Just another apocalypse? - a Mephisto review

Another timeline has been released for Fate of Cthulhu, this time focusing on the infamous Great Old One Hastur. As usual, the player characters have to save the world. The apocalypse that Hastur triggers starts harmlessly with an oil spill and mysterious suicides in the water – but then quickly leads to much more bizarre effects, which then escalate with a very extreme end of the world. As usual, there are several triggering events in this timeline that the player characters must stop accordingly. The characters have to stop the initial ritual, help a musician whose music can dampen the general depression, and or even find Cassilda who could stop Hastur.

Perhaps I was biased being focused on the classic King in Yellow scenario (which plays no role here), but this timeline for Fate of Cthulhu failed to convince me. Both the flow of this apocalypse is too bizarre for me (especially when four gigantic giant falcons appear), and the possibilities of how the players can avert the apocalypse do not really make sense to me. The approach of presenting Hastur as a mysterious concept and less as a physical entity certainly does justice to the mythos. But for me, both the threat and the way the characters can avert it were less concrete, threatening, and exciting than the previous timelines, so that for me The Rise of Hastur is one of the weaker titles of the series.

(Björn Lippold)