What do you think?
Rate this book
Call of Cthulhu RPG
Dead Light
The storm had been brewing for days and now it hits! Combined with restless, idle youth and the desire for easy money, something has been released out there amid the darkness, the howling wind, and lashing rain.
Dead Light is an adventure scenario for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying system designed to be played in one or more gaming sessions. An exercise in Lovecraftian-flavored survival horror, the unwitting investigators are caught up in a spiral of terror where only their quick thinking, and courage, will see them through till the clouds clear and a new dawn beckons.
Suitable as a stand alone adventure or as a sidetrack within a larger campaign, Dead Light is set in Lovecraft Country, north of Arkham, during the early 1920s and is ideal for groups of between three to six players.
This is one journey your players will not soon forget.
Dead Light is an adventure scenario for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying system designed to be played in one or more gaming sessions. An exercise in Lovecraftian-flavored survival horror, the unwitting investigators are caught up in a spiral of terror where only their quick thinking, and courage, will see them through till the clouds clear and a new dawn beckons.
Suitable as a stand alone adventure or as a sidetrack within a larger campaign, Dead Light is set in Lovecraft Country, north of Arkham, during the early 1920s and is ideal for groups of between three to six players.
This is one journey your players will not soon forget.
32 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2013
1 person is currently reading
18 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 5, 2017
This is a fine scenario for totally new players to Call of Cthulhu RPG 7th edition.
The tale follows several Gothic elements and traps the players in a scenario they have to survive and maybe even solve. Additionally, as a bonus to some, this is set in Lovecraft country right near Arkham.
OVERALL GRADE: B plus.
The tale follows several Gothic elements and traps the players in a scenario they have to survive and maybe even solve. Additionally, as a bonus to some, this is set in Lovecraft country right near Arkham.
OVERALL GRADE: B plus.
Read
December 13, 2022This is a pretty thin book with a pretty solid adventure idea. Like the copy I have is 32 pages, but the actual adventure breakdown is
(Bear with me, I know I'm really into page-by-page breakdowns for small books, which is because I'm fascinated by what people think is worth spending time on in such a short space.)
* 1.5 columns of intro (this is a one-shot survival horror adventure)
* 3 columns of background (a rich doctor and his troubled granddaughter retired to this rural area near a gas station/diner; the waitress at that diner got greedy and got her boyfriend and his friend to rob the doctor during a storm; during the robbery, something horrible was let out; your characters find themselves stranded at this location during the storm) + quarter page illustration of the robbers
* 1 column discussing the location and some alternatives
* 2 columns all about the monster, a free-floating smear of light that absorbs life, cannot be reasoned with, is vulnerable to electricity, and can be controlled with some special rituals
* a full page map of the area
* 2 columns of intro -- the PCs drive through a storm and see the granddaughter walking in a fugue state, having just seen her grandfather shot and another man ripped into by the monster + quarter page illo of her wandering the road
* 1 column on getting to the diner and who is stranded there + half page illo of the gas station/diner outside + full page map
* 1.5 columns about the woods in the area + travel during the storm
* 4 columns about the doctor's cottage -- a crime scene where the monster was unleashed, but also where the PCs might find the means to capturing the monster and its history (it's been in the family for generations, used by the doctors in the family to get rid of unwanted children) + full page map + half page illo of the dead bodies in the crime scene
* 3 columns of advice to the game master about how to keep the action moving and suspenseful
* 1 column on reaching a conclusion, which leaves half a page of white space
* 7 pages of 1 page character descriptions for everyone you meet at the diner + the granddaughter + the monster
(Then there's 4 pages of notes for converting this into other editions of the game + 2 pages of other titles you might want.)
Now, I like a lot about adventure -- I like the idea of a non-Mythos monster; I like the idea of survival horror where maybe one of the ways to survive is to go deeper into the mystery; I like the horrible revelation of what this monster has been used for (which is kind of untethered in the adventure, which makes it less interesting -- like, there's no thematics here about the Gothic return of the past's secrets, it's just "here was something bad someone did in the past, and here's a crime"); and I'm a sucker for random people in a diner holing up and trying to survive a monster attack.
But at the same time, calling this an adventure is... well, this just seems a lot more like a setup than an adventure. Let's just look at the numbers: with the introduction, backstory (and alternative locations sidebar), monster (and let's not forget the monster gets another whole page in the back! but I won't count that here), and the introductory scene, we have 9.5 columns. What's left? We have the diner (1), the woods (1.5), the cottage (4!), and advice on pacing (3), for a total of 9.5 columns. So the setup part is given the same space as everything else in the adventure -- and everything else in the adventure is just a description of some locations and some rules for driving in the rain.
OK, that description is a little redundant, but you can see that a lot of what a game group is going to get out of this is what they put into it. Which is probably true of all adventures, but really starkly true of such a thin amount of into.
AND YET this adventure still kind of moves. The whole thing could be tightened thematically a bit -- the doctor's money could be more tightly connected to the monster's predations, to make the connection with the greedy waitress more thematic (money from blood) -- and I do think that even an open sandbox like this (or especially an open sandbox like this) could be improved with some suggested scenes ("if the PCs go here, the monster could attack like this"). (Also maybe have the monster -- or someone else -- sabotage the players car so that they can't get out that way. Make them walk up the hill to the cottage with lamp light, seeing some other light and not knowing if its the monster or other people.)
But still there's something solid and endearing in the setup of troubled granddaughter/greedy waitress/crime gone wrong/monster on the loose.
(Bear with me, I know I'm really into page-by-page breakdowns for small books, which is because I'm fascinated by what people think is worth spending time on in such a short space.)
* 1.5 columns of intro (this is a one-shot survival horror adventure)
* 3 columns of background (a rich doctor and his troubled granddaughter retired to this rural area near a gas station/diner; the waitress at that diner got greedy and got her boyfriend and his friend to rob the doctor during a storm; during the robbery, something horrible was let out; your characters find themselves stranded at this location during the storm) + quarter page illustration of the robbers
* 1 column discussing the location and some alternatives
* 2 columns all about the monster, a free-floating smear of light that absorbs life, cannot be reasoned with, is vulnerable to electricity, and can be controlled with some special rituals
* a full page map of the area
* 2 columns of intro -- the PCs drive through a storm and see the granddaughter walking in a fugue state, having just seen her grandfather shot and another man ripped into by the monster + quarter page illo of her wandering the road
* 1 column on getting to the diner and who is stranded there + half page illo of the gas station/diner outside + full page map
* 1.5 columns about the woods in the area + travel during the storm
* 4 columns about the doctor's cottage -- a crime scene where the monster was unleashed, but also where the PCs might find the means to capturing the monster and its history (it's been in the family for generations, used by the doctors in the family to get rid of unwanted children) + full page map + half page illo of the dead bodies in the crime scene
* 3 columns of advice to the game master about how to keep the action moving and suspenseful
* 1 column on reaching a conclusion, which leaves half a page of white space
* 7 pages of 1 page character descriptions for everyone you meet at the diner + the granddaughter + the monster
(Then there's 4 pages of notes for converting this into other editions of the game + 2 pages of other titles you might want.)
Now, I like a lot about adventure -- I like the idea of a non-Mythos monster; I like the idea of survival horror where maybe one of the ways to survive is to go deeper into the mystery; I like the horrible revelation of what this monster has been used for (which is kind of untethered in the adventure, which makes it less interesting -- like, there's no thematics here about the Gothic return of the past's secrets, it's just "here was something bad someone did in the past, and here's a crime"); and I'm a sucker for random people in a diner holing up and trying to survive a monster attack.
But at the same time, calling this an adventure is... well, this just seems a lot more like a setup than an adventure. Let's just look at the numbers: with the introduction, backstory (and alternative locations sidebar), monster (and let's not forget the monster gets another whole page in the back! but I won't count that here), and the introductory scene, we have 9.5 columns. What's left? We have the diner (1), the woods (1.5), the cottage (4!), and advice on pacing (3), for a total of 9.5 columns. So the setup part is given the same space as everything else in the adventure -- and everything else in the adventure is just a description of some locations and some rules for driving in the rain.
OK, that description is a little redundant, but you can see that a lot of what a game group is going to get out of this is what they put into it. Which is probably true of all adventures, but really starkly true of such a thin amount of into.
AND YET this adventure still kind of moves. The whole thing could be tightened thematically a bit -- the doctor's money could be more tightly connected to the monster's predations, to make the connection with the greedy waitress more thematic (money from blood) -- and I do think that even an open sandbox like this (or especially an open sandbox like this) could be improved with some suggested scenes ("if the PCs go here, the monster could attack like this"). (Also maybe have the monster -- or someone else -- sabotage the players car so that they can't get out that way. Make them walk up the hill to the cottage with lamp light, seeing some other light and not knowing if its the monster or other people.)
But still there's something solid and endearing in the setup of troubled granddaughter/greedy waitress/crime gone wrong/monster on the loose.
September 2, 2015
Dead Light is an adventure for the Call of Cthulhu tabletop role-playing game. If you don't know what that means, discovering the exciting world of tabletop role-playing games awaits you ... just not in this review. Suffice it to say that this is not just another work of fiction.
Now that I've driven off the non-roleplayers, here's what the tabletop gamers amongst you need to know. This book contains exactly one (1) Call of Cthulhu adventure that can probably be played in a single session, two if your sessions run on the short side. It's written for the wet-behind-the-gills (and, to a certain extent, still submerged) 7th Edition of Call of Cthulhu, but it has four pages of notes in the back about converting 7th Edition rules to 6th Edition (and, therefore, pretty much any previous edition.) Although, to be honest, it's not really that game system heavy, and any Keeper worth his or her dice could easily make up conversion to any game system on the fly. The adventure works for any number of investigators, and although it can easily be played as a one-off, pregenerated characters are not provided. It's nominally set in the 1920's but could easily be adapted for any era after that up to the modern day.
This is a really solid adventure, emphasizing a tone of survival horror, although there's still a chance for investigators to discover clues that lead them to find out what's really going on. One of the things I like about this adventure is that it's not a railroad adventure, with stops at Newspaper Clipping A, Cultist B, Spooky Old House C, and Squamous Monster D. Instead, the Investigators are dropped in the middle of a dark and stormy night, when suddenly, a thing happens! How the rest of the adventure plays out depends on how they react to the events, where they go, and how they treat the NPCs. Okay, that's every Call of Cthulhu adventure, but here, the order of things doesn't really matter - they're given free rein to go to specific locations (or not), find clues (or not), talk to people (or not), go insane, and die horrible deaths in any order they please. That being said, although this adventure is suitable for beginning players, it might do better with an experienced Keeper, as the freeform nature of the scenario requires the Keeper to think on their feet and quickly adapt to crazy player ideas more than a standard-issue adventure does.
On the technical side of things, the book is neatly laid out, easy to read, there are a minimum of typos and inconsistencies, and the illustrations (by Rebecca Conway) are quite good.
I realize I've spent most of this review explaining this adventure, rather than telling you what I though of it. To that end: it's quite good. My biggest regret is that, now that I've read it, I can't play in it. I have a difficult time imagining how any investigators will survive this adventure, but since I have that problem with every single Call of Cthulhu adventure I've ever read, that puts it in good company.
Now that I've driven off the non-roleplayers, here's what the tabletop gamers amongst you need to know. This book contains exactly one (1) Call of Cthulhu adventure that can probably be played in a single session, two if your sessions run on the short side. It's written for the wet-behind-the-gills (and, to a certain extent, still submerged) 7th Edition of Call of Cthulhu, but it has four pages of notes in the back about converting 7th Edition rules to 6th Edition (and, therefore, pretty much any previous edition.) Although, to be honest, it's not really that game system heavy, and any Keeper worth his or her dice could easily make up conversion to any game system on the fly. The adventure works for any number of investigators, and although it can easily be played as a one-off, pregenerated characters are not provided. It's nominally set in the 1920's but could easily be adapted for any era after that up to the modern day.
This is a really solid adventure, emphasizing a tone of survival horror, although there's still a chance for investigators to discover clues that lead them to find out what's really going on. One of the things I like about this adventure is that it's not a railroad adventure, with stops at Newspaper Clipping A, Cultist B, Spooky Old House C, and Squamous Monster D. Instead, the Investigators are dropped in the middle of a dark and stormy night, when suddenly, a thing happens! How the rest of the adventure plays out depends on how they react to the events, where they go, and how they treat the NPCs. Okay, that's every Call of Cthulhu adventure, but here, the order of things doesn't really matter - they're given free rein to go to specific locations (or not), find clues (or not), talk to people (or not), go insane, and die horrible deaths in any order they please. That being said, although this adventure is suitable for beginning players, it might do better with an experienced Keeper, as the freeform nature of the scenario requires the Keeper to think on their feet and quickly adapt to crazy player ideas more than a standard-issue adventure does.
On the technical side of things, the book is neatly laid out, easy to read, there are a minimum of typos and inconsistencies, and the illustrations (by Rebecca Conway) are quite good.
I realize I've spent most of this review explaining this adventure, rather than telling you what I though of it. To that end: it's quite good. My biggest regret is that, now that I've read it, I can't play in it. I have a difficult time imagining how any investigators will survive this adventure, but since I have that problem with every single Call of Cthulhu adventure I've ever read, that puts it in good company.
May 24, 2016
Though short, it's an interesting story. An imaginative keeper could have a lot of fun with this one.
December 21, 2016
Short and sweet. Will hopefully turn out to be a fun one-nighter with the group in the future. But as I havent yet been a Keeper for CoC, I cant really judge it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews