Wanna Write A Classic? Or Some Jazz Age Protagonists?

We are exceptionally excited to be announcing two new items we have recently released — one major and one minor. The major release we have only just finished wrangling is the Cthulhu Eternal Classical Era SRD. The smaller new release is a freebie PDF which greatly expands on the set of Archetype templates available to folks running Jazz Age games of Cthulhu Eternal (quite a few of you, it seems).

An Instant Classic

For some time we have been meaning to finish up the work we’ve been doing on a Cthulhu Eternal SRD to cover the ‘Classical Era’ — and when I say “we”, I mostly mean Cthulhu Invictus co-inventor Chad Bowser, who has helmed this localization of our rules.

The Cthulhu Eternal Classical Era SRD aims to provide building blocks to create Lovecraftian games set in Europe, North Africa or The Levant in the period approximately 500 BCE to 500 CE. That covers both Classical Greece and Ancient Rome (as featured in Cohors Cthulhu and Cthulhu Invictus). But it also covers a range of other intriguing possibilities as well.

It is available for (Pay-What-You-Want) download right now over at DriveThruRPG, and as usual 100% of the SRD’s content is Open for you to use, abuse, remix, or build upon however you want.

Places in the Classical World are frequently name-checked in the Cthulhu Mythos. Many of the ancient, mind-shattering horrors trace their roots to the lands the people of the Classical Era call home, even if the terrors are much, much older.

The potential scenarios are numerous. Beyond simple monster hunts, scenarios could be built around exposing a mystery cult that worships a never-before-seen aspect of Cybele. Entire scenarios could be spun around the dramas of politics between the various political families and the gods they’d pray to in order to get ahead. Organized crime groups may find themselves in a turf battle with a new group, one that seems to use rats to spy.

More Protagonists for your Cthulhu Eternal Jazz Age games

Probably the question we get asked more than any other is … when are we going to do more with the Cthulhu Eternal Jazz Age SRD, in particular to expand upon the Protagonist options afforded by the relatively small number (11) of example Archetype templates included in the SRD.

We have seen several publishers using this SRD to publish their own Jazz Age scenarios, and also found more than a couple of Actual Play Podcasts that have used the SRD to run games (either original scenarios or adaptations of adventures written for other games). So we can see where folks are coming from.

We have listened … and so we present a much expanded list of 52 Jazz Age Protagonist archetypes. Everything from Aliensits to Zookeepers, Domestic Staff to Parapsychologist. Loads more options to inspire your imagination. We have our own plans for using these in a future paid product … but figured you good folks might like to start playing with them now. Treat them as a replacement for the relevant section (2.5.2) of the Jazz Age SRD … and you’re good to go.

Available as a free download from the Cthulhu Reborn blog.

Mythos Horror in Post-Revolutionary France

We are very excited to be announcing the release of our very first PDF scenario for 2024, an “Age of Revolutions” adventure by William Adcock. Set amid the complex socio-political tensions following the Second French Revolution (the July Revolution of 1830), this creepy multi-strand mystery visits many classic horrors of the 19th Century — grave robbing, tales of wild beasts roaming the streets at night, and more. But it all ends up in a very nasty, very Lovecraftian destination.

Available right now over on DriveThruRPG.

While there have been Lovecraftian scenarios set around the time of the initial French Revolution (of 1789), I don’t believe there has ever been anything set in this particular wrinkle of history. Playing through the scenario during testing, I must confess that I personally learned a thing or two about the long and convoluted road between the history we all know (the storming of the Bastille, and so on) and the French Republic(s) we know from more recent times.

This scenario does a great job at delivering not just a thrilling Mythos investigation, but also painting a vivid portrait of a very complex time when a diverse range of factions vied for the future — loyalists to the old-school monarchy, loyalists to the new monarch, people still loyal to the disgraced emperor Napoleon, and those seeking a return to the Republican government that followed the initial revolution. It’s definitely one for folks who enjoy historical Cthulhu settings … but maybe also of interest to folks looking to play in a unique and complex setting where nobody can be truly certain of the allegiances of their peers (or anyone else for that matter).

Physiology of Acquired Tastes is a self-contained 36 page PDF adventure and comes bundled with VTT-friendly digital files, a healthy bunch of pre-generated Protagonists, and the entire ruleset for our “Age of Revolutions” iteration of the Cthulhu Eternal rules.

It’s “Shouldn’t-We-Change-The-Day?” Day, Again.

If you reading this from somewhere that isn’t Australia (probably most people), it probably seems ludicrous that there’s an annual argument about whether today, January 26, is a suitable day for Australia’s “national day”. It is, after all, nothing more than the anniversary of the day back in 1788 when the British flag was raised for the first time over the newly-founded penal settlement of New South Wales.

Not really a happy day for anyone. Not the convicts. Certainly not the Indigenous Australians who were displaced and ravaged by disease as a consequence. And not really for most of the military gaolers who mostly were sent to this backwater outpost because they’d been caught doing something untoward.

And while we don’t really support the glorification of the Colonial era, we figured that we might as well use this arbitrary date as an excuse to reveal one of the big titles we will be releasing later in 2024. It’s kind of fitting (and not at all glorifying). Yes, at last we will be revisiting Convicts & Cthulhu, rebooting our earlier Australian penal setting for Lovecraftian Roleplaying using the Cthulhu Eternal rules to make it a self-contained game in its own right.

Here’s what we think the cover will look like:

While we don’t yet have a final page count or release date, we can definitely confirm that it WILL be a print book as well as a PDF release, probably about 200-250 pages. Following the release of the core book we will be brushing off a lot of the previous “Ticket of Leave” supplements and making the best of that content available in print also. So many people have asked us for this over the years … so we’re very excited to be finally getting around to it.

Looking Back at 2023

It’s just clicked over to 2024 here at R’lyeh Towers, so naturally we are reflecting about all the great Lovecraftian stuff we have created over the past year … and also the awesome products that other publishers have released based on our SRDs.

In case you’ve missed some of the 17 or so titles that have come out in 2023 with the Cthulhu Eternal logo on them, here’s a quick roundup:

• Most recently, a few days ago we released a free/PWYW 14-page winter-themed scenario called “The White War” set in World War 1 in the Italian Alps.
• Earlier in December we released a Jazz Age scenario called “Second Coming” set in the haunted bayous of Louisiana; a kind of sequel to Inspector Legrasse’s tale in “The Call of Cthulhu”.
• Also in December, our good friends at Libraries & Leviathans published a modern-day Cthulhu Eternal scenario called “Invisible Fires” which is an investigation-heavy adventure which serves as a convenient tie in to their previous scenario “The Wolf Who Cried Boy.”
• In November we released another WW1 scenario, this one set in the tropical waters to the North of Australia. “Red in Tooth & Claw” sees a submarine crew marooned on a mysterious island.
• Also in November, our friends at Twin Engine Publishing released their third Cthulhu Eternal scenario, “Cobwebs of Death.”
• In October we released a 1980s scenario set in the sunny Australian seaside town of Busselton. “Dead Flowers” sees an ancient power of the Cthulhu Mythos working against other timeless forces.
• Also in October, we released our most recent variant of the Cthulhu Eternal ruleset, this one optimized for “Future Era” (sci-fi) games of Lovecraftian horror. This has been one of our most popular free/PWYW titles.
• Just before that we released the SRD ruleset that tailors the Cthulhu Eternal system for games set in World War 1 – an era we have already put to great effect in our scenarios.
• Also in September, we launched our “Australian Aeons” line with a modern-day scenario called “Thou Didst Let Fell” which sees terrifying forces of the Mythos manifest as terrorist-like events in contemporary Sydney.
• September also saw the release of a great sourcebook by our friends at Chaos Badger Publishing describing the Cthulhu Mythos in Romania (written by Romanian authors). Statted for Cthulhu Eternal, this title is available both in PDF and hardback print.
• August saw the release of the title that is perhaps the highlight in our 2023, the print and electronic editions of “H.P. Lovecraft’s Book of Yog-Sothothery” a deluxe illustrated version of our open version of Lovecraft’s mythology, statted for Cthulhu Eternal but usable in several different games.
• Also in June and August, our friends at Twin Engine Publishing released a pair of titles: “Lords of the Night” and “Shadow of the Irminsul” (both are available as PDF or print books).
• In May, we released our first scenario to support the Medieval SRD for Cthulhu Eternal (see below). “The Lord of Nombrecht” is a castle-bound investigative adventure with a “Name of the Rose” kind of flavor.
• April saw the release of two separate free OGL resources for Cthulhu Eternal – the “Medieval SRD” and the “Open Cthulhu Mythos SRD” (the latter of which shares content with the Book of Yog-Sothothery mentioned above).
• February saw our first 2023 title for Cthulhu Eternal – the SRD for running games in and around the battles of World War 2.

As you can see from this diverse list of titles, 2023 has been a very busy year for Cthulhu Eternal and we still have a healthy pipeline of new items we would like to bring out in the new year. We hope that you’ve had a chance to play at least one of our games … whether it’s a freebie or not doesn’t matter to us, as long as it’s providing you with some entertainment.

If you love our stuff, please feel free to recommend it online or to your gaming buddies. It’s through word-of-mouth that most people find out about what we’re doing.

Thanks again for your support as we grow the community base for Cthulhu Eternal – it is most definitely appreciated!

Beginning to Look a Lot Like Yithmas

Just in time for Yithmas, we are delighted to announce the release of a FREE (actually PWYW, but free is fine) winter-themed[*] Cthulhu Eternal scenario PDF by Paul StJohn Mackintosh. “The White War” is a short but eventful World War 1 scenario set amid the icy and treacherous fighting that took place high up in the Italian Alps. Protagonists take on the roles of a Italian patrol tasked with venturing into the No Man’s Land created by the sudden and perplexing retreat of the Austrian enemy forces. Weirder still is the fact that the abandonment of this area comes just after a night when unexplained explosions and gunfire were heard coming from the region.

What would make the Austrian forces give up valuable (and very defensible) territory? What caused the weird nocturnal sounds? And … is this all some kind of elaborate trap? The lucky Protagonists have been “volunteered” to find answers to these questions, or die trying. Hopefully they will make it back safe and sound (and sane) to share in the Christmas Pannetone!

This 14-page PDF, available right now,  is our lucky THIRTEENTH release in the Cthulhu Eternal line for this year — which is actually the most titles we’ve EVER released in a calendar year (explaining why we’re all a bit exhausted). We hope that blog readers — who number among out best and most cherished supporters — will grab this freebie and consider giving it a spin whenever they need a one-shot to fill in a game session. If you haven’t ever picked up any of our paid Cthulhu Eternal scenario releases, this free adventure can also give you a chance to sample our production values and get a sense for the kind of thing we’re putting out across several different eras of Lovecraftian nightmares.

As always, if you do anything amazing with this scenario please do let us know (or review it on DTRPG). Word of mouth is our best (only?) marketing tool, so anything you do to share your experiences with Cthulhu Eternal is absolutely doing us a big favour.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us in 2023 (and earlier) — we still have a big pile of cool scenarios we’d like to release: here’s hoping we can keep up this tempo of releases into the new year.

[*] And yes, I am very well aware of the fact that winter and Christmas are only linked ideas in the Northern Hemisphere (where I am not), but the opportunity to release this awesome adventure as a gift of sorts to our very loyal readers was just too good to pass up.

Follow in Inspector Legrasse’s Footsteps

Today we released another all-new scenario in our “Lost Masterpieces” line for Cthulhu Eternal: “Second Coming” by Gary Sumpter & Rob Malkovich. It’s a 50-page PDF adventure, available right now over on DriveThruRPG.

Set in Jazz Age New Orleans this adventure is a sequel of sorts to HPL’s “The Call of Cthulhu”, picking up the tale of Inspector Legrasse and fast forwarding twenty years from his original raid in 1907. The weird Cthulhu Idol that was seized during that violent episode has been a curio on the Inspector’s mantle, a keepsake he kept even after he retired from the force. Now it has suddenly gone missing, under baffling circumstances. Is the disappearance of this outre idol a simple robbery? Something more? And is the whole matter somehow tied to persistent low-level rumours which suggest the weird cult that worshipped … something … out in the bayou was never fully scattered by Legrasse and his men.

This “Lost Masterpiece”, written almost 20 years ago itself, is brought to life in a deluxe edition with lavish illustrations and loads of neat handouts! If you’ve ever wanted to send your Protagonists out on a mission to track down the “Unseen Masters” of the New Orleans Cthulhu Cult … and perhaps finish the job that Legrasse started … this is the scenario for you!

As usual, we are always keen to hear what our faithful customers do with any of our scenarios — so if you do pick up this PDF and run it, please do drop us a line to tell us how it worked out for you.

Tropical WW1 Horrors for our new AusAeons

We’re delighted to announce the release of another title in our Australian Aeons line of PDF adventures. This one is titled “Red in Tooth & Claw” and is written by Chad Bowser for the Cthulhu Eternal World War 1 SRD (one of our most-popular rulesets, by download at least). Set during the very early days of WW1, it places the players in the roles of crew members on one of Australia’s very earliest submarines. Their mission involves capturing the German colonies in New Guinea. That turns out to be the EASY part … what proves much more challenging are the stark realities of being marooned on a strange “lost island” in the tropical waters north of Australia.

Will the plucky crew members manage to survive long enough on the meagre supplies and elusive natural sources of food and water to be rescued? And will any of that matter when there are OTHER much more terrifying things wandering the island and calling out to them in the night?

“Red in Tooth & Claw” is a 40page survival-horror scenario that is very sandbox-y in structure but still leaves room for plenty of truly horrific moments of dread realization and sleuthing. Available right now on DriveThruRPG, bundled with the full 100-page ruleset that you can use to run it.

Print Copies of The Book of Yog-Sothothery

Fantastic news! Our stunning colour book detailing all of Creatures, Gods, Cults, Rituals, Artifacts, Tomes and Weird Places invented by HPL is now available as a hardcover Print-On-Demand book. Available right now via DriveThruRPG.

The photos below show a selection of pages from the print book, just to give you a taste of what the physical book looks like. We are really pleased with how it turned out … and we can’t wait for it to get into the hands of our loyal supporters (many of whom requested this title as a print book, in a few cases repeatedly).

As a reminder to anyone who was an early purchaser of the PDF version of the Book of Yog-Sothothery, we are offering vouchers allowing you to buy a print copy at a reduced price. Check your DriveThru download for details.

Step Back into the Eighties with our new AusAeons Scenario

Recently we released the second in our line of Australian Aeons scenarios — “Dead Flowers” by the amazing and prolific Stuart Boon. This adventure takes players to an unorthodox setting for Lovecraftian horror, namely a sunny seaside holiday town in the early 1980s. In this case, the place is Busselton, Western Australia, the time is New Year’s Eve 1982/3, and the horror … is just about to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting community.

Part of the beauty of this new scenario is that it re-imagines the Lovecraftian mode of storytelling, transplanting it into an entirely original kind of setting while retaining all of the brooding, ominous tone that HPL is famous for. Plus, Stuart has lovingly woven in some other forms of Supernatural threat that are drawn not from Lovecraft but from the Songlines of Indigenous Australians from this part of the world. In fact, the events that are described in this scenario are a case study in the dangers of mixing old world (Western) beliefs in the Unnatural with the ancient spirits of the Aboriginal Dreaming. It’s a volatile mixture.

The 46-page PDF for Stuart’s excellent scenario is available right now on DriveThruRPG, lavishly illustrated as always and with some nifty handouts and well-rounded Pre-gen Protagonists. Perhaps it’s time to take that holiday to the beach . . . (or just indulge in some eighties New Wave music nostalgia)?

Listen to Us on the Miskatonic Uni Podcast!

Bill & Dean from Cthulhu Reborn were invited to chat to the lovely folks at the Miskatonic University Podcast. You can listen to the long and detailed interview either on the MUP site, or wherever good podcasts can be streamed.

We talked a lot about Cthulhu Eternal — why we made it, what it can be used for, and how anyone can use it as the basis for their own game or Lovecraftian scenario. Chances are if you have a question about our stuff we have at least touched on it in this chat.

More Australian Aeons on the Way

Hot on the heels of Australia’s immensely disappointing Indigenous Voice referendum outcome, we have been working to rejig our release schedule to bump a few Aus Indigenous themed scenario releases to the the head of the queue. That’s great news if you’re keen to see more of our “Australian Aeons” PDF scenarios … a line we started last month with “Thou Didst Let Fall”.

Coming this month, we have “Dead Flowers” by Stuart Boon … and next month we will be releasing “Red in Tooth and Claw” by Chad Bowser. Both of them are amazing (and quite substantial) scenarios — we hope you check them out when they drop.