Review of the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition scenario None More Black, written by Brian M. Sammons, published in Chaosium’s beginner-Keeper-oriented scenario collection, Doors to Darkness.
In-Short: A neat hook and perfectly playable scenario, but with the bones of something greater, just begging to be beefed and let loose.
Spoiler-lite for Players
After Servants of the Lake, which can be run almost entirely as-is, None More Black is probably the second most ‘complete’ scenario in the Doors to Darkness collection. Its scope is quite a bit larger than Servants, offering more freedom for player investigation and planning as well as Keeper improvisation, but it does slightly stretch the ‘beginner Keeper’ focus. I’d argue it still is a fairly easy scenario to run, though it could use some more guidance and suggestions, as well as extra details to save newer Keepers some unnecessary prep time.
(Quick aside, I didn’t realise until writing this review that the scenario was written by Brian M. Sammons, who I’ve been running a lot of lately. Forget Me Not is probably his biggest 7e piece (and has some similar strengths and weaknesses compared to None More Black), but I’ve also been working through his 6th edition Secrets anthology, currently having run A Love in Need and A Cult of One, both fantastic little scenarios. Sammons is quickly becoming one of my favourite CoC scenario writers, and I’m looking forward to writing more about his work.)
The scenario hook has the investigators looking into the apparent drug-related death of a Miskatonic University student, leading to some classic interview and pavement-stomping detective work. Compared to the tight location of Servants of the Lake or the dungeon-crawling The Darkness Beneath the Hill, None More Black’s investigation is player-led and free form, letting new Keepers dip their toes into the standard open-form clue hunting of the usual Call of Cthulhu variety. There are lots of great moments and spooky bits to be found, and the overall theme and hook are great, but I can’t help but feel it's just being held back from greatness.
14 pages make up the scenario, including two pages of stats, a full page art piece, a couple small handouts, another small insert piece, and a map. Despite being the final scenario in the book (and tied for my favourite alongside Servants), and one of the most open-ended, this is actually the shortest scenario by page count. This is partly down to having less artwork and large handouts compared to its sibling scenarios, but I also find the text to be oddly anemic details-wise in a few glaringly obvious places. For a beginner-focused freeform scenario, leaving out some simple NPCs the investigators are certain to talk to or some extra but obvious investigation avenues, even barebones ones, is an odd choice. More experienced Keepers can be expected to improvise a lot (though suggestions are still always appreciated), but you’d think scenarios specifically aimed at beginners would give some more support.
A nice bit of insert art by M. Wayne Miller, though with the art budget and page space seemingly as limited as they are, I would have preferred NPC portraits over a mood piece.
Overall though, None More Black is the scenario from Doors to Darkness that comes closest to being both a complete, open investigation as well as a beginner-Keeper-friendly scenario. It plays well, and can be largely run straight as written. My issues with it almost all come down to ways it could be improved, but most of those improvements are additions rather than outright alternations. I take this to mean the scenario’s structure and mood are strong enough to inspire creativity and expansion, compared to some of its sibling scenarios that, while maybe overall easier to run, do call out for some corrective surgery.
None More Black can be found in Doors to Darkness, available directly from Chaosium, digitally on DriveThruRPG, or wherever else you get your RPG books.
With the mystery layer and investigation stripped away, the scenario is quite simple. For elaborate backstory reasons, a young man and Call of Cthulhu spooky sorcerer turned drug dealer, Jacob Dover, has been hooking Miskatonic University students on a cool new drug called The Black. The Black is, of course, Yibb-Tstll’s blood, and it doesn’t react well with human biology for very long. With a dead student conveniently tied to the investigators, they’re off to the races, tracking down Jacob Dover, and eventually busting his grimy base of operations in an old slaughter house.
The mystery layer complicates things some, and while having fun and moody bits to it, I do wish the investigation complicated things even more. From the first dead student, the investigators find hints to The Black, and from there can question other students and a ‘bad element’ of addicts on campus (all of whom are unnamed, missing the opportunity to through in one or two more colourful NPCs, and saving work for the theoretical ‘beginner’ Keeper the scenario is supposedly aimed at) and learn of a local dealer. Through more classic investigative hoops, they can find the guy’s address. How to confront the drug dealer, or just search through his house for clues, is a nice bit of open planning and decision-making for the investigators, but eventually they’ll figure out where to find the spooky drug-cooking wizard, and from there the scenario can end in a big-old, open-ended raid.
There are three fun ‘optional’ complications suggested, but I think they should all be used to make the scenario properly dynamic. In addition, there are a few interconnected aspects only briefly mentioned, or awkwardly passed by, in the text I would bulk up to give the scenario more movement and avenues for the investigators to pursue, influence, and be influenced by. Lastly, a ticking clock is sorely missing, and can be easily added, to give the scenario a push into a properly ‘living’ sandbox.
The first option, and easiest to add, is Seamus O’Shea, the most Irish mobster to ever be Irish. He’s only given two paragraphs and a stat block, but he’s great fun to have as an initial red herring, and later a potential ally or rival, depending on how the investigators interact with him. He’s there to also track down the source of The Black, meaning he’s on the same path as the investigators (another aside, this could be a hook to tie this scenario to the Keeper Screen scenarios, Blackwater Creek and Missing Dues, if doing a mob-connected campaign). I find O’Shea, and the mob behind him, to be the most useful of the three original optional complications, as he has a clear motive, and besides the investigators, is the only real ‘moving piece’ in an otherwise static scenario.
The second option is to use the spooky wizard’s little flying monkey helpers, a pair (or more) of Nightgaunts, to kill an NPC of some importance to the investigators at some dramatic point. This is a fun and kind of shitty move, but with a little foreshadowing of dark silhouettes vanishing from rooftops (and combined with the red herring of O’Shea also being a half-seen stalker), suddenly having a helpful NPC (even better, O’Shea himself) be whisked away and dropped to their death can make for a great moment. On the other hand, I think the Nightgaunts are lame and dip into my least favourite part of Call of Cthulhu and Lovecraftian horror gaming in general; using Lovecraft’s stories as bestiaries. Why does Dover the evil wizard have Nightgaunt servants? Because the scenario needs something spoopy for the investigators to shoot at and the other overly-abused common flying-summon, Byahkees, are already used elsewhere in the book. A simple little change to break away a bit from Lovecraft-as-monster-manual, to emphasise the horror of the scenario, and to avoid substantial rewriting, is to just use the Nightgaunt statblock, but replace them with addicts who have been completely changed, rather than killed, by The Black. Getting a close-up view of one of the flying demons and realising it’s a mangled nightmare of one of the missing students, is creepy enough, and made worse if one of the investigators has tried The Black and sees a portent of their terrible future.
The final optional complication, and what I think should really be the actual centrepiece of the scenario, is the lovingly-named Raw Head and Black Bones. Without this added, Dover just has some tanks full of The Black, Yibb-Tstll’s ‘borrowed’ blood. Mr. RHBB (pronounced Rob, of course) , on the other hand, has The Black congeal into a terrible amalgamation of God blood and the leftover refuse of the slaughter house. As written, Mr. RHBB is suggested to be used as a big bad monster, either an accident entirely out of Dover’s attention and control, or an extra guard dog for Dover. As a basic monster, Mr. RHBB is very cool, if absurdly deadly and therefore kind of unusable outside of a ‘screw you’ TPK button for a mean Keeper. A change to, once again, make the scenario more dynamic and emphasise the horror, would be to make Mr. RHBB into source of The Black, as a summoned chunk of Yibb-Tstll’s ‘flesh,’ held captive against its will by Dover and his drug-addict ‘Blackheads’ to be milked for the drug. But it can influence those who consume its blood, slowly making the Blackheads, and most notably the changed ‘Nightgaunts,’ carry out its will to escape. Perhaps it clues into the investigators’ motives, and tries to bargain with them? Do the investigators trust the confused ramblings of the poor souls twisted by some unnatural drug, blathering about something trapped and being ‘milked?’ And if Mr. RHBB is freed, and it refuses to release the ‘Blackheads’ from its control, do they realise they unleashed something worse than Dover?
Another piece by M. Wayne Miller, showing why Mr. RHBB should definitely show up in your run of None More Black.
In addition to the three optional complications the text gives, I would also bulk up the police, university, parents, and ‘Blackheads’ to give the scenario more texture and movement. As the scenario stands, these groups are only mentioned in passing and are completely static, despite being the main factions and victims actively affected by The Black and Dover.
As with most Call of Cthulhu scenarios, the police are woefully underwritten. Despite presumably well-off university students in the 1920s dropping like flies, displaying obvious signs of suspicious deaths (their tongues are black!), and cursory questioning revealing they were all tied to a new drug trade, the cops have to be comically inept to the point of suspicion to not be doing anything. To both explain away their lack of engagement, while also making them into an active participant, I’d suggest two reasons. 1) Many of the richer parents of the deceased and drug-addled students have actively pressured the police to not investigate too deeply, wanting to avoid their family names and reputations being dragged through the mud of an illegal drug trade. 2) The last two detectives assigned to the case both had accidents, seemingly somehow fatally tripping on flat ground (the ‘Nightgaunts’ got them), leading to the superstitious Arkham police wanting to avoid any more ‘bad luck.’ A suitably frumpy and sweaty NPC detective assigned to the latest victim can be added as a point of contact, able to be persuaded to help or could actively hinder the investigators, depending on their actions, or killed off by the Nightgaunts if the situation presents itself. Calling the cops in during the final raid can make for an action-packed, and hopefully less TPK-likely, finale, if the investigators have placated Detective Frump enough.
The university is described as being in a panic due to the deaths, with administration racing to placate parents and students, and the students of course not being thrilled about their classmates dying around them. That’s about it, though. As mentioned before, the silence of the parents of most of the victims could be chalked up to rich folk not wanting to be shamed by their wayward children – this opens an avenue of investigation, as the player characters could have some awkward conversations with a victim’s parents, even to the point of blackmail, to get more information. University staff could be caught in the middle, threatened by wealthy donors to avoid mentioning too much to the cops and newspapers, but likewise pressured by students to do something, and so reach out to the investigators, or hire their own PIs, to deal with the issue.
And that leads into the most uncomfortably underwritten aspect of the scenario, the ‘Blackheads.’ The addicts aren’t given much thought or wordspace. Making these less bullet-fodder and more actual people would go a long way to amplifying the horror of the scenario, as well as upping the stakes and giving the investigators more avenues for play. Simply giving the ‘1D6+3’ Blackheads names and ages goes a long way to humanising them. Even worse, if using my Nightgaunt suggestion, give the pair of them names as well. If a fight breaks out, the investigators could clearly see the conflicted look in their eyes, not wanting to fight, but dragged along by the stranglehold Dover (or Mr. RHBB) has on them.
Finally, the ticking clock. Instead of just looking into the death of a vague acquaintance, the hook could be the disappearance of a student. As always, they could be a friend of the investigators, or have parents not worried about their reputation who hire the investigators. The student fell on hard times, and Dover preyed on them. With other addicts turning up dead (or turning into ‘Nightgaunts!’) it's only a matter of time until something horrible happens to the student. This also has the benefit of making a guns-blazing approach a bit less appealing, or at least darker, as it can be difficult to identify someone in particular in the middle of a chaotic gunfight.
With those optional complications added in along with a few of my modifications, I think the scenario really comes alive. There’s an obvious time limit, multiple groups actively affecting the investigation in opposing ways, and therefore many more avenues for the investigators to pursue. Would this be more difficult for the Keeper? Most certainly, but it moves most of the mental load from shuffling the investigators down investigative paths to how people (and potentially a certain Mr. RHBB) act and react with the investigators.
Even if run completely-as-written in a static investigation format, I still find None More Black to be among the better, if not the best, scenario in Doors to Darkness, with lots of mood and opportunities for spooky moments, and player and Keeper improvisation. As an added bonus, it’s easily adapted to more modern periods (and of course, Delta Green…).
None More Black can be found in Doors to Darkness, available directly from Chaosium, digitally on DriveThruRPG, or wherever else you get your RPG books.
