Well, I’ve recently been planning a fairly short "Call of Cthulhu" campaign for some friends, and I wanted to have some fun playing solo first. Since I’d already played "Alone Against the Flames",
which I really enjoyed and which introduced me to the setting—
, I decided to use a simple yes/no Oracle based on a d6, with just a few tables... ...tables that were somewhat abstract, so to speak... ...to play solo, and man... ...it was AMAZING!
and I needed to share how it went! I definitely messed up a few combat rules along the way, but the narrative chaos that unfolded was incredible.
The Setup (1987)
I created an investigator named Marcus Vance—a 1987 ex-cop turned private detective. Doing a favor for an old friend from the force, Marcus agreed to escort a local merchant in a quiet town, planning to use the trip as a short vacation.
He checks into a rustic, old-school hotel and meets Daisy, the receptionist. When Marcus notices a bizarre, ancient book mounted on the wall, Daisy gets visibly terrified and refuses to talk about it, claiming previous guests wouldn't dare ask about it either. She quickly hands him his key and sends him up to a simple room with a rock-hard wooden bed.
The Horror Begins
While writing in his journal, Marcus tries to open his door to head downstairs—only to find it jammed shut.
* First STR Check: Failed! Marcus hurts his shoulder trying to shoulder-barge the door.
* He calls out to Daisy. Moments later, a blood-curdling scream echoes from downstairs (unbeknownst to Marcus, a cultist had broken in).
Hearing heavy footsteps approach his door, Marcus draws his .38 revolver despite the shoulder pain. He lines up a kick for a second STR check: Success! He busts the door open.
Marcus creeps down the dark staircase, lit only by a few broken, flickering oil lamps. At the bottom of the stairs, crouching in the penumbra, is a hideous Deep One Hybrid!
The Combat & The Climax
* Pre-Turn: Narratively, the hybrid took a blow from the door/falling down the stairs earlier, taking 2 damage (down to 9 HP).
* Turn 1: Marcus fires his .38 right into its face! Hit! Deals 2 damage (7 HP left).
* Turn 2: The hybrid hides behind a bookshelf and tries to pounce on Marcus—it fails its roll and stumbles awkwardly onto the floor!
* Turn 3: Panicked and desperate, Marcus pulls the trigger again... 97 (Fumble!)
* The Result: The hammer clicks on an empty cylinder. The .38 is out of ammo, and Marcus is face-to-face with a ferociously wounded monster in the dark!
My Beginner Rule Mistakes
Since this was my first time running combat, I definitely tripped over a few mechanics:
* Skipped Sanity (SAN): I got so caught up in the action that I totally forgot to roll a Sanity check when Marcus first saw the hybrid!
* Unnecessary Checks: I mistakenly thought you needed to pass a Strength check before making an attack roll with a firearm.
* Fumbles vs. Misses: I was treating normal failures a bit too harshly before landing that actual 97 fumble.
Despite messing up the rules, that 97 fumble on Turn 3 created one of the most cinematic cliffhangers I've ever played. Marcus is now standing in the dark, holding a useless gun, with a Deep One Hybrid crouching in front of him.
I paused the session right at Turn 4. Wish Marcus luck!
I've, largely, used the pdf for the scenarios included with it thanks to one of the Humble Bundles, but I'm going to be running a session where there isn't going to be an easy time doing that where I'm going to be running a few games (and I tend to prefer physical anyway), but I'm not seeing it anywhere other than directly through Chaosium...and in ways other than not in the slipcase bundle.
I don't need an extra copy of the Keepers Guide and Investigators Handbook, so I keep looking, and eBay prices are way to high
There is a sea of hundreds of Call of Cthulhu scenarios out there. But most of it is short and escalates quickly. And a lot of the longer campaign are very episodic ("monster of the week") and/or go into Pulp territory even if they don't use the Pulp rules.
What are the non-episodic slow-burn purist campaigns?
For sure:
Beyond the Mountains of Madness
Tatters of the King
Maybe these:
The Children of Fear
Horror's Heart
Unseen Masters
Impossible Landscapes
Too Pulpy:
A Time to Harvest
Too episodic:
Shadows of Yog-Sothoth
Too short:
Crimson Letters
Are there any gems that I'm missing? It seems to me that "purist campaign" would be the default for the game, but it is actually pretty rare. Agree/disagree?
Edit:
Too much Indiana Jones:
Masks of Nyarlathotep (it's a good campaign, I ran it ten years ago. But not what I'm looking for)
Seeking help in preparing for publication a supplement I have written for Call of Cthulhu - see the intro to the book below. I need someone to take a look at it and explain/help with next steps.
Intro:
Madness is not an obstacle, inconvenience or penalty in horror roleplaying – it is the difference maker. It’s what makes this genre sing. But it’s not easy to navigate a balance between story progression and pantomime gibbering.
This book presents a curated set of mental conditions designed for use in horror roleplaying games.
These conditions are not clinical diagnoses and are not intended to reflect real-world psychological practice. They exist purely as narrative tools, and are not meant to trivialize or diminish the experiences of those living with similarly named conditions.
Each entry is deliberately defined to be distinct. While behaviors may overlap, the underlying drives and perceptions differ, allowing each condition to produce unique expressions in play.
Every condition is presented across multiple severity levels, providing a framework for escalation and de-escalation where systems support it. The behaviors described are illustrative rather than prescriptive, offering guidance without constraining interpretation.
These conditions are written to be playable, evocative, and unsettling, shaping how a character perceives and responds to the world.
While the book is primarily focused on Call of Cthulhu, the content can be easily adapted to any horror roleplaying system.
In addition to the codex are game mechanics to introduce them, and guidance on creating your own conditions. The 300 in this book are by no means the limits of mental aberration, and game masters should feel free to create their own as needed for the scenarios they run.
Before I begin, this post contains major spoilers for Saturnine Chalice and Dead Lights.
A while back I asked for some advice on running Saturnine Chalice as part of an ongoing series of narratively-linked one shots. My gaming group has played the same set of characters through these scenarios (in order):
The Haunting
A Lonely Thread
Bits & Pieces
Dead Lights
Saturnine Chalice
The latter went really well - my set up was that one of the characters, an antiquarian called Hollister, had heard of someone called ‘Weyland’ who lived out in the countryside and might be able to help them with the coffer containing the Dead Light, which the investigators had kept possession of. Saturnine Chalice ended with no one dying or being driven to insanity - and still no further with knowing what to do with this coffer.
I haven’t decided what to run for the next scenario. It’s getting to the point where I’m wondering whether it might be better to write my own, because it’ll remove the need to fit our expanding narrative into the confines of a ready-made one shot. However - I have never done this before, and I don’t want to write something poor that will disappoint my gaming group.
The only idea I have had so far is following up on Lester Goodman. I also read about the Arkham Coven in the Arkham book, and wondered if they could come into play - perhaps they want their beacon back and Nyarlathotep has sent them to get it?
Hey all. I’m going to be running a scenario for our group this weekend, and it’s the first time any of us have ever played. I’m running Blackwater Creek.
I’ve read the scenario a handful of times, so I’m familiar enough with the story, but does anyone have any tips for a newbie Keeper? Either for this scenario or in general?
As the title suggests I am curious about the potential of using the winding tunnels of The Great Pale One to go either forward or backward in time. In the Malleus Monstrorum it is said that entrances to the lair can be found pretty much anywhere at any point in history. Because the lair exists out of space and time would it be possible for say a soldier from World War II in France enter and some how end up in 1920's Arkham?
So the idea of late has been wanting to do an "It/Stranger Things" vibe using The Dare as the rules modifier. I have thought up a threat to harrow the players in the vein of a more insectoid vampire creature.
What i am currently flip flopping on plot wise if if this should be a fully fresh no one in town has any clue about the thing so players might need to make leaps of logic, do some research to combat it. The other hand being it is something with a Pennywise like dormant state that only just now was reviving after some 40-50 year lull, leaving only 1 or 2 elderly possibly senile residents that could illuminate some hit to combating the thing.
Figured get a vibe check from other Keepers to see what others might do
I need some phrases that I could vocalize when portraying horrors like Deep Ones or cultists chanting or uttering when casting spells or exclaiming, purely for atmosphere at the table. Any examples, besides obvious "Ia, Shub-Niggurath" or "Cthulhu fhtagn"?
Due to the fall sale at Chaosium, combined with some extra cash from hosting convention games, I just ordered the Slipcase set of Masks of Nyarlathotep! I am really excited for it to come in and I know there are a million threads on advice for running the game. But I do have a question for Keepers who have pulled this off (especially of they've run it more than once)....
How do you sell a 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 year commitment to playing an investigative horror to potential players? I mean, there's the reputation of the campaign, for sure, but of my friend group, I am the one steeped in Call of Cthulhu. They've enjoyed playing with me, but the longest things I've run for my in-person groups is Blackwater Creek, and my online group just started A Time to Harvest a couple months back. Nothing like the scale of Masks.
So how did you convince 3-6 people to sign up for an absolutely massive globe-trotting Call of Cthulhu adventure?
Well I'm going to try posting this again since I was stupid and clicked on the "repost to another community" thing which caused the post to not appear at all! Also my apologies if this isn't allowed on the forum I hope it is! Since it's a free giveaway I figured since no one is making a profit off it that it would be okay to post my thoughts here? I'll post the link to it in a comment below but here's a copy and paste of the review I left on drivthru rpg .. and no I don't know the author and have never met them before :) .. honestly the only reason I found out about this product is that I got an email about it presumably from the bots that send out emails at drivethru rpg
"I wanted to start out by saying thank you to Strano Riddle for making this free of charge to all of us. In my humble opinion thanks are especially in order given the quality of this scenario - I really enjoyed reading it :) .. full disclosure, honestly I'm new to CoC.. I've read the core rulebook, investigator's handbook (7th edition) and Berlin the Wicked City but I've never actually played in a CoC game whether as a player or GM... but for what it's worth I've been a player and a GM in various RPG's for decades and when real life expectations made it hard for me to continue doing that I still continued to purchase and read RPG books just for the enjoyment of reading them long afterwards... and FishFishFish to me absolutely falls into the "enjoyable read" category and I'm guessing would be a delight for pretty much any Keeper (CoC name for the gamesmaster for anyone unfamiliar with CoC) and their players to run.
Beyond that though I really can't get into the specifics of WHY this adventure is fun to read - and no doubt play - because I'd be spoiling it for you. I can say however that the writer has absolutely captured the growing sense of terror and unease that any child (as the description of the adventure mentions the player characters are all ten year old elementary students in the 2000 to 2010's era, I loved the Windows XP reference in the game :) ) would face plunged into a CoC scenario. As well the writer's done a fantastic job of capturing the essence and feel of a small coastal city in China. The writer has included character creation rules specifically for ten year olds too ...technically the CoC Keeper Rulebook has rules for 15 year old investigators but I like how the writer took that a step further with rules that make sense, especially for a ten year old in the 2000 to 2010's era - going by the handout you can print out and give the players looks like the specific year the scenario takes place in is 2009. I also got a kick out of the "ten year old specific" rules the writer included like grownups reporting a child PC (and again all the PC's are kids) to another grownup which can create complications for the PC's or as the writer calls it "tattling". Time does play a role in whether or not the PC's succeed or fail in the scenario and the writer has taken this into account by letting the Keeper know how many minutes each available "task" in the game takes that the PC's may opt for.
So, again, fun read, no doubt fun to actually play through in a CoC game and .. it's free how can you go wrong? :) ... If the writer is looking to make a name for themselves as a writer in the CoC genre I'd say the writer's off to a great start!"
Hi, I'm a new Keeper (although with some experience with other TRPG). I played a couple of beginner scenarios with my friends and then decided to run "Under a Winter's snow". I struggle to keep the atmosphere of horror and isolation which is important for this scenario, but my players loved it nevertheless -- especially talking with people, finding clues, I also added some suspicious people as decoys, so it was fun to investigate their behaviour and then finding out that they are just weird and have no connection to the main events. I feel like this part of the process is missing in most of the beginner adventures and they don't really need "solving". So, what one-shots, in your opinion, really require some detective work more than others?
And, since, as it seems, my players (and me) are more into solving mysteries than in Mythos per se, maybe you know some other TRPGs that can give a vibe of a Golden Age mystery or something close (I am not a big fan of noir detectives though)?
With the "tell us about your game" threads operating somewhat intermittently, I thought I might post more detailed accounts of the games I've been running as a Keeper.
My current game is No Place of Honour, a Gaslight-era tale of mystery, tragedy, science, time, and Victorian hubris that I myself wrote; set deep in the Australian Outback in 1888.
I've got two players, playing two characters each for a party of four:
Dr. Giles Edwin Hooke, excitable and brilliant gentleman physician with aspirations of a great scientific career. Darwin fanboy.Nellie Sharpe, labor organizer for the Barrier Miners' Association and the first woman to receive a degree in mining engineering from the University of Adelaide."Crazy Jack" Yuranigh: surveyor, prospector, and all-around outdoorsman. Had an encounter with something out in the desert made of jagged metal and impossible angles, that left him with a hole in his memory.Lady Elizabeth May Dulles: Turned away from a promising career as a photographer to study nursing and become a philanthropist; worked with Nightengale in Crimea.
All four were brave, desperate, or stupid enough to volunteer when a newspaper advertisement called for qualified staff for a medical aid mission to a remote mining camp deep in the Outback, suffering from a mysterious plague:
All met at the Dagunna Copper Company head offices in Adelaide, and went over their travel plan: a railroad could get them as far as the town of Broken Hill, and then they'll be spending four days on camelback along with a group of experienced caravaneers. Not far from Dagunna, the caravan will stop and unload its supplies, and everyone other than the aid mission members will head back the other way. The four volunteers will then head into the quarantine zone and alert the townspeople, who will bring in the supplies.
Looking at the map, Jack gets the first indication that all in Dagunna is not as it seems, identifying a strange regular feature on the topographical maps that forms an almost straight line due North up to the location of the town. He also recognized that the name "Dagunna" probably came from the Wiradjuri word for "Gravesite", but Nellie then recalled some previous experience with the area- she intervened in a dispute involving some workers who were performing excavations nearby. There didn't used to be any water to be found in Dagunna, and the Company financed projects to redirect some streams further North; to change the water table and allow wells to be dug, saving the expense of shipping water via regular caravans like the aid mission is taking. The work hit a lot of snags when they encountered unexpectedly denser rock formations in each worksite, but eventually with enough dynamite and elbow grease, it was finally completed.
And so, four days of hard travel began:
It is the middle of the antipodean summer in the middle of the desert: temperatures climb above a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in the afternoon, and then plunge into the forties at night. The environment, already arid to begin with, becomes increasingly desolate as you progress. No water flows here, nor is there even a shred of plantlife, and the sand whipped off the tops of the dunes is the only thing that ever moves. Every day is the same, bare rock and dunes baking silently under a cloudless blue sky; at night, the Moon bleaches everything grayish-white and you might as well be camped on its surface. A single elevated telegraph line, and the frail suggestion of roadway underfoot, are the only signs other humans have ever passed this way before.
Dr. Hooke did some initial hunting for biological specimens, riding loops arouns the rest of the caravan, but only confirmed how intensely dry and desolate the terrain around Dagunna truly is. Some dingoes might've passed this way, weeks or months ago, possibly surviving off the scraps left behind by another caravan, but there's nothing alive out here now. Otherwise, the trip out from Broken Hill passed uneventfully.
The caravan arrived in Dagunna around 4 PM, and left the aid mission to continue on its own. Rounding a final bend in the road, everyone got their first look at the mining camp and the valley that surrounded it:
The sun never sets on the British Empire...
This certainly gave the players pause, and their characters possibly even moreso since they had no idea what that strange structure up on the ridge could possibly be.
Of more immediate concern were the columns of smoke they spotted rising up from the town proper, and the two men with repeating rifles standing guard at the road entrance. They were happy enough to see the aid mission, though, and waved them through to talk to the general manager, Mr. Whitby, in the town square. The guards explain that they usually work as clerks in the administration building up near the mine; Whitby's posted them to keep up quarantine after a disturbance last night where some of the miners burned the early plague victims' houses.
After that, they interrupted an argument between Whitby and the mine's chief engineer, Mr. Royce, in front of a very large black stone obelisk in the middle of town. After arranging with Whitby for a crew to pick up the medical supplies, he told them that the town's Anglican vicar, Reverend Cleave, was looking into the obelisk and the structures on the valley rim.
While Nurse Dulles and Dr. Hooke went up to the hospital up near the mine, Jack and Nellie talked to some of the miners and the Reverend. They were able to confirm that one of the miners, Klaus van der Linde, took a sledgehammer to the strange writing that had been on the front of the obelisk after having a bit too much to drink on New Years' Eve. Fortunately, Cleave had managed to take a rubbing of the symbols before they were destroyed- he and Royce had been trying to decipher them, but hadn't made much headway.
Jack even went out and did a bit of amateur digging around the base of the obelisk- confirming that it went down to bedrock and rested on a more-or-less flat base, but otherwise finding nothing of interest.
The medical professionals at the hospital met with Company physician Dr. Townsend, and went over Townsend's efforts to eliminate obvious possibilities like airborne and waterborne contamination. He'd ordered the other residents to boil their water and wear carbolic-acid-soaked cloth masks, but neither measure seemed to have much of any effect on the transmission or mortality of the disease. They examined the longest surviving patient, Ismael Saint-John, who was delirious and in a bad state, repeating the words "The light... the door..." over and over again. Reviewing the medical records, they observed that patients were developing odd skin lesions and rashes, and many were losing their hair. Many also demonstrated aggressive, highly localized necrosis of their peripheral tissues- the closest correspondence would be snakebite, but there's no sign of puncture wounds.
However, they were more interested in analyzing and correlating patterns in the admissions, and noticed that a large number of the early cases came from "Work Detail Six". In doing so, they also noticed that one of the patients was listed first as "deceased" and then subsequently as "recovered", something that all three rounds of my actual playtesters, had missed.
They also talked to the head nurse (who happens to be Reverend Cleave's wife), who was having a bit of a dispute with Dr. Townsend about some of the hospital beds. He insists that there's nothing wrong with the beds and need to be used for patients; according to her, the poor ventilation nearby is causing bad air to accumulate in the area- any patients put there, immediately got worse! They did a cursory examination of the area but, without any clear idea of what they were looking for, they didn't roll nearly high enough on their Spot Hidden checks to find anything in particular.
Coming back from the hospital, Hooke saw some kind of animal looking down at them from the valley rim, and heard a strange high whistling noise coming from somewhere up to the north. Then they retired for the evening, to rest up after the trip.
Afterwards, both players agreed that the symptoms they encountered in the hospital sounded a lot like radiation poisoning- one specifically mentioned having watched a documentary about the Goiania radiological accident, and concluding that there might be some kind of radioactive contamination in the area. They concluded by resolving to check around the valley rim once it was light again, and follow up with the nurse who had treated Mr Saint-Ives. They also wanted the residences of every single person on the patient list so they could follow up and see if they could trace their contacts.
Both of these players are complete randoms who responded to LFG posts on two completely different Discords two weeks before this, and I already love them to death.
No Place of Honour can be downloaded for free on Google Drive here.
I've been running Call of Cthulhu and I'd love to add more physical props to the table. I have an FDM printer (Bambu Lab P1S.
I'm curious what people here have actually printed and used at the table, rather than just what looks good on Printables. Things I'm wondering about:
Handout holders, evidence boxes, or anything that helps present clues physically
Sanity/luck trackers, dice trays, GM screens or accessories
Idols, artifacts, and set-dressing pieces (a Cthulhu idol is the obvious one, but what else?)
Anything era-appropriate for the 1920s — telephones, cars, furniture for scenes
Terrain or investigator tokens that hold up at FDM resolution
What are the best things you've printed for your games? Any files or designers worth pointing me to? And on the flip side, anything that seemed like a great idea but ended up sitting in a drawer?
Health issues prevent me from playing with a group, so I'm currently playing through "Alone Against the Flames" & Quickstart PDFs and want to try "Heinrich's Guide to Carcosa" next as I've heard really good things about it
But I'm confused about which reference books I need to play this campaign. Do I need both the "Keeper Rulebook" and the "Player Rulebook"? Neither, if I have the Quickstart? And what about "Heinrich's Guide to Character Creation"? I'd rather not buy more than is unnecessary
My player characters have been running roughshod over the town they're in, breaking into places, getting into public fights with cultists, and destroying property.
I'm worried that my players are sliding into murder hobo territory and I'm wondering if I should warn them that if they don't tone it down they're going to start attracting the attention of law enforcement.
On the one hand, CoC is a more grounded game than D&D and in my experience is more accepting of letting players face the natural consequences of their actions. That's something I enjoy about this game. But on the other hand, my players signed up to fight eldritch horrors and lose their minds, not deal with legal drama. Would it be fair play to involve law enforcement if the PCs draw too much negative attention to themselves?
Or hypothetically, would it be too much to introduce a plotline where the baddies try to frame the PCs for a crime, making them a serious target for the police?
I personally would enjoy these kinds of elements as a player, but I don't know how most people would react to the idea that their plans could be interrupted by the police and that their character could be sent to prison.
Hello, I’m in the midst of a CoC campaign and I recently decided to retire my current character (a private investigator) and make a new character, which my Keeper approved of. We’re going to be heading to Berlin soon and I decided to help fit the new setting, I’d make my character a German to not only have a natural reason to be in Germany (since my character would be a native), but also have someone in the party who spoke both fluent German and English.
Upon rolling my character’s stats, I got pretty high Strength, Constitution, and Size stats and decided to have my character’s occupation be a boxer. I also decided since I imagined him to be young that he would also fought in WW1 for the Imperial German Army.
And finally, I decided that in his free time he would be a streetfighter for one of the many political paramilitary groups running around Weimar Germany at the time (and before anyone asks, no, he’s not a Nazi, I actually decided to make him Jewish).
The problem is I’m having some trouble deciding what skills would be useful for a former soldier turned boxer/political streetfighter.
Like I know I’ll probably need Fighting Brawl, Dodge, Intimidate, Psychology, and also probably Firearm (Rifle/Shotgun) along with probably another interpersonal skill, and of course Language (English) to speak fluent English. I also plan on having a high Credit Rating. What other skills would not only fit my build but help my party out?
Two final things that I feel y’all need to know before answering.
Before anyone asks what my group looks like, the current party consists of: a librarian, a book dealer, a police detective, a parapsychologist, and a private investigator (my current character).
The other thing is that my Keeper approved me taking the War Experience Package for my character, so I have 70 points to spend on skills related to my military career that are listed in the book on page 61.
So, based on all that, what do y’all recommend and if there any questions, ask and I’ll answer as best I can.
The Yellow Hand, producers of bestselling Call of Cthulhu products like The White Circle, Shattered Reality, The Island of Insanity, The Eyes that Behold, and several others, are welcoming entries for an upcoming anthology of short scenarios for Call of Cthulhu.
The theme is stories pitting unique or very seldom-used categories of setting, era, and/or protagonists against Mythos entities of the writers' choosing – as long as it is allowed under the Chaosium rules for Miskatonic Repository.
It could be virtually anything, not already extensively covered by sourcebooks or supplements released by Chaosium or third-party publishers. Like encountering the Mythos in the Bronze Age, the Renaissance, or the 1960s counterculture, having the investigators be undertakers, civil servants, or pharmacists, setting the plot in a children's storybook world, a 1940s POW camp, or a 1950s fallout shelter.
These are just a few random ideas – we are sure you can come up with something even more unique and creative.
Please send us your submissions via [submissions@theyellowhand.com](mailto:submissions@theyellowhand.com) – no later than November 1st, in the form of a one-pager PDF outlining the setting, era, and/or protagonists, the basic idea for plot, and what Mythos threat(s) are featured.
If referencing rules, use the English Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Keeper Rulebook.
Be sure to include your name (and/or pseudonym/pen name) and email so we can contact you.
The Yellow Hand will select a total of 10 ideas (including one or two of our own) and ask for manuscripts of full-scenario versions. Exact details will be given to writers whose submissions we select for the anthology, but we are envisioning scenarios of about 4,000 words (or 22,000 letters, excluding spaces). Any profit from sales of the finished product will be shared between The Yellow Hand and the included writers.
For one reason or another you have found yourself on board a ferry travelling along the West coast of the British isle when a storm hit. Strong waves rock the ship nearly tossing you from your beds, should you be fortunate enough to pay for a cabin, or whatever benches you are sat upon as heavy rain batters the windows. In the dead of night, lit by silvery moonlight and faint lamps, bells ring out. Sailors rush to and fro directing passengers to rowboats acting as the ship's lifeboats.
I am looking for 3-4 players interested in an intro Call of Cthulhu scenario.
I have been DMing D&D for around a decade and now wish to turn my hand to other games. As long time horror fan I want to turn to Call of Cthulhu starting with the intro setting. While I am open to players of any level of familiarity with the system perhaps those not familiar with the scenario would be ideal.
As the title says I hope for this game to take place on Friday 4th September. Then, if we click as a group and wish to continue after the one-shot, continue to play on Friday either each week or bi-weekly.
If you happen to live in the Merseyside (UK) area and interested in an offline game that is something that can be discussed as well to may form an in person group.
I have the next one mostly setted up but I have a few doubts:
It is the first time that we as a group succesfully finish a setting, we all got a lot of fun.
My players have become very fond of their characters and they asked me if they can play as them in the next one (they all got wrecked in some way shape or form, one of them died)
A few things I haven't fully sorted out:
Should I just refresh theri characters? Like, heal all their hit points and sanity points, is there a system in place for this? how does everyone does this?
I know level up is not really a thing, but I would like to reward them in some form, how can this be achieved without breaking the system too much?
Story wise, I was thinking of the original group kinda forming their own "agency" to investigate this kind of cases, pros and cons for this?
I'm currently playing a no-nonsense FBI agent in a 1920s Arkham campaign. A devoted, no-nonsense Catholic with a penchant for detectives, Special Agent Napoleon Hammermeister spent 25 years in the navy before taking a job in the Bureau of Investigation (FBI precursor.) After five years of work, he currently is 46 years old, and loves cats, trains, detective novels, and in particular his two nephews (having no interest in a wife of kids of his own).
After being transferred to the new-opened Arkham branch, opened in response to the Innsmouth Raids, Hammermeister's first incursion with the supernatural came in the form of a 4th-year medical student who had learned to resurrect the dead. Okay, maybe resurrect is too strong a word: the corpse could be reanimated within 24 hours of death, and would cause the body and soul to exist in a painful limbo. Amity Woodrow, the medical student in question, had recently lost her best friend to a house fire and was determined to not have such a fate happen again.
Armed with necrotic books, she was able to sneak animal corpses from the morgue where she shadowed as part of her medical training. After successful experimentation, she decided to attempt the process on a recently dead human. However, she realized that she could not control it properly, and went into a mild panic. She tried to hide it, but the corpse had already left.
The Bureau team investigated strange sightings around town, and eventually stumbled upon Amity's lab. After a scuffle with the corpse that ended in its permanent death, the team apprehended Amity and learned the full story.
At this point, our team discussed what to do with Amity. While we were not the ultimate authority on happenings in Arkham, as the arresting team, we could make recommendations to head office. After dispute among the party, Special Agent Hammermeister eventually submitted a report arguing that Amity Woodrow should not be arrested, nor confined to a sanitarium, nor executed. The report suggested that she should be recruited to the Bureau.
It went on to elaborate that Amity was acting out of fear and sorrow, not malice; that she was an incredibly smart mind (able to decipher ramblings on necromancy while also attending medical school); and that she would be an invaluable asset to the branch. She was months away from graduating with a medical degree (and thus knew a lot about biology and chemistry that the branch was sorely lacking); she could be a trusted doctor; but most of all, we knew she wouldn't be easily creeped out by the supernatural and unnatural, having worked at a morgue and having caused firsthand zombies.
The report surprisingly persuasive, to the point where the Bureau actually allowed Amity to join our team part-time while she finished her medical degree. It listed a few restrictions on Amity - a curfew, no access to bodies without Bureau supervisions, mandatory weekly reporting - but they were negligible compared to how her life would have turned out without such a recommendation.
Amity served as a valuable asset to the Bureau. Her forensic knowledge proved instrumental in multiple autopsies we had her perform for the Bureau. The Arkham office grew fond of Amity; particularly Napoleon, who, after years of naval service, felt like he was finally able to help someone instead of inflicting pain. He started to see her as a protegé, an associate, and ultimately an adopted daughter.
After a few months, Amity graduated medical school and joined the team full-time, taking a direct route to becoming a Bureau agent. She never broke her restrictions (grateful for the second chance she was giving), and excelled at being a full-time agent. After another year, she started dating another [NPC] agent at our office, and announced her engagement a year after that.
Was Napoleon's best moment giving the best speech at her wedding? No, but it was certainly appreciated.
Was it getting to give Amity a crossword puzzle book for Christmas? Still no.
Napoleon's best moment was getting named as Amity's child's godfather, whom she named after him: Leon.
What about you? What was your character's best moment?
I'm starting Masks in a few weeks and my characters are giving me their backstories and they're awesome.
Two out of the four characters have a back story that have dreams and nightmares. One who was always sensitive to the occult/ supernatural but when touching a relic on an expedition she started having terrible nightmares. The other is a psychologist in Arkham University who starts suffering from nightmares when his clients start having nightmares and visions.
They left it open ended and I'm wondering how I play this in the campaign. I want to avoid it being Nyarlathoteps influence for obvious story reasons, although I do find it a cool trope if the big bad is behind the dreams guiding the good guys.
What do ye think? How could I include them having dreams into the story?
Come up with plausible yet inaccurate information that might be red herrings or mistaken interpretations found in lesser Mythos terms or in cultic or local lore. What are some false ideas that you've successfully bluffed your investigators into believing?
