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Secrets of New Orleans
 
$9.99
Average Rating:4.6 / 5
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Secrets of New Orleans
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Secrets of New Orleans
Publisher: Chaosium
by Chris D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/14/2020 13:13:53

A decent and reasonably in-depth guide for really fleshing out New Orelans when running scenarios. Keep in mind this is NOT an adventure book, if you are looking for that I recommend Tales from the Crescent City by Golden Goblin Press which is usable without this, however you will get a lot out of either by having both. As a result this more a setting/adventure seed book with one decent adventure in it as a kind of tour of New Orleans. There is a lot of information here for the sub 100 page size of it, both factual and occult, and it does go into Vodoo. The most interesting stuff involves existing secret societies or potential allies like Zora Neele Hurston or the PTSD stricken Joseph D. Galvez. I do have a few minor gripes however. I think the biggest gripe I have is probably the treatment of the voodoo "Loa" by each giving their mythos respective elder god... which is a good idea and a way to tie vodoo with ancient mythos traditions however its implementations feels like trying to shove a round peg into a square hole, aside from Nyarlathotep as Baron Samedi (shown on the cover). The book does state that Voodoo is seperate from Mythos worship and some bokor are very likely to try to work with investigators to get Mythos influenced Bokor from the fold. I would really, really avoid using this bestiary of Loa this aside from maybe 1-2 of the Loa being Mythos influenced and keep it esoterric and mysterious. Do a tiny bit of research, listen to the first Exuma album, and don't directly connect the great old ones to the Loa, or spirits of Voodoo as I feel like it drains some of the originality of the idea and culture.
Keep in mind this is not the rule with the treatment of delicate or cultural subject matter in the book, as it treats just about everything else with research and a tender touch. It even mentions the house of Delphine LaLaurie, an especially skin crawling real life historical example of the horrors of slavery, a story that is just BOUNDING with mythos potential in all ways. (For god sakes it even ends with an angry mob burning down the building)

Chances are if you are buying this book you want to flesh out an existing stay in New Orelans be it running Tell Me Have You Seen the Yellow Sign, or (like me) planning your own set of excursions into New Orelans. It is a veritable ally in that regard. If you are planning to run 1 adventure in New Orelans I wouldn't say it's really worth it unless you can afford dropping an extra $10 on a single adventure. The print edition is rather solid with no complaints, the printing is good enough that it retains the visual texture in the side panels. I would highly recommend buying the PDF with the Print on demand version, as the book does not include maps in the book for easy photocopying. I would recommend a PDF however, unless you feel you will need to go over different areas of New Orelans at the table as your players explore it (in my case).

I do wish there was at least one more adventure, however for $10 ($5.59 as of the current sale) it's not a bad buy.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Secrets of New Orleans
Publisher: Chaosium
by Ryan I. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/04/2017 19:21:39

The Secrets of New Orleans is a great companion for creating a near-real world campaign in 1920's New Orleans. If you were to play Call of Cthulhu in New Orleans this would be a must. You would have to do some converting if you were playing 7th Ed, but not much. I'm using it to run a Savage World's based Noir Game set in New Orleans (I know there is Deadlands Noir, but I didn't want the world to be that far out). It has been super helpful. It covers big topics like Social Stratification, the different groups within New Orleans, many important and weird districs, and deals a bit with the bayou as well. A great read at a resonable price.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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