When 7th Edition of Call of Cthulhu came out, Chaosium created a new organization called the Cult of Chaos. The goal was to unite Cthulhu Lore Keepers and run as many games as possible in public spaces, recruiting new players to the system.
I eagerly set up shop with the Buffalo Cult of Chaos, run out of Collector’s Inn in Kenmore, NY. I advertised on Facebook and with a flyer on the shop’s door.
I was shocked to find about twelve players in the tiny play area waiting for some good old fashioned Cthulhu mayhem. Luckily I had a copy of the module printed up and a backup on my tablet. I leant the printed module to an experienced Lore Keeper to run the adventure for the evening. Regretfully, that Lore Keeper and many of the original members didn’t make it back for future sessions.
However, one of the players was an enthusiastic backer of 7th Edition on Kickstarter and gave me my first 7th Edition Lore Keeper screen.
The material we were working with was a campaign by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass. Not only were we running organized play, to be reported back to Chaosium, but the expectation was this was a playtest for the material to one day be turned into a hardback campaign book.
That day has finally arrived. With new material provided by Cthulhu master Lynne Hardy and Line Developer Mike Mason, A Time to Harvest is a fully edited book, complete with stunning artwork and maps that I wish I’d had to show my players back in the organized play days.
The story revolves around a group of students from Miskatonic University (of course) going on a summer expedition to the rural hills of Vermont to collect anecdotes and myths of the local populace. Funding the expedition is an energy company that’s discovered unknown minerals in the Vermont hills and want to find more of the minerals.
Players can be students, professors or support crews hired by the energy company. They all live together in a cabin outside the town of Cobb’s Corners.
Last year, Miskatonic University attempted a similar expedition that ended in tragedy when one of their students was found dead, apparently fallen off the side of a mountain. Some of the characters involved with the plot secretly want to investigate the circumstances around their friend’s death.
Why did that student die? He got too close to the Mi-Go who dwell in the Vermont hills and want to be left alone to do their own excavations. Not enough to mess with your roleplaying group? There’s a group of cultists who are children… and they’re trying to summon Shub-Nigguarath.
Not many people live happily ever after. Shub-Niggurath does make an appearance and completely destroys Cobb’s Corners and the area around it. The PCs need to escape the destruction unfolding around them.
Having an Elder God show up should be the climax of any Call of Cthulhu tale, but not for A Time to Harvest! There was a final scenario to run where the PCs go through a portal to the moon and take the fight to the Mi-Go. It felt anti-climatic and a bit inappropriate. These were students and laborers who just witnessed a deity appear and smite an entire town. They shouldn’t be expected to act like Rambo on a mission to the moon.
Chaosium resolved the mixed reaction to this ending scenario by making it an alternate scene intended for groups that use the Pulp Cthulhu rules. Chasing aliens to their moon base is certainly the stuff of a movie serial.
I loved running A Time to Harvest for my Cult of Chaos group. It ended as a result of both Chaosium not putting out any organized play material for several years after the conclusion of A Time to Harvest and problems I was having with one of our group members who made a habit of making racist and sexist comments at the table. I wish I’d known then what I know now about Session Zeros.
Check out A Time to Harvest for a good time in a creepy town where the aliens in the hills aren’t the creepiest part of the experience.
