Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion

Call of Cthulhu RPG

by Sandy Petersen, Bob Heggie, Lynn Willis

Sections: Call of Cthulhu Questions, Ritual Curses, Mythos Comparative Sizes, On the Ubiquity of Cthulhu, A Cthulhu Grimoire, Lions and tigers and Bears, etc., The Underground Menace, New Mythos Deities, Races, and Monsters, Valley of the Four Shrines. Also contains a fold-out Size Comparisons chart.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Horror, Gaming, Reference, Games

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of RuneQuest and creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. He later joined id Software where he worked on the development of the Doom franchise and Quake. As part of Ensemble Studios, Petersen subsequently contributed to the Age of Empires franchise.

Reviews

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another grab bag of Lovecraftian stuff, though this time short enough that one of the two scenarios takes up a third of the whole book. Still this manages to be an eclectic collection that doesn't feel like how modern source books tend to work.

There's no papercraft house this time, but there is still one of Lovecraft's poems, which I liked somewhat more than those printed in the first collection. There's also another linguistic article, some curses from historical sources, and an Innsmouth map that makes the place look rather boring. Aside from the scenarios, probably the most useful resource here is a collection of spells from all sourcebooks published up to this point, plus a few new ones from one of the scenarios printed here. It is weird to see how many of the spells feel like more standard fantasy fare than the more outre stuff printed in the core book, and there's an almost overwhelming amount of enchanted item creation spells. There's also new monsters, both mundane animals and the mythos beasties of an author I'm not familiar with. The excerpts from his works do make me want to track him down at some point. As another sign of this being from the 80s, there's a brief FAQ addressing some rules questions.

Of course, most of the notable Cthulhu sourcebooks are scenario collections, and even this mishmash of stuff contains two. The first is only four pages long and deals with a sorcerer trying to revive some giant abomination beneath a town in Michigan. Failure will see the town destroyed, becoming a center of great Cthulhu activity, while success keeps the creature asleep but with little chance to kill it for good. It seems perfectly fine although kinda basic and I'm not a fan of the high chance for one or more investigators to be killed by spider bites of all things.

The second scenario, which takes up a third of the book, is definitely in the pulp mode, with a trip up the rivers of the Congo to a lost valley full of zombies and shrines to horrid gods. The scenario starts out strong, with the characters finding a map and diary in an arcane book. There's plenty of details on travel and encounters, and while not a lot is written out explicitly, this provides the Keeper with plenty of room for improvisation depending on how they want to pace the adventure. Even the start of the lost valley works pretty well. There's a civilization hiding out there from the outside world using the zombies as protection, and it leads to some neat potential conflicts about whether to leave them as is or destroy the evil monsters. The big potential conflict that's well done involves a hibernating member of the Great Race of Yith and an enemy Flying Polyp, and this should be made the center of the whole business. The shrines are repetitive, involving boring boss monsters and secrets that I suspect most parties will miss. The idea of the visions of Lovecraftian beasties is neat, but not enough to save 4 minidungeons with the same layout and problems. There's good stuff to pull from but there's not enough cohesion to make me want to ever run this as written.

This is where I'm pausing my classic Cthulhu read, at least for now. The box set has another three or four books, mostly containing scenarios, which is interesting but I don't find reading adventures that exciting these days. This book feels like it's a little weaker than the first companion. I like compiling the spells together, but devoting a third of the book to one scenario means its of limited utility if that's not a scenario you're interested in. Overall, it's been fun reading these old books but it's definitely the core rulebook that's the strongest.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag, but at its best this presents some solid additions to the game. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...