Read Through: Realms of Cthulhu
Some products are hard to write about. Like this one. It’s Call of Cthulhu for Savage Worlds. That pretty much sums it up. It’s put out by Reality Blurs, the Savage Worlds bits are officially licensed by PEG Inc, and the Cthulhu bits are officially licensed by Chaosium. So it’s all around official. and licensed. And it’s Call of Cthulhu. For Savage Worlds.
Years ago, Chaosium announced Pulp Cthulhu, a 1930s sourcebook for two-fisted adventure against the Mythos. It never materialized. Savage Worlds is known for Fast, Furious, Fun slam-bang pulpish action, so this is likely the closest you’re going to get. There are new Edges and Hindrances to help capture that Mythos feel. There are equipment lists for the 1890s, the 1920s, and the modern era. Most interesting, there are setting rules and notes on establishing the campaign style. Do you want to keep the standard, pulpy style, or do you want to get gritty? There are alternate damage rules to make fights more deadly (shjort form: you can’t spend bennies to soak and there’s a new Incapacitated table). And of course, a Sanity system. Two, actually, one for pulpy campaigns and one for more traditional Call of Cthulhu-style campaigns.
Okay, serious, I love Savage Worlds but I can’t imagine why you’d use this instead of Call of Cthulhu for a “gritty”, everyone eventually dies or goes insane-style game. If you’ve purchased this product, you want hero pulp.
What I described about is the first 34 pages. The rest of the book is the Keeper’s section. There’s good advice for gamemasters running a Mythos tale for the first time, which is good but (in my opinion) not as good as stuff in other Cthulhu games. There is a nifty Mythos Tales generator, which may well be worth the price of the book and is generically useful for any Cthulhu game (and I will use the hell out of). There are four adventures. There’s a complete bestiary. It’s a lot of material crammed into 160 pages. It has an utterly beautiful character sheet. Is it worth the price tag? Absolutely, if…
If you’re a Savage Worlds fan who wants to play Call of Cthulhu, you already want this. If you’re a Cthulhu RPG collector, you already need this. If you want to play two-fisted hero pulp in a Mythos setting, you’ll like this. If you’re looking for a Cthulhu game… meh. Buy Call of Cthulhu. Spend a few more bucks and get Ken Hite’s Trail of Cthulhu. This is a niche product. A very good niche product, but a niche product none the less.
Buy Realms of Cthulhu in print at Amazon
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