Troubles Afoot! Best put a round in that iron and make haste!
Down Darker Trails takes your Call of Cthulhu games to the badlands of America’s wild west! The era of gold rushes, outlaws, cowboys, discovery, and expansion!
Chaosium Unveiled: Inside Down Darker Trails
Watch the unveiling video to see the book for yourself. Remember that you get the PDF when getting the physical copy.
What’s Inside?
The Mythos manifests in the Old West, your investigators must take to the wilds that make up the lawless lands and fight back against the ancient and unknown evil that haunts the prairie. While the core rules support play with classic Call of Cthulhu, additional rules for Pulp Cthulhu allow you to swing into the line-quipping, guns-blazing action with new enemies, new talents, and new character options!
A History of the Wild West
Captured in text and image is the history of the Old West: famous individuals, playing American Indian heroes, notable places and sites, as well as inspiration and guidance on bringing the terrors and mysteries of the Great Old Ones into your games.
New Character Creation Rules
The investigators of Down Darker Trails stand in stark comparison to those found in Arkham in the 1920s. The book includes rules for Old West investigators, new occupations, new pulp talents, and new skills.
Ready to Play Settings
Two complete towns: the gold-hungry Pawheton, and San Rafael on the Texas border, are fully detailed, providing Keepers with ready-made inhabitants and locales from which to stage campaigns.
Scenarios
Two complete scenarios allow you to jump right into the action, or kick off a new campaign.
Scanlon’s Daughter—a murder mystery set between two feuding Texas ranches.
Something From Down There—join the rescue of a group of missing miners whose digging stirred things best left forgotten.
More in the Down Darker Trails™ line
Can't get enough of the Wild West?
Mozy on over and check out Shadows over Stillwater for ever more fun! We have a full campaign, a stand-alone adventure, Stonegarden - a new locale to explore, and more adventure hooks.
If you have a hankerin' for adventure, look no further.
Downloads for this Product
Keeper Reference and Handouts
Character Sheet (Standard)
What The Critics Say
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"...CoC has been sorely lacking a weird western sourcebook, so I was very pleased to see Kevin Ross and his friends at Chaosium release Down Darker Trails, a massive full-color 256-page hardcover which lovingly brings Mythos horror to the old west... an excellent addition to Chaosium’s catalog"
— Black Gate Magazine, Mythos in the Old West.
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"There’s something about the people and places of the American West - Deadwood, Crazy Horse, Dodge City, Wild Bill Hickok - that just seem to work with the Cthulhu Mythos. Perhaps it’s because the West itself seems as mythic as it does real."
— Little Wars, Holiday Gift Guide 2017.
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"Really, almost everything that you need to start adventuring in the Old, Weird, and Wild is included in this book. So, what are you waiting for?"
— Microphones of Madness, Have Gun will Travel.
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"Does Down Darker Trails succeed in offering background material, locations, non-player characters, Mythos creatures, story ideas, and enough tone, mood, and flavor for a complete Western setting? The answer is yes, unequivocally."
— Reckoning of the Dead, The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful. A review of Down Darker Trails.
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"Down Darker Trails is an exceptional supplement. It corrects a historical injustice by customizing a great system for an era that fits supernatural horror perfectly, and provides ample information, both crunch and fluff-wise to enjoy investigations there… The production values (are) the reference point against which other high-end products should be compared. Full colour everywhere, incredible iconography, excellent choice of old pictures and posters, gorgeous pencils on the non-coloured art, and some amazing imagery…"
— Antonio S., RPG.Net Review.
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"The weird and the west go together well... If you dig westerns and horror, you’ll be happy."
— VintageRPG, Down Darker Trails Review.
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"Down Darker Trails puts the Cthulhu Mythos into a Weird Western setting. The book takes an interesting look at how to integrate Mythos creatures into folklore, provides rules for using the West in 7th Edition and Pulp Cthulhu, how to play Native American characters that go beyond stereotypes and offers a pair of boomtowns to serve as home bases for investigators."
— Forbes, Fight Cthulhu Across Time and Space on your Tabletop.
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"Six-guns and pseudopods await your cowpoke... Keepers will be able to run a campaign for months in the Old West and never run of ideas. And Keepers could try different versions, whether Pulp heavy or Cthulhu light and other options in between... a unique Mythos setting of mesas and mi-gos that shouldn’t be missed."
— Charles Dunwoody, Geek Native, Mythos World: Cowboys and Cthulhu.
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"A phenomenal book... If you want cowboys in the mythos, then you need this - 96%"
— Throatpunch Games, Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Down Darker Trails.
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“Even if, like me, you don’t particularly want to run Mythos adventures in the old west, this is still a great book to have because it is so well written and the genre is immediately understandable to anyone who’s seen a western. Now, grab yer shootin’ irons, ride off into the sunset and head ’em off at the pass!”
— Chaosiana, DOWN DARKER TRAILS Review.
Product Configuration
Physical Product Settings
Is Physical Product: [N]
Has Inventory: [Y]
United States: [Y]
United Kingdom: [Y]
Europe: [Y]
Australia: [Y]
Canada: [N]
Is PDF Available: [Y]
PDF Product Name: [Pulp Cthulhu - PDF]
PDF Product Link: [/pulp-cthulhu-pdf/]
PDF Settings
Has Physical Product: [Y]
Is Physical Available: [Y]
Physical Product Name: [Down Darker Trails - Hardcover]
Physical Product Link: [/down-darker-trails-hardcover/]
Product Footer
Footer Name:
- Version:
- 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu
- ISBN:
- 978-156882-448-2
- Page Count:
- 256
- Format:
- Color PDF
- Authors:
- Kevin Ross, Mike Mason, Scott David Aniolowski, David Cole, and Todd Woods
