It has been a strange week, returning to work and at the same time having visitations from family which have conspired to reduce my discretionary time to a minimum. Through it all, however, I have also been able to play in three different games in the space of eight days. This is an unusually high quantity of gaming.

On Wednesday, I logged online to join the legendary Runeslinger (of Casting Shadows fame) to begin a game of Call of Cthulhu. This venerable game is perhaps the most beloved flavour of BRP but I have played very little of it over the years. Partly that’s because I am not the world’s biggest horror genre fan. Mostly it’s because I played other things.

The invitation came off the back of September’s “Horror Curious” post after which Runeslinger got in touch and we began to make moves towards a game. For me, it’s Wednesday nights after work; for him, it’s 5am in South Korea on a somewhat lighter day in the schedule.

In short, we made a character and we played. I had a good time and we are going to play some more. We’ve even been working on finding one or two extra players local to the UK timezone, with some success. The whole experience has nudged me back to actually looking at the Call of Cthulhu materials I own.

I have the current 7th Edition rules and the 40th Anniversary big ol’ box of 2nd Edition stuff. We are playing 2nd Edition on Wednesdays, largely just so we can get those old books into use. But I’ve been looking over all the 7th Edition stuff too and feeling shame for barely having touched them in the past 9 years since they came out.

The truth is that I have been hearing the call to go deeper. Like an ancient tome of forbidden knowledge, the Call of Cthulhu stuff has been drawing me closer. I have a long-standing love for the Basic Role-Playing System (BRP) through RuneQuest 2e and then there’s the idea of linking my love of modern conspiracy-horror to this subgenre.

There is something compelling about the slow-burn exploration of a mysterious set of goings-on. While I am somewhat ambivalent towards the default 1920s setting and Lovecraft’s writing, I am deeply drawn towards the unknown and cultic. I think some blend of this game’s Mythos and the weirdness of the “real” world resonates.

Perhaps the stars are finally coming into alignment for me to understand and explore the Call of Cthulhu phenomenon. I want to discover an Investigator and go delve that which man was not meant to know. If there’s one part of the BRP heritage that I am long overdue to immerse myself into it’s this one.

Game on!