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World War Cthulhu: Our American Cousins
"Did you know my daddy died somewhere near here in 45? Raced the Soviets to Berlin and lost. And now we’re in this mess. I just don’t know what he would have thought of all this.
The Russians damn well know everything about that idol and what it means, but they’re refusing to cooperate with even the most basic back-channel sharing. Figure they want us kept busy finding it while they do God knows what.
What we do know is that in ‘67 they grabbed some K1 guy and put him in Hohenschönhausen for running his mouth during the protest against the Shah. A lot more came to Berlin that year than just the Shah, and that guy knew all about it, or so he claimed at the time. So we’re going to need to get him out. We have assets in the prison, but they’re not reliable, and there’ll be no new resources made available until Hersh is dealt with. And that’s where you come in...”
Our American Cousins details the various intelligence services of the United States and their actions both at home and abroad. The 1970s were a tumultuous time for the US, filled with proxy wars, foreign revolutions and terrorism. The last days of the Vietnam War, the rise in domestic extremism, covert operations in trouble spots around the globe and increased scrutiny from Congress made this a tense and dangerous time for the American intelligence community.
For Section 46 and its agents, there was another front to this already labyrinthine war: Our American Cousins provides information about Mythos threats within the borders of the USA and in areas of strategic interest to the American government around the globe.
Our American Cousins includes sections on:
• Creating American Investigators
• Adapting other World War Cthulhu scenarios for American Investigators
• American intelligence agencies in the 1970s
• Domestic briefings and missions
• Foreign intelligence theatres from an American Perspective
• A series of inspirational 1970s vignettes with characters, plot hooks and setting info
• Mythos threats and Fortean events in 1970s America
• A complete adventure for American agents in Cold War Europe, “Brocken Spectre”
• An appendix of useful NPCs
Our American Cousins is a source book for World War Cthulhu: Cold War, a setting for 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu. You will need a copy of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu Rulebook and World War Cthulhu: Cold War to play.
Suggested for mature readers
The Russians damn well know everything about that idol and what it means, but they’re refusing to cooperate with even the most basic back-channel sharing. Figure they want us kept busy finding it while they do God knows what.
What we do know is that in ‘67 they grabbed some K1 guy and put him in Hohenschönhausen for running his mouth during the protest against the Shah. A lot more came to Berlin that year than just the Shah, and that guy knew all about it, or so he claimed at the time. So we’re going to need to get him out. We have assets in the prison, but they’re not reliable, and there’ll be no new resources made available until Hersh is dealt with. And that’s where you come in...”
Our American Cousins details the various intelligence services of the United States and their actions both at home and abroad. The 1970s were a tumultuous time for the US, filled with proxy wars, foreign revolutions and terrorism. The last days of the Vietnam War, the rise in domestic extremism, covert operations in trouble spots around the globe and increased scrutiny from Congress made this a tense and dangerous time for the American intelligence community.
For Section 46 and its agents, there was another front to this already labyrinthine war: Our American Cousins provides information about Mythos threats within the borders of the USA and in areas of strategic interest to the American government around the globe.
Our American Cousins includes sections on:
• Creating American Investigators
• Adapting other World War Cthulhu scenarios for American Investigators
• American intelligence agencies in the 1970s
• Domestic briefings and missions
• Foreign intelligence theatres from an American Perspective
• A series of inspirational 1970s vignettes with characters, plot hooks and setting info
• Mythos threats and Fortean events in 1970s America
• A complete adventure for American agents in Cold War Europe, “Brocken Spectre”
• An appendix of useful NPCs
Our American Cousins is a source book for World War Cthulhu: Cold War, a setting for 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu. You will need a copy of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu Rulebook and World War Cthulhu: Cold War to play.
Suggested for mature readers
- GenresRole Playing Games
126 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 5, 2018
If I have mixed feeling about this book is not because some parts are very good and some are very bad. It is a good book with some very good stuff, like the adventure or the Keepers Dossier, a great format for adventure seeds. If the other chapters are just “good”, it is because I wished they were a little bit longer, particularly the chapter on the US intelligence community and the domestic briefings. My problem is: it could have been more American.
The mission included takes place in the GDR, making entirely possible to run it with your standard Section 46 agents. Three of the dossiers take place in the UK. Yes, they are very good. Yes, they are an excellent way of mixing both members of the special relationship. They still take place in the UK. A fourth one, an AMERICAN one, takes place in Canada…Something similar could be said about some foreign theaters: Greece, Indonesia and Australia are probably just as good for British agents. Or at least, they had appeared as such elsewhere: Covert Actions included Brit oriented missions both in Cyprus (not Greece, but close enough), and East-Timor during the Indonesian invasion. With so many places to go, why visit them twice in the first three supplements?
In many ways, that is a stupid criticism, it is a UK-made supplement and Cthulhu knows both countries have worked hand in hand for years. In any case there is plenty of very good US-related info. I particularly liked all three theaters in Indochina and the whole “home front”: it do not know if those were the good ol’ times, but sure as hell were interesting. As expected, this supplement is filled with references to books and movies I will sadly probably never check.
Now, to finish the review, three annoying comments, useful only in case of a reprint:
- In both Spanish and Portuguese there is usually agreement in gender between a noun and the adjectives modifying it: Las Vidas Amarillas (P33), Estado Novo (P35)
- Ngô Dình Diêm never married, the “barbeque show” speech is from Trần Lệ Xuân, his brother’s wife (P45).
- Cheyenne Mountain is in Colorado, not in Wyoming. (P66)
Again, perfectly good book, but I was feeling pedantic today. Please, please, please Mr. McDowall, continue the line. And if at all possible, write “Our Russian distant relatives”?
The mission included takes place in the GDR, making entirely possible to run it with your standard Section 46 agents. Three of the dossiers take place in the UK. Yes, they are very good. Yes, they are an excellent way of mixing both members of the special relationship. They still take place in the UK. A fourth one, an AMERICAN one, takes place in Canada…Something similar could be said about some foreign theaters: Greece, Indonesia and Australia are probably just as good for British agents. Or at least, they had appeared as such elsewhere: Covert Actions included Brit oriented missions both in Cyprus (not Greece, but close enough), and East-Timor during the Indonesian invasion. With so many places to go, why visit them twice in the first three supplements?
In many ways, that is a stupid criticism, it is a UK-made supplement and Cthulhu knows both countries have worked hand in hand for years. In any case there is plenty of very good US-related info. I particularly liked all three theaters in Indochina and the whole “home front”: it do not know if those were the good ol’ times, but sure as hell were interesting. As expected, this supplement is filled with references to books and movies I will sadly probably never check.
Now, to finish the review, three annoying comments, useful only in case of a reprint:
- In both Spanish and Portuguese there is usually agreement in gender between a noun and the adjectives modifying it: Las Vidas Amarillas (P33), Estado Novo (P35)
- Ngô Dình Diêm never married, the “barbeque show” speech is from Trần Lệ Xuân, his brother’s wife (P45).
- Cheyenne Mountain is in Colorado, not in Wyoming. (P66)
Again, perfectly good book, but I was feeling pedantic today. Please, please, please Mr. McDowall, continue the line. And if at all possible, write “Our Russian distant relatives”?
December 13, 2022
Interesting alternate interpretation of US government engagements with the Mythos, taking as the premise not that they know too much, but that they're dangerously unaware of the danger. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews