LOVECRAFT NEVER WARNED US ABOUT THIS BIT

Great Cthulhu lies dreaming beneath the sea.

Normally that is considered unfortunate because, should he awaken, humanity can expect a brief period of screaming followed by considerably less humanity.

Call of Cthentacle identifies another problem.

Cthulhu has been asleep for aeons.

He has tentacles.

And he has woken up in an absolutely filthy mood.

Cue a collection of adventurous investigators attempting to save the world through methods which would have caused H. P. Lovecraft to develop several entirely new phobias.

Call of Cthentacle – The Card Game is a fast, competitive, spectacularly smutty adult card game combining Lovecraftian parody, hentai-style tentacle comedy, terrible puns and direct player-versus-player sabotage.

This PDF edition is the complete print-and-play Cthentacle collection: the original game, all three published supplements, the additional characters, cards and optional rules accumulated across the line, and The Cthentacle Art Book.

Print it. Cut it out. Shuffle it. Try not to leave it open when your mum visits.

ADULTS ONLY. SERIOUSLY.

Cthentacle is an 18+ game.

Not “contains occasional mature humour”. Not “a naughty joke or two”. Not “one card has a rude word”.

It contains explicit sexual humour, hentai-style tentacle material, nudity, fetishes, obscenity and comedy in catastrophically poor taste.

The physical Deluxe edition itself is officially rated 18+.

If any of that is likely to upset you, the title has done everything reasonably possible to provide advance warning.

If it sounds funny, come in. Close the door.

FROM HENTACLE TO CTHENTACLE

Cthentacle developed from Hentacle, but it was redesigned rather than simply reskinned.

The rules were streamlined and simplified, while the game shifted towards more direct competition between players. You are not merely trying to make your own cards work; you are trying to make sure everybody else’s cards don’t.

That means attacking plans, obstructing rivals, throwing unwanted complications into somebody else’s turn and generally ensuring that nobody at the table is allowed to retain their dignity for very long.

Each player is pursuing their own dubious agenda while everyone else tries to bugger it up. Temporary cooperation may occur, but becoming emotionally attached to it would be unwise.

THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

This download brings together the whole published Cthentacle line: Call of Cthentacle, The Dunbitch Horror, At the Mountings of Madness, Spankham Asylum, the additional characters, cards and optional rules from across the complete line, and The Cthentacle Art Book.

The compiled edition was created as the definitive Cthentacle set, bringing every character and every card from every set together with the optional rules.

There is no need to reconstruct a fifteen-year-old indie card-game line through abandoned download pages, extinct retailers and archaeology.

It is all here.

THE DUNBITCH HORROR

Something is wrong in Dunbitch.

More wrong than the name.

Sitting beside Hockamock Swamp, the town is another patch of degenerate Lovecraft country, with suspicious locals, family secrets and the sort of genealogy which eventually stops branching.

The Dunbitch Horror adds Sheriff Cooter and BJ, along with additional cards to expand the original game.

There are secrets in Dunbitch. There are things in the swamp. The locals are remarkably unwilling to explain how closely those categories overlap.

Lovecraft had his Dunwich.

This seemed like the natural deterioration.

AT THE MOUNTINGS OF MADNESS

Eventually, merely playing filthy cards at one another was insufficient.

At the Mountings of Madness broadens the game with an investigation and travel structure leading towards the lost city of O’Riyeh.

The journey runs from Spankham Asylum through Friskatonic University, Innmouth, Dunbitch and The Mountings of Madness, before finally reaching O’Riyeh.

Players gather what they need, move through the investigation and interfere with everybody else attempting to do the same.

The expansion also introduces Bligh and Hostein, giving you two more unfortunate souls to send into circumstances nobody sensible would volunteer for.

Reaching O’Riyeh is the objective.

What happens once you arrive at a cyclopean lost city associated with a sexually frustrated Great Old One is a matter between you, the cards and whatever remains of your judgement.

The important part is that this supplement gives Cthentacle another way to play rather than merely enlarging the original deck.

SPANKHAM ASYLUM

Sooner or later somebody was going to suggest psychiatric treatment.

Spankham Asylum is what happened.

Doctor Karr is attempting to understand a rash of strange tentacular fantasies with assistance from The Patient, expanding the game into therapy, fetishes, straitjackets, tranquillisers and inadvisable encounters with The Book of Eiboner.

This is approximately as scientifically responsible as the title suggests.

The asylum also became part of the wider geography used by the investigation game in At the Mountings of Madness, which seems appropriate.

Many Lovecraft protagonists eventually find themselves confined to institutions after discovering truths mankind was not meant to know.

Cthentacle simply removes the unnecessary delay.

FRISKATONIC UNIVERSITY

A venerable New England institution dedicated to scholarship, discovery and preserving occult books which any responsible librarian would have thrown into a furnace.

The Cthentacle line takes recognisable Mythos names and proceeds to behave disgracefully with them.

Miskatonic becomes Friskatonic. Innsmouth becomes Innmouth. R’lyeh becomes O’Riyeh. The Mountains of Madness become The Mountings of Madness.

Subtle literary humour has not been invited.

The joke depends partly on knowing the source material, but reverence would be fatal.

This is Lovecraft dragged through a dirty postcard rack.

SABOTAGE YOUR FRIENDS

The competitive side is important.

Cthentacle works because the obscenity is attached to an actual game of people doing unpleasant things to one another.

You build towards something. Someone interferes. You retaliate. A third player notices both of you are occupied and decides this is an excellent opportunity to make matters worse.

Plans collapse. Grudges form. Cards acquire personal significance wildly beyond their actual strategic value. Somebody spends three turns seeking revenge for something that happened fifteen minutes ago.

Good.

That is a card game.

The intention is not four people independently playing erotic solitaire until somebody announces a score. You are supposed to be making life difficult for one another.

PUNS. SO MANY PUNS.

There are puns.

Many.

Some are clever. This is statistically unavoidable given sufficient quantity.

Most are deliberately awful.

Lovecraft is unusually vulnerable to this because his stories contain so many names which already sound as though someone began making a dirty joke and then became embarrassed halfway through.

Dunwich. Innsmouth. Miskatonic. R’lyeh. Mountains of Madness.

They never had a chance.

The game attacks them with all the restraint of a drunk writing rude graffiti on a university prospectus.

If groaning at a pun causes you physical distress, approach with caution.

THE ART BOOK IS INCLUDED DIGITALLY

The PDF bundle includes The Cthentacle Art Book, collecting artwork from across the game line without the rules and card information getting in the way.

For some entirely mysterious reason, people occasionally seem interested in this.

The art is part of Cthentacle’s identity. This is not a game where the adult content exists as tasteful implication beneath abstract symbols.

The illustrations know exactly what they are illustrating.

So does the art book.

Those wanting the artwork on dead trees rather than a screen can also buy The Big Bad Cthentacle Art Book in paperback from Lulu.

The paperback edition is 142 pages, full colour, perfect bound and printed at US Letter size.

It is emphatically an adult product too.

Obviously.

WANT ACTUAL CARDS RATHER THAN SCISSORS?

This product is the downloadable print-and-play edition.

You print the cards yourself, cut them out and sleeve or mount them according to taste and tolerance for craft knives.

If you would rather receive professionally manufactured cards without spending an evening turning sheets of paper into several hundred rectangles, there is a physical version.

Cthentacle Deluxe is available in professionally printed hardcopy from The Game Crafter.

The manufactured Deluxe edition is listed for 1–6 players, 30–60 minutes and ages 18+.

Most importantly, it is the comprehensive physical version, bringing together every character, every card from every set and the optional rules in one manufactured collection.

So the choice is straightforward.

Buy this PDF if you want the complete material digitally and are happy to print your own cards.

Buy Cthentacle Deluxe if you want the proper manufactured card-game set.

Buy The Big Bad Cthentacle Art Book if your priorities have become unusually specific.

No judgement.

PRINT AND PLAY HAS ITS ADVANTAGES

Card-game postage is capable of making cosmic horror look financially responsible.

The PDF avoids that.

Print the components locally, replace a damaged card yourself, make another set if necessary and keep a backup somewhere safely away from relatives who might ask awkward questions.

With decent card sleeves, even fairly ordinary home printing can produce an entirely serviceable play set without paying for a box full of cardboard to cross an ocean.

The physical Deluxe exists for people who want the finished object.

The PDF exists for everyone prepared to operate scissors.

Civilisation requires both sorts.

THIS IS NOT CALL OF CTHULHU

Worth making explicit.

Call of Cthentacle is a parody card game.

It is not the famous investigative role-playing game and does not attempt to reproduce its rules.

You will not be carefully managing investigative skills, Sanity points or the slow erosion of the human mind before an incomprehensible cosmos.

Unless repeatedly losing because someone played a particularly revolting card against you counts.

The Mythos provides the scenery, names and victims.

Cthentacle then lowers the tone until it hits bedrock.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

You probably already know whether you are one of the target audience.

Cthentacle is for people who like adult card games, filthy jokes, competitive take-that play, Lovecraftian parody and independent games prepared to behave badly in public.

It also helps if your reaction to the title was laughter rather than a committee meeting.

If you played Hentacle, this is its more polished, more competitive and substantially more Mythos-infested relative.

If you enjoy Lovecraft but do not require every reference to him to be delivered in hushed tones through antique spectacles, you should be fine.

Probably not one for the church social.

Though I do not know your church.

WHAT YOU ARE BUYING

Call of Cthentacle – The Card Game (PDF) is the complete downloadable print-and-play edition of the Cthentacle card-game line.

It includes the original Call of Cthentacle, The Dunbitch Horror, At the Mountings of Madness, Spankham Asylum, the characters, cards and optional material accumulated across the complete line, and The Cthentacle Art Book.

The exact total number of cards is not being invented merely because putting a large number in bold would look impressive.

The useful and verifiable claim is better:

Every character and every card from every Cthentacle set is represented in the complete collection.

For physical copies, Cthentacle Deluxe is available from The Game Crafter, while The Big Bad Cthentacle Art Book is available from Lulu.

The stars are right. Cthulhu is waking. Human civilisation teeters upon the brink.

And somehow this is the plan.

God help us all.