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Call
of Cthulhu
Mistkatonic University Sourcebook
Welcome to Miskatonic U!
Although H.P. Lovecraft never attended college as far as I
know, he created a fictional one, Miskatonic University, for a
number of his stories. From where Herbert West, Re-animator, got
his start bringing the dead back to unlife; to the sponsors of
expeditions to Anartica (ill-fated) and Australia (not so much);
to the home base of a number of protagonists, like Dr. Armitage;
it's the college of choice for those who get involved with the
Cthulhu Mythos.
So it's no surprise that we see a sourcebook
on this esteemed university for the game of role-playing in
H.P.'s mythos, Call of Cthulhu. In fact, one wonders why this
book hasn't appeared before now, so late in CoC's lifetime (25+
years), although the core details of the University were
developed previously in an Arkham supplement.
The University Itself
The book starts off by describing the University itself - its
history and its grounds.
In many respects, it's a fairly normal college. Has various halls
and dorms and fraternity houses. It's been a while since I was in
college, but seems to have everything you expect. And a few
things most colleges do not.
For instance, Mistkatonic University is famous for its occult
library. The prize of it is a copy of the Necronomicon itself,
but it has quite a host of other mythos and occult books, ranging
from the famous ones like Liber Ivonis, Nameless Cults and the
Book of Eibon to the more obscure and personal, like Wilbur
Whately's Diary and notes on the mythos by various Miskatonic U
professors.
Each book that the library has gets a long paragraph describing
its contents and its history.
It's also got a museum, full of items found by the Universities
expeditions to various places, stuff left to it, and general
scientific exhibits. It's also of course full of mythos related
stuff.
The People of the University....
This section gives an overview of all the important people on
campus, mostly professors and such, but some others. Many are
straight out of HPL's writings, while some were apparently
invented for various CoC source or scenario books.
About 4-5 different professors of each department are described.
Some of them get statted up, some do not. As you might guess for
a college in the 1920s, it's pretty much entirely male.
Getting an Education...
It's somewhat ironic, for a game system (BRP) whose main appeal
is that its rules light, there are some rather complicated rules
for putting a character through college. Two sets of rules,
actually.
Basically, each student character has to plan out his courses.
Then he gets so many "checks" to devote to his college
activities (classes and social stuff). Then you roll a bunch of
dice to see how well he did.
I personally wouldn't use them, but if you want to run a college
campaign in detail, then this has you covered.
Also, there are only rules for undergrads. I think grad students
might be more suitable for investigators, because they tend to
have keys to labs and such and know the campus better. Playing a
professor might also have been an interesting option, with rules
for teaching classes and grading papers and hitting on co-eds.
Secrets of Miskatonic
Miskatonic has a whole lot more secrets than the college I went
to (which really didn't have any), about 65 pages worth.
First off, it's got tunnels. Not just any ordinary tunnels, but
ones that are infested by both ghouls and leprechauns (or
"little people"). The former make sense, as HPL wrote
about them in "Pickman's Model". The latter seem quite
a bit wacky, but they do apparently come from Keith Herber,
probably the top CoC guy other than Sandy Peterson.
Secondly, it's got an evil Mummy. Coin! Coin!
Thirdly, it's got all sorts of professors who fight the Mythos.
Most of these are drawn from HPL's stories, but one comes from
August Derleth's stuff (Labran Shrewsbury, who in many ways
reminds me of Elminister of D&D's Forgotten Realms)
Fourthly, it's got all sorts of occultists. Rosicrucians and
Templars (okay, only 1 Templar). Then some more run of the mill
mythos sorts, like a group of Innsmouth Folk.
And my favorite, an immortal sorcerer. The caretaker of the
Miskatonic Museum. Who pulls one of those deals where he
vanishes, then is replaced by a long lost relative.
Strangely, dogs like him (I thought dogs didn't like mythos
people? Which is why one mauled Wilbur Whately...)
Anyway, descriptions of all this are given, as are a number of
possible adventure seeds.
A scenario....
There is a short scenario that is loosely tied to the university.
Basically, it seems a med student at Miskatonic U has
rediscovered Herbest West's notes and has resurrected his
formula. I think there's a typo in the stats of the student, as
his size is listed as 121, which is about half the size of
Cthulhu himself.
This is actually a good premise, and the execution is okay, but
it seems something of a waste - such a short adventure (maybe 10
pages) for such a good idea.
Appendices:
The first one has a whole bunch of spells (okay maybe not a
bunch, but 5 pages), which may or may not be new to you,
depending on which version of Call of Cthulhu you have
Next up is new rules for handling Mythos tomes. Instead of
driving you crazy after reading them, they drive you crazy if you
read them and then see something described in them. Also some
rules for reading them faster and/or skimming texts (which I
think I've seen before).
A short table of common items around campus is followed by a few
pages of information on various non-human/pre-historic languages.
And last but not least, 2 pages listing scenarios from other CoC
books that would fit a college based campaign.
Lastly...
There's about 15 pages or so of props and worksheets. Basically
faux diplomas and worksheets to help you put your investigator
through college. (I think the former is kinda weird, myself, why
does the player of a character need a diploma?)
Appearance/Art/Layout
The cover, well, it's not bad exactly, but it doesn't really
scream either Call of Cthulhu or the 1920s. It's a college
student with a mysterious looking book with a baffled expression
on his face and a monster lurking behind a sign. While the
picture doesn't feature anything not in the 1920s, the cover dude
looks more like a guy from the 1990s, because he's got a goatee.
Oh well, at least it doesn't have a Ninja shushing the viewer
like the Japan book was going to...
The interior art is pretty good, a bit dark. The layout is
likewise pretty decent. My only real complaint is the maps, most
of which are rather dark, and in some cases, feature small blurry
type that I can't read easily. (most notably the map of the
tunnels below the college).
Final Thoughts
It's a pretty good book, but it does suffer from a number of
minor flaws, at least for me.
First off, the Templars. Did we really need the Templars added to
the Call of Cthulhu universe? They were trendy back in the early
to mid 1990s (much like the goatee featured on the cover art),
but now are tired and worn out and cliched. (Unless it's for
comedy, like a Templar fighting the Ninja from the Secrets of
Japan cover)
While perhaps not the Ted McGinly of Secret Organizations in
RPGs, they are sort of like the annoying kid that gets added to a
TV show about halfway into the run when ratings start to slip
(like cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch).
Secondly, although this is a trend that has been in Call of
Cthulhu for quite some time, this sort of openly acknowledges
that there is all sorts of different types of working magic
besides "Mythos" related magic. Voodoo, Shamanism,
Wicca, and prominently in this, Hermetic magic all exists and
works. (Curiously, while every other magic is apparently valid in
CoC, "Christian" related magic is simply folded into
the Mythos, be it John Dee's angels actually being some sort of
mythos critter or the Satanist Witches who worship the
"Black Man", who is simply a avatar of Nylarlthotep).
Anyway, while this is okay for a general "occult"
themed game, I'm not really sure it's that true to Lovecraft's
original mythos.
Thirdly, it's almost hard to throw a rock without hitting a
person knowledgeable about the Ctulhu Mythos. Okay, it is Arkham,
and it is Miskatonic U, places where Lovecraft wrote a lot of
stories about. But you get a whole bunch of them besides the ones
out of Lovecraft, like the immortal sorcerer who is the caretaker
of the museum. And a bunch of practicing magicians on the staff.
Ugh.
Fourthly, I would really have liked more information on what came
where. Like which NPCs are from HPL, which are from other
authors, which ones came from CoC scenarios. There is some
mention of this in the introduction, but citations would have
been nice.
Fifthly, while it did a good job on the faculty, I would have
liked to have seen more student NPCs. I mean, I went to a small
college in Florida in the early 1990s that focused mostly on
aeronautics, oceanography, engineering, and space
science/physics. I could come up with students from that sort of
school based on my experience. But a 1920s era Liberal Arts
college I would struggle to populate.
And while I know Chaosium considers it the hideously deformed and
ugly and unwanted step-child (sort of like how Michael is to the
rest of the Jacksons), I would have liked to have seen some
support for CoC d20. But it really would have been a plus, I'm
not taking off any points so to speak.
Anyway, it's still a really good book, but it could have been
somewhat better, I think. If you are interested in Miskatonic U, then
it's a must buy, and it is worth it for most CoC fans, and fairly
useful if you are running a game in or around Arkham. B+