Easing into the spooky season with some Call of Cthulhu.

Cthulhu by Gaslight was the first of many Call of Cthulhu supplements that moved the action from the 1920s to another historical era, in this case, England in the 1890s. There are some pretty obvious literary reasons for such a setting and this edition has a firm focus on the Sherlock Holmes vibes, probably to its overall detriment.

This is the first edition of Gaslight, the only one to be issued in the Chaosium half-inch boxes I find so delightful. I love the Tom Sullivan cover art, though I can’t say I am too upset that the rich dude is about to get his. The interior art is by Kevin Ramos, whose stipple skills are strong. That illustration of the Starry Wisdom church is one of my favorite from early CoC.

In terms of game contents, Gaslight is a little thin. One booklet is a historical sourcebook for the 1890s, filled with all the historical detail you’d expect from a Call of Cthulhu supplement, as well as some info on time machines and fictional characters your players might encounter. It is fine, but it skews a bit too hard into information useful for daily life (much like the 1920s Sourcebook in the core CoC box) and doesn’t really fire the imagination. The second booklet is one long adventure called The Yorkshire Horrors. It involves Sherlock Holmes and is full of the exact sort of Forrest Gumpiness I try to avoid in a Call of Cthulhu scenario. It does have rat-things, though, so that’s something.