Call of Cthulhu - quick start color

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Quick
S
tart
C
thulhu
Quick Start Rules for the
CALL OF CTHULHU Role-Playing Game
Includes the popular adventure
“The Haunting!”
Quick Start Cthulhu
Quick Start Rules for the Call Of Cthulhu
Role-Playing Game
Includes the popular adventure “The Haunting!
”
written by:
Ben Monroe, Sandy Petersen
additional material provided by:
William Jones
evil marketing & propaganda:
Dustin Wright
interior illustrations:
Andy Hopp, Yurek Chodak, Bryan Reagan
cover art:
Gene Day
editorial:
William Jones
layout:
Deborah Jones
Chaosium is:
Lynn Willis, Charlie Krank,
Dustin Wright, Fergie,
& various odd critters
Published 2004
Interested in Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu? You're not alone!
Call of Cthulhu is Chaosium's classic roleplaying game of Lovecraftian horror in which ordinary people
are confronted by the terrifying and alien forces of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Over 225,000 copies of Call of Cthulhu have been sold since its release in 1981. Over 90 supplements have
been printed for a total of more than 400,000 books sold over the last 23 years. Call of Cthulhu has won
over 40 gaming awards including Best RPG of all time by readers of the Arcane magazine. In 1996, Call
of Cthulhu was the second RPG to be inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design
Hall of Fame.
Call of Cthulhu is recognized as a true classic. This game continues to delight players after 23 years in a
field where many games disappear within three to five years after their initial release.
Call of Cthulhu is published by Chaosium Inc. Chaosium is one of the original publishers of paper role-
playing games and has been in business for well over 25 years. Chaosium is famous for the excellence of
its game designs, and has won many Adventure Gaming Industry awards.
All you need to play Call of Cthulhu for the first time is this book, some dice, plenty of imagination, and
your friends.
Welcome to the Worlds of Call of Cthulhu!
Fergie, Charlie Krank, Lynn Willis, and Dustin Wright.
The Chaosium Guys
Chaosium Inc.
895 B Street #423
Hayward, CA
94541
510 583 1000
chaosium@chaosium.com
 Introduction
"The oldest and strongest emotion of
mankind is fear."
- H. P. Lovecraft
tence. Horror stories are a catharsis for the
dread we hold in our souls on a day-to-day
level. Call of Cthulhu is a game that lets you explore
that fear, bringing monsters and terrors out into
the daylight, and fighting against them for the sake
of soul and sanity.
If you've played other roleplaying games
(RPGs) before, then you have an idea of how it
works: A group of players sit around a table and
describe the actions of their characters, while one
player (the game master, or "keeper" as he is known
in Call of Cthulhu) guides the story along. It is like
an interactive novel where one person tells the
story, and the players take part in the story.
However, Call of Cthulhu is different from most
other RPGs. In Call of Cthulhu, the players portray
ordinary people cast into extraordinary circum-
stances. You have no magic weapons with which to
assault the dark things of the world. You cannot
count on the local king sending armies of minions
to your aid. You simply have your wits, your
courage and your skill to fight the horrors of the
Cthulhu Mythos. In its simplest form, Call of
Cthulhu is a game about heroes. The heroes who
realize that the world is crawling with alien terrors
bent on the destruction of humanity, and who take
that fight back to the abyss itself.
The simplest metaphor for a game of Call of
Cthulhu can be likened to the fairy tale of the Little
Dutch Boy. The dam had a crack and the Little
Dutch Boy had to stand there with his finger in the
hole to keep the water from flooding out and
destroying the nearby town. However, instead of
how the original tale played out, imagine that on
the other side of that dam is a bloodthirsty shark,
which is gnawing away at the Dutch Boy. He loses
one finger, so he must put another one in. Then he
loses another finger, and another. The hole is get-
ting bigger, and he must stick his entire arm in, and
the shark keeps biting. But if he fails, if he leaves his
post, the dam will collapse, and many lives will be
lost. And so he stays, resolute in his convictions.
He may die, but humanity will live because of him.
The booklet you now hold in your hands gives
you all the information you will need to create a
character for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game,
as well as a brief overview of how to play the game.
Many of the game's details are glossed over here
What's a Cthulhu?
The Call of Cthulhu game is inspired by the
"Cthulhu Mythos" stories of Depression-
era author H.P. Lovecraft and his imita-
tors. Cthulhu is the name of a tremen-
dously evil, alien priest/god/monster which
features in many of Lovecraft's works, most
notably, "The Call of Cthulhu." Countless
stories have been written over the years
expanding on his creations. Pulp authors
such as Robert E. Howard and Robert
Bloch extrapolated Lovecraft's ideas into
their own. Current horror writers such as
Clive Barker, Stephen King, Kathe Koja
and Caitlin R. Kiernan show a clear influ-
ence from Lovecraft.
If you've never read any of Lovecraft's
work before, you have missed out.
Penguin Books has two collections of his
work that should get you started. "The Call
of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales" and
"The Thing on the Doorstep and Other
Weird Tales" should give you a good intro-
duction to his work.
5
H
orror. Terror. Fear is at the core of our exis-
QUICK START CTHULHU
simply because Call of Cthulhu is a game of mys-
tery. Often, if the players understand too much of
the goings-on behind the rules, it can break the
atmosphere of tension necessary for a good mys-
tery.
Once you've played a game or two, you will
probably want to take a look at the full rules for
Call of Cthulhu which are available from any good
game store, most large bookstores, or directly from
us at www.chaosium.com. To create your charac-
ter, you will only need four ordinary 6-sided dice.
To play the game, you should invest in a full set of
polyhedral dice. At least one each 4, 8, 10, 12 and
20-sided dice are needed to play the game.
together to determine the value for CON.
Dexterity
(DEX) is a measure of your investigator's
agility and speed. Roll 3 six-sided dice and add
them together to determine the value for DEX.
Size
(SIZ) is a measure of your investigator's phys-
ical mass. It influences how much damage you can
take, as well as how much you can deliver. Also, as
a measure of your Investigator's weight, it influ-
ences the ability of horrible monsters to pick him
up and toss him around the room. Roll 2 six-sided
dice, add them together and add 6 to that total to
determine the value for SIZ.
Creating An Investigator
Intelligence
(INT) is a rough guide to your investi-
gator's cunning and ability to make leaps of
logic and intuition. Roll 2 six-sided dice,
add them together and add 6 to that total
to determine the value for INT.
To play Call of Cthulhu you need to
create a character. Characters in the
game are called "investigators" as they
primarily spend their play time investigat-
ing the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Creating your character is simple, and out-
lined below. It will be helpful for you to have a
piece of scratch paper handy, or ideally a Call of
Cthulhu character sheet. There is one located on
page 19 or you can download one for free at
www.chaosium.com. Click on "Free Downloads"
then "Character Sheets, Keeper Forms, and more."
Power
(POW) is a combination of per-
sonal magnetism, spirit, and mental
stability. It influences your charac-
ter's ability to cast magical spells, as
well as his resistance to the sanity-blasting horrors
of the Cthulhu Mythos. Roll 3 six-sided dice and
add them together to determine the value for
POW.
Appearance
(APP) measures the charm and physi-
cal appeal of your character. Roll 3 six-sided dice
and add them together to determine the value for
APP.
The Primary Attributes
To begin, a Call of Cthulhu character has seven pri-
mary attributes. Each of these attributes is
described below, as well as noting how many dice
you roll to determine the value of each attribute.
Education
(EDU) is a measure of the knowledge
which your investigator has accumulated through
formal education, or the venerated "School of Hard
Knocks." Roll 3 six-sided dice, add them together
and add 3 to the total to determine the value for
EDU.
Strength
(STR) measures the raw physical power
your investigator can bring to bear. It influences
the amount of damage he can deliver with a punch
or kick, as well as his grip, or ability to lift heavy
items. Roll 3 six-sided dice and add them together
to determine the value for STR.
Note, that before play begins, you may swap
around any attributes which use the same dice to
determine their value. In other words, you could
swap any of the values for Strength, Constitution,
Dexterity, Appearance or Power with each other.
You could only swap Size and Intelligence with
each other. Education remains static. If the rolls
you get for your investigator are abysmal, you
should consider rerolling a few. The average attrib-
Constitution
(CON) is a measure of the hardiness
of your investigator. It influences the amount of
damage you can take before going unconscious or
dying as well as how resistant you are to diseases
and poison. Roll 3 six-sided dice and add them
6
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