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This is another nice adventure from Pelgrane Press that again pushes the envelope into stranger aeons than those associated with home territory of Trail of Cthulhu. Here we have a Purist adventure that is set in England between 1760 to 1770, skirting on the Colonial America milieu (that hopefully will be released by Sixtystone Press in the near future) but largely based in London. Much is done to reconstruct the Trail of Cthulhu rules to accommodate this different milieu of the traditional haunts and it did indeed teach me much of the period – but I must confess a certain ignorance of this time period (feed by bad Blackadder the Third episodes) this adventure was really out of place for me. That said Pelgrane Press has done a great job in creating a believable adventure when science was gradually supplanting superstition – one of the great motifs of any Cthulhu game.

Players are members of the Hell Fire club – which has been tasked with the assignment of stealing letters of another one member which leads to ghastly murder. More, I will not say, needless to say, elements of the supernatural are at play.

The adventure provides copious amounts of detail and really captures the mood of another place and another time quite successfully – there is a slight problem in which this amount of information does create a certain amount of drag to the adventure, so the adventure moves along at a somewhat glacial pace. But, it still moves, as with all Trail of Cthulhu adventures, there are clues and spines that the good Keeper must create the path for the intrepid investigators to follow. The trail of clues are logical and well placed – however, they do not offer much in the way of a sandbox rather the feeling is of ever tightening noose around the players neck – not so much to lead them from point A to point B but rather to choke the life out of them.

Again, this is Cthulhu so a certain amount of this can be expected in any adventure – just found this one – well tough – players are going to have slough through burning points, if they are to reach their objective. So completely logical within the context of the Trail of Cthulhu mechanic, however, those not used to it, might find it a tough sell to overly cautious players. However, as they spend points, they are cornered and will eventually be quartered by the greater cosmic horror that awaits them at the conclusion. Furthermore, maybe, because I just finished reading Many Fires, the disappointment in the climax might be reflective that there is not a Pulpish conclusion. And, the conclusion reminds us that evil is just sometimes banal. Just sits and waits. So that indeed is perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the whole adventure.

The writing is of the usual high standard that Pelgrane puts out, just a bit dry when it comes to descriptions of the time period, as a student of history this type of stuff should interest me – but really it was written not to arouse interest but merely the facts. Perhaps, more colour could have been embedded into this section to get my interest or perhaps, I need more knowledge of this time period – but it did not capture me. The adventure, on the other hand, is very well written with logical segways between major plot points, lots of work will need be done by the Keeper to keep it flowing together, as many things are left to her/his own discretion...not in the sandbox way, but, more fly-by-the-seat of one’s pants. I also found the illustrations departing from the Pelgrane high standard to an equally good artist but not excellent like Jerome dissatisfying – but if you do not like Jerome’s work - you might like this one. There is nothing wrong with this artist, in fact, he is immensely talented but I just got spoiled in expecting something different.

Naturally, banding the players together as all being members of the Hell Fire club nicely puts the squeeze on the players at the very beginning to work together. There are nice pregens supplied by Pelgrane (no character portraits). Maps and similar playing aids are virtually nonexistent – something that hopefully the dead tree/hard copy of this adventure will correct. As one of the great things about Cthulhu is the handouts and given that this one of Pelgrane’s great strengths – its absence is felt.

That said this adventure is good as a one-shot, I would suggest that the Keeper have greater familiarity with the time period than Blackadder the Third episodes. For in the hands of a skilled Keeper this adventure would be truly fantastic, based upon on the material as it exists in the adventure, this adventure rates lower because of the difficulty of time period – it is a completely alien world – or Strange Aeon indeed. This would be fine if there was more supplementary material. So, I do recommend this adventure with these reservations in mind.

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