It’s H.P. Lovecraft’s 129th birthday on Tuesday—so, what better way to celebrate than offering 20% off Cthulhu-based RPG stuff!
Tekeli-li! (I hear your Shoggoth cry)
Head to DriveThruRPG for 20% off all The Cthulhu Hack (and a scattering of other Cthulhu-based RPGs), until they serve up the last non-Euclidean slice of cake.
Enjoy!
In celebration of what would be Lovecraft’s 128th birthday on 20 August, RPGNow / DriveThru has 20% off everything Mythos.
For you, that means 20% off on the whole range of The Cthulhu Hack, from the Core Book to the most recent release The Dark Brood – and everything in between.
For just over a week, you can get the whole lot for around $25, offering you a total of six adventures, three adventure seeds, 20 Mythos entities (and a book of tables to obfuscate and customise them) – and the tools to use the game’s simple rules to run all the other Mythos adventures you have around with minimal effort.
As I found on my recent trip to the Tierra de Nadie game convention, in Spain, gamers use these simple rules for their kids – and I had some enthusiastic converts coming back day-after-day for a chance to play the game (which landed me with eight players for a session, which worked out in the end, despite the slightly uncomfortable temperature!).
Not only can you use The Cthulhu Hack to run Mythos adventures, it works well for straight horror and investigation games (drop the sanity wrecking to shock for an easier ride). And, being based on the core of The Black Hack, you have an easy road to yet more customisation by crossing the system or just mashing the system with any number of other Hacks.
And there will be more to come, not least of which will be another set of three adventures coming by the end of this year.
Take a dip – the Core Book will set you back less than a fancy coffee – and celebrate simple gaming in the midst of Lovecraft’s cosmic nightmare.
You wake groggy; your body stiff, your sight obscured. You stir; vigour oozing slowly back into your muscles like you’ve slept for an age. As your vision clears, you find your surroundings unfamiliar, the colours and light queer. You struggle to call out for help, but cannot find the words; You struggle to remember much of anything – were you drunk? Drugged? Sick?
Perhaps, with hindsight, you were better not knowing…
Thro’ Centuries Fixed is a new adventure for The Cthulhu Hack or your Mythos-based horror investigation game of choice. A modern era adventure, flexible enough for a one-shot or a short series of sessions.
My pressing need to prepare for upcoming conventions and exhibitions means that I’m really happy that the printer has managed a lightning turnaround on getting the proof out for The Haunter of the Dark.
The printed version won’t be available to buy until late October, unless you happen to see me at any events between now and then (specifically, in Essen).
In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek – and you can grab the PDF of The Cthulhu Hack: The Haunter of the Dark from RPGNow and DriveThruRPG right now.
In celebration of Howard Lovecraft’s 126th birthday, OneBookShelf is offering a 20% discount on all Mythos related games across their websites, including RPGNow and DriveThruRPG.
That means you can grab a copy of The Cthulhu Hack and From Unformed Realms at 20% until 31th August. That includes the softcover!
And while you’re at it, you can also pick up Pay-What-You-Want release The Cthulhu Hack: Convicts and Cthulhu and the Outpost Generator.
And while you’re there, why not try the excellent The Many Deaths of Edward Bigsby (which still has my local players talking), the resource-rich goodness of Silent Legions, and my current bedside reading matter Achtung! Cthulhu.
The Stars Are Right!
In celebration of the 96th anniversary of Lovecraft’s short tale The Cats of Ulthar, I offer up a few cat-related spells for those who favour the feline and care not for the loss of sanity that fascination brings:
Comprehend Cat (1st level) : You understand feline language; Advantage on your Flashlight rolls for one minute/lvl.
Cat’s Footing (1st level) : Saves to avoid threat from climbing, jumping or falling have Advantage for one hour.
The Wisdom of the Sphinx (3rd level) : Ask a Nearby cat three questions.
Ulthar’s Fortune (3rd level): Give one target Nearby a reroll on any one die roll.
Night’s Howl (5th level) : Instil pain and fear in all who listen Nearby. 1d4 damage/level and panic for one moment/level. Wisdom Save halves effect.
In addition, given the good fortune of the Cats of Ulthar after the declaration of the burgesses and the prayers of Mene, I offer up a 24-hour flash sale on all Just Crunch items – 10% off everything in the RPGNow/DriveThru store.
A little over two weeks since the release of The Cthulhu Hack, I’m overjoyed about the response. Not only have I had a chance to play more Cthulhu as a result of the book – which works for me because I have been investigating the unnameable horrors since the early 1980s and you can never get enough – but others now have the simple tools to get their own game up and running in no time.
At DriveThruRPG, The Cthulhu Hack now rates a Silver Best Seller – for which I give thanks. I certainly didn’t have any idea that the hack would take off like this and appreciate your support. Play some games, spread the word, send me feedback – I appreciate everything you do.
With UK Games Expo looming, I now have a couple of boxes of physical game product in the house. I have a couple because initially I ordered a few and then I realised that this might not be enough after posting about it on Google+ and Facebook. I have made the book available online through the All Rolled Up store for those who can’t make it to Birmingham next weekend – or who can’t wait that long to get hold of a copy!
On the writing front, I have two projects in the works. As well as the companion volume, Der Unaussprechlichen Hack, I have been sketching out something that lies between a supplement and a how-to adventure. Given the way The Cthulhu Hack uses resource management of investigation within the team as well as more standard do-or-die Save rolls, I wanted to show how you can take an existing story or adventure and convert it.
The supplement will include the adventure notes, marginalia on some of the decisions and alternatives, at least a couple of maps, a few random and reference tables and whatever else seems to make sense. Right now, I aspire to get this all crammed into a fairly slim booklet, if not a single double-sided A4 sheet. I’ll see how it pans out and I hope to have the core text drafted very soon.
In running one of my playtest sessions for The Cthulhu Hack, I decided to use an old Call of Cthulhu classic – The Haunting – to see if I could handle a conversion.
You can get hold of the original for free as part of the Quick Start for 7th Edition or earlier editions. I remember playing The Haunted House (as it was called) back in the mid-80s, when we used 2nd edition Cthulhu, clustered around a desk in a classroom at lunchtime. My investigator managed to escape with his sanity but lost either an eye or an arm… I can’t remember which.
I wanted to make the conversion such that I could easily pick out the Flashlight and Smokes rolls that power the investigative side of The Cthulhu Hack. I also fancied making the notes a single sheet and giving the whole thing a bit of locational structure – so you start in the top left and work down to the bottom right. Location investigation across more than one cell of the sheet shares a colour and a bold title. The middle and bottom have the top, middle and basement of the house.
You can access the online version of the Cthulhu Hack-ed Haunting one-sheet adventure outline from Google Drive. I’m still fiddling with it, so thought a live document would be the best approach.
I’m not claiming this is the ideal way to write an adventure or the best way to do a Hacked investigation – but I wanted something that had a structure that would work for me. Running a playtest of The Cthulhu Hack I wanted to focus on the game mechanics and flow as much as anything, so I needed visually accessible information.
If you read through the original adventure and then check the sheet, I think that I cover the bases. I added one or two extra elements that I never needed to use (like the possibility that the final encounter might have an extra twist or that I’d need more combat). Just in case someone had played before, I wanted to have the option for a different cause and tried to pepper references to both amongst the clues.
Might just be an insight into the way my mind works – but I hope it also shows how I see Flashlights and Smokes work in The Cthulhu Hack.
I’m really pleased to announce the official Version 1 release of The Cthulhu Hack through OneBookShelf websites. After a crash course in hacking, drafting, writing and playtests, the 42-page hack of The Black Hack takes the fast playing OSR system into the world of H P Lovecraft.
Battle cultists and the servitors of the Mythos, while the Old Ones slumber, undulate or cavort at the heart of galactic chaos. The simple system makes converting most investigative adventures written with Lovecraft at heart a breeze; the elegant application of the Usage Die mechanic makes investigation effortless.
The book includes creatures and servitors of the Mythos, spells for those willing to blast their sanity and a brief overview of the core Mythos in a 101 for the Lovecraftian beginner.
On top of that, you get a twin character sheet PDF on A4 with room to record your investigator details.
