A Smoking New Release for Dateline: Lovecraft

Today we are really, REALLY excited to be announcing the release of a free add-on scenario to our glorious 1920s-Newspaper-themed campaign resource, Dateline: Lovecraft. When we launched Dateline, we said that all revenue we earned from sales of the core product would go back into producing freebie add-on supplements (commissioning talented writers and artists — both old and new — to create them). Today’s release is the first fruit of that promise!

For this new DL: EXTRA supplement, Noah Lloyd (an experienced indie writer of online horror RPG seeds) has been kind enough to contribute a rather gruesome newspaper-linked scenario called “Smoke Green”. You can download the 27 page PDF right now, for free, directly from here at Cthulhu Reborn.

Noah is new to Cthulhu Reborn, but working with him to develop the scenario was an absolute blast, and we hope we can commission him for more scenario work in the future! The pages of DL: EXTRA “Smoke Green” are adorned with hideous art from the always-reliable Reuben Dodd — the cover illustration of a caged Mi-go which has been partially dismembered is one of my favourite ever Reuben illustrations (especially considering it was such a unique and strange art request)

 

Here’s the blurb for Noah’s scenario:

EXTRA! “Smoke Green” is a short investigative scenario of Cthulhu Mythos horror, set entirely in H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional town of Arkham. When millionaire industrialist Reinhart Laine picked Arkham to be the site of his grand new Tobacco Rolling Factory, few could have predicted the rapid good fortune that his new “Reinhart Cigarettes” would achieve. In a short time, not only were many Arkhamites smoking the new brand of cigarettes — distinguished by their unique green-tinged smoke — but so too were many people in Boston, and cities further afield. The green-smoking cigarettes soon came to be associated with good luck, whether as a result of successful advertising or through anecdotal tales of lucky events befalling Reinhart smokers. The new factory, too, has attracted a great deal of attention, drawing visits from influential industrial moguls and politicians alike.

—♦—

But all is not well at Reinhart Tobacco. When company president Reinhart Laine is found dead in his luxury high-rise office, the Investigators are charged with discreetly looking into the matter. Who could have wanted the wealthy tycoon dead? Were his political affiliations in the bitter race for Arkham’s next Mayor somehow a factor in his death? Or is the closely held “secret recipe” for Reinhart Cigarettes’ distinctive green-smoking tobacco something that a rival company might be willing to kill to find out? Diving into this smoke-filled mystery might just leave the Investigators with questions about who really wields power in the sinuous town of Arkham … and what lengths others would go to to get it.

Downloadable NOW direct from Cthulhu Reborn.

As we mentioned, this supplement was entirely funded out of the income from sales of the core Dateline: Lovecraft newspaper product (which is currently on sale at a reduced price). We hope that more folks consider picking up that PDF, since we already have several more ideas for freebie add-on scenarios which *could* continue to bolster the DL line … if we can afford to commission them! So if you love this free scenario and know of others who might too, please spread the word about our humble newspaper-themed product. The next free scenario is already in development.

[ As with some of our recent Convicts & Cthulhu releases, we have been obliged due to fine-print in Chaosium’s licensing legalese to also create a separate non-statted (system-independent) version of Jo’s scenario “Help Wanted”. If you want to obtain that, you’re welcome to grab it from RPGNow when it goes up tomorrow — it will be a pay-what-you-want title, so you can send a donation our way which we’ll happily add to the “make-more-Dateline fund” too. Alternatively, if you’d like to give us a thank-you donation for the free download hosted here, you can always visit our donate page — all monies raised goes towards further freebie Dateline add-ons. ]