How much fun can it be to thwart evil only to be eaten alive or driven insane for your efforts? As it turns out, quite a bit. Cthulhu fans everywhere rejoice in the return of a quarterly magazine dedicated to their favorite tentacular genre, Unspeakable Oath.

The periodical publication is overloaded with material that takes a while digest. It’s not that the 80+ pages couldn't be read quickly. it’s just that you’ll want to stop ever so often to contemplate ways to work the material into your campaign. WARNING: The Oath is not a light read.

The Oath is back and better than ever. The quarterly is packed with information to spice up your existing Cthulhu game or can be the source of great campaign ideas to start a new adventure in Lovecraftian horror. The contributors' love of the Mythos shows on every content-loaded page. For the money, there’s hardly a better deal for Cthulhu fans.

The Unspeakable Oath is an excellent magazine dedicated to all things Cthulhu which invariably has superb reviews, excellent information and widely usable supplemental material including items, books, spells, artifacts and so on. In addition there is normally a ready-to-play scenario that the Keeper can use with little or no adjustment to add a little something extra to his campaign, or to provide a handy one-night-stand kind of adventure to keep everyone busy. Nr. 19 carries on the tradition with several examples of every one of them (with the exception of artifacts, where "only" one is provided -- but a very intriguing one, at that), including two scenarios, one of which ("the Brick Kiln") is set in 1930's England, while the other ("Suited and Booted") is set in 1920's London. I won't tell you much about them in order to avoid spoilers, but, while I have yet to actually run them, they seem to be well constructed (indeed, the first has some detailed maps and information that could play a role in an on-going campaign for some time to come), and with no glaringly evident pitfalls which will derail the adventure for either the Keeper or the Investigators. Of particular note in this issue is one of the NPCs outlined in a separate article -- Bernice Cartfield -- billed as "A Delta Green Antagonist." She is very fully fleshed out with a lot of motivational and historical details provided which would make her a joy to run, and even has an interaction matrix which allows you to determine her most likely course of action depending on how the Investigators see her, and how she sees them. While she is billed as being for Delta Green, it would be remarkably easy to switch her to any other era where a woman can function at least marginally without a male "sponsor." Overall, this one easily earns a "five" from me, speaking as a long-time Keeper. From a Player's perspective, the magazine may not be as user-friendly since it seems to be more intended for the Keeper-centric audience (though the reviews alone make it worth the price to my mind), and frankly, as a Keeper, I used to severely restrict what my Players were allowed to read (which worked out okay because we each ran our own campaigns in some RPG system or another and always had plenty of our own stuff to read, even if we were restricted in each others' universes. But I digress. For Keepers, this is definitely worth the money, and for Players, it's still pretty darn good, though you'll find less general goodness for Players in this issue than in some others.

The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=20891.

The Unspeakable Oath is a magazine dedicated to Cthulhu Mythos role-playing, not just standard Call of Cthulhu. This concept is brought to fruition quite well within issue #19. Not only do you get some of the to-be-expected style content for Call of Cthulhu, you also get content for Trail of Cthulhu and Deltra Green and a new ultra-light rules system called Cthulhu Dark. The best part about all this is that everything is in the style of the Cthulhu Mythos and can be farmed for all aspects of Cthulhu gaming. The Unspeakable Oath continues to be the ultimate handbook for Cthulhu role-playing.

OVERALL

I love the direction The Unspeakable Oath continues to take. It does a wonderful job of incorporating new Mythos material while expanding upon existing material. It also shows love for the entire gambit of Cthulhu role-playing by incorporating Delta Green, Trail of Cthulhu, Cthulhu Dark, and reviews that focus on content outside of Call of Cthulhu in addition to the Call of Cthulhu content. I’m truly looking forward to perusing future issues.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 10 out of 10 The Unspeakable Oath is a beautiful magazine. The layout is wonderful, the formatting is superb, and the illustrations are beautiful; I especially love the covers they continue to use. This magazine sets an excellent standard for those looking to create similar products that incorporate a multitude of content. Also, this format of product allows you to obtain a lot of valuable content at an extremely low price.

Mechanics: 10 out of 10 What mechanics within The Unspeakable Oath 19 are perfect, especially Cthulhu Dark. They do a perfect job of grasping the Cthulhu Mythos and its inherent concepts through new spells and bestiary along with presenting a number of great objects to seed your adventures.

Value Add: 8 out of 10 The Unspeakable Oath 19 has a ton of content for the Keeper, but very little content for the player. I understand the desire to present tools and scenarios the Keeper can quickly and easily incorporate into the regular game sessions, but offering a little love to the players is a good way to keep them coming back to the magazine. This is especially difficult if the Keeper plans on running one of the given articles inside the magazine and ensures the players do not read it. However, there is still a lot of great, valuable content.

Overall: 9 out of 10 The Unspeakable Oath is a great way to get your Cthulhu Mythos fix for a low price. For Keepers, it presents you with a ton of great content for your regular game sessions without having to buy piles of expensive books. While creating your own is rewarding and a lot of fun, sometimes the rushed Keeper needs something fast. With the incorporation of non-standard Call of Cthulhu content, Arc Dream Publishing and the crew is showing how much they appreciate all aspects of Cthulhu role-playing and not just the one system that started it all.