The Mythos Roams Wild

AFRICA: Long known as the Dark Continent, Africa strikes fear in the hearts of civilized Westerners for its savage tribes, fierce animals, impenetrable jungles, vast deserts, lost civilizations, slave traders, contagious diseases — and the unknown.

Africa is „dark” because it is a mystery. It is the least understood, most dangerous, poorest, and least explored of the six inhabited continents. Disease, beast, and savage pose effective barriers to exploration. A scarcity of navigable rivers means that the only way to chart the interior savanna, jungle, and desert is to walk. Accurate maps of the Dark Continent must wait until the end of the nineteenth century.

Now this mysterious place is opening to the Western world. Railways begin to connect cities. New medicines keep explorers from dropping dead before they make their discoveries. Settlements where crops can be grown are being established in the interior. Africa is becoming accessible, yet much remains mysterious and still very dangerous.

In America and Europe the Cthulhu Mythos hides in cellars, old houses, crumbling castles, and forgotten caves. In Africa it roams wild, hunting in the wilderness and thriving in lost cities. Cults worshipping the Mythos are more prominent here, and the extent of their powers is vast.

„Secrets of Kenya” introduces a portion of this vast and varied continent — three times the size of the United States, with a ratio of four Africans to every American alive during this era. Kenya provides a setting that can be both familiar and foreign. Settled by Great Britain in the 1900’s it is an English-speaking colony where all the trappings of home can be found in the capital of Nairobi. Beyond Nairobi’s limits, much of Kenya remains unexplored and virgin territory for investigations, and hidden horrors.

The first half of this book provides a civil, cultural, political, geographical, and Mythos tour of Kenya during the 1920’s and 1930’s, the remainder offers four longer adventures using this background. The majority of the material in this book is factual, though locations have been elaborated on for game play. Familiar resources such as police files, newspapers, libraries, and museums are harder to come by. When they are present, diminished resources are all that investigators can expect.