This particular adventure sets the players up to investigate the mysterious death of an Archaeologist and the disappearance of the mummy he'd brought back to the museum in NYC. This is a pretty classic set-up and sounds less intriguing than it actually is. One of the nice features of this one is that its written so you can play it as a standard murder mystery (with the "Mummy's Curse" theme as a classic red herring to drag across the investigators' trail), or as a horror/Call of Chtulhu type adventure where things "man is not meant to know" get involved. The mystery itself (who killed the professor) is confusing enough and with enough potential suspects, all with valid motives that the biggest fan of Agatha will find themselves intrigued by the puzzle. If it turn out to be a supernatural explanation, why the mummy did it, but then the task becomes the even more daunting one of tracking down the creature and rendering it harmless. Throughout the adventure, both tracks are provided and there is a brief but well-written guide on how to run a classic mystery story at the beginning of the scenario. Overall, it's well plotted, loose enough to avoid "rail-roading" the adventurers, and complex enough to remain interesting right up to the bitter end. Among other advantages to this type of scenario, it might provide an excellent transition from the more standard mystery adventures to something with occult or supernatural tendencies. If you have run your players as, say, a firm of PIs investigating mob hits and "Maltese Falcons" and the like, this would be an superior adventure to let them glimpse things "beyond the veil." Just a thought....

A mystery with a possible supernatural twist to keep the players guessing. While written for d20, it can easily be adapted to any other mechanics as the adventure provides all the npcs, their motivations, and possible innocence or guilt. What MAY be a challenge for the Game Master was while there was great stat-blocks for the NPCs and explanations what they have been up to, as well as twists depending on if you are running the scenario as murder mystery or supernatural mystery, there was no real hints on how to role play the character except what you could extract from their description. It would have been nice to have some roleplay notes (ex. Reginald Pierce - is he distracted all the time, absent minded, cries alot due to the death at his museum, any of these could help a Game Master know how to best play this NPC). Even a simple description outside of their occupation and gender would have been nice (tall, thin, short, pudgy, brown hair, blonde, blue eyes, brown eyes, etc.). So while a great story with good NPCs, I cannot give it full 5 stars without further fleshing out of the characters the PCs must interact with on a some-what persistent basis.

A well written invetigative adventure, somewhat light in action for a pulp adventure, and all the action is end loaded (ie. at the end of the adventure). As a change in pace in a traditional pulp campaign this would serve really well. If run as a one off, or as an introduction to a campiagn I would suggest adding an action scene of some sort before the main adventure.

The handouts are really well written, the adventure makes good sense and the NPCs are interesting.

Best of all the adventure is written with two alternative explanations for the events - a supernatural explanation and a mundane one. Throughout the adventure guidance is given for each stream. This works really well.

Not quite what I expected, but a very welcome addition to my little pulp collection

Solid adventure, with plenty of hooks and space for customization if you want. In fact, this is two adventures in one, as the events can have either a mundane or supernatural explanation, and only the last encounter really changes.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The dual nature is brilliant. Even if a player has read it, they can't be sure if the mummy is real or not.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

The spirit of the Pulp Era is alive and well with THRILLING TALES! I am not a 'd20' fan, but I purchased this for other Pulp rules.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The adventure!<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: N/A<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>