Welcome to Call of Cthulhu! If you have ever been  enthralled by a ghost story or spellbound at a horror movie, you are in for a treat. Part the veil that separates frail humanity from the terror that lurks beyond space and time. Investigate forgotten ruins, haunted woods, and nameless menaces.Enter the world of Call of Cthulhu.This game was first published in 1981. At that time, three major national awards were issued in the United States for excellence in game design. Call of Cthulhu won all three. It spawned foreign language editions in Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish. Supplements to this game have won more than fifty major awards, in the U.S. and internationally.In 1996 Call of Cthulhu was chosen for the Origins Hall of Fame, gaming's most prestigious award.My introduction to H. P. Lovecraft was as a child, when I found a tattered book of stories, printed for the use  of servicemen during World War II. I read that book in bed that night, and become entranced forever. If you, too, love Lovecraft's stories, you can now experience the Cthulhu Mythos in a new way. What would you have done in the place of Lovecraft's intrepid heroes? Could you have solved the sinister Whateley mystery? Would you have been able to save the world from the nightmare of the deep ones? Could you face shoggoths without going mad? Now you can find out!  — Sandy Petersen.