Hand of Glory Review- Call of Cthulhu (Seeds of Terror)

Review of the Call of Cthulhu Scenario, Hand of Glory (Seeds of Terror #4), written by Allan Carey of Type40

Hand of Glory Review – Call of Cthulhu (Seeds of Terror)
This is a review of the Call of Cthulhu scenario Hand of Glory, by Type 40, the Fourth scenario in their Seeds of Terror series. You can find the written review on mjrrpg.com.

In-short: A compact, dark fairy-tale that will give players the feeling of being in a Grimm story with a Mythos twist. For experienced CoC players, or those that just want to ‘solve’ the scenario, it can be extremely short, but would be perfect for total TTRPG newcomers.

Spoilers-lite for players and Keepers:

The Ennie Award-winning Hand of Glory is the fourth entry in Type40’s Seeds of Terror series. As with all Seeds, it can be run with minimal prep and well within a short session. In fact, it was by far the shortest of any of the Seeds when I ran it, clocking in a little under an hour and half. I could see some groups spending longer with more indecision and inter-party roleplaying, but I think most Keepers would be hard-pressed to make it over two hours without adding new elements. Like its predecessors, Hand of Glory is also location-restricted and time-restricted, though the time pressure likely won’t come into play for most runs unless the Keeper tweaks how fast time passes.

Also like previous Seeds, Hand of Glory comes with some nice handouts and pregen investigators, though their backgrounds come into play less than other scenarios. Its the first of the Seeds to more directly deal with NPCs, though, and the main NPC is a treat to play as the Keeper.

It has a different feel than the previous (or future) Seeds, feeling more like a fairy-tale than a traditional CoC scenario. If the players focus purely on investigation and ‘solving’ the problem, or if the Keeper runs it straight out of the box without getting into the NPCs or some extra set-dressing, a group can bull through the scenario in a solid hour.

But for a group very heavy on roleplaying, or for players new to roleplaying games in general, or just a group wanting some different than usual, Hand of Glory is unique and magical little romp in the dark woods.

If this sounds like a tale you’d like to tell or play, you can buy it on DriveThruRPG individually, as part of a 3-title bundle English Insanities along with One Less Grave and Scream of the Mandrake, or as part of the 12-title Miskatonic Repository Halloween 2021 Collection.

If you are a player, stop here! Spoilers haunt below, along with Keeper suggestions. You have been warned.

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!

Spoilers for Keepers:

The backstory of Hand of Glory feels like a classic story. Townsfolk blame and punish an old woman (who turns out to be a witch, of course) for a vague crime, she retaliates by kidnapping their children and trapping them in a spooky pocket dimension.

The first and largest hurdle for Hand of Glory is its opening. As written, players do not have freedom of movement until over half-way through the text. The party goes into a pub to get out of the rain, orders drinks, then are drugged. Awaking, they find themselves chained and at the mercy of Aunty, a witch of Shub-Niggurath. When I ran the game, I played out the pub scene to ease the players in, but in retrospect I should have just used the scene for investigator introductions, then immediately skipped to the chained scene.

While the pub scene introduces other NPCs and some foreshadowing, the main issue I felt is that there isn’t anything for the players to actually do, and if they do make any actions, they risk derailing the scenario before it gets started. If they leave the pub, the scenario ends. If they don’t eat or drink anything, it ends. So if I ran it again, I’d just have the players introduce their characters in the pub, then skip to them waking up chained. Or it could work to open with them chained and groggy, and slowly have their memories of the pub come back while the Aunty taunts them.

One other option, if the you do run the pub scene and the players do something that upsets the scenario plotting, would be to have the patrons physically restrain and drug the investigators. That could introduce some immediate excitement, as well as make interactions with the patrons later on much more tense.

The following scene with Aunty is great. She’s a very fun NPC to play, rhyming and cackling like she’s straight out of a fairy-tale. The investigators being bound and having to decide who loses a hand is also great fun.

From then on the scenario is fairly straight forward – go to A to retrieve B – without many obstacles in the way. There isn’t much investigation or problem solving to be done. The real meat of the scenario is the decision of what to do – help Aunty and free the patrons and their kidnapped children, or try to trick Aunty and escape themselves, but dooming the children.

While the discussions among the party of if Aunty was trust worthy or not, and if the patrons deserved help after the crimes they committed, were fun to hash out, I do feel some more complications could be added. In the end, my group didn’t see any reason not to help Aunty, as that would also free the children. They knew Aunty was a witch, but she didn’t seem particularly dangerous, and there weren’t any hints she would cause much trouble. Some more implications she planned to seek revenge, or use her Dark Young for mayhem, or her goal was to summon Shub-Niggurath to Earth, would make the moral decision much heavier. Save the children, but potential doom their neighbourhood of England to the machinations of an insane sorceress.

Overall though, if you enjoy playing weird NPCs (and don’t mind buffing up the parent and children NPCs, who are otherwise largely blank), and want to see your players navigate through a traditional fairy-tale with Mythos flavouring, Hand of Glory will be a memorable afternoon.