Review of the Call of Cthulhu scenario Flute of the Gods, written by Phil Anderson and Allan Carey, and the 11th entry (also the second last) in Type40’s Seeds of Terror Series.

In-Short:

The most roleplay-heavy of the Seeds series, requiring heavy buy-in from the players, but if they do, they’ll be treated with a story very different from any other Seed or CoC scenario in general.

Spoilers-lite for Players and Keepers:

Flute of the Gods is the penultimate Seed scenario, and does a fine job of differentiating itself from its many predecessors and leading into the end of the series. I find it impressive how the series managed to keep feeling fresh despite its length up to this point even when keeping strict page-length and structure frameworks. The previous scenario, Scream of the Mandrake, broke up the string of action-adventure scenarios by being largely focused on social investigation, and now Flute of the Gods stirs the pot further by being almost entirely focused on roleplaying, to the point of not even really being an investigation. For some groups this might be an automatic turn-off, while for others Flute of the Gods could very easily be the best in the series.

The set up has the players taking the part of up-and-coming musicians participating in an exclusive competition to win the patronage of an enigmatic, one-armed maestro. Each investigator has heard a few rumours about the ex-flautist maestro, but much of it sounds like nonsense when they share what they know with each other. As is expected from a Call of Cthulhu scenario, the competition takes an odd turn, though with out going into spoilers, it does so in a way quite untypical for a Call of Cthulhu scenario.

As with all Seeds, Flute of the Gods is very compact, clocking in with 7 pages of text, 1 stat page, 3 pages of handouts, and 5 pregenerated investigators. The first of the handouts is a collection of cut-out rumours to give players, while the second two handouts are visually interesting but not of much practical use in-game. The pregenerated investigators, while all being flautists with a similar objective, are still varied with enough roleplaying hooks for players to latch on to.

The scenario is much more demanding of players than any other Seed. If a player goes into Flute of the Gods looking to solve a mystery or simply survive in the same manner of most other Seeds scenarios, the scenario could fall flat at best or derail completely at worst. The investigators are also immediately pit against each other, something that players might not be on board for. If they do go along with it though and play their character’s parts, they’ll be in for a fun little romp that should be quite different from any other scenario.

Flute of the Gods can be found on DriveThruRPG individually, or in the Mummies and Madness bundle along with The Mummy of Pemberley Grange and The Plague of the Pharaohs.

Before you go, maybe you would be interested in some of the below reviews or replays?
MJRRPG scenarios, Chaosium-released scenarios, Miskatonic Repository scenarios, Japanese scenarios

Up until the final scene, Flute of the Gods as-written is very linear. Players being players they may push against their limits, and if they do the scenario gives little to no guidance on what to do. Again, as long as players know ahead of time what kind of scenario they are getting into there shouldn’t be much of an issue, but if players would rather try to ‘win’ the scenario than play their characters, Keepers will be on their own.

The investigators, all up-and-coming flautists, arrive at the maestro’s manor for a competition. The prize: the maestro’s patronage, an assurance for a career of fame and success. They’ve all heard rumours about the maestro and how he lost his arm, ending his own musical career. An assistant lays out the conditions of the competition: they have one hour to practice a piece provided by the maestro, then they will preform individually, and finally the maestro will select the winner. In addition to the patronage, the winner will also receive an ancient ivory flute.

There’s some time for the investigators to examine their surroundings and the piece, perhaps getting some clues things are a little weirder than expected, and the music itself is extremely disorienting to read or play. And indeed, as the performance time approaches, they can hear the tune echoing in their heads, and they are asked to put on matching robes. Nothing weird here at all.

The performance itself turns out to be watched by a small group of famous and successful people in various industries and fields. A couple are missing arms, similar to the maestro. The investigators choose the order they’ll play in and compete for the best Art (Music) roll. The music causes a conspicuous SAN loss, but the winner is gifted the ivory flute.

This is where the scenario as-written branches out a bit. The maestro then asks all the participants to play the piece together, and the audience also dons robes. Players here can choose bow out despite warnings their careers will be destroyed, or they can play the music as requested, or they can try to subvert the music.

If played normally, things go wild. The winner with the ivory flute, which is actually bone (in a length very similar to that of a man’s forearm…), is sucked up in a swirl of cosmic madness into the Court of Azathoth. If the music was subverted, the audience is instead whisked away by an angry Court of Azathoth.

If the not-a-cult-but-obviously-a-cult survives, any investigators that walked away are black-listed in their musical careers. For any that stayed and played, excepting the winner-turned-sacrifice, they are welcomed into the club and find great success, but know that one day they’ll have to play for the Court, or fashion a flute themselves and find a suitable replacement.

It’s closer to an improvised play than a regular investigation, and indeed if players treat it like an investigation and try to do extra, well, investigation, they can probably break the scenario. The most obvious way would be if any investigator starts trying to poke around the mansion. There’s nothing written for them to explore, and going by how the maestro and the cult is written, they’d probably just ask the investigator to leave. Worse would be if an investigator started getting violent. The maestro has some fighting skills, but there isn’t really any reason for him or any of the cultists to react violently either. I’d imagine they’d just call the police and have the investigators arrested. A short and not a particularly interesting end.

But as long as a Keeper communicates to their players the scenario demands more buy-in than usual, and that the players are comfortable with a short and fairly linear roleplay-centric scenario, I do think Flute of the Gods should serve everyone well. It is on the higher end of the Seeds in my opinion, and I’ve enjoyed all my runs of it.

Again, Flute of the Gods can be found on DriveThruRPG individually, or in the Mummies and Madness bundle along with The Mummy of Pemberley Grange and The Plague of the Pharaohs.

Before you go, maybe you would be interested in some of the below reviews or replays?
MJRRPG scenarios, Chaosium-released scenarios, Miskatonic Repository scenarios, Japanese scenarios