I Want to run a scenario in the Balkans (Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Albania, B&H, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia, etc)

[YanYi]

How can I find some scenarios setting in these place? Very interested in these place.

Yet some of them are new countries, maybe it's difficult to find resources or expansion about them?

[Nick Brooke]

The best resource I know for finding scenarios in a particular place is the excellent Miskatonic Playhouse scenario map, qv.

[Mister Wonderful]

Horror on the Orient Express has a few chapters set in Southeastern Europe and, as your luck roll would have it, is available at a heavy discount at the moment.

iirc the Scenario "The Auction" is set in Vienna (if you want to count Vienna to the Balkan already) but as far I know there is not a huge amount of backgroundinformation for that area.

[1d8+DB]

If you were doing Pulp you could always invent a 'country', ala Ruritania . Its really about the atmosphere; some villagers making the sign against the 'evil eye',  a crumbling pile of a church, the ruins of a haunted Roman villa. The only significant history is what the scenario requires; who broke the veil between  realities, and how, how it must be undone, and how long ago.

Anything else  is fluff.

Unless of course you have the bad luck to have an historian at your table! 😉

[Raleel]

Some of them are no longer countries too, referring to Yugoslavia. 
 

I would start with a time period you want to look at and go from there. There have been many changes over the years and continue to be. The ethnic and religious divisions can mean more than the nationality ones. 

[tzunder]

On 7/20/2024 at 3:07 AM, YanYi said:

How can I find some scenarios setting in these place? Very interested in these place.

Yet some of them are new countries, maybe it's difficult to find resources or expansion about them?

Are you wanting to run them now or in the 20s and 30s?

If now, then some are new countries on the face of it, but have deep roots - at first in the Greek World, then the Eastern Roman Empire, then the Byzantine Empire (which I am going to view as different), then the Ottoman Empire and then some periods of massive ethnic, political and military conflict in the 20th Century.

If you want to scope ideas for the 1900-1935 period, I am going to suggest you read the novels by Eric Ambler, since he listened to and wrote down tales from the people that lived through momentous and terrible changes in the Balkans. They are also great adventure thriller stories with mysteries that could easily be tweaked to Mythos.. or even non Mythos.. horror.

Start here: 

A Coffin for Dimitrios https://amzn.to/4fxqxQ5 aka the Mask of Dimitrios https://amzn.to/3SAareU

The Intercom Conspiracy https://amzn.to/3SClyUr

Uncommon Danger https://amzn.to/4duSy9q

 

Supplement with Wikipedia and then tread very very carefully.. it's a tricky web of ethnicity, religion and histories that contradict and overlap..

[Atgxtg]

Chances are you won't find many scenarios for those places. One of the things about far away exotic locals is that the reason why they are exotic to us is becuase they are far away and  we don't know or read much about them. So they are less likely to come up in casual adventures. So what there is out there would either be very little, or written by locals, probably in their own languages. 

You could always take an existing adventure and relocate it to the Balkans. You would have to research the area, people and history a little to pull that off, but then you are going to have to do that anyway to run adventures in the Balkans.

 

 

[Nozbat]

I think @tzunder's post is useful, and although would take a bit of research, most fruitful. I tend to do lots of research anyways, even with published scenarios. Wikipedia is my friend and has lots of strange people who would have likely been cultists for real.

The classic adventure, Fungi from Yoggoth, has an episode in Transylvania which I recall being much fun with my players. Sadly, I don't think it's in print anymore though and needs some updating if you're using 7e as it came out in the early to mid 80s.

Failing that, after research of the area you want, transport some existing scenario to the Balkans, changing the names and locations as mentioned by @Atgxtg. I've done that so many times as I tended to use Ireland/ UK as the base for any Cthulhu campaign rather than the US.

[Atgxtg]

Due to BRP being different from most other RPGs, I tend to adapt stuff from other games too, if it suits whatever I'm trying to run at the time. And vice versa.  It's usually not all that hard to swap out the stat blocks for "Deranged Cultist and "Shoggoth" with those from CoC. 

I suspect any RPG stuff related to the Balkans is either going to be horror or espionage/cold war/counter terrorist related. Scenarios may or may not be directly useful, but maps, place, names and cultural info would still be helpful. But then I've used The Bermuda Triangle supplement more for James Bond than for Call of Cthulhu. 

That said, I dis a quick search through my RPG stuff and found precious little on the area, and what I didn't find wasn't of much help for a CoC adventure (even the Dracula stuff wasn't helpful). The CORPS Worldbook 1992 was perhaps the most useful, and it's both out of print, and easily replaced by the CIA World Fact Book (a good website for general information on any country). 

Edited August 4 by Atgxtg

[Richard Watts]

On 7/20/2024 at 12:07 PM, YanYi said:

How can I find some scenarios setting in these place? Very interested in these place.

In addition to the suggestions above, I'd recommend taking a look at Dracula, the Great Old One - a Zgrozy supplement on the Miskatonic Repository (Transylvania is culturally part of the Balkans though not geographically), and the bonus scenario 'People of the Monolith' in Shadows of Yog-Sothoth (set in Hungary, so not technically in the Balkans but could be easily relocated). 

From the way you've posed your question, it sounds like you're looking to run scenarios set in the modern era - nonetheless, I'd advise reading up on traditional Balkan folklore, ghost stories etc as well as histories of the various countries you mention to get some scenario or campaign inspiration. Have fun!

[tzunder]

On 8/4/2024 at 5:34 PM, Atgxtg said:

One of the things about far away exotic locals

Is that you are exotic and far away to them..

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, tzunder said:

Is that you are exotic and far away to them..

Pretty much.

It makes me wonder is there are people on a forum in the Balkans taking about running adventures for one of their RPGs in far away and exotic New Jersey. 

 

[10baseT]

@YanYi The Cthulhu Dreadfuls have several scenarios in the Austro-Hungarian empire circa 1890s, in the fictional Wystdovja Vale. There's 2 scenarios and their gazetteer is free. I enjoyed these. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/327247/cthulhu-dreadfuls-presents-1-kiss-of-blood 

Edited August 16 by 10baseT

[YanYi]

On 8/4/2024 at 4:02 PM, tzunder said:

Are you wanting to run them now or in the 20s and 30s?

If now, then some are new countries on the face of it, but have deep roots - at first in the Greek World, then the Eastern Roman Empire, then the Byzantine Empire (which I am going to view as different), then the Ottoman Empire and then some periods of massive ethnic, political and military conflict in the 20th Century.

If you want to scope ideas for the 1900-1935 period, I am going to suggest you read the novels by Eric Ambler, since he listened to and wrote down tales from the people that lived through momentous and terrible changes in the Balkans. They are also great adventure thriller stories with mysteries that could easily be tweaked to Mythos.. or even non Mythos.. horror.

Start here: 

A Coffin for Dimitrios https://amzn.to/4fxqxQ5 aka the Mask of Dimitrios https://amzn.to/3SAareU

The Intercom Conspiracy https://amzn.to/3SClyUr

Uncommon Danger https://amzn.to/4duSy9q

 

Supplement with Wikipedia and then tread very very carefully.. it's a tricky web of ethnicity, religion and histories that contradict and overlap..

 

On 8/5/2024 at 12:34 AM, Atgxtg said:

Chances are you won't find many scenarios for those places. One of the things about far away exotic locals is that the reason why they are exotic to us is becuase they are far away and  we don't know or read much about them. So they are less likely to come up in casual adventures. So what there is out there would either be very little, or written by locals, probably in their own languages. 

You could always take an existing adventure and relocate it to the Balkans. You would have to research the area, people and history a little to pull that off, but then you are going to have to do that anyway to run adventures in the Balkans.

 

 

Thanks for your advice! Recently I've reading some novels of Ismail Kadare, something inside inspired me to create a scenario. Maybe I can test an Albanian Scenario with my friends later.

[chaosbadger]

Hey!

I am originally from Romania, but moved away in my early 20s. While Romania is not one of the "core" Balkan countries, it does share enough of the cultural heritage that it counts, I'd say.

In that regard, I've written two scenarios for Call of Cthulhu 7E set in Romania in the (very chaotic) early 1990s. They both deal with the legacy of communism in different ways. You can find them here:

• Baba Dochia
• Archives of Terror
• (or as a bundle): Romanian Horrors for Call of Cthulhu [BUNDLE]

I've also written a more extensive "sourcebook" for playing CoC in Romania. It provides broad sketches for playing in different eras (from the Roman occupation through the Middle Ages to the Communist period, etc.). It also includes a collection of monsters, tomes, and plot seeds inspired by Romanian culture. This was written for the (free) Cthulhu Eternal system (as it's become my go-to for d100 role-playing). You can find this one here:

• Romanian Mythos: Sourcebook of Horrors for Lovecraftian RPGs

Hope these can help you brainstorm some ideas.

Edited August 19 by chaosbadger