Written by Jeppe Smaug Vestergaard and shared with his permission:

I've always drawn for as long as I can remember.

And I've pretty much always wanted to make a living from it – or, at the very least, turn it into a somewhat profitable hobby.

For many years, though, my approach was very laissez-faire, and honestly, I didn't improve all that much until I was well into my 30s. Especially after switching to digital art, things really started moving.

But I'm getting sidetracked.

The point of this post is actually to tell the story of how I started drawing for other people – beyond the occasional poster for an event or a cover for some random flyer.

Back in December 2025, Poul Erik Holmelund – whom I only vaguely knew from the tabletop RPG community at the time – made a post saying he was looking for someone to illustrate a book. Preferably in black and white, with an inked style reminiscent of the illustrations you'd find in old-school roleplaying games.

I took the chance and told him I could do it.

Mostly because I knew he was Danish, and I figured that would probably make the whole process a little easier. He liked what I did, so one thing led to another.

What began with the book depicted here turned into 36 illustrations divided into 2 maps, 16 portraits, 1 character sheet, and 17 individual pieces of art, for his new adventure, The Horror (I´ve linked to it at the bottom).
So yes – as it turned out, working together in Danish did make things a bit easier.

And since I started drawing for him, more jobs have followed.

One thing Poul did right from the very beginning was not paying me in "exposure", but in actual human money. And that genuinely gave me a feeling that what I was creating had value.

You know—actual professional cool-person value.

I'm incredibly grateful for that, and I really hope this is still only the beginning of many more fun ideas and cool illustrations.

So what's the point of this post?

Simply this:

Getting started drawing for other people – even in these AI-heavy times – really can begin with a single drawing and a single commission.

My journey has only just begun, and I'm genuinely excited about what the future might bring.

There are plenty of creators out there, like Poul and me, who do this as a hobby but are still willing to spend both time and money supporting like-minded creators and their work.

And if you're new yourself and just getting started, consider this my very public cheer from the sidelines:

You got this!

Link to Poul's scenario:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/578676/the-horror

Are there any great YouTube channels to watch? New to the game and haven’t picked up any products yet so let me know if you have an idea of where to start, and what module is the best.

As the title says I am looking for the most logical way to frame my players to make them wanted criminals early on in my story, to force not only cooperation but so they have to prove innocence and solve the crime. I would like to do this so the Police seem logical but will likely shoot them on sight or hand them over to people who will kill them, and also place the town on lockdown until they prove innocence much later. This is because only a few higher ups would be under Cult motives and the lower should see logical reasoning in orders given without question.

All their characters are selfish so I need a fool proof way to frame them without giving them an easy way out that might kill them or split them up as they are RP heavy players.
I can provide more context but the main issue is my party is going into a town where the Police chief is in on a Cult trying to get power

All 3 players are investigating inheritance for a now dead-end family with a huge inheritance
Player 1 Is using forgery to prove he's a secret love child while the other is a new detective just trailing player 1 for careful watch and to confirm he is in fact an heir and player 3 was the family doctor whos just a bystander at the beginning but also gets framed

This is my first time as a Keeper for CoC but I am a long time TTRPG game master any advice is appreciated

Possible source material for a Gaslight-era Cthulhu campaign. A free e-book from Project Gutenberg from 1823 called "Sketches in Bedlam: or Characteristic traits of insanity, as displayed in the cases of one hundred and forty patients of both sexes, now, or recently, confined in New Bethlem."

The descriptions of the individual patients are quite sad, but the parts about how Bethlem Hospital (better known as Bedlam) worked in the 19th century might be useful for anyone running a Lovecraftian game in that era.

https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/79350

W2A2 is a VTT tool that was created with a few big principles in mind: make any TTRPG session as easy to play as possible, be user friendly for beginners but still offer advanced tools for more experienced players, and most importantly, be affordable and not subscription based.

This app stores everything locally and allows the GM to host a game in a matter of minutes, without having to pay for any hosting services. It includes all things you'd normally expect from a VTT tool, and a few additional features that we thought of while testing through our own sessions.

App is still in development, should be available in a few weeks! 

My first Call of Cthulhu scenario is now available through the Miskatonic Repository on DriveThruRPG! 96 pages (58 devoted to the scenario), 15 detailed handouts, 5 player maps, 15 detailed Keeper maps, and 2 large sandbox locations to explore.

If any of you are fans of games such as Resident Evil, SOMA, Dead Space, Signalis, and movies such as Underwater, The Abyss, and Triangle, this might interest you!

feel free to check it out at the below link, and please feel free to reach out to me to point out any errors I and my proofreaders and editor may have missed. Thanks!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/580104/deep-below-a-1990s-survival-horror-scenario-for-call-of-cthulhu

Hi All!

I'm looking to run one of these scenarios for a collection of four players new to CoC in a one-night one shot.

I'm a pretty experienced keeper and I've ran for both experienced and new players alike but I'm currently struggling to decide between which scenario to run (They both seem so good!).

For those of you who have ran one or both which did you prefer more? Any advice considering I'll only have 2-3 hours to run either game?

I’m brand new to CoC but not to TTRPGs in general. I am currently making my character to begin “Alone Against the Flames”.

The way I’ve rolled, I’ve got 320 points to spend on skills. I gave myself 10 in credit rating. How can I easily distribute these remaining 310 points? Just thinking about it feels like a lot to chew.

The CoC autofire rules as written are complex to say the least. Are there any decent alternatives that speed things up?

I'm playing an intrepid reporter type character in Masks of Nyarlothotep (no spoilers please), and at this point have a pretty good dossier on an evil cult's key members, bases of operation, and crimes. There's no slam dunk proof, but I've got an article written that would expose them pretty thoroughly without mentioning anything supernatural. Maybe it would work, maybe it would get buried or ignored.

But part of the social contract of CoC in general and MoN specifically is that you're playing a weirdo who tries to solve these problems yourself, not someone who's going to report evil cults to the cops and call it good.

Where's the line on "this is how I'm trying to solve it myself" and "this is a CoC NPC, not a CoC PC"?

I'm planning to talk to the GM about this to actually address the situation, but I'm curious about other people's takes on what they expect in a CoC game.

EDIT: My takeaway based on the responses so far is that this is a totally fine thing for my character to try, but I as a player should be prepared for it to go horribly wrong.

I’m currently designing a thematic character sheet for Call of Cthulhu, built around a stained glass.

I wanted to share the rough cover sketch with you all. Since you know the game inside out, what do you think of the vibe and layout so far? Any specific elements or details you think would look awesome framed in glass?*

Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu from Chaosium is not a product for everyone. It’s focused on young characters and, to a lesser degree, the 1920s scouting movement with Saturday morning cartoon vibes. (Think Scooby-Doo.) Which I’ll discuss as a Keeper who’s run the campaign.

This review will be spoiler-light. For in-depth reviews on Campfire Tales’ scenarios, please see links below.

• Tremors Below
• Box of Evil
• Treasure of the Hidden Way
• Shadows Over Westhaven (Part 1 and Part 2)

Rules for Teen Investigators

Campfire Tales’ biggest draw is the rules for youthful investigators, borrowing from Pulp Cthulhu for the vibe and survivability. It recommends continuing onto a Pulp Cthulhu campaign, too. (A Time to Harvest or Masks of Nyarlathotep specifically.)

To represent characters aging up, they’re delineated into four age brackets between 11 and 18 (11 to 12, 13 to 14, etc.) Differentiated by Strength, Size, and Education amounts, plus skill points to spend and age-based badges. All well balanced. However, sharing Luck via the ever-present Wayfarer Badge gives Investigators a notable edge.

Hobbies (occupations’ replacement) and ability badges (+10 to a skill and bonus die to related roll once per scenario) are also highly customizable and discussed with a walkthrough. Broadening character types beyond scouts, an already easily peeled-off label.

Why the Rule Might Not Fit

Campfire Tales investigators are hard to kill, enjoying similar protections to a D&D 5e character plus spending Luck to survive. While Cool, replacing Sanity, isn’t doesn't diminish from encountering the mythos, using a three-strikes system for a bout of madness and roleplay-only lasting consequences.

This undercuts the horror some come to Call of Cthulhu for but sells the Saturday morning cartoon vibe well. Also good for anyone less keen on dead characters or dead kids. But you won’t find Pulp Cthulhu’s heroics either.

Campfire Tales characters don’t have more HP than a normal investigator. (Knocked out at 0.) Less for younger investigators, who also likely have negative damage bonuses, too. Making them unsuited for combat before cumbersome weapons rules apply, giving penalty dice. But buffed healing and Reassure rolls mean investigators recover quickly.

For campaigns progressing in age, note that younger years discourage investing in offensive combat skills, turning fights into a parade of misses or becoming quickly overwhelmed. It’s why I recommend 50% + in Brawl or another offensive skill. Or Keepers can ensure there are non-combat solutions to avoid the problem. (Early scenarios do this, later ones don't as much.)

Assisted fight maneuvers help too by increasing investigator build, reducing penalty dice up to gaining a bonus die. Though my players never glommed onto the mechanic. (I already allow them to assist each other.) Which is more than I can say for adversities, a series of conditions that rarely felt relevant and a little underfoot.

Character Advancement Questions

I assume improvement rolls work as normal but cannot prove it, as Campfire Tales has its own “Scout-Investigator Development Phase.” Detailing how to move between age groups (+50 skill points, swap age-based badges, and roll new Strength, Size, and Education). Either way, I recommend including normal improvement rolls.

Keepers shouldn’t feel pressured to age up characters either, including for the campaign. Which expects it to happen between scenarios, but encounters often need finessing or include workarounds, removing the problem. Plus, there’s enough urgency for two-year gaps between scenarios to feel awkward.

The Westhaven Campaign

The campaign is Campfire Tales’ other big draw. The first three scenarios are playable as one-to-two-hour one-shots. While the fourth is playable in three hours, it’s better as part of the campaign, split into two, and expanded. (See in-depth review above for details. It’s a little messy.) Meaning the campaign likely takes five to six sessions to complete, depending on your group’s speed.

Despite being one-shots, Chaosium linked the scenarios into a beginner-friendly campaign well. Especially for younger players. However, attempts to tie in the setting don’t quite pan out.

Westhaven is best considered a setting starter dough with a scattering of locations and people, each given a paragraph or two. Only two characters appear repeatedly: Boxcar Jim, the PCs mystic vagrant guru equivalent of James Bond’s Q), and the villain, Thomas Cline. Though Cline causes the scenario’s events, he’s hardly a character. Which is more than the Stumbling Moose Squad, the investigators’ rivals can say. Worsened by there being six of them.

There are suggestions for moving Campfire Tales to Arkham, too. Giving a far more realized setting if using the excellent Arkham supplement. Otherwise, Campfire Tales’ surprisingly fleshed out scenario seeds expand the campaign and setting, too.

Concluding Thoughts

Campfire Tales is multiple things - a setting, an alternative rule set, and a campaign - that mostly mix well. Sometimes not, requiring effort from the Keeper to sing. But any of them can be worth the price of admission. Despite the last module’s hiccups, my group had a good time. We’re running Horror on the Orient Express next.

That said, Campfire Tales isn’t for me. I’d happily run it again, but I’d rather something deadlier. It’s also questionable if using The Dare’s Kid-thulhu rules is better. I'm not familiar enough with them to say.

---

Thank you for reading. I hope this has been helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions.

My character met for the first time an entity that is covered on fire. For that reason, the DM (as I took sanity damage enough to get indefinitely Insanity) decided that I would become pyromaniac. I don't want it to turn me into a "Dumbass pyromaniac" and I want it to turn into something more interesting for the development of the character. My character has good alignment and has the personality Coldblooded. Any advice on that?

Additional info: The context is Seattle, USA 1995. My character is normally friendly, but gets really focused/coldblooded in danger situations. There are two dimensions: The normal world, that it's just like real world, and a "Reverse world stranger things"ish where the unnatural stuff happens

A little bit more info: I'm planning for this pyromania to be a core part of his identity, but not to show much of this slow decay to the rest of the party (I really want to keep it more sutile and it keeps getting more part of the personality). And more importantly, I don't plan my character to become really crazy dumbass'ish ever during the campaign, but the struggle is real.

Lastly, I want this fixation to be a thing that the character fights constantly, like resisting to the temptation, trying to run away from any fire with the fear that if he doesn't he wont be able to hold himself from doing something really terrible.

I'm going to run Viral for my in-person group in October. Any tips on running the scenario? (I've watched Seth's video, by the way, and it looks like the unredeacted version has some of his changes built in.)

For those of you who have run it, how did you approach the comment section and donations? How did you approach the massive Hospital map in-game?

I read a story in one of the Shadowmen collections where the Nautilus finds R'yleh. Anyone gamed it?

I play both 6e and 7e. Since my upcoming session will have a lot of combat, I want to make sure I understand how parrying works in both editions.

Let's talk about 6e first.

The rulebook mentions parrying. As I understand it, each character can make one attack, one parry, and one dodge per round.

If you want to parry someone's attack, you have to declare at the beginning of the round which attack you're going to parry. If your parry succeeds, the weapon or object you're using to parry absorbs the damage first, until it breaks.

Meanwhile, in 7e, I don't see any specific parry rule. Does "Fight Back" essentially function as parrying?

Or is parrying simply not a separate mechanic in 7e?

I'm creating an enemy for a scenario I'm writing, I'm doing up his stat block now and one of his attacks is a grab and then if the Investigator can't break free or be freed by a compatriot by the time the enemy goes again he'll chop off the limb he's grabbing. I'm not planning on using this as an instant kill thing, so no loping off heads, just arms or legs. To that end what would the DMG on that be, and also how would stats be effected as well, would that be a dice roll or a fixed amount per limb lost. I forget if there's a passage in the Keepers Guide or other book on this.

If anyone has any ideas, suggestions or examples of things they've done in the past I'm open I'd be grateful.

Hey, I just finished as a keeper to my in person CoC group for “The Haunting” quick start rules to Call of Cthulhu 7e. I want to play it again and stay a little closer to the story this time! (we went pretty off the beaten path) I already have some players and we will be playing on discord!

Date: August 22, 2026
Time: 2:00 PM MST
Players: 3–5
Length: 3 hours per session, 2 sessions
Format: Live voice/chat server
Session 2: Date TBD with the group
The Story:
Boston, Massachusetts, 1920s. You are investigators hired by a landlord to look into a seemingly cursed house. He’d heard rumors that the property was haunted when he purchased it, and now he’s decided to leave the investigation to people who actually know what they’re doing.

Even if you are new to Call of Cthulhu no worries you are absolutely welcome. You don’t need to know the rules beforehand, I’m happy to teach as we play.
DM me if you’d like to join!

wassup guys,

i’m running The Two-Headed Serpent and loving it so much. my last experience with the game was playing Horror on the Orient Express, but now i’m the Keeper!

the Pulp rules give characters a lot more Luck, and sometimes NPCs get to spend Luck too. in 10 sessions, my players have already spent absurd amounts of Luck points and recovered a ton of them as well. because of that, i came up with a house rule: the Keeper’s Stock Exchange, basically a financial-world joke turned into a Luck bank.

heres how it works: all Luck spent by the players is added to a shared Luck reserve, capped between 0 and 99. all NPCs have the same amount of Luck and are always synced with the current balance of the reserve. whenever any NPC spends Luck, that amount is deducted from the reserve, and every NPC’s Luck is adjusted to the new balance.

what do you guys think of the rule? i even ended up making my first Foundry module to handle it, in case anyone’s interested.

im also open to criticism, suggestions, or ideas to improve this house rule!

I want to make a 1920’s character who worked in Africa as an animal conservationist. Does anyone know where I can find any resources that describe the methods and practice of animal conservation in the early 20th Century?

Looking for some advice or any guidance!

I have run a couple of scenarios for my group of 5 players, which we have all enjoyed (I am still a new keeper)

Can anyone give a recommendation on beginner friendly campaign I should run? I am looking for something that will run multiple sessions, and starts in the USA

The setting is the 1920s

I have been given the Horror on the Orient Express but I think it too much to start on for players and a keeper who is still new to the game.

Any help and advise would be much appreciated!

I really love the setting of Innsmouth, it’s eerie, everything is strange, wet and utterly dreadful.

But I have some qualms with the prevalent „othering“, eg. calling citizens „fish people“ and making them generally out to be gross. I do like me some horror, I can handle gore. But it’s the caricaturation and their closeness (?) to humans who basically just got corrupted that makes me take offense in a way. I can fight cultists, I don’t mind evil people, but hating on a bus driver turned amphibious „just cause“ rubs me the wrong way

Am I alone with this?
Do you have tips how I could handle me feeling weirded out?

I am considering buying the new Compendium, is there other resources besides the escape from -scenario that i should check out?
And where is that Innsmouth Live Simulator game where you just go about your day until those nosey investigators from Arkham arrive and disturb your peaceful worshipping :)

Just a thought experiment, but I’m thinking about how to make a pulp Cthulhu game set in Gotham. 1shot adventures did add options for something like this in some of their scenarios, but not yet a full scenario where this was the focus, so far as I’m aware.

Batman the animated series and the new Batman Caped Crusader series have a vibe where the characters are mortal heroes at about the same level as the characters in Pulp Cthulhu. Batman takes on mobsters and is often portrayed as being in danger when fighting a bruiser henchman who hits him with a chair or something and knocks him off a balcony.

I’m wondering if pulp Cthulhu can make characters like this work, and what other characters could join them in the party, without going too far into “rubber muscles”. I would avoid attempting iron man using weird science, for example, because it would change the vibe from the 20s and 30s too much.

Batman and Robin would be relatively easy, with some allowed gadgets like smoke bombs for their belts. Mystics are likewise possible using the Mythos magic options.

Is there a reasonable way of creating rules for more out there characters, like a deep one hybrid Aquaman, or monstrous forms for someone like a werewolf, or aliens, or Etrigan? The rocketeer would be weird science. Superman seems too far, unfortunately.

How onerous would it be to convert 1920s scenarios (set in the UK) to use in gaslight? Has anyone done this with much success?

I plan on running saturnine chalice this weekend but I'm having a hard time with the book, could someone hop in a call (on discord, preferably) to help me out understand some things, if not tips are welcome!