Review: CthuluTech’s Vade Mecum

CthulhuTech is an interesting beast.

A strange cross of Anime and H.P. Lovecraft, it’s really made a splash in the RPG community. I love me some giant robots, so that’s the draw for me. Throw in the Old Ones, and I’m rearing to go!

Vade Mecum is the CthuluTech companion, offering new races and professions, and a ton of optional rules.

The art throughout is top-notch, a very beautiful style for all of the horrors throughout. There are strange aliens, extra-dimensional beings, and governmental conspiracies all gorgeously painted.

The book features new races, new and modified assets, new skills, and some new professions, including my favorite, the Zoner. A Zoner is someone who suddenly comes into psychic powers without warning, driving them insane. That would be a challenge to play, but incredibly fun.

There’s some awesome healing complications for when you are attempting to get healing, and something goes wrong. This can include massive scarring, nerve damage, even making your character a quadriplegic. All of these new injuries can be implemented as well through the new hit location rolls. I’ve always been a fan of knowing where someone’s been hit, and this helps you with just that.

There’s a bunch of new fighting styles, which are called cascades and look like talent trees. Kendo, ninjutsu, gunplay and military unarmed combat are all covered under these cascades.

Para-Psychic powers are introduced, and there’s a ton of them. I counted 24, ranging from pyrokinesis to dream manifestation. I would definitely introduce them into my own game, were I to get the chance to run CthuluTech.

There are new spells introduced to the magic you can find in the core rulebook, including dream magic, something that happens a lot in Lovecraft. I really like the new magic they have.

I’ve always liked giant robots, so introducing even more is a plus. 22 new mechs grace the pages, from all kinds of different factions. The art on these puppies are nice.

More monsters and NPCs are introduced in Chapter Eight, from Liches to Zoners and Ghouls. Sea monsters, vicious sharks are also pretty cool.

The book concludes with two adventures, called stories, which are pretty well thought out. One begins as a murder mystery, but steadily turns into much more. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, if there’s any players reading. It’s for a party who are federal agents working for the Federal Security Bureau.

The second mission is for members of a GIA GhOST team to rescue a doctor in Tibet, who also happens to be a sorcerer. And of course, horrible things happen along the way.

This is followed by some great little plot hooks to finish up the book.

There are some typos throughout the book, but I only noticed them because I’m an editor in my day job. They weren’t all that noticeable, I don’t think.

I highly recommend this to anyone playing a CthulhuTech game out there. This book provides some great information and features that can definitely add a lot more depth to your game.

Want to learn more about CthulhuTech? Read on…

• WildFire: CthulhuTech Quick-Start Rules
• Atomic Array: Episode 013: CthulhuTech RPG
• Mad Brew Labs: CthulhuTech: The Game That Almost Wasn’t
• Critical Hits: When Horror Meets Awesome: CthulhuTech
• Kore Dice: Interview with CthulhuTech’s Mike Vaillancourt
• Stargazer’s World: Review: CthulhuTech
• Stan!: The Stars Will Be Right
• Arcane Underground: The Saga of CthulhuTech (Updated)
• Atomic Array: Episode 040: CthulhuTech
• Blog of a new RPGer: [Review] CthulhuTech “Dark Passions”
• Stargazer’s World: Review: Damnation View
• allgeektout: Review: Mortal Remains

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