A Cup of Horror Review – Call of Cthulhu (Bibliothek 13)

Review of the Japanese Call of Cthulhu scenario A Cup of Horror (コーヒー一杯分の恐怖), written by Uchiyama Yasujirou (内山靖二郎).

A Cup of Horror Review – Call of Cthulhu (Bibiliothek 13)
This is a review of the Japanese Call of Cthulhu scenario A Cup of Horror, by Uchiyama Yasujirou, the first entry in the Bibliothek 13 scenario collection. You can find the written review on mjrrpg.com. You can purchase the book from Amazon Japan or the stores listed on the KADOKAWA site.

In-short: A creepy and tight little dungeon crawl through a café, perfect for new players and Keepers, and small enough to finish in under and hour if need be.

Spoilers-lite for players and Keepers:

A Cup of Horror (コーヒー一杯分の恐怖), written by Uchiyama Yasujirou (内山靖二郎), is the first entry in the Japanese scenario collection, Bibliothek 13 (ビブリオテック13). Its made for 3-4 players and a 30 minute to 1 hour time limit, similar to the scenarios in Chaosium’s Gateways to Terror, though I gave it space to breath with a little over 1.5 hours. I don’t see many groups managing to reach 2 hours unless the Keeper adds some more content. And like Gateways to Terror, or other beginner-friendly scenarios like those in Type40’s Seeds of Terror series, A Cup of Horror is location and time restricted.

The scenario is set in a delightfully creepy café, as one could guess from the name or description. Nominally set in Japan, it could be reskinned to fit any setting without changing anything else. A very nice map is included, once again similar to the detailed maps from Gateways to Terror. Room labels are on the map, but none really give anything away. The scenario text suggests showing the full map to the players right away, but I revealed rooms as players explored them.

Besides the map, there is only one small handout. This feels like it was a space saving measure as there are pictures and journals that could have been given a handout rather than just explanatory text. For enterprising Keepers, these would be good places to start for some extra content.

Bibliothek 13 unfortunately does not include any pre-generated investigators. For this scenario that isn’t too much of a detriment as the investigators don’t have much of any connection to the happenings. As long as they have a reason to pop into a café, all will be well. It’s always nice to have some pregens with roleplaying hooks, though, and without that the scenario doesn’t have much roleplaying meat to bite into.

When compared to the Gateways to Terror scenarios, A Cup of Horror is just as good at introducing the Call of Cthulhu system to new players. I find the location and events creepier than the Gateways scenarios, but those scenarios also have well developed investigators that fit in with the plot, giving plenty of roleplaying hooks for new players to grasp onto. A Cup of Horror unfortunately does not, leaving it fairly sterile in terms of actual character roleplaying unless the players bring detailed investigators to the table, and given this is supposed to be a beginner scenario, that might be too much to ask.

Overall though, I really enjoyed A Cup of Horror, and will happily use it as another introductory, short-notice, or convention-ready scenario. Great for showing new players CoC, and a refreshing, classic dungeon-crawl-like haunted house for more experienced players to slot in between beefier sessions.

If you’d like to try out A Cup of Horror, you can buy Bibliothek 13 from Amazon Japan or the stores listed on the KADOKAWA site. It is currently only available in Japanese.

If you are a player, stop here! Detailed spoilers lurk below, along with Keeper suggestions.

Before you go, though, maybe you would be interested in reading some other scenario reviews?

MJRRG: Branches of Bone – Cthulhu Dark Ages, A Chill in Abashiri – A 1920s Taisho-Era Japan

Seeds of Terror: Series Overview, The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, Endless Light, One Less Grave, Hand of Glory, Tickets Please , Fish in a Barrel

Miskatonic Repository: Dossier 1 – The Maw

Chaosium: Amidst the Ancient Trees, Gateways to Terror Overview, The Necropolis, What’s in the Cellar?, The Dead Boarder

Japonism: Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs?

Bibliothek 13: A Cup of Horror, Erich!

As said before, the scenario is a very straight-froward dungeon crawl, though there are some twists in how to escape. The players enter a café, spot a body, and the doors are firmly shut behind them. Something is in there with them, but they can’t see it. Maybe it’s a spooooky ghost! With no way out, they explore every room in the in the café, gathering clues and equipment that can help them get out. An invisible creature turns out to be inhabiting the café, using its numerous tentacles to hold the doors firmly shut. And for a wonderfully weird twist, the creature just wants to run the café.

The scenario text is very clear that this is a scenario for beginners, both players and Keepers, and has read-out-loud sections for the Keeper that are directed straight at players and not their characters. After the opening scene, the Keeper is expected to read out a paragraph explaining that there is not enough time to wait for police and that they will only be able to explore a few rooms. Then the Keeper shows the players the full map of the location. This is obviously just to keep things as simple and quick as possible, but it sucks the players right out of the situation and makes it clear this is just a game. Ask what’s in A, receive description B, proceed to C.

For players even vaguely aware how gaming works, I don’t think any of this is necessary beyond gentle suggestions. When one of my players took the very rational step of calling emergency services when they saw a body get sucked up into a ceiling and the doors were all firmly locked. As the scenario is set in a chilly February, I also put it up in northern Japan and during a blizzard. Emergency services replied they were on their way, but with the blizzard and a large number of other accidents, they would be heavily delayed, and suggested the investigators look for another way out. If the players dally around the door for too long, then you can give an out-of-character suggestion to look around, and assuming your players are here to play a game, they will likely do so.

If they don’t, start doing spooky things.

The creature in the café is an invisible spawn of Yog-Sothoth. By exploring the rooms of the café and upstairs living area, the investigators find ways to confront the creature, as well as hints towards its origin, and if they think outside the box, a very odd peaceful solution to the scenario.

To combat its invisibility, they can toss flour or coffee grounds at it. To temporarily frighten it off, they can use a cattle-prod used by the café’s deceased master (who’s also the creatures grieving father). By reading journals and piecing together its origins, they can get the picture that the creature is trying to follow in its father’s footsteps and cares for the café. Using the burner and fuel from a siphon coffee maker, they can torch the café, distracting the creature.

Or, the very observant investigator might notice that the creature set out cups of coffee for the investigators. Combined with knowing the creature is trying to keep the café running, they could simply sit down, drink the coffee and pay their bill. The creature would then let them go with a slurred but friendly “thank you come again.”

Most parties won’t attempt anything like that, though one of my players did stop and consider the coffee, wondering out loud if they should drink them. Like most players, the others all automatically assumed it was poisoned, and instead used the hot coffee as improvised weapons. This of course just pissed off the creature – what horrible customers! – and caused it to start its rampage.

Combat with the creature is hectic and nasty. It has tentacles with suckers that drain blood (HP and CON). After getting a sucker-full of blood, the tentacles whips back and a little boy’s head in middle of the beast’s bulky torso slurps it down. Gross.

With multiple attacks it can go after two to four targets a turn, either sucking their blood or simply smacking them around. It doesn’t have particularly high stats, ensuring the investigators have a chance to fight back even if unarmed, but it will eventually overwhelm them if they don’t come up with an escape plan. In my playthrough, armed with the cattle-prod, a cup of coffee, and bags of flour, and the siphon coffee maker’s burner, they eventually escaped the café, leaving it in a blaze. One of them had been bled down to a few hit points, and another driven indefinitely insane, but they all survived.

The scenario can run up to about an hour and a half if given room to breathe. If you want to stretch it further you could add a few extra handouts, as it only has a single short note to start with. A number of other journals, photographs, and a mythos-tome are described, and an enterprising Keeper could take some time to create handouts (and then share them with the rest of us Keepers!).

There’s also nothing directly tying the scenario to Japan, and could be set anywhere in the world with next to no changes beyond spoken descriptions.

With a few tweaks, I really enjoyed A Cup of Horror, and have happily added it to my repertoire of introductory and short-notice scenarios, along with Gateways to Terror and the shorter handful of Seeds of Terror scenarios. If it came with pregenerated investigators as fleshed out as those in Gateways to Terror, I would put it up there with the Necropolis or Endless Light as a near-perfect beginner scenario.