Masks of Nyralathotep is a world spanning adventure set in the classic era of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu. This is probably considered one of the legendary adventures for CoC and with good reason. It provides a myriad different ways for the investigators to go insane or die and isn't that what Call of Cthulhu is all about? The fact that this is the 4th reprinting is probably a good indicator of the success but let's dig into what this is all about. The over-arching plot throws investigators looking into a death of their good friend on intercontinental dash to stop plans to bring Nyralathotep to Earth.
While ostensibly an adventure Masks is written up and organized differently then standard adventures. Rather then moving from one plot to another there are simply locations. Other then the initial starting location (New York) there is no pre-determined order for where investigators should go. This provides for an amazing amount of re-playability which is rare for adventures. The locations are globe spanning (5 of 7 continents get in on the action) and all have at least one link to the others meaning there aren't any dead ends to trap players (barring their natural tendency to wander completely off course and end up in Oxford of course).
Each section of the book covers one location and all the places and peoples of interest within it. At the beginning of the section they list all the clues that are available, who they are from, and where they lead so the keeper can have an easier time and knowing where they may want to point investigators who have lost their way. The general descriptions of the locations are quite detailed and help to give a good feel of what life might have been like the in them during the 1920s.
In terms of deadliness and SAN-loss induction this adventure provides many opportunities for both. It may be nearly impossible for the initial party to survive the entire campaign intact. It might even be unlikely that anyone from the initial group even makes it to the end as fairly quickly the investigators find themselves in nasty situations. I'd probably recommend that keepers preface players with some idea of how nasty this adventure can be (especially for those less familiar with CoC) or there might be some rather surprised players!
Overall I'd give this a 8 out of 10. There are some very compelling areas to investigate and great support for a non-linear adventure. It may feel a bit strange for the keeper if they are unfamiliar with adventures laid out as such (it was for me). It certainly provides a wealth of story to work with and gives the investigators chance to do major things to thwart a dark god.
Available in: Physcial*
Links: Amazon, Noble Knight
Next up: D & D Gazetteer (D & D 3.0) or The Great Beyond (Pathfinder)
I've found it really useful to read a lot of Actual Plays and otherwise be super prepared before running it. At this stage I feel I could run the first two chapters without much recourse to the books.
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