The Spawn has flavor. Southwestern flavor, grit, and flair, to be specific. It's a grimy, pulpy game with a lot to offer. You speak with magical Natives, you meet psychic worm monsters, you can even participate in ending worker oppression if you want. Mine was run as a gritty, seedy pulp romp with elements of mystery and Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane. I really upped the Yig-connected elements with the Xuntani, and when I read about the Beasleys and their slimy pornographic habits, my mind ran wild with it and I made them the most twisted pedophilic perverted horror-monsters this side of Errol Childress (of True Detective infamy, he was the "Yellah King" in that series). They were true slimeballs, so I made them true slimeballs, and it left my players disturbed as all hell. One of my favorite moments was when they found William Beasley's box of awfulness in his closet. I described the other boxes blandly, insipidly, boringly... all save for that one box in the corner. "What's in that box?" Asked one trusting, naive player innocently. "Oh, well why don't you open it, and while you're at it, roll SAN for me?" The resulting string of horrified Fuck fuck fucks from that player was very, very satisfying. That same player later told me he had to leave and wash his hands in the bathroom, he literally felt that unclean and disturbed by a single description with mercifully minimal detail (I'm not that big of a monster!). Yet more proof that less is more in describing things, and that not all horror comes from the big tentacled slimy thing.
Of course, that's not to say the entire thing was all horror. I had fun throwing in pulp elements as well - they were ambushed in their hotel rooms after they came back from their trip with Dr. Freeborn, finding the rooms ransacked. They were woken up by the sound of Jose having instigated a huge riot. They had narrow escapes and near-misses with almost meeting Norman Crawford, and they still have not met the Beasleys themselves (they're going to next session - right in the middle of a ceremony to the Cthonians to boot). That's not to say my players weren't crafty little fucked up bastards themselves. They stole Fischer's Cthulhu statue which causes terrible nightmares, then palmed it off on Dr. Freeborn. They killed a man with a salvaged Mi-go ice gun from last session, and dumped his body out the window where it shattered. They psychologically tortured the would-be ambushers with the slimy remains of a melted Mi-go by forcing them to drink (entirely harmless) ink and then showing a severed arm being lowered into the actual goo and dissolving. Yeah, you better believe I took Sanity for them being that fucked up; my players' characters are really not nice people in this game... and it's working out brilliantly. They got away with all of this simply because the police were busy with the riot, which made it all too easy for them. I plan to smash that reality, quite brutally, if they try such things again in another town.
The Spawn has a lot of great prop moments for those of you who love making things like I do, my favorite pieces were the IWW poster, Crawford's lab notes, and the kiva drawing - such fun! i even made samples of ore from the two mines, which fooled one of my players into believing they were real schist with real copper streaks. I can only imagine what a Xuntani star would look like, should some Keeper make that. Seriously, if you love prop-making, this campaign is ripe for it, from the Native American artifacts to the newspaper clippings, George Fischer's Cthulhu statuette to the Beasley's disturbing notes. You will enjoy it, and it will be a great creative exercise. Maybe stray away from making a prop involving anything explicit from the Beasley manor, though - I myself had to stop myself from creating a mocked-up page from The 120 Days of Sodom, because I reasoned that was probably pushing my players' gag reflexes JUST a bit much.
In playing the campaign, it's very smooth. Surprisingly so, even. Everything nicely segues into each other, and there's tons of hard moral choices your players must make to get to the clues. That said, there is still a lot of stuff your players will not get to in The Spawn. Mine never saw the Mine Owners' Association meeting. They never brought Jose with them. They never tried to break into the mining HQ at night. They never tried to get jobs as miners. Don't stress yourself - plan out a route, and try to guide the players down it with clues. You should, absolutely, have them go dig up the graves, head to the mining HQ, go with Dr. Freeborn (they will die otherwise, and brutally), get to the Beasley manor, and meet the Cthonians. Probably in that order. By any means necessary, and there's a lot of way to make it happen, start a riot. Have the riot act as cover for them, in fact, make them do dubious things so they have to use the riot as cover. It's an excellent way to force players to explore their characters' morals, evaluate their slowly dwindling Sanity as they do ever more depraved things to find answers, and ultimately question if they're really any better than the beasts they're up against, both human and inhuman. He who fights monsters, after all...
If there's a flaw I have with The Spawn, it's that it may be a tad difficult for newcomers or for people who play legally-bound characters. It takes a little moral dubiousness and an adventurous spirit to deal with the themes and plot this one uses, so let your players know accordingly. Chaosium says this is a start point if you run The Great Old Ones as a campaign, and I'd have to say I very much disagree with that. Rather, it's better the players have one or two smaller adventures under their belts first before they tackle this one. If they don't, it may well eat their unwary, unknowing characters alive. If that's not your intent, give them a fairer shot. I ran Dead Man Stomp and The Madman before this one, both good starter points for new characters and a great way to help establish characters. That way, when the Cthonians burn them alive, it will be all the more horrible for the survivors. Nope, this is not a campaign for nice Keepers - which should be nobody who Keeps, hopefully.
All in all, I love this campaign to bits. Love it, love it. It took some convincing from it and some actual time, but I found it growing on me and really have come to love Jose Green, Dr. Freeborn, even the slimy Beasleys for the characters they are and the story they have to tell. It's an excellent pulp game for more experienced players and really has a unique setting you don't see in most CoC modules. Really, how many can you name that, without tweaking, take place in the American southwest, where things are just a bit grittier and a bit more dubious? The desert and its mountains hide many secrets, friends, and they're just waiting to be discovered. Give this one a shot, but be sure to flesh the NPCs out. You will get a lot out of it if you throw details in, make the NPCs more 3D, and make the props by hand. A great campaign, highly recommended. 8.5/10 radioactive Xuntani Uranium stars.