Scritch Scratch for Call of Cthulhu Iis by Lynne Hardy, Chaosium’s assistant editor on the Cthulhu line and boy, do I love it. It’s a modern scenario, set in the small, fictional village of Muscoby, in England. Players take the roles of a cleaning crew hired by the town to tidy and repair the abode of the local rat-catcher while he is convalescing in the hospital. It being a Call of Cthulhu scenario, there is a dark secret to be unearthed from these seemingly innocent beginnings.

Muscoby and its environs are presented as a tidy sandbox, which each location providing potential clues and the climactic confrontation with outré forces happening at whichever location is convenient and dramatically appropriate. The scenario does a great job of melding Lovecraftian themes with those of folk horror (a subgenre the English excel at). The inciting event comes, not through the evil schemes of a mad sorcerer, but through a perfectly normal cycling accident. Folk horror is largely about forgetting the past (and paying for it) and the economic erosion of a quaint English village is the perfect venue to explore that theme. A tight one-shot experience!