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"Looking forward to being killed by Sandy Petersen" and other features the adventures in Petersen's Abominations have in common...

Posted by Michael O'Brien on 29th Nov 2017

Petersen's Abominations Cover

Petersen's Abominations, now out in PDF, is Chaosium's newest collection of Call of Cthulhu adventures. 

Hatched from the twisted imagination of Call of Cthulhu creator Sandy Petersen, they began life as scenarios he's ran at conventions - "when I run a game at a convention, it is always expected that I run something new, something unpublished", explains Sandy.

These adventures, since they were designed for conventions, share some common features, as Sandy notes:

  1. they include pre-made characters, as I couldn’t depend on players having their own. 
  2. they are all one-shot adventures, since they had to play out in a single evening. 
  3. they are usually horrendously violent, because people seem to expect and look forward to “being killed by Sandy Petersen in Call of Cthulhu.” 
  4. But, because they are one-shots, I was able to set them in all kinds of odd times and places, which gave me great creative freedom. 

Petersen's Abominations Illustration

Sandy worked closely with Call of Cthulhu line editor Mike Mason to prepare the adventures for publication.

"Putting this collection of scenarios together has been a blast!", says Mike. "Seeing the scenarios come to life has been an unusual process... (involving) video chats between Texas, USA, and Nottingham, UK, where Sandy would walk me through how he would run these scenarios, describing key scenes, plot points, and the players’ usual reactions. While Sandy talked, I would frantically write copious notes in freehand and then throw questions at Sandy to check details (“what happens if the players do...”), allowing me to build a full picture of the scenarios, as well as understanding how they ran. Often we’d get sidetracked and end up discussing varied horror themes and the vagaries of the Cthulhu Mythos."

Each one-shot scenario is designed for one or more sessions of play. Advice for getting the most out of the scenarios is provided, as well as suggestions for expanding the scope of the adventures or making them part of a campaign.

Petersen's Abominations is available now in PDF, direct from Chaosium.

There's no need to wait for the hardback!—purchase the PDF now and we'll send you a discount coupon that offsets the PDF purchase price once the hardcover version is available.

PETERSEN'S ABOMINATIONS
Five Epic Tales of Modern Horror

ISBN: 978-1-56882-452-9
Format: Color PDF (full color hardback available in Q1, 2018)
Pages: 200
Authors: Sandy Petersen, Mike Mason
Cover Art: Victor Lesa