C IS FOR CTHULHU

The Lovecraftian mythos is full of nightmarish creatures, inevitable doom, and horrors beyond imagination -- so why not introduce it to kids?  C Is for Cthulhu, written by Jason Ciaramella and illustrated by Greg Murphy, takes the creatures and concepts of H.P. Lovecraft and turns them into an alphabet book, ostensibly for little kids.

The format of C Is for Cthulhu is summarized perfectly in its subtitle: "the Lovecraft alphabet book."  Readers taken on an A-Z trip through the alphabet, with every letter described and illustrated by something from (or relating to) the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

This is a simple concept for a book -- but it works quite well.  The illustrations and descriptions are cute, as if written for little kids (but knowingly contrasting with the source material).  There isn't a lot of depth here, and I'm a little disappointed the alternating letter descriptions don't rhyme, but C Is for Cthulhu is good for plenty of chuckles (if not necessarily for little kids).

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

LOST IN R'LYEH

H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Call of Cthulhu" begins with an accidental discovery and ends with a monstrous entity and inevitable doom.  Lost in R'lyeh from Atlas Games puts the players into this story, working to get rid of all their cards so everyone but one person can win -- or, as the rules put it, "You cannot win in Lost in R'lyeh.  But one player will lose -- the last player remaining when all the others have gotten rid of their cards and made good their escape."

At the start of the game, each player gets a face-down hand of cards, then five face-up cards (called Escape cards).  The player then picks a card from their hand and puts it face down next to the Escape card; this is the Ultimate Escape card and will be the last card played.

On each player's turn they can play either Horror cards or an Event card to a stack at the center of play.  Horror cards are numbered 1-10 and can only be played if their number if equal to or greater than the top Horror card on the stack.  (The exception is ark Cult's Voodoo Rite, which requires the next Horror card be lower than a certain number.)  A player can play multiple copies of the same numbered card at once, and they can have special effects (like taking another turn or Banishing (removing from the game) the stack).  Event cards are played one at a time and can always be played.  After a player plays their cards, they draw back up from the Draw Pile of cards to the starting hand size.  If a player can't play any cards, they have to take all the cards from the stack into their hand.  While this seems bad (giving a player more cards to get rid of), it can be beneficial by giving a player numerous multiple copies of Horror cards.

When the Draw pile is empty, players try to play all the cards from their hand.  When those cards are gone, a player takes one face-up Escape card into their hand and plays it.  And when those are all gone, the player puts their Ultimate Escape card in their hand -- and if they can play it and not get more cards, they've escaped and won (or at least not lost).  And the last player with cards is the game's loser.

Lost in R'lyeh is fairly simple and pretty enjoyable.  The gameplay is both simple and complex, as players try to jettison their cards while sometimes grabbing the stack to get a lot more cards and a lot more options.  The card names and art reflect "The Call of Cthulhu" well -- you get a good feel for the story if you read the Horror cards from 1-10 -- and the game plays pretty quickly, as cards are played and removed from the game.  And the metal tin is a nice touch!  There's a lot to like when getting Lost in R'lyeh.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

THE ART OF RICHARD LUONG

The game Cthulhu Wars pits various factions of the Lovecraftian mythos against each other for world domination -- and naturally, it also requires miniatures for the Great Old Ones, minions, monstrosities, and other entities in the game.  Artist Richard Luong has done plenty of art based on the creatures and worlds of H.P. Lovecraft and so was recruited to design the miniatures and cover for Cthulhu Wars.  The process and artwork is featured in the Kickstarter-funded book The Art of Richard Luong.

I was a bit surprised to find that this art book is all about Luong's work in Cthulhu Wars.  The early chapters feature Luong's two-page, full-color painting of each main entity for the factions in Cthulhu Wars; after that are black-and-white images of the miniatures (front and back) for each faction, accompanied by Luong's notes for designing the miniatures.

The later parts of the book feature sketches from Luong, assorted artworks, and the final miniatures that resulted from Luong's designs and notes.

Luong's artwork is quite remarkable, capturing the horror, scale, and otherworldly nature of the denizens of this game world battled over by eldritch entities.  I'm a little disappointed that this work didn't feature more of Luong's work; it could have more accurately been called "The Art of Cthulhu Wars."  But the artwork featured here is excellent, as is the insight into the designs for all of the figures.  (Seeing the final result is a big plus as well.)  The Art of Richard Luong is a must-have for fans of Cthulhu Wars -- or for Lovecraftian art in general.

 Overall grade: A
Reviewed by James Lynch

MADNESS ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Trains are not the most common or practical means of travel, but they are an interesting setting for horror: Characters are effectively trapped on the train between stops, they can meet interesting travelers (and dangerous creatures), and there are the possibilities of the mystery and intrigue of foreign cities when the train is the famous Orient Express.  Madness on the Orient Express, edited and introduced by James Lowder, is a successful Kickstarter Chaosium, Inc. collection of sixteen Lovecraftian tales which all involve, in some manner, the Orient Express.

While it would be simple for all the authors to have the protagonists run into creatures and cultists on the Orient Express, there are quite a few different takes for this location.  "The God beneath the Mountain" is concerned with creating routes for the Orient Express.  A few stories cast the Orient Express as the simple conveyance to a destination, such as "There Is a Book" and "La Musique de L'ennui" (which is more concerned with The Phantom of the Opera than the famous train).  Harry Houdini is the protagonist of "Bound for Home," while competitive cooks face a grisly turn in "A Great and Terrible Hunger."  And the Orient Express has a faded grandeur while taking a tired woman on a journey in "Daddy, Daddy."

Then there are the stories where the Orient Express is key.  In "Engineered" the train tracks -- of this and all trains -- have an ominous hidden pattern.  A battle between cosmic factions is played out on the train in "Inscrutable."  The past and present come together oddly in "A Finger's Worth of Coal," and the collection ends with the surreal "Stained Windows."

I never ran or played a Call of Cthulhu adventure set on a train, but now I'm considering it.  The stories here are mostly of pretty good quality, and the variety they bring into the same famous setting keeps the book quite diverse.  Madness on the Orient Express is a nice, horrific series of trips on the world's most famous train.

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

NIGHT OF THE GRAND OCTOPUS

 First, let me say that Night of the Grand Octopus from Iello Games is clearly about H.P. Lovecraft's mythos.  The Grand Octopus is Cthulhu --from the physical description to being imprisoned under the sea -- the library resembles Arkham University, and one of the Components is a Silver Key.  It's clearly Lovecraftian.  Anyway...

In Night of the Grand Octopus, 3-5 players are playing Cultists, gathering four different Components to summon the Grand Octopus and win the game (and, presumably, get eaten last).  Each player gets a Cultist Pawn (which goes on the gameboard), an Offspring (which resembles a giant evil Teddy Bear), a token that goes on the Dagger of Power to show how many Cultists a player has (everyone starts with the number of players plus one), and a Command Clock (with the rooms on the gameboard and two dials).  The gameboard has several locations, each connected by pathways and containing their own Components (Skulls in the Crypt, Grimoires in the  Library, and so on); each location has a number of Components equal to the number of players minus one.  There's also an Exterior Location (one of four available), which has a Silver Key and an unique ability.

On each turn, players secretly use their Command Clock to select destinations for their Cultist and Offspring.  (Players can also select the same destination for both, which Sends the Cultist to the Exterior Location and keeps the Offspring from going on the board).  Once everyone is set, the players reveal their Command Clocks and move their Cultist and Offspring to their Locations.

If a Cultist is alone in a Location, they can collect a Component (if they didn't already have that one); if at the Exterior Location, they can use its ability.  If Cultist winds up in a room with an Offspring, they can collect no Component and lose a Cultist (and get eliminated from the game if they have no Cultists left).  And if multiple Cultists wind up in the same Location, they have no negotiate: Everyone can agree that no one gets anything, one player can Dominate and be the only one to get a Component, or everyone loses a Cultist.  At the end of each turn, if a player has four different Components and at least one Cultist left, they win!

Night of the Grand Octopus is fun, quick, and a bit simple.  While the game is easy to learn and a quick play, the strategy consists almost entirely of anticipating/guessing where an opponent's Cultist will go and sending the Offspring there, while trying not to be as predictable themselves.  Night of the Grand Octopus is enjoyable, but it's a quick little game that's best played before a "feature" game.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

CTHULHU!!! HASTUR LA VISTA, BABY!

So, what happens when you mix the sanity-blasting horrors of H.P. Lovecraft with the rules of Twilight Creations' long-running Zombies!!! game?  You get Cthulhu!!! Hastur la Vista, Baby!  Sadly, the game has less of the Evil Dead-type attitude you'd expect from the title and more of the problems from its progenitor game.

Cthulhu!!! is a competitive-cooperative game set in Kingsport, Massachusetts, where the players control heroes trying to stop the cultists and byakhee from summoning the King in Yellow.  Each turn players do the following: play an Automatic event card (if they have one); draw and place a map tile (stocking it with, as appropriate, bullets, hearts, cultists, and byakhee); fighting any cultists or byakhee on their space; draw back up to three event cards; roll a die and move that many spaces plus their health; roll a die and move that many cultists two spaces each; move all byakhee to an adjacent tile; and discard one event card if they want.  Players can also play one event card each turn.

Players win mainly through combat.  Players start with three hearts, three bullets, and five sanity.  When a player meets a cultist, the player has to roll a 4-6 to defeat them.  If the player wins, they get a random relic card.  If the player loses, they can spend bullets to increase their roll, or lose a health and roll again, or run away.  The monstrous byakhee are a bit different.  When a player encounters one, the player has to roll 3-6 or lose one sanity.  To defeat a byakhee, a player needs to roll 5-6 -- but if the player wins, they get two relics!  And if a player loses all their health or sanity, they start over with one less sanity than they had before; and if their starting sanity is zero, they're out of the game.

 There's also a new way to win (and lose) in Cthulhu!!! : sanctifying Ritual Sites.  When these tiles are drawn, they have eight cultists and one byakhee on them (and these foes can never leave the tile).  If a player kills the last cultist/byakhee on the tile and discards one of each of the five relics (Amulet, Dagger, Idol, Space Mead, Tome) , that player scores the Ritual Site; and if three Ritual Sites are sanctified, the players win!  Each player then scores points for the relics they have (double the number for each type, then subtract one), plus 12 points for each Ritual Site.  But if a player loses all their health on a Ritual Site, it goes to the enemies; and if three Ritual Sites are lost, the cultists have summoned the King in Yellow and the winner is then the hero to die last.

There is plenty to like and dislike in Cthulhu!!!  The game does work sanity checks into the mix somewhat well, the event cards have an appropriate amount of over-the-top horror to them, and the goal of using relics to stop evil fits the theme better than the run-to-the-helicopter goal of Zombies!!! would.  Unfortunately, like Zombies!!! the action in Cthulhu!!! can get repetitive very quickly, and once a lot of tiles are on the board it's easy to keep moving the cultists along the same unused tiles (forming what a player called "the cultist conga line").  Cthulhu!!! Hastur La Vista, Baby! is a decent entry into the Lovecraft-inspired game genre, but it's only decent.

Overall grade: C+
Reviewed by James Lynch

CTHULHU FLUXX

Looney Labs had adapted its core game Fluxx -- with Keepers, Actions, Goals, Ungoals, New Rules, and Creepers -- to several genres. Cthulhu Fluxx is their most recent entry in the world of Fluxx, and it works extremely well at capturing the horror, madness, and even humor of the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft.

The basic rules of Cthulhu Fluxx will be familiar to anyone who's played Fluxx before. At the start of the game, players have three cards and draw one, play one. Keepers are played in front of players, Goals present conditions for victory (usually by having the right mix of Keepers), Actions let the players perform, well, actions, and New Rules change the gameplay for all players. There are also Creepers (which are played automatically and prevent a player from winning -- unless the Creeper is part of the Goal) and Ungoals (which result in a loss for everyone). So what's new?

For starters, anyone familiar with Lovecraft's stories will recognize how the Goals reflect his stories. If you read "The Whisperer in Darkness," you'll appreciate that the Goal with the same name requires the Professor and Fungi; likewise, the Reanimator and Tomb combine for the Goal "Meat Market." All of the goals match the Lovecraftian body of work.

Lovecraft's work also has a sense of inevitable doom -- and that's here as well. Bad cards have a number of Doom icons on them, and the Ungoals are met if a certain Creeper or Keeper is in play with a certain number of Doom points. But more positive cards have Anti-Doom icons, and each of these is subtracted from the Doom points in play. Furthermore, some cards give victory if an Ungoal's requirements are met (like the Secret Cultist), reflecting the ebb and flow of Lovecraftian horror and doom, and how some fight to make it happen while others oppose it.

Cthulhu Fluxx does a wonderful job mixing the basic, familiar rules of Fluxx with the Lovecraftian mythos. The numerous Creepers, Ungoals, and potential Doom points match Lovecraft's sense of impending peril quite well, and giving players multiple options to victory (by holding off the darkness or strengthening it) makes this more strategic than most other Fluxx games. This actually improves on the core game very nicely.

Overall grade: A-

Reviewed by James Lynch

CTHULHU GLOOM

How do you add to a card game about making hapless family members as miserable as possible, then killing them? By bringing in the Lovecraftian mythos, naturally! Cthulhu Gloom, from Atlas Games, bring the characters and horrors of H.P. Lovecraft to the original Gloom game -- with quite pleasing results.

As in the original Gloom, the goal of Cthulhu Gloom is to give your family members negative modifiers and kill them, so when the last member of a family is done away with you win by having the lowest score. Players can control members of Miskatonic University, the Whateleys, Village of Innsmouth, or Arkham Sanitarium; no family has any special abilities, so the selection is for personal preference, not strategy.
On a player's turn they can take two actions: play a modifier, play an event (for an immediate action), play an Untimely Death (only as their first play, and only on a character with a negative value), claim a story (if they have the requirements, giving a point advantage for the end), discard their hand, or pass. Some cards also give players free actions. After their second play they draw back up to their hand limit -- usually five cards.

The key to Cthulhu Gloom is the modifier. These cards have Pathos points in some of the three spaces on the left side of the card, possibly Story Icons on the spaces on the right, and often a game effect on the bottom. Negative modifiers help you win the game, but they often have a bad effect on you (like reducing the size of your hand or letting other players take cards from you). Conversely, positive modifiers hurt your score, but they can have a good effect on you. And all Modifiers are transparent, and what a new Modifier covers up replaces any modifiers under it. It's not uncommon for someone to play positive Modifiers on themselves early for the benefits, then cover them with negative ones later -- or to play positive Modifiers on an opponent's family members.
And if this sounds dry, Cthulhu Gloom also follows its predecessor with a wicked sense of humor. The art on the cards is inspired by such souces as Charles Addams and the opening of Mystery, as it works just as well for the Lovecraftian goings-on. The card titles usually have clever alliteration or assonance -- "Went Mad at the Mountains," "Saw the Sticky Star-Spawn," "Matriculated at Miskatonic" -- and the flavor text is also quite amusing: "Found a Curious Color" informs us that "We're calling it 'smellow'" while Lavinia Whateley is described thus: "Lavinny's read some, an' has seed some things the most o' ye only tell abaout. So back off, nerd." For a game about misery and death, this has plenty of laughs.

Cthulhu Gloom doesn't wander far from the rules of the original Gloom -- but why should it? The dark humor works as well for Lovecraftian characters as it did for the original doomed English families, and the strategies (choosing negative points or advantages in play, for yourself and your opponents) change from game to game. Cthulhu Gloom isn't original, but it remains challening, funny, and fun -- even if [shudder] you're not a fan of H.P. Lovecraft.

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

CTHULHU DICE

So, you want to be a cultist, serving Cthuhu and driving your fellow cultists mad, but you want to do so without spending a lot of time or learning a lot of rules or needing a lot of space. What to do? Cthulhu Dice, from Steve Jackson Games, is the perfect solution. Thie die-rolling game is very cheap, very simple, very compact, and pretty fun.

Each player in Cthulhu Dice is a cultist who starts with three sanity tokens. On a player's turn the main player is the Caster, choosing a Victim (another player) and rolling the special die that is the heart of this game. Roll a Tentacle and you get one sanity token from the Victim. Roll a Yellow Sign and one sanity token from the Victim goes to Cthulhu (an area in the center of the table). Roll the picture of Cthulhu and all players lose one sanity token to Cthulhu. Roll an Elder Sign and you get one sanity token from Cthulhu (if one is available). And if you roll an Eye, you get to choose the result of your roll. After the Caster is done, the Victim gets to roll against the Caster. After that the person to the Caster's left becomes the next Caster, and so on. If a player has no sanity tokens, they're Mad: Any tokens they get from other players go to Cthulhu and they can only regain Sanity tokens with an Elder Sign.

If a turn ends and only one player has any sanity tokens, that player wins. If a turn ends and no player has any sanity tokens, Cthulhu wins and all the players lose!

Those are all the rules to Cthulhu Dice. Each game takes 5-10 minutes, and each set comes with one die, 18 sanity tokens, and instructions. Since players don't need to roll dice simultaneously, it's possible to play with several people using only one set; serious gamers will want the four different dice colors, while hardcore gamers (yo) will also go for the two glow-in-the-dark dice available online.

Cthulhu Dice is one of the simplest games I own and among the simplest I've ever played. The only strategy per se is who to choose as your Victim and what result to use if you roll an Eye. So while skill is next to absent and luck is vital here, Cthulhu Dice is still fun. This is a game you can carry in your pocket, teach in almost no time at all, and play multiple times in just a few minutes. Folks looking for deep strategies in their gaming should look elsewhere, but Cthulhu Dice is a neat game for a few quick plays or something to play before a main event.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

CHEZ CTHULHU

When one thinks of things that go together, "slack" and "Lovecraftian horror" do not often come to mind. Yet the funny, twisted people have merged the two unlikely elements of goofing off and eldritch horror in Chez Cthulhu, the latest in their "Chez" line of games.

Each player is a roommate, with a randomly determined job (from Dog Walker to Street Corner Shouter). Jobs have Free Time (how many actions a person can take each turn), Income (to buy Things), Slack Goal (how much Slack a player needs to win), and special bonuses. Turns are the same as in the previous "Chez" games. A player rolls a die to try and call people who give Slack into their room, send people worth zero Slack (and with negative elements) to other roommates, and rolls to try and send bad people out of their room and into that of a roommate. Players then use their Free Time to shop (buying Stuff up to their Income for that turn) or pursue activities -- both of which can give Slack. And, of course, other players can use cards to counter your activities.

So what's different in Chez Cthulhu? The new rule is: Madness! Some cards give Madness tokens; these initially detract from your total Slack, but if you get enough Madness you go Stark Raving Mad -- and further Madness tokens are added to your Slack! The types of cards are also a combination of horror and humor, from the numerous Sacrifice and tentacle cards to the card names (Indescribably Horrible Nookie, Unspeakable Manifestation) to the flavor text (Miniature Golf: "Two golfers enter, one golfer leaves!"). You can mix Chez Cthulhu with the other "Chez" games, but it'll be easy to tell which cards are from this one.

Chez Cthulhu is a lot of fun. While gameplay is extremely similar to the past "Chez" games, the Lovecraftian flavor is a surprisingly good fit -- helped greatly by the goofy artwork from John Kovalic. Chez Cthulhu is a nice beer and pretzels game: pretty simple, easy to learn, quick to play, a good light time for friends (who preferably have read H.P. Lovecraft). You don't have to be Stark Raving Mad to get enough Slack before your roommates do -- but it helps!

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

THE CTHULHU MYTHOS ENCYCLOPEDIA by Daniel Harms

H.P. Lovecraft created a universe of interrelated tomes, characters, places, and creatures. This "Cthulhu mythos" continued long after Lovecraft's death, with many authors referencing and borrowing Lovecraftian elements in their works. The result is a feeling of unity in these works -- and it can be difficult to keep straight. The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia: A Guide to H.P. Lovecraft's Universe, Updated & Expanded Third Edition is a reference book to these Lovecraftian elements through literature.

After a foreword where Harms discusses the evolution of the Cthulhu mythos and his criteria for entries in The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia, the entries begin. From Abbith to Zylac, Harms provides a brief description for the items, followed by a listing of the main source(s) for the entries. The sources are almost always stories, though publications for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game are used often as well. Appendixes at the end deal with the chronology, locations, and contents of the Necronomicon.

The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia is a informative but dry reference work. Harms does an excellent job collecting and presenting information on the important elements of the Cthulhu Mythos (though the appendixes at the end oddly mix up fictional and historical information on the Necronomicon). However, Harms' desire to treat the entries objectively strips away the horror and mystery of the Lovecraftian creations and makes the universe... simple. The result: The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia is a great place to find out sources for elements of the Cthulhu mythos, but it won't inspire the reader to look up new parts of the mythos.

Overall grade: B-

Reviewed by James Lynch

The Plush World of H.P. Lovecraft

Horror author H.P.Lovecraft has created some of the most terrifying, bizarre eldritch horrors known to mankind. He also had a keen sense of humor, so I think he'd appreciate that many of his horrors have been transformed into plush toys. Below are the ones in my collection.

Cthulhu, arguably Lovecraft's most famous creation, is described thus: "A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind." The traditional portrayal of Cthulhu looks something like this:

However, many years ago at the Compleat Strategist in NYC, I came across this adorable version:


Who could resist an eldritch horror like this? But this handmade rendition of Cthulhu was far from the end of the plush horrors awaiting fans. Toy Vault http://www.toyvault.com/ created this more accurate rendition of Cthulhu:

They've used this version of Cthulhu as the basis for several versions of the big critter, from a secret agent to a Halloween edition.

Then there's the Gug: "It was a paw, fully two feet and a half across, and equipped with formidable talons. After it came another paw, and after that a great black-furred arm to which both of the paws were attached by short forearms. Then two pink eyes shone and the head of the awakened Gug sentry, large as a barrel, wabbled into view. The eyes jutted two inches from each side, shaded by bony protuberances ovegrown by coarse hairs. But the head was chiefly terrible because of the mouth. That mouth had great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically instead of horizontally." Creepy, eh? But not quite as much when it looks like this:

This monster's jaw actually opens halfway down its torso. I'm just glad it hasn't devoured my plush wombat.

Finally we come to that accursed tome, the Necronomicon. Written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, the Necronomicon is a source of information on the Great Old Ones, innumerable monsters, and spells and alchemical concoctions. It is the stuff of fictional legend, not to mention "real" copies ranging from simple paperback editions to a coffee table book illustrated by H.R. Giger. Thanks to the folks at ToyVault, it's also a Preschool Pillow Book!

There will doubtless be new editions of the Necronomicon released, but this will be the only one that comes with a hand-puppet and squeak toy. What more would the cultist who's young at heart want?

James Lynch,

Still waiting for a plush figure of H.P. Lovecraft himself