Sure is, Generic Investigator With A Limited Lifespan! Here's another review of another CoC supplement - this time "Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?", the last of the three supplements from "The Great Old Ones" I used for my ongoing campaign "Rise of the Old Ones".
The cult is a lot of fun to play with. They are nasty pieces of work, and making the cultists absolutely vile child-murderers and animal killers (they murdered the team pet cat while ransacking the hotel room!) goes a long way towards making your party really want these formidable foes dead, ensuring the two parties tangle constantly and leading to constant attacks on your Investigators. In fact, I had a field day with the cult attacking the Investigators subtly, sending terrible nightmares and stalking them, as well as attacking them outright by ambushes, magical combat, and more than a few very hungry byakhee attacking. More than once my gang found themselves trying to trap their assailants, only to stumble into a trap themselves! The more the gang knows, the more the cult wants them dead, and with someone as on the ball as Voodouin buccor Papa Screech at their head, this cult of the Yellow Sign is incredibly lethal and sure to shock Investigators used to easier targets. You will lose Investigators here, to both death and madness both, or at the very least someone will go Indefinitely Insane in the chaos of Mardi Gras.
If you bring in a little knowledge about Voodouin as a religious belief, New Orleans' spiritual folklore in general, and the history of the place, you will immensely add to this scenario. The semi-comical nature of New Orleans during Mardi Gras is also great for injecting a bit of much-needed humor; many laughs were had and many bizarre scenarios were uncovered. One player's character could never manage to get a single beignet (a fried doughnut hole style treat) no matter what absurd methods he tried, and it was an absolute riot. As for the history and folklore aspects, I never used the name "Hastur" in my version; I connected him to little-known loa Agasou, a spirit in Voodouin connected to royalty and the color yellow. Marigny's home loft was in the infamous LaLaurie House, a place with an unspeakably horrific history of slave torture, murder, and spectral hauntings. I also threw in the occasional extra Mythos reference - Marigny offhandedly mentioning his battle partner Randolph Carter was "always a bit stuck in dream-land" here, a neighbor of Fowler's named Hildred Castagine there - to emphasize the tale's connection to the raid of 1907, which as any good Lovecraft fan knows, is the same raid Inspector Legrasse attended in The Call of Cthulhu. I even threw in True Detective references here and there for good measure (I couldn't resist). As always, be prepared for Investigators to do the unthinkable - I had players capture and interrogate Fowler, go on a wild goose chase through the swamp to catch him when he escaped (causing one PC to lose a hand to a hungry gator), catch him again and then force him to listen to them by implanting a fake explosive under his skin while he was out, and use him as part of the final raid on the cult. I also had people trying to throw dynamite at a byakhee inside of a hotel room, cause a former '07 Raider to end his life because they couldn't leave well enough alone, and attempt to burn Fowler's house down because of the Krewe-made decorations there. Lots of narrow escapes with those ones.
The Raid is a spectacular set-piece, and a hell of a climax - let your party go in guns blazing, bullets flying, spell-casting, and screaming for the cult's demise, do the same with the cultists, and watch the fur fly. Massive cultist, byakhee, police, and Investigator carnage, and guaranteed to be a memorable as all hell session for everyone. Again, you're going to lose people here, so let it happen - let them die cursing Papa Screech with their last breath, or fighting the byakhee about to drop them from high above. It's mass chaos and a hell of a ton of fun to see... just be sure to let Screech escape somewhere down the line, even if he gets captured by them. Screech is a great villain and makes a fun arch-nemesis for the players later on. I plan on his comeback sometime later in my campaign, and it's encouraged you as Keeper do the same. If you do Fowler's party as the climax, I strongly suggest either a big cult shootout with the King causing an additional kink in the plan (and his needing to be dismissed by someone in the party as a result), or blending it with the intriguing supplement "Tatterdemalion" from "Fatal Experiments" as an Investigator De-powering exercise. Either way, blood and SAN loss can be expected to flow freely, and everyone will have a great time regardless.
All in all, this scenario's a hoot and quite good at introducing a change of pace with a time limit. It's runnable as a beginning adventure or for experienced Investigators both, making it a fun and unique addition to any campaign. The more you put into this in terms of history, the better, so there is a lot of Keeper work to do, but I find this to be the case for almost every scenario in "The Great Old Ones". A fun investigative tale with flexible player and Keeper leeway, and definitely worth a look, but I would say it is a bit too open-ended in that the path towards an ending in either case is somewhat unclear. It's probably not a good one to run for new players or by a new Keeper. The other issue with "Yellow Sign" is its extremely slow burn - some players may get frustrated or bored at the slower pace, especially if used to action and quick results. If your gang's like this, I suggest making the cult an even more aggressive threat. Overall, I give this one 7/10 beignets - frustrating and a bit challenging to run/play, but well worth it for the epic battle scenes.