The Inside Scoop on Gaming

What is Byakhee? No, I'm not talking about those flying servants of H****r, but rather of the Call of Cthulhu character generation program. For those who don't know, Call of Cthulhu is the excellant RPG by Chaosium, based on the horror fiction of H.P.Lovecraft, his correspondants, and later authors who continued his tradition.

Byakhee, then, is a program designed to help players and GM's (called "Keepers" in CoC) generate characters (and more) for use in this game. The program is available free (yay!) at the author's site along with many expansions such as new rules from various CoC supplements. It runs under Windows 98 on my machine (and presumably under 95, NT, Windows 2000, and such).

Once you get Byakhee up and running, you're presented with an Office-ish "New document" window, with a few selections (one for each era of CoC. That's late 19th century, the Twenties, and the present day, for those unfamiliar with the game). Simply double click on the appropriate era to get a character sheet appropriate for that setting. Immediately, you'll notice that the display on the screen bears a striking resemblance to what you'd find in the back of the CoC rulebook--nicer than most character creation programs that I've seen. The main difference is that the attributes have been rolled for you (you can easily reroll from a menu, or edit the attributese to enter your own rolls, or attributes from an existing CoC character). Similarly, the Sanity, Hit Points, and Magic points have been pre-calculated, as have those skills whose starting level depend on attributes. You can edit anything by clicking with the mouse--in some cases a nice little drop-down box appears to allow you to select from pre-existing values. For instance, if you click on "Birthplace" you can type in the city or town of your choice, or select from the pre-existing selection of Massachusetts towns (That state is the most common setting for CoC adventures, due to the fact that so many of Lovecraft's stories were set there). Oddly enough, one of the only things that cannot be directly edited is the character's weapons. For these, you use a window accessible from a pull-down menu. Most likely, this was simply too complex to put directly into the character sheet. Another menu allows you to give your character those yummy SAN-eating spells that they all love and hate. It will also check the character for you to make sure you didn't spend too many or too few skill points or the like.

As far as printed output goes, the character sheets look essentially the same as the ones from the rulebook, only filled out in neat, easy-to-read printed letters. Much nicer-looking than hand-made characters, IMHO.

But that's only scratching the surface. From that same new document window, you can choose a "Wizard" instead of just a character sheet. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Wizards automate tasks, in this case the creation of a CoC character. Selecting a Wizard will get you a window where you can view attribute rolls, reroll, swap rolls between attributes, or edit the rolls, depending on which methods your Keeper allows. Once you've got attributes that you like, it's time to choose a profession. There are slews of these, and more available for download. As you ponder this choice, a handy white note window displays your attributes. Once you've chosen, it's on to skills.

Skill selection follows the standard CoC model. First you allocate the appropriate number of points among those skill associated with your profession. The system is smart enough not to allow you to allocate too many points. Then, you allocate a different pool of points to any skills at all. The system works smoothly, in general, and covers all the usual CoC skills.

Once you've done this, you can enter personal information, such as character name and birthplace, and then you get a nicely filled-out character sheet which you can print out. You may of course, edit this sheet, both to add new information and to reflect changes (such as lost Sanity) that might occur in play.

In addition to generating characters, Byakhee also supports generation of handouts such as telegrams (the only one supported in the main download) and newspaper clippings. CoC adventures generally make use of such items, and this is a nice feature to have.

But the fun doesn't stop there! Also available for download are additional files, including the character sheet back (containing spaces for character history, possessions, creatures encountered, and such--all editable) additional character sheets for the newest edition of CoC and for Delta Green, and more handouts. There are also additional rules files, such as one for Dreamlands characters.

In general, Byakhee is a very complete and useful program, with few bugs or glitches. One that I did notice though was a tendancy to crash upon saving. Usually it doesn't do this if you select "Save As.." from the file menu when you first save your file, and in any case it crashes AFTER saving your file, so you don't lose any work. Still, it is a noticable bug. Other than that though, this program is quite stable, useful, and easy to use. Well worth the download if you have a PC and play or GM Call of Cthulhu.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Byakhee
Author: David Harvey Category: RPG Utility Company/Publisher: N/A Line: Call of Cthulhu Cost: Free Page count: n/a Capsule Review by Jason Lescalleet (Tarkuss) on 12/17/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Modern_day Historical Horror	What is Byakhee? No, I'm not talking about those flying servants of H****r, but rather of the Call of Cthulhu character generation program. For those who don't know, Call of Cthulhu is the excellant RPG by Chaosium, based on the horror fiction of H.P.Lovecraft, his correspondants, and later authors who continued his tradition. Byakhee, then, is a program designed to help players and GM's (called "Keepers" in CoC) generate characters (and more) for use in this game. The program is available free (yay!) at the author's site along with many expansions such as new rules from various CoC supplements. It runs under Windows 98 on my machine (and presumably under 95, NT, Windows 2000, and such). Once you get Byakhee up and running, you're presented with an Office-ish "New document" window, with a few selections (one for each era of CoC. That's late 19th century, the Twenties, and the present day, for those unfamiliar with the game). Simply double click on the appropriate era to get a character sheet appropriate for that setting. Immediately, you'll notice that the display on the screen bears a striking resemblance to what you'd find in the back of the CoC rulebook--nicer than most character creation programs that I've seen. The main difference is that the attributes have been rolled for you (you can easily reroll from a menu, or edit the attributese to enter your own rolls, or attributes from an existing CoC character). Similarly, the Sanity, Hit Points, and Magic points have been pre-calculated, as have those skills whose starting level depend on attributes. You can edit anything by clicking with the mouse--in some cases a nice little drop-down box appears to allow you to select from pre-existing values. For instance, if you click on "Birthplace" you can type in the city or town of your choice, or select from the pre-existing selection of Massachusetts towns (That state is the most common setting for CoC adventures, due to the fact that so many of Lovecraft's stories were set there). Oddly enough, one of the only things that cannot be directly edited is the character's weapons. For these, you use a window accessible from a pull-down menu. Most likely, this was simply too complex to put directly into the character sheet. Another menu allows you to give your character those yummy SAN-eating spells that they all love and hate. It will also check the character for you to make sure you didn't spend too many or too few skill points or the like. As far as printed output goes, the character sheets look essentially the same as the ones from the rulebook, only filled out in neat, easy-to-read printed letters. Much nicer-looking than hand-made characters, IMHO. But that's only scratching the surface. From that same new document window, you can choose a "Wizard" instead of just a character sheet. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Wizards automate tasks, in this case the creation of a CoC character. Selecting a Wizard will get you a window where you can view attribute rolls, reroll, swap rolls between attributes, or edit the rolls, depending on which methods your Keeper allows. Once you've got attributes that you like, it's time to choose a profession. There are slews of these, and more available for download. As you ponder this choice, a handy white note window displays your attributes. Once you've chosen, it's on to skills. Skill selection follows the standard CoC model. First you allocate the appropriate number of points among those skill associated with your profession. The system is smart enough not to allow you to allocate too many points. Then, you allocate a different pool of points to any skills at all. The system works smoothly, in general, and covers all the usual CoC skills. Once you've done this, you can enter personal information, such as character name and birthplace, and then you get a nicely filled-out character sheet which you can print out. You may of course, edit this sheet, both to add new information and to reflect changes (such as lost Sanity) that might occur in play. In addition to generating characters, Byakhee also supports generation of handouts such as telegrams (the only one supported in the main download) and newspaper clippings. CoC adventures generally make use of such items, and this is a nice feature to have. But the fun doesn't stop there! Also available for download are additional files, including the character sheet back (containing spaces for character history, possessions, creatures encountered, and such--all editable) additional character sheets for the newest edition of CoC and for Delta Green, and more handouts. There are also additional rules files, such as one for Dreamlands characters. In general, Byakhee is a very complete and useful program, with few bugs or glitches. One that I did notice though was a tendancy to crash upon saving. Usually it doesn't do this if you select "Save As.." from the file menu when you first save your file, and in any case it crashes AFTER saving your file, so you don't lose any work. Still, it is a noticable bug. Other than that though, this program is quite stable, useful, and easy to use. Well worth the download if you have a PC and play or GM Call of Cthulhu. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)