Wanna Write A Classic? Or Some Jazz Age Protagonists?
We are exceptionally excited to be announcing two new items we have recently released — one major and one minor. The major release we have only just finished wrangling is the Cthulhu Eternal Classical Era SRD. The smaller new release is a freebie PDF which greatly expands on the set of Archetype templates available to folks running Jazz Age games of Cthulhu Eternal (quite a few of you, it seems).
An Instant Classic
For some time we have been meaning to finish up the work we’ve been doing on a Cthulhu Eternal SRD to cover the ‘Classical Era’ — and when I say “we”, I mostly mean Cthulhu Invictus co-inventor Chad Bowser, who has helmed this localization of our rules.
The Cthulhu Eternal Classical Era SRD aims to provide building blocks to create Lovecraftian games set in Europe, North Africa or The Levant in the period approximately 500 BCE to 500 CE. That covers both Classical Greece and Ancient Rome (as featured in Cohors Cthulhu and Cthulhu Invictus). But it also covers a range of other intriguing possibilities as well.
It is available for (Pay-What-You-Want) download right now over at DriveThruRPG, and as usual 100% of the SRD’s content is Open for you to use, abuse, remix, or build upon however you want.
Places in the Classical World are frequently name-checked in the Cthulhu Mythos. Many of the ancient, mind-shattering horrors trace their roots to the lands the people of the Classical Era call home, even if the terrors are much, much older.
The potential scenarios are numerous. Beyond simple monster hunts, scenarios could be built around exposing a mystery cult that worships a never-before-seen aspect of Cybele. Entire scenarios could be spun around the dramas of politics between the various political families and the gods they’d pray to in order to get ahead. Organized crime groups may find themselves in a turf battle with a new group, one that seems to use rats to spy.
More Protagonists for your Cthulhu Eternal Jazz Age games
Probably the question we get asked more than any other is … when are we going to do more with the Cthulhu Eternal Jazz Age SRD, in particular to expand upon the Protagonist options afforded by the relatively small number (11) of example Archetype templates included in the SRD.
We have seen several publishers using this SRD to publish their own Jazz Age scenarios, and also found more than a couple of Actual Play Podcasts that have used the SRD to run games (either original scenarios or adaptations of adventures written for other games). So we can see where folks are coming from.
We have listened … and so we present a much expanded list of 52 Jazz Age Protagonist archetypes. Everything from Aliensits to Zookeepers, Domestic Staff to Parapsychologist. Loads more options to inspire your imagination. We have our own plans for using these in a future paid product … but figured you good folks might like to start playing with them now. Treat them as a replacement for the relevant section (2.5.2) of the Jazz Age SRD … and you’re good to go.
Available as a free download from the Cthulhu Reborn blog.