Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Malevolent Grove. RPG Review

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Malevolent Grove By Modiphius, C2022, Price: FREE!, Website

Review by Seth Stauffer

Creepy landscapes almost always invite exploration in tabletop role-playing games, even during a war. As a free PDF from Modiphius, Malevolent Grove offers players the opportunity to trek through some myth and magic sequestered in an ancient forest. Along the way, they may uncover some powerful artifacts, or be mauled by eldritch horrors. High risk, high reward?

While this isn’t a “mission” per se, it is an opportunity to further explore the mashed-up history and occult combination that make Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 a compelling game. And best of all, it’s free! The price is suitable for this supplement, but that isn’t the only thing that makes this product worth considering. This is a great segue into a variety of other adventures, either homebrewed or published. It’s a sandbox sojourn into an old wooded area that is packed with great lore. There are some fun encounters here. Additionally, this also seemed like a tough area to explore. Anyone planning on dropping a group of PCs into this place should be prepared for the fallout.

It wasn’t immediately clear what players were to gain from taking the time to explore the grove. There are rewards enumerated in the text, but what’s to be done with them isn’t as obvious as it maybe could be. Will taking the time to explore the area matter in later missions? If there was more to link this to other published, or yet-to-be-published products it might have made this supplement stand out more.

This is a quality product and looks to be quite a challenge. In and of itself, it isn’t a complete adventure, but more of what would be a “side-quest” in a video game. Veteran players will likely enjoy this foray into a mythical forest that may, or may not, be full of vile creatures and the black arts. It may feel like a bridge into, or out of other missions, but it’s worth exploring if a gaming table is looking for a test of their gaming abilities.