Call of Cthulhu: Innsmouth by Mason, Branney, Leman, Ross and Herber

Seth Stauffer

Innsmouth is the menacing fictional town in Essex County, Massachusetts. Fabled home of a murderous cult, a dark conspiracy, and eldritch horrors. It is a place to be avoided and is spoken of in hushed tones; rumours of a vile disease have been passed from person to person all around the area, and most stay well away. However, the truth is something far worse. Despite all that, you can still visit. Chaosium has published a guide for curious investigators, Call of Cthulhu: Innsmouth, based on H.P. Lovecraft’s novella, The Shadow Over Innsmouth. A table full of intrepid gamers might find themselves wanting to investigate the secrets hidden in these shadows.

This book is intended for mature audiences and is a deep dive into the fictitious seaside community of Innsmouth. From page one, the book is packed with lore and gameable information; most of it explores the city one neighbourhood at a time. Innsmouth really shines in its attention to smaller details. Because it focuses almost exclusively on one city, the information can match that level of granularity. For example, one NPC who works as a labourer hides his kids in the house in a kind of child abuse to keep them from contracting what is believed to be the plague that caused all the apparent deformities on Innsmouth’s citizens. Obviously, this isn’t really the case, but the NPCs’ ignorance makes them more compelling. This is just one of the army of NPCs in the book. What’s more, the designers anticipated people wanting pulp-style gameplay, with sidebars and additional NPC information to support a more action-oriented game. Not to mention, the book describes loads of commercial, residential, and municipal sites. This book requires so little Keeper prep time; it’s a marvel. 

I also really appreciated that it isn’t just a collection of important sites, people, and creatures; the writers go further. Mysteries are baked into the text, with hooks for people who want to dive right into the action in the appendices. What’s more, all the derelict or abandoned sites are present, which makes it much easier for player to make this setting their own. Some space was even set aside for the areas immediately surrounding Innsmouth, as well as the inhabitants who don’t call the seaside town home. 

Despite all this, I found myself butting up against the text’s parameters while reading. It is designed to reflect the fiction and the early 1920s that it is based on, and only this. Essentially, the book is exactly as advertised to a fault. If someone wants to advance things beyond the fiction it is based on, they’ll need to do some extra work on their own. Advancing technology, a fluctuating economy-the Great Depression was just around the corner- may see the town’s fortunes sink further, outcomes of laws and political reforms, and so on. For anything else, such as other places like Arkham, you’ll need to purchase additional resources.

Chaosium keeps Lovecraft’s original story’s legacy alive. Misery and corruption are omnipresent throughout the content, hewing delightedly close to the source material. Yet Innsmouth reflects the fiction’s disastrous, disturbing nature while remaining easy to pick up and play. This supplement gives players, mostly just Keepers, a fantastically detailed setting to explore and use in their own investigations. Where a gaming group goes with it is up to them. Everything needed to recreate the original story, or veer into completely different directions, is available for anyone.

Chaosium’s PDF price offer: If a book is already out in print/PDF and you’ve bought the PDF, we’ll still deduct the cost of the PDF when you buy the physical book from Chaosium.com later on. Drop Dustin a note at customerservice@chaosium.com, and he’ll send you the discount coupon.