''Blood Brothers'' is a light-hearted anthology of short adventures published by
Chaosium
Chaosium Inc. ( ) is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford (game designer), Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include ''Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game), Call of Cthulhu'', based on the horror fic ...
in 1990 for the
Lovecraftian
Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is na ...
horror role-playing game ''
Call of Cthulhu''.
Contents
The book is an anthology of thirteen short adventures that use themes, characters or monsters from classic
B movie
A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...
horror films: vampires based on
Bela Lugosi
Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), better known by the stage name Bela Lugosi ( ; ), was a Hungarian–American actor. He was best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the horror film classic Dracula (19 ...
's 1931 portrayal of
Dracula
''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...
; werewolves similar to
Lon Chaney Jr.
Creighton Tull Chaney (February10, 1906 – July12, 1973), known by his stage name Lon Chaney Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the film '' The Wolf Man'' (1941) and its various crossovers, Count Alucard (Dracula ...
's 1941
Wolf Man; zombies similar to those in
George A. Romero's ''
Dawn of the Dead''; cavemen and dinosaurs from 1975's ''
The Land That Time Forgot''; gremlins akin to those in 1984's ''
Gremlins
''Gremlins'' is a 1984 American black comedy horror film directed by Joe Dante, written by Chris Columbus and starring Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Polly Holliday and Frances Lee McCain, with Howie Mandel providing the voic ...
''; and a killer alien from 1979's ''
Alien''.
Players are offered a variety of one-shot characters. In keeping with the light-hearted B-movie theme, the usual Sanity check in the ''Call of Cthulhu'' rules has been tweaked so that a character who fails a Sanity check, rather than developing psychoses or phobias, instead screams, or falls down in the path of an approaching monster, or faints.
Publication history
''Blood Brothers'', a 128-page softcover book, was the first supplement that Chaosium published for ''Call of Cthulhu''.
The thirteen adventures were written by
Keith Herber
Keith Donald "Doc" Herber (January 3, 1949 – March 13, 2009)"United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch: accessed October 25, 2013), Keith Donald Herber, March 13, 2009; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death M ...
,
Sam Shirley,
Kevin Ross,
Gregory W. Detwiler,
Ben Monroe,
Scott Clegg,
Geoff Gillan,
Barbara Manui,
Chris Adams,
Marcus L. Rowland
Marcus L. Rowland (born 1953) is an English author in the field of role-playing games, particularly games with Victorian era content.
Biography
Marcus Rowland owned a copy of the original boxed set of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' as early as 1977, th ...
,
Tony Hickie,
Michael Szymanski
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* he He ..., a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name
* Michael (bishop elect)">Michael (surname)">he He ..., a given nam ...
,
Scott Aniolowski, and
Fred Behrendt,.
Earl Geier produced the interior art, and cover art was by Lee Gibbons.
Two years after publication of ''Blood Brothers'', Chaosium followed up with a sequel, ''
Blood Brothers 2'', featuring nine more movie-themed ''Call of Cthulhu'' adventures.
Reception
Wayne Ligon reviewed ''Blood Brothers'' in ''
White Wolf
The Arctic wolf (''Canis lupus arctos''), also known as the white wolf, polar wolf, and the Arctic grey wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the High Arctic tundra of Canada's Queen Elizabeth Islands, from Melville Island to Ellesme ...
'' #25 (Feb./March, 1991), rating it a 3 out of 5 and stated that "any supplement that includes Abbot and Costello as replacement PC's, has titles like 'Ancient Midget Nazi Shamans,' and recommends the infamous 'Dr. Tongue' method of stimulating 3-D movies, deserves a place on any gamer's shelf."
In the November 1991 edition of ''
Dragon
A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...
'' (Issue #175),
Allen Varney
Allen Varney (born 1958) is an American writer and game designer. Varney has produced numerous books, role-playing game supplements, technical manuals, articles, reviews, columns, and stories, as well as the fantasy novel ''Cast of Fate'' ( TSR, ...
enjoyed the humour of the product, saying, "This supplement highlights a surprising and welcome turn in our hobby: the impish sense of humor in the field's leading horror game... that fine tap dance on the line between horror and comedy."
References
{{reflist
Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game) adventures
Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1990