A Convict’s Christmas (of Crime)

Just in time for Christmas and the holiday season, we are pleased to be able to announce the release of a third freebie mini-supplement to our hugely popular Convicts & Cthulhu setting. Ticket of Leave #3: Criminal Enterprise is an 8 page PDF that is packed with useful resources relating to the flourishing criminal underworld that existed in the townships of early New South Wales. With this supplement, Convicts & Cthulhu gamers have everything that you’d need to run a gang-related campaign or scenario in which the players took on the roles of scurrilous criminals.

The fact that crime played an important part in the early history of Australia shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone. After all, about half of the Europeans living in the colony during this era were sent there as punishment for crimes they committed back in England or Ireland. The military gaolers charged with keeping law and order were only marginally less corrupt, with many having been obliged to “volunteer” for service in New South Wales in order to escape punishment for some misdemeanour of their own. While some of the convicts and blackhearted soldiers treated their incarceration in the colony as an opportunity to “go straight”, many others continued with their criminal ways — aided by some lax security measures and the corruptibilty of the NSW Corps. Over time shadowy criminal organisations sprang up — some as mere covens of thieves, stealing just to survive; others as sketchy political and business enterprises fixed on greedy profit or power. But in a place where the forces of the Cthulhu Mythos are never far away, there is always the chance that “a simple plan” might lead criminals into something far, far more dangerous.

Ticket of Leave #3: Criminal Enterprise provides Keepers with resources to portray the seedy criminal underworld, and allow players to take on the roles of gang members. The PDF includes backgrounds and CoC 7th Edition stats for a ready-to-use gang of nefarious folks; it also includes a detailed scenario sketch which focusses on a double-crossing smuggling mission that leads the criminal investigators into the clutches of some rather unsavoury Mythos forces. It’s available right now as a free download from RPGNow.

This will be Cthulhu Reborn’s last release for 2016 — and I wanted to take the opportunity (what, with it being “the season of good-will to all Shoggoths” and all) to thank everyone who has bought one of our books or downloaded one of our freebie PDFs this year. In particular I would very much like to thank folks who have donated money when purchasing our “Pay What You Want” titles; that money is extremely useful in allowing us to plan for some more ambitious future projects, including better art budgets and the like.

There’s no doubt that 2016 has been by far our most successful year, buoyed by some incredible sales of the Convicts & Cthulhu book and supplements. We are hoping to continue this momentum into 2017, and have already planned out a few tasty treats … in the meantime, all the best for a joyous Yithmas and a happy New Aeon!

Convicts Reviewed

 

Most readers of Cthulhu Reborn will likely be quite familiar with Convicts & Cthulhu, the Colonial Australian setting we published back in May. But if you’ve been curious about the setting but wavering about whether to pick it up you might be interested to read the rather comprehensive review of Convicts & Cthulhu recently published on the Reviews From R’lyeh blog. Generally the review is very complimentary, though it does mark C&C down slightly because in one or two areas it refers back to the forthcoming Chaosium book “Secrets of Australia.” I am hoping that this particular “flaw” will be fixed next year …

A couple of the folks have asked what the relationship is between our (BRP-based) Convicts & Cthulhu and Cthulhu Hack: Convicts & Cthulhu. The short answer is that the latter is an adaptation of our Colonial Australian horror setting to an OSR-type rule system, made with our full endorsement. The Cthulhu Hack version only includes a bare-bones depiction of the setting, and in fact suggests that readers go and download our book for a more thorough treatment of the setting. It does include some nifty random tables and an interesting scenario, though … so even if you have our Convicts & Cthulhu, you might still want to check out the Cthulhu Hack version as well.

In other Convicts & Cthulhu news, we are just putting the finishing touches on the third in our series of mini-supplements which expand the setting in specific areas while also (hopefully) providing Keepers with resources that they can pick up and use directly in their Convicts & Cthulhu games. The third “Ticket of Leave” supplement concentrates on criminal enterprises in the penal colony (unsurprisingly rather common). We’re hoping to get it out before the Holiday Horror descends.

BTW: if you still do not have your very own copy of the base Convicts & Cthulhu book, you can get a PDF or print copy as a “Pay What You Want” title on RPG Now. For the PDF, that means you can nab a copy for as little as … well, nothing … and for the softcover book you can grab it for the cost of printing (about US$4) plus shipping. The two “Tickets of Leave” are completely free PDFs which can be nabbed from here and here.