This slender volume is a third party adventure module for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role playing game. It is a single adventure, good for a couple of evenings of play, and it is set in the horrific world of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.
Reviewing a role playing game module in the context of Genre Reader is a tricky thing. These sorts of books serve two major purposes: first, they tell a story, but they do so in a different way than typical fiction does. In some ways, they act like a screenplay in that adventure modules are designed to primarily act like a blueprint, a springboard for other people to play a game set in this particular tale/world/whatever. Sometimes this duality of purpose results in a poorly realized, somewhat boring read: a string of tangentially related encounters for players to hack and bash their way through in the search (to paraphrase Mel Brooks from Spaceballs) for more loot. Not every role playing game book is written the same, however. There are plenty of books that both tell an intriguing tale and lend themselves to allowing gaming groups to expand on the material and ultimately to twist it to their purposes.
The granddaddy of delightful RPG reads is not Dungeons and Dragons. It is Call of Cthulhu. Based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft (and others), the books are lighter on the mechanics of gaming (aka crunch) and very heavy on atmosphere and good old storytelling. There are some gaming supplements that I enjoy reading for the pleasure of reading, and Call of Cthulhu books are those.
Though it is the first offering in the Cthulhu universe from a relatively new company (Super Genius Games), Murder of Crows is no exception to the trend of story driven adventure modules.
In CoC, players take on the roles of normal folks thrust into the dangerous and sanity shattering world of the Cthulhu Mythos. Murder of Crows poses an intriguing mystery story set in the town of Bethlehem, New Hampshire during the Roaring 1920s. The town itself has recently been beset by thousands of crows. The birds choke the town's rooftops, trees, and telephone lines, watching the town. While this is eerie enough, the birds have also been attacking anyone who dares to venture into the woods outside of town. This has caused a major crimp in the local tourist season (always an important aspect of New England's culture and economy). It is up to the player characters to get to the bottom of the mystery.
The book itself is divided into three "Acts," though this is a pretty awful term for the three sections. For me, "Acts" suggests elements of a continuous narrative. However, here the three individual components are quite different. Act 1 details the town of Bethlehem itself, the personalities therein, and provides plenty of clues and red herrings should the players seek to interview the local populace. This is a charming section with some nicely sketched personalities. Act 2 details the series of escalating supernatural events that plague the investigation into the mystery. It is a relatively short chapter and the contents are meant to be incorporated into the activities of Act 1 (see what I mean?). The final Act is the closest we have to a traditional Act structure, as it details the final confrontation between the players' characters and the menace of the story.
Which is not the ancient, tentacle bedecked horror I was expecting to find. The menace behind this story is actually quite human, though it plays quite nicely into the themes and motifs found in Lovecraft's fiction. Imagine that!
Included in this book are some handouts, an appendix for continuing game play in Bethlehem, NH (which does take a paragraph or two to sell readers on the next module from Super Genius), and a quartet of premade characters for players too lazy or eager to start play to make their own.
While Murder of Crows strikes me as a surprise filled and well balanced module for game play, it also fell into the curious place of being something that was simply fun to read for its own sake. Not necessarily the book to sell general readers on starting the habit of picking up role playing books instead of the latest mass market paperback, this is nevertheless a welcome addition to my shelf of gaming reads. I look forward to more Cthulhu adventures from SGG.
Murder of Crows by Stan! (Cover Art by Luis Guaragna)
32 pages
Super Genius Games
Published 2008
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