The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep (Call of Cthulhu)
The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep
About, oh, 2008 or so I ran the Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign for the Call of Cthulhu horror roleplaying game. It took a total of 1.5 years and 35 sessions of roughly 4 hours apiece for us to complete the terrifying world spanning adventure. Most of it was recorded in story format, and I’ll start posting it here in chunks. The stories are in PDF format with images embedded. Not a whole lot of images. This is when I first started created photo gallery stories of our sessions and I was still learning how to do it.
The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep (COMPLETE because this module included the lost Australia chapter) is one of the best adventures I’ve ever run in my life. Nothing comes close to the complexity and top-notch professionalism of the product. I’d never have come up with such a wildly innovative and overarching plot on my own, and the only way I could possibly top this campaign would simply be to run it again with a new circle of players. Or victims. Because this is one dangerous, nasty adventure to stop occult forces bent on destroying the world.
Here are the Chapters of each session of play:
#1: The Death of Jackson Elias
#2: Don’t Push The Shiny Red Button!
#3: Massacre at the JuJu House
#4: Onward to London
#5: Castle Plum
#6: The Paintings of Miles Shipley
#7: The House in the Marsh
#8: Hello, Cairo
#9: Ambush at the Broken Camel
#10: The Drunk Dutchman
#11: Mad Warren Bessart
#12: The Black Pharaoh
#13: The Cotton Plantation of Omar Shakti
#14: Beneath the Pyramids
#15: The Ritual of Nitcrosis
#16: Coming of the Black Sphinx
#17: Cats in the Museum
#18: Desert Assassins
#19: Flames on a Train
#20: The Night Lodge of Colonel Endicott
#21: Vampires, Fires, and Tea
#22: Old Bundari
#23: Mountain of the Black Wind
#24: The Spawn of Nyarlathotep
#25: Escape from the Mountain
#26: Onward to Australia!
#27: An Unexpected Detour
#28: City of the Great Race
#29: Huston’s Headquarters
#30: Kakakatak
#31: Out of Time
#32: Mr. Chang’s Miraculous Escape
#33: Jack “Brass” Brady
#34: Gray Dragon Island
#35: The Superweapon
JM Hauser 
Feb 14, 2016 @ 20:19:47
Enjoyed reading your campaign for masks. I played it over 20 years ago and it brought back good memories. Thanks very much.
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May 30, 2016 @ 21:56:45
Excellent read. On the advice of some friends, I just picked up a reprinting of this campaign to run in the near future. I hope they end up being as creative as your players (but maybe with a bit less naked/slathered beefcake running around.
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Nov 12, 2018 @ 03:47:32
Thank you so much for this, running the 7e version that just came out and I love reading your approach to it all!
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Nov 12, 2018 @ 16:18:03
Thank you. I had considered recently running it again with the new revised version of Masks, but it would just take too long. It’s a massive adventure.
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Apr 05, 2021 @ 14:28:48
Wow – Amazing read. Thank you for writing this up! I lost an entire day to going through all these logs
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Apr 05, 2021 @ 14:40:00
Thanks Ben. It was one hell of an adventure. I considered running it again for a new group, but it is quite the time investment, I don’t know if I can do that again.
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