirely. Some things just can't be handled within the scope of a role-playing game.

Is it useful? I'd say so, but then again, it's likely to be a lot more useful to somebody who's running a campaign rather than a series of one-shot adventures. With a campaign, Arkham becomes more of a home base from which investigators can sally forth; without, Arkham becomes a jumble of resources that both players and Keepers are going to have to work hard at to gain benefit from. I don't know best to glance at the information yourself beforehand and make your decision based on that.

The adventures, though, are pretty decent. A pale recap of Re-Animator just treads water it's interesting, and it starts off nicely, but it doesn't go anywhere, and is generally flat. The next scenario, though "The Hills Rise Wild" is the pick of the litter, having one of the best titles that I've ever seen for an adventure as well as having a vicious twist that'll leave investigators scrambling to adapt. It occurs in Dunwich, not in Arkham, but that's nitpicking at best. The only thing that doesn't quite click is the introduction of a second enemy in the latter half of the scenario. Handled properly, it'll be a chiller, but its sudden appearance may leave players feeling like they can't win even when they've won.

The next scenario, "The Condemned" is another winner, dealing with several Lovecraftian themes a reanimated sorceror, an imprisonment within a bridge, body-swapping and ancient evil and throwing in some of the nastiest death scenes I've seen. (Think about being drowned by a steady flow of worms coming from your gut and you'll have an idea of how nasty we're talking.) There's lots of clues to hunt down the villain of the piece, good characterization of the protagonist, plenty of historical clues all in all, an excellent scenario. If there's any problem, it's a shoggoth put in where it acts as just another enormous ravening monster for the investigators to pump double-barreled shotguns into but then again, it's optional.

The last scenario in the book, "Dead of Night", makes the most use out of the Arkham setting, dealing with human motivations behind supernatural events in other words, it's excellent. It can also be expanded into a later scenario, although there's few details about that other than a reference to Anne Rice for atmosphere. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a recognizable climax would have been nice.

The artwork in this book is aboslutely top-notch. The portraits of various characters within the books are good, although the artist's style gets a little repetitive. But the full-page illustrations in the adventures section are absolutely terrifying they're difficult to describe, thanks to my utter lack of knowledge about art. However, be advised that I was literally shocked when I looked at an illustration of one of the monsters of "Dead of Night" the little details, like the crawl of maggots along a jaw, was enough to clinch it as the most memorable artwork that I've seen in a good while. The cover illustration by Lee Gibbons is also up to his usual top-notch standards, protraying what must be the archetypal image of a Lovecraftian ghoul.

Is it worth buying? It's worth it, yeah. I can't vouch for the quality of The Compact Arkham Unveiled, but this product is worth its purchase price. Focus your efforts on the story seeds contained within the building descriptions, and you'll be set.

-Darren MacLennan

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Arkham Unveiled
Author: Kevin Herber, Mark Morrison & Richard Watts WITH Willis, Monroe, Gibbons, Callender Category: Company/Publisher: Chaosium Line: Call of Cthulhu Cost: $18 Page count: 160 ISBN: 0-933635-62-1 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 05/21/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Historical Horror Gothic	Arkham has traditionally been the mainstay of Lovecraftian fiction a clearinghouse town that has more than its share of horrific secrets, where old bookstores sit side by side with the modern conveniences of the 1920's. It's essentially an investigator's best friend, clogged with mystic books in musty antique stores, training in dozens of skills and access to all manner of helpful things. Then again, it's not an investigator haven, either. It can become hostile in a hurry, and a city with this amount of Lovecraftian activity isn't going to be "safe" all of the time. This is the first Lovecraft Country citybook published as a matter of fact, the version that I'm reviewing has since been supplanted by the Compact Arkham Unveiled, which sounds as if it has the city entries without the four adventures contained in the back of the book. That's a pity the four adventures are easily worth the extra money. The first half of the book are composed of numerically ordered entries for almost every building within Arkahm tobacconists, antique book stores, water supplies, teaching hospitals, docks, school, speakeasies anything and everything that an investigator might want access to. There's an index both by number and by business of each building, so Keepers can find, say, a dairy in a hurry. Despite my listing of the most irrelevant-seeming businesses in the town, almost every entry has some potential to it. For example, the local stonecutter wouldn't seem to know much, but the entry has him aware of both ghouls and the local ghost. A boarding house has both access to rooms and a scholar of the occult who's seen one Mythos horror too many. Even the most unlikely person probably knows something about the Mythos, just because Arkham is a town plagued by its proxmity to Mythos activity. There's also many, many oppurtunities for investigators to train in, instead of trusting in lucky skill rolls in order to increase skills. You can pretty much name a skill and be able to find training in it the only problem is that training courses take about six months, which is not only a huge chunk of campaign time, but is also not really worth it given the average lifespan of a Call of Cthulhu investigator. I'd be wary of handing out huge increases in skills too, but six months for a measly 1d6 increase is god-awfully inefficient. (I imagine that the updated version of Arkham Unveiled has changed this rule, since 5th edition changed the rules for learning skills.) The ability to take more than one course at once mitigates this problem, but it still seems stingy. There's also access to Miskatonic University, which has also been supplanted by another standalone product. There's lots of information available here, including access to the indomitable Dr. Armitage and his cronies whose experiences at the hands of the Dunwich Horror have left him shaken and other unlucky protagonists of Lovecraft's stories. There's old books in the library, although actually finding them is going to be a problem. There's access to experts, for when investigators are stymied in their scientific research. To boot, there's tons of useful NPCs in the event that a Keeper needs an NPC who's good for something more than carrying the investigator's guns and getting eaten by the monster. One thing that I especially disliked is a particular NPC whose writeup includes a discussion of how he's likely to drug and rape any female investigator who happens to wander into his parlor alone. Although it's handled with restraint, and although the NPC is presented as a flat-out villain, I would have preferred that something as incredibly touchy as sexual assault be left out of the book entirely. Some things just can't be handled within the scope of a role-playing game. Is it useful? I'd say so, but then again, it's likely to be a lot more useful to somebody who's running a campaign rather than a series of one-shot adventures. With a campaign, Arkham becomes more of a home base from which investigators can sally forth; without, Arkham becomes a jumble of resources that both players and Keepers are going to have to work hard at to gain benefit from. I don't know best to glance at the information yourself beforehand and make your decision based on that. The adventures, though, are pretty decent. A pale recap of Re-Animator just treads water it's interesting, and it starts off nicely, but it doesn't go anywhere, and is generally flat. The next scenario, though "The Hills Rise Wild" is the pick of the litter, having one of the best titles that I've ever seen for an adventure as well as having a vicious twist that'll leave investigators scrambling to adapt. It occurs in Dunwich, not in Arkham, but that's nitpicking at best. The only thing that doesn't quite click is the introduction of a second enemy in the latter half of the scenario. Handled properly, it'll be a chiller, but its sudden appearance may leave players feeling like they can't win even when they've won. The next scenario, "The Condemned" is another winner, dealing with several Lovecraftian themes a reanimated sorceror, an imprisonment within a bridge, body-swapping and ancient evil and throwing in some of the nastiest death scenes I've seen. (Think about being drowned by a steady flow of worms coming from your gut and you'll have an idea of how nasty we're talking.) There's lots of clues to hunt down the villain of the piece, good characterization of the protagonist, plenty of historical clues all in all, an excellent scenario. If there's any problem, it's a shoggoth put in where it acts as just another enormous ravening monster for the investigators to pump double-barreled shotguns into but then again, it's optional. The last scenario in the book, "Dead of Night", makes the most use out of the Arkham setting, dealing with human motivations behind supernatural events in other words, it's excellent. It can also be expanded into a later scenario, although there's few details about that other than a reference to Anne Rice for atmosphere. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a recognizable climax would have been nice. The artwork in this book is aboslutely top-notch. The portraits of various characters within the books are good, although the artist's style gets a little repetitive. But the full-page illustrations in the adventures section are absolutely terrifying they're difficult to describe, thanks to my utter lack of knowledge about art. However, be advised that I was literally shocked when I looked at an illustration of one of the monsters of "Dead of Night" the little details, like the crawl of maggots along a jaw, was enough to clinch it as the most memorable artwork that I've seen in a good while. The cover illustration by Lee Gibbons is also up to his usual top-notch standards, protraying what must be the archetypal image of a Lovecraftian ghoul. Is it worth buying? It's worth it, yeah. I can't vouch for the quality of The Compact Arkham Unveiled, but this product is worth its purchase price. Focus your efforts on the story seeds contained within the building descriptions, and you'll be set. -Darren MacLennan Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)