# Lovecraft's Revenge *Created:* 2026-10-05, *Modified:* 2026-10-19 ![[Lovecraft's Revenge (cover).jpg|600]] Old gods, forbidden knowledge, and the slow realization that the universe does not care — but this time the people wandering in may not wander out. **Lovecraft's Revenge** takes the [[Two-Hour Wargames|Two Hour Wargames]] engine and points it squarely at the Mythos: a Lovecraftian horror skirmish game where your figures aren't heroes so much as folks who dug a little too deep, driven mad by knowledge never meant for mortal minds. The horror is procedural rather than narrated — the game itself conjures everything that comes at you, and the dread is a mechanic you can roll your way out of, or fail to. ## Setting It's the world HP Lovecraft built, in a New England town you'll come to know far too well. An adventure — a **Story** — unfolds over scenes at named **Locations**: **Downtown**, with most of the town's businesses and people; **The Coast**, its docks and cliff-side houses; and the **University**, a self-contained community boasting a huge library and a medical school. Each is a place with a mind of its own, and there's no game master to blame — the game generates what you find, from **PEFs** (Possible Enemy Forces) you're not yet sure are real, to cultists reading from a book that really should have stayed shut. Creatures and Deities of the Mythos walk these scenes, and just standing before them is its own hazard. ## Mechanics The engine is the family's — the [[Chain Reaction]] / Reaction System, with **Reputation**, **2d6 taken-versus-Rep**, the **In Sight** test, and **Will to Fight** — but nearly every table has been re-cut to sit in the horror register. The signature is the **Sanity/Insanity** mechanic: a Human takes a **Sanity Test** the first time they enter a haunted Location, first meet a Creature or Deity, or first stumble on an Artifact or horrid Object. Pass 2d6 and you shake it off for good; fail, and you start losing your grip on reality. As you accrue **Insanity Points**, an **Insanity Test** decides how that loss acts on you — at a reduced Rep, because a shaken mind fights worse. Over everything hangs the **Darkness Level** (DL), a rising gauge of how thoroughly the world has turned against the characters. A Story opens at DL 1 + 1/2d6 and creeps upward as things go wrong — leaping +2 once it reaches 6 — making Sanity tests harder, the PEFs more hostile, and the shadows deeper. A **Day Part** cycle ticks visibility forward through the day, and the **PEF** system keeps the solo/co-op engine honest about what's really around the corner: nothing, your imagination, or something with rather too many limbs. Around it sit the rest of the kit — shooting and melee, **magic** (spells like Damage, Dazzle, and Defend, cast the same whether by a cultist or something tentacled), **Challenges** and the **Talk the Talk** social tables, and a **Chase** table for those desperate runs from a pack of ghouls. It plays solo, same-side, or head-to-head, and it doesn't expect your people to survive to the last scene. ## Editions - **Lovecraft's Revenge** (2016) — by Jay Mackesy, edited by Ed Teixeira, art by Paul Kime, **Two Hour Wargames**. *In the library.* ## References - [Two Hour Wargames — official site](https://twohourwargames.com/) - [Lovecraft's Revenge — taking THW to new levels of horror! (Shon's Game Corner)](http://shonsgamecorner.blogspot.com/2016/08/lovecrafts-revenge-taking-thw-to-new.html) - [Solo Adventure — a THW Lovecraft's Revenge mashup (The Wargames Website forum)](https://www.thewargameswebsite.com/forum/topic/solo-adventure-blog-post-using-mashup-of-thw-lovecrafts-revenge-and-my-rules/)