Call of Cthulhu Report #2: The Get of Belial

This was the second adventure of the day yesterday, and was begun at 7pm and wrapped up at quarter after 10; I'm honestly really glad it didn't stretch all the way to 11 - as is, I didn't get home until almost midnight, and I'm quickly turning into an old man who gets cranky when a 9pm bedtime is missed.  I was both surprised and pleased to have a couple people coming around asking if there were any open slots in this game, and while it was a disappointment to me to have to turn people away - the plain fact of the matter was I simply didn't have the resources to add two players to the game, nor would it have been fair to the people who did get signed up for my game on time.

This adventure was based on a scripted-but-not-filmed episode of the classic '70s TV series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker."  There are a couple unfilmed scripts floating around, for episodes rejected as either too similar to prior episodes, or too expensive to produce; "The Get of Belial" is officially considered too expensive, but was actually written around pre-existing sets.  Common thinking is that the religious elements in the script made some network executives uncomfortable, and so the episode got cut.  I moved the events from the 1970s to the 1920s, which works well given the history of the Labor movement in the United States in that era.

The adventure began with the PCs questioning the circumstances surrounding the murder of Glenn Maynard, president of the Associated Anthracite company, which manages the coal mines around the small town of Hopkinsville, West Virginia.  Maynard had been found dead, half-out the window of his totaled car, his chest caved in, marked with savage puncture wounds, and his head mostly severed.

The investigators, three miners (including the leader of the strike, an anarchist looking for opportunities for chaos, and an undercover Pinkerton agent), a muckracking reporter, and the local priest and schoolteacher, found themselves hitting dead end after dead end, even after finding a mysterious two-toed track.

A new lead surfaced when they attended Maynard's wake and funeral; his widow, Jennifer Maynard collapsing into a sobbing wreck at the wake, she was comforted when a thin, pale, plain woman touched her hand and loudly asked the Lord to ease Jennifer Maynard's sorrows and burden.  The woman, identified as Sarah Blackshear, then got into a nearby pick up truck and was driven off.

Following, the PCs soon learn that the Blackshears had been squatting at the abandoned schoolhouse - Sarah, her husband Henry, and adult sons Michael and Henry Jr.  They also had a large iron cage with them.  And for their trouble, Carl McGavin, the reporter, got a bullet in the shoulder from Michael Blackshear.  Having discovered their hideout, the PCs soon learned that the Blackshears were relocating - into the currently-abandoned mine.  They also learned that Sarah Blackshear had a third son: David, or "Sonny" as he was known, used to be a beautiful, sweet boy.

But everything changed for the Blackshears when a voice rang out from empty air - the voice, Sarah believes, of the Devil.  The voice promised the Blackshears that so long as Sarah continued to use her ability to lay on hands and heal the sick and suffering, Sonny would transform into a fiend more hideous than any in Hell.  Only by renouncing her healing powers would she be able to keep her beloved son.

Believing that "Man's extremity is God's opportunity," Sarah defiantly continued to use her gifts.  And Sonny changed, first emotionally, then physically.  Every time she lays on hands, Sonny flies into a berserk rage, breaking out of his cage and seeking out a victim to mutilate.

this is not the image I showed the players - but apparently
Tom Sullivan's illustration of the Ghast from "Sandy
Peterson's Field Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos" is not
online.

Having learned this from the Blackshears, the investigators team up with them - with Sarah healing the ragged bullet hole in Carl's shoulder - to track down Sonny and hopefully either lure him back to Sarah to calm down and guide back to his cage, or if necessary, destroy him.

They stumble across the bodies of Al Bialek and Gracie Peters, which Sonny Blackshear had surprised as they were enjoying an adulterous midday tryst, and then murdered.  Figuring that Sonny's bloodlust being sated, he would probably head back to his mother, the investigators, with the Blackshears, head back to camp, where they find Sarah Blackshear softly singing a lullaby to a hulking subhumanoid creature as she cradled it in her scrawny arms.  Motioning her back, the union leader opened fire on the beast with his shotgun - only to see Sarah Blackshear erupt in stigmata matching the peppering of shot in the creature's pebbled hide.

Thinking quickly and hoping that the connection worked both ways, he turned his gun to Sarah and gave her the second barrel.  Sarah died, her placid face erupting in a spray of crimson, but the monster that had been her child remained standing.

(And at this point, I allowed the union leader's player to see my notes, where I'd noted: "Any damage that the Blackshear Creature takes, Sarah Blackshear experiences as well. The reverse is not also true – shooting Sarah in the head won’t kill the Creature." I had run this adventure before, and the last time I'd done so the players killed the monster by shooting Sarah in the head.  I was nervous that one of the players from the last time I'd run the game would be present this time around, and I wanted to ensure metagame knowledge would help no one)

At this point, the anarchist lit the fuse on a pipe-bomb he had handy, tossing it at the creature's feet.  It exploded, and the monstrous thing slumped to the ground, where it transformed back into the tattered remains of a 14 year old blonde boy.

The Blackshear men grudgingly acknowledged that Sonny Blackshear's suffering was at an end, and Sarah's as well.  The investigators put together a cover story for what happened to feed to the reporter's newspaper and the Pinkerton agency, while the surviving Blackshears packed up and left town.

This adventure needed some more work on my part.  I think I definitely fell into a bad habit of mine with convention games - I never expect my games to fill up, so typically I have four "core" pregenerated characters who have really strong ties to the adventure and two "secondary" characters who are less tightly tied to the adventure.  In this case, those were the schoolteacher and the priest; the player who ended up with the priest had never played Call of Cthulhu before so I was scrabbling at the table to make sure he was included and having fun.  Everyone told me that they had a lot of fun, but I feel like I could have done better to tie the characters into the adventure.  So that's something for me to work on for the next convention game.

Speaking of, I'm not sure when my next gaming convention is - probably nothing until Running GAGG, my alma mater's annual convention, which typically falls on Superbowl weekend.  I'm hoping to do Origins in Columbus in 2016; I would absolutely do Queen City Conquest in Buffalo as well, and I'm sure there's other gaming clubs at colleges in the area who put on conventions.  UBCon at the University of Buffalo I've had bad experiences with in the past, so I probably would not try that one again, but the University of Rochester hosts Simcon every year.

Call of Cthulhu Convention One Shot Report #1: Nightmare on the Slopes

I'm glad to be able to type this rather than try to deliver a con-game report verbally, because I basically don't have a voice today - running two 3 1/2 hour games back to back yesterday, both of which featured NPCs with "funny" voices, have left me raspy and sore.

The first game I ran, from 1 pm to about 4:30, was a modern day adventure I titled "Nightmare on the Slopes," which was based primarily on a 1977 made-for-TV horror movie entitled SNOWBEAST, which was basically JAWS, on a ski resort instead of a beach and with a killer bigfoot instead of a shark.  To this I added elements of two 1950s B-grade classics, THE CRAWLING EYE and THE BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE, as well as elements of Native American mythology.

Additionally, with these games I'm running as part of the Cult of Chaos program, I'm trying to push my own comfort zone a little bit and so I'm denying myself monsters that I tend to use a lot - zombies, Mi-Go, ghouls - and forcing myself to find ways to use other, less-common monsters.  In this case, I brought in the reptilian Lloigor as my "Big Bad" for the session.

I had a full table, with six players - one of whom was my sister, and another her boyfriend who I was meeting for the first time, which was an interesting dynamic for me.  Of the other four, one player had no prior experience with Call of Cthulhu, two had a little bit of limited experience, and one guy had been playing since 1981, which, for those keeping track at home, is six years before I was born.  My sister has played a little bit of Call of Cthulhu in the past, and her boyfriend had a bit more experience prior to yesterday's game.

The investigators were two FBI agents staking out the ski lodge in case a trio of bank robbers tried to hide out there, the local sheriff who wasn't about to let the FBI steal his thunder, the manager of the lodge who wanted things kept quiet as it was the biggest business week of the year for the lodge, an alcoholic former Olympian seeking work, and a fraudulent psychic conning the lodge owner.

The adventure started with a young woman going missing, and the searchers who found her body finding evidence - footprints, a blurry gray shape in a photo on her camera - that she'd been attacked and killed by a Sasquatch.  An attempt to hunt the killer ape-man down resulted in the posse being attacked and separated by a trio of Sasquatches, who were attempting to beat the humans unconscious - not to kill them.  One of the FBI agents got beaned pretty good by a large female sasquatch and carried off into the woods.

Meanwhile, one of the bank robbers - albeit half dead from dehydration and appearing 20 years older than he had a week prior - showed up at the lodge, babbling about a "dragon" and a cabin by the lake before having a seizure and dying.

The FBI agent awoke in a cave by the shore of the nearby lake, guarded by the female sasquatch, surrounded by the desiccated bodies of the other two bank robbers.  Finding a handgun on one of them, he opened fire on the Bigfoot, sending her running, but awakening something large deeper in the cave.  The other agent, the sheriff, and the Olympian arrived in time to grab him and drag him out as an enormous, long-necked reptile emerged briefly from the cave, blinking in the sunlight, then retreating back into the darkness.  One of the FBI agents tried opening fire on the creature, with no effect other than to hear a hissing voice in his head whisper, "You...I will savor..."

They fled the scene after that.

At the lodge owner's request, the "psychic" was holding a seance for the amusement of a dozen or so drunken tourists, when she suddenly experienced a legitimate psychic vision, witnessing an attack on a Native American canoe by something large coming from underwater.  Thrashing on the floor, she screamed "Pita skog! Pita skog!" a few times before coming to.  Between her, the FBI agents and the sheriff, they figure out that "pita skog" is a local variant on the legendary "horned water snake" that appears in native folklore east of the Mississippi, and it dawns on them that this is what they saw in the cave, and what has been awaiting sacrifices for centuries.

That night, almost 70 guests of the lodge rose from their beds, sleepwalking out of the lodge and stumbling through the snow and the trees down towards the lake.  The sheriff manages to avoid being drawn out, and begins trying to wake people, figuring out that slapping them in the face seems to work pretty well.  Soon the psychic, who was experiencing horrifying and depressing dreams in which a bubbling voice tried to draw her into the lake, was awake and helping, followed by the FBI agents.  The lodge manager was among those sleepwalking, until they woke him.

Down at the lake, they see people throwing themselves into the icy waters, and a huge, gray-green shape swimming eel-like, its finned back occasionally breaking the surface, grabbing them as they bob and struggle to swim.

The sheriff, recalling a cabin around the edge of the lake commonly used for ice-fishing, takes off running to investigate, managing to find a bundle of dynamite - and the $25,000 the bank robbers had stolen, which he stashed for later retrieval.  Lighting the fuse and handing the bundle to the Olympian, who tried very hard to throw it into the creature's open mouth as it reared up to grab another floundering human prize.  He missed however, the bundle splashing into the water a yard or two from the creature.  The resulting explosion badly injured the creature, who tried to flee and escape back into its cave - but not getting there before the lodge manager had shown up with a portable generator and some electrical cables, With a hissing crackle and the overpowering stench of ozone and frying flesh, the pita skog sank to the bottom of the lake, along with the handful of tourists they hadn't managed to awaken before they could take the plunge.

The adventure went very well, and everyone had a really great time - I'd purposefully structured this adventure as a series of individual scenes that could be slotted together in different orders and still form a coherent narrative, and I think that worked out really well; there was one scene I'd written that they didn't play through, in which the annual beauty pageant held as part of the big "Winterfest" weeklong event at the lodge was to be interrupted by the sasquatch and the lodge owner's granddaughter carried off to be given to the pita skog.  But given that they'd managed to kill two of the sasquatches and badly injure a third, it made more sense to leave the scene out, especially once they'd caught on to the existence of the creature in the lake.

the crew for this session.  That's my sister on the far left, her boyfriend next to her, and the
gentleman in the Chewbacca shirt was brand new to Call of Cthulhu.

The other thing that went really well was how the investigators were really pursuing two different lines of investigation - the sheriff and the two FBI agents (later joined by the Olympian) went into the woods after bigfoot, while the lodge owner, the psychic, and the Olympian (before heading into the woods) puzzled out the sucked-dry bank robber and the psychic disturbances.  It wasn't really until the final scene that they were all really in one place at the same time and working together, and I managed to juggle that, and keep the focus shifting back and forth (complete with cliffhangers that didn't feel forced) between the two groups - nobody got bored, and nobody felt left out of the action, so I feel really good about that.

I handed out a custom d6 to each of the players (I had Chessex print up a run for me - they're jade-green with gold pips, and instead of a "1" there's an Elder Sign) as a thank-you for signing up for my game.  I also, at the beginning of the session, threw a big bag of mini candy bars - Snickers, Twix and Milky Ways - on the table and urged people to help themselves; my feeling is, regardless of whether I'm running a game at my apartment or at a convention, as Game Master I am hosting for the people at my table, and I like being a good host.  Plus, if word gets around "Hey, next year sign up for Bill Adcock's games! He hands out candy AND dice!" then I can promote the game even more effectively to a wider audience.

Murderhoboes Session 2: Sh*t Goes Bonkers

We had session 2 of the campaign today, with one new player trying out role-playing games for the first time ever - which is a profoundly rewarding experience for me, introducing the act of role-playing to someone new and seeing their face light up as they start to really have fun with.  Unfortunately, while my girlfriend Gina had been considering playing, she got the call to go into work today and thus had to bow out.  So our cast list today is as follows:

Dramatis Personae:
Johann Borscht, aka The Bringer of Meat, aka The Breaker of Snakes, Dwarf Fighter 2
Legolas "Mohawk" Jones, Elf Magic-User 2
Manfrey the Magnificent, Human Magic-User 2 (Deceased, this session)
Yngwie Magnusson, Dwarf Thief 1 (Manfrey's replacement)
Icarus Dicarus, Elf Magic-User 1 (a 2'6" Christmas Elf, rather than a Tolkienesque Elf)

(Alf the Elf's player could not make this session, due to attending a wedding)

And the Hired Help:

Burdo, Human Man-at-Arms 0, employed by Manfrey
Murg, Human (masquerading as Dwarf) Man-at-Arms 0, employed by Mohawk (Deceased, this session)
Willow, Gymore and Durig, Torchbearers, employed by Mohawk
Margard, Human Man at-Arms 0, employed by Mohawk
Cormar, Human Man-at-Arms 0, employed by Mohawk
Asheron, War-Dog, employed by Mohawk

Three weeks after their adventure with the Yip-Yips, Johann and his comrades have lived high on the hog off of their spoils - enough gold for each of them to walk away with 200 GP, as well as four vials - one of Holy Water, one of Alchemist's Fire, one a Potion of Cure Light Wounds, and the last an Oil of Magic Weapon.  Johann was reciting the tale of their adventures to a new drinking buddy, the Elf Icarus Dicarus (who looks like a 2-foot tall Vin Diesel wearing a hood with a jingle-bell on it), when he heard a commotion outside, in which the yipping barks of a Yip-Yip could be heard.

Stepping outside, Johann saw three toughs kicking a Yip-Yip around like a soccer ball.  Intervening, Johann soon learned that this was Yap-Snout, one of the greatest champions of the Yip-Yips, or as he introduced himself, "Destroyer of Tennis Balls, Sniffer of Many Butts." Yap-Snout explained that he'd come to beg for Johann's aid - that the Sagoths of the Tribe of Go-Yat, along with their "pet" Devil Apes, have laid siege to the Yip-Yip cave in retaliation for the slaughter of the bandits three weeks earlier.  Most of the Yip-Yips made it to safety in the narrow escape tunnels they'd dug under their cave - but not all.

Rounding up as much of the gang as possible, Johann allowed Yap-Snout to lead them back to the caves.  Just out front of the cave, four brutish Sagoths were sitting around a fire, laughing as they roasted a Yip-Yip on a spit.  Johann lobbed an Alchemist's Fire (produced by Manfrey during his downtime) into the center of their fire, creating an explosion and sending the Sagoths into a panic.  Icarus followed this up with a casting of Sleep - knocking the Sagoths unconscious.  The spell had a secondary effect - due to the thaumaturgic energies permeating the region, Icarus experienced a magical mutation, sprouting horns from his head.

Quickly slitting the throats of the Sagoths, the adventurers cautiously entered the cave, soon encountering one of the Devil Apes of the Sagoths - enormous, eight-foot tall gorillas, hairless save for a mohawk-like crest, with milk-white skin, beady red eyes, and four powerful arms.  One of these beasts was squatting in the cave, its face and hands bloody, casually eating a Yip-Yip carcass, tiny bones crunching between huge yellow molars.  The beast soon smelled the adventurers, and turned to face them - getting an Alchemist's Fire thrown in its face by Manfrey.  Coated with burning, jellied chemicals, the Devil Ape charged, grabbing Manfrey in its four enormous hands and tearing him into pieces - before dying of its burns and collapsing atop the four fragments of the once-Magnificent Manfrey.

Advancing even more cautiously now that one of their number was dead, they soon found the last stand of the Yip-Yips - behind a complicated, locked door of thick bronze, being pounded on by a pair of Devil Apes.  Another squad of four Sagoths watched with hungry interest, and a Sagoth sub-chief, distinguished by his stone axe (as opposed to the simple clubs of his underlings), egging on the two Apes.

Legolas "Mohawk" Jones fired off a Hold Portal spell to prevent the Devil Apes from hammering down the bronze door - and promptly mutated, hir once-androgynously appealing Elf face transforming into that of a goat, though s/he kept hir pink mohawk and ability to speak.  Then Johann threw another two Alchemist's Fires at the Apes, frying one in a crispy instant and enraging the other.  Johann then slammed the door to the room, positioning himself (and Murg, the other axe-swinger in the party), to attack anything that came through it.

The door flew off its hinges as the Devil Ape slammed into it; Johann got a face full of splinters, and Murg died with a face full of door.  Johann buried his axe in the giant ape's forehead, and Icarus bashed Legolas' crowbar (slathered with Oil of Magic Weapon) into the beast's chin.  Roaring, the Devil Ape shuddered and died in the doorway.

Seeing the two Devil Apes slain so swiftly, the Sagoths immediately surrendered.  Icarus was able to communicate with them, and ordered them to return to their own cave, round up Chief Go-Yat, They scrambled off, and the adventurers set up an ambush after checking on the Yip-Yips and offering them the meat of the slain Devil Apes as a gift.

basically what Chief Go-Yat looked like

Chief Go-Yat, an enormous brute whose thick red hair was streaked with gray and half of whose face was a mass of scar tissue, soon showed off, striding into the cave like he owned the place, completely assured of his victory.  He quickly tripped over Icarus' silk rope, strung across the doorway, and when he fell, Johann lopped off his head in a single swing - and claimed Go-Yat's massive axe, its blade crudely hammered out of meteoric iron, for himself.  Stepping outside and raising the captured axe to the assembled throng of Sagoths, he accepted kingship over them.

Johann then brought the Sagoths and the Yip-Yips together, brokered peace between them, and demanded that they work together for their mutual beneficence.

Having resolved that, Icarus mentioned that he'd heard that there was a magical spring that fed the swamps at the far end of the canyon; that this water contained healing properties.  The adventurers decided to set off in search of the healing spring, bringing One-Eye - the last surviving Devil Ape, now sworn to guard Johann - with them.

Tramping through the swamp, they were accosted by a trio of undead Ghouls that appeared out of the mists; Johann was paralyzed by a ghoul's filthy claws, while Legolas threw Holy Water in the face of one of the ghouls, burning it like powerful acid.  One-Eye tore the remaining two Ghouls apart, and after a minute or so, Johann regained the use of his limbs.

like this, but with screaming human faces.

Finding a spring that seemed powerful enough to feed the entire swamp, they also found a monstrous creature drinking from it - a flea, the size of a large dog and with three human faces instead of a single flea head.  Johann attacked it with the meteoric axe he'd taken from Go-Yat, hacking the thing to bits before drinking deeply of the spring - only to learn it was not, in fact, a magical healing spring.  Disappointed, they went home to recoup and rest, taking with them a bag of miscellaneous coinage and gems they'd taken from Go-Yat's chambers, along with a quartet of elephant tusks they could sell.

goddamn right Meinrad
dresses like Galactus.

While drinking and planning their next move in the Chunderdome (and with Legolas "Baphomohawk" Jones seducing the barmaid with hir new goatish tongue), Johann encountered an old friend - the light-fingered dwarven thief Yngwie Magnusson (Manfrey's player's new character).  While catching up, they're astonished to see a ten foot tall man in outlandish purple and blue clothing stride into the bar.

"I seek adventurers of stout heart and strong constitution to perform a task," the figure rumbled, "Who has the courage to serve Meinrad, the Star-Gazer?"

Recalling that Meinrad was a local wizard whose floating tower hovered a quarter-mile north of Devil's Canyon, Johann and Yngwie immediately volunteered, asking what the task was.

"One of my graduate students summoned up that which he could not put down.  The entity now infests my basement.  I find it a nuisance, though currently my work demands too much of my attention to deal with the entity personally.  It has killed three other graduate students I sent down after it.  I believe it consumes blood."

Meinrad the Star-Gazer tossed a small pouch to Yngwie.  "Here are some star-sapphires, valued at approximately 300 Imperial gold.  You will receive its twin when the entity is banished.  You may wish to seek arcane weaponry before pursuing the creature; I believe the junk shop of Old Man Walter may offer you assistance.  I care not.  When you are ready, use this" - he tossed a looped chain ring onto the table - "to teleport to my tower." Turning, the Astrologer left the bar.

Seeking out Old Man Walter, they found a thick-bearded man in overalls manning a small shop whose shelves were overflowing with unidentifiable items.  Asking about weapons, Old Man Walter chuckled into his beard and began rummaging around.

"Well, let's see, just got this 'ere Ultraviolet Emitter in this morning!" he cackled, holding up a long, silvery tube attached to what looked like a crossbow stock.  Setting up a target out of Johann's bag of hamburger, he demonstrated the device; a squiggly purple beam that cooked the hamburger-target to a sizzling perfection.  The group decided to pass on the Ultraviolet Emitter after hearing Walter's asking price, and asked what else he had.

"Maybe y'all good folks would be more innerested in this 'ere, ehm, ah, X-Ray Pulse Rifle ah jiggered t'gether," he said, pulling out a chunkier device of crome and tinted glass.  Firing at another target, the bolts of energy from the device reversed the colors in the room (like a photographic negative) for split seconds before exploding the target.

Baphomohawk Jones bought that, while Icarus asked about smaller weapons, befitting his reduced stature.  At that, Walter brought out "a little somethin'-somethin' fer the ladies...a laser pistol, fits right in yer purse!" which, with a grumble of sexism, Icarus purchased.

Asking about anything else Walter had, Johann's eyes lit up as the old man wheeled out an artillery piece, all gleaming chrome, copper coils and tubes of cloudy purple glass, which Walter explained to be a "Cosmic Ray Cannon, ruin th' day of anyone within, oh, ah' figger in 'bout a good 20 miles o' that there barrel when this baby goes off."  Unable to meet Walter's asking price for the Cosmic Ray Cannon, Johann placed a hold on the device, resolving to come back when he had the money.

Happy with their purchases, and with new hirelings in Baphomohawk's tow (three torchbearers, and two drunken clubsmen; they decided to leave Johann's Devil Ape bodyguard behind), they tugged the teleport-chain, and after a moment of vertigo, found themselves in the Floating Tower of Meinrad the Star-Gazer.

Organizing themselves into a semblance of marching order (torchbearer, both clubsmen, Icarus and Baphomohawk with guns at the ready, Johann with the meteor axe, then the final two torchbearers), Yngwie decided to scout ahead, given his ability to move silently and see in darkness.

As he advanced down a hallway, Yngwie became aware that he wasn't hearing anything any more - not the echoing of his footsteps in the stone hallways, not the sound of his own breathing, not even the beating of his own heart.  Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw a dark shape with a long, beaked head and a serrated, crocodilian tail lower itself from the ceiling, silhouetted against the faint glow of the torches far behind him.  Darting around a corner, Yngwie could soon hear his footsteps and heart pounding again, and scrabbled up the masonry to cling to a nearby support column, up near the ceiling.  He drew his bastard sword carefully, ready to drop on the thing when it rounded the corner.

Meanwhile, Icarus, straining to see past the torch's glow, realizes he can't hear the footsteps of the torchbearer in front of him.  Shading his eyes, he realizes he can see the faint glint of the torchlight reflect off razored scales ahead of them in the darkness.

Pointing this out to Johann and Baphomohawk, the two spellcasters ready their shiny new rayguns, pulling the triggers in unison.  A beam of crackling neon orange energy and bolts of color-negating X-Radiation spat - and both shots went wide, the laser beam missing the creature's midsection by several feet, and the X-Ray blasts went over its hunched shoulders, the energy splashing harmlessly against the far wall and dissipating.

like this, but with a six-legged crocodile body

The light of the rays illuminated the creature, however, and allowed them to see what they were up against:

Mansized though hunched, the creature resembled a bipedal crocodile with a pair of long legs ending in webbed claws, a heavy, saw-edged tail, two arms ending in flexing, clawed fingers, and an intermediate set of limbs that looked like they could serve as either arms or legs.  The creature's head, however, was the worst - like a mosquito made huge, its jet-black compound eyes showed no emotion but seemed to glare at them, its palps and antennae twitching in anticipation, its needle-like proboscis dripping with the same viscous, oily substance that coated its entire body.  It turned to face the party.

And that's where we ended the session.  Cliffhanger, motherfuckers!

Murderhoboes of Devil's Canyon: Session 1

I got a group of people together this past weekend, we rolled up some 1st level Swords & Wizardry characters, and I sent them into Devil's Canyon.  Here's how things went down:

Dramatis Personae:

Johann Borscht, Dwarf Fighter 1

Legolas "Mohawk" Jones, Elf Magic-User 1

Manfrey the Magnificent, Human Magic-User 1

Alf the Elf, Elf Thief 1

These four, meeting aboard a caravan wagon, arrive in the boomtown of Devil's Canyon.  They find that the town consists of a single main street, lined with general stores, smithies, and the lone tavern in town, a local franchise of the popular tavern chain known as "the Chunderdome." Surrounding this main street was a tangle of alleyways lined with shacks and crude cottages rented or owned by adventurers seeking their fortune.

Sitting down in the Chunderdome with a round of beers, the four listened to the flow of conversations and picked up some news/rumors about the cave complex in the nearby limestone box canyon from which the town took its name.  

They learned that a tribe of fierce dog-men are rumored to guard the tomb of a great hero of the Hyperborean empire, a thousand years dead; that a necromancer was rumored to have made his abode in the caves; that the Astrologer Meinrad visits the caves on the nights of the new moon for unknown purposes; and that a month ago, a giant slug with cobra heads for eyestalks emerged from the canyon and almost made it to the gates of nearby Fort Thunder River before being slain.  

Discussing these rumors and debating what treasures to pursue in the caves, they decided to check in at the local temple of the Three Sisters -- the goddesses of Healing, Battle and Death, ever-present in the life of every adventurer -- for more guidance.  From the warrior-nuns here, they learned a few new rumors: that Nujah the Slayer, greatest of the Hyperborean sword-witches, died in battle in the canyon and her flying sword "Eagleclaw" was never recovered; that Violet Elves from the islands far to the west have been seen gathering poison mushrooms; and that the swamp at the far end of the canyon is infested with zombies.  

Legolas Jones also decided to buy a pig and sacrifice it to hir personal god, the ultra-chaotic entity known as "Gary Busey."  A ghostly, disembodied giant head of a human male with wild eyes, unkempt hair and oversized teeth appeared, swallowed the pig whole, and intoned, "The past - is history.  The future - is mystery.  And today's a gift - that's why it's the present.  YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHH!" before vanishing.  Legolas was not sure how to interpret this statement, but decided to take it to heart nonetheless.  

Connecting the tomb of the Hyperborean hero that's guarded by the dog-men with Nujah the Slayer, one of the greatest warriors of the Iron Empire of Hyperborea, they decided to brave the wrath of the dog-men to try and recover the mystical sword "Eagleclaw."  They also decided to try and hire some extra muscle; Manfrey the Magnificent befriended a large barroom tough named Burdo by buying him a beer after accidentally embedding a dart in his forehead, and Legolas jumped up on a table and put a call out for henchmen; from the applicants, she selected Murg, a gruff dwarven warrior, and Asheron, a fairly-intelligent (though still basically an ordinary) Rottweiler in a leather jacket and spiked helmet.  

Setting out, about a mile from the canyon they began to hear chanting and bells; rounding a bend in the road as it circled a hill, they came face to face with a band of eight human figures dressed in dark turquoise robes; one of them was waving a staff topped with a brass octopus, and the other seven rang bells.  One of them raised a hand to the adventurers, and asked, "Have you heard the good news? Dread Ktulu shall return! Repent and join us, brothers and sister - sister? - sister! Only through worship of Dread Ktulu shall ye be spared, for he shall devour us first!"

Not interested, Legolas blasted the cultists with a Sleep spell, and then walked over and casually slit all their throats.  S/he took a cultist robe for hirself, as well as taking a few for Murg and Asheron as well.  Manfrey replaced his staff with the octopus-headed staff of the cultists, and the adventurers also discovered that the cultists were carrying about 150 GP between them.  Pocketing this, they continued on to the caves.  

Having heard that the dog-men inhabited the first cave on the right at ground level, they cautiously entered the cave, Alf on point with a ten foot pole.  Suddenly they began to hear a rhythmic thumping from behind them; turning, they saw a half-dozen two-foot-tall humanoid canines, silhouetted against the morning sunlight, their large eyes glowing red.  The figures were thumping their spears against their shields menacingly as they advanced.  

Thinking quickly, Johann threw a bag of raw hamburger he'd purchased in hopes of distracting the dog-men at the humanoids.  They began yipping and yapping among themselves; fortunately, Legolas spoke Yip-Yip and was able to translate.  The dog-men, were cheering for Johann, and announcing that "the prophecy has been fulfilled!" It was at this point, as the cheering crowd of Yip-Yips surrounded him, that Johann noticed that they were all wearing belts made out of Hyperborean hacksilver, the currency of the Iron Empire.  

It turned out that the Yip-Yips had a prophecy that one day, a giant would come and deliver meat to them.  That was it; they weren't particularly imaginative with their prophecies.  Having become an honored member and demigod of the Yip-Yip tribe, Johann questioned them closely, through Legolas as translator, about the Hyperborean hero whose tomb they guarded.  Their king, the morbidly obese King Yap-Nip, showed them the gnawed remains of ancient bones and a bronze chain shirt, which Manfrey claimed, in order to upgrade Burdo's wardrobe from leather to chain.  Asking about a sword, Johann learned that the Yip-Yips' great enemy, the humans in the cave above theirs, had all sorts of swords, including a really shiny, fancy one.  These humans often raided the Yip-Yips' food stores, or shot at the Yip-Yips for target practice.  

Eager to get his hands on the shiny, fancy sword, Johann rallied the Yip-Yips, along their their menagerie of grotesque, hairless, scaly rat pets, and led them on a daring raid of the cave above.  

The assault on the cave proved to be easier than anticipated; the bandits in the cave above were mostly passed out from a heavy debauch the night before; most died without ever waking from their drunken stupor, and only a handful of Yip-Yips were slain in the process - and one of those was killed by a poisonous centipede, not by bandit retaliation.  

From objects in the cave, the adventurers deduced that the bandits were deserters from the Ninth Imperial Legion when it left the region.  Finding a damaged suit of Imperial plate-mail, a silver-and-ivory-inlaid longsword with an inscription from a wife to a husband, and three large, iron-bound and triple-padlocked walnut chests, Manfrey, Burdo and Alf returned to town to buy a mule and wagon, returning to collect the chests so that Alf could open them at his leisure.  They took the sword, not sure if it was the rumored "Eagleclaw" or not, but would investigate more fully later.  

Legolas, Johann, Murg and Asheron, meanwhile, cornered the leader of the bandits; Johann severed one of the bandit king's hands, while Legolas disabled his other hand with a thrown knife; finally, Murg conked him over the head with the flat of his axe, and they manacled the bandit king so they could interrogate him later.  They also found a chest of solid iron in the bandit's closet, unlocked.  Johann opened the chest and then collapsed, paralyzed, from a poison smeared on the edge of the lid.  Recovering a minute later, he directed Murg to open the chest; when he did so, a sudden explosion of steel send Murg stumbling backwards.  

A life-sized cobra sculpted from iron was sitting on Murg's chest, hissing and bearing hypodermic fangs; the Iron Cobra's attack dislodged Murg's beard, revealing that he was in fact a short human being wearing a big fake beard, and not a true dwarf.  Legolas tried shooting the iron cobra with hir crossbow, while Murg struggled and failed to keep the construct from biting him, though he did manage to resist its insidious poison.  Finally, Johann's hand shot out and grabbed the cobra behind the head; getting a grip with his other hand, he tore the cobra in half, killing it.  

At this point, Alf, Manfrey and Burdo returned with the mule and cart, and they maneuvered the three chests (the one which had contained the iron cobra contained no treasure - it was strictly there to punish interlopers) out of the cave, down the sloping side of the canyon, and on to the cart, heading back to town to celebrate an exceedingly successful first foray into the caves.  

Pulpfest Bound!

Well, in a couple days at any rate.  I have two more days to sweat it out at my current job at the law office, then Thursday morning Gina and I hit the road at dawn, heading deep into the wilds of Ohio.  To make matters even better, Wednesday is my *last* day at my current job; after I return from Pulpfest, Monday morning I start a new job at Rochester General Hospital -- the same building that Gina works in, in fact, which will make daily commutes that much simpler, plus my gym membership will become free since I work out at the RGH Wellness Center already anyways.

But! Thursday morning we set out, Columbus-bound, to experience the excitement of Pulpfest 2015! I've got a list of books I'm looking for in the dealer's room, but the relevant excitement for this blog is the convention's gaming track, something they've never done before but are trying out this year.  And because pulp-style gaming is something I do, I like to think very well, and they are honoring the 125th birthday of H.P. Lovecraft at this show, I'm going to be running a session of Call of Cthulhu on Friday afternoon.

The funny thing is, the game I'm running is a heavily re-written version of one of the convention modules published by Chaosium in the book "Terrors From Beyond," swapping out the locale, the names and occupations of both non-player characters and player characters alike, and the monster in the adventure.  But after I did all this work, I found out that another pulp birthday being marked at this year's pulpfest is the 100th birthday of Henry Kuttner - and the original module, before I revised it, was based directly on a Kuttner story, with a Kuttner-specific monster! D'oh! Oh well, I'm very happy with the work I've done -- I definitely feel like the wholesale rewriting of the module has put me more deeply in touch with the core of what makes the adventure work and running it will be smooth sailing.

Which is good, because since this is not a fully-dedicated gaming convention, I can't go in with any assumptions regarding the players - I can't assume they'll have dice, or know which dice are which, or have any familiarity with terms like "hit points," "sanity rating," or "skill percentage."  Chances are I will be teaching not just the game, but role-playing in general from the ground up during this adventure.

But this is not a bad thing, especially since this is my first game as a Call of Cthulhu missionary GM
for Chaosium.  I'm repping the game and the company, and one of the big requirements is I keep things beginner-friendly.  Pulpfest will be my baptism by fire, in a way.  I'm going in professional, I'm going in clean, I'm going in friendly, and I'm going in prepared - and by the Black Gods of R'lyeh, I will knock these peoples' socks off with the game I'm going to run.

Heck, I even bought a brand new Hawaiian shirt to wear while running this game to make sure I look my best.

And speaking of purchases, my reward to myself for getting the new job was to buy a new canvas-and-leather convention satchel to carry game notes, books, pencils, dice, etc. in when I'm going to and from games.  I'm not sure why olive drab canvas speaks to me so forcefully; my last gaming satchel, which was brutally murdered by Pathfinder books a couple years back, was an Air Force-surplus messenger bag in a similar color scheme.  This bag feels very sturdy and well made, has lots of zippered pockets, and has a very "Pulp" look to it.  I'm looking forward to its comfortable weight on my hip as I explore Pulpfest.

I've Officially Joined a Cult!

I'm pretty pleased to be able to announce that I'm officially registered with Chaosium, the company that produces Call of Cthulhu, as one of their "missionary" game masters in the "Cult of Chaos" program - I'll be going to gaming conventions and hopefully at some point game stores and running newbie-friendly games of Call of Cthulhu to showcase the system and bring new players into the fold.

The first show I'll be working as a member of the missionary program will be Pulpfest in Columbus, OH next month.  This is the first year they're adding a gaming track to the show, and when I saw that announcement I immediately emailed them and asked if they could use another person running games.  I actually signed up for that before the revived missionary program was announced, so I've been in the process of updating the adventure I'd planned to run to the latest edition of the rules.  I'm most comfortable with 6th edition rules (which are barely different from 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th editions) but as part of the missionary program I do need to be doing my part to promote the newest incarnation of Chaosium's flagship game.  7th edition makes some interesting updates to the rules, most of them geared towards further streamlining the system.

So I'm signed up to run one adventure at Pulpfest, and then in September I'll be making the trek back to my old stomping grounds in Buffalo, NY for this year's Queen City Conquest, where I'll be running two Call of Cthulhu sessions back to back, the second of which, "The Get of Belial," is based on an unproduced script from the show Kolchak: The Night Stalker.  The first adventure, "Nightmare on the Slopes," draws from a number of B-movies released over the course of about 20 years, from the 1950s through the 1970s.  And that's all I'll say about that, in case someone reading this winds up playing in one of those games.

While I'd initially been holding out for the dead-tree edition of the 7th edition rules, because I learn a game better when I've got a physical artifact in my hands to learn from, I went ahead and bought the PDF of the 7th Edition Keeper's handbook from Chaosium.  I won't lie to you, I did balk a little at the price - even with the sale currently going on, the PDF cost as much as a hard copy of many other RPG books.  It's a beautiful volume from what I've seen in the PDF, with full color art throughout and some of the most amazing illustrations in the bestiary I've ever seen for Mythos entities.  Some of them, like the image accompanying the Great Race of Yith, take the descriptions from Lovecraft and interpret them in an entirely new direction, unlike anything I've seen before while still being absolutely faithful to the source text.

I've got the Quick Start guide for 7th edition in both PDF and dead-tree format, and I'm hoping that will help fill in any gaps in reading the main rule book PDF until I can get a hard copy of that, hopefully this fall.

ANKHEG ATTACK!

Ankhegs are one of my favorite monsters in Dungeons & Dragons.  I mean, they're an acid-drooling bug that pops up out of the ground - what's not to like? In fact, I'd say one of the best adventures of D&D I've ever run was a session of Pathfinder in which the player characters were hired to resolve a labor dispute at a mine; the miners were striking due to unsafe working conditions and flooding tunnels, the mine's owners wanted them to get back to work.  Investigating the mines themselves, the adventurers were able to determine that the collapsing and flooded tunnels were the result of a nearby Ankheg hive - I made them eusocial, termite-like creatures for this - burrowing in and out to prey on miners and in the process undermining the mines themselves.

Gina and I are currently engaged in "No Buy July" - we cannot buy any new materials in support of our hobbies, or other luxuries, during the month of July.  It's not so much about our budgets as it is about self-discipline.  Now, granted, we spent the last few days before July on a shopping spree, loading up on (in my case) RPG books, miniatures (and in her case) high-end hand-spun yarn.  Among my purchases was a Reaper Bones Ankheg that had literally just been made available to the public a few days before; when I saw the figure in their online shop, clearly inspired by the artwork of David Trampier and Erol Otus in the Ankheg's early days, I knew it had to go in my shopping cart.  And as the largest single figure I bought on my spree (I'm not sure why I bought so many tiny, tiny kobolds to paint...), I decided it was up on the painting table first.

The color scheme I based on one of New Zealand's Tree Weta species of very large, flightless crickets, because I wanted something a little bit flashier then the drab browns I'd been seeing Ankhegs depicted in, without going too crazy.  We recently bought this nice white folding table, currently set up below our living room picture window, for Gina to work on jigsaw puzzles on (one being visible in the background of a couple of these pictures), and I have to say, it's a handy thing to photograph miniatures on as well!