Gaming

The Lodger of Arkham – Handouts #TrailOfCthulhu

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Yesterday I finished the opening storyline in my new Trail of Cthulhu campaign (this one just me running it and a single player – the Gumshoe One2One rules may not be out yet but we’re muddling along fairly well) and the player and I had a great time.   Gumshoe is now firmly established as my favourite system and the simple seeming core concept of giving the investigator their clues without hassle if they have the appropriate expertise helps much more than you’d expect.   Adapting to the mentality of giving the player all the clues they could need actually helps things flow so much better and doesn’t detract from the fun – quite the reverse as the more leads there are available the more player agency is experienced.

My plan for the campaign is to start things off nice and small – the player character is a Boston detective on leave after dealing with a traumatic cannibalistic serial killer case (*cough Wendigo cough*) and following up some strange loose ends.   The first took him to a missing persons case in Arkham where the missing person in question was an oddly malformed bulging eyed fellow from out of town who had been asking questions and visiting key landmarks for some purpose prior to being scared out of his wits and fleeing his lodging house after someone painted a swastika on the roof facing his room (being the early 30s I decided to go with the swastika version of the elder sign just to throw expectations around a bit).     Cue the investigator retracing the missing Mr Visser’s steps, discovering an odd artefact in his room that was deduced to be aiding Visser in triangulating on something, encountering ghouls in the cemetery on Hangman’s Hill and having his mind kind of blown when listening to a wax cylinder recording of Aklo incantations courtesy of an over helpful scholar.
The adventure resolved with the discovery of a captive Deep One in the basement of that helpful scholar’s second house which the scholar and his minions were bleeding to form an alchemical elixir to grant dreams of certain ancient places and beings.   Things went to Hell in a handbasket as the Detective tried to arrest the cultists (“On what charge, exactly, Detective?”) and the bloody Deep One managed to escape with the help of a mesmerised minion.   The first thing it did was tear out the cables providing light to the cellars where this all took place and a short but ferocious combat took place as the Deep One ripped apart the cultists who had imprisoned it but was shot down by a badly shaken detective in strobe light flashes from his gunfire in the pitch black.
The Detective now has more leads to follow – the missing Visser (who turned up dead, and clearly only half human) had a letter from his “brothers” in the coastal town of Danwick sending their blessings on his search for “the one who was taken”, the Over-Helpful Scholar/Cult Leader had a letter from a co-traveller asking about his experiments, talking about his own radio telegraphy research and bitching about a mutual friend who is rather too enamoured of the play “The King in Yellow”, a typewritten copy of a knowledge lecture “Lesson XI” from some as yet unknown brotherhood and concerning ancient races of the earth and their propensity for interacting with humans, and a photograph dating back a few years which shows seven men including the Cult Leader and, presumably, his buddies.

The framework so far is that those buddies all split from a single occult brotherhood after a change of leadership and each is pursuing their own particular path of knowledge.  I’m hoping this will give me the chance to tell a range of Lovecraftian stories with my player with the build up to the discovery that the original occult group is still going and working on something a little bit grander that draws all the threads together.
So far the atmosphere is good, the player is keen to learn more, and I’m pulling in some foreshadowing of things that are still to come (He’s already dreaming dreams of Carcosa which will in fact be triggered in a couple of sessions time when he is exposed to a certain play… because linear timelines are for wimps)

Just for jolly and a desire to show off I’m attaching a document of some handouts I made for this opening adventure – they include:

  • Visser’s scrawled notes about his search
  • A map of Arkham (the map isn’t my own creation!) annotated with Visser’s triangulations
  • A picture of the scrying device itself (anoint the central spike with blood and the hands move)
  • The first page of “Lesson XI” dealing with the elder races.  I didn’t have time to write the rest…
  • A letter to Transome (the cult leader) from Charles Bray
  • A letter to Visser (using his real name Conrad Leisher) from his fishy pastor in Danwick
  • The photograph of the seven mythos buddies that our hero found in the cult leader’s study.   The photo was taken straight from the internet and I’m sure the people in the picture were lovely people who don’t deserve the slanderous and blasphemous abominations I’m attaching to their images.
The full document of handouts is linked HERE
Gaming

Twentyfirst Century Spoor – useful resources for clues in #nightsblackagents

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Just a brief post to share a useful resource I found.   In “Red Shift” my Night’s Black Agents campaign I’m enjoying laying out an ocean of clues for the agents to swim in.    Among the various trails they’re following they’ve become connected with a group of students who they met at a performance of the King in Yellow.    One of them started acting strangely… then fell ill…  

I thought that it was likely that the agents would try to piece together what had brought him to this and what better way of checking out the backstory of a modern student than checking his social media accounts?

This site here (LINKY)  has generators to create fake Tweets, Facebook entries and smartphone text conversations.    I created a few examples for the agents to find as they dug in and they were well received when I provided the “screenshots” rather than just an account of what they’d found.

Some examples:

Gaming

Achy Breaky Stability Check #nightsblackagents

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 In last night’s session of Night’s Black Agents a vampire nearly houseruled the system spontaneously by so clearly failing a stability test it took the Director- me- aback.

Okay so vampires don’t make stability tests, nor did I roll one.   But it sure as hell felt like he failed one.

Here’s a bit of backstory to set the context.

In 1917 Captain Nathaniel Soames was crippled during a shell attack in Belgium during the Great War.  His pelvis and legs were shattered and he was paralysed from the waist down, surviving only because he was dragged back from No Man’s Land by a cockney infantryman Private Harry Sparrow.

Sparrow was an up and coming gangster in the immediate post war years and he was startled to be approached one evening by his former Captain, Soames, healthy as can be and offering Sparrow anything he wanted to set the balance straight.   Sparrow asked for prosperity for his band of miscreants and Soames promised him a century of unhindered dominance over the East End.   The Chapel Boys, as the gang became known, started to piece things together over the next hundred years and stories spread in whispers about the nature of the aid they occasionally received.   The imminent arrival of the end of that promised century is weighing heavily on the minds of their bosses.

Anyway… in addition to keeping his word of honour to the Chapel Boys, Soames has been hiding a secret of his own.  In the mid 20s, adjusting badly to his new undead state, he became obsessed with the young daughter of a family who were his neighbours in life.   Little Dorothy Coleridge (she hated the name Dolly even then) caught Soames’ attention as a spark of lively energy that he’d lost contact with.   He turned her, making her like himself, condemning her to an immortal life in the body of a twelve year old.   Her mind broke and she became cruel and savage.   Soames confined her within a private asylum guarded by his loyal servants and Renfields who occasionally roamed the streets of London to find playmates for Dolly, playmates who would soon become prey.

Soames tried to put his mistake from his mind, but in the way of some vampires he found it easy to grow obsessed and less easy to move on from his mistakes.   Dolly preyed on his mind.  He rarely visited if ever but he never got over her and what he and done to her (and his hopes for what she could have been).

So…  when our bold heroes, Rowan and Hans located the asylum while following up reports of missing girls taken from the poorer parts of London, when they confronted Dolly – which led to Hans being ripped apart by teeth and claws and left half dead – and Rowan staked her, reducing her to foul dust and decay… you can imagine Soames would not react well.

He ditched the job he was undertaking (of which more later) and returned to London, tearing witnesses and leads apart to try to find out who was responsible for the death of his inappropriate immortal paramour.

It came to a head with his hands round Hans’ throat in a side courtyard in the Tower of London with Soames hissing in his face.   “Tell me who killed Dolly and I’ll give you a swift death.”

That was Rowan’s cue to appear on the scene.

“I killed her,” she told Soames, grinning, “Staked her through her itty-bitty heart.”

The combination of the phrase and the way Rowan’s player said it hit me/Soames like a hurled brick.  I actually froze on Soame’s behalf.

“You know,” I said, “I think he just failed a Stability Check.”

And that probably saved their lives in the conflict that followed, throwing Soames off balance and giving our heroes a moment or two to act while he just howled at them in fury.

They made it out alive, and Soames melted away into a crowd of angry ravens after a short and intense encounter but the high point was certainly that moment when the Vampire took the Stability rules unto himself and was found wanting.

Gaming

Long Night at Blackthorn – a Barbarians of Lemuria Adventure

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I’ve just finished work on a new Barbarians of Lemuria adventure – this one using the Mythic Edition rules which I treated myself to recently – Long Night at Blackthorn.  A stopover at a remote inn proves to be filled with trouble as other patrons and their agendas all clash on a night when dark forces are let loose.

The adventure itself is adapted from one I’ve previously run for Fate Core and which I think fits with the darker side of the Sword and Sorcery Genre

While light of mass combat and mayhem this scenario works best as a single night adventure perhaps as a break in an already ongoing journey though, as usual, I’ve left a few exit points in the storyline that could lead to further adventures.

I’d be glad to know what you think of it, and if you’ve managed to get any use from it.

Edited to remove outdated link:  Now available free (or pay what you want HERE)

Gaming

Party Time #fatecore

Finn Cullen1 Comment

Yesterday’s session of the Sundered Seven fantasy campaign took place entirely within one room (with a short side trip to a wine cellar), lacked combat, treasure or magic and was still one of the most intense sessions of any roleplaying game I’ve played.

Our heroes Lord Adriel and his faithful servant Inye had arrived in Hrafburg, capital city of Malmor, to seek an audience with the ruler of the city.  He had reacted in his usual arrogant way (the man has royal pretensions) and told them he would send for them when ready and so Adriel was forced to kill time in the city until then.

We opened at the lavish party being held by Lord Hazreth a newly arrived nobleman who enjoyed offering hospitality.    All the haute monde were there and there was an atmosphere of casual decadence.   Adriel was enjoying the company of two of the eligible ladies of the court (one of whom turned out to be the ruler’s mistress… so that wasn’t a source of tension… really)

But things really cranked up when I introduced the young lord Teltandin, a contemporary of Adriel.  He hadn’t featured in the campaign before but I had him earmarked as a rival for Adriel so I threw the details over to the players with a couple of questions:

What did Teltandin do to humiliate Adriel when they were children?
What did Adriel do to Teltandin when they were young men?

We learned that Teltandin had been sparring with Adriel when they were about eight years old… and though it was a “friendly” bout organised by their parents – rulers of rival houses – Teltandin took it very seriously and used some dirty tricks to win.  Adriel’s father shook his head and walked away in disappointment (a nice trigger of Adriel’s current need to win his father’s approval).

In return a few years later Adriel deliberately spooked Teltandin’s horse causing it to bolt and humiliate the young man in front of his friends and family.

That set the next scene up nicely as the two rival lords and the two ladies decided to play a harmless game of Hopestones for pennies.   For pennies, sure.   No high stakes.

Things escalated of course and it ended up as a duel of gambling between the two men with a lot riding on it.   Social skills were unleased to gain advantages for upcoming rolls, psychological games were being played by everyone at the table.   Faithful Inye saw Teltandin palm a high value tile for future use and managed to tip his employer off.     That was dealt with by Adriel tipping some tiles accidentally onto the floor between rounds and saying “we’d better count them to make sure none are lost”… forcing Teltandin to sneak back the palmed tile.

The final round played out as an extended contest and Adriel won resoundingly winning the approval of the onlookers and earning more hatred from Teltandin.   It was an intense scene with never a blade drawn.

Meanwhile Inye had been using his servant’s inconsequentiality and observation skills to move among the partygoers trying to learn what he could.   I’d set a value for the scene as a whole to have a “Discretion 1” rating – people were drunk and their guards were down so Inye could overhear conversations.    I had him make a Notice roll which he succeeded at very well and so I took inspiration from Dungeon World and said for every point he succeeded by he could ask me one question about the city and its rulers that I would answer honestly.    As a mechanic that worked really well and allowed me to convey the information that was important to the players without some contrived info-dump.    As a result Inye learned of the two rival factions at court (the Count’s wife favouring a diplomatic conquest of nearby lands, and his son leading a more military faction), what the Count’s priorities are (he really really wants to be King) and some of the major players.

We all enjoyed the experience a great deal – and Fate lends itself well to making up mechanics on the fly.   The gambling “rules” were freeform allowing an intense round by round duel of wits and influence that simply comparing rolls would not have allowed, and the way we resolved Inye’s information gathering was elegant and will certainly be used again.

Gaming

Be Prepared. #nightsblackagents

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This very practical travel kit for the aspiring vampire hunter went on sale in North Yorkshire in 2012 and raised £7500 at auction.



It was put together in the 19th century and contained all the stuff you’d expect:

A crucifix
Stakes and a mallet
A Pistol
Glass bottle of Holy Water, another of consecrated earth, another of garlic paste
The Book of Common Prayer
A handwritten Bible verse (Luke 19:27  “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”)

It was left to a Yorkshire woman in her uncle’s will and apparently dates from the late 1800s.   The auction house, Tennants of Leyburn, North Yorkshire,  commented it was probably a novelty item put together to capitalise on the property of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  A likely story.

Bidding was apparently fierce with half a dozen telephone bidders involved in the auction and it went for about four times the price expected.

It’s current owner and location are as yet not known.    Except, I expect, to one or two currently extinct vampires.