Cthulhu by Gaslight: Investigator’s Guide

This book is exactly what you need to create compelling investigators for the gas light era (I.e. Sherlock Holmes era). The book is filled with stunning artwork and great details. It even includes a London map for the time period, and the customary ribbon book marks attached at the binding. I love that this book takes pains to mention the achievements of women voters in the time period, and highlights the existence and situation of the lgbtqi community in the Victorian era. The history presented in this book is more than adequate to get a sense of the time period and the people within it. The game master or Keeper does not need any more extra books to run scenarios for this setting other than the Keepers handbook which is compatible with all of the Call of Cthulhu scenarios and settings… there is not a separate keeper guide for the gas light era. All in all, I am very impressed by the quality of this book and the material covered within it. Great job Chaosium!

As you’d expect from Chaosium nowadays, this book has great production values. Nice art, good paper, nice binding, a silk ribbon or two sewn in as a bookmark. Also a nice folded map of London. But the content. Ugh. OK, so you’ve got the tedious gender ideology nonsense Chaosium has been forcing into its products. You’ve got poor history though, a distraction if you know anything about the period. Nothing interestingly new in terms of occupations or skills. And of course you’ll also need to buy the Keeper’s Gaslight book, so doubling your cost. But wait, isn’t this good for Victorian roleplaying? It covers 1880-1900. Queen Victoria reigned from 1837, when the Regency (and the Cthulhu Regency book) ended. For my money this just isn’t enough.

Finally, a revised 7th edition Gaslight-Era expansion for the great Call of Cthulhu role playing game. I've been looking forward to this for years. This is just the Investigator's (i.e. players) Guide; another volume meant just for the Keeper (or Game Master) should be out soon. The book is printed with Chaosium's usual superb quality with 2 ribbon bookmarks, a sturdy hard cover, great art, and quality paper. I'm looking forward to running my first Victorian-era game with this. My only complaint is that in the very first chapter, "Hope and Glory", which talks about life of the average Victorian Englishman & Englishwoman is full of not-so-thinly veiled "coffee shop politics", as I call it, with a few historical references (like the mention of the poor "match stick girls") that look like they were lifted right out of Wikipedia with little concern for further details or context...but rather with the intent to make the angry and cynical opinions of the author's "Proletariat-style" ideology known to you instead. I've only lightly flipped through the rest of this book thus far and I can tell it'll be a useful tool for my games, but WOW is it hard to take the tone and implied validity of this work, or at least it's historical references (which are pretty important to a game setting like this), seriously when you don't know if you're reading the truth or a politically motivated exaggeration. Chaosium can, and has, done better, so this aspect of this much anticipated game expansion makes the book a slight disappointment for me.

An excellent update of this setting for the newest edition, looking forward to getting the Keeper's Guide.

Ever wanted to bust up cults in the age of Sherlock Holmes? Here’s the sourcebook to let you role play that pursuit.A thorough description of the mechanics of life in London in the late 1800s. Unlike reading a history book or Wikipedia this gets into the details players (and keepers) actually need like how long was a transatlantic ocean voyage, or what did a train ticket cost. And in many ways this is the eventual source for cults of the classical Cthulhu era that arose just a few decades later. For example, Egyptology didn’t erupt with king tut but was going strong by 1900. Theosophy and the Golden Dawn came from somewhere…..ie, the gaslight era. And so on.There anre only about ten pages (in a book of c 300 pages long) covering critical social contexts for women, non white characters, and sexuality. Seeing as how women were in key leadership positions (Lavatsky anyone?) and sex magik was a big part of the cults, this doesn’t really seem like enough such context, but it’s a start.As always: Gorgeous artwork, and the best role playing game system on the planet. A great purchase.

I was initially happy to hear there would be a new edition released, but upon arrival I was very disappointed. It’s infested with leftist sociopolitical nonsense, faulty history and misleading marketing. The “rules” are hardly complete enough and are more of a summary than actually useful. You’ll need the main Keeper’s rulebook. This seems more like a cash grab to push leftist nonsense.