Kabuki Kaiser provided me with a review copy of this book, but no other compensation was made for me to review it. There will likely be spoilers, so if you might want to play in a Cosmic Horror RPG, perhaps send this review in the direction of your GM.

Dark Space is an interesting book that is both chock full of inspiration and yet lacking in structure.  The subtitle labels it as a book with eight adventures, but if you’re expecting something ready to run at your table, that’s not what this book is.  Some might find that frustrating, but it also has some interesting plusses.

So, what is it?  In the back of the book, there’s a three page section of rules for Cthulhu Dark.  I don’t know if that’s the complete rules or not.  I’ve never actually seen or read Cthulhu Dark or any books for it before.  Those rules seem extremely light, possibly too light (and for me, that’s saying something).  However, the material in this book could easily be translated to pretty much any Science Fiction/Horror game.  The two most obvious would be Call of Cthulhu or Mothership, but there are others, I’m sure.  I say it’s easy to transfer, because within the main body of the book, there are no statistics or rules drawn upon.  Sometimes there are suggestions for when to roll and what the result might be, but it’s not really specific in a mechanics sense.  Instead, what you’ve got are scenario ideas, written out as you might run characters through them, almost as though someone were explaining a scenario to you, without consulting a rule book or maps or what have you.

The scenarios are set in a semi-near future where humanity has spread out around the solar system.  The intro mentions The Expanse, Alien, Firefly and some similar movies and TV shows.  I kept thinking of Outland.  Your characters are all crew of a small ship, often sent out by the megacorporation Vanguard to do its bidding, investigating this and retrieving that.  Each scenario delves into a different Lovecraftian horror.  By linking the scenarios, it feels as though they should be part of an ongoing campaign, yet several of the scenarios seem likely to end in total party kills (in keeping with Cosmic Horror).

Because these are not at all table-ready (unless this is what Cthulhu Dark scenarios are usually like), a GM is going to have to do a substantial amount of preparation before running each one, even more because a couple of the scenarios make some pretty big assumptions about how players & their characters will proceed.  This can make the scenario seem extremely railroady, yet again, with some prep, I think a GM could make the scenarios feel more open to player choice.  A GM will likely want some maps, maybe handouts, almost certainly fleshed-out NPCs, and definitely a few contingencies for when the players inevitably throw a wrench in your works.  (edit: As I was getting ready to post this review, I struck upon an analogy to explain my feelings on the presentation of the scenarios. Each one is like a six or eight page synopsis of a 30 or 60 page module. You’ve got the general idea, but there’s a lot for you and your group to fill in).

In spite of the prospect of essentially having to do a normal session’s worth of work to make these adventures table-ready, I still found reading each one compelling and inspirational.  This may actually be where what I would normally consider a fault (the need for a great deal of prep somewhat negating the whole idea of picking up someone else’s adventure module) may actually turn out to be the product’s strength.  There are, I think, some really cool ideas in here.  Settings and conflicts that I would love to throw at some players.  However, sometimes the way they’re meant to play out in this book might focus on something or go in some direction that I don’t like as much.  Going wildly off script in a lot of published adventures can spell all kinds of trouble.  Heck, I’ve been thinking about how I’d go about filling the void left by the vampire in Horror on the Orient Express, because there’s no way in hell I’m putting a traditional cryptid like a vampire in my Call of Cthulhu game.  Well, if I want to change what happens when the Sanctum is pierced in “The Sentinels,” then I can just do that during preparation, without worrying that all the later maps, handouts, and encounters will be ruined.  It’s why I call this book “inspirational.”  While I was reading the scenarios, I had a million ideas of what I’d actually try to do in a session, much of it not a part of this book at all.  Perhaps this is something of a holdover from my early days of gaming.  I never used to use modules at all, writing and shaping stories as we played, often in reaction to what my players did.  In recent years, I’ve tried to use modules, but I sometimes find them a bit restrictive and confining.  The scenarios presented in this book are so loose, it’s hard to imagine feeling at all restricted.

There are eight scenarios.  The first two, Orpheus Station and The Sentinels feel sort of similar, or at least they have some similar plot beats.  If I were running this as a campaign, I probably wouldn’t run them back to back.  The Sentinels has a sort of ironic twist that I think would be very, very difficult to pull off well.  So much so that I’m not sure I’d even want to try.  Both scenarios deal with a major element in the story being recently dead, but I think it could be a lot more interesting for those things to still be alive, to be dealt with in some way by the PC.

Starhub Zero has several elements I really like.  However, if I ran it, I think I would change the antagonist from Nyarlathotep to The King in Yellow, either the play or the titular king itself.  There’s a lot about illusion and mistaken reality that just seems to fit with Hastur and its avatar, the King.  

I really like The Clay Ships.  It’s probably my favorite of the bunch. Having the cult turn out to be ghouls seems a bit much, however.  I didn’t think there was any need to make them Mythos critters, especially as they’re already worshiping a Mythos entity.  It’s like the old saying, “putting a hat on a hat.”  

Cold Storage is another one with a great premise and a lot of cool ideas.  It’s fairly simple, almost following the old Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea “villain of the week” thing, where a sketchy guy brings his dubious cargo onto the boat, and bad things follow.  It’s mostly straight forward, and probably the most survivable scenario if played as is.  Your PCs could easily end up unloading the cargo without ever having to deal with the reality of it.

I like the set-up and the setting of Kosmos Birds, but the plot doesn’t do much for me.  I could see combining some elements from it with Starhub Zero, as both take place in somewhat similar environments.  The proposed finale with a whole bunch of ships and mythos critters flying around in space seems somewhat odd, and I don’t know what bait I’d be able to use to get players to send their characters to it.  

Zargon is Alive might be my least favorite, because while it has a couple interesting ideas, even in the loose way this book presents its stories, this one doesn’t seem to have enough of a handle for me to hold onto.  The potential climax, with Zargon the World Eater being summoned, is definitely a brown-trousers moment for players, but for the GM to get them there seems like a difficult prospect.  If anything, I might fold it into The Clay Ships, combining the cult activity and mixing the arrival of Zargon with the launch of the ships.  

Project O.W.O.S. has our old friend Nyarlathotep back and up to no good.  As with Starhub Zero, I would lean toward subbing The King in Yellow for Nyarlathotep, but that’s a personal taste thing.  With the madness and social unrest aspect, I just see the entropic hand of Hastur at work.  This scenario in particular feels like it could be expanded.  I wonder too, if you might build a mini-campaign by combining several of these scenarios, especially those that take place on space stations.  That potential flexibility in scenarios sort of speaks to my general thoughts on the book.

Overall, while I found the choice of presentation in Dark Space odd, I enjoyed reading the book quite a bit, and the whole time I was reading it, I wanted to take the Alien RPG off the shelf, or Call of Cthulhu, or Mothership, and run at least one of these scenarios.  Whatever I might bring to the table may not end up looking a heck of a lot like what is written in the book, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.  I’m not sure if the semi-system-agnostic writing style is in keeping with Cthulhu Dark scenarios or not, but it isn’t what I’m used to reading.  There isn’t much art, though the art that does appear (I believe Mels Meyan is the artist) is very cool.  It reminded me of drawings some of my friends in high school used to do.  And that’s not a slight.  I took a lot of art classes, including some college prep art classes, and some of my classmates went on to become professionals in the craft.  They were good.  It has this cool, colored pencil or chalk pastel look that I like a lot and don’t see very often.  The book could probably have used one more editing pass.  Mostly it’s the phrasing, which sometimes feels like a translation that’s not quite right.  But I’ve seen professional products released from major publishers with more problems.

If you’re looking for some inspiration for some cool Cosmic Horror, this volume should give you plenty of ideas to build upon. 

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