ヨグ＝ソトースの影 “Shadows of Yog-Sothoth” (1986) is a translation of Chaosium’s first stand-alone scenario for Call of Cthulhu. Organized into seven chapters, Shadows is the archetype of a Call of Cthulhu adventure: the investigators trot the globe, suffering in all likelihood death and loss of sanity, possibly to witness the rise of R’lyeh from the ocean floor and to confront the game’s titular monster-god. Which sounds untoppable, but oddly Shadows does not make many “best of” lists. The chapters are said to be uneven, with Devil’s Canyon and Easter Island being two of the better ones.
The Japanese version is a box set, which has the advantage that the handouts can be provided detached. I suspect the real reason Hobby Japan made a box set out of this had something to do with their distribution channels. It’s fascinating to see this adventure as a box, but the JV doesn’t add any additional artwork or content. The translation is by Jun Arisaka, who also translated the Call of Cthulhu rulebook.
When looking over this game, I realized for the first time that the character that looks like an equals sign in the Japanese title is how the Japanese represent a hyphen in the source language. An actual hyphen would look too much like the katakana long vowel marker.
Box contents:
• “Shadows of Yog-Sothoth: A Global Campaign to Save Mankind”, 68 pp.
• “Bonus Scenario 1 / Bonus Scenario 2” 12 pp.
• Handouts, 8 sheets
• Hobby Japan survey card
Japanese Tabletop RPG 