The stars are right and the time has come to summon Cthulhu from the watery depths…

A new fast play game from Twilight Creations feature the classic theme of cultists vs. investigators for two players. This particular game is quick to learn and plays pretty fast. The entire rules fit on a single sheet explaining different turns and victory conditions for each side.

The game board is simple with some fairly classic Lovecraft-inspired artwork.

When you listen to instrumental music or a movie soundtrack in the background while you’re playing game, it’s very challenging to find music that fits a Cthulhu game. Part of the problem is that there are a lot of droning, repetitious soundtracks that sound the same from song to song. The other side to that, of course, are the soundtracks so recognizable that no matter how softly you play them, every one of your players knows what songs you’re playing. In gaming, music often plays multiple roles to heighten or enhance a mood, to “speak” to the theme of the game and to be playable whether the dice is rolling or not. In a lot of ways, music played for any game has to have a lot of variety because there’s a lot of activity going on in game that will “drown out” the music playing in the background.

Lovecraft Aficionados are well aware of the pulp author’s use of large and obscure words; it was practically his trademark, and has befuddled eager young readers ever since he first began publishing his work in the 1920s. How appropriate then that there should be a word game using many of his creations as a backdrop — Unspeakable Words is a card-driven word game that challenges players to spell without going mad, and believe me, it isn’t easy!

Created by the talented game design team of James Ernest and Mike Selinker and produced by Playroom Entertainment (www.playrooment.com), Unspeakable Words begins with each of the players receiving a hand of seven cards.

Review by Bill Bodden

Four Shadows: Music for Trail of Cthulhu

“There in the narrow hall, outside the bolted door with the covered keyhole, I often heard sounds which filled me with an indefinable dread-the dread of vague wonder and brooding mystery.” -HP Lovecraft, The Music of Erich Zann

What better to set the tone of your Trail of Cthulhu game than some superbly crafted music? Talented musician James Semple has created four tracks specially for Pelgrane Press to enhance your horror roleplaying experience.

Four Shadows: Music for Trail of Cthulhu and more Gumshoe products are available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

For most people, the world appears to be a relatively safe place, filled with the usual problems associated with day to day living. There are no monsters beneath the bed, nothing waiting in the darkness…

But for others, there is the maddening truth; unimaginable horrors lurk in dark places beyond the world we know, horrific things who regard humanity as little more than cattle; insignificant creatures to be used and cast aside at their whim. Ever watchful, they seek to pry open the gates to this realm, to reclaim that which was once theirs.

Shadows of Cthulhu is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

He has exposed The Cainite Heresy, and dug up the Secrets of the Ruined Temple. He has broadcast the Suppressed Transmissions, and ventured through Infinite Worlds. Now, horror heresiarch Kenneth Hite, the author of GURPS Horror 3rd Edition and Nightmares of Mine, assembles the Dubious Shards of the Cthulhu Mythos!

Look for Dubious Shards at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Super Genius Games (SGG) is proud to announce that Murder of Crows will be available for purchase as a PDF beginning Wednesday, August 13.

“This is the first Call of Cthulhu product published under our license with Chaosium, Inc.,” said Hyrum Savage, President of SGG, “and we couldn’t be happier or more excited. We’ve been working on this and other Call of Cthulhu products for months, and it’s great to see them start to reach the audience at large.”

Cy is an ordinary guy with a beautiful fiancee — until his uncle’s suicide changes his life forever. Consumed with discovering the motive behind his relative’s sudden and painful death, he finds notes and scribblings about a nonsense word he doesn’t recognize… Cthulhu. Obsessed, he seeks out answers to questions he should have never asked. A horrifying glimpse into a modern day Lovecraftian world filled with nightmares and excursions into Lovecraft’s Dreamlands!

The Fugue collects the first several issues of the Fall of Cthulhu comic book series. This is a modern tale of the Cthulhu Mythos featuring several well-known elements of the setting that have been built up over the years in various novels, anthologies and role playing games. The treatment of Miskatonic University is a great background element throughout the story, for example.

I’ve been reading a lot of Mythos fiction lately. It started with my review of Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition, which was a lot of fun and renewed my interest in the genre once more. Since then I’ve picked up several books and was blown away by the Trail of Cthulhu RPG from Pelgrane Press. So I started digging into the fiction collections even more…

Frontier Cthulhu is a bit different, having characters explore the “frontier” throughout the ages and encountering dark, twisted horrors along the way.

There was a lot of cool stuff going on this year for Free RPG Day. I managed to pick up a couple of different items when Noble Knight Games did their sale for the promotion. I got the Hunter: the Vigil Quickstart from White Wolf Publishing, the Trail of Cthulhu adventure from Pelgrane Press and the Murder at Miskatonic scenario from Skirmisher Publishing.

Not everyone was so lucky…either they did not have a local store that was participating in the event or they missed out on one or more of the items up for grabs. Well, the folks at Skirmisher have posted a new version of Murder at Miskatonic at RPGNow.

“The Shab-al-Hiri Roach” by Jason Morningstar and Bully Pulpit Games is a storytelling game about academic life, the pursuit of tenure and the lengths people will go to for success, even if that means swallowing an ancient Sumerian bug and burning down the campus. Billed as a Lovecraftian dark comedy of manners, players take on the roles of assistant- or full-proffesors at the ficticious Pemberton University in the fall of 1919.

Players choose an Expertise for their character, an area of learning such as History or Geology, and two Enthusiams, areas in which they excel and delight, such as Creativity, Manipulation or Debauchery.

Review by Michael Erb

In the early 1900s, horror writer H.P. Lovecraft created a series of books and short stories set in a dark world beset by cultist, monsters and unfathomable “things” from space and other dimensions. These works collectively became known as the “Cthulhu Mythos,” named for one of the Great Old Ones that slumbered in the lost city of Rályeh, awaiting the end of the world.

Chaosium’s “Call of Cthulhu” horror roleplaying game captures the feel of Lovecraft’s writings and puts players in the roles of investigators bent on uncovering, and surviving, the dark lore of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Review by Michael Erb

The Heart of Darkness opens once again – to free the Trail of the Brotherhood!

Designed by the man who brought you Arkham Horror and other fine games, Richard Launius, Trail of the Brotherhood is Lovecraft writ large as a boardgame. And the featured illustrator of the game is Samuel Araya – known for his dark and distinctive work on other games, such as Unhallowed Metropolis and Abuse: The Final Insult!

Horror Roleplaying in the Worlds of H. P. Lovecraft

The Great Old Ones ruled the earth aeons before the rise of humankind. Originally they came from the gulfs of space and were cast down by even greater beings. Remains of their cyclopean cities and forbidden knowledge can still be found on remote islands in the Pacific, buried amid the shifting sands of vast deserts, and in the frigid recesses of the polar extremes. Now they sleep — some deep within the enveloping earth and others beneath the eternal sea, in the drowned city of R’lyeh, preserved in the waters by the spells of mighty Cthulhu. When the stars are right they will rise, and once again walk this Earth.

The first print-run of Trail of Cthulhu is just about sold out. That is pretty damn cool. This has quickly become one of my favorite RPGs. The Gumshoe System is easy to learn and fun to play. Check out Grim’s review of the first three Gumshoe books for a bit more detail on the system.

So, even if the first printing is gone you haven’t missed out. You can pre-order a copy of the upcoming second print over at Indie Press Revolution. The books will be shipping in the early part of July.

There are also some great deals on Trail of Cthulhu eBooks at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop. Instant download, no waiting…

The Flash Fire Mini-Reviews have awoken once more.

This week we will be taking a look at some of the Games, Books and other creations featuring the big green guy (no, not the Hulk) known as Cthulhu, one of the Great Old Ones in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Cthulhu first appeared in the short story “The Call of Cthulhu” and has made many, many other appearances since in fiction, games, toys and artwork. Today we’re just taking a peek at a few of the Cthulhu-related items I’ve come across in the last few weeks.

Elder Signs Press is excited to announce the title The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia by Daniel Harms, available in summer 2008.

This is the third edition of his popular and extensive encyclopedia of the Cthulhu Mythos. Updated with more fiction listings and recent material, this unique book spans the years of H.P. Lovecraft’s influence in culture, entertainment, and fiction. The voluminous entries make The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia invaluable for anyone knowledgeable about the Cthulhu Mythos and necessary for those longing to learn about the Cosmic Horrors from past and present decades.

Munchkins have hacked their way through dungeons, kung fu temples, starships, haunted houses, and super-foes. Now they face their greatest challenge – Cthulhu! Will they survive? Will they retain their sanity? Will they . . . level up?

Munchkin Cthulhu combines the zany comedy of the previous Munchkin games with the oddities of the Cthulhu Mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft and its further developments by other authors and game designers.

The folks over at Pelgrane Press have been busy with all kinds of new Trail of Cthulhu updates.

Over at RPGNow you can scoop up the Trail of Cthulhu Player’s Guide for $10.95. This slimmed down volume contains everything you need to play in the game. Of course, your GM should probably have the complete book, which is available at Indie Press Revolution (in a mix of options, including bundle deals) and in eBook format at RPGNow.com.

Along with Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, Howard Phillips Lovecraft is considered one of America’s most innovative and popular American horror writers. The master of the weird tale during the first decades of the 20th Century until his premature death in 1937, Lovecraft’s distinctive style and canon of work has influenced as many authors as the stories of Ernest Hemingway and Dashiell Hammett. Lovecraft’s earliest published work, Herbert West: Re-Animator, was turned into the 1985 cult classic film, Reanimator.

Caliber Comics has published a number of Lovecraft’s classic tales and inputed a modern spin for today’s audiences and the writers are developing new tales based on Lovecraft’s imaginations in addition to adapting some of the classic stories.