Building a Mystery, Part 4: The Plot Thickens

Cthulhu by Fufu Frauenwahl

Greetings readers, it's been a bit now since the last entry in this series.  I'd hoped to have more of the adventure plotted before writing this post, but that hasn't really been happening - so now I'm hoping that maybe writing about the process of creating an adventure plot will help me break through that creative block and finish writing this adventure.  I'm planning to run "The Haunting of Holdernesse Hall" at Running GAGG 2016; so I have a few months, but that does not mean I want to leave anything until the last minute.

When I say I'm writing an adventure plot, I don't mean that I'm writing something that's tightly scripted, where the players are tightly bound to a railroad that they can't control or get off of.  I try very hard not to do that.  The way I generally like to write adventures is to provide a strong opening scene to hook the players in and then set up a mystery that demands investigation, either through being particularly gruesome or by playing to the nature of the Investigator characters.  I've got some nebulous ideas in my head for a couple different Call of Cthulhu scenarios in which the player characters are a CSI team, and that's how they get hooked into the scenario.

Once they're hooked into the adventure, I try to let them drive the investigation as much as possible; this is A) sometimes very hard, because sometimes players just want to sit there and be entertained and not take a proactive role, in which case they really should just be watching Netflix instead of wasting everyone else's time at the gaming table, and B) it takes a ton of effort on the game master's part, far more so than an improvisational dungeon crawl does.

To this end, I try to plot out short "scenes" that I can guide the players to when their investigation begins to flag or they start to wonder if anything is going to happen.  With these I try to include either action or a strong expository clue that advances the investigator's understanding of what's going on.  Including both is ideal, but not always feasible.  Here's an example scene from the "Nightmare on the Slopes" modern day adventure I ran at Queen City Conquest:

A Hunt Gone Wrong 
A small posse (consisting of Joe Svenson, Tom Rill, Sheriff Fred Baker, two deputies and a local hunter) is organized and sent to take out the “rogue bear,” aka Sasquatch. If this event takes place after A Robber Reappears, they may be aware that there are in fact three Sasquatches.
 Spot Hidden rolls will reveal footprints in the snow and the occasional oddly snapped branch or piece of tree with the bark peeled back strangely.
 Track rolls will allow the PCs to follow the tracks and, at least once, recognize that the tracks are doubling back and leading the hunters on a circuitous route through the dense pines.
 Listen rolls will allow the PCs to hear heavy breathing among the pines and, once a high-pitched, howling scream echoes among the trees, will allow them to hear a fainter response scream and differentiate it from an echo.
 From the time they entered the woods, the posse was being stalked by the Sasquatches. The big male went ahead, leaving tracks for the posse to follow, while the female and young male followed behind the posse. This is not something the Sasquatches would have thought of on their own; the Lloigor is directing their actions.
 The Sasquatch will attempt to lure/herd the PCs into a particularly dense stretch of woods where they can be separated among the dense, dark pines. Here, they will pick off the posse one at a time, attempting to beat them unconscious or simply disarm them and carry them off to the Lloigor’s lair. They will carry off three victims before breaking off the raid.

As you can see, I don't organize every scene around every investigator being present; with "Nightmare on the Slopes" I decided to test myself and wrote it so that the scenes could be arranged in any order and still tell a coherent story, and ultimately the investigators were not all in one place at one time until the climax of the session.  It made for a very different style of play than the players were used to, and I think it went very well.

I don't know that I'll use this style of scene-plotting, where anything could take place before or after anything else, for "The Haunting of Holdernesse Hall," but before I get too deep into scene plotting, the first thing I need is the Big Problem.

The Big Problem

The Big Problem is the Mythos incursion into our reality - cult activity, summoned horror, etc. - that needs to be addressed by the player characters.

I think for this scenario, the Big Problem needs to be that Gol-Goroth has grown tired of the meager, irregular sacrifices its tiny coven of cultists has been able to supply over the years, and has demanded something more from them; I'm leaning in the direction of this sudden change in desire relating to a milestone in its cycle of existence on Earth; if we go with the idea that the year of the scenario, 1928, is the 200th anniversary of Lady Elizabeth of Holdernesse throwing herself off the balcony in response to the miscarriages caused by Gol-Goroth, maybe Gol-Goroth was revived in 1728 and now needs an extra strong offering to maintain his toehold in our reality.  Maybe he's just sick of squatting in a basement and wants to improve his lot.

Maybe, he's reached out and made telepathic contact with the current Duchess, and has offered her restored youth and vigor (perhaps an empty promise, perhaps not) in exchange for a sacrifice of the right kind.  Such as, for example, the American Heir(ess).

Maybe that's why the American Heir(ess) was contacted and invited to Holdernesse in the first place!

I like this.  I like this a lot.

Opening Scenes and Hooking the Players

Now that we have our Big Problem, we can start hooking the players.  The opening scene needs to introduce the player characters to one another, possibly in media res, as well as introduce the players to the major NPCs.  Lester Dent advocated introducing all the characters of a story in the first 1500 words; it worked for churning out pulp adventures in the 1930s, and it will work for you in producing a Call of Cthulhu adventure now.

Heck, that'd be a good project in and of itself, using Lester Dent's Master Plot to write adventures.  One thing at a time, Bill, one thing at a time...

"The Haunting of Holdernesse Hall" is actually proving to be a less than ideal adventure to use in showcasing how to build an adventure, because I'm realizing how much of it is going to be predicated on the player characters interacting with one another.  And while this is great for me as a game master - I get to sit back and watch the players drive the session and just respond to them, rather than lead them by the nose - it does not lend itself towards interesting discussion or a valuable look under the hood of adventure design.  But we've come this far, and we're not going to chicken out or start over now.

So.  Opening scene.  This I do have already in my notes, drawing off, again, the novel The Evil of Pemberley House.  The session will open with the American Heir(ess) getting picked up at the nearest train station by the Chauffeur just as the skies open up in a torrential downpour.  On the slow drive back to the Hall, their car is shot at - by former associates of the Chauffeur, feeling he chintzed them on their shares of the last heist, but the players and their characters may not necessarily find this out at this point.  The rain will halve all shooting percentages, making death or injury at this point far less likely, but if things start to seem rough the Groundskeeper will hear the shots and (hopefully) come running.  The two ne'er do wells will scurry off into the woods if they see their attempt isn't looking so sure.  The Heir(ess), Chauffeur, and Groundskeeper will make it to the Hall without further incident, where we introduce the other three PCs as well as most of the NPCs.

We're technically starting the adventure off with a red herring, which I've never done before, but I think it should work very well for seizing and holding the players' attention.  I'm a little hesitant about it because this is, recall, a convention game, limited to a four hour time slot, so I can't get too sprawling in my adventure design.

Following this I'm going to run a scene introducing the Duchess and showcasing her attitude towards each of the PCs - including utterly vitriolic towards the American Heir(ess).  I won't say too much about this scene, other than to note I've ripped off a few lines of dialogue wholesale for the Duchess from the Colonel in THE BIG SLEEP.  I ain't ashamed.

I should note, following up on that, that I tend not to script NPC dialogue if I can help it, because there's no predicting what players will ask or say to NPCs, and if I write a piece of dialogue that I consider especially good, the temptation will be there to use it when not appropriate.

So that's two scenes right there,  I'll probably drop a reference here and there within those scenes to the Holdernesse Ghost and the legendary Lambton Toad to whet player curiosity and to quietly get across that these are things relevant to the adventure as a whole.

From here, I think 3-4 more short scenes will do it before the climactic encounter.  I want to do something with the ghost, something with the butler, something on the moor, and maybe one more scene.  And these will not necessarily be utterly discrete scenes; they may flow into each other organically.  So let's take these three and put them in some sort of order:

1. Lights on the Moor: one or more of the PCs sees lanterns bobbing on the moor in the vicinity of Toad Hill late at night.  Investigation reveals these to at first glance belong to a small group of Irish Travellers, i.e. "pikeys," crossing the moor and valuing their privacy.  This is a front for the cult of Gol-Goroth to ensure they're left alone.  
2. The Ghost Appears: One of the PCs (most likely the American Heir(ess), but not necessarily) is visited by the ghost.  While frightening at first, if the character can get past the fact that they're interacting with the dead (and believe me, there's going to be a SAN cost to do so), the ghost can reveal that they're bound to the Hall until "the curse" is lifted.  Like most ghosts, this one is vague, and won't just say, "yo, banish that thing in the cellar and I can go to my rest, y'dig?" Maybe they can reveal that the curse was awoken or revived by her husband 200 years ago, and that this year's calling for a big sacrifice.  
3. The Butler's Scheme: Awoken by the ghost, one or more PCs will encounter the Butler sneaking around with some of the family papers.  If confronted, he can be compelled to explain that he believes the Holdernesse Ritual leads to buried treasure dating back centuries.  Assisting him in his calculations and investigation (with the promise of a share of the treasure) leads the PCs back to Toad Hill.  I think this should be interrupted by the maid hysterically demanding that the butler take her to town now, to marry her, and to get out of Holdernesse.  This, in turn, could be interrupted by either the cultists or the two bandits from the opening scene, leaving the players to deal with some small scale anarchy.  

And that's something to keep in mind: We have these two random elements in the form of the bandits, who want to take a cut out of the Chauffeur's loot from the last heist (buried in the vicinity of Mary's Tower until the heat's off), and the cultists, who want to appease Gol-Goroth for another year.  If the momentum of the session slows or bogs down entirely, as Raymond Chandler said, "have two guys come through the door with guns."

I'm planning for all the PCs to actually be armed in this scenario, or nearly all, for various reasons - the Groundskeeper has a fowling piece to address the issue of varmints, while the Chauffeur is an armed robber waiting for things to cool down so he can come out of hiding.  The Doctor and the Grandchildren are just terrible people who are willing to wave a gun around if it gets them what they want.  So having the cultists armed is not as one-sided a contest as it might be otherwise.  Given that the Call of Cthulhu rules do give stats for Colonel Moran's Air Gun from the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the Doctor in the novel The Evil of Pemberley House is a descendant of Colonel Moran who has the Air Gun, I'm tempted to carry that over into this adventure.  Sadly for him, given that this adventure takes place in the 1920s instead of the 1970s, I don't think he'll have access to a portable air-compressor to reload the gun on the go.  I'll look into it though.  

And that brings us to the final scene.  The PCs will find their way into the buried temple in time to see the cultist's making their offering to Gol-Goroth (potentially, this offering will be one of the PCs; otherwise, the maid, butler, or cook would be of use) and can try to disrupt the ceremony.  Gol-Goroth slithers up from the pit, making his unclean presence known, and brought face to face with a Thing of the Outer Darkness, the player characters can go mad or try to slay the beast or both.  

This is kind of a mile-high view of breaking the scenario into scenes, and I'm leaving a lot of detail out because I don't want this to be a 20,000 word blog post.  Scattered through and between the "scripted" scenes will be clues and hints to help guide the investigators through the adventure -- a medieval account of Sir Richard of Holdernesse slaying the Lambton Toad with a sword forged especially for the occasion, with three priests laying benedictions on the metal as it was being forged; a Roman-era account of a temple housing an ancient local god on the edge of a moor; etc., etc.  I'm not going to be holding the players' hands, but neither will I be letting them flounder in the wind.  

And I think that's where I'm going to leave off for this post.  

Murderhoboes of Devil's Canyon Session 5: Fire When Ready

After almost a month away, we reconvened!

Dramatis Personae:
Johann Borscht, Dwarf Fighter 3
Baphomohawk Jones, Elf Wizard 3
Yngwie Magnusson, Dwarf Thief 3 (deceased)
Brunhilda von Sass, Elf Fighter 2 (deceased)

Replacement Characters:
Skogul von Sass, Elf Fighter 2
Turkman Price, Human Cleric 2

Flush from the victorious counting of coins and appraising of gems, Johann Borscht gleefully dragged a bag of money into Old Man Walter's Junk Shop, purchasing the Cosmic Ray Cannon he'd put on layaway weeks earlier.  With it, he received a chrome-plated gauntlet connected to the Cannon's onboard targeting computer, allowing him to "throw the horns" at a target and have the Cannon calibrate and fire, as well as a spare battery pack and a battery recharger, ensuring he'd never run out of firepower.  He proceeded to test the Cannon by disintegrating a couple trees, including one apparently possessed by a demon - and then disintegrating the demon.  Carefully pocketing the gauntlet and storing the Cannon in the Sagoth Caves for safe-keeping, the party returned to the town of Devil's Canyon and their local watering hole, the Chunderdome, to plan their next move.

They quickly learned that Vathek the Diviner is still offering a reward for the iron-bound Book of Necron, which he has seen in the caves via his crystal ball, guarded by corrosive slime creatures.  They also learned that another adventuring group, the Scofflaws of Renown, ventured into the cave of the Sloth-Toads to retrieve the magic sword of Delos the Throat-Slitter and never returned.  The appeal of a magic sword led them to decide to enter the cave of the Sloth-Toads themselves, even hiring Vaako, the former torchbearer of Delos, as a guide.

Their first foray into the swamp that fronted the cave proved less than successful, as a monstrous hybrid of swan and scorpion rose up and promptly sliced off one of Yngwie's legs with its claws, then slicing and stinging Brunhilda von Sass to death before Johann could hack the monster apart with his ax.

[Game Master aside: Brunhilda von Sass is played by my girlfriend, and was her first RPG character ever.  I count myself blessed I'm not sleeping on the couch for the next week.]

Retreating and recruiting, Johann and Baphomohawk picked up Skogul von Sass, Brunhilda's bitchier sister with an eye for getting people in her debt, and Turkman Price, a cleric of Nyarlathotep bedecked in plate armor and a particularly stupid corkscrew hat.

Their second trip was much less eventful, until nearing the mouth of the cave, when numerous giant frogs surfaced from the swamp muck, their bodies coated with mangy patches of greasy black hair, some of them with extra eyes - they didn't harass the adventurers, just watched.  Baphomohawk recalled that these mutations were likely a sign that the area was consecrated to the Dread God Kzadool-Ra.

Entering the cave, they spotted a cluster of Sloth-Toads -- five foot tall humanoid toads, their bodies covered in patchy black hair and with large, pointed ears.  These creatures were crouching behind a pile of rocks, watching the adventurers but not advancing.  At the far end of the cave were an enormous pair of bronze doors, and on the other side a sub-cavern, from which quickly emerged a special minion of Kzadool-Ra -- an enormous toad whose eyes snapped open, bathing the cave with blinding light.

Fortunately, the adventurers had come prepared, having been warned of this creature by Vaako, and only Turkman was blinded by the light.  Shielded behind a welding mask, Johann threw the horns, eager to discover if his Cosmic Ray Cannon, now positioned on a ledge outside the Sagoth cave, could target the creature.

It could, and in a moment everything within 30' was splashed with the flesh of this creature, the light gone.  The Toad-Sloths, seeing this grumbled and slouched out into the swamp.  Forcing open the bronze doors, they found themselves in a long hallway, the walls polished and carved into detailed reliefs, which Skogul took the time to examine, determining that they told the story of this temple - that a heretical sect of Serpent Men turned their backs on Father Set to worship Kzadool-Ra, set up shop here, and were cursed by Set, transforming them into the dull-witted, non-sorcerous Sloth-Toads.

At the end of this hallway, a second set of doors led into a football field-sized chamber, with two doors on the left and three on the right, and a 30' tall statue of Kzadool-Ra, appearing as a gigantic sleepy black toad, covered in fur, with large batlike ears, reposing in a Buddha-like recline.  The statue's eyes consisted of a pair of giant yellow-green gems, carved into spheres and enchanted to glow, illuminating the room faintly.

Investigating the rooms on the left revealed a pair of treasure vaults; Johann began shoveling coinage, much of it belonging to empires long fallen, into their Bag of Holding, while Skogul found the magic sword they'd been looking for.  One of the doors on the right opened, with a pair of sword-carrying Sloth-Toads emerging, but they were quickly dissuaded, and investigating the other two doors revealed Sloth-Toads that simply refused to acknowledge the adventurer's presence, even when Johann hacked apart one of them that was wearing a hat resembling a bishop's miter.  And stole his hat.

Vaako was sent to try and pry the eyes loose from the statue of Kzadool-Ra, and after working one free, something grabbed him and started pulling him into the (apparently hollow) statue.  Johann blasted the statue apart with the Cosmic Ray Cannon, and from the rubble emerged a flowing blot of inky blackness, like a slithering absence of light.  Johann blasted it again and again with the Cosmic Ray Cannon, each bolt dividing the slithering blackness into smaller entities that continued to ooze sluggishly forward until finally broken down by the power he was throwing at it.

Returning home, they made a stop-off at the Sagoth cave to return the Cannon to storage and to arrange for the Sagoths to loot the cavern of the Sloth-Toads in its entirety on the adventurers' behalf.

A cursory examination confirmed the enchantment on the sword - a +1 Shortsword, +3 vs. Diurnal Mammals, granting the wielder Darkvision (or, if they already have it, doubling the range), and on a natural 20, a swarm of Giant Vampire Bats descending on the target for one round - and also revealed an enchanted ring in the treasure gathered by Johann.

As Turkman held the heavy platinum ring, set with an enormous amethyst and a dozen tiny diamonds, he heard a whisper in his mind to place the ring upon his finger.  Considering this no more ominous than the usual voices he hears in his mind, he slipped the ring on, instantly being aware of its power - three times a day it could fire a bolt of crackling eldritch energy, and could do much more when reunited with its "other half," ensconced in the Temple of Zygak-Xith on the Purple Islands far to the west.

Dinovember - and Dinoversary!

Next Wednesday, November 18th, marks five years that Gina and I have been a couple.  Last year, as a gift she gave me the Reaper Bones Cthulhu; this year, while a much more modest purchase, she got me a figure that I probably would not have dropped the money on myself, much as I might want it - and it qualifies me to join Michael Awdry of 28mm Victorian Warfare in celebrating what he calls "Dinovember."  Behold, Reaper Miniatures' Carnotaurus!

Yes, I know the packaging reads "Carnosaurus."  While "Carnosaurus" is a loose sort of way of referring to any large meat-eating reptile, this specific example is a Carnotaurus sastrei, a somewhat unusual theropod (bipedal meat-eating dinosaur) from South America, dating to a few tens of millions of years before Tyrannosaurus rex showed up in North America.  Carnotaurus was unusual for a couple reasons, the most obvious being the two thick, flattened horns above its eyes.  Paleontologist Gregory S. Paul speculates that these were like used by males competing for mates, and I for one don't find any reason to disagree.

As an aside, I was a biology major before I switched to the study of history (couldn't pass Chemistry, so couldn't proceed in the biology major program at my alma mater), and my primary interest in that field was always prehistoric life.

This being a gift from the Queen (no lie - Gina's full first and middle names are Regina Victoria), you can bet your sweet bippy I'll be taking my time and making sure this is the absolute best work I can do.  I've been considering color schemes, and originally had thought to do him a sort of bricky red-orange with dark brown, almost black, striping on his flanks.  However, this is apparently the single most popular color scheme to depict Carnotaurus in - checking Google Images, I came across a number of these figures painted that way, as well as a couple paintings of the animal artists had done.  I don't want this to be just one in a dozen or so of these figures - I want it to pop.

image source: Wikipedia

I found the image to the left, and I think I might go with something similar, possibly brightening the turqoise/teal of the dorsal and flank striping and fading the tan tones down to a light buff or even an ivory on the underbelly and lower jaw.  The orange I might even brighten to a yellow in highlights.

In other hobby news...I got just about nothing.  I haven't painted since last Sunday, I've done very little RPG writing -- my notes for this coming Sunday's D&D game have been completed for over a week now, and I've stalled somewhat on not just my series on how to write a Call of Cthulhu adventure, I've also stalled on writing the adventure itself.  I may try to start work on the next post in that blog series to see if it helps snap me out of the writer's block I'm feeling towards the adventure.

I did order a copy of the game Frostgrave this morning, after reading a number of reviews and being very impressed with what I saw, as well as discussing the game with a friend of mine who plays the wargame Malifaux, to see if he'd be interested in learning the game with me (and given that Malifaux players are somewhat thin on the ground where he lives right now, I may build a warband for that game - you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, kind of deal).  The clincher was realizing that this game would give me a reason to build and paint some of the Wargames Factory figures I've had sitting in my closet since, ahem, last November.  Wargames get much more appealing when you realize you don't need to spend any more money on figures then you already have.

Well, OK, I will probably end up buying and painting a couple wizards for the game at some point.  And some undead.  But the core of two, maybe three if I decide to do something with the Persian figures I've got, war bands for Frostgrave are sitting in my closet waiting to be assembled, and I feel pretty good about that.

There is More to Manliness than Machismo Alone

November is Movember, dedicated to raising the profile of men's health risks, especially in the areas of prostate and related cancers as well as men's mental health - an issue that many men suffer in silence on, deeming it "unmanly" to ask for help.

Bob Murch of Pulp Figures is, for the third year running, raising money for Movember and offering an exclusive figure, only available for the month of November, in exchange for donations.  This year's figure, shown to the left, is rugged adventurer Captain Krustache of the Kashgar, with guns drawn and furry vest belted tight against the chill of the Gobi nights.

Pulp Figures has long been my number one preferred source for figures - I love the amount of character in every sculpt, as well as the clean lines and (in most cases) minimal flash to clean up.  As a man who has experienced mental health issues in the past and manned up enough to ask for help, I recognize what big issues these can be, and I was happy to donate to the cause - getting a figure in exchange was gravy.

Paint Table Saturday - Pulp Figures' Rocket Corps and Mounties

One very nice thing I've been seeing in the miniature painting/wargaming side of the hobby is "Paint Table Saturdays," in which bloggers show off what they've got on their work benches on any given Saturday for others to comment on and offer commendation and encouragement.  It's a very friendly thing and as I get back into painting my little toy soldiers, I thought I'd offer up my own Paint Table Saturday this weekend.

I dug out two packs I'd purchased a while back from Pulp Figures to work on this weekend; I love Bob Murch's richly characterful sculpts and clean lines, and his figures are always a joy to paint.  Given that he also worked on RAFM's Call of Cthulhu line, these figures fit nicely with that range.  I'm not sure what inspired me to buy a pack of Canadian Mounties, other than perhaps I'd read a piece of Mountie fiction; the Rocket Corps are an obvious one, given my long and deep-seated love for Disney's adaptation of Dave Stevens' love letter to the pulps.

The figures were cleaned and glued to 20mm plastic bases (courtesy Wargames Factory), and then given an undercoat of black Krylon since it was warm enough to go out and prime on the porch today.  I've begun basecoating the major color blocks of the figures as well; red being such a finicky color in general, and doubly so over a black undercoat, the Mounties' jackets have been based with burgundy so I can layer up to a bright cardinal red.

My "work bench" is also my dining room table, so I won't be able to leave these guys up overnight (since I do have to get to work on Italian chicken and broccoli alfredo in a little while), but I'm hoping to get a little more work done on them maybe tonight, and certainly tomorrow.

Fire Spiders, Part 2

Here's a few better shots of the two Fire Spiders, taken under daylight conditions:

It's startlingly warm for November in Rochester, New York, so I took some time this morning to clean, assemble and base the handful of metal figures I currently have unpainted, and I'll be taking them out in a few to put a coat of primer on them.

Fire Spiders!

I had some free time today, and I had a couple cleaned and prepped Reaper Bones figures - a pair of Giant Spiders - sitting on my work table.  I'd spent a lot of time trying to repose the legs on these fellows into more dynamic poses only to have them slowly revert towards their original positions after their baths in boiling and ice water.  I'd seen these spiders painted up in purples and greens, as well as a number of examples people had painted up as "Ice Spiders," in shades of blues and whites.  I decided, if there were so many Ice Spiders, then there needed to be Fire Spiders as well, and thus was my color scheme decided.  I'll take better pictures tomorrow but for now here's a shot of the pair.

I think these will be among the last Bones figures I paint; I thought I had a good handle on working with the material after Cthulhu, but I've just had a lot of hassles with other figures in this line, and I've had enough.  Gina has recommended I go back to metal figures and work slowly and paint beautiful display pieces.