Has Chaosium Finally Created the Next Masks of Nyarlathotep?

A duology of adventure books from Chaosium may provide Call of Cthulhu fans with the newest long-term canon campaign, albeit based in a location that most people would never expect.

The Sutra of Pale Leaves - Twin Suns Rising is the latest volume of Call of Cthulhu scenarios published by Chaosium. The book was written by Sons of the Singularity (a Japan-based indie RPG publishing house operated by Jesse Covner and Jason Sheets) and published by Chaosium. The book centers on 1980s Japan, a period of history where computers and cellphones are becoming reality. Japan has begun to flourish economically in a “bubble economy” and the cultural artifacts that we identify with the region are becoming better known worldwide.

Twin Suns Rising stands out from most Call of Cthulhu scenario collections for two reasons: It’s not based in the 1920s-30s, and it is based in Japan, which loves Call of Cthulhu more than Western audiences.

It’s also a series of scenarios focused on The King in Yellow, an eldritch entity created by Robert W. Chambers in the book of the same name from 1895. The King, like other Lovecraftian entities of the Mythos, is a creature existing outside of space and time. But what’s made him particularly unique is how he uses fiction to interact with our world. The original book tells the story of a script named The King in Yellow and how it changes and corrupts people as they interact with the text. The book is considered a significant inspiration for Lovecraft, who weaves references to the King into his original books.

Twin Suns Rising tries to bring the King in Yellow to Japan, where he seeks to enter our world through “alternative media like Japanese books and writings, multi-user dungeons, comics and so forth,” Call of Cthulhu creative director Mike Mason told TTRPG Insider.

There’s something to be said about placing the King mythos in the 1980s since it was a period when people were experimenting with various media types. The modern internet didn’t exist yet, but computer games, manga, television, and lots of other forms of media did. People were reconsidering their relationship with the media and how it informed and entertained them.

Mason and associate editor Keris McDonald were cautious about providing spoilers regarding the campaign when we talked about the new book, leaving many of Twin Sun Rising’s ideas about how the King in Yellow might affect or corrupt reality vague and unclear. The pair of designers did note that there is a new approach to madness within the books that matches the King’s particular style of corruption, but declined to say much more without spoiling the book’s content.

They did note that Twin Suns Rising and the follow-up volume, Carcosa Manifest, contain threads that could lead to storytellers and players finding a chance to build a longer campaign than the average set of Cthulhu scenarios.

Call of Cthulhu’s Approach to Campaigns

Call of Cthulhu is a game where the players enter expecting to die. Whether they are facing off with fishmen at Innsmouth, fighting cultists in Berlin, or investigating the summoning of ancient entities in Brazil, Call of Cthulhu’s investigators rarely survive their encounters with the Mythos, Chaosium’s term for the monstrosities beneath the sea. They face a high risk of dying or losing their minds to madness as they get closer and closer to the abominations that they face.

Don’t worry, though. It’s an inherent part of the story, especially since Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying system is more lethal than Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

That, alongside other decisions, appears to have led to Chaosium and other Chaosium-adjacent writers creating shorter collections of scenarios and stories rather than providing longer-term campaigns akin to Curse of Strahd or Kingmaker. The two exceptions are Masks of Nyarlathotep and Horror on the Orient Express, two world-spanning campaigns where players are asked to travel the world, investigate occult activity, and hopefully stop a greater evil from destroying the world.

Masks, which I consider the iconic Call of Cthulhu campaign, was initially published in 1984 but updated several times throughout the game’s history to keep up with the game’s changing ruleset. The iconic campaign was last updated in 2018 to match the 7th Edition ruleset and published in a two-volume set. It’s a long journey around the world while the players are trying to stop Nyarlathotep as mentioned earlier from entering our world and screwing things up! Hopefully you can keep your mind in the process.

Mason confirmed that Twin Suns Rising and Carcosa Manifest can be run together as a modular campaign and that the Sons of Singularity have written it with that design in mind. Both books have guidance for how to connect the scenarios presented in the books, although the timeline is more interchangeable than Orient Express or Masks. They also provide unique systems and story beats that help to intertwine the narratives and help storytellers to form a coherent and engaging narrative through the books.

“Certain scenarios work better as beginnings, and certain ones work better as endings,” Mason emphasized. “But in the middle, it's really dealer's choice. You can choose to focus on the ones that you want to focus on as a [storyteller] or you can give the players more freedom to choose.”

“[The Sutra of Pale Leaves will give players and keepers a very meaty campaign with lots of things going on and with a definite sense of completion even if it's a tragic fail at the end,” Mason emphasized.

The two books contain three scenarios each, which could be run as one-shots or spread across multiple sessions to create a modular campaign. Masks, in contrast, are estimated to take between twenty and forty sessions to complete (although this number will depend on your storyteller and playstyle.)

But if you are looking for a Call of Cthulhu campaign with a different flavor, give The Sutra of Pale Leaves a look.

Thanks to Mason and McDonald for chatting with me!

If you want to get your hands on The Sutra of Pale Leaves, Twin Moons Rising is currently available on the Chaosium store as of June 11. The second volume, Carcosa Manifest, is expected to be released in the second half of 2025.