A Time to Harvest Session 11: The Doom that Came to Cobb's Corners

Here we are, at what is probably the penultimate session of this campaign.  Here we wrapped up Chapter 5, and Chapter 6, the final chapter of the campaign, is a fairly short one, and I doubt it will require more than a single session to complete, which means the next session, taking place on October 4th, will be the last session of "A Time to Harvest" with my group.  It's been a long strange journey, hasn't it?

Dramatis Personae:

• Perry Webster, journalism student (played by Dan)
• Randall McNally, geography student (played by Sean; formerly Randall Vhloche, but Sean decided on a name change)
• Roni, visiting Finn, history student (played by Katie)
• Horace Hoadley, local laborer (played by Kai)
• Levi Hoadley, local laborer (played by Mike)

When we last left our heroes, Perry and Roni had just laid down on alien operating tables, along with soldier Mack Hairpin, to await brain surgery at the claws of the Outer Ones.  Operating leisurely, the two Outer Ones deftly removed the top of Mack's skull and scooped his brain into a jar.  As they made ready to repeat the process on Perry, a third alien, buzzing and changing colors, entered the room.  Flashing and buzzing in response, one of the Old Ones ordered Perry and Roni to "remain where you are - there is no escape.  We will return momentarily."

As the three aliens left the room, Perry and Roni lifted the grate and jumped down into the same underground river that Randall had escaped into.  

***

Making their way up to the isolated farmhouse they worked at, the Hoadley brothers spotted a trio of bodies floating in the river.  Fishing them out, they quickly discovered them to be alive - Randall, Roni and Perry.  Agreeing to work together to deal with the threat of homicidal children in town, and to rescue the Hoadleys' mother, who lives in town, the five headed up to the farmhouse to "requisition" a steam-tractor and supplies.  Arming up and hitching a wagon to the tractor, they head to town.  

Cobb's Corners is, despite the rain, on fire, with people and tree-monsters silhouetted against the flames as they move back and forth.  Our heroes head first to the sheriff's office, which they find deserted, helping themselves to shotguns and a keg of black powder intended for the town's civil war-era cannon, fired every Fourth of July.  

Heading then to the town square, they find the town deputy, naked, sacrificing people atop an altar made from previous sacrifices, flanked by a pair of tree-monsters, hooting in unison.  A third stands guard over a collection of prisoners, including the sheriff, the school-teacher, and the Hoadleys' mother.  Overhead, darker-than-black clouds swirl ominously.  

Perry, Randall and Roni fired at the deputy, managing to pepper him with shot but not kill him immediately; Horace lept off the tractor, axe at the ready, to rescue his "momma" from the tree-monster; and as one of the hooting sentinels turned and lumbered towards them, Levi threw the tractor into gear and tried to build up enough steam to reach "ramming speed."

Horace sheared through the tree-monster's ankle (one of three, at any rate) and slid under the collapsing beast on his knees, coming out cleanly on the other side as it toppled, sending the prisoners scattering.  The steam-tractor rammed into the second tree-monster, and in its flailings it caught Perry with a tentacle and sent him flying twenty feet through the air.  

Unfortunately, the deputy lived long enough to complete the summoning ritual; the sky dilated open and hundreds of thousands of tons of black, alien flesh, studded with pus-rimmed eyes, salivating, sphincter-like maws and uncountable tentacles, began pouring into our reality, vaster than any dinosaur or whale that had ever lived.  Three enormous legs, each hundreds of feet long, stretched down, planting cloven hooves ten feet deep into the earth, crushing buildings, trees, concrete, anything in its way.  

Perry went violently mad at the sight of the thing, charging at Horace and blasting him away with a shotgun in his insanity; Levi responded by shooting Perry in the chest.  Randall took off running for the river.  Roni got crushed by a tentacle the size of a tanker truck.  Levi rigged the boiler on the tractor to explode and took off running for the river.  

All in all, a good session.  

A Time to Harvest Session 10: Cataclysm!

We had a very eventful session this week, and one that I'm happy to report that players referred to as a "nail-biter" and "tense" - good! That means I'm doing my job as GM.  Things are getting bad in the campaign world, and the players are realizing and reacting to that.

Dramatis Personae:

• Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism student
• Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering student
• Randall Vhloche (played by Sean), geography student
• Roni (played by Katie), history student
• Mack Hairpin (played by Dave), soldier

The giant, gelatinous tree-horror had just swallowed Nick Jackson whole, and grabbed Drs. Drake and Matherson.  Bullets passed ineffectively through its soft flesh.  With a roar, an on-fire pick-up truck barreled into the clearing, the driver bailing out at the last minute as the truck slammed into the creature.  With a scream of pain, the thing turned and began to shamble away into the woods.  A thrown grenade seemed to stagger the creature, causing it to drop Dr. Matherson.  

A moment's investigation showed that Dr. Matherson did not survive the blast of the grenade and the twenty-foot drop to the ground when the creature released her.  

With the driver of the truck, a soldier named Mack Hairpin from the FOC military camp, joining them, they gave chase to the creature even as the rain began to come down more heavily, following the trail of barrel-sized footprints and puddles of viscous, greenish blood.  They found the creature pacing back and forth over a ten-foot area on the side of Broken Hill, and split up to try and surround it.  Roni stepped on a twig loudly, and the creature began shambling in his direction; Randall used the opportunity to get close to where the creature was, realizing that it was guarding a trapezoidal cave entrance.  Randall dropped four grenades into the cave and took off running.  

When the grenades went off, Mack charged the creature with his Tommy Gun blazing, getting hit and thrown twenty feet through the air by one of its tentacles in the process.  The creature, unfazed, began to march towards town.  Mack revealed that four more of these creatures, as well as a swarm of the Outer Ones, had descended on the military camp right before he fled.

The investigators debated this, and decided to head towards the military camp to look for survivors and supplies.  What they found was a massacre; men torn to shreds, men trampled into the mud, hanging limp from the branches of nearby trees.  Some men were even frozen and shattered into pieces.  They were all disturbed by this scene, Roni especially.  Feeling his skin begin to crawl and feeling trapped and suffocated in his clothes, Roni was compelled to strip down just to be able to breathe.

They found one survivor, a young man named Teddy Hobson, half-frozen, his legs and left arm shattered.  He looked up at Randall, managed to stammer out about the trees coming to life and a swarm of "big bugs" attacking them with guns that froze, and then his gaze drifted down to the fragmentary remains of his legs.  Hollow-eyed, he looked up again at Randall, shaking.  Filling a syringe with morphine, Randall delivered oblivion to the poor man, holding him as he died to give him a comforting final illusion that he would not be alone.

[GM's Note: This was one of the most powerful scenes I've ever run in my career as a GM.]

Debating whether to follow the tree-creatures - of which they know there is at least five, and nothing short of ramming with a truck seemed to injure - into Cobb's Corners, or whether to return to Broken Hill and look for another entrance into the caves, the investigators decided to pursue the second course of action - they knew that the Outer Ones could be killed.

Returning to Broken Hill as the rain increased in intensity, the sky beginning to flicker with the occasional flash of lightning, they began to circle the hill, looking for signs of a secondary entrance.  While doing so, they caught sight of a squadron of five Outer Ones - a stockier, more heavily-built variation then they had seen before - winging towards them.  They tried to take them out with grenades and rifle-fire, but between the swiftly-moving targets and the storm they failed to do so.

Landing, the lead Outer One commanded the investigators to lay down their arms, flanked by a pair of creatures armed with silvery devices that resembled elongated french horns.  The investigators lay down their firearms, holding on to their collections of grenades, and Darren kept the Electric Gun he had taken from "Professor Harrold"/Daphne Devine in his pocket.

Seizing the investigators, the Outer Ones flapped and took off, flying their captives to nearby Round Hill, alighting with them in front of a cave entrance.  The investigators were marched inside and directed to a surgical suite - metal grates over disposal tubes in the floor echoed with the sound of rushing water, the walls lined with racks of strange instruments, a nearby tub in which Outer One limbs and organs twitched with partial life, floating suspended in a pinkish fluid.  A circle of adjustable tables occupied the center of the room, and the investigators were directed to lay down on these.

Panicked, Randall pulled the pin on a grenade (keeping the lever held firmly in place) and made a dash for the nearest grate, lifting it up and diving down, preferring to take his chances in the waters below than in the Outer Ones' control.  Mack tried to wrestle one of the strange "guns" from one of the creatures, and narrowly avoided being beaten with the butt of it.

Darren pulled the Electric Gun from his pocket and tried to activate it, without success.  At the sight of a human holding a piece of their technology, the other armed Outer One turned its weapon on him, firing a blue-white beam.  The blast took Darren square in the chest and enveloped him, freezing him solid in an instant, killing him before he knew he was hit.

[GM's Note: as written, Mi-Go Mist Projectors produce a quickly-spreading line of freezing vapor, five feet wide.  I decided mine would be adjustable.]

At the sight of this, Roni, Perry and Mack situated themselves atop the tables.  "What are you going to do with us?" Roni asked.

"How would you like life eternal?" the creature buzzed in response.

***

Tomorrow I'm going to be in Buffalo for the day, running two sessions of Cthulhu back to back at Queen City Conquest.  If you see me, come say hi!

A Time to Harvest Session 9: Bug Hunt

Last week's Call of Cthulhu session ran long, but things were going entirely too well - for me as Keeper at least - to be willing to end the session at our usual cut-off time.  Things began to really ramp up here, and I think within the next few sessions we'll see the animal waste really start to hit the electric oscillator as far as the player-characters are concerned.  This was also, sadly, Greg's last session with us - his work contract had ended and he's leaving Rochester, so won't be able to be here on Tuesday nights any more.  Don't worry, we gave him one Hell of a send-off!

 Dramatis Personae:

• Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering major and member of the fencing team 
• Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier 
• Nathanlie Wingate Peaslee (played by Kai), folklore major, daughter of psychology professor Wingate Peaslee, granddaughter of economics professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee 
• Nick Jackson (played by Greg), private investigator 
• Roni (played by Katie), Finnish-born history major and member of the swim team 
• Randall Vhloche (played by Sean), geography major

Despite the untimely death of Abelard, the Federated Oil and Chemical-backed expedition to Cobb's Corners in search of the Outer Ones, or "metch kangmi" as they may be known, has gone forward as planned, now as much, perhaps, of a mission of revenge as anything else.  For Darren and Perry, it was a return to the MacLearan farmhouse where their adventures began, for Nick and Nathanlie, it was all new.  FOC had renovated and reinforced the farmhouse, installing a radio antenna and powerful electric lights around the outside.  Morrison, their security chief, supervised the installation of a variety of traps and snares around the perimeter of the property.

Randall and Roni, having not been brought into FOC, had pursued their own investigation that led them back to Cobb's Corners; reuniting with their old comrades (and joining the FOC expedition), they shared what information they'd encountered - that Blaine and Daphne Devine, the formerly-missing woman whose brain had been installed in Professor Harrold's body, had been in contact with a woman named Emelda Cratchett to acquire her husband's grandfather's diaries.

Once established (and confirming the local presence of metch kangmi when one apparently loses a leg to a bear trap), the team divides up, with Darren, Perry, Roni, the psychologist Drake and security chief Morrison patrolling the sugar maple forest behind the cabin; this was at Perry's suggestion, recalling the unsettling dreams he'd had the last time he was in Cobb's Corners.

Nick and Nathanlie, meanwhile, went into town to size up the local law enforcement and to investigate Darren and Perry's claims of creepy children.  Randall manned an impromptu watchtower atop the roof of the farmhouse.

Darren, Perry and Roni soon realized that something was wrong with the forest, noticing small, mouthless humanoid figures, pinkish gray in color, watching them from the trees - the same as a creature Roni had seen near the outhouse weeks earlier.  Morrison shot one of the creatures out of the tree, sending the others scattering - and the one he shot sublimated into an ozone-scented smoke within the next few minutes.

Coming across a dilapidated cabin in a clearing, they noticed a piggish smell coming from the shack and a faint grunting, squealing sound.  Stealing as close as he dared, rifle at the ready, Perry tried to peer through the shack's single window.  As he did, a porcine head lifted up into view, peering back through tiny, jaundiced eyes.  Clawed hands grasping the window frame, the swine-thing heaved itself through the window towards Perry, but died quickly to a single shot from the Lee Enfield, dissipating into smoke as it did.  Squealing from the forest told them more of these creatures were on their way, and they quickly barricaded themselves inside the cabin.

I have gotten so much mileage out of this image.

Two more of the swine-things died quickly as they approached the window, but an enormous boar, half again as large as its fellows and sporting a pair of wickedly-curved tusks, circled around the other side of the cabin and began to batter against the door.  Ramming its huge, bony head through the rotten wood of the door, the creature began to break through - only to be knocked senseless by a bullet between the eyes from Perry.  The creature stumbled and fell backwards, its breathing wet and wheezy.  Darren decided to toss out a grenade to finish the creature off, judging the distance to throw the explosive to where it would damage the creature without damaging the cabin or themselves.  His aim was a little off, coupled with the rottenness of the wood, resulting in Darren getting a back full of splinters.

In the root cellar under the cabin, they found a catatonic little girl - and realized that the original swine-thing they'd encountered had been trying to get at her when they'd disturbed it.

[GM Aside: Personally, I really dislike mixing material from Lovecraft's "Dreamlands" stories into my Call of Cthulhu games.  I feel like the tones don't mesh at all and I'm just generally not a fan.  So when the campaign called for Zoogs, Men of Leng, and a Moon-Beast, I replaced them with "Dover Demons" and William Hope Hodgson's "Swine-Things" to suit my own preferences.]

Nick and Nathanlie, meanwhile, after assessing Sheriff Spenser as an authoritarian blowhard and Deputy Cutter as hiding something, go looking for Jason Haggerty, the teenage boy seen drawing "creepy trees" weeks earlier.  Talking their way past the school-marm, they managed to isolate the boy.  Nathanlie laid on the charm, leaning in seductively and using the boy's raging teenage hormones as a lever to pry loose information.

It worked, and they soon learned that most of the children in town were part of a group calling themselves "the Young," that Deputy Cutter was their leader (even though he was almost "too old") and that they would be summoning "Mother" to Earth in accordance with her wishes.

As Nick digested this information, Nathanlie opened her mouth and began to emit a strange, subsonic droning, putting the private eye in a hypnotic state and rewriting his memory to erase all evidence of what the boy had told them.

After having the girl checked out by Matherson and Drake back at base, Darren, Perry and Roni took her home to her parents, and then paid Emelda Cratchett a visit; she was at first irritated to hear reference to Blaine and Devine, blaming them for her husband's mysterious demise just days after he spoke with them.  They managed to talk their way into her good graces, however, and even managed to gain access to her husband's grandfather's journals.  From these they learned of legends of a cave network under Broken Hill, in which the Outer Ones lived.

Taking some time alone back at the base, Nathanlie mixed up a cocktail of heavy opiates and lemonade, distributing it to anyone in the base who would take a cup.  Darren, Perry and Roni returned to base and immediately sensed something off in Nick's explanation of what Jason Haggerty had said, their questioning making him begin to question his own memory.

At this point, something big began to set off traps behind the farmhouse.  As they watched through the kitchen windows, a tree seemed to begin to uproot itself from the ground - or rather, to extract itself from the pit trap it had blundered into.  Towering twenty feet tall, the "tree" was a thick, cylindrical trunk of dense black jelly, pocked with drooling, sphincter-like mouths and patches of coarse, dark hair, balanced atop three digitigrade legs ending in cloven hooves.  Crowning this horror was a mass of squirming, greasy tendrils, four larger "trunks" emerging from the mass of smaller "branches." With a hooting bellow, the thing launched itself against the reinforced wall of the farmhouse.

Behind the group, Nathanlie planted herself firmly in the doorway out of the kitchen, the skin on the back of her neck splitting open as she began to molt out of "her" disguise - revealing the Outer One that had replaced her weeks earlier to observe and report on the Investigators.

The tree-like thing outside was too great for Roni's mind to handle, and in the darkness of the new moon she latched on to electric lighting as a safety blanket.  The sight of an Outer One emerging from Nathanlie like a five-foot cicada was more than Nick could comprehend.  Tommy gun in hand, all he could think was that if Nathanlie had been replaced, the rest of them must have been as well.

Perry managed to put a rifle bullet in the thing wearing Nathanlie's skin, but did not manage to kill the creature.  Squeezing the trigger, Nick swept the entire room with the submachine gun, emptying the thirty-round magazine.  Other than placing three bullets into the creature in Nathanlie's skin (finally killing it), the shots went high from the recoil of the gun, sparing the rest of the expedition.

As Nick stood there, breathing hard, barrel of the gun smoking, the tree-like thing outside burst through the wall, seizing him with two tentacles and pulling him into its bulk before retreating into the darkness of the night.

A Time To Harvest Session 8: Champagne Wishes

Running a little behind schedule in posting this session's write-up, as I've been in giddy wargamer mode since Wednesday, building terrain and tweaking my warband in preparation for a future game of Frostgrave.  It's also been far too humid (it hit 93% humidity the other day...walking outside was like swimming in hot chowder) to do much painting - I know my spray primers won't stick to my ruined buildings in this weather, and I'm a little afraid to apply paint to miniatures for fear of it not drying properly. So I guess I should stop procrastinating and finish this write-up!

Dramatis Personae:

•  Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering major and member of the fencing team 
•  Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier 
• Nathanlie Wingate Peaslee (played by Kai), folklore major, daughter of psychology professor Wingate Peaslee, granddaughter of economics professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee 
•  Nick Jackson (played by Greg), private investigator

After listening to the recording of a "metch kangmi," one of these alien Outer Ones, being interrogated, the Investigators came away less than impressed with the scientists at Federated Oil & Chemical, convinced that they have no idea what they're doing in regards addressing the apparent invasion of Earth by the Outer Ones.  Regardless, and keeping in mind the blank check penned for them by Abelard, they continue their firearms training.

The night before they're scheduled to return to Cobb's Corners, the Investigators are summoned by Selena Preston to the conference room on the fifth floor.  Not sure what to expect, Nick showed up armed.  Looking very serious for a moment, Abelard cracked a smile and drew forth an iced bottle of very high quality champagne.  "To our successes," he toasted.  Selena turns on a radio, and everyone begins to let their hair down.

Then, the power goes out.  By the time flashlights are rounded up, someone has slit Michael Abelard's throat, ear to ear in perfect silence.  Those closest to him at the table - David Drake, Nathanlie Peaslee, Peter Murdoch and Morrison, the security chief, were questioned closely, and frisked for weapons - both Morrison and Peaslee had knives in their boots, but these were all clean.  Darren and Nick attempted to search the conference room for invisible assassins by spraying champagne around the area, while Perry and Larry Nekler, the expedition's mechanic, made their way down the stairs to try and fix the power in the basement.

They were interrupted as they passed the fourth floor - from within, they could hear screams, gunshots, and a gutteral, booming croaking sound.  Sneaking past, they were met by opposition a level down - two green-scaled humanoid frogs, standing each six feet tall, still sloughing off the crusty yellow membrane that had sealed them in suspended animation - the "mummies" being rehydrated in the lab.  Perry stumbled retreating up the stairs, but managed to grab a fireaxe off the wall and swing at the lead of the two creatures.  The creature retaliated with a swipe of a huge, webbed claw that almost disemboweled the junior reporter.

Growing uneasy, Nick and Morrison head down stairs to help Perry and Nekler, stumbling into their fight with the two frogs, wherein their firearms made a distinct difference, though Nick's .45 jammed on its second shot.  One frog dead and the other in retreat, Nick helped Perry back upstairs to get medical attention while Morrison and Nekler continued to the basement.  A glance back showed Nick six more frogs emerging from the fourth floor, their claws and jaws bloody, and descending the stairs.

With Perry soon taped up, Nick rallied the group, rearmed, and led the group downstairs to see if Morrison and Nekler were still alive.  Muddy footprints and broken doors revealed that the frogs had left the building and made their way into the Detroit River.  The on-site staff -- security guards, maids, cooks, and lab scientists -- had been torn apart and partially devoured by the amphibious humanoids. And the building's wiring had been torn to shreds at the fuse box.  Nekler and Darren managed to jury-rig a temporary work around to get the building's lights back on.

With Abelard dead and no sign of his assassin (and the looming possibility that one of those present was a double agent for the metch kangmi), the Investigators debated the wisdom of continuing on with their mission to Cobb's Corners, ultimately agreeing that it would be best to launch an attack now, when the metch kangmi expect them to be disorganized and confused.

A Time to Harvest Session 7: New Beginnings

We had a smaller group this week, and a little bit of trouble with set-up - a folding chair broke under me when I sat down in it and we ended up a bit squeezed in next to an X-Wing game, but overall it was a good session.  Let's have a run down.

Dramatis Personae:

• Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering major and member of the fencing team 
• Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier
• Nathanlie Wingate Peaslee (played by Kai), folklore major, daughter of psychology professor Wingate Peaslee, granddaughter of economics professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee 
• Nick Jackson (played by Greg), private investigator

A week or so passed since the events in Orne Library and the deal made with the agents of the "Outer Ones." The Investigators were awakened one day by the sound of police sirens heading to campus.  Following the sound of the sirens brought them to Orne Library, where the bodies of those same agents - the tops of their heads neatly removed and their brains missing - were stacked up like cordwood in front of the library.  While observing the scene, Darren noticed a black Cadillac parked nearby, a bearded man visible in the driver's seat.

Since Daphne Devine/"Roger Harrold" was not among them, they swiftly paid a visit to "his" office; not finding "him" there, Nick trashed the office and then they headed to Harrold's residence.  Finding "him" at home, they escorted the ersatz professor to a nearby cafe for interrogation.  They quickly ascertained that "Harrold" had nothing directly to do with the destruction of the agents, but suggested that the "Outer Ones" don't take kindly to failure and don't feel particularly bound to honor bargains made with what they perceive as an inferior species.

Lunging, Harrold concluded the interrogation by drawing a metal ovoid, not much larger than a hen's egg, from a pocket and electrocuting Perry with it, badly burning the journalist and leaving him paralyzed and unconscious for a few minutes.  As Harrold turned to run, Nick pulled out his pistol and shot the professor in the head.  After explaining the situation to the satisfaction of the police, the investigators left the cafe - and saw the black Cadillac.  Deciding to introduce themselves, they struck up a conversation with first the driver, a large Scotsman, and then the passenger - a beautiful blonde woman who introduced herself as Selena.

Michael Abelard

Selena explained that her employer had a job offer for them, a job relating to "our mutual friends in the mountains." Her employer, she explained, was Michael Abelard, the owner of Federated Oil and Chemical - the financiers behind their college field trip to Cobb's Corners, Vermont.

Driving to the harbor, they boarded an amphibious plane and flew to Detroit, where they were met by Abelard, who laid all the cards on the table - his son had been killed by the Outer Ones while mountain climbing in Tibet, in an accident that had also cost Abelard the use of his legs.  Since then, he'd devoted his life and fortune to hunting these creatures and learning everything he could about them in order to destroy them.

He asked the investigators to lead a team of scientists and soldiers into Cobb's Corners in search of a suspected hidden base belonging to the creatures.  His team had the scientific background, but no practical experience with the region or the creatures, which is where the investigators would come in.  Their concerns about being used as "bait" Abelard allayed with a blank check and an assurance that their grades for the semester would be taken care of at Miskatonic.

They were given a week's rest and recuperation at the Detroit facility, allowing Perry to recover from his electrical burns and the investigators to train with firearms.  They were introduced to some of the other individuals who would be going on this expedition - Dr. David Drake, a psychologist, historian and occultist; Dr. Sarah Matherson, a forensic pathologist; Captain Sam Morrison, chief of security; and Larry Nekler, engineer and radio technician.

Dr. Matherson was especially interested to hear about Perry's experience with one of the Outer Ones, and shared her research with him.  She even took the investigators down into the lab for a brief tour, where they glimpsed an autopsy of a desiccated, humanoid form - albeit one with stumpy, pillar-like legs, long arms, no neck and a wide, lipless mouth.  Dr. Matherson explained that a number of these natural mummies had been found at an abandoned base in Peru, and that they were believed to be a new form of the creatures, possibly an attempt to mimic human form instead of having to rely on brain transplants.

Finally, she played them an audio recording, of an interrogation conducted the one time they captured one of these creatures.  The recording was horrifying, the entity begging for food - unable to digest earthly matter - while Matherson demanded it answer her questions, delivering painful electric shocks to the creature when it hesitated. The creature - identified as a "metch kangmi" in Nepalese on the recording, a name Nathanlie recognized as referring to the "abominable snowman" of the Himalayas - was forced to admit to coming from a ninth planet, Yuggoth, at the far end of the solar system, but was able to say little more before Matherson inadvertently killed the creature with electricity.

A Time to Harvest Session 6: The Hallowed Halls of Miskatonic

I don't know if I'm even technically running "A Time to Harvest" any more.  That's how far afield from the anticipated campaign we've gone.  We were down two of our regular players this week, but had a guest player (my friend Greg, in town for work for the next month or so), so it balanced out.

Dramatis Personae:

• Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering major and member of the fencing team 
•  Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier 
•  Oliver Goss (played by Dave), anthropology major 
• Nathanlie Wingate Peaslee (played by Kai), folklore major, daughter of psychology professor Wingate Peaslee, granddaughter of economics professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee 
• Nick Jackson (played by Greg), private investigator

Nick was employed to investigate the apparent suicide of Robert Blaine, found dead in his room with a pistol in his hand, surrounded by empty whiskey bottles.  His investigation quickly led him to Orne Library, where he soon met Nathanlie, Oliver, Darren and Perry.  While initially skeptical of their story, he found himself uneasily convinced once they began to talk to the other students who had been on the Cobb's Corners trip, and heard one of them say that Blaine had been a "weak link in the plan," and that he "had to be eliminated."

A great deal of discussion followed, and the investigators managed, astonishingly, to convince the agents to divulge what they knew and why they were in Miskatonic, inhabiting student bodies.  They learned that the agents were sent to find and destroy any books that might allow others to discover the outpost of the "Outer Ones" in the Vermont hills, as well as to discourage further investigation of a unique mineral sample found in those hills on a previous expedition.

Playing on the unhappiness of agents Keith Clark (his family having been killed by the Outer Ones after he'd bargained for their safe release) and the man, Wesley, whose brain had been placed in Clarissa's body, the investigators managed to successfully argue the majority of the agents into abandoning their mission and going off and living new lives in fresh, young, healthy bodies.

That's when Nick noticed a heavy book rising into the air, seemingly unaided.  Recalling having heard about the invisible assassin inhabiting Terry Laslow's body, he threw Nathanlie's sack of flour at where he thought the assassin was (managing instead to cover himself in flour), then lunged, successfully tackling Laslow to the floor and smearing enough flour on him to render him visible.

Having seen what Laslow was capable of, Perry jumped forward, placing the barrel of the gun he'd previously taken from Laslow against the assassin's forehead and pulled the trigger.  Nathanlie raced, arms full of books, to begin dropping them on the stairs leading up from the library basement to disguise the sound.

Oliver went a little mad at the sight of this, blocking out all memory of who these people he'd just witnessed commit murder were.  He tried to flee, but was stopped by Darren and Nathanlie, the latter of whom ordered him to just sit down and stay quiet.

When campus police showed up, Nick calmly showed them his PI license, explaining that he'd been tracking this man on suspicion of murder and he was shot while resisting a citizen's arrest.  The student investigators escaped into the Arkham tunnels, old smuggler's passages excavated under the city - as an engineering student, Darren knew the tunnels under Miskatonic fairly well, having assisted in the construction of an engineering students-only subterranean lounge in them.

From here, the students considered their options, finally settling on writing a letter to the "Outer Ones" and leaving it for them to find in an abandoned farmhouse that the agents had told them was to be their rendezvous after the library was on fire.  In the letter, they outlined a compromise - in exchange for letting the library stand, Outer One-approved guardians would be appointed to watch over the library and control access to certain books (most of which were already locked away in the restricted section).  The letter drafted and placed, the investigators settled in to await response.

The response came two days later in the form of a letter wrapped around a brick thrown through Nathanlie's bedroom window.  "Your terms are acceptable," was all that was written, in exceedingly neat block capitals.  That same day, it was learned that a fire had swept through the Geology department, with the sole casualty being Professor Learmonth, who had been involved in financing the Cobb's Corners expedition.

A Time to Harvest Session 5: "Going Mad at Miskatonic"

We had a smaller group than usual this week, but still achieved a quorum so we still played, and I think had a very good session.

Our Dramatis Personae for this session:

• Nathanlie Wingate Peaslee (played by Kai), folklore major, daughter of psychology professor Wingate Peaslee, granddaughter of economics professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee (See Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time for more on the Peaslees - I made the canonical Peaslees ten years older to allow for a college age descendant)
•  Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier 
•  Roni (played by Katie), Finnish-born history major and member of the swim team 
•  Randall Vhloche (played by Sean), geography major 

When we last left our heroes, Nathanlie Peaslee was steeling herself to torture "Clarissa Thurber," her roommate suddenly displaying strange behaviors, for information, convinced that this was a case of the same strange fugue state that her grandfather had experienced in 1908.  She was stopped by the combined efforts of her father, Wingate Peaslee, and fellow investigator Perry Webster, who together talked her down from the idea of torture.  As they discussed other possible causes of "Clarissa's" strange behavior and whether some such causes could be found via blood test, "Clarissa" finally spoke:

"If you give me what I want, I'll tell you what you want to know."

"Clarissa" revealed that she was actually "Wesley," a chemist and body-builder taken by "the Old Ones" more than a decade earlier.  Unhappy about having his brain placed in a woman's body, he was willing to explain what he knew - that the Old Ones, alien crustaceans, had been visiting Earth for millions of years in search of minerals unavailable on their homeworld, Incredibly advanced, they can remove a still-living brain and preserve it for as long as they please in a sealed canister, even able to transplant it into a different head years or even centuries later.  The students on the Cobb's Corners trip had all had their brains removed and the brains of conditioned operatives placed in their heads, with the goal of collecting information on the Old Ones from various sources in the school's library, setting the library on fire, and stealing samples of a certain ultraheavy ore from the geology lab - ore that had precipitated the geology side of the Cobb's Corners trip.  

In exchange for this information, Wesley wanted to die with dignity; he understood there was no possibility of returning to his own body, and he was uncomfortable with living out his life as a woman.  

A shot rang out; a scarlet blossom erupted on "Wesley's" forehead, and Perry got a glimpse of the rat-like face of Terry Laslow, disappearing into the shadow.  Thinking quickly, Perry hurled a handy mason jar at the fading apparition, nailing him in the forehead.  Snapping into visibility and stunned by the attack, Laslow managed to shoot the boiler and douse the investigators in hot steam, but undeterred, Perry tackled him and Nathanlie lunged with the fireplace poker.  Holding the point inches from his face, Nathanlie demanded he stand down, which he did, calming down and going silent - and then he began to change.

A third eye opened in his forehead, his neck and arms elongating, his hands becoming claws; In a moment, Nathanlie was confronted with the monster that haunted her own nightmares almost as vividly as it did her grandfather's - one of the vast, cone-shaped beings that was somehow connected to Nathaniel Peaslee's experiences from 1908 to 1913.  Panicking, she lunged for the creature's head, embedding the poker in the floor of the basement.  Perry saw none of this, and Laslow used the confusion to kick free, though Perry managed to seize the gun and turn it on Laslow.  

Cornered, Laslow allowed the investigators some information - that he was in fact Lawrence Jarvis, he'd been in the service of the Old Ones for close to three hundred years, and that he would kill them for this.  Disappearing from view, Perry and Nathanlie heard footsteps running up the stairs and, trying to judge the location of the invisible assassin, Perry squeezed off a shot, apparently without success.  

Collecting their wits, Nathanlie and Perry met up with Roni and Randall and discussed what they'd learned.  Randall confirmed with information he'd gathered - attempting to quiz his friend Roderick "Little Rod" Block about the trip had earned him a savage punch in the nose.  Together, they made plans to arm themselves and find a way to protect the library from these strange invaders.  

To that end, Randall bought himself a golf club, Roni a knife, and Nathanlie a knife, a lever-action rifle (with attendant golf bag and club sleeve to disguise the weapon on campus) and a pint of kerosene.  

Casing the library, Roni encountered Jason Trent, the shy folklorist from the field trip, cursing in a broad cockney accent over a book on the American Revolution, and was belittled for his Scandinavian accent by Trent.  

Randall encountered Louis Gibbons, the former pre-med turned botany major, who was seemingly returning to the study of medicine, reading textbooks well above what should have been his level of expertise.  

Perry witnessed Dr. Armitage denying William Noakes, another folklore student, access to the Restricted Section, despite a note from Professor Harrold authorizing Noakes to review passages from the Necronomicon.  Perry delivered a warning to Armitage that certain students had begun acting strangely, and would likely make other attempts on the Restricted Section.  Armitage agreed to work on enhancing security.  

Nathanlie, looking into the possibility of using the library boiler room to encourage students to leave the library and thus shield them from the arson planned by the altered students, found the door locked.  She splashed some kerosene along the bottom of the door to see if it would wick under, before noticing "Little Rod," aka "Keith Clark," studying old periodicals.  Using the "real" name given to her by Clarissa/Wesley, she addressed Keith and spoke sympathetically, hoping to find another unhappy soul and potential ally.  

In response, Keith handed her a newspaper clipping from 1921, covering the discovery of the bodies of Lou Ann Clark and their two children and his own disappearance.  He explained that he'd made a deal with the Old Ones after accidentally stumbling across them on a family vacation; he gave himself to them in exchange for his wife and children's freedom and safety.  

A Time to Harvest Session 4: "Back to School"

First off, to the people in the miniature painting and wargaming community that follow my blog, I apologize for the lack of miniature painting I've been doing lately.  Haven't been hugely in the mood, plus we've had a new arrival in our lives here - this gigantic furball, named Atticus, has been adopted and brought into our house.  He's 20 pounds, or 9.07 kg for my brethren in civilized countries that use an actual system of measurement.  Sorry Americans, I'm pro-metric system.

Since I don't have a dedicated workspace for miniature painting, and I don't want to risk him licking paint or eating a scrap of metal or plastic trimmed off a figure, I've decided to hold off on toy soldier work for a while - at the very least until he's more settled in his environment here and knows the boundaries that are in place.

New feline friends aside, I think this week's session of the "A Time to Harvest" campaign was the best yet in terms of pacing and energy at the table.  We had a new player join us, a woman I knew a little bit at college, who's a big Lovecraft fan but had little experience with the RPG.  This proved no hindrance as she leapt into play without difficulty.

 Our Dramatis Personae:

•  Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering major and member of the fencing team 
• Nathanlie Wingate Peaslee (played by Kai), folklore major, daughter of psychology professor Wingate Peaslee, granddaughter of economics professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee (See Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time for more on the Peaslees - I made the canonical Peaslees ten years older to allow for a college age descendant)
•  Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier 
•  Roni (played by Katie), Finnish-born history major and member of the swim team 
•  Randall Vhloche (played by Sean), geography major 
• Dave was on his way to Origins, and so was not available to play Oliver Goss this week.  

With Oliver incapacitated by an overpowering summer cold, no doubt contracted during the heavy thunderstorm experienced in Cobb's Corners, Darren, Perry, Roni and Randall have a quiet drive back to Miskatonic, arriving on campus August 20th.  Upon arrival, they immediately begin looking for their fellow classmates from the fieldtrip, while Perry visits Orne Library for an investigation into the history and folklore of the Wampanoag tribes of Vermont (flub on my part - in Vermont it would have been the Abenaki, not the Wampanoag, who were found in what is now Massachusetts) looking for answers to the mass grave-site they discovered.  He discovered native tales backing up the folklore he'd heard in Cobb's Corners, about evil spirits, the "old ones under the hills" that massacred an entire tribe in a single night.

Meanwhile, having recovered from a summer cold that forced her to miss the Cobb's Corners trip, Nathanlie Peaslee set out to find students who had been on that trip to learn what she'd missed.  She soon encountered first Roni, then Perry, Darren and Randall, who filled her in on the strange and unusual happenings of the trip.  She especially latched on to descriptions of students behaving oddly, relating them to the mysterious fugue state and alternate personality manifested by her grandfather from 1908 to 1913.  She made plans with the others to meet over dinner to discuss the matter further.
In the interim, Nathanlie found out where Robert Blaine, the expedition's leader, was living off campus, and paid his apartment a visit, sweet-talking her way past the landlord and giving the room a quick search, soon discovering a book - the handwritten notes from Daphne Devine, one of the missing students from the previous year's disastrous trip to Cobb's Corners, and a letter to Devine from Professor Roger Harrold of the anthropology department, praising her work and encouraging a follow-up trip.

She followed that up with a meeting with her roommate, Clarissa Thurber, a young chemistry major who had been on the Cobb's Corners trip, finding her suddenly sullen, withdrawn, and dressing in men's clothing.  A few carefully-worded questions convinced Nathanlie that whoever this was, it wasn't Clarissa Thurber.  Her suspicions, based on her grandfather's experience from 1908-1913, grew stronger, and she arranged a cab to pick up her fellow investigators for a private dinner at the Regatta restaurant.

Perry, meanwhile, interviewed with Professor Roger Harrold about the last days of the fieldtrip, after he and his fellow investigators had been sent home.  It seemed Harrold bore them no ill will regarding the circumstances under which the investigators were sent back to Miskatonic and happily answered Perry's questions, while inserting a few sly jabs at the quality and skill of the student newspaper's editors.

Darren took to Orne Library to research the footprints he discovered in Cobb's Corners, finding the shape of the tracks to resemble the feet of both owls and chameleons, though of a size to suggest an animal over five feet in length.

Randall looked into the geography and geology of Vermont, and encountered his friend Roderick "Little Rod" Block, who had been on the fieldtrip, and now seemed different; no longer was he wearing his beloved football jersey, and the swing was missing from his step.  He seemed distant and withdrawn; he quickly ended the conversation with Randall, disappearing into the depths of Orne Library.

Reconvening over dinner, Nathanlie provided the others with copies of salient points from Daphne Devine's journal, and discussed plans to gain further information.  It was ultimately decided that Nathanlie would drug "Clarissa" with ether and smuggle her unconscious from Upman Hall to a secure location - namely, the basement of her father and grandfather's house - for interrogation; Perry would assist in moving "Clarissa" inside a steamer trunk to get her past the watchful eye of the Upman Hall chaperone.

The plan works, and "Clarissa" is soon tied to a chair in the Peaslee basement; Nathanlie's father Wingate is aghast, and ready to call the police on his own daughter, however, intrigued by the possibility of learning more about his own experiences, the elder Peaslee is cautiously ready to move forward with the interrogation.  With Perry's help, Nathanlie appeals to her grandfather, winning him over to full approval and overriding Wingate's objections for the moment.

[GM's Note: Perry's assistance granted Nathanlie a bonus die when making a Persuade roll to keep her father from calling the police; the below picture shows the results on the dice.]

When "Clarissa" proved uncooperative, Nathanlie calmly began heating a fireplace poker over the boiler, commenting only that in Ireland, tests of fire and water were used on the seemingly-possessed.  She slowly approached the bound "Clarissa," glowing poker at the ready.  Perry wondered what he'd gotten himself into.

And that's where we left off for this session - a lot got done, and I didn't even hit everything here but I covered the important parts.  Most amusingly, I made Kai *fail* a Sanity check to go through with her torture idea - and she used her Sanity Reroll token to ensure she failed.  It was the first time so far this campaign someone used the Sanity Reroll house rule - my rule is that spending $10 or more in-store on the day of game earns one a token to reroll one Sanity Check that session.  It's my way of supporting Just Games in exchange for Matt offering me a place to run games.

Our next campaign session will be June 28th, but before that, this coming Saturday, June 18th, I will be at Just Games Rochester promoting Call of Cthulhu as part of Free RPG Day 2016.  If you're in the area I encourage you to come by!

A Time To Harvest Session 3: "The Eye of the Storm"

Session 3 of "A Time to Harvest" took place this week, and it's a bit bittersweet; on the one hand, we completed the first chapter of the campaign and had some exciting things happen to the Investigators; on the other, my girlfriend Gina has decided to leave the campaign, citing the pacing and her own lack of patience.  Her space has been filled by a friend from college who happened to be at the game store the night of the first session and asked about getting into some Cthulhu gaming, earning her first place on a waitlist - something I've never had for a game before.

I've also come to a state of acceptance - GMing is simultaneously exhausting and energizing for me; by the end of a session I'll feel like I'm made of lead, but at the same time my mind will be buzzing, unable to settle down, and having sessions in the evening during the week tends to mean sleepless nights for me afterwards.  I try to keep sessions relatively short and tightly focused because of this, to give myself time to wind down before bed afterwards, but I'm beginning to think I just need to accept that I'm not sleeping and allow myself a can of Dr. Pepper and a Kit-Kat Bar during play.  Most of my players eat, drink and make merry at the gaming table, often putting themselves into a state of sugar rush right as I'm starting to really wear down for the night.  Rather than become weary, headachey and irritable when they're buzzing with excitement (and caffeine), and if I'm not going to get to sleep afterwards anyways, I might as well match their consumption.

 Once again, our Dramatis Personae:

•  Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering major and member of the fencing team 
•  Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier 
•  Roni (played by Katie), Finnish-born history major and member of the swim team 
•  Randall Vhloche (played by Sean), geography major 
•  Oliver Goss (played by Dave), anthropology major

When we last left the Investigators, they had just discovered that Robert Blaine, the expedition leader, was not in the outhouse as expected; their befuddlement was interrupted by Jason Trent, an awkward, shy history student, emerging from the maples behind the cabin, cradling something wrapped in a jacket.  Interrogation revealed it to be a mandrake root, something Trent was familiar with from his studies of witchcraft.  Before they could question him further, Blaine stuck his head out the door of the farmhouse and yelled for them to go back to bed.

In the morning, with the sky still threatening to storm, Perry, Roni, Randall and Oliver decided to forego interviewing locals in favor of going directly to Broken Hill, a locale that serves as a common thread running through many of the stories they'd heard.  Darren, with the digging team, was stuck doing field work until the storm struck, a torrential downpour that sent them scurrying for the truck and a series of tarps to hide under.  With no end to the storm in sight, Darren eventually said, "I have to go," and took off running into the storm, hoping to find his way to Broken Hill.

illustration by Kurt Komoda

Instead, the Investigators eventually managed to get themselves back to town and to Jim's Diner, where they dried off and drank coffee waiting for the storm to pass.  When, in late afternoon, it did finally break, they slowly made their way up to Broken Hill.  Crossing the river, Oliver and Darren noticed an odd, pinkish shape bobbing in the muddy, turbulent water, though it was gone before they could draw anyone else's attention to it.

Once up at Broken Hill, they soon found an Indian burial ground exposed by the heavy rains (though Oliver was adamant the remains were Colonial) and a series of strange, clawed tracks.  Perry followed these tracks into a nearby copse of gnarled oaks, noticing a strange green-blue glow up in the tree.  He climbed the tree to see what was causing the light, and a moment later came crashing to the ground unconscious, covered in a sticky white powder.  Hearing something moving in the trees, the other three pick him up and race back to the car, heading back to town as fast as the treacherous, muddy roads will allow.  They deliver Perry to the doctor in town, and decide to find the rest of the students.

The find the farmhouse empty, and discover the storm has washed out the old garden and revealed a human skeleton buried there; they speculate that it may be Sarah Maclearan, whose own grave was found empty years earlier.  Covering the remains with a tarp, they went on to look for the dig-team, finding the truck abandoned and surrounded by more of the strange tracks, some of which they made plaster casts of.

Meanwhile, Perry revives and, cleaning up, sets out in search of his fellow Investigators, learning first that the doctor believes a vampire may be behind a number of strange things he's seen around town.

The Investigators soon reunite, and decide to take the mystery of the disappearing students to the Sheriff.  They encounter Deputy Cutter, who listens to their story, looks at the track-castings they found, and asks them to wait at the police station while he rouses the Sheriff and "gets him ready to listen to you."

When he arrives, Sheriff Spenser begins to listen to their story before declaring them a bunch of drunks and trying to arrest them - on the advice of Deputy Cutter, who claims not to have seen any such track-castings as they're talking about, calling the Investigators liars as well as drunks.  The Investigators manage to talk their way out of spending a night in jail, by letting the Sheriff know his sister's remains have been found.  After going out and confirming that the bones are Sarah's, Sheriff Spenser asks the Investigators to stay at the farmhouse for the remainder of the night while he makes some phone calls.

Perry explains to his fellow Investigators what he saw in the tree before falling; a pinkish, spidery

Kurt Komoda again, because he draws the
best Mythos critters

creature, its "head" a mass of pulsating, glowing fleshy cones.  The creature pointed something that resembled a gun at him, spraying him with the sticky white powder.  That was the last he remembered until he woke up in the doctor's office.

In the morning, the truck rolls up to the farmhouse, filled with students.  Blaine orders the Investigators to begin packing up, that they'll be returning to Miskatonic early, refusing to explain why.  Shortly thereafter, Professor Harrold, the anthropology professor who organized the trip, arrives, furious at having received a phone call at 2 am from Sheriff Spenser that his students were out of line and running around at all hours of the night.  Listening to the Investigators tell their story, he tells them to just return to Miskatonic, that he will deal with Blaine.

Before leaving Cobb's Corners, the Investigators stop at the newspaper office to have their remaining plaster cast of an alien footprint photographed, and at the doctor's office to learn more about the sticky white powder - to the best of the doctor's limited knowledge of chemistry, he's determined the powder to be a sort of fungal spore.  Armed with this disconcerting knowledge, the Investigators began the drive back to Miskatonic University.

On June 14th, we'll be reconvening to begin Episode 2 of the campaign (unfortunately short a player again, but I couldn't schedule an alternate date that didn't result in someone not being able to make it), and after that, on June 18th, I'm marking Free RPG Day by running "The Space Between," a scenario from the 7th edition book Nameless Horrors, at Just Games Rochester at 4 pm

A Time To Harvest Session 2: "The Darkest Part of the Woods"

We had the second session of the Call of Cthulhu organized play campaign "A Time To Harvest" this past week, and while it was a short session (I try not to run super long, due to one of my players having anxiety issues that makes it hard for them to spend long periods of time around strangers, plus I've been having wicked insomnia problems lately, meaning my energy levels aren't where I'd like them to be) I feel like a lot was accomplished.  The players divided up and spread across the small town of Cobb's Corners, Vermont to gather information and then came back together to share what they'd learned, piecing together dissociated knowledge in true Cthulhu Investigator fashion.

Once again, our Dramatis Personae:

•  Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering major and member of the fencing team 
• Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier 
• Rip Steakface (played by Gina), folklore studies major (Gina is my girlfriend, and this is her first RPG campaign, and she's not taking it entirely seriously. She has stated her intention that every character she plays this campaign will have a name taken from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode in which they riff SPACE MUTINY) 
• Roni (played by Katie), Finnish-born history major and member of the swim team 
• Randall Vhloche (played by Sean), geography major 
• Oliver Goss (played by Dave), anthropology major

I'm not sure how we ended up with half the PCs having first names beginning with "R," but here we are.

When we last left our heroes, Perry had just been handed a photograph, seeming to show something flying in front of the moon, by local newspaperman Richard Wendell.  Wendell believed that it was to destroy this photograph that his darkroom was trashed by forces unknown.  Perry asked Wendell to run off a few copies of the photograph, arguing that it would be best to go public with this - whoever tried to suppress the photo can't if there are copies circulating throughout the town.

That night, another round of strange and confusing shared dreams struck the group, afflicting almost all the player characters.  In the morning, on his way to the outhouse, Roni spotted a strange creature, a small humanoid shape about two feet tall with an oversized head, pinkish-gray skin and no facial features save a pair of glowing green-orange eyes.  When he dropped his copy of the Sears Roebuck catalog at the sight of this thing, it glowered at him and took off running into the Sugar Maples behind the property.

Robert Blaine, the expedition leader, sub-divided the folklore students for this day's work, putting the player characters in one group and the NPCs in another (to ease the GM's burden, haha).  Darren was assigned to the "soil" group to assist the archaeologists and geologists, while Perry, a journalist, was left to his own devices.

The folklorists (and Perry, conducting independent research along similar lines), soon came to the realization that there were a few trends showing up in their interviews:

1. A place called "Broken Hill" was significant - some legends marked it as a Native American burial ground, others as a burial ground for massacred white settlers.  Supposedly guarded by a huge, spectral hound that can be turned away by the sign of the Cross.  
2. The valley in which Cobb's Corners sits is largely devoid of insects and wildlife - "only man and what man brings with him dwells here."
3. There is an unusual high death rate among children in Cobb's Corners.  The entire graduating class of 1919 (five students, but still) were dead before the end of that summer.  
4. Agnes Bellweather, living alone past the edge of town, is a witch.  Allegedly, when she caught her husband with another woman, she cursed his privates off and left him to kill himself.  

A visit to the town physician, Dr. Perry, confirmed that there's a high death rate among children.  Dr. Perry voiced his opinion that, as fantastic and unbelievable as it may seem, he's come to the conclusion that a vampire is at work - the children are often found drained of blood, splashed with pig's blood to disguise the loss.  He speculates that Sarah Maclearan, dead 20 years, is the vampire, as shortly after his arrival in town he got called on an unusual case: her grave had been vandalized, and he was asked to ensure that nothing untoward had been done to her body - only to discover that her casket contained a dead calf.  The whereabouts of Sarah Maclearan's body remains a mystery to this day.  

A visit to Agnes Bellweather revealed her to be an elderly woman, barely 4 feet tall, blessed with an abundance of common sense and humor.  She explained that she'd been the village midwife and apothecary until the sheriff forced her into retirement at Dr. Perry's arrival, though people still come to her for remedies for toothaches, infertility, and less medical maladies such as bad luck or feeling jinxed.  Rip made friends with her cat Beltane.  

Meanwhile, the digging team turned up a single arrowhead (Darren's player Mike, being a wise guy, asked me if it was a Clovis point.  Without missing a beat, I said, "No, Solutrean." He's not the only wise guy at the table) and otherwise labored fruitlessly in the sweltering heat and humidity.  Darren did his best to try and catch the eye of the attractive young botanist Clarissa, but without much luck.  

Dark, heavy storm clouds were beginning to roll in and the PCs reconvened at the Maclearan farmhouse, sharing what they'd learned with each other over spaghetti.  Noting that the dig site was nowhere near Broken Hill, they raised the possibility of digging near there to Blaine, who claimed that last summer, the team he'd been a part of had dug near there and turned up nothing of value, plus the terrain is treacherous and choked with thorn bushes. 

That night, Randall, laying awake in a puddle of sweat as the humidity built and built, heard the door to Blaine's room creak open.  He sat up.  "Where are you going, Blaine?" he asked suspiciously.  

Blaine jumps a little, and swings his flashlight around.  "I just have to pee," he mutters, heading for the door.  

When Blaine doesn't return to the farmhouse after about fifteen minutes, Randall wakes his fellow investigators.  "Blaine went out fifteen minutes ago.  I wanna see where he went."

Stepping outside, Oliver began calling Blaine's name, getting no response.  Knocking on the door of the outhouse likewise got no response.  Pulling open the door revealed it to be unoccupied - where had Blaine gone?

***

We ended the session on that cliffhanger, leaving the players to kind of simmer on that mystery until our next session, which will be May 31st.  

I do have some exciting news on the Call of Cthulhu front as well - because demand is so high right now at my local game store, I will be adding an extra game day to my schedule and running an open table event one Sunday a month for people who are interested in Call of Cthulhu but have perhaps never played before, and possibly working with the store owner to arrange an extra game master to begin running Cthulhu games as well.  

This is, to be blunt, amazing.  Call of Cthulhu is a long-standing, much beloved game, but not one that seems to get a lot of love in game stores; Just Games Rochester is the only store in the area with Call of Cthulhu events on its calendar at all, and right now those are all full, so we're creating more to keep up with demand.  

Matt, the store owner, pointed out to me as well that I'm starting to become the public face of Cthulhu in Rochester - I'm the guy busting my hump to run great games, I'm the guy going out and talking up the game, I'm the guy people are getting referred to when they have questions about Cthulhu gaming.  It's kind of surreal, but I'm willing to roll with it.  

I would like to get to the point where I'm helping to arrange more events not just through Rochester, but all of Western New York; there's a game store in Buffalo that I'd like to look at starting to run periodic games at as well to increase the visibility of Call of Cthulhu, with an eye towards bringing in other GMs (unfortunately, I can't run all the games) and getting big monthly Cthulhu events on the calendars of a couple stores.  There's a Savage Worlds group here that I'm looking at as a model of how best to achieve this.  

ADDITIONALLY, Matt asked me to help organize a release party to mark the arrival of the 7th edition Call of Cthulhu books in store, and I'm very excited for that.  Todd Gardiner, Chaosium's director of organized play, was kind enough to provide me with a demo adventure, not yet ready for publication, to run at the release party, and we're going to have that running simultaneously at multiple tables throughout the store to maximize visibility and expose as many people as possible to the infectious madness that is Call of Cthulhu.  I'm debating getting a black robe to wear in my role as master of ceremonies for this event, which will be June 5th starting at noon.  

So there is a ton of Cthulhu gaming going on in my life right now and in the weeks to come.  

A Time to Harvest, Session 1: So Nice to Meet You

This past Tuesday, six players and I convened at Just Games Rochester to begin Chaosium's new organized play campaign, "A Time to Harvest." This campaign is being released in monthly installments, which as a member of their Cult of Chaos GM Outreach program, I received in my email.  Once everything is complete and GM feedback on the campaign is sent in, it will be edited and released as a published, for sale on the shelf book.  By running the campaign in the store (and even better, by setting up tables closer to the front door of the store so everybody coming in has to walk right by us), we increase the visibility of the Call of Cthulhu RPG - which is good for the company, yes, but also hopefully helps Matt, the store owner, move a few more units of product (for the same reason, I've instituted a house rule that spending $10 on merchandise in the store earns players one opportunity to reroll a failed sanity check).  We rolled up characters (interestingly, both female players opted to play male characters) and then commenced to play.

Dramatis personae:

• Darren Gray (played by Mike), engineering major and member of the fencing team
• Perry Webster (played by Dan), journalism major, on assignment for the Miskatonic Crier
• Rip Steakface (played by Gina), folklore studies major (Gina is my girlfriend, and this is her first RPG campaign, and she's not taking it entirely seriously.  She has stated her intention that every character she plays this campaign will have a name taken from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode in which they riff SPACE MUTINY)
• Roni (played by Katie), Finnish-born history major and member of the swim team
• Randall Vhloche (played by Sean), geography major
• Oliver Goss (played by Dave), anthropology major

These six, along with a handful of NPC students, are signed up for a field trip from Miskatonic University to Cobb's Corners, Vermont, to take place just before the start of the fall 1930 semester.  The students are divided up between folklore/anthropology students and geology/archaeology/hard sciences students, all under the direction of grad student Robert Blaine.  

Upon arriving in Cobb's Corners, they quickly learned some interesting tidbits:

• Sheriff Spenser has no time nor patience for college students, believing them all to be fundamentally dishonest, drunkards, and miscreants.  Deputy Cutter, a very young man, however, is more easy-going.
• the Maclearan farm house, where they're staying for the duration of their time in Cobb's Corners, is allegedly haunted by the ghost of Sarah Maclearan, the sister of Sheriff Spenser who died 20 years ago of tuberculosis.  Her husband, Jimmy, has become the town drunk from grief.  
• the town newspaper is pure gossip and scandal-mongering.  
• Jason Haggerty, the 14 year old son of the local diner owners, likes drawing creepy trees.  

After a night of sinister dreams, Rip and Darren got to talking and realized they had had the same dream.  Inspired by their nightmare visions of menacing trees, they decide to forgo school work and go try to find Jason in hopes the boy can provide some clues about the trees.  Blaine throws a conniption fit over the two of them abandoning their course of study for the day, but is helpless to stop them.  They fail to find him, but do talk to a group of children playing some sort of game involving dancing around in a circle and singing about who makes the sun come up and who makes the plants grow.  

Meanwhile, the other students in the folklore group walk the back roads of Cobb's Corners, talking to older locals about the folklore and legends of the region.  From one such individual, Old Man McGoggins, they learned of strange lights and sounds coming from the foothills of the Green Mountains, which he identified as evidence of a gateway to Hell.  He also warned them to stay away from the Maclearan farmhouse, as Sarah Maclearan was a "witch vampire" and would kill them from beyond the grave.  Tiring of this, and using Oliver as a distraction, Perry Webster snuck away from the group and returned to town, eager to interrogate Richard Wendell, the town newspaperman, over anything suspicious or unusual he might have seen, as well as to check his archives for information on the death of Boyd, his former roommate, who died on a previous expedition to Cobb's Corners.  

"Anything unusual, eh?" Wendell said with a chuckle, then closed the blinds, locked the door, and explained very seriously: "A couple weeks ago I was testing a new photographic emulsion, to try and take better photographs at night.  I saw...I'm not sure what, but I snapped a photo of it.  When I got back here, I put the camera under my desk and went to sleep, instead of developing it right away.  When I woke up, my dark room was in flames, everything inside smashed and ruined.  I managed to put the fire out but everything inside was destroyed.  If I had had the camera in there, this picture would have been lost; I can only assume this is what they were after - yes, I think it must have been arson.  And the strangest thing? Deputy Cutter came around to check on things - before I called the police."

He handed Perry a photograph.  It showed the full moon, shining brightly over the town, and a hazy silhouette of something with big, bat-like wings hovering in front of the moon.