This is a review of issue 3 of The Black Seal, a Modern Day Call of Cthulhu magazine. I also reviewed issue 2 and you can find that here. It gives some background to the magazine that I'll not repeat here, so you'll just have to read my other review too!
What about this issue?
This issue is titled "Alien Cultures ... Strange Things And Even Stranger Places ...". This is a bit misleading as the alien places in question seem mainly to be Africa, Antarctica and ... Belgium. "Belgium, it's slightly different." was a Eurostar slogan a few years ago, so maybe they were onto something.
What does it look like?
This issue is 100 pages long. Each issue has been bigger than the last and at this rate you'll need a wheelbarrow to carry home issue #6 from the shops.
The binding is still the same glued square binding, which probably won't cope very well with any more than 100 pages. Mine is still healthy but I'm not sure it would stand up to more than gentle page turning.
The cover is full colour with a large photoshop montage on the front. This is quite well done, but more reminiscent of the Stand than some more Mythos, even with Old Squid 'ead looming in the background. I prefered the more subtle cover from the previous issue.
Inside, it is pretty much the same as before, good quality matt paper, a good mixture of fonts to help legability and text framed by themed margins. In the last issue this was a cloudy sort of design on each page, but this time there is some variation depending on the nature of the article, from Arabic text to columns for the British Museum piece (what again?).
Each article has a graphic banner and is well illustrated with vignettes and good maps. TBS stands out in that the quality of this art is really very high for a magazine with a smallish print run. In particular David Lee Ingersoll's work is excellent and not without dark humour.
Once again, I'm surprised that such good quality can be produced for a very reasonable price, all the more so that there are only 2 adverts in the whole magazine.
What's in it?
In the last smaller issue, there were 18 items. This issue has only 12 items so each has space to give a good account of itself. I'll go through each one with a few choice, and utterly subjective, comments.
Most stats for creatures and cultists are given for BRP and d20, so this is one of the few places you'll find new material for Cthulhu d20.
- Terra Occulta: An Atlas of Strange Places.
This is a collection of 12 real world places with Fortean interest. There's enough in the short description and photograph to get a good feel of each place and the accompanying text branches out into esoteric weirdness, in the manner of Suppressed Transmissions, to suggest good hooks for adventures. The more well known places have been avoided making this much more useful than just another review of henges and pyramids.
- Unusual Suspects: The Shragged Man.
This regular feature returns with the description of someone who still suffers his unfortunate encounter with the Mythos. It's perhaps a bit vague to be used without some Keeper (that's a Cthulhu GM) input but there are a few scenario hooks to exploit.
- A Road Less Travelled: A Rough Guide to Fighting Evil in a Hot Country.
This is a big article, 14 pages, from Jon Turner. It's written in a chatty and idomatic style and with good reason. Much of it is from personal experience. Whilst I'm not sure that he's had every disease listed, those of us who have seen his Lizard Fu Serpent Man impressions do suspect some lasting damage from trypanosomiasis. If your Congo feels like New England with larger game, then read this article and appreciate the meaning of faecal-oral. There are also sections on driving without roads, or tyres, meeting the local fauna and even practical advice on bribes.
- The Spiralling: A PISCES Assignment into the Heart of the Congo.
This is a seventeen page scenario from David Conyers, a well-known Cthulhu writer. It's got everything you'd expect from a well-structured adventure although I think David may have profited from reading the previous article beforehand. Having played in Jon Turner's Sierra Leone game, David's Africa sounds rather tamer. Whilst this is eminently suitable for tournament play, there is possibly less space for player invention than I like in my games.
- The British Museum: London's Centres of Knowledge, part one.
How many times has the British Museum featured in a Cthulu supplement? I've lost count. On the other hand, this is a modern write up with new maps, security details and some PISCES background so all is not lost.
- Rare and Unusual: Paranormal Artefacts at the British Museum.
How many times ... OK, so I'm a bit blasé, after all I can visit the museum in my lunch break. This is much in the same vein as the first article and covers 10 intersting pieces from the collection.
- Cages.
A comic! It's pretty graphic, and mildly interesting but it's hard to say whether this is a short story, or part one of a longer piece.
- False Mythologies: How a Euro Cult Manipulates Memory for the Benefit of Ghatanothoa
Titles: The Colons! This takes the biscuit for the most ludicrous title outside of the IgNobles. It's an 11 page piece on a big organisation with money to spend on funding esoteric archaeology, with, of course, some nasty secrets. There's plenty here to develop and a scenario idea to get on with.
- The Further Files of Professor Grant Emerson: Report on NYC Burn Victim.
Another regular feature, featuring the autopsy of someone who has had an encounter with the Mythos. This is much in the same vein as Sandy Petersen's Death Scenes: Aftermaths of Cthulhoid Kills but with much more depth and information. Much better than saying, "a shoggoth ate him."
- Resolution Zero: The United Nations and the Starkweather Moore Conspiracy.
If you thought that the tome-like Beyond the Mountains of Madness was the end of the affair, you'd be wrong. Here are 14 pages updating the whole creepy business to the present era of Delta Green. This is an excellent resource for running a game.
- Dangerous Places: Timsdown West.
Timsdown West is a concrete jungle with a difference. This one has Mythos tigers. A good vignette suitable for an urban adventure that would probably best be run with characters with little knowledge of the Mythos, although it would work just as well for cultists. There is a big watermark on these pages that makes it hard to read, but the content is fine.
- Contains: One Tibetan God.
This is the final article in the magazine and is a decent short adventure for a small group. It's one of the stranger sort and possibly not what your group might expect from a Cthulhu adventure but could serve to refresh the palate between darker boughts of struggles with shoggoths.
- The five best Lovecraftian movies
This is promised on the back cover but doesn't appear in the magazine. I guess they ran out of pages and will include it at a future day. I also guess that it doesn't feature Reanimator 3.
What does it all add up to?
With The Black Seal, you not only get value for money, 100 pages for £8, but you also get absolute value. There are some nice adventures and a wealth of great background material for modern day Cthulhu games. The last issue has sold out so don't hang around if you want to get a copy of this one.
Review Summary