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Curse of Ninevah (2015)

After the initial adventure anthology, Cthulhu Britannica released three other sourcebooks, each of which is excellent and I will cover at a later date. Then they Kickstarted the London campaign box, which is maybe the best licensed Call of Cthulhu historical resource ever published. Curse of Ninevah is a hardcover campaign that came out the same year (2015), designed to take advantage of the London box set. This is a prime-grade campaign for Call of Cthulhu’s 7th Edition rules.

Let me get the sorta bad out of the way (all of this is a matter of perspective, though). The over-arching premise is a little odd – a mythos deity basically wants to possess the king of England and take over the country, which feels at once a little not-Cthulhuy but also deeply British. I am into it, but YMMV. It is pretty huge. It is pretty deadly. Finally, each chapter is written by a different author – you are either going to love that and think it is full of variety, or not like that and think the whole thing is uneven. I am in the first camp.

Now for the awesome. The god in question is Yog-Sothoth, in his aspect of the Babylonian deity Nabu, who DC comic fans may recognize as the power behind the mystic superhero Dr. Fate. I can not express how delighted I was reading this campaign while sort of pretending it was a Dr. Fate Elseworlds story. Overall, the connection to the Cthulhu Mythos is downplayed – you don’t encounter it directly until well into the game – and I kind of dig that.

The whole thing leans toward the non-linear investigative side of Call of Cthulhu, which is what I prefer out of my own games. The NPCs are varied and interesting. The art, by Scott Purdy is solid and sells the story. Mike Mason was the driving force behind the campaign and I can see a lot of design elements that would eventually come to bear in the Masks of Nyarlathotep update, particularly in terms of making things easy to manage for the Keeper.

All told, one of the best Call of Cthulhu campaigns in recent years.

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