Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion

Six and a half years? Has it really been that long? That's when the first discussions and recruitment took place for the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion over on the YSDC forums. At the time, I was running my New York Campaign, and had started to plant the seeds of the Campaign, by introducing Jackson Elias and preparing myself in other ways. With this in mind, I was hugely anticipating the information, maps, handouts and other additional material that was being discussed for inclusion in this work. I was worried however, that it wouldn't come out in time for me to use in my campaign. I need not have worried, not because of the speed of publication of this document, far from it, it took a lot more time that I anticipated, but for the closer to home reason of my gaming group and CoC game folding for reasons of life getting in the way of gaming (isn't it always the case?).

However, I was very pleased to see the following news on the YSDC front page. In the words of Paul of Cthulhu:

This publication has a long and varied history. It was originally anticipated to be a benefit publication for YSDC (as a Call of Cthulhu MULA monograph) with the payment going to help keep Yoggie online. However after six and a half years it had reached a state of production limbo, which seemed grossly unfair as it meant that all the brilliant, creative work and effort that had gone into it was not being seen.

So we pulled the trigger.

What is available for download here can be considered version 0.9 of the Companion. Adam Crossingham of Sixtystone Press is currently doing sterling work finishing the last edit and finalising the layout of the 550 page beast.

We hope you enjoy the book and accept its contents with our gratitude for your support of a venerable web site. Thank you.

550 pages is indeed a beast of a document, in fact, the original campaign only has 250 pages. That's more than double the original size. This says a couple of things about the original work. First off, I think it shows how much the original work is respected, and still played. Also, that it sparks the imagination of so many gamers and writers now that they can expand and riff upon the original work to this extent.

It also says a little about some of the holes in the original work that needed filling, but this is as much to do with the evolution of the hobby, and the technology now available make our products (in terms of handouts etc) than necessarily flaws in the original work (although they do exist).

So, go here to download version 0.9 of this work. I have already done so, and am slowly reading through it. I for one would pay real actual money for this work, and for the moment will show my appreciation by becoming a YSDC patron. If and when this is released as a hard copy manuscript, in whatever fashion that is, I fully intent to buy a copy of that too, but in honour of Free RPG Day (which has just passed) go get your free copy now.

The original campaign is available from the Chaosium website, either in softcover, or now in new and improved hardback. There's also a free download which contains an introduction to the campaign, and more usefully, all the handouts in pdf format, for easy printing.