Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing

I knew virtually nothing about 'Eldritch Tales' until recently - you'd think a Lovecraft fan like myself would have realised that this was out there, but my Lovecraft roleplaying was focused on Chaosium's 'Call of Cthulhu', so anything else was kind of eclipsed by that.

Recently I got hooked on Swords & Wizardry White Box and I was so enamoured by it that I decided that this was going to be the RPG system I was going to use to write my own material. I had looked at a lot of OGL products but this one in particular excited me as it appealed to my sense of nostalgia; it reminded me of my original days of D&D roleplaying in the 1980s. In fact, I have my first adventure 'Phaunt's Tower' on release now at DrivethruRPG and RPGNow.

So, as I investigated more about Swords & Wizardry products, such as White Star and WWII: Operation WhiteBox, I came across Eldritch Tales and as soon as I saw that striking image of Cthulhu itself looming over that poor boat my Lovecraftometer went off the scale.

I promised myself that I'd wait for POD as I have White Box and White Star in the printed format but my excitement got the better of me and I purchased the PDF. At 10 bucks for 218 pages it was quite the bargain, and the contents of the book did not disappoint.

I will save a full description of the game for my full review once I've had a chance to play it, but suffice to say that after decades of 'Call of Cthulhu' I think I may have found a new version that I'm not only excited to play but excited to write my own OGL material for. I read the whole book in one sitting - I only finished about an hour before writing this blog entry - and it is such a great game. It's so good! It captures the Mythos really well and the writer, Joseph D. Salvador, obviously has a passion for the genre and the writer. Even though it adds a few extra rules and ideas so that you can get a truly great Lovecraftian nightmare played out it manages to retain the simplicity that attracted me to Swords & Wizardry in the first place. It even manages to make sure that the game suits your playstyle; not interested in going mad and dying? Then play it as pulp adventurers and throw some punches at the nearest Mi-Go.

As I said, I will have a full review out for it in the near future but rest assured that if you're a fan of Lovecraft, horror, and even the original 'Call of Cthulhu' game, then this is something well worth checking out.

'Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing in an OSR rule set with its roots in the Original version of the world's favorite RPG, but instead of exploring musty dungeons, characters in Eldritch Tales investigate Mythos horrors in the 1920s! The setting and background are based on the cosmic horror tales of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other members of his writing circle. 

Within the pages of Eldritch Tales you will find four character classes representing many classic pulp archetypes, occupations, rules for insanity, spells, monsters, esoteric tomes, artifacts, a starting scenario, and setting material, as well as advice on using Eldritch Tales with other White Box games. This game is compatible with Swords & Wizardry White Box and other OSR games.

To accomodate all devices, the PDF purchase includes versions in both high resolution and low resolution. PDF has a bookmarked Table of Contents, as well as linked terms throughout the book.

Eldritch Tales offers a Compatibility License to third-party publishers interested in creating material to support the game, find it here on RPGNow or DriveThruRPG!'