I know, I know, I can’t shut up about Masks of Nyarlathotep, but I PROMISE this week is the last time.

This is 1989 second printing of the campaign. This book was my first exposure to Call of Cthulhu in general and it promised a darker experience than I was used to from D&D. Like the box set, it is incomplete, lacking the Australia portion of the campaign. With the exception of the new (AWESOME) cover and the color plates, it is, in fact, identical to the box set.

Masks, if you didn’t know, is a deadly investigation into an occult conspiracy that spans five continents, chasing the servants of Nyarlathotep as they attempt fulfill ancient prophecies and bring about the end of the world. It was one of the first RPG campaigns that took an open world sandbox approach and generally wasn’t matched in terms of scope and scale, well, arguably ever. Chaosium is really good at campaigns, y’all.

Having just run it recently, I can tell you it has its flaws. It requires a lot of support work from the Keeper and it can be terribly deadly. It also has trouble navigating some of the inherent pitfalls of playing in the historical era of the 1920s and being modeled after HP Lovecraft’s work – there’s an obvious gender imbalance, a good portion of the villains tend to be dark skinned foreigners and there is some sex stuff that I find a bit tasteless. All of that is easy enough to work around and doesn’t taint the game overall, though.

At its core, this is a pulpy adventure that gives Indiana Jones a run for his money. Seriously.