The Call of Cthulhu RPG is getting a novel which is tied to its setting. The Shadow on the Glass is a horror novel placed in Victorian Britain, which goes up for sale on July 2, 2024. Written by Jonathan L. Howard, the book’s description promises an “electrifying eldritch mystery” within its 352 pages.
To be clear, this Call of Cthulhu book is not a tabletop RPG book, but regular fiction set in the horror RPG’s world. It is about a pair of grifters who scam the Victorian elite as mediums. When one of them gets possessed by something eldritch in a seance gone horribly wrong, the novel’s hero must “make a deal with the devil” to save them.
It sounds like comfortable ground for British author Howard, as the series he’s perhaps best known for, his darkly comedic ‘Johannes Cabal the Necromancer’, also featuring a main character in a satanic pact. More recently, the writer took a leap into Lovecraftian fiction with Mythos-meets-cop series Carter & Lovecraft.
We should note that the novel is tied to Call of Cthulhu’s Victorian setting: Cthulhu by Gaslight. One of the great draws of Call of Cthulhu (as well as its focus on mysteries over combat) is that rather than a fantasy DnD setting, the game takes place in alternative history.
The basic rules assume you’ll play in the 1920s or the modern day, but spin-offs and setting books cover all sorts of time periods, from Weimar Germany (Berlin: The Wicked City) to Roman times (Invictus).
The Shadow on the Glass will be published by Aconyte Books, in partnership with Call of Cthulhu creator Chaosium. It’s the first Gaslight CoC book, and comes out just a couple of months after the first Regency Cthulhu book, Secrets and Sacrifices, which arrives in April.
While the global Ebook and US paperback will be available from July 2, UK readers will have to wait a little longer for physical copies. It’s out in the UK on September 26.
For more spooky mysteries, check out our favorite murder mystery games. We also have loads of great horror board games to recommend.