This is a good mythos/fantasy one shot with a lot of helps written in for a novice DM. The monsters are fun and surprising. A good way to add some Cthulu spookiness to your regular fantasy game, at least that's how I'll use it. A little confusion about how to deal with a party that opens the chest and releases the hound. Why would they want to continue on to the wizard after opening the chest? Maybe I'm missing something? Everything else was very clear. Thank you for the gnarly one shot.

Очень классная раздатка, красиво оформлено, автор сделал много иллюстраций. Прикольная завязка, выглядит как богатый материал для дальнейшей кампании. Всё написано очень подробно, с кучей нюансов. Вся сцена в порту - отвязный и увлекательный экшен, разнообразный и необычный. Перестрелка, магия, погоня - очень здорово. История при этом очень локальная и приземлённая. Рекомендую к ознакомлению. Будь возможность оплатить, взял бы за фуллпрайс.

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen

Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!

Product- Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen System-DnD 5e Producer- Petersen Games Price- $15.00 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/308667/Ghoul-Island-Act-1-Voyage-to-Farzeen?affiliate_id=658618 TL; DR-Solid book that tells you what it is. 95%

Basics- What horrors lurk under Farzeen? This is the first part of an epic heroic fantasy campaign from Sandy Petersen. This adventure starts off with mutiny aboard a ship, involves the crew being battered by horrible dreams, losing the crew, finding the city of Farzeen, and eventually finding the crew after they flee to a temple below the island. Along the way the players meet monstrous deep ones, less monstrous ghouls, and an ancient evil long forgotten below this island.

Mechanics or Crunch-This is a solid adventure. The math checks out as it’s just applying the basic 5e rules for the crunch. It uses Sandy Petersen’s dread rules, so you will need the Cthulhu Mythos book for that. Overall, a solidly put together adventure full of fun fights and exploration for low level characters. 5/5

Theme or Fluff-This part is where expectations have to be set early. I honestly think the best way to play Call of Cthulhu is a one shot. People in a normal world, thrown into a crazy situation, damaged beyond repair, then left to deal with the horror for the rest of their lives. That’s good cosmic horror. This isn’t that, and the book is VERY up front with that. This is heroic fantasy with horror thrown in. This adventure isn’t written to be 20 levels of just sheer cosmic horror. You get to be awesome stomping a deep one. Also, some of the main characters are ghouls. Some players are going to miss this, but Lovecraft ghouls are not DnD ghouls. They are more dog men really. It’s things like that that will require your players and you to adjust expectations. Nothing is bad, but you have to read this and see exactly what the author intends. 4.5/5

Execution- PDF? YEP! Hyperlinked? no...That’s honestly my only gripe here. The layout is good. Text size is good. Art is well done. There is even a separate book that is the Farzeen Gazetteer that gives you background on the town and island. That’s an amazing value for 15 bucks considering this is a full length adventure and a whole small book on the island itself! Just hyperlink and this would be one of the best products this year. 4.75/5

Summary-Sandy Petersen’s team put out another top notch product here. It has solid crunch for the adventure. The story is good, but you HAVE to read what it is and what it is not. I also love the pieces of this thing. My gripes are small-I always want PDFs with hyperlinks now, and I went in expecting only cosmic horror all day long. If you can get past those small issues, then you have an incredible start to what is shaping up to be an amazing campaign with the resources you need to make a fun, in depth game for your players. 95%

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5e

Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!

Product- Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5e System-DnD 5e Producer- Petersen Games Price- $19.99 here https://www.dmsguild.com/product/286002/Sandy-Petersens-Cthulhu-Mythos-for-5e?affiliate_id=658618 TL; DR-How the mythos is meant to be played in 5e! 99%

Basics- Ia Ia Cthulhu Fhtagn! The grand cleric of the elder gods is writing for DnD 5e! Sandy Pertersen’s Cthulhu Mythos for 5e is a MASSIVE book with new races, class options, feats, spells, monsters, and mechanics that you can throw into your 5e game. Let’s break down the pieces to see what's in here.

The tcho-tcho in the room-Ah Lovecraft...I love his work, but MAN he would not fly today. From mental illness to racism, Lovecraft in his original form isn’t post #METOO or #BLM friendly. So, how do you handle the insanity and cosmic horror with the subtext or just text of Lovecraft? Sandy Peterson walks this line extremely well with sidebars dealing with handling mental illness to just dropping the racist parts of the mythos monsters and human acolytes. We can go mad with terror from learning the true history of the universe without having to go to HR!

New Eldritch Toys- This book is a BEAST of content. This book features THREE new races with race specific class options. The old standards of 5e all get some toys as well with feats for everyone, class options for all the core classes, books of unholy lore, and a boat load of new spells. There are also several new items that all cover the fan favorites of star mead to things I haven’t heard of before.

New Mythos Monsters-A hero is only as good as the monster is bad. Then let’s make your heroes LEGENDARY! This book has everything from simple monsters you can throw into your game just because you want something weird to freak out the power gamer who memorized the monster manual to GAME ENDING TITANS who would be the final bad guy in your campaign. Again, you have the fan favorites here like cthulhu to some of the more esoteric, even for the Lovecraft alicionadio, like Byatis. This book also adds in new options for you to throw onto worshipers so your bland cultists into true harbingers of the mythos even at low levels.

New Mythology Mechanics-This book isn’t just a highlight reel of Lovecraft’s old toys. This book adds new crunch to 5e. There is a whole revamped madness and dread system. All characters can now learn how to cast some spells called formulas. There is even a whole new skill dedicated to understanding the cthulhu mythos. The final boss of a campaign now has a solid progression system where the fight becomes epic tales you will tell for years to come. Ok, now my thoughts.

Mechanics or Crunch- Sandy Peterson is one of the foremost game developers in the Lovecraft mythos, and it shows. This book isn’t just a reskin book where you take a scary monster and now it's cthulhu. The crunch here is truly Lovecraftian. Monsters feel like they are beyond human ken. There are DEEP dives into the mythos, and not just into the new stuff from people writing in Lovecraft’s shadow. Stuff that gets a small mention that even I forgot like the gnorri get a full race write up. The stuff that is in the base DnD 5e book gets revamped well. I don’t like the madness system in DnD 5e, but this book provides an amazing system that has a great write up that you can drop into a non-cthulhu campaign. I like most of what's here, but there are a couple of things I have some minor quibbles with. The new mythos skill is called yog-sothothery. I just want it called mythos lore or even to borrow from Call of Cthulhu- cthulhu mythos. Also, I want stat bonuses you get from eldritch tomes to be permanent. But honestly, those are pretty small issues. This book is a solid addition to the Dungeons and Dragons 5e crunch regardless of if you want to run a Cthulhu based campaign or not. 4.9/5

Theme or Fluff-Sandy Peterson is one of the foremost Lovecraft scholars today, and it shows here too. This isn’t just a pile of reskins with tentacles so Lovecraft. This is a well crafted library of Lovecraft eldritch lore. I MYSELF learned stuff about the Lovecraft world from this book. This will teach you not only how to run a solid horror game but also about the world of Lovecraft. But, let’s say you just want a splat book to draw some scary stuff from? This has you covered too. This book is a solid addition to my collection as both a DnD DM and a someone who love the mythos. 5/5

Execution- PDF? YEP! Hyperlinked? YEP! AND IT NEEDS IT! This is a BEAST for 20 bucks. It’s over 400 pages. The base DnD books are not that long and cost twice as much! It’s easy to read but still feels familiar with the font and backgrounds looking like the base books with a decidedly eldritch flare. Monsters have TONS of pictures, so I can throw pictures to my players quickly without having to do a google image search. This book is a solid example of how to produce a 3rd party book. 5/5

Summary- I love Lovecraft. Any idiot can stab me, so that’s not scary. Any punk rogue can sneak attack my character and kill him-not scary. But learning the horrible history of my family and what cost I too have to pay to keep the thing in the basement “pleased” so my family prospers? That’s horror. This book will help you do that. I can’t heap enough praise on this book. I have my minor issues, but those are so minor it almost doesn’t matter. For the amount of content alone for 20 bucks, you can’t go wrong. If you want some monsters to throw at your bored players? Done. You want a book that will be the key and the gate to a world of horror you might never have known existed? This is that book! 99%

Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for Pathfinder is an amazing sourcebook for the Pathfinder role-playing game. It's written by Sandy Petersen, the legendary game designer behind the classic horror role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. The book adapts H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos and its related horror themes to Pathfinder rules. The result is a thorough sourcebook that provides some great new rules from player options and playable races, to magic spells and items, and of course gods, cults, and monsters.

The book starts with an introductory section on horror in role-playing games. It has some great advice for story-telling in the horror genre, and it's something that every game master should read. From there the book goes straight into player options, presenting four new races: ghouls, gnorri, zoogs, and dreamland cats (yes, you can play a cat with magical powers with these rules)! The book doesn't offer any new classes, but it does offer new options for the barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, rogue, sorceror, witch, and wizard classes. These mostly come in the form of archetypes that fit into the Cthulhu Mythos--things like cultist clerics, researcher rogues, and mad artist bards to name a few. There are options for mythos-related animal companions, familiars, and eidelons.

From player options, the book goes into mechanics and rules for running games. As anyone familiar with H. P. Lovecraft's writing would expect, there are rules for sanity, which are fairly simple and fit well with Pathfinder. There are some nice rules about visiting the dreamlands as well. The section on magic has quite a few new spells, even for classes from Pathfinder supplements, such as magus, occulist, alchemist to name a few. There are over 3 dozen horror-themed spells, many similar to what you would find in the Call of Cthulhu rulebook. On top of that there are another 2 dozen rituals that use rules similar to those in the Pathfinder Occult Adventures sourcebook. The rituals include such mythos-related things as enscribing protective magic symbols, summoning ancient gods, and brewing space mead. As well, there is a great section on magic items and artifacts--many of which are rather horrifying such as pickled eyes that act as a potion to enhance vision. There are rarer and more powerful artifacts from the Cthulhu mythos, such as lightning guns and migo brain cannisters. Of course, the section on magic ends off with a collection of mythos books, such as the R'lyeh Texts and the Necronomicon. The last half of the book is full of loads of villains for your players to fight. There is a section on cults dedicated to the elder gods, run-of-the-mill monsters, and even the elder gods themselves. The book even has an index of monsters from other Pathfinder books that fit into the genre. Each monster has a written description to read to your players to give your game the feel of a horror story. The amazing thing about this book is that it has enough monsters to keep your players busy from levels 1-20. At higher levels, the elder gods present challenges above a 20 challenge rating, some topping out around 30.

Given the rich content of this book, from the character options and magic, to the lengthy bestiary, it really acts as something of a campaign guide. With just this book and the Pathfinder core rulebook, it would be possible to run a campaign for several years taking players up through 20th level. That's quite a feat for one sourcebook. Even if you don't plan on running an entire Cthulhu-themed game the book makes it easy enough to pick and choose a few things for a horror-themed story arc or single adventure. If you're a DM or a player who is looking to play something darker than your standard Pathfinder character, this book is for you. I highly recommend it for any DM who is running a long campaign. You'll want to change up your game at some point to keep it interesting, and this is a great way to introduce horror to your fantasy setting.

Read our full review and rating at GeeksAGogo.com!

In the previous version of this review, I bemoaned the artwork, which mostly consisted of photos of minis. This has now been rectified, and replaced with glorious artwork, far more in keeping with the theme and tone. Excellent.

As far as content goes, the spells are very flavorful, and the new races look interesting. I haven't had much time to dig into the detail, of which there is a lot, but it's sure to prove a valuable and entertaining resource.

8/22/18 Update: The book is objectively better now that the old, painted figurine art has been replaced.

Disclaimer: I backed the Kickstarter that created this product and paid the full price there for both the physical and digital copies of this product. As a crowdfunding backer, I received a physical copy well in advance of its wider public release (and, in fact, had it at the time of this review). I was given a free copy of the digitial version of this product here on DriveThruRPG for the purpose of this review.

Now, there's a lot to get into with this product, and I'm not sure I actually have the space here. That's why my full review of this product can be found over in the Discussion tab, where I go into great detail about what you can expect to find throughout this particular book. If you're not sure whether or not you want this product, I strongly recommend hopping to the other tab and reading that in full - by the end, you should have all the information you need.

As a briefer summary, however, this is primarily a GM product. While it includes some player-focused options, including archetypes, feats, and the like, many of these are most appropriate for things the players will face (unless your game is all about being servants of Mythos things, in which case this is the best Pathfinder supplement on the topic, period).

Aside from common things like archetypes and spells, this book features grimoires, unique artifacts, a new Dread mechanic, and best of all, Elder Influences. These are a new type of challenge within the game, about halfway between a monster and an environmental effect, and they represent the way that Mythos creatures can impact the world by their mere presence. Reality itself gets weird when these things show up, and many of them are a serious challenge for even high-level parties. For example, Hastur the Unspeakable has an effect where each of his manifestations can only be observed - and affected - by one person. Sure, the raging super barbarian may be able to smash his way through, but will the squishy sorcerer find it quite so easy? Perhaps not. And he's far from the worst threat the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones offer.

This book is worth full price for the Elder Influences alone, but they only comprise a part of this hefty tome. There are also a variety of new creatures, new races (including a cat race, which works better than you might expct), and references to mythos stuff published in other books so you don't have to go digging through all of them.

Put simply, this book is the best Mythos-themed product for Pathfinder. Period. If you want Cthulhu, or anything related to Cthulhu, this is the book to get. For manufacturing reasons, physical copies of this weren't widely available at the time of this review. I have mine, and they should be more widely available to the public once the second printing arrives, but when I wrote this you may be limited to the PDF version. (That said, the hard copy is pretty nice - good quality paper, a cloth bookmark, and crisp printing for the illustrations.)

Overall, I'm extremely happy with this product, and I think it was absolutely worth my initial investment. The rules content (i.e. the huge majority of the book) is fabulous, and the updated art is much nicer than the old miniature pictures were. I rate this product 5/5 and strongly recommend it to everyone who wants more Mythos in their Pathfinder.

I picked this up so I could use some ideas to run the Cosmic Horror Campaign from Paizo Publishing. Once I cracked the book, I found a really neat start up adventure to introduce cosmic horror into one's campaign. What sets this apart from most starter adventures is that it is easily adapted to any level of play! There are handy reference tables with each encounter that explain how to scale each individual encounter from level one all the way to level twenty!

I managed to glean enough information to use elements of this adventure in the Cosmic Horror Adventure Path. In reading through the book, it looks like it would make for a good addition to any campaign or work easily as a stand alone adventure, for any level.

It should go without saying that you need a copy of Cthulhu Mythos for Pathfinder in order to run this adventure as all of the creatures are contained in the bestiary in the main sourcebook. The adventure does not provide monster stats.