Masks of Nyarlathotep Review - The World-Spanning Call of Cthulhu Epic

Personal note: This review is based on an interview of a Masks of Nyarlathotep Keeper and one of his investigators (Thanks Stephan and Anne!), not my own experience. That said, I personally did go through the books and materials and that was an awesome experience in itself!


Close your eyes for a moment and imagine the slow thrum of an ocean liner crossing toward an uncertain future. You are standing on a moonlit deck with a notebook, a revolver that feels heavier than it should, and a letter that someone died to send. This is the mood Masks of Nyarlathotep asks you to live in. It is a campaign of steam whistles and desert winds, of rain-slick streets and jungle heat, of fragile people facing an indifferent cosmos. It is also a carefully built toolkit for Keepers who want to run a global investigation that escalates from whispers to world-shaking ritual.

Masks of Nyarlathotep is the flagship long-form campaign for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, presented in a modern two-volume slipcase with a thick bundle of full-color handouts and maps. The 7th Edition update preserves the classic 1920s tone while tightening structure, expanding options, and adding an optional Peru prologue that seeds the central mystery. The result is a definitive version of a beloved horror epic that reads like a travelogue through dread.

What You Get - Slipcase, Handouts, And A Keeper’s Treasure Trove

The current slipcase gathers the campaign across two hardcovers totaling more than 600 pages, with an included folder of 100 plus handouts and reference materials. In practical terms, that means the table never has to squint at photocopies or rough sketches. Newspaper clippings feel authentic. Telegrams look like telegrams. Maps invite red string. If you prefer numbers, retailer listings and community sources peg the total page count at a mythic 666 pages across the two volumes. Whether you count by weight or by word, this is a whole season or more of play in one box.

Beyond the core books and handouts, this edition folds in modern layout, new art, and optional rules support for Pulp Cthulhu so you can decide whether your tone leans toward desperate survival or two-fisted action with a safety net. That flexibility matters, because Masks can be lethal when run hard in classic mode. With Pulp toggled on, some tables will find the campaign’s length easier to sustain week after week.

From New York To The End Of The World

Masks of Nyarlathotep is structured as a global investigation. The most famous route takes investigators from New York to places all over the world, with the optional Peru prologue setting up key relationships and clues. You do not have to visit locations in a strict order, but each chapter opens doors in the others, like a constellation mapped from the ground. The thrill of the campaign is discovering that the same long shadow falls on every continent, then deciding which piece of the shadow to chase next. 

The tone is classic Call of Cthulhu. You follow leads, interview people with reasons to lie, break into places that do not want you, read things that should have stayed buried, and watch the human cost mount. There are cults and conspirators, ancient sites and modern cities, rituals and machines. The best Masks tables let the 1920s breathe. Passenger lists. Customs officers. Travel time that creates suspense and forces choices. You can feel the world turning beneath your group.

How The 7th Edition Update Helps You Run It

Large campaigns live or die on usability. The 7th Edition update shines because it anticipates Keeper needs. Each chapter offers a clean breakdown of key NPCs, scene starters, and investigative threads. Clue trails are explicit, with backups in case one avenue fails. Side-track adventures let you decompress after heavy beats without leaving the world. Most importantly, the handouts integrate tightly with play. A single postcard or innocuous invitation can push the story forward by miles. That is both efficient and theatrical.

The addition of the Peru prologue is a smart structural improvement. It gives the player group shared history and a reason to care long before the main fuse is lit. If you have ever struggled to forge party cohesion in investigative games, Peru feels like a prequel vignette that makes later suffering mean something.

Keeper Experience - Workload, Pacing, And Table Management

Masks is a marathon. Expect to prep. The good news is that the books do much of the heavy lifting. Here is what matters most.

- Session zero is non-negotiable. Decide lines and veils. This campaign includes violence, cult atrocities, colonial-era tensions, and body horror. Establish safety tools so everyone can lean into fear without tripping over personal boundaries.
- Travel and time are your pacing levers. Use calendars and travel schedules as tension tools. A ship that arrives two days late can change everything.
- NPCs are the campaign’s bloodstream. Masks lives in the conversations your investigators have. Thumbnail your major NPCs with a single goal, a single secret, and a single strong image so you can run them with confidence.
- Let the handouts do the talking. Hand a player a letter and stop speaking. Silence sells authenticity.
- Plan your maps. Many locations can be handled theater-of-the-mind, but a few benefit from a simple floor plan so stealth and surveillance feel tactical instead of arbitrary.

Shifting from chapter to chapter, keep an eye on investigator agency. The campaign works best when players feel like they chose the next destination, not when the Keeper drags them to the next set piece. If the group stalls, a phone call, a letter, or a newspaper article can nudge them without stealing initiative.

Using Pulp Cthulhu Or Classic - Tuning The Threat

Masks can be played straight as classic investigative horror or with Pulp Cthulhu layers for hardier heroes and bigger set pieces. In classic mode, retreat and caution are often the correct answers. In pulp mode, investigators can push harder, survive longer, and fight back more dramatically. The published edition includes guidance and options for both styles, which lets you tailor the campaign to your group’s stamina and taste. For mixed tables, a hybrid approach works well. Keep research and travel grounded, but let climaxes use pulp options so hard-won victories are possible.

Strengths That Earn The Hype

- Scale and momentum. Few campaigns sustain forward motion across continents without losing coherence. Masks keeps the pressure on with overlapping plots and living antagonists who adapt to the investigators’ choices.
- Evocative handouts. The physical props lift the story a level. A telegram stamped and creased creates more buy-in than three paragraphs of boxed text.
- Clear investigative scaffolding. The structure supports Keepers who are new to long campaigns while leaving room for improvisation.
- Location variety. Urban intrigue, desert archaeology, colonial outposts, bustling ports, remote wilderness. Each chapter feels distinct, which keeps a long campaign fresh. 
- Edition flexibility. The 7th Edition update embraces modern expectations for usability and includes pulp options without breaking the mood for classic fans.

Honest Weak Points - What You Should Plan Around

- Keeper workload is real. Even with improved layout, this is a big read and an ongoing prep commitment. Expect to build timelines, track factions, and maintain NPC logs. Masks rewards the work, but it asks a lot.
- Player attrition over time. Not every group can stay focused through a multi-arc saga. The fix is to design chapter breaks as satisfying milestones so a campaign can pause cleanly if life intervenes.
- Potential for railroading. The central conspiracy has gravitational pull. If you lean too hard on the main thread, investigators can feel herded. Counter it by honoring side investigations and letting small victories matter, even if they do not topple the cult.
- Colonial-age content. Several chapters unfold in colonized regions. Run with sensitivity and nuance. Center local NPCs as full people with agency. Avoid exoticism.
- Lethality spikes. Certain set pieces can wipe a group if approached head-on in classic mode. Foreshadow danger clearly. Offer exits. If your table prefers resilience, turn on pulp options.

None of these are deal breakers. They are signals for where to spend your prep energy.

Best Practices - How To Make Masks Sing At Your Table

- Treat travel as narrative. Use shipboard scenes to develop characters, introduce allies or rivals, and let anxieties simmer.
- Rotate spotlight by clue type. Give the linguist inscriptions, the soldier security layouts, the artist artifact sketches, the socialite salons and late-night clubs.
- Run fronts not dungeons. Antagonists move off-screen. If investigators delay, let the cult advance a clock somewhere else. When players arrive, make them see what changed.
- Use consequence, not punishment. Investigative horror should feel fair. When things go wrong, show the cause. Players accept losses when they understand the chain of events.
- Celebrate small wins. A rescued witness, a burned ledger, a sabotaged shipment. The long war feels bearable when today mattered.

Who It’s For

- Groups who love investigative play with heavy roleplay, real stakes, and permeating dread.
- Keepers who enjoy prep and want a campaign that rewards attention to NPCs and timelines.
- Fans of historical travelogue who get a kick out of ticket stubs, timetables, and foggy docks.

If your group prefers tactical dungeon crawls, crunchy combat engines, or low-prep procedural generators, Masks might feel like too much book for too little fight. If you crave layered mysteries, human drama under cosmic pressure, and the pleasure of pins in a world map, it is close to perfect.

Production Quality And Table Tools

Modern Masks is a premium experience. Art direction sells the era without smothering the text. Maps balance style and clarity. Handouts are thick and colorful, easy to read under low light. The slipcase keeps everything organized between sessions so you can grab and go. Even if you run online, the handout pack and PDFs make sharing clues painless. For Keepers who value physical artifacts, this is a campaign that wants to be on your table, not just in a folder.

Running Time And Campaign Arcs

Masks can be completed in a tight 20 to 30 sessions if you trim side tracks and keep momentum strong. Many tables take longer because they choose to dig. That is a feature, not a bug. Plan your campaign as acts. End each continent with a debrief scene, a letter home, or a quiet epilogue that frames what was gained and what was lost. When you resume, open with a small vignette that re-centers the characters before the next storm hits. Those rituals help player memory and reinforce tone.

Accessibility And Safety

This story contains cult violence, human sacrifice, medical horror, colonial power dynamics, and other mature themes. Set lines and veils together. Use X-card or Script Change style tools. Offer a periodic check-in to confirm that the fear you are generating is the fun kind. Make space for exit ramps from content that lands wrong. Many groups pair Masks with a palette statement like we want dread, not torture so you can distinguish between genre tone and personal no-go zones.

Final Verdict - A Demanding Classic That Earns Its Place

Masks of Nyarlathotep is the Call of Cthulhu campaign against which others are measured. The 7th edition keeps everything iconic and gives Keepers the tools and options to run it for modern tables. It is big, demanding, and unforgettable. It requires a Keeper who likes spinning plates and a group that enjoys consequence-heavy investigation. If that is your table, you will get scenes you will talk about for years.

The negatives are real. Prep is heavy. The commitment is long. Cultural context requires care. Lethality is high. The handout game is not light. None of that erases the experience of chasing a single thread from a Manhattan boardinghouse to a back room in Shanghai and realizing you have been dancing in the shadow of something older than history. That realization is what Masks promises and still delivers.

If your group wants the definitive globe-trotting Call of Cthulhu campaign, the 7th edition Masks of Nyarlathotep belongs on your shelf and on your calendar. Bring pencils, string, extra passports, and a very healthy fear of coincidences. Then start in Peru and see how far the map is willing to go.