The Resort – A Call of Cthulhu Scenario by Kat Clay

Game Review

Seth Stauffer

The beauty industry is always ripe for satire. There’s something particularly satisfying about skewering people’s misplaced vanity, especially if those people are affluent and arrogant. Australian author Kat Clay wrote The Resort one-shot for Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu. From the product’s synopsis comes the question: A party of rich people go to the remote Tekelili Wellness Resort on the promise of a revolutionary beauty drug. Will they survive? And what about the PCs? Will they fall prey to whatever freakishness is lurking in the resort? Eventually, the players will have no choice but to respond to the threat. Whether the PCs live or die, there will be a conclusion to the story!

First, this module comes from the Miskac Repository rather than directly from Chaosium. Sometimes, community content can be of questionable quality. However, Clay is an ENnie Award-winning author (Silver, The Well of All Fear, 2024) and someone with established credentials. Let me assure you, The Resort is a well-made product.

This one-shot is 59 pages long, so it’s not too cumbersome and is relatively original. The tone is satirical, and the interpretation of Lovecraftian horror is somewhat absurd. It can be a nice break for groups used to the more intense psychological terror generally associated with all things Cthulhu.

Players won’t be overwhelmed by details, and having the PCs constrained to a tiny setting might be a cause for concern, but it is not limiting. The NPCs can be fun to roleplay and look and feel like perfect archetypes for this kind of story. Despite the well-worn tropes in the module, nothing feels cliche, just fun. 

A concern for me is the connection to Lovecraft’s fiction, which lies in using the name of an extinct Cthulhu-esque sea cucumber, Sollasina cthulhu. I like the reference, but it left me with the sense that the point of the one-shot was more to skewer the beauty industry than to tell a Lovecraftian story. The connection felt a bit loose, so I wasn’t as invested in the story as I could have been. 

This is a fun, satirical,  and reasonably unique Lovecraftian romp. It might be too absurd for purists, but it’s a good time. The quality is spot on, and the module has fun characters, good writing, and a biting sense of humour. Seeing what products come from fan-generated sources like the Miskatonic Repository is nice. The Resort is a good option for players who want something different from traditional fare.