Last year, Chaosium released a massively revised edition of Masks of Nyarlathotep, for use with both 7E Call of Cthulhu and Pulp Cthulhu. The campaign comes in a slipcase, split between two books, along with a custom screen and all the maps and handouts on loose leaf (about ¼ inch thick). The campaign now runs 666 pages (NICE! 🤘).

This is the first book, which covers the campaign overview, the revamped New York, London and Cairo chapters and the new prelude set in Peru (different from the fan written Peru chapter included in the MoN Companion). The campaign is thoroughly modernized – reorganized to provide ample support for Keepers of most experience levels, while a ton of a work, mostly in this volume, has been done to downplay issues of race, colonialism and gender.

The original version of MoN has some race issues – nearly all the cultists are non-white. This is particularly troublesome in the New York chapter, where the cultists are based in Harlem, made up largely from African immigrants and the only black characters encountered in the chapter. Which is ridiculous, a fact that Chris Spivey’s Harlem Unbound throws into sharp relief. The new edition addresses this by including a subplot involving a wrongful conviction for murder, corrupt cops and Harlem residents working against the cult.  

Because of the period, there is a lot of colonialism in Masks. The original does a good job of interrogating that, but the new version goes further. The Peru chapter is an obvious commentary, with its villains literally undead conquistadors that suck the fat from their victims. The over-arching conspiracy, in which a group of white people co-opt existing indigenous cults to enact their schemes, now has explicit friction among the villains because of this.

More tomorrow with Volume Two.