Cubicle 7 are proud to announce the imminent launch of the Cthulhu Tales Kickstarter.

A story-telling card game, designed by award winning designers Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, with stunning art from Scott Purdy, Jon Hodgson and Sam Manley, Cthulhu Tales develops the themes introduced in the Cubicle 7/Sophisticated Games co-production Hobbit Tales, enhancing the structured, story-telling mechanic with a range of new Elder God-appropriate rules and tweaked play style suitable for tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Dominic McDowall, Cubicle 7 CEO:
“I’m delighted to be able to bring Cthulhu Tales to Kickstarter this week. It’s a development of the rules which Francesco and Marco have been working on for a long time, and it’s really great to be able to finally bring it to light.

We’re planning a very straight forward campaign. As gamers we’re suffering a little bit from gigantic Kickstarter fatigue, so for this one we have a very clear, simple goal, with a handful of pledge levels. It’s all about the game, and the game is really, really good. Not only is it great fun to play, producing some eerily Lovecraftian stories, but is also shaping up to be one of the most good-looking games we’ve produced. I’m very excited to see how it will do!”

The Cthulhu Tales Kickstarter launches this week.

From the Cubicle 7 website (www.cubicle7.co.uk):

“In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative.”
– The Tomb, by H.P. Lovecraft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLKYHpLz1Hc

The dawn of the 20th century. New England, America; Lovecraft country.

Home to university libraries filled with worm-eaten tomes, legend-haunted towns populated with degenerate locals and their rustic superstitions, Cyclopean ruins from long-forgotten aeons, and the disquieting glimpses of things from beyond…

You are the unwilling guests of a disquieting and antiquated sanatorium, perhaps the infamous Arkham Sanatorium, or maybe the Danvers State Asylum.

Your only hope of escape is to convince your fellow inmates, and perhaps yourself, that you do not belong here. And so you begin to explain the sinister series of events that led to your unjust incarceration.

Unfortunately, your memories are populated by the stuff of nightmares…

In Cthulhu Tales, players take it in turn to tell their story using a hand of Story cards. The other players play Hazard cards to disrupt and darken the tale. In the course of the game, the narrators receive Treatment tokens, representing the misguided therapies and medication administered to them by the terrifying medical staff.

When everyone has told their tale, count up each player’s Treatment tokens and the player who underwent the least therapies is the winner.

Designed by Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, the designers behind award winning games such as The One Ring Roleplaying Game, Hobbit Tales, The War of the Ring and many more, Cthulhu Tales brings horrifying and darkly humorous story telling to your gaming table.

Inside the box you’ll find:

• 115 beautifully sinister and disquieting, large format playing cards with artwork from the C7 art team Scott Purdy, Jon Hodgson and Sam Manley
• A board to guide your tale-telling
• A 16 page full colour rulebook (which is available for free download now)
• A 12 sided die, or perhaps if the stars are right, a unique Cthulhu Tales 12 sided die
• A set of Treatment tokens

More about the game:
In Cthulhu Tales you take the role of unwilling inmates of a fictional 1920s asylum or sanatorium. Using the cards as both inspiration and guide, you’ll take it in turns to make an accusation explaining why one of your fellow inmates, the Narrator, should be incarcerated.

The unfortunate Narrator then answers the accusation with their card-driven tale – choosing to either explain away the mysterious and sinister events, or perhaps having little choice but to reveal the secrets of the deeper horror that lurks just beyond the veil of reality.

As the Narrator attempts to refute the accusation of madness using Story cards, the other players disrupt the tale with Hazard cards, trying to force things to take a darker turn.

The cards have three main elements that can be used to aid your story. The title, the illustration and a quote from Lovecraft’s fiction. You can use any or all of these as inspiration for your tale. This makes replayability huge, with endless combinations of scenarios, mysteries, situations and horrific scenes possible.

Cthulhu Tales is very much a game, rather than simply a guided storytelling activity – it features structured and elegant rules for the telling of the tale, and for Hazard card interruptions. Players use the symbols on the cards to determine whether a card can be played, and its effect on the Narrator’s tale. The die introduces an element of luck into the proceedings – perhaps that Viscous Black Slime was merely a passing detail, or perhaps its arrival was the precursor to something far more sinister and madness inducing…

Players keep score with Treatment tokens, the aim of the game being to gain as few tokens as possible, and thereby be judged the least insane inmate.

There are, of course, some tweaks along the way – some cards are harder to match with, and thus harder to interrupt. But they come with other dangers: Phobia and Hazard symbols make playing these cards a risky gamble. There are also Deity cards, featuring the mind-bending Mythos deities, whose appearance can change the course of a tale entirely.

There are optional rules for awarding a bonus to the best storyteller, allowing the most Lovecraftian tale to shine, and perhaps take first place.

A Note on Madness.

The Cthulhu Tales rulebook includes this note on “madness”, which we think is pertinent to share here:

Cthulhu Tales deals in the madness described by H.P. Lovecraft in many of his stories. It is a fictional condition, an imagined state of derangement, where the walls of reality fall away and the frail human mind cannot contain the reality of the universe inhabited by The Great Old Ones.

This is an entirely distinct condition to the tragedy and pain of real-world mental health issues which sadly are statistically likely to touch all of our lives. We encourage players of Cthulhu Tales to wholly enjoy the fictional nature of the various maladies and madness described here, while remembering that in the real world mental health issues are no laughing matter.