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This is technically called a "reprint" of an earlier supplement for Call of Cthulhu (Arkham Unveiled) published 13 years ago, which itself was released in compact form as well. I am unsure as to how much information from the original is contained in this new game, but Arkham itself has been covered many times throughout Call of Cthulhu's existence. I imagine this book is designed to gather all previous material under one cover.

In its present format the book contains stats for both Chaosium's in-house Basic Roleplaying System and the d20 Call of Cthulhu game. In terms of comprehensiveness, every building in Arkham is detailed within its pages, and displayed on the fold out map attached to the back inside cover (the front inside cover has a replica of an issue of the Arkham Advertiser). The more important characters are statted out - although the d20 characters are squeezed in at the end in an appendix. While this tome makes it easy for the Keeper to know exactly what is in a specific building, I suspect during play it will require a lot of page-flipping, especially for d20 campaigns. For longtime CoC players, there may not be anything new in here at all - and this apparently includes the four adventures (at least the names are identical to the ones in Arkham Unveiled; what are the odds of that? The least they could have done would be to add some "return to" material like the spate of DnD modules: "Return to the Witch-House!" or "Return to the Hills Rising Wild!" OK, maybe not).

The first section of the book is actually a piece of HPL's fiction, The Dreams of the Witch-House. Arkham has a long history, which is detailed in the next section, and then the majority of the book goes into the building-by-building description. Miskatonic University is thoroughly detailed down to the last moldy tome in the Restricted Stacks. Many places have potential Mythos encounters above and beyond the four adventures in the next chapter. My only problem with the wealth of potential hostiles is the fact that Arkham's small size will make successful investigators stick out very quickly, yet there's really no mechanism to reflect this or any sort of gradual reaction by the bad guys in town. Not that there is any sort of unified threat or resistance; it just would seem to get stale after a while.

The appendices round out everything the remainder of the book. Of interest to just about any player of d20 CoC is an appendix of "Investigator Backgrounds." For a few skill points, each character may buy a certain occupation, which also provides one or more game bonuses. For example, the Cat Burglar occupation costs 6 skill points and gives a +2 bonus to Climb, Hide, Jump, Listen & Move Silently. Since Hacker and Nobility are both potential occupations, the list seems applicable in both a 1920's and 1990's setting. Another appendix contains more skills, feats, and spells. Again, for any d20 player, the material in the appendices could be considered as extra chapters in the core rulebook.

The artwork is well done, with lots of maps, even more character portraits, and assorted freaky borders and sidebars. Some of the art looks like it could be thirteen years old, but I had no way of knowing for sure.

All in all, I felt that this book is worth its price, especially for folks without any of the prior editions. In my opinion Arkham would be best used as a base of operations for a traveling party, with some of the major scenarios happening in other towns just to provide some variety. Still, for the Lovecraft purist and/or afficionado, this book shouldn't disappoint.

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