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H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham

H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham is the second in the H.P. Lovecraft Country line for Call of Cthulhu (the first being H.P. Lovecraft's Dunwich, the third being H.P. Lovecraft's Kingsport, which was just released and a book I don't have).

It's a big book. 248 pages, plus a smallish (4 regular page) sized pullout map (which is hard to pull out - I couldn't manage to do it without ripping it) and an issue of the Arkham Advertiser (which I haven't pulled out, but I assume is the same size as the map). The paper they used is fairly thick, so it looks (and feels) bigger than the average 248 page book.

The book basically consists of 4 parts. The first is the short story, "Dreams in the Witch House", which basically sets the mood. The second is the meat of the book, which is a fairly detailed description of the city of Arkham of 1928. Next comes 4 adventures. Lastly is a section for the d20 version of Call of Cthulhu. It has stats for all the stated characters in the other parts of the book.

Frankly, I don't think "The Dreams in the Witch House" is HPL's best short story. While it does deal with the Cthulhu mythos, it almost turns them into nothing more than devil worship, literally having Nyarlthotep filling in the role of the devil.

It's one of those strange dichotomies of the Cthulhu Mythos. The elder gods care nothing about humanity, except!, it always seems like there is an exception. In this case, Nyarlthotep almost seems to be a servant of the evil witch (Keziah Mason). Personally, I've always found satanism/devil worship to be quite boring, so it really didn't do much for me to set the mood.
Unfortunately, to a certain extent, this carries on a bit into the other sections of the book.

The second section of the book describes Arkham. While it's detailed fairly well, one line from the introduction struck me as funny. "And this is a good place to point out that Chaosium maps of Arkham diverge considerable from Lovecraft's notes and drawings in Marginalia" (presumably a book of his notes). Now, while I can understand the why for this, maybe the maps in this book are better for gaming, but it's quite funny that a product called "H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham" is not actually based on H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham, but someone elses (Gahan Wilson's, apparently).

Anyway, the map details downtown Arkham. About 100 pages are devoted to describing locations or businesses on the map, along with the inhabitants or relevent people. Some of the important NPCs get stats, some get portraits. Some get both. To my eye, it looks like the portraits were computer generated. They have that slightly rendered look to them. In any event, they'd oddly disturbing to the eye, which I think is a perfect atmosphere for Call of Cthulhu.

It's a fairly good cross section of inhabitants (be it house or business or whatever), all the major players in town are covered - the crime bosses (the old and new), the police, many of the people of Miskatonic U, the press, the sanitarium, as are all the mundane aspects, like the town's only beauty parlor, the tatto parlor, ice cream parlor, a "social parlour" (alas, just for old ladies), movie theaters (including popular films shown then), grocery stores, gas stations, etc. On the more ecletic side, are occult societies and people with relatives locked up in their closets (or attics or basements)

There's a handy town directory (which would have been handier if it were in the back of the book) which makes finding things pretty easy.

Perhaps keeping to HPL's stories, most of the people detailed are white males, though there are a smattering of others. Mostly people who have some knowledge of the Cthulhu Mythos. Of which there are a surprising large number of them.

But all in all, the descriptions and selection are very well done, both in terms of variety (excepting the majority of people being white males) and appeal, and make Arkham feel like a real and not too icky place.

The main mythos activity in the area is related to the villainess of the included story, Keziah Mason. She's still alive and heading a cult in the area. It's patterned like a "witch" cult, with "witch" being the stereotype out of well, the witch burning craze of the past. So that has the possibility of offending some.

There's also one somewhat implausible location - a graveyard full of ghouls. I mean, in a town of 20,000, wouldn't someone happen to notice there is a graveyard full of ghouls in the middle of town?

There are 4 adventures.

The first one, I could swear I've come across before. It involves one of the PCs having a long lost uncle die, and inheriting a large number of mythos tomes. Frankly, I have lots and lots of problems with this scenario, it's makes me want to pull out my hair. For one, having a relative die (or such) is a tired old cliche, and secondly, having a good number of mythos books just be given to the investigators, is well, wacky. It also requires the players to be idiots, or do exactly what is expected, at least for one crucial event.

Still, it could be a good introductory scenario, at least to Arkham, since one of the PCs also inherits a house there. I would tone down the number of books given, though.

The next adventure is somewhat more interesting, but also actually takes place near Dunwich. It's somewhat interesting, but most CoC players have learned to trust people from Dunwich about as much as a politican who says he won't raise taxes. It's also somewhat simple, and is more or less solely resolved by a combat encounter.

It's an interesting showing of how BRP and d20 Cthulhu differ. In order to make the bad guy a badass, he's maxed out in BRP relevent combat stats - size, con, str. This is done all the time in BRP Stormbringer/Elric!, and can be sometimes a giveaway, at least in BRP, that it's someone that that PCs are expected to fight. In d20 terms, all they had to do is give him a high level (though he's only 5th, so not that tough).

There's another combat orientated scenario, this one involving zombies. But, there is one aspect to the zombies that might make investigators a bit squeamish before blowing them to bits with shotguns. So, a pretty nice touch to the typical zombie bash.

The best scenario involves an imprisoned wizard from the 18th century accidently being freed, and then exacting his revenge upon the descendants of those who trapped him. Not original, plot wise, but very well done. There is one really tricky spot, in which if the PCs make a mistep, they'll all be eaten by a horrible monster.

The d20 section is very well done. Besides d20 stats for all the people who had BRP stats (and in a pretty good level, range too, unlike the lousy conversion in HPL's Dunwich), there's a section on character background. Basically, when a character is made, in exchange for skill points, a character can have a special background, which generally gives them a bonus on skills. Though some background have other benefits, like being a Librarian helps you find a book or bit of info. Being a Skeptic insulates you a bit form Sanity losses. Being a Hippie lets you stun others with your body odor. (Okay, I made that last one up, but you get the idea). For the most part, it's a pretty clever idea, I thought.

There's also a section on new spells, feats, and skills, which is almost obligatory for a d20 product. The feats and spells work well, and there is even a section on adapting the spells to the D&D game. But the new skills are probably unnecessary, or more accurately, could have been folded into the existing metaskills. Astrology, could have gone under Knowledge (Astrology), and Hyposis could have gone under Performance, I think. It adds "Decipher Text" to be able to work out ciphers and such, but that probably should fall under Knowledge (Cryptology).

So, to sum up, while it has some faults, most are pretty subjective, it's a must buy for Call of Cthulhu d20 fans. And Call of Cthulhu fans in general, if they don't have a previous edition of this.

The price is also pretty sweet. 248 pages, two pullouts and $28.95? That's a great deal. A

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