Masks of Nyarlathotep, subtitled Perilous Adventures to Thwart the Dark God, is an adventure campaign first published by Chaosium in 1984 for the second edition of the horror role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. A number of revised editions have subsequently been published. Masks of Nyarlathotep is a series of several sequential adventures set in the 1920s that take the player characters from New York, to London, Cairo, Nairobi, and Shanghai (with Australia and then Peru added in subsequent editions) as they deal with the threat of the god Nyarlathotep. Screenwriter Larry DiTillio wrote the adventure with game designer Lynn Willis during a writer's strike. It received positive reviews in game periodicals including Casus Belli, The Space Gamer, White Dwarf, Different Worlds, and Dragon, and is considered to be one of the best roleplaying adventures of all time.
Description
Masks of Nyarlathotep is a series of sequential adventures set in the 1920s that pit the investigators against Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos and Outer God. The original version had five adventures, and in the edition published in 1996 the number of adventures was increased to six, and this was increased to seven in the 2018 version. There are a variety of handouts given to the players at various points; these include newspaper clippings, handwritten letters, business cards and a matchbox.
The first edition of the campaign spanned five chapters: New York: the investigators are drawn into the campaign by a gruesome death. Following clues, the investigators move to London, seeking information both on a mysterious cult, and the ill-fated Carlyle Expedition. The investigators move to Cairo, where they follow various clues, some of them red herrings. The fourth chapter is set in and around Nairobi, as the investigators try to discover how the Carlyle Expedition came to an end. The last chapter takes the investigators to Shanghai, where they must put all the clues together to bring a dangerous threat to an end.
Publication history
Masks of Nyarlathotep was written by Larry DiTillio with Lynn Willis, and was published by Chaosium in 1984 as a boxed set with two 32-page books, a 28-page book, a 20-page book, and a 16-page book, a 4-page pamphlet, and handouts. A second edition with a cover by Lee Gibbons was published in 1989 as a 160-page book with eight color plates.
In 1984, while Larry DiTillio was on strike from his job as a television and movie screenwriter, he earned income by writing role-playing adventures for various companies. One such assignment was Masks of Nyarlathotep for Chaosium, a five-part adventure for the second edition of Call of Cthulhu that he co-wrote with Lynn Willis. A sixth chapter written by DiTillio set in Australia was cut from the final product due to space limitations. The campaign was published in 1984 as a boxed set that included five books (one for each chapter of the adventure), a 4-page player introduction, an index sheet for the gamemaster's reference, and a cardstock sheet from which a number of separate player handouts could be cut out.
Five years later, Chaosium revised the campaign for the 4th edition of Call of Cthulhu, and published it as a single 160-page perfect-bound softcover book that included eight color plates of scenes from the adventures rendered by Nick Smith, Keith Berdak, Tom Sullivan, and Mark Roland, as well as full color cover art by Lee Gibbons. In this and all subsequent editions, the player handouts previously printed on a separate cardstock sheet were incorporated into the pages of the book, requiring the gamemaster to either cut them out of the book or to photocopy them.
In 1996, the Australia chapter that had been cut from the original edition was included in a revision for the 5th edition of Call of Cthulhu, which was retitled The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep. A version of this for the 6th edition of Call of Cthulhu was published in 2006.
In 2010, a new edition returned to the original title Masks of Nyarlathotep, with both softcover and hardcover editions.
In 2018, the game was revised and updated for use with the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu and the Pulp Cthulhu supplement, and was released as a two-volume slipcase with a gamemaster's screen. New material included a new chapter set in Peru.