Call of Cthulhu: Snows of an Early Winter (based on
2
reviews)
Super Genius Games
Add
Print Edition:
$14.99$13.49
Add
PDF:
$7.99
It's Halloween in an election year. New Yorkers prepare to celebrate with masked revels and parades, while the city's powerful hold fund raisers and give speeches. Business as usual in the Modern Gomorrah, but when someone or something hunts New York's streets, eviscerating stray animals, slaying the homeless where they huddle, and stealing women from shelters—it threatens a councilwoman's reelection bid.
Dangerous occult texts missing from the massive 5th Avenue Public Library, mad politicians hiding in their posh Park Avenue apartments and a new Egyptian exhibit premiering at the Metropolitan Museum this Halloween embroil the investigators in a secret war for access to the halls of power. From New York's high society to her mean streets, stalked beneath Times Square's busy lights by Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, the investigators must swiftly unravel a bloody skein of occult clues and confront the power behind the killings—or this Halloween may prove their last.
Snows of an Early Winter is a stand-alone Call of Cthulhu adventure set in modern day New York City. It contains everything a group needs for two or three evenings of investigation and horror, including the scenario, pre-generated characters, handouts and is 116 pages! It is the latest in the innovative line of officially licensed Call of Cthulhu scenarios and supplements from Super Genius Games.
I had the pleasure of running Snows recently and it played just as well as I'd imagined upon reading it.
The adventure does a great job stringing together many different and compelling encounters with a wide range of challenges and dramatic situations.
If you are a game master that loves to do voices and play up NPCs this thing is a gold mine with evocative dialog and great descriptions.
I must warn folks that this is a complicated adventure with multiple factions and lines of clues spanning many locations and with a good many NPCs. It does a remarkable job making it easy to understand, but its still a challenge to keep all the facts straight and juggle the curve balls the investigators can throw at you. There are a couple spots where a key piece of information is not where you would expect it and had me scrambling to find what I'd read earlier, but given the complexity of this adventure and how often it makes things easy for you, it was very forgivable.
It was easily the best CoC adventure I've ever run and even if you never run it, its a fun read.
I usually don't buy modern modern Cthulhu adventures due to a personal dislike for all the possibilities our day and age offers for the investigators.
This adventure is the exception to the rule.
SoaeW features a non-linear plot that is nevertheless easy to keep track of, thanks to a simple, but effective marker-system. The plot is divided up in several stages, all of which have multiple possibilities for the investigators to get clues. I've read the massive 118p adventure thrice now and still can't imagine any kind of situation that would result in a grinding halt and players unsure of what to do.
There is always a whole set of alternatives waiting for the investigators, up to the point where I can see completely different experiences each time the adventure is run.
Furthermore, it features 11 handouts, extensive and well-researched guidelines to convert in to the 1890s or 1920s (4 pages) is concisely written and feels fresh due to the avoidance of many of the CoC-clichés.
SoaeW also manages to pull off a climax worthy of the name, as deadly and awesome as a CoC-climax is supposed to be.
My only gripe is that I found some minor typos. Not enough to annoy me, but they are there.
Not yet sold in spite of the low price for 118p?
I've got one argument left:
(Minor spoiler ahead!)
Which CoC-adventure you know actually has the chance for the investigators to meet Elvis? Hail to the King, baby!
Recent Posts
