Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Eternal Lies

For the last several months I have been emersing myself in games based on the Cthulhu Mythos. One of those games has been the Trail of Cthulhu roleplaying game, a re-working of Call of Cthulhu with the Gumshoe System and set in the 1930s.

There is something about Trail of Cthulhu that particularly appeals to me in the way I think about story. As an investigative game, its adventures are set up in scenes where clues are found, interpreted and followed. I believe that one of the joys of roleplaying games is creating a collective story, and the Trail of Cthulhu adventures are set up to provide a strong skeleton for that story. I've looked and have read through a number of releases for the game, and I have been impressed consistantly.

Eternal Lies is a large campaign that has been in the works for a while now. It has been compared to Masks of Nyarlathotep, the classic world-spanning campaign for Call of Cthulhu, and promises to be epic.

Ten years ago a group of investigators fought against the summoning of a Mythos creature (or "ancient and monstrous evil," if you prefer). They failed. Now you are investigating what happened, and more importantly, what went wrong. Along the way you get to visit "ancient crypts, abandoned estates, and festering slums. . . [, and] choked jungles." Oh yeah, and you also get to delve into the crushed psyches of your predecessors. In the end, the "world is yours to save. . . or lose."

Added to this, there is also a soundtrack that was composed to go along with the campaign. Although in practice using relatively short tracks themed to each section of the campaign may be hard to use, it adds another tool to set the mood.

Pelgrane Press is currently in the playtesting stage for Eternal Lies. Hopefully it will see release in the early part of 2012.

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