Warning: Spoilers about the "Masks of Nyarlathotep" Chaosium RPG follow!
work the will of those blind and mindless things in return for the favour of their hideous soul and messenger, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep…”
-H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.
Masks of Nyarlathotep is an Ancient One only expansion written by Michael Hunter (Adelphophage), designed for advanced players. It is based on the classic Chaosium RPG of the same name, and pits the investigators against four horrific cults, and each worshipping a different manifestation of Nyarlathotep.
In 1919, the Carlyle expedition set forth for Egypt. Lead by a group of highly skilled but morally flawed principals, these individuals were corrupted by Nyarlathotep and sent forth to guide his cults in the Great Ritual, an apocalyptic spell that will tear a hole in the sky and bring the true gods to earth.
Nyarlathotep is served on earth by his cults, and the four most powerful of these are your enemies here. They are the murderous Cult of the Bloody Tongue, the sorcerous Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh, the depraved Children of the Sand Bat and the corrupt Order of the Bloated Woman.
Defeating the Masks of Nyarlathotep means facing and defeating each of these four. To beat a cult you will have to fight your way past its cultists, struggle through the cult’s research encounters, survive its reckoning effect and solve one of its four mysteries. If you manage to defeat all four cults, you will have defeated the vast conspiracy and saved the world – at least for the moment!
The Cult of the Bloody Tongue are death worshippers, obsessed with the power of blood and the glory of slaughter. Their brutal assassins hunt down the investigators wherever they may be, killing their targets or dying in the attempt.
Like each of the four cults, the Bloody Tongue has four possible mysteries. One mystery of the Bloody Tongue involves killing their leader M’weru, the charismatic blood priestess and member of the Carlyle expedition. Tracking her down to the Mountain of the Black Wind will require you to scour the world for clues, but once she has been located the job is far from over. M’weru is a brutal combatant, and is guarded by a cadre of elite murder-cultists. Such is her command of blood magic that she can turn the enemies own wounds against them.
The cult might manage to summon their horrific god to the world itself. The Bloody Tongue is an incredibly powerful entity, the size of a small mountain. Although practically impossible to beat in straight combat, the Bloody Tongue is only held to our world by the tenuous thread of the cult’s blood magic. The investigators will have to combine their strongest weapon with their greatest magic to banish the god.
In contrast to the bloodthirsty followers of M’weru stands the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. While no less ruthless than the Cult, they are far more subtle. These masters of dark sorcery attack by calling down ancient Plagues of Egypt upon their foes. These ten forbidden spells can blot out the sun, rain fire, turn rivers to blood or even summon the Angel of Death itself. The Brotherhood, acting through the once noble Penhew foundation, also has an interest in ancient relics they can use to increase their power. As a result their agents are often found in the darkest corners of the earth.
Just as the Bloody Tongue has M’weru, the Brotherhood has Aubrey Penhew, a corrupt Egyptologist. While the Mystery is structured similarly to M’weru’s (and the matching mysteries for the leaders of Children of the Bat and the Order of the Bloated Woman), each leader is a very different combatant. Penhew is a dark sorcerer, capable of cursing any who challenge him. Evading this curse will require you to find ancient Pharaonic magic, and even then only a magically gifted investigator will dare to face him.
Another of the Brotherhood’s four Mysteries involves unravelling the secrets of the Carlyle expedition. The investigators will have to follow the trail from city to city, tracking down leads on each of the principals. When their researches are complete they will have to follow in the doomed expedition’s footsteps, to the secret chamber of Nyarlathotep inside the Bent Pyramid. Here the expedition was corrupted, and here the investigators will finally learn the truth.
The psychologist Robert Huston has revived worship of the ancient Sand Bat in Australia. He recruits from the dregs of society; the mad, the destitute and the alienated, moulding them into his perfect soldiers through magic and surgery. Every battle against the Children is a gamble, for you never know what tricks or modifications they will have. Unlike the aggressive cultists of his colleagues, Huston uses his Children to guard the desert home of the Bat, making each of their four mysteries more difficult to solve.
In the deserted outback of Australia, the Children of the Bat have unearthed Pnakotus, the ruined City of the Great Race. The cultists loot this place for ancient technologies, as well as holding their terrible rituals there. To defeat them, you must enter this antediluvian ruin and destroy their operations – but worse horrors wait in the depths of the city than even Huston’s degenerate children.
The Children worship the Father of All Bats, the darkest of the Dreamtime spirits. This god is an entity of living shadow and is virtually undefeatable, far outstripping even legendary horrors like The Beast or Mother Hydra. However, ancient aboriginal legions speak that they were once able to defeat it. To find the same secrets, the investigators will have to enter the home of the Children of the Bat…
The Order of the Bloated Woman are as old as China itself, and have been corrupting and profaning that great country since time immemorial. The Order are not warriors, they are manipulators and spies, pulling strings from behind the scenes, in order to destroy their enemies. This is represented by flipping debt conditions, with the investigators being attacked by hitmen, having their food poisoned, being arrested and the like, all carried out by the criminal and political minions of the Order.
The degenerate Ho Fong, leader of the Order, has been searching for the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan. These ancient scrolls contain incredible magic the investigators must find before the Order does. Merely finding such a book is not enough however, Hsan worked magic safeguards into his scrolls. The investigators can bypass these safeguards, or if things are desperate open the scrolls regardless… at their own peril! However, once the scrolls are opened not only will they help foil Ho Fong, but will also grant the investigators unique magics.
The Order worships the Bloated Woman, also known as the Goddess of the Black Fan. This horrific avatar of Nyarlathotep is a leviathan mound of tendrils, maws and blades, but uses a magic fan to appear as beautiful young maid. To track down this cunning foe, the investigators will have to discover the Secrets of the Black Fan, before gaining the ability to resolve a Goddess of the Black Fan encounter and hopefully defeat the foul demon once and for all.
As well as its own four Mysteries, cultists and reckoning effects, each cult has its own twelve research encounters that shed light on its members, its mythology, its history, and its ruinous plans. The backs of each card are marked with a cult icon in the top right for easy identification. Some also have a special symbol in the bottom left, showing the card is used in the
“Fate of the Carlyle expedition”
or
“Rocket of Babel”
Mysteries.
The Masks of Nyarlathotep expansion is an Ancient One only expansion, containing an Ancient One, 7 epic monsters, 4 cults, 16 mysteries, 23 conditions, 9 unique assets, 48 research encounters, 41 special encounters and a rules/FAQ sheet. It is available as a pdf or a publisher file from the links below.
Pdf files
http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/127140/masks-nyarlathotep-expansion
Publisher files
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByiShKnxkMCuQ2hWSlRsb0tPOU0/view?usp=sharing
Edited by Adelphophage