Lovecraftesque downloads

A new edition of Lovecraftesque is coming soon!

The first edition was critically acclaimed, won the Gioco Dell’Anno (Game Of The Year) award, was a finalist in the IGDN indie groundbreakers, and influenced a generation of mystery games like Brindlewood Bay, Apocalypse Keys and Bleak Spirit. We’re crowdfunding a new second edition boxed set, building on the lessons from the first to make an even slicker, more inspiring, easier-to-learn experience, with brand new art and a plethora of exciting new scenarios for the game.

The campaign launches in October and you can follow it here.

References and handouts

Rules summary (two-page summary of the rules)

Game setup record sheets (This includes individual one-page sheets to record your setup details, your clues and conclusions, and to track scenes and the Journey into Darkness)

Variant setup sheet created by Lynnea Glasser (this sheet is particularly useful for scenario play as it enables you to record the locations and NPCs on one page).

The Cue Cards and Special Cards (Playing card-size reference cards for each of the roles, and all the Special Cards)

The Inspiration Tables (Four pages of inspirational material for locations, clues, monsters and revelations to use in your game)

Scenarios

Lovecraftesque scenarios provide pre-generated Clues, locations and characters to build a flavourful Lovecraftesque story while leaving ample creative freedom for your group to make the scenario their own. Download our guidance on writing Lovecraftesque scenarios here.
 
Change Our Vile Bodies by Scott Dorward. A journalist’s brother disappears into a hippie commune in Devon. What are they really up to?
 
Darkness Visible by Mo Holkar. 1964. Dark secrets are unearthed in the former plantation town of Deacon Fork, Alabama.
 
Dark Pledges by Kira Magrann. The ritualistic murder of a frat boy may just be the tip of the iceberg.
 
Doll Baby by Julia Ellingboe. There’s nothing sinister about porcelain dolls, is there?
 
House-Sitter by Jason Cordova. Olivia Kirk is left looking after the Hollywood home of a big-shot movie producer. But something’s not normal about this house.
 
Mr Giggles Comes to Dinner by Misha Bushyager. Two small children have been acting strangely recently. Their imaginary friend may be more than just pretend.
 
On Ilkla Moor Baht’at by Becky Annison. A London schoolgirl is sent to a small Yorkshire town when her parents are killed in the Blitz. It’s horrible Up North.
 
Resonate by Graham Walmsley. On the underground New York disco scene in 1972, love is free, sex is everywhere, time has no meaning and everything blurs into one.
 
The Centre Cannot Hold by Becky Annison. A virus crosses the machine-human boundary but the staff at the London School of Tropical Medicine have worse to deal with.
 
The Chateau Of Leng by Renee Knipe. A strange new house has sprung up in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and the rest of the neighbourhood is feeling its blasphemous influence.
 
The Face of Evil by Joshua Fox. The Scottish Border town of Peebles conceals an ancient evil.
 
The Wardian Case by Jason Morningstar. An intriguing lichen is brought to Harvard College, completely contained… for now.
 
The Wreck by Rachel E S Walton. The crew of the mining ship Talon have discovered the wreck of a strange, unknown ship on an isolated asteroid.
 
Through the Waters, Darkly by Joshua Fox. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, a research team uncover something horrifying.
 
Under the Mask by Whitney “Strix” Beltran. Something unwholesome is terrorising a village in pre-colonisation West Africa.
 
With a Brush of the Fingertips by Elsa S Henry. The discovery of a braille Necronomicon leads to sinister events in Worcester, MA.
 
Zemlya Sannikova / Земля Санникова by Jason Morningstar. 1902. The Imperial Russian Polar Expedition’s steam and sail-powered brig Zarya is locked fast in the ice during its second winter. But worse things are waiting out on the ice.

Lovecraftesque scenario competition entries

These scenarios were entered to the Lovecraftesque scenario competition 2016.

The winning entries

The Wilder Parts of the Forest by Oli Jeffery. In a CS Lewis inspired fantasy land, the Wardens of the Wilder Parts of the Forest are tasked with hunting down the monstrosities that dwell there.

Bringing New Life by Elizabeth Lovegrove. Kim’s partner is in hospital having twins. But something strange is happening in the weird mishmash of buildings which makes up Peventry University Hospital, and the maternity ward seems to be at the centre of it.

Cold Steel by Fred Bednarski. While the people of a Nazi occupied town in Poland are struggling to survive the harsh winter, someone or something is unearthing long forgotten secrets.

Rare Antiquities by Oli Jeffery. A sleazy historian travels to Brighton to scatter his mother’s ashes, but instead gets entangled in both the city’s sex trade and the labyrinthine area known as The Lanes.

The Huston Veil by Devon Apple. In this 1825 London scenario, players illustrate the journey of a local lanternbearer whose path will follow a conspiracy that writhes in the shadows of the darkest corners of the East India Company.

Other entries

A Moment of your Time by Codie Hogbin. A mayor, soon up for re-election, decides to tour their declining port town to build goodwill with their constituents. However, exits polls may become the least of their concerns.

Absinthe Waves by Ralph Lovegrove. A music journalist traces the roots of a legendary musician back to their home village, where they’ve been living as a recluse.

The Beast of Bladenboro by Arlene Medder. Dogs and goats are being killed in a small Southern town. Is it someone just concealing moonshining, or something more sinister?

Blood Will Out by Jaye Foster. A surgeon finds something darker and more sinister than disease is afflicting the patients of a North Italian hospital.

Breath of Life by Eric Farmer. Summers stretch on forever when you’re young, but here in Orange Blossom and under this stifling heat – do you want it to?

Catch of the Day by Sławomir Wójcik. A trio of work friends go for a fishing trip in rural Poland in early 90’s.

Dead Ashes Burn Again by Tom McGrenery. Peking, 1937. In the dead of winter, on the brink of war, one detective ventures into the grandest and seediest of the city’s foreign enclaves.

Ghost Ship by Bruce ES Warner. A garbled distress call from the husk of an abandoned generation spaceship leads to horrible revelations for the responding emergency team.

James Shelton Mine by Arlene Medder. Is the James Shelton Mine suffering bad luck, haunted, sabotaged, or something more serious?

No Safety from the Sand by Jaye Foster. In the midst of the great war, a Berber girl finds horrors greater than the war.

Porridge by Ralph Lovegrove[*]. A young offender is incarcerated at Green Hill, a former Victorian gaol refurbished as a modern private prison by Tesseract Securities.

Ride a White Horse by Elizabeth Lovegrove. Madam Penelope’s Travelling Circus is famed throughout the land for its amazing dancing horses, but when teenage Eleanor runs away to join the circus, she quickly realises all is not as it seems.

The Heart Line by Ralph Lovegrove. A tourist returning to the Old Country breaks their journey with a layover in the capitalist city-state Autonexia and rides the underground railway to unexpected destinations.

The Last Hours of the International Space Station by Andrew Cain. After a major systems failure, the International Space Station is evacuated. However, a sick astronaut is unable to leave, and a medical team are sent in. Unfortunately for them these problems are just the start of something far worse.

Under a Grey Sun by Ralph Lovegrove. In the Court Abundant a young scientist with proof of life on other worlds seeks an audience with the King, which is postponed time and again, leaving them to aimlessly wander the Citadel in search of answers.

[*] This scenario is not technically a part of the competition as it was Ralph’s fourth scenario, but I’ve included it for completeness.

The Gauntlet Codex

The Gauntlet is an online roleplaying community which hosts a ton of hangout-based games and also produces a number of great podcasts and a regular zine called the Codex. The Codex is available to their Patreon backers, and we heartily recommend you check that business out. Anyway, as part of the Codex there’s been some scenarios produced for Lovecraftesque:

Ex Nihilo by Joshua Fox, in which a crew of renowned scientists and a washed-up celebrity astronaut fly into the heart of a black hole.

Pizza Time! by Jason Cordova, in which the bizarre and lurid tales told by the staff at an ageing chain restaurant may contain more than a grain of truth.

Other scenarios

Territory Blues by Jeff Stormer and Blaine C. Martin is set in the world of professional wrestling. It deals with the horrors of the road, the never-ending grind of the territory circuit, and of one wrestler who slowly comes to face a nightmare out there on the road.

The Joy in Faith by Bruhstin is based on a Korean folktale, The Salt Seller and the Fox. A Korean-American college student returns home when her grandmother’s health fails. But is this sudden illness natural or a symptom of something far worse?