Cthulhu by Gaslight is a supplement for Chaosium's popular roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu.
Overview[]
Giving options for play in Victorian England, Cthulhu by Gaslight was first published as a boxed set in 1986. It included details of all aspects of life during Victorian times, a map of London, character sheets and a complete period-appropriate adventure, The Yorkshire Horror.
A second edition was released in 1989, this time in book-only format. This release saw the addition of an article on world politics of the era, extra maps and a guide to cockney slang, amongst other things.
In 2012, a third edition was released, edited by Kevin Ross and featuring additional content by Ross, Scott David Aniolowski, Dave Hallett and Glyn White. As noted in the introduction to the third edition, this saw the book expanded by almost 50%, losing most of the Sherlock Holmes material and adding new material about the Victorian world, crime, politics, personalities and more, including new sections on the Cthulhu Mythos in Britain (such as Ramsey Campbell's Severn Valley setting) and a gazetteer of British myths and legends. The third edition also included two new scenarios, "The Night of the Jackals" by Kevin Ross and "The Burnt Man" by Richard Watts. First released in print, it is currently only available in PDF and ebook formats.
A fourth edition of Cthulhu by Gaslight was published for Chaosium's 7th edition Call of Cthulhu in 2024, starting with the Cthulhu by Gaslight Investigators Guide, released globally on 20 November 2024 after pre-release copies were made available[1] at a number of gaming conventions. The latest edition was written by Keris McDonald and Mike Mason with contributors including William A. Barton and Kevin Ross, and provides expanded information about the British class structure (including playing working class investigators), information about death and mourning in the Victorian age, LGBTQI+ life in the Victorian age, and science, pseudoscience and the occult. The Gaslight Investigators' Guide also expands the game setting to include the British Empire and the USA in the Gaslight period, with an appendix summarising the 7th edition Call of Cthulhu rules to facilitate game play in the setting. An accompanying Cthulhu by Gaslight Keepers' Guide is due for release in early 2025.[2]
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