Entering the true gunpowder era now.
First up though, something I missed in part 1, the rough family tree of D100 game style threads.
Runequest 1e > Storm Bringer/Hawkmoon > Call of Cthulhu > Basic Role Play family > RQ Glorantha (RQ1e modernised) > Rivers of London
Call of Cthulhu 1-6e > Delta Green/Laundry Files > CoC 7e
Runequest 2e > RQ 6 > Legend series > Mythra/Mythras Imperative > M-Space etc.
Runequest 2e > Openquest > Clockwork series. > Jackals
D100 lite > Bare Bones series > Frontier Space/Wuxia > Sigil and Shadow
Warhammer 1e > 2e > 4e
Warhammer 1e > Zweihander family.
Rolemaster > MERP > Against the Dark Lord (not covered here, but a D100 roll over option)
D100 games in general inspiring > D100 Dungeon > Mothership > D100 Revolution > Trouble Shooters, Comae Engine etc.
Witchcraft, clockwork science, funny Ye Olde speech and other Horrors.
Clockwork and Chivalry combines vile 17th century witchcraft, clockwork contraptions, funny haircuts and religious disagreements and with Clockwork and Cthulhu, some blasphemous horrors. Based on the Renaissance rules, an Openquest based set, it is wonderfully thematic, clean and straight forward. The same authors also give us Pirates and Dragons and Dark Streets, all cross-compatible, or stand alone.
Pirates of the Caribbean, giant squids, Black Beard and co.
BRP has the less than perfect but thematically sound Blood Tides rules, but Pirates of Legend is better. These two can be meshed, or used as resources for a BRP/Cthulhu based game with a more pulpy feel if desired. Pirates and Dragons adds a whole new dimension making three solid choices that can join to make a better whole (just take what you want and sink the rest, just like pirates do) and P&D can tie in with other Cakebread and Walton titles.
Monster Island is a stand out here. A semi-generic RQ6 supplement, it is a time agnostic, lost world-like monster filled jungle island sandbox that can accomodate any period from high fantasy to modern “Lost” characters. It would be a feature in my Pirates-Samurai-Vikings mixed game, possibly the nexus point.
Four Musketeers style, swashbuckling with big hats, lots of leather etc.
A little work called Sword Point is available in PDF, which has some great ideas to flesh out basically any set for this period. Mythras has the combat crunch, Legend also to some extent as does BRP, so easy enough to do with any or a bit of all. The pirate books above also have many good ideas to add like swinging on things, talking too much while fighting etc.
Brotherhood of the Wolf and early colonial horror like Sleepy Hollow with some Last Of The Mohicans thrown in.
A spin-off from Zweihander, Flames of Freedom is a colonial American inspired historic-fantasy-horror mash up, perfectly placed to handle this style. Fancy hunting Werewolves or Vampires in the midst of the American Revolution, early colonies or French Indian War (Twilight by lamplight!)?
A favourite genre of mine, this is also easily accommodated by any mix of BRP/Cthulhu, Mythras/Legend or Clockwork/Renaissance core and their many support books.
Early police Bow Street Runners style mystery and Jack the Ripper horror in squalid London.
Dark Streets, mentioned above, is made to purpose here. It touches on Cthulhu, or not as suits, has plenty of human horror and can be twisted as you want drawing from the Clockwork series above or straight Cthulhu.
Hard Western, like High Noon, the Spaghetti Westerns, Unforgiven etc.
Aces High and Devil’s Gulch, both from BRP are options. Either will be enough, but together there is plenty to draw from. Both are slim monographs, available in PDF, or second hand print.
Pulpy weird western, strange science and supernatural elements (maybe even aliens).
Down Darker Trails for CoC 7e is ideal, even supporting a pulp play style. You can remove the Cthulhu elements, add other horror or go no supernatural, just add weird science elements. A fun cross-over could be Holmsian mystery meets Cowboy adventures
Pulp Cthulhu goes a long way to softening the usually dark feeling system.
Sherlock Holmes era horror mystery.
CoC 5th to 7th editions have Cthulhu by Gaslight expansions, 7e even includes a basic entry point in the core rules along with modern. They are all usable now and several independent publishers have added support to these lines.
The feel of Gaslight is perfect, pulp is an option as is the Cthulhu connection. The ever present threat of the supernatural, even if never realised, is as good a fear trigger as actual Deep Ones.
The John Carter, Tarzan and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen etc Orwellian/E.R. Burroughs early sci-fantasy books.
BRP alone can do this, Mythras with more “crunch”, either really drawing from the vast array of splat books available.
The very original Odd Soot from Clarence Redd is set a little later than this traditionally, but has a very Orwellian theme with alternate space travel and exotic, remote aliens. The system uses Mythras Imperative, so M-Space from the same author is fully compatible as are most Mythras books.
I have also converted the original Space 1889 game from GDW fairly easily to BRP.
Anthropomorphic alternate history, or Badgers with monocles.
Historica Rodentia is a late 19th century alternate European game using animals instead of human national groups. This is a Legend based game, so again lots of cross-compatibility.
Traditional or non-traditional Call Of Cthulhu in the traditional 1910’s-30’s.
Ground zero for many in D100 land the choices are mind boggling. Seven editions of CoC, all compatible enough to be used as one, hundreds of scenarios, monstrous campaigns, spin-offs, after party support, it would take a life time. I alone have managed to amass over 100 individual CoC scenarios over 4-7e including several years long campaigns. That is what I call support.
It can go lighter with Pulp Cthulhu, add time travel, be generational, or even avoid Cthulhu all together and just do straight adventure or horror. The massive Raiders of R’lyeh goes earlier into the King Kong pre-WW1 period and Cthulhu touches on Indiana Jones pre-WW2 and Japan, Berlin, Tibet, the Amazon and most other exotic locales are covered in detail. This period of D100 games is by far the best supported and largest.
World War 2 with comic book “daring do” or dark, realistic and moody.
Achtung Cthulhu is pulpy and ties into my favourite board game Heroes of Normandie via Shadows Over Normandie (which even has super heroes, a Hellboy clone, traditional Nazi-Gothic horror, foul experiments and the big guy himself).
CoC 5-6th editions were high water marks of growth, spawning (see what I did there), many great games.
It was originally done as a Savage Worlds Explorers edition/Cthulhu 6e cross over product, but I never meshed with the Savage Worlds version, not finding it better for pulp story telling nor faster (a quickly developed 1/10th scale d10 massed combat system even made CoC quicker). Ironically, both systems are now outdated, but the 6e version is easily modified or used as is, the SW version, not so much.
With a very different feel World War Cthulhu is the Ying to AC’s Yang. Dark, brooding, sometimes despairing, it hits a realistic and more traditionally Cthulhu vibe.
It is worth noting Cthulhu Eternal here, a near free resource ($1-2 a pdf) for almost any period of Cthulhu gaming using a clean and modernised D100 core system.
The coldest Cold War and alternatives.
The 1950-60’s with all their paranoia and mist shrouded bridge crossing liaisons, dastardly Communists, the threat of imminent world destruction and emerging sciences are covered by Cold War Cthulhu. As dark as it’s WW2 version, this gives you that post-war Berlin spy trade vibe perfectly.
Something lighter in this space.
If you like something more Tin Tin/Bond/Man from U.N.C.L.E or even Austin Powers, then Trouble Shooters is a great choice. Probably the most contrasting pair of systems thematically, CWC and TS are still basically BRP at heart, one brutal and unforgiving, the other soft and squishy with decidedly and purposefully rose coloured glasses.
Some D100 games are genuinely gentle.
Or something a little different.
Worlds United from Mythras supposes the War of the Worlds happened, changed the shape of the universe as we know it and brings us into an alternate 1950’s to deal with it. This is also similar to Space 1889 (adapted above) in it’s traditional early sci-fi handling of Mars, Neptune etc.
Next up our recent past, now and the future.