[OSSR]Mysteries of Sudan

[Ancient History]

I honestly couldn't find a picture of the physical product. 0/1 San loss.

It's been a while since we've done a Call of Cthulhu-in-Africa book. From the Congo to Cairo, from North Africa to Kenya and Morocco...it's that time again.

First off: this is a Miskatonic University Monograph, which means essentially a fan product which was published by Chaosium, who provides a little bit of branding and keeps most of the money. Production values are about what you can manage on your home laptop or school desktop computer, for the obvious reasons.

The author is Jason Williams, who has also done some other stuff for Chaosium. That's kind of amazing to me, because he did Mysteries of the Raj AND Secrets of Tibet, yet managed to not include any real points of reference between either. Wow. Moving on.

The book opens up with a TOC, and then a full-page black-and-white map stolen from some period source. Mysteries of Sudan is set during the "Gaslight" era (1890s), when Sudan was the largest country in Africa, if you don't count the fact that it was invaded and occupied by first the Egyptians and then the British. The wartorn region is most remembered for the siege of Khartoum by the forces of the Mahdi and the death of "Chinese" Gordon. Robert E. Howard wrote an erotic novella about it called "Guns of Khartoum."

The book gives a little recent history, then goes on to briefly describe the peoples. I'm going to give wikipedia credit here for someone trying and realizing how impossible it is to really encapsulate how diverse some of these regions are:

In the 1960's Sudan recognized a total of fifty-six tribal groups consisting of 597 separate tribes. There were 115 languages spoken in Sudan with the majority of people speaking Arabic as a common language. Many languages in Sudan are distinctive enough that neighboring tribes might not be able to communicate except in Arabic.

It's pure data. It may not be a lot to go by as far as how to actually use that information in the game, but it is there, and that was very useful...in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s when that sort of information was not a few keyclicks away. I'll give Williams credit for doing at least a modicum of research; this really is a product that tries to give a very condensed overview of the Sudan for simulationist roleplayers in Gaslamp adventures. But it doesn't really get into anything particularly interesting until we get to...Nubia!

The Sudan is located at the upper (southern) end of the Nile, just south of Egypt, so the Nile (and the White Nile and the Blue Nile) flow through it, and historically the region had ties to Egypt, but ancient and modern, sometimes as Nubia and sometimes as the kingdoms of Kush and Meroe. This makes it an interesting area for archaeologists and Egyptologists, and as Egypt was veritably swarming with Mythos material (they did the Cairgo Guidebook, remember?)...Williams offers two rather lackluster "Cthulhu Mythos Options," one of which reads:

An intact bowl has been discovered that has a prepared spell inscribed on it. To activate the spell the bowl must be smashed.

Investigators could find ritual milk vessels that are inscribed with mysterious markings. A search for information about the inscriptions reveals a connection to a shub-niggurath cult.

That's...it. That's not even a couple of adventure seeds. I really have to stop and wonder at this point of what the point is; this is copyright 2008. We already had wikipedia. This needs to be more than wikipedia, it needs to 1) present the Mythos in Sudan; 2) provide reasons for investigators to go to the Sudan; and 3) provide game resources to support investigators in the Sudan. I get that we're still in the preliminary stage of "doling out raw information," but there just doesn't appear to be any real effort to present the Mythos as integrated to the Sudan in any way. It's barely an afterthought. We're 13 pages in an there's been a grand total of three "Cthulhu Mythos Options" sidebars, only three of which actually mention the Mythos.

Brief (very) descriptions are also given of Darfur, Kordofan, Khartoum, Omduman, and Suakin. This is followed by roughly five pages of timeline covering major events in the Sudan, with a heavy focus on the 1800s. It's relatively detailed and covers lots of major events from the British/European perspective, but it doesn't actually cover any Mythos events. Although it does give two optional Mythos events, neither of which are given in any real detail. Example:

The Mahdi and his followers can be run as a mythos cult with an inner circle manipulating the masses toward a nefarious goal. The doctrine of Yaum al-Qiyamah (Day of resurrection) could be used by the cultists to refer to the time when the stars are right.

Which would be interesting...Williams ever developed it, which he does not. You might as well suggest that Woodrow Wilson was a cultist of Nyarlathotep. That sounds nifty, but does it actually change anything?

After that there's a very brief look at the Sudan in different periods (Gaslight - 1890s, regular - 1920s/30s, CthulhuNow - 1980s-90s), which includes the wondrous piece of advice:

Keepers that wish to use Sudan in a modern setting are encouraged to obtain the excellent travel guide Sudan the Bradt Travel Guide by Paul Clammer ISBN 9781841621142.

The book covers all areas of the country with travel tips, bits of history, and locations of ferry's, hotels, markets and security issues. There is also an information section about the current political situation in Sudan. It includes details about the various factions in the north and south, information about border crossings, guerilla groups and about how and where travel permission can be contained.

Followed by a list of "Leaders of Sudan" by year from 1825-1916. That's page 20 out of a 90-page softcover, so let's stop there for tonight, and meditate on: what the fuck is the point of a setting book for a real-life place? Should it focus on information that can be (today) relatively easily obtained? Shadowrun did the tour-guidebook style explicitly, but they focused on locations of direct interest to the audience (shadowrunners). What is in Sudan of interest to investigators? I still don't fucking know! To find out, tune in next time...same tentacle time, same squamous channel...

[Ancient History]

Tribes of Sudan

By the late 1800's contact between Europeans and the natives throughout Sudan was widespread in the north and along the Nile River as far south as Gondokoro.

For centuries the Arab population of northern Sudan had engaged in the slave trade by raiding villages in the southern and western regions of the country.

Some of the first British explorers in those areas reported that if they were spotted by villagers their white skin marked them as slavers and the natives would flee into the jungle.

We're back to wikipedia-bait, interspersed with the occasional Mythos idea. Presentation is...honestly not as bad as previous books, since Williams doesn't go out of his way to present people as primitive or savage or doing stupid fake shit. Sudan is weird enough.


The British term "fuzzy wuzzy," which is sort of appallingly racist today, originated from distinctive hair styles of the Hadndowa people.

If there's a problem, it's that obviously way too much of this section is based off the observations of 19th century ethnologists, so sometimes people are and their beliefs are described in the same way you might talk about an alien species. Case in point:

The title of tribal chief is hereditary and the man is considered to be descended from the gods. Ancient stories are handed down to the next generation to reinforce the chief's divine claims. In times of trouble such as drought and famine there are stories that tribal chiefs have sacrificed their own children on behalf of the tribe.

Honestly, that could appear in Generic Fantasy RPG book and no one would blink. The writing is just that bland. There's no effort to give it any character.

To be fair, the book does try to cover a lot of ground in a series of small paragraphs, and it's trying to avoid being blatantly and offensively racist by sticking to strict objectivity and presumably some period source materials. Which means that you get the racist bits mostly second-hand. Example:

Noted explorer Samuel Baker did not understand the significance of the tribal scars as exhibited by his following quote from his book The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile.

"He exhibited his wife's arms and back covered with jagged scars, in reply to my question as to the use of the spiked iron bracelet. Charming people are these poor blacks! as they are termed by English sympathisers; he was quite proud of having clawed his wife like a wild beast."

Then we get...more miscellaneous stuff. A collection of rumors about the tribal peoples which were already in the previous sections. A note on commerce and trade, including a list of sample prices for cows, horses, sheep, camels, and human slaves of various ages and genders. Lists of names. Weaksauce optional rules for cholera, malaria, and typhoid fever. Several pages of period- and region-specific weaponry.

Then a lengthy history of the Mahdi/Dervish/Ansar movement, which resisted Egyptian/British occupation of the Sudan. This is followed by a pixelated map and several biographies of prominent NPCs (without stats), one of which includes a portion of Rudyard Kipling's poem "Fuzzy-Wuzzy." A lot of the characters are illustrated by period portrait-illustrations. Go public domain!


Included is Maj-Gen Horatio Herbert Kitchener, who served as Sirdar of the Egyptian Army and eventually became the face on the British recruiting poster for WWI.

...this is followed by a timeline of Kitchener's Campaign in the Sudan and the Battle of Omdurman in 1896, which goes on for seriously 4.5 pages. He cites E. A. Wallis Budge for the casualties of the Mahdist War, which totals over 10 million, so I don't think it's wrong to emphasize how important the conflict was...but are the PCs really going to be in the middle of the conflict? Maybe! They also include the kit of equipment for Kitchener's soldiers.

Then, we get a section on travel. Where we get stats for African camels. Also, in the section on food, we get rules for eating camel liver ("Traditionally this delicacy is eaten raw and served with salt and red pepper.") Then we get some "General Reference Material" which includes ranks in the Egyptian and Sudanese armies, daily prayer times for Muslims, the Five Pillars of Islam, and, I shit you not, a complete calendar (with lunar cycle) for Jan 1897-Dec 1900.

Noticeably missing...Mythos material. I mean, there are little asides here or there, but they're all bullshit and terrible. This is a simulationist book, which with Wikipedia et al. is still really a fucking waste. But fear not! On page 59 we get to Scenarios set in the Sudan, and there has to be Mythos material in there...

[Ancient History]

Sphere of Influence
This adventure starts out in <fuck knows> during July 1898, and is supposed to end on 2 Sep 1898 in the ruins of Khartoum. I dutifully turned to the calendar provided immediately previous, assuming that this would be some phase of the moon thing, but that was not the case. It was a Friday. That's it.

Keeper Information

In 763 AD Ti-srong-de-tian the leader of Tibet lead the Tibetan army in a full invasion of China.

What the fuck? <checks cover> No, we're still in Mysteries of Sudan. But then, Williams would go on to write Secrets of Tibet so I...guess...this is where it started?

Anyway, long, boring fucking backstory boils down to: there's an Orb. It is a Seed of Yog-Sothoth, it drives people mad if they stay in its presence, granting visions of far places, draining energy from people, probably going to end the world someday. The Orb ends up in Sudan, where it is forgotten about for a thousand years.

Now a thousand years later, the PCs get a letter from Evan Chetworth. In London. He invites them over for tea and assorted snacks, and then hires them to find out who killed his associate Michaelle Fournier and stole this ancient document. Fournier has already made inquiries and thinks the murderer is a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. No actual mention of contacting the police at any point. Or payment. He's just an old dude asking a favor.


This is the shittiest Shadowrun scenario ever.

Anyway, presumably the PCs hit up the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. At which point Williams pimps the third-party CoC product dedicated to them, because why not? I mean, he tries to be coy about it, but nobody gives a shit.

NOTE: Mathers has been detailed elsewhere by another publisher which has produced materials for Call of Cthulhu. If you have that out-of-print book, feel free to use any Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn details contained therein.

Anyway, the bad guy's name is James Fenwick, he's no longer a member, and your Victorian Scooby Gang follows the trail of clues from London to Oxford to Rome to Cairo. At no point do they face any supernatural or Mythos trouble, no organized crime, it's basically: travel to this place, go to the library, talk to this scholar, pick up clues, rinse repeat. Their major opponents at this place are the easily bribed but inefficient bureaucracy and cops in Cairo. If they get far enough to get a translation of the Ma'Hatha Scroll (a minor Mythos tome unique to this supplement), they have a pretty good idea of what the Seed of Yog-Sothoth is about (real bad) and what they can do about it (not fucking much). But they know they need to stop Fenwick, who has a head start, so it's off to the Sudan!

...why didn't the scenario start in Cairo? So we could get all this shit done faster and get to the Sudan sooner. I don't know.

Anyway, there's a small war in the way, but it's off to Khartoum. Fenwick is in Khartoum and is getting ready to do a ritual ("the summoning"). This is supposed to "awaken" the orb and requires a human sacrifice. If it works, a portal opens and a Servitor of the Outer Gods comes through in preparation for Yog-Sothoth to make a guest appearance. The Servitor can be dismissed with a spell in the Ma'Hatha Scroll, if the PCs have that, and have read it, and bothered to learn it. The spell doesn't have much chance of working, but whatever works. Or, if the ritual is not completed...

This is most likely to occur if the investigators are prepared to shoot and kill Fenwick as soon as they see him.

A portal still opens, but they only have to deal with a smaller portal and some slightly smaller monsters who they have no practical defense against but which only last for a limited time.

On the plus side, no matter what happens, Yog-Sothoth can only stay for about ten minutes if the PCs truly fuck up. If the PCs are particularly slow, however, the Keeper is empowered to have a closet troll planted to kill them all.

If the Servitor of the Outer Gods had time to summon a dimensional shambler, it will be waiting nearby in the ruins to ambush the investigators.

The PCs do not have the means to destroy the Orb, which continues sucking in energy and driving people mad. Have fun with that.

Noticeably lacking from this scenario...a reason for it to be set in the Sudan. Seriously, why the fuck is it an ancient Chinese occult order that travels to fucking Africa to bury this thing? Under what became a fairly thriving city? You'd think people would notice the increased nightmares and listlessness. Why not have this thing just land in the Sudan from space, or be brought there by Egyptians or...fuck, I dunno.

As it is, the PCs are doing a dude they don't know a solid by looking for a dude they don't know for killing another dude they don't know, which leads them on the lamest-ass treasure hunt since The DaVinci Code to the most war-torn shithole they could find, all so that they can maybe get killed by an indestructible rock which if they all left well enough alone would kill Fenwick and any witnesses by itself, then go back to just being a mere madness orb. There's not even a "win" condition for this scenario. You don't get SAN back for shooting Fenwick between the eyes or dismissing the Servitor of the Outer Gods or throwing the orb through the portal while it's briefly open or any of that shit. It is utterly pointless at every level.

I'll finish this tomorrow.

[Ancient History]

Horror in the Sudd
The Sudd is a notorious vast, hot, dank swamp in the Sudan, choking the southern reaches of the Nile. It was a horror to Victorian explorers. In 1899, the British decided to clear a channel through the Sudd...

It will be up to the keeper on the best way to introduce the investigators to this scenario, particularly if you are inserting it into an existing campaign.

...anyway, you the PCs are on the five gunboats sent to clear a path through the nasty swamp. Whoo. I should say that they do provide several ideas for why the PCs might be on the expedition, but most of them revolve around the question "Did the players think to make their PCs competent in any skill that could remotely make them worth taking on such an expedition?" And because this is Call of Cthulhu, I'm going to go ahead and say no.

Anyway, after a long journey of breaking up masses of rotting vegetation blocking the river, the PCs run into a monster, the dark sargassum, which is a form of the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath.


For reasons unknown to me, the monster is described as a "Fresh Water Version of a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath." I'm confused because there is no salt water version. In fact, aquatic versions are right out.

Anyway, the PCs are faced with a monster that's eating people, including them if they get too close. It's intelligent and strong and hard to damage.

Firearm attacks do only 1 point of damage. A firearms impale does 2 points of damage. Shotguns are exceptions and do minimum possible damage, whatever that is. Hand-to-hand weapons do normal damage; attacks dependent on heat, blast, corrosion, electrical charge, or poisoning have no effect.

Do dynamite is out, fire is out, etc. Ramming it with a ship isn't ruled out, but only because the author didn't think of that. Anyway, traditional weapons are unlikely to work unless the PCs are dogged (and hey, they do outnumber the thing), but the local tribe does have a spell...

...which invites a member of the Great Race of Yith to swap minds with an individual. Line up to find the least-useful PC and get to it! The Yithian has the spell which will actually dismiss the Dark Sargassum, but wants to hang around in the PC for a while, doing Yithian things. I'm not sure at what point deciding to arbitrarily stop playing your character and having a beer became the go-to strategy with CoC, but it's in full force here. Anyway, after the trouble is dealt with you can pay a cleric 100 pounds to exorcise the Yithian. No, I'm not even fucking kidding.

After that we get some stats for Dangerous Animals of Sudan (read: generic list of African animals, including elephants, crocodiles, hippopotami, lions, and rhinoceroses), a three-page glossary, and a two-page bibliography which includes many issues of National Geographic.



And, that's the book.

...

It's not as terribly racist as other Cthulhu Africa products, but that's probably because there's so little there. There's not much reason to go to the Sudan, and once you go there there's not much Mythos happening, aside from arbitrary fresh water Mythos critters. Which really does feel like a tremendous failure. Put...something there. Anything. Williams decided to fill in a blank space on the Mythos map, and then realized he had nothing to actually say about it. That's terrible.

[Whipstitch]

I can't really come up with a joke for any of this. Elephant stats in a roll under system is just too dire to contemplate.

[Blicero]

Do you think anyone other than Jason Williams' home group ever played any of the adventures here?

[Username17]

Do you think anyone other than Jason Williams' home group ever played any of the adventures here?

Rule 34 says yes.

[Ancient History]

I can't really come up with a joke for any of this. Elephant stats in a roll under system is just too dire to contemplate.

I swear to ghost, they do stats for camels and crocodiles and shit in damn near every single CoC Africa book.

[deaddmwalking]

But surely not the SAME stats in each book - somehow they all manage to do it DIFFERENTLY?

Did any of them give any animal a Cthulu Mythos score?

[Whipstitch]

Do any of the camels have a spit skill?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Did any of them give any animal a Cthulu Mythos score?

Rhinos aggressively stamp out fires. Because they know.

[Ancient History]

They don't have a Cthulhu Mythos score. They are all different. But they're all different but sort of...based off of each other? Let me give an example.

Nile Hippopotamus
characteristics rolls averages
STR 6d6+15 33-34
CON 3d6+6 20-21
SIZ 6d6+15 36
POW 3d6 10-11
DEX 2d6 7
HP 28
Move 7/12 swimming

Av. Damage Bonus: +2d6
Weapons: Bite 40%, damage 1d8+4+db
Armor: 3-point hide
Skills: Attack Boats 40%, Wallow in Water 80%

Hippopotamus
STR 6d6+15
CON 3d6+6
SIZ 6d6+15
POW 3d6
DEX 2d6
HP 28
Move 7/12 swimming

Damage Bonus: +3d6
Weapons: Bite 40%, damage 1d8+4+db
Armor: 3 point thick hide
Skills: Attack Boats 40%, Hide in Water 80%

Hippopotamus
STR 39
CON 23
SIZ 39
POW 11
DEX 11
HP 31
Move 10

Damage Bonus: +4d6
Weapons: Bite 30%, damage 1d10+db
Trample 50%, damage 10d6 versus downed foe
Armor: 6-point hide

Hippopotamus
characteristics rolls averages
STR 6d6+18 39
CON 3d6+12 22-23
SIZ 6d6+18 39
POW 3d6 10-11
DEX 3d6 10-11
HP 31
Move 10

Av. Damage Bonus: +4d6
Weapons: Bite 20%, damage 1d10+db
Trample 50%, damage 10d6 versus downed foe
Armor: 6-point thickened hide
Skills: Eat Vegetable Matter 80%

Hippopotamus
STR 6d6+12
CON 4d6+6
SIZ 6d6+12
POW 3d6
DEX 2d6
HP 30
Move 6 walking/16 running (short distances)/10 swimming

Damage Bonus: varies
Weapons: Bite 65%, damage 1d12+db
Armor: 4 points of hide and blubber.
Skills: Glide Stealthily Through Water 80%; Tip Boat 60%

...and you can play this game with camels, crocodiles, whatever. It's bizarre. They can't keep the simplest fucking thing consistent.

[Ancient History]

Do any of the camels have a spit skill?

Some of them have a spit attack. 40%, damage -1d6 APP (temporary loss).

[Thaluikhain]

Firearm attacks do only 1 point of damage. A firearms impale does 2 points of damage. Shotguns are exceptions and do minimum possible damage, whatever that is. Hand-to-hand weapons do normal damage

What's it with bullets doing little damage, but shotguns more? Seems oddly common...also, is firearms impale using a bayonet? That's worse that shooting them. Guess they don't like cold steel...hang on...

Permission to make a British TV reference.

Many eyes have gone onto this thread (I don't mean literal eyeballs being put on the thread, just people have looked at it)...but an exhibition to Sudan, mention of Lord Kitchener, the term "fuzzy wuzzy", and the monsters do not like it up 'em?

Don't panic, don't panic, the book isn't very good, don't panic!

[Chamomile]

An "impale" is some kind of critical hit mechanic in Call of Cthulhu. Trying to actually comprehend its function is a Lovecraftian experience in itself.

Re: Shotguns, buckshot and even slugs are bigger and leave larger holes as compared to bullets. Bullets tend to be slightly smaller than a AA battery around, with thickness being fairly consistent even when lengths vary quite a bit. Shotgun shells are closer in size to a C battery. If you're fighting something without specific vital organs (or whose vital organs, for whatever reason, won't mind a few small punctures) and your primary goal is thus to blast as much of it apart as possible, shotguns are the way to go. Unless you have a belt-fed machine gun, at least.

[Thaluikhain]

If you're fighting something without specific vital organs (or whose vital organs, for whatever reason, won't mind a few small punctures) and your primary goal is thus to blast as much of it apart as possible, shotguns are the way to go.

It's this part I'm uncertain on. I struggle to think of an creature for which the size of the entry wound (or having, say, 9*) was so much more important than penetration, which a rifle will have a lot more of. A decent rifle with a magazine and fed by stripper clips has an advantage in rate of fire as well.

Assuming a shotgun compared to a rifle, that is, if the comparison was between shotgun and handgun the shotgun wins, of course.

*Thinking of a 12 gauge with 9 pellets of 00 buck, each pellet being slightly larger in diameter than a .303 round. Not sure if that load was as common then, though. Unless the target is very large (and in which case, you'd want the penetration of a rifle), if it's close enough that you hit it with all 9, it's too close.

[Username17]

An "Impale" is indeed a critical hit in Call of Cthulhu. It's called that because it's a rule adopted from the special weapons rules for spears in Runequest rules from the 1970s. For real. That's the actual reason.

Lots of creatures in Call of Cthulhu have the special ability that they only take 1 damage per bullet. That ability had to be clarified to also cause shotguns to do minimum damage because obviously a cartridge of shot has like 400 pellets in it so people were like "CAN I HAZ 400 DAMAGE?" because that is the kind of stupid fucking rules discussions people have in Call of Cthulhu. Anyway, this line of reasoning was considered so important that Call of Cthulhu standardized the ability to also cause the minimum damage that could be rolled on the dice. Because that is the kind of rules discussion that the authors of Call of Cthulhu think are important enough to put a standardized rule in for. For reals. That is the actual reason.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

If you're fighting something without specific vital organs (or whose vital organs, for whatever reason, won't mind a few small punctures) and your primary goal is thus to blast as much of it apart as possible, shotguns are the way to go.

It's this part I'm uncertain on. I struggle to think of an creature for which the size of the entry wound (or having, say, 9*) was so much more important than penetration, which a rifle will have a lot more of. A decent rifle with a magazine and fed by stripper clips has an advantage in rate of fire as well.

Human.



Moisturize me.

[Whipstitch]

Good thing most people have never heard of punt guns.

[Ancient History]

Those are in a 3rd-party CoC supplement.

[Whipstitch]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised after the camel spit verification.