This WordPress blog is specifically dedicated to a tabletop game of Pulp Cthulhu. Pulp Cthulhu is an alternative/modified rule set for Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu setting where the characters are less investigators slowly going insane from the corrupting influence of the mythos and more Indiana Jones style adventurers traveling the world and punching monsters in the mouth.

The specific story presented here is called Shadow of the Crooked Cross. It’s an original story line by Andrew Black, not based on any published adventures. The characters are not based on real people, though historic figures may be part of the game.

The story is set in 1936, and does make use of the Nazis as a major backdrop element. While Nazi iconography is used in the game, they will always be shown in an adversarial role. One of the main concepts of the game is punching Nazis is fun and should be done whenever possible. While in reality the causes of the rise of the Nazis and the motivations of those who wore the uniform were complex and nuanced, in this game it’s very black and white – the Nazis are evil. Fighting them, even killing them, is not something the characters will face consequences for (i.e., they will not lose Sanity for killing Nazis, nor would I expect them to have horrible moral dilemmas about blowing up Nazi facilities or shooting down Nazi aircraft in their Sunderland seaplane).

Some find that having mythos manipulations behind the Nazis dilutes the real horror they inflicted upon the world. However, our players are adults, they understand that Nazis were evil without needing dreams from Cthulhu to influence them, and they understand this is a story about having fun fighting the forces of evil in a pre-World War 2 setting. They all also fully grasp that there were good German people during Hitler’s rise, and that the Nazis presented here are mostly Hollywood style stereotypes. However, that’s no different than stereotypical knights in armor used in other games, or cliche gangsters or outlaws in other game systems.