• Written by Scott David Aniolowski, Penelope Love, Kevin A Ross, Fred Behrendt
  and T Woods.
• Published by Chaosium
• Review by Steve Hatherley

(There was probably a reason for writing this, but I can't remember it. My rejected scenario eventually became "Hell Hath No Fury" in Pagan Publishing's The Golden Dawn.)

This is a biased, but balanced, review. On the one hand I've worked with the editor, Kevin A Ross, on other projects. On the other hand, my scenario was rejected (quite unjustly, of course) for Sacraments of Evil. Thus I am biased both for and against the book.

I first heard of Sacraments of Evil, a collection of Gaslight scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, about 18 months ago. It is always interesting to see how the final product turns out - and Sacraments proves to be a real gem. The Gaslight era has always been Call of Cthulhu's least popular setting, but with more books of this calibre I can see the Victorian era gaining a new lease of life.

The book starts with "The Eyes of a Stranger" and an invitation to a seance. A death follows, and the investigators are hurled into a mystery touching on Chinese underworld, Jack the Ripper, and alien invasion. This may be a frustrating case for the investigators not only is the monster difficult to track (it uses powers based, I think, on one of the characters in Tim Powers' "The Anubis Gates"), but strange encounters and a shadowy conspiracy complicate matters further.

Beginning with the rather hoary "an old friend asks for help" hook, "The Masterwork of Nicholas Forby" then turns out to be a bland investigation into the dark secrets of Forby House. Rumours of hidden treasure, strange ghosts and an ancestor's terrible past are all rather routine, and it isn't until the end, when things get exciting, that it improves. I tried to like this one: the monster is unusual, and the secret wonderfully dark and tragic - even if it is reminiscent of an old B-movie starring James Bolan (Crucible of Terror, I think).

While characters' names are generally evocative, I suggest changing the name of the well-read explorer in "Plant Y Daear" from Howard Jones to something more inconspicuous. The scenario itself uncovers degenerate nastiness and climaxes with besieged investigators in the Welsh countryside. The investigators must then make an unpleasant decision: which should they sacrifice - their safety or their conscience?

"Sacraments of Evil" is without doubt one of the most gruesome and unpleasant scenarios I have read. Concentrating on a series of brutal murders, this scenario brims with grisly moments to chill and disgust the investigators. Not for the squeamish, it is one of the few instances where I would approve of a "For Mature Readers Only" warning on a scenario. Genuinely shocking, "Sacraments" only serves to reaffirm that while the Cthulhu Mythos is terrible, it pales into insignificance when compared to the insanities inflicted by man himself.

"The Scuttling" (a great double-entendre) manages to mix the seafaring stories of William Hope Hodgeson with a healthy dose of Coleridge, the movie Alien and even a dash of Jurassic Park. This is an excellent scenario, with the investigators accompanying a suspicious statue across the Atlantic on "The Christabel" - a sailing ship with an unwelcome stowaway...

More Ripper murders appear in the final scenario, "Signs Writ In Scarlet." This time the investigators are lead deep into Jack the Ripper territory; into Whitechapel and London's East End itself. "Signs" is a complex scenario, with assorted adversaries to hinder the investigators.

For those without Cthulhu by Gaslight, Sacraments of Evil finishes off with a short description of the character generation process for Victorian investigators.

Sacraments is an impressive package. The scenarios are detailed and impressively researched, creating an atmosphere appropriate to the times. Even the book's production reeks of the Victorian era: the typeface feels right and John T Snyder's illustrations are superb. Two of the scenarios do not feature the Cthulhu Mythos at all. In most of the others the mythos is subdued, subtly influencing activities from behind the scenes. This is as it should be, with the mythos concealed behind civilization's thin veneer.

A nice touch is that some characters appear in more than one scenario - especially so in "The Eyes of a Stranger." This gives the book more continuity than usually occurs in collections of this type; hopefully this will not be an isolated occurance.

Overall: an excellent package, proving that with some care and attention Call of Cthulhu works just as well in the 1890s as it does in any other. "Sacraments of Evil" and "The Scuttling" are worth the price of admission alone.

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