An enduring memory of - and perhaps my favourite piece of content from - the first and second editions of the Call of Cthulhu rpg is the card sheet of monster and character silhouettes illustrated above. I don’t recall ever using these in a game of CoC, which I think is interesting in what it says how CoC marked a narrative break from the minature wargaming roots of roleplaying games; nonetheless, I remember dutifully cutting them and attaching them to one pence pieces (as per the instructions) on purchasing my first copy of the Call of Cthulhu rpg (the above sheet being part of a later ebay purchase mentioned in yesterday’s post).
I think it worth repeating here a point which (I think) China Mieville once made: that Lovecaft gives good monster; in the late 70s/early 80s there wasn’t much by way (outside of paperback covers) of illustrations of Lovecraft’s worlds and monsters which were readily accessible to you average 13 year old - and unlike, say, the classic D&D Monster Manual, the bestiary chapters of early Call of Cthulhu rulebooks were relatively sparsely-illustrated; so much like the equally sparesely-populated Cthulhu mythos map which formed the focus of yesterday’s post, this single sheet of silhouettes functioned as a seductive visual signifier of the mythos, whilst at the same time preserving the sense of the unknowable and undescribable which permeates so much of Lovecaft’s writing about it.
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