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Call of Cthulhu RPG
Ripples from Carcosa
“O do not seek to learn or even ask, What horror hides behind…The Pallid Mask!” --Lin Carter, “Litany to Hastur”
Three Scenarios Exploring Hastur, Carcosa, & The King In Yellow
Of all the varied and mysterious Great Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, few ensnare the imagination as easily as Hastur. The image of the silent, deserted city beside a dark, foreboding lake where sinister things lurk is one that stays with the reader. Many of us have walked the twisting streets of that dead alien city in our minds, finding our way into the tall towers to stand before an ancient throne. There sits the King in Yellow, the Lord of Carcosa, who gazes at us from behind his Pallid Mask. It is a journey many of us have taken, whether alone in our dreams or around a table rolling dice with our friends. It is a journey we are about to take again.
RIPPLES FROM CARCOSA expands upon the mythology of “He Who Should Not Be Named” and gathers much of the varied material on Hastur into one place. The first chapter reviews The Great Old One Hastur and his various avatar forms. It examines the Yellow Sign, the play “The King in Yellow”, the Mythos tome of the same name, and the effects these things have on the human mind.
Next within these pages is a trio of adventures pitting investigators against Hastur and his human worshippers. These scenarios can be played as stand-alone adventures or as a linked campaign called “Ripples from Carcosa.” Investigators are provided for each scenario, but keepers should feel free to allow their players to use their own investigators if they so choose.
Finally is information on the Great Old One Hastur and his cults during the Cthulhu Invictus and Cthulhu Dark Ages eras.
THIS IS A DOWNLOADABLE BOOK. By Oscar Rios. Interior Art by Bradley McDevitt, Marco Morte, and Erik York. Cover Art by Jan Pospíšil. Maps by Gill Pearce and Steff Worthington. 132 pages. 8.5 x 11" watermarked PDF with cover images.
Three Scenarios Exploring Hastur, Carcosa, & The King In Yellow
Of all the varied and mysterious Great Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, few ensnare the imagination as easily as Hastur. The image of the silent, deserted city beside a dark, foreboding lake where sinister things lurk is one that stays with the reader. Many of us have walked the twisting streets of that dead alien city in our minds, finding our way into the tall towers to stand before an ancient throne. There sits the King in Yellow, the Lord of Carcosa, who gazes at us from behind his Pallid Mask. It is a journey many of us have taken, whether alone in our dreams or around a table rolling dice with our friends. It is a journey we are about to take again.
RIPPLES FROM CARCOSA expands upon the mythology of “He Who Should Not Be Named” and gathers much of the varied material on Hastur into one place. The first chapter reviews The Great Old One Hastur and his various avatar forms. It examines the Yellow Sign, the play “The King in Yellow”, the Mythos tome of the same name, and the effects these things have on the human mind.
Next within these pages is a trio of adventures pitting investigators against Hastur and his human worshippers. These scenarios can be played as stand-alone adventures or as a linked campaign called “Ripples from Carcosa.” Investigators are provided for each scenario, but keepers should feel free to allow their players to use their own investigators if they so choose.
Finally is information on the Great Old One Hastur and his cults during the Cthulhu Invictus and Cthulhu Dark Ages eras.
THIS IS A DOWNLOADABLE BOOK. By Oscar Rios. Interior Art by Bradley McDevitt, Marco Morte, and Erik York. Cover Art by Jan Pospíšil. Maps by Gill Pearce and Steff Worthington. 132 pages. 8.5 x 11" watermarked PDF with cover images.
132 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 26, 2014
MINI-REVIEW: The great thing about “Ripples From Carcosa” (hereinafter RFC) is that it covers three scenarios in three different settings which can be run individually or as a loosely tied campaign. Cynics will argue this is merely a means for Chaosium to make money but I'd counter with the fact that all three of these are awesome settings so why would you cheat yourself with such a limiting belief? Besides, you don't necessarily need to pick up the supplements to run each setting anyway.
In brief the three scenarios which are each about thirty pages cover Cthulhu Invictus (in which the Mythos meets the Ancient Roman era), Cthulhu Dark Ages (think early Middle Ages for Europe in which legends and fairy tales are tied into the Mythos) and The End Times Monograph (humanity has lost Earth to the Mythos in 23rd century and struggles to survive).
For my Platinum Extended Edition review on this product you can go to my gaming blog here: http://storytellersjem.blogspot.com/2...
In brief the three scenarios which are each about thirty pages cover Cthulhu Invictus (in which the Mythos meets the Ancient Roman era), Cthulhu Dark Ages (think early Middle Ages for Europe in which legends and fairy tales are tied into the Mythos) and The End Times Monograph (humanity has lost Earth to the Mythos in 23rd century and struggles to survive).
For my Platinum Extended Edition review on this product you can go to my gaming blog here: http://storytellersjem.blogspot.com/2...
March 2, 2017
I have never played the Call of Cthulhu RPG but I am a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft and I'm always interested in reading more on the Cthulhu mythos and looking for RPG adventures that I can modify to play in my Dark Heresy (Warhammer 40,000/Deathwatch RPG) campaign.
This book was a great read and offers some great scenarios. There are three scenarios that take place in different time frames in human history- Roman, Dark Ages and dark future (I especially liked the first two scenarios). The book offers a cool concept to run the trilogy (the players play reincarnated characters) which allows the player character's knowledge of the mythos to build with each scenario and their character experiences. This could provide a three-shot campaign opportunity.
Each scenario offers an opportunity to confront Hastur in one of his three avatar forms. For me, the mysteries, investigation avenues and creatures and cultists are intriguing because I can easily see them being adapted to Warhammer 40,000 with daemons and Chaos taking the place of the Cthulhu mythos.
This book was a great read and offers some great scenarios. There are three scenarios that take place in different time frames in human history- Roman, Dark Ages and dark future (I especially liked the first two scenarios). The book offers a cool concept to run the trilogy (the players play reincarnated characters) which allows the player character's knowledge of the mythos to build with each scenario and their character experiences. This could provide a three-shot campaign opportunity.
Each scenario offers an opportunity to confront Hastur in one of his three avatar forms. For me, the mysteries, investigation avenues and creatures and cultists are intriguing because I can easily see them being adapted to Warhammer 40,000 with daemons and Chaos taking the place of the Cthulhu mythos.
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September 18, 2022After some less-than-enthralling Ravenloft reads--and even some Unspeakable Oaths that I wasn't crazy about--this felt like coming home, if your home was a crack in reality in which time is meaningless and a nameless named city arises like a bad star to absorb all cities. (Which is an uncannily accurate description of my home.)
First, the negative: this book bills itself as being for both 6th and 7th editions of Call of Cthulhu, and I suspect that it was produced around about when Chaosium was (a) switching from 6th to 7th and (b) going through financial hardships and structural changes. All of which is to say: the 7th edition books that I've seen are real slick, and this feels less so. This primarily comes up in the art.
Second, all the positive: the book bills itself as "three scenarios exploring Hastur, Carcosa, & The King in Yellow" (the subtitle); but what that subtitle leaves out is that these are three scenarios for different time periods, along with some rules for what it means to be a medieval person who suddenly remembers that they fought the King in Yellow in ancient Roman times. This is like an arrow aimed straight at my heart, as I have long wanted to explore roleplaying through time, where maybe your past selves's actions influence the possibilities open to your present selves. (This isn't quite that, but it's close.)
Third, I don't know that I love love any of these scenarios, but each of them has some truly tremendous parts. For instance, the first scenario takes place in ancient Rome, in a seaside resort city where some rich folks are about to put on a very exciting play. The PCs experience weirdness--gosh, all these slaves who had something to do with the play are going mad, how odd--but are actually out of town for the play, so the adventure is: weirdness, river boat tour, come back to a city on fire and have to rescue your children and maybe put a stop to the manifestation of Hastur. How nice to skip the apocalyptic revelation and just have the PCs there to try to clean up. (That said, I do find it funny that people in the town are talking about the play using the Latin title--Adventis Regis--when presumably everything they're saying is in Latin.)
The second scenario takes place in the Dark Ages, and involves a dying druid who sacrificed all his life to protect people but whose sacred oak was torn down--and now he's crashing Carcosa into Norman-occupied England. What I love here is that the druid is spreading madness, but rather than be generic about it, each manifestation of madness is precise and limited, and the thinning border between England and Carcosa is nicely described likewise. I mean, I really could see making your way through a blizzard and suddenly coming upon some titanic bronze statue that wasn't there before--couldn't have been there before.
The third scenario... I find a little odd: it takes place in the future, in the End Times (as described by one of the monographs that Chaosium produced, which were sort of third-party ideas that Chaosium then prettied up, but which were not actually canon, I think), where the Earth is given over to monsters and what few humans remain survive in a series of hollowed out asteroids. Anyway, the PCs discover a ship acting strangely, have to dive into the ship's virtual dreamspace, and save the children (that are the computer) in this nightmare town (are you following this so far?), and then have another fight with another Carcosan entity. I don't know exactly what didn't work for me here, though it probably starts with me not really buying the End Times setting; and it certainly doesn't help that the PCs have this extra fight at the end when it feels to me like so much of the emotional climax is freeing the computer/brains from the nightmare.
But that said, I really enjoyed this book: it's much more heavy on the adventures than I thought it was going to be, but I enjoyed them all, and I even enjoyed the short sections on what else the cult of Hastur might be up to in a different time period.
First, the negative: this book bills itself as being for both 6th and 7th editions of Call of Cthulhu, and I suspect that it was produced around about when Chaosium was (a) switching from 6th to 7th and (b) going through financial hardships and structural changes. All of which is to say: the 7th edition books that I've seen are real slick, and this feels less so. This primarily comes up in the art.
Second, all the positive: the book bills itself as "three scenarios exploring Hastur, Carcosa, & The King in Yellow" (the subtitle); but what that subtitle leaves out is that these are three scenarios for different time periods, along with some rules for what it means to be a medieval person who suddenly remembers that they fought the King in Yellow in ancient Roman times. This is like an arrow aimed straight at my heart, as I have long wanted to explore roleplaying through time, where maybe your past selves's actions influence the possibilities open to your present selves. (This isn't quite that, but it's close.)
Third, I don't know that I love love any of these scenarios, but each of them has some truly tremendous parts. For instance, the first scenario takes place in ancient Rome, in a seaside resort city where some rich folks are about to put on a very exciting play. The PCs experience weirdness--gosh, all these slaves who had something to do with the play are going mad, how odd--but are actually out of town for the play, so the adventure is: weirdness, river boat tour, come back to a city on fire and have to rescue your children and maybe put a stop to the manifestation of Hastur. How nice to skip the apocalyptic revelation and just have the PCs there to try to clean up. (That said, I do find it funny that people in the town are talking about the play using the Latin title--Adventis Regis--when presumably everything they're saying is in Latin.)
The second scenario takes place in the Dark Ages, and involves a dying druid who sacrificed all his life to protect people but whose sacred oak was torn down--and now he's crashing Carcosa into Norman-occupied England. What I love here is that the druid is spreading madness, but rather than be generic about it, each manifestation of madness is precise and limited, and the thinning border between England and Carcosa is nicely described likewise. I mean, I really could see making your way through a blizzard and suddenly coming upon some titanic bronze statue that wasn't there before--couldn't have been there before.
The third scenario... I find a little odd: it takes place in the future, in the End Times (as described by one of the monographs that Chaosium produced, which were sort of third-party ideas that Chaosium then prettied up, but which were not actually canon, I think), where the Earth is given over to monsters and what few humans remain survive in a series of hollowed out asteroids. Anyway, the PCs discover a ship acting strangely, have to dive into the ship's virtual dreamspace, and save the children (that are the computer) in this nightmare town (are you following this so far?), and then have another fight with another Carcosan entity. I don't know exactly what didn't work for me here, though it probably starts with me not really buying the End Times setting; and it certainly doesn't help that the PCs have this extra fight at the end when it feels to me like so much of the emotional climax is freeing the computer/brains from the nightmare.
But that said, I really enjoyed this book: it's much more heavy on the adventures than I thought it was going to be, but I enjoyed them all, and I even enjoyed the short sections on what else the cult of Hastur might be up to in a different time period.
February 25, 2024
You may have seen the Yellow sign before, but not quite like this…
Ripples from Carcosa by Oscar Rios is a trilogy of historical call of Cthulhu scenarios that could be handled as part of a campaign or could much easier simply be slotted into existing campaigns…or just them as one shots.
Ripples of Carcosa tells the story of what the King in yellow was…and what he may be…
Ignoring the usual tropes of “group performs the King in yellow” set during the 19th, 20th, or 21st centuries, which is essentially what EVERY Hastur/YellowSign/King in yellow/carcosa anthology does (believe me, I know because I own most of them), this trio flips the scripts by going outside the norm.
Hastur and his cultural origins are far older than the world of Robert chambers and HP Lovecraft so it’s odd that so few stories have tried to be set in a distant ancient time…and that’s part of why I like this book because it embraces it.
For each scenario, the author provides sample characters and a ton of detail on the cult of Hastur and the king in yellow during each time period…which means you are not only limited to these three scenarios if you wish to further explore the worlds they have established.
The first scenario is set during the Roman Empire CoC setting of Cthulhu invituz. The players are on vacation and bad stuff happens (which is naturally a great idea for a lot of horror stories). There aren’t enough stories that embrace the Roman imperial period and the shear craziness of what could and did happen. Bread and circuses is a major element of Roman life (distracting from your personal problems because you are entertained and fed). What if that entertainment should…encourage crazy and brutal response from the viewers?
The second scenario is set during the 11th century dark ages Cthulhu. A Druidic Bard serving as both performer, herald, and cautionary source for the dangers all around this terrible time…and the small medieval community that finds itself looking for an answer for the horrors that follow. This almost makes me think of a similar scenario set in a colonial New England settlement (which makes me wonder why we don’t have a Colonial Cthulhu).
Last, we change things up again, not by embracing the past but by going far into the future. Set many years after humans have abandoned earth to the cosmic horrors, the story follows a small colonial military patrol ship…which means the players have SIGNIFICANTLY more firepower than they might be used to in a typical CoC story. It’s a shame that it’s not a sci-fi combat story, but about all too human horror…as one considers what type of madness can be generated by holographic entertainment programs. I LOVED the level of detail of the vessel the players are set on and the word the author provided. If someone wanted a cosmic horror serenity/firefly style game, this scenario provides everything you might want for such a campaign.
Highly recommend…
Ripples from Carcosa by Oscar Rios is a trilogy of historical call of Cthulhu scenarios that could be handled as part of a campaign or could much easier simply be slotted into existing campaigns…or just them as one shots.
Ripples of Carcosa tells the story of what the King in yellow was…and what he may be…
Ignoring the usual tropes of “group performs the King in yellow” set during the 19th, 20th, or 21st centuries, which is essentially what EVERY Hastur/YellowSign/King in yellow/carcosa anthology does (believe me, I know because I own most of them), this trio flips the scripts by going outside the norm.
Hastur and his cultural origins are far older than the world of Robert chambers and HP Lovecraft so it’s odd that so few stories have tried to be set in a distant ancient time…and that’s part of why I like this book because it embraces it.
For each scenario, the author provides sample characters and a ton of detail on the cult of Hastur and the king in yellow during each time period…which means you are not only limited to these three scenarios if you wish to further explore the worlds they have established.
The first scenario is set during the Roman Empire CoC setting of Cthulhu invituz. The players are on vacation and bad stuff happens (which is naturally a great idea for a lot of horror stories). There aren’t enough stories that embrace the Roman imperial period and the shear craziness of what could and did happen. Bread and circuses is a major element of Roman life (distracting from your personal problems because you are entertained and fed). What if that entertainment should…encourage crazy and brutal response from the viewers?
The second scenario is set during the 11th century dark ages Cthulhu. A Druidic Bard serving as both performer, herald, and cautionary source for the dangers all around this terrible time…and the small medieval community that finds itself looking for an answer for the horrors that follow. This almost makes me think of a similar scenario set in a colonial New England settlement (which makes me wonder why we don’t have a Colonial Cthulhu).
Last, we change things up again, not by embracing the past but by going far into the future. Set many years after humans have abandoned earth to the cosmic horrors, the story follows a small colonial military patrol ship…which means the players have SIGNIFICANTLY more firepower than they might be used to in a typical CoC story. It’s a shame that it’s not a sci-fi combat story, but about all too human horror…as one considers what type of madness can be generated by holographic entertainment programs. I LOVED the level of detail of the vessel the players are set on and the word the author provided. If someone wanted a cosmic horror serenity/firefly style game, this scenario provides everything you might want for such a campaign.
Highly recommend…
January 18, 2024
Kitabı okumayı bitirdim ama son senaryoyu oynamaya henüz geçmedik.
Çok güzel hazırlanmış, farklı settingleri azar azar tattıran, tadı hoşunuza gittiyse azıcık daha derine dalmalık ekipman sunan harika bir yapısı var.
Senaryoların kalitelerinin aynı olduğunu söyleyemeyeceğim. Özellikle çizimler arasındaki fark süpersonik derecede yüksekti. Lakin, her birisi keyifli ve mitosa farklı bir açıdan bakmamızı sağlıyor. Özellikle End Times settinginde geçen o son senaryo... Dünya'nın mitosa tamamen yenildiği yakın gelecek... Tüyler ürpertici!
Her üç setting için de "bu çağda mevzular nasıl dönüyordu, senaryoyu buradan sürdürmek isterseniz neler yapabilirsiniz" minalinde ek metinler vardı. Sarı Kral mitosunu da görece güzel ayrıntılarla işleyen birkaç metin de... Bu kitabı al, mevzuya dal. O derece.
YouTube'a oyunlarımızın kaydını koyduk. İzlemesi pek keyifli olmayacaktır zira sık sık teknik sorunlar ya da yaşamın yorgunluğuyla gelen salıvermişlik alındı kayda. Gene de mevuya şöyle bir bakınmak isteyen olursa:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB...
Çok güzel hazırlanmış, farklı settingleri azar azar tattıran, tadı hoşunuza gittiyse azıcık daha derine dalmalık ekipman sunan harika bir yapısı var.
Senaryoların kalitelerinin aynı olduğunu söyleyemeyeceğim. Özellikle çizimler arasındaki fark süpersonik derecede yüksekti. Lakin, her birisi keyifli ve mitosa farklı bir açıdan bakmamızı sağlıyor. Özellikle End Times settinginde geçen o son senaryo... Dünya'nın mitosa tamamen yenildiği yakın gelecek... Tüyler ürpertici!
Her üç setting için de "bu çağda mevzular nasıl dönüyordu, senaryoyu buradan sürdürmek isterseniz neler yapabilirsiniz" minalinde ek metinler vardı. Sarı Kral mitosunu da görece güzel ayrıntılarla işleyen birkaç metin de... Bu kitabı al, mevzuya dal. O derece.
YouTube'a oyunlarımızın kaydını koyduk. İzlemesi pek keyifli olmayacaktır zira sık sık teknik sorunlar ya da yaşamın yorgunluğuyla gelen salıvermişlik alındı kayda. Gene de mevuya şöyle bir bakınmak isteyen olursa:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB...
September 8, 2018
A fun, readable series of adventures. Might even be a better read than game supplement.
January 3, 2023
A mixed bag of scenarios which could have done with more polish, with a lacklustre presentation. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
November 15, 2023
3.5 stars.
August 17, 2015
Oscar Rios has done an outstanding job on upgrading this book from the original Chaosium monograph version.
The scenarios are all incredibly detailed and the arc that connects them together makes logical sense in the context of the adventures.
The characters and NPC's are well detailed and the descriptions provided to give to the players are vivid and in some cases startling.
I certainly hope that I get the chance to run these at some point!
A fine edition to any Call of Cthulhu collection and even if it is written for 7th edition there are rules at the back for using it with earlier versions.
The scenarios are all incredibly detailed and the arc that connects them together makes logical sense in the context of the adventures.
The characters and NPC's are well detailed and the descriptions provided to give to the players are vivid and in some cases startling.
I certainly hope that I get the chance to run these at some point!
A fine edition to any Call of Cthulhu collection and even if it is written for 7th edition there are rules at the back for using it with earlier versions.
October 21, 2016
Far and away the best CoC scenarios I've read. I was the keeper and the whole thing was a pleasure to plan and then play out. It's written in a way that makes it very simple for the keeper to add to, or improvise on the spot.
The three scenarios are varied and you don't need to go out and buy other books as the necessary details are all there. They all work as single adventures, or add up to something very special.
My only slight complaint is the artwork is sometimes a bit goofy, but that just adds to the charm!
The three scenarios are varied and you don't need to go out and buy other books as the necessary details are all there. They all work as single adventures, or add up to something very special.
My only slight complaint is the artwork is sometimes a bit goofy, but that just adds to the charm!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews