Pelgrane Press has opened its occult archives for a massive new Bundle of Holding offer. Running until 7 April, the Trail of Cthulhu Megabundle provides over $269 worth of Lovecraftian roleplaying game material powered by the investigative GUMSHOE system.
Designed by Kenneth Hite and Robin D. Laws, Trail of Cthulhu shifts the focus of mystery roleplaying games. In the GUMSHOE system, players are never stonewalled by a failed dice roll while searching for a core clue; they automatically find the evidence. The gameplay focuses instead on how the investigators interpret those clues and how they survive the terrifying cosmic truths they uncover. Characters must balance their physical health against Sanity, which measures their blissful ignorance of reality, and Stability, which tracks their mental resilience in the face of the Mythos.
The tabletop roleplaying game is set against the backdrop of the 1930s, allowing Keepers to tune their campaigns towards either lurid, two-gun pulp action or bleak, purist cosmic despair.
While Pelgrane Press successfully crowdfunded a Second Edition of Trail of Cthulhu in late 2024 (expected to release fully in 2026), this Megabundle focuses on the sprawling First Edition product line. Crucially, the publisher has confirmed that all First Edition supplements and scenarios remain wholly compatible with the forthcoming Second Edition rulebook. To assist with the transition, the bundle includes the free Second Edition Quickstart guide.
The Starter Collection
For $17.95 (retail value $128), players receive the complete starter set of DRM-free ebooks.
- Trail of Cthulhu First Edition corebook (Includes the 2E Quickstart)
- Hideous Creatures (A 370-page bestiary presenting Mythos entities from contradictory angles to keep players guessing)
- Out of Time (Four century-spanning adventures, from the trenches of the Great War to atomic tests on Bikini Atoll)
- Out of Space (Five adventures spanning the globe and nightmarish alternate realities)
- Out of the Woods (Five investigations exploring the hidden, primordial horrors of the forest)
- Shadows Over Filmland (A sourcebook blending classic 1930s cinematic horror with the Mythos)
- Rough Magicks (A treatise on magic for both investigators and Mythos creatures)
- Keeper’s Resource Book and Screen
The Bonus Collection
Those who pay more than the threshold price (currently around $36.85) level up to receive seven additional titles worth a further $141. Three of these titles are completely new to the Bundle of Holding platform.
- Fearful Symmetries (A campaign supplement focused on the magical revival in 1930s England, rooted in the folklore of William Blake)
- Book of the New Jerusalem (A companion occult guide to 1930s England)
- Cthulhu Apocalypse (A survival horror supplement where the Great Old Ones have already risen and destroyed the world)
- Eternal Lies (A massive, globe-trotting epic campaign in the style of Horror on the Orient Express)
- Cthulhu City (A surreal urban horror setting where the Mythos openly rules Great Arkham)
- Mythos Expeditions (Ten journeys into the blank spaces of the map, from the Arctic to the South Pacific)
- The Final Revelation (A collection of purely purist scenarios where there is no escape and no salvation)
This offer seals the archives at midnight Pacific time on Tuesday, 7 April.
