Merry Cthulhumas one and all!

In which the party ends, Dawson has a call, we fought the law

De'ath and Dawson returned to the party in good spirits. Making themselves known to Huckabee in the hope their absence was missed they continued with night. Sneaking off Dawson bribed a waiter to add some of the food coming out of the canning factory to Huckabees finger food which was quickly done. Watching in anticipation he was disappointed when the man didn't seem to react at being fed his own produce. The party ended not long after as policemen arrived to urgently talk to Huckabee regarding some sort of disturbance. The duo decided it was best to make a swift exit but not until Dawson quickly scribbled a notw with his off-hand,

Huckabee,

Thanks for the party things certainly went with a bang!

Hope you enjoyed the food, please find the secret ingredient in the box.

I think for the sake of all you should keep the fish to yourself from now on...

F. Jahrous

Included was a box with half a can of Huckabees fish food.

Kalabos and Shambles had made it back to their lodgings and fallen asleep fully clothed. After an hour or two Kalabos was wakened by a knock on the door from the police. Thinking quickly he hid under the bed and watched as they arrested Shambles and took him away but not before he hid Dawsons back-up piece in the toilet cistern. Once they had all gone Kalabos flitted into the night himself.

Shambles was taken to the police station to be questioned by Detectives Reynolds and Finn over why somebody wearing his jacket and with his ID was found dead in an exploded factory. Playing dumb for the meantime Shambles was escorted to the cells.

In the meantime Dawson had arrived back at the lodgings to find his compatriots gone!  Already worried he was shocked when the telephone rang. His secretary Nancy was on the other end screaming about 'things' that were coming up the stairs to get her, then the line cut off. Thinking swiftly he called De'ath to pick him up and vacated the premises narrowly avoiding the police coming back for a more thorough search of the premises.

Kalabos, unsure what to do, presented himself at the police station asking about the whereabouts of Shambles. Taken to another interview room he was asked about his movements during the evening. A prepostorous tale involving Kalabos being some kind of gigolo and having group sex in the wood was all they got. He was marched to the cells.

After careful discussion De'ath and Dawson decided it was best to lawyer up and go to the police station themselves. Taken to interview rooms their expensive defenders dealt easily with the police. Even though Shambles had decided to tell the actual insane truth, this together with the revelation that the body in the exploded factory was that of a political extremist Fred Jahraus gave the police no option but to release the investigators. The detectives let them know that they knew they were involved somehow but there was no way to prove it, the'd best mind their step.

I forgot to mention that the Jahraus connection came up with their visists to his ome and the clothing and documents on his body. De'aths lawyers explained that this was after unrelated visits and Jarhaus must have taken Shambles coat after he forgot about it.


The police were also aware of Dawson and Kalabos working at the factory for a day but were convinced that whilst suspicious it was circumstantial evidence. They remain deeply suspicious.

 

Keepers Ruminations

Once again I have to apologise to any readers left for the delays but it's been a rather horrific couple of months which has put a bit of a kibosh on the gaming. Anyway the campaign isn't dead and we should be playing again within the week unless somebody gets eaten by a nameless being or something.

Getting back to the ruminations thing I have to admit I did something that I said I wouldn't do. Still relatively early in the campaign, and as my second monster, I mat have introduced a shoggoth. For anyone paying attention, or with an ability to scroll down, you'll note that I'm against the prevalence of shoggoths in Chaosium adventures and stated that I wouldn't introduce such a thing so early. These people would point and laugh but they've probably abandoned this blog as dead anyway. Even though I have a defense...

First off I'm not even sure it's an actual shoggoth even if some of my players think so. It's definitely shoggoth-like but I never declared anything and though I'm it may look and smell like a duck I'm not sure if it is one. Of course as the Keeper I'm expected to be decisive about these things but I feel the Armitage Files way of doing things gives me a pass. So what it seems may not be what it is.

Secondly the thing never actually did much. Granted the player involved went a wee bit nuts and an NPC got his head bit off in an uncomfortably familiar fashion  but it never indulged in the wholesale chaos which would be expected of such a creature. If it is a shoggoth why is it so compliant to what's going on? I'm very interested in the history of these things as changeable things and wonder if that plasticity could be passed on to other creatures that come from the same Old One source.

I'm not committed to a definite direction on the way the campaign's going but there's a definite theme of stuff being disemminated amongst people and it coming from a conspiracy of people with at least a certain amount of influence. Of course when I think about stuff I always think about The Stuff.

There's a comment asking more about the canning factory which is nice but I'm not sure what I can say about it. Both conspiracies unearthed so far seem to be about infecting the general populace with something but what it is isn't known.The canning factory is sending out tainted goods that are affecting those that eat them. There's a hint of class war as the cans of fish are aimed at the working classes, what do the conspirators hope to gain?

In which our heroes can go to the ball, a moral quandary, can Shambles stay ahead?

So the new PLAN was all set to go. Our stalwart heroes were to attend the Huckabee party which would give them an alibi and perhaps allow them more insight into what was actually going on. Meanwhile Jarhaus was to make his way to the canning factory, Kalabos would sneak away from the party and meet him there at 10pm to help set up the device and get him onto the grounds. Shambles made it very clear that he was going nowhere near the factory. What could possible go wrong?

The group arrived at the party at 8:30pm leaving De'aths driver ready with the car. Once inside they quickly began to enjoy the ambience and the free drink, some questions about the legality of the charity casino were asked but the preence of the mayor and police commissioner set their minds at rest. De'ath sought out Huckabee himself who seemed a quite charming, urbane chap  though he avoided all questions about hbis wife who had retired from public life due to illness a few years earlier. Shambles and Dawson struck up conversation with the handsome but clearly worse for wear Austin Kittrell. He seemed a very jolly fellow full of stories of night out and the ladies he had met but something about his name bothered Dawson.

Kalabos drank.

A lot.

It seems that the life of a hobo had left our friend Kalabos without the necessary social skills to deal with a free bar in anything approaching an appropriate manner and knowing he didn't have much time before he had to face action the bottle of tequila was very attractive. The second one was probably overkill.

As 9:30pm approached Dawson had introduced Kittrell to De'ath and was hopelessly embroiled in a three-way conversation about possible sexual harrasment, Kalabos was hopelessly drunk and Shambles was just hopeless. Having quite ruthlessly manipulated Jarhaus into taking a possible fall for him he now saw that the plan was going to fail unless he took Kalabos' place and went to the factory. With no other option our man girded his loins and went out to the car for the journey to his pre-ordained death.

Only 15 minutes later Dawson and De'ath realised what had happened and that they should try to get to Shambles but without transport how were they to get there? De'ath turned a langurous look to Kitrell.

Shambles managed to meet Jarhaus on time in a patch of wasteland near the factory. Assuring the frightened racist that he would make sure he got in and would watch his back Shambles carefully watched the movements of the two security guards and at the right moment they cut their way through the fence and entered the basement.

Meanwhile Kittrells over-packed sports care, the drunken Kalabos didn't help with comfort. Sped towards the factory. Kittrell was finding all this spiifingly exciting and hoped this would lead to a moment or two alone with the good Lady later in the evening. He was also far too drunk to drive and precious time was lost when one of his tires was blown out.

Shambles and Jarhaus entered the basement with great trepidation. Quickly setting up the device they made to leave but couldn't without one proper look into the pit.Creeping forward they went to risk a glance when the unnameable resident chose to reveal itself. 

Shambles recollections of the next few moments were hazy at best. He later described a column of something like flesh but not, rubbery and viscous and always changing. In his mind it seemed to move slowly and with a snake-like quality but it could only have taken a second or two for it to rise and take Jarhaus' head clean off. He vividly remember the always-changing eyes and mouths and it's strange cry of 'Tekeli-li tekeli-li'! After that he remembers nothing.

De'ath, Shambles, Kittrell and the still comatose Kalabos arrived to find that Shambles had stumbled away from the factory soiled and wild-eyed. Unable to get sense out the man they were figuring out what to do next when the explosion came. A great eruption came from the factory deafening them all. Kittrell, who wasn't quite that drunk demanded to know what was going on. De'ath answered with a sock to the face leaving the poor man unconcious. In desperation they decided the only thing to do would be to proceed with THE PLAN. Dawson and De'ath would return to the party and her driver would take the drunk Kalabos and shocked Shambles back to their rooms. Leaving Kittrell lying alone they set forth.

Apologies for the break!

Holidays, festivals and horrible family stuff has interrupted transmission. Sorry about the delay but there will be updates within the next three days.

In which our investigators work for a living, there's an unnameable thing in the basement, let's fake a death!

Dawson and Kalabos made sure to keep their appointment with Will Moran. Mrs Callahan proved to be a strange old bird but very nice and Moran was exactly what he appeared. The meeting was broken up by Shambles turning up at the door disguised as a flower delivery man but not much was gained for their time except the knowledge that many factory workers stayed at Mrs Callahans and they often did midnight flits leaving some personal possessions. Mrs Callahan attributed this to them being hobo's who'd decided to move on.

It was worth noting that Mrs Callahan stated that Moran was her only current resident and she would be glad to have more but Shambles outside noted movement in the upper parts of the house. Moran himself was non-plussed at the discovery of a long lost half brother but accepted Dawsons story as his Irish father was known to get around.

Dawson and Kalabos's first day at the factory went as well as could be expected. The supervisor, Burke, seemed to take an immediate dislike to Dawson but remained professional as he explained that the overalls were hired by them from the factory, they would be starting at with canning and if they did well they could graduate to warehouse work. Assigned to an expert canner called Margaret they set to it with Kalabos proving a good worker whilst Dawson was noted to spend too much time chatting. Talking to Margaret they found that canning was the lowest job, warehouse work a little above it and the most favoured workers tended to machinery in the basement. Margaret was also very effusive about the free canned fish the workers got, Dawson and Kalabos noticed she had a touch of the Innsmouth look. Kalabos's keen eye also spotted something with a strange green glow in the cheap fishmeat they were putting into the cans.

At the first smoke break Dawson and Kalabos decided to sneak into the basement. Hidden in the shadows they saw that the workers seemed strangely mishapen and something was being piped up to the factory from a strange pit containing an unnameable gelatinous mass. At this point they fled the factory, losing their deposit on their overalls.

Getting back with the group it was agreed that there was something wrong at the Huckabee factory. Lautrec had been investigating Edgar Huckabee and learned that he was to be hosting a charity event, Helping the Hopeless, in two days time. With her amazing connections she was able to get tickets for the event and even hired yet another suit for Kalabos.


The factory still dominated Shambles mind though. How could he avert the fate laid down in the files? In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone they visited Jarhaus once again. After a long talk they convinced him that the factory was used by the half-breed fish things he had talked about before. They then further convinced him to break into the factory on the night of the event and wire up a package they gave him. To give him cover Shambles gave him copies of his ID. Clearly the evil of the factory would be stopped, a racist would die and Shambles would avert his fate!

Keepers Ruminations

Ok the last session or two completely threw me. For some reason I'd convinced myself that the whole death of an investigator thing wouldn't attract that much attention. I was clearly wrong.

Given that I'd already served the group with one sort of red herring it seemed churlish to deny them something from this so I decided go ahead with the whole thing. The factory quickly turned into a canning one and who doesn't love tinned fish. Throw in the rich canning mangate Edgar Huckabee an we're set. I hope.

Is the investigation stymied?, Shambles fears factories, Working for the man!

Stunned by the lack of progress in investigating The American Preservation League our heroes began looking at alternate lines of inquiry. Shambles investigations into Red Hollow revealed that it was a small town in Dunwich, known for being unusually prosperous. Dawson meanwhile decided to put an ad in the paper requesting contact from factory worker Will Moran as his long lost brother needed to get in touch with him.

Armoured with this burst of activity the investigators Jahraus of the APL once again to give him info on Walsh's missing wife in the hope that his network across the country could track her down. It was another interesting visit punctuated by Dawson going for the longest pee in history. He swore it was only 3 minutes.

Contact to the paper was made by Moran the next morning. The investigators received a message that he was interestedin meeting his brother but had to work a full shift at the Huckabee Canning factory, He would be available from 1900 in his lodgings at the lodging house of Mrs Wilmer Callahan. Kalabos, Lautrec and Dawson headed for the factory. Shambles headed for the train station.

At the Huvkabee Canning Factory Lautrec waited outside taking photographs whilst Kalabos and Dawson applied for jobs within. With some use of their charms they were hired to start the next morning and promised a can of product a week as a bonus. Investigation showed that the factory was canning fish!

With only a quick trip to pick up Shambles before he left our investigators were ready to proceed.

You've probably seen this but...

Keeper Ruminations

So it's been a while but life got in the way in the form of film conventions, music festivals and a trip to Morocco followed by the normal being no well thing associated with flying Ryanair.

I've hit my first major block. The first documents produced a real momentum and there was a temptation to just run with the campaign that they were producing but I promised myself I'd see how things went if I followed the campaigns central conceit. This has led to a certain amount of flailing as my players and I try to decide what happens next.

I decided fairly early on that The American Preservation League would at least be a red herring but as we progressed it seemed like a good idea to bring them in as a possible ally but not one you'd want. From this it was easy to make Jahraus an even sadder little racist than the text showed but show that he has a weird fucked up point. It's sort of playing around with Lovecrafts racism which I believe was the point of the text. This gave us a slightly uncomfortable but quite entertaining session with Martins Kalabos milking the anti-Mexican stuff for all it was worth. Nothing groundbreaking but interesting all the same.

At this point I have to address something that's always confused me about Lovecrafts racism. It was extreme even for his day but I've never got over his hatred of eskimos! I know nowadays PETA may hate them but generally as a racial group I've never seen that much bile directed to them. It's always seemed that eskimos, inuit or other tribes, have always been looked on fondly but Lovecraft really hated them. That's just fucked.

Train in vain, Boston I love you but you're bringing me down, your racist friend

Our stalwart heroes decided to continue the investigation in Boston for two reasons. They were interested in the documents mention of The American Preservation League and Dawson had ascertained that the dead investigator mentioned in the same document was none other than our good friend Shambles!

Taking the train to Boston, Kalabos using his own 'ticket', they quickly made their way to that Preservation Leagues address only to find that it was a rundown brownstone with apartments full of families. Ascertaining that the League obviously worked from their founders home address our investigators decided that the best thing to do would be to rent a room around the corner so they could watch any comings and goings. It was only after they were all safely ensconced in the boarding house, De'ath was staying uptown at the Boston Hilton of course, that Shambles brought up the fact that they had no view of the Leagues front door. Our experienced PI Dawson, who had chosen this building, seemed unfazed and stated that at least they shared the large backies and could sneak in the back of The Leagues building if necessary. A complicated plan involving mirrors to spy around the corner was briefly discussed before being rejected.

It's interesting to note that Shambles was very careful to check that the boarding house wasn't owned by a Mrs Wilmer and rejected constant attempts by Dawson to get them all to investigate factories in Boston.

Retiring to the local diner the investigators ran into none other than Fred Jahraus the head of the American Preservation League. A long discussion followed in which Jahraus convinced them all to sign up and talked at length about the foul practices of foreigners, Kalabos excepted as he was clearly one of the good dirty Mexicans, and how they were infiltrating America and would bring it down. He seemed a little delusional as he talked about seeing half-breed fish things when he was a merchant sailor, that Mexicans and Eskimos were trying to bring back ancient evil gods to destroy the world and that the British aristocracy were actually lizard people and they had agents in the US government. Our heroes listened politely then left as soon as possible.

It's interesting to note that when he signed up to join the League Shambles didn't want to give a real address so used the one of another boarding house up the road. The boarding house of a Mrs W Callahan.

Keepers Ruminations

I wasn't going to comment about the stupidity of using a bear trap or the ten minute discussion that arose when Martin brought the idea up but then I decided to have a wee go of Fallout: New Vegas last night. Fair enough it's done in the game and Martin did have another media reference but I stand by my decision that it's a stupid idea that won't be allowed ever again in my games. Unless I'm running Buffy and you spend a drama point of course. Anyway we've come to the end of the first two documents and how do I feel it's gone?

The first advice I'd give somebody new to Trail of Cthulhu is to run at least one one-off before going on to The Armitage Files. The way the campaign is set up means there's a rather big info-dump at the start and the players are then the ones deciding what direction everything goes in. Sorting out the rules at the same time is an extra ball that you really don't want to have to juggle. In the last session I went for a fag with a player and as we chatted I realised he'd missed something I thought was really obvious about the combat system which I could have made clearer if I'd done a less intense introductory session. The only problem with this is I can only advise designing a scenario yourself, adapting a CoC one or buying Arkham Detective Tales. The scenario in the main rulebook doesn't quite work and the free scenario at Pelgrane Press, The Murderer of Thomas Fell, whilst absolutely great is very much a hardcore Purist one. It's a great adventure and it's made me buy other Graham Walmsley adventures from them but you really wouldn't expect the characters from there to then go on to investigate more. I'd like to see a free Pulp adventure offered by Pelgrane at some point to balance the whole thing out.

Saying that I'm downloading Cthulhu Apocalypse as I type this so please don't ignore the fantastic Purist stuff.

My only other real complaint is that this campaign desperately needs an index. It's annoying when the players suddenly decide to do something and I have to quickly find something.

As to the campaign so far I'm loving it. Having the Yacht Club as the first starting point meant I could borrow a spine from the book but the way they veered from that path proved interesting. I'd had the Yacht Club break-in as the midpoint of the adventure but that really proved to be the cave exploration. As the game moved on the break in came to the fore as the climax and it ended up being quite a good one for what we were running. My original climax idea included much death, madness and monsters in a subterranean temple but the assault with no monsters and rather heavy foreshadowing of things that may yet come proved really satisfying for all of us. To be honest there's enough there at the moment to go on with a great campaign, and there's a slight temptation to do that,but the Files keep drawing you back.

We've had one more session in the interim but that was only to go over the new document. The only thing of interest is that Dawson has started losing and gaining time at points. I'm sure it's nothing.

Back into the action, beartraps are melee weapons?, burning down the house!

So we left our intrepid group of idiots with Dawson having completely fucked up the PLAN.

Dawsons first impulse was to drive the van somewhere quiet to examine the contents but this changed rapidly when two robed figures jumped into Walsh's car and gave chase. To confound them he chose to drive around the yacht clubs drive, possibly hoping to make them dizzy.

Back at Walsh's yacht Shambles observed his two body guards coming out to investigate the cries of alarm. Completely failing to sneak up on the pair he decided the only way to avoid death by bullet was to jump into the sea which gave time for Kalabos and De'ath to do the blighter’s in. For some reason Kalabos decided to use a bear-trap he had in his possession for just this type of circumstance. In a one-off absolutely never to be repeated in any game I ever run again attack he managed to set the bear-trap off on a bodyguards head killing him instantly. I repeat that this will never ever happen again. De'ath despatched her foe with more conventional weapons.

Dawson meanwhile continued to drive around the front of the club managing to pick off some robed figures who had been distracted by the opportunity to shoot emerging hobos like fish in a barrel. Then breaking hard to make the trailing car smash into the back of his van making the crates fall back and break open on it's bonnet he drew Bess, his trusty pistol, and prepared for a desperate fire-fight

Kalabos and De'ath sneaked up to the yacht clubs office and looking through the window they spotted Walsh and Gardner having an argument. Seeing his chance Kalabos borrowed a stick of dynamite from De'ath, attached his home-made detonator and swiftly relayed his new PLAN to her. After a quick discussion about how this plan was even stupider than the previous one De'ath agreed to go ahead.

Meanwhile Shambles had pulled himself out of the water and decided to climb a trellis to the first floor, the second floor for those in the colonies, so he could sneak in unnoticed. We'll come back to that.

Dawsons fire-fight continued. It was dead exciting and stuff but would probably look better than I describe it. Think Bogart in The Big Sleep only in a van. If you don't like the nicely low-key fire-fight in that movie I recommend finding somebody doing a Feng Shui blog, it's more good Law stuff just with more gun fu. Anyway I digress.

Kalabos enacted the new PLAN. De'ath broke the window with her rifle and he threw the dynamite through shouting that he'd blow everybody up if they didn't surrender. Unfortunately the wire connecting the dynamite to the detonator fell out and a fire-fight ensued. This was probably just as well as the detonator was carved out of balsa wood and couldn't blow a nose. Unnoticed there was a wet thump and curse in the background.

Shambles picked himself up from the ground and decided a more subterranean access route might be in order. Spotting the storm doors through which the crates had been brought out our vaguely unintelligible investigator strode forth.

On the ground floor all was action and excitement. With her trusty rifle and the quick pass of a Purdey De'ath despatched the nefarious duo just as Dawson finished the last of the robed cultists. Breaking in through the door they noted whilst Walsh was satisfyingly a normal corpse Gardner had already began melting in a weird bubbling way. They quickly took a sample which had unfortunately melted into nothingness before dawn. Knowing time was not on their side our heroes took all the documents they could from the safe and went to check on Shambles.

Shambles had discovered a strange and shocking thing in the cellar. Against the far wall was a vat containing large, luminescent green fish eggs. Examination and talk with Dawson showed that it was this substance that had been crated up to be transported to God knows where. Steeling himself Shambles made sure to take a good sample of the ungodly substance and our heroes prepare for their escape. With sirens in the distance our heroes took just enough time to rig the house with dynamite and gasoline before escaping in De'aths yacht just moments before the authorities arrived.

The next day brought a meeting with the Armitage Inquiry though Armitage and Wilmarth were not present as the aged librarian had to have a lie down and Wilmarth was watching over him. The Inquiry agreed that a grave threat had been stymied and revealed that Miskatonic biologists had examined the fish eggs and discovered that they contained things which looked disturbingly like human foetuses. On hearing this our Mexican friend Kalabos dug deep into his knowledge of the Cthulhu Mythos and realised that these eggs were meant to implanted in human woman and perhaps were meant to be taken all over the US. Shocked to the core he mentioned this and wondered if travellers such as salesmen or carnivals could be involved in such work.

At this point Wilmarth burst into the room shouting that whilst Armitage slept it seemed he'd dozed off himself and in the interim a new document had appeared in the room !

Breaking News!

Meta-Cthulhuing

So a more generalised look at my feelings about Trail of Cthulhu.

I've been asked about what the transition is like as a long-term CoC GM to the new system and it's been interesting. The big selling point used by Robin Laws has been the whole don't roll for a clue thing which has caused quite a furore in places like rpg.net where peeps have said that a good GM does that anyway. To be fair I've dabbled with that in the past but it's nice having a system built around the idea and the cries of good GM's don't do that are a little over the top. Check out the audio games at Yog these guys are goods and experienced and the issue still comes up. Don't check them out for just that though they're loads of fun. In the end the clue system brings about other things which I find much more interesting.

For quite a while I've been wanting to talk about how the Gumshoe rules change the shape of the game. Different things become prioritised which changes how a session plays out. I've been struggling to find a way to describe this then Robin once again shows what a smart bastard he is by saying most of what I wanted to say. There's an inherent shape, or structure, to a Gumshoe game that can't help but come out during play. I sort of wish I'd run a pre-written scenario beforehand but it wouldn't be the same as finding the shape as a group. I'm sticking to using the word shape, structure works if you're writing the scenario beforehand but shape is what something like the Armitage Files creates.

As an introductory game ToC falls well behind CoC. CoC is just incredibly intuitive, everybody knows what a percentile is. ToC was pretty hard to describe and we're still sorting the game out in our heads. To be fair though our least experienced player is really getting there and the whole spend thing is working as a dramatic device. Shape comes back again.

Leaving the weirdest to last. Whilst stuck in an airport last month I decided to poke around the stats part of the blog, something you normally avoid doing because you don't want to find out that your granny is the only person who ever looks. Checking through I found that out of my two hits, my granny does good, I had one from Pelgrane Press. Bored and full of Dutch beer I went on to discover this.

I'm not sure how to feel. It's nice to get attention an a'that but what if they actually read the blog? I'm not intriguing at all, through my life I've mostly been described as vaguely annoying and rude. When Simon realises how badly I've mangled their baby he'll get Ken Hite to be ironic at me and Robin Laws will come around and beat me up. I don't know why but I've always thought that if I was going to get my head kicked in by a games designer it would be that Laws bloke. It's all a worry.

Keepers Ruminations

Well this was in an interesting session.

It was a lot of fun. I'd hoped to do the Necronomicon stuff via blog but I have lazy players so that didn't happen. OTOH doing it at the session was a lot of fun.

I've started using Ken's suggestions in the corebook to play around with the gods. They're not quite what peeps might expect and I decided to use this to connect to the campaign itself which I'm hoping might pay off but OTOH may leave us stuck on the first documents. There's enough there for a whole campaign so I'll have to try to move it all on.

I was surpised that the van picking stuff up rather than dropping stuff off really threw my players. I'd not committed to either and stuff they'd said about Walsh's connection implied that they thought the former but there you go. I've got some ideas about where it's going and I hope they work.

Dawsons interactions with Dock Vogan have proven interesting. This is a character I originally interested introduced as sinister but is turning out to be at least innocuous and possibly stalwart. I pictured Dawson and Vogans meeting as being sort of like Dan Ackroyd and John Cusacks coffee in Grosse Point Blanke. Tense to say the least.

Character drives are coming into play with De'ath obsessing about breeding.

And THE PLAN went wrong as they always do.I really wasn't expecting this and it kind of threw me. What the fuck was Dawson thinking? This is the first cliff-hanger ending and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I love the way players do this to you and it fits into the whole ethos of the campaign.

Final preparations, waiting for action, who is this Pete Tong person you keep mentioning?

Our stalwart group took the two days off to rest up and do research. Lady De'ath spent a little time skimming the Necronomicon for any clue as to what their batrachian foes might be up to. The results only deepened the mystery hinting that Dagon may be more than just a sea god and may be linked more to fertility worship and miscenegation. Thanking God that Miskatonic had the largest collection of dictionaries on the eastern seaboard De'ath studied deeper and became ever more worried. Was this interbreeding somehow connected to the hidden mysteries in her own family line? She left the library a changed person compelled to pull aside the curtain that lay over this evil.

Kalbos hung out with the hobos finalising THE PLAN.

Shambles did whatever Shambles does. I'm not sure but it oprobably involved brandy.

Dawson decided a meeting with Volgan was in order. Over a very tense coffee he convinced Volgan that if Shaw was to be at the yacht club it may be in his best interests not to be there. Volgan agreed not to turn up but warned that Shaw never went anywhere without a couple of men.

Meeting up again the group decided to have dinner at the yacht club before going forward with THE PLAN. This was unfortunately cut short as dawson had decided to disguise himself as a hobo. Gardner, already at the end of his tether due to Kalabos, asked them to leave not willing to believe that two people had invented method acting in the same week. Shambles chose to stay and had a tense conversation with Gardner which only resulted in suspicion being ratcheted up. Shambles departed leaving a long note which unfortunately I can't read, I may scan it in at a later point for those with a better eye and more patience.

Hunkering down in the yacht with good brandy and De'aths gift of rifles for herself and Kalabos the party waited for the perfect moment to enact THE PLAN.

Kalabos quickly went over THE PLAN. When the van departed his hobo cohorts would provide the distraction at the front of the club and using this as cover our stalwart heroes would break into Gardners office, search his safe and other files then burn the building down. Kalabos slightly giggled to himself when he brought up arson.

Watching from the yacht our heroes saw Shaw turn up with two bodyguards and meet with a group of people in black robes. After discussion he sent his bodyguards to his own yacht, The Esmeralda, and went back to talking to robed figures. In a surprise twist for our characters tha van arrived and instead of unloading the robed figures began loading crates onto the van.

At this sight Dawson asked if anybody could sew. Shambles revealed a previously unknown ability and used the yachts stores to create a black robe for Dawson. Donning the robe Dawson sneaked out into the night to find out what was occuring.

After Dawson left De'ath and Kalabos decided to scout Walsh's yacht. After a close call on being spotted they decided to make their move. Kalabos chuckled as he talked about using the nearby gas cans to burn down the yacht.

Before any of this could occur there was a commotion at the club. Dawson had sneaked up to the van and realising that the keys were still in it had decided to adapt THE PLAN. Jumping in he at first waited for the back door to be shut but panicked when a crate was dropped and drove the van into the night.

THE PLAN was surely somethinged!

Breaking News!

Keepers Ruminations

First off apologies for the lateness of the updates. Life as ever has got in the way of this stuff, I never got around to doing the updates until today and I won't be able to post them until tomorrow. The reason for this is that I'm typing this in Lisbon the day after Rosa, the player of Lady Lautrec-De'ath and my long-suffering wife, did the Lisbon half-marathon and I don't expect to have an internet connection until I hit Amsterdam airport sometime tomorrow. On the upside it's gorgeous here and 28 degree weather is a blessing after leaving a freezing Scotland. Anyway back to the game.

After the lack of any real progress in the fourth session it was getting time for things to step up a bit. Of course this was reliant on the players and I was thankful that they seemed to agree. To be honest I wasn't expecting such interest in the caverns when I mentioned them in Finlaysons journal, the yacht club itself seemed to be the main area of interest, but I was hardly going to say no to the expedition and having nothing to find would go against the whole ethos of the campaign. I was a little concerned about Kalabos' player not wanting to participate but it became clear that his focus remained with the club and the character was very wary about delving into weird places. As if anything could possibly happen. In the end it was good to see plans for the yacht club proceeding.

The expedition into the caverns proved fun and a little scary for all concerned. After weeks of investigation and skirting around the edges of the mystery it was good to bring the monsters into the light. I stuck with only one deep one as less is definitely more and I didn't want to start off so big I would have nowhere to go afterwards. One thing that always annoyed me about Chaosiums adventures was the tendency to have shoggoths everywhere and I really didn't want to go down that route. That's not to say that we won't have one of them turn up at some point but not for a while yet. Unless I change my mind of course.

Once again I'm not totally comfortable with the combat system and felt like I was winging it a bit. As mentioned before it's very abstract and felt a bit awkward. On the other hand everybody seemed to enjoy it and it turned out to be nicely dramatic so I can't complain too much. I'll work on having it down properly for the next session.

As to the next session we're on a break for a few weeks. Last week was Paddy's Day so Irish Paul would have been in some dodgy pub drinking hard and though I'm back from Portugal tomorrow Rosa's staying until the end of the week to hang out with her family and the players want everybody there for the yacht club assault. I'm hoping to use the time to post a couple more bits and pieces for the game and hopefully do the Necronomicon stuff through this and the players blog. There will definitely be something else up by the end of the week.

BTW she did the half-marathon in 2hrs 31mins in a 28 degree heat. My girls is so cool and yet so hot.

I mean cool for doing it and hot for the temperature.

And hot in the other way as well of course.

Kalabos Chills with the Ho-bro's, A Life on the Ocean Wave, Dungeons and Deep Ones

Our heroes spent the night on the newly delivered yacht, Kalabos going out for a midnight stroll being warned by the yacht club security that the grounds were off limits when the club was closed, and woke for a hearty breakfast and discussion of their plans.

It was generally agreed that investigation of the caverns near Kingsport was a priority as burglary of the club would be best put off until the full moon in a couple of days time when the strange night-time van visited. If something was being picked up this would be their best time to find out what and if something was being picked up there may a distraction. Either way they new that the dogs weren't used on these evenings. With this in mind it was decided that they'd head out that very death
to unearth the mysteries beneath Kingsport.

Kalabos had other plans. Politely declining the opportunity to explore horror-laden depths full of sanity-blasting monsters he instead opted to contact his hobo friends to request help in the assault on the club. Grabbing some food from De'aths well equipped galley he headed into the town and met up with a group of hobos he had befriended earlier. Over boiled meat and hooch they arranged that the hobos would attempt to get in the front of the club on the night of the full moon thus creating a diversion whilst our heroes broke into the office via it's back door. Promises that they could keep anything they found and a possible stipend from De'ath secured their services and Kalabos proceeded to celebrate his bargain whilst his friends embarked on a journey into the depths.

Meanwhile Lady Lautrec-De'ath, Mr Dawson and Mr Shambles cast off in her well-crewed and equipped yacht. The Lady had her man clean and oil her Purdeys in case of danger and also made sure to take a stock of dynamite, Dawson spent this part of the journey sawing the barrel off a much cheaper shotgun and Shambles, well Shambles did whatever Shambles does. Who knows what goes on with that guy, though he did prove useful in identifying the most likely cavern mouth and revealed his previously unknown skills at piloting a boat. After a relatively short and uneventful voyage they anchored off the coast near an opening to the depths. Lowering a boat manned by four of De'aths strongest sailors they were soon at the mouth of the cave. Leaving instructions to wait an hour and that if they were in trouble they give give a signal of three whistle-blasts our intrepid trio ventured into the stygian depths.

The tunnel proved to be long, dark and ever leading downwards. At one point Shambles stepped in something that gave beneath his foot in an unwholesome way. Peering down he was hit by a rank stench as he realised he had stepped in the rotting corpse of a hobo. Choosing not to reveal his find to the rest of the party he led them around the remains.

Eventually the tunnel led out into a cyclopean chamber studded with seemingly bottomless pits scattered over the floor. De'ath took the lead here pushing forward until they came to a strangely stained altar over which a statue loomed. Casting her torch upwards she saw the statue was a of a squamous octopoid man-thing which seemed to gaze down with a look of vast malevolence. On closer inspection the stains on the altar proved to be human blood and shackles could be seen hanging from each corner. It was as she gazed upon this horror that the first sounds were heard. Scrabbling sounds as of claws on stone combined with some sort of low moaning coming from below. Something was emerging from the pits!

For moments confusion reigned as the scrabbling continued then our stalwart heroes decided on a truly brave action, they would flee. Tails between their legs they fled across the chamber heading for the tunnel that would lead to civilisation and safety. At this point Dawson realised that he had made a major error in character creation by neglecting to put any points in the flee skill as he began falling behind, dangerously behind. As they reached the tunnel the first of the pursuers caught up with Dawson and he was whipped around to face an unnameable batrachian horror. Walking on hind legs was a scaly creature with the blank-eyed stare of a creature from the depths of the ocean but it's features held a repulsive shadow of humanity and there was something reminiscent of Gardner about them. De'ath stopped for a second to unload both barrels of her shotgun at the creature, only managing to damage the tunnel wall, before running off leaving Dawson to deal with it alone.

Upon reaching the surface De'ath and Shambles finished setting up the dynamite which De'aths sailors had already unpacked hoping that Dawson would make it. Once it was set Shambles decided that they could wait no longer but De'ath could not bear to leave their companion to the horror below. A heated argument turned into a scuffle which, if Shambles won, could with Dawson trapped in the depths.

Meanwhile Dawsons struggles continued below. After a prolonged scuffle he realised that if he waited any longer the creatures companions would be on him. Unleashing the second barrel of his shotgun in its face he fled to the surface. Upon reaching the cavern mouth he was able to stop his companions unseemly fight and leaping into the boat they sped away as the dynamite exploded. But it was too late, as the explosion rocked the cliffs Dawsons nemesis leapt through it onto the boat it's claws slicing through a hapless sailor who fell screaming into the sea. Dawson had managed to reload his shotgun though and as the horror loomed over them he unleashed both blasts into it's face. The mighty shot blew the creatures face off splattering Dawson with brains and blood as it slid off the boat into the depths. Shaking with fear our heroes rowed back to the yacht and safety.

Back in Kingsport the companions met up with Kalabos for brandy, lots of brandy. After discussing the shocking proofs that they had witnessed they decided to report back to the Armitage Inquiry and ask for help. The board listened with interest to their tale and agreed something must be done. Unfortunately no physical aid could be given to the investigators as the board were of course only academics and the investigators had been hired for the just this type of thing. It was decided though that the companions would be given access to the Necronomicon in the hope that the unhallowed tome might give some clue on how to defeat the horror from the deeps. At this point our heroes decided it was time to take a couple of days off to recuperate and examine the Necronomicon before assaulting the yacht club on the night of the next full moon.

Keepers Ruminations

I'm running really late and as I'm off to Portugal in a couple of days I've a few posts to make.

This was an interesting session in that I feel we hit a wall that I'd been waiting for. The combination of investigative play with a freeform style feels like it will inevitably reach a point where the players are unsure what their next step is and the keeper not wanting to push them too much and this week was it. I generally felt we were left with the players still circling the mystery but unable to commit to an approach and me not wanting to push them onto a railroad.

Even then it was far from a bad session. Kalabos was getting more info and setting something up and the moving of the yacht was a clear step forward. Shambles investigations pushed towards the existence of mysterious caverns, perhaps the future burglary might lead to them.

My favourite from this session was Dawson though. We got to play with a few noir tropes and given how I felt it was it was great to push everything along a bit by having a man walk into the room with a gun. It also let me have my first proper look at the combat system which leaves me with mixed feelings. It's incredibly abstract which makes it fast but possibly unsatisfying. Saying that it felt really good for the ploty-led scuffle which occured in the toilet. It's doable at least.

I'll have the precis from the next session up very soon. I'm late but we're having a short break so I have some time.

Breakfast musings, down these slimy streets a man must stagger, casing the joint

Okay so I'm running a wee bit late this week so it's just a short precis.

Our heroes meetup the next day for brunch with Dawson who seemed to have got some of his old aplomb back. Over a light meal they decided that more investigation was needed of the yacht club, the supposed underground caverns and whatever the link was with Diamond Walsh.

Dawson went out to do what he did best and soon tracked down one of the local mobs numbers runners to put the squeeze on. With a bit of intimidation he found that reports were that Walsh had been acting very out of the ordinary and it was affecting his business. He seemed obsessed with his new wife and something called the red box which seemed connected to 'Azathoths Tears'.

Shambles headed to the university to study up on caverns in and around Kingsport. Study showed that whilst the immediate area under the yacht club shouldn't have extensive caverns underneath there were many unexplored ones in the area and that they probably reached all the way up to Innsmouth. Exploration of the caverns had been abandoned after too many disappearances and losses of life over the years.

Kalabos took the bus out to Kingsport to lurk near the yacht club and talk to the seedier locals. Talking to the lowlifes he learned that the club generally kept at least three men and a couple of dogs around the property at night except on nights of the full and half-moon when there was no sign of the dogs. On those same nights a van was seen to visit at around 0100 and either drop sommething off or deliver it, it was hard to say. As it's Thursday the 27th of June 1935 it's only a few days until full moon.

Lady Letrauc-De'ath contacted the yacht club to start arrangements for her yacht, The Scarlet Bell, to be taken over to it's new berth with a full crew and for the party to have dinner their that evening.

Before heading to the yacht club Dawson stopped into his office. On entering the first thing he saw was his secretary Nacny in a chair against the opposite wall. From beside him a rather dangerous looking and slightly effeminate man held a gun. Introducing himself as Dock Vogan he sat our hero in a chair, explained that Diamond Shaw didn't like two-bit PI's looking into his business and left, only stopping to give Dawson a good wap across his shins with a baseball bat.

Meeting up later at the yacht club our intrepid group sat down for dinner. De'ath and Shaw hammered out the details of haveing the yacht at the club. Gardiner was willing to have it permanently staffed but only on the proviso that any staff were to stay on the boat at night so as not to disturb the guard dogs.

Dawson learned that Diamond Shaw was on the premises and asked a passing waiter to forward a note,

Mr Walsh,

Thanks for the delivery. Point taken.
I was sorry to hear about your wife. Hope she didn't drink the tears.

S.D.

Kalabos proved unable to get into the private room Walsh was using but swore to find out more.

Nearing the end of the night Dawson saw a familiar figure enter the mens room and went after him. Hitting Volgan in the back proved to be succesful but Walsh was unprepared for his adversaries willingness to pull a gun and pistol whip him. The doubts he put into the mans head regarding Walsh's sanity may prove to be worth the subsequent kick in the ribs.

The evening ended undecided with Dawson choosing not to reveal what had happened.

The Journal of Lem Finlayson

Sitting up reading late into the night our doughty heroine Lady Lautrec-De'ath studied the journal of Lem Finlayson. As it's a rather long volume written in a crabbed hand by a man who clearly had very little literacy.

Hints were made at things he'd seen whilst a sailor. Abandoned islands in the Pacific and the strange idols left. He mentions meeting with degenerate islanders who worshipped a god called Dogn and having to fight them off when they attacked, surely for some sort of cannabilistic rotes.

In the twenties he seemed to be disturbed by the people of Innsmouth and hints at a relationship between them and the tribesmen. He implies that they have taken up the foul worship he saw in the tribesmen. When news of the of the government raid on the town came about a deep sense of relief is conveyed.

After retirement Finlayson shows a restlesness about his new role. Notes indicate that he came across the Kingsport Yacht Club and felt that there was a link to the worship he saw in earlier years. He is particularly worried about Gardiner. His last notes seem to hint of suspicions of some sort of secret cave beneath the club and a great plan involving some mobster. His last note indicates that he feels that he has met some allies and hopefully the menace can be stopped!

Keepers Ruminations

So the third session went quite well. I'm still not completely there with the system but the cheat sheets provided by Pelgrane Press helped a lot for all of us. The players are beginning to put forward ways of using their skills to gather clues which is definitely helping move the game along. I'm still a little concerned about combat, which is sure to come up soon, but it'll be alright on the night.

It's interesting that I felt that this session wasn't as well paced as the previous one but when I brought it up with the players they felt it was much better. Looking back I feel that this is because I had less control. As a player facing game they were the ones dictating the turn of events which meant that things never went in the pace that was in my mind. Interesting and good.

I'm amused that the players didn't do a couple of obvious things. As noted previously they haven't shot an obvious villain in the face, a regretable roleplaying staple, and they didn't immediately go for the breaking and entering option. I've run a lot of Call of Cthulhu over the years and the one thing I've found is that given the least hint of suspicion our investigatots will be jimmying locks like nothing. By contrast this group are building up to it slowly.

Finally let's talk about this posts picture. All keepers and GM's have stuff that comes up in every campaign often withought the realising. One of mine is the urchin. He's become such a stock character that I never even thought about it when he introduced himself withan "Ello what's up guv?". Right away Rosa cried out, "It's the urchin!" and it took 5 minutes for her and Irish Paul to explain the character to poor Martin who hasn't been in one of my games for years.

You see without it being a conscious thing the urchin has become a stock character for me. He's been around for years but really came to the fore in my last three year WFRP campaign where the characters learned to always check in with the first urchin they saw and always sent their post through UPS.

Anyway the picture above is because this urchin was called Wullie and they decided he was Our Wullie, had spike hair and wore dungarees. Despite only one of the players being Dundonian they couldn't help but go for a great Dundonian icon. My urchin will always be Oor Wullie from now on, look him up!

Ruminations and retorts, murder most foul, high tea with feeling

The morning brought an unexpected twist. Kalabos woke in Dawsons office/crashpad to find Dawson gone leaving a note saying he had been taken ill and had to be away for a short while. Kalabos thought this was fishy at best and decided to search the office for valuables which netted him nothing more than a half-full change jar. Kalabos was very happy but was soon ejected by Dawsons secretary Nancy who pointedly provided our hobo with a bar of carbolic soap. Kalabos remained confused about this throughout the session and offered the soap as a remedy for all ills when the opportunity arose.

After meeting together for brunch the group went on for a meeting with the Armitage Inquiry where they reported their progress so far and consistently dismissed Dawsons claims that it was all a conspiracy by some sort of fish-men hybrids. Armitage brought up references to the so called Deep Ones in the Necronomicon, Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Eltdown Shards. Lady Letrauc-De'ath replied she wasn't interested in anything unless it was mentioned in Tatler. The meeting ended with Armitage promising to do more research int the Deep Ones and The Esoteric Order of Dagon and the group as unresolved as before.

After stopping for a light lunch in Arkham our intrepid trio headed out to the cheap part of Kingsport for the meeting with Finlayson. Totally bypassing any house containing terrible old men they soon arrived at the ramshackle four-storey boarding house where Finlayson resided. Paying a local urchin to take care of the car our intrepid investigators proceeded to Finlaysons appartment where they found a scene of pure horror!

It seems someone had arrived at the apartment before them and dealt with Finlayson in a rather extreme fashion. The sight of his body parts strewn across the room tested the stability of our heroes and it was only through a real effort that they continued. Shambles examined he corpse and found that the visible wounds were in four parallel rows and razor sharp, something which he had never seen in his time in the wilds. Lady Lautrec De'ath searched the room and found some sort of notebook or diary left by the victim and decided to read it later.

Kalabos meanwhile went out to interrogate the urchin who revealed that Finlayson was a right git and that he'd seen somebody go into the building earlier that morning. The man was a stranger heavily wrapped in a large coat, scarf, gloves and a hat had entered the building. For some unknown reason Kalabos then took the young child up to view the corpse with predictable results. Our friends then left the scene only stopping to call the police anonymously and pay the urchin to give the police all the information they had excepting their prescence.

Realising that they may be in danger our group went to the nearest safe place in Kingsport, The Kingsport Yacht Club. Their host, Oliver Gardiner, was very happy to have them for high tea and reamained solicitous throughout though our lady was a little icked out by him. During the tiffin Shambles and Kalabos brought up Horace 'Diamond' Walsh into the conversation but their host never took the bait.

After tea Kalabos took the opportunity to have a look around the grounds. It seems that he and Shambles had struck upon the idea that Gardiner might have something in his office that might give them a clue towards what's going on. Kalabos' investigations were cut short by the onsite security but he did find that they carry guns. Meanwhile Shambles introduced Lady De'ath to one of the clubs waitresses, Annie, who our lady offered a future job to if she stayed at her current one and reported back to them. Poor orphan Annie with two brothers to support readily agreed so it seem that they have an ally in the enemy camp. Or another future corpswe.

This nut may be a tough one, perhaps Dawson may help if he returns.

Keepers ruminations

So besides just talking about what happened how do I feel about the game so far?

In my mind it was going to be slightly darker but I should have thought of my players more, there's always a certain element of farce in anything we play.

The system so far seems to work quite well. I like just giving the clues to the players and I'm hoping that I'm managing spends quite well though I'm not sure how to put in core clues with this style of play. I decided on one for the session, damned if I can remember which one, and I remember it felt just right at the time. It's difficult to use this part of the system when you're essentially making it up as you go along.

This brings me to the plot which so far has been pretty straightforward. I was at first worried about making a villain very obvious though I had very good reasons for doing so. For a first session with some new players I didn't want the mystery to be so murky that they felt that they weren't moving forward at all. Of course this doesn't mean that the plot is so obvious, it isn't like they can just walk up and shoot the person they see as the villain or that killing one person will stop the plan.

As an aside I love the use of the Cthulhu Mythos skill in the game. At this point I'd decided that blatantly revealing a villain would be good for the plot and my player so went with the consequences. The danger/reward aspect is very good and gives a different shape to the game.

Our heroes learn their plaice, they mussel their way into the club, Dawson gets the squids

Okay there was a bit of a delay but here we are again.

On leaving the Miskatonic Club our noble protagonists set out to unearth more clues. De'ath had to get her beauty sleep and Shambles went to do whatever shambles does but Kalabos and Dawson had other things on their minds.

Kalabos immediately went down to the Arkham docks to find out more about the yacht club. When I say immediately I actually mean he stopped off to sell his ill-gotten gains and borrowed suit before anything else. Not much was forthcoming but he did learn that hobos had been disappearing in the vicinity of the club though as they were hobos they may have just headed west.

Dawson called his trusty secretary Nancy to see if she could find out more about the yacht club and Oliver Gardiner. He also mentioned that Kalabos would be sleeping at the office and advised to her to lock up the whiskey and the valuable, he never revealed what the valuable is. Nancy got back to him in the morning saying she'd been hanging out with some of the boys from the precinct and learned some interesting news, whilst there's no hard evidence our Mr Gardiner has been linked to the mobster Horace "Diamond" Walsh. It may be nothing but perhaps there's something deeper going on. She also revealed that Walsh had recently married a Zora Smallidge, a girls from a small coastal village, only weeks after his wifes death. Rumour is that she is with child.

Armed with rumours and innuendo our stalwart bunch headed out to the Kingsport Yacht Club that evening, De'ath being surre to have a brace of her best purdeys in the trunk of the car. On arrival they found the club to not be quite what they envisioned. Though palatial it felt cramped, there was a film of yellowy cigar residue over everything and amongst pictures of dignitaries there were may paintings of eviscerated animals. Ushered through the club they were shown to the office of the president emeritus himself, Oliver Gardiner!

Gardiner failed to impress most of them. Whilst obviously well-bred he seemed just a little too bug-eyed, his handshake a touch too slimy and in general a smidgen too scaly for their tastes. None of our group held this against the man and were happy to engage in small-talk whilst Lady Lautrec-De'aths memebership details were taken. None that is except for Sam Dawson! Dawson seemed uncharacteristicly shaken and couldn't be brought into the conversation or even into the reach of Gardiner. Sharp eyes would have noticed the feverish gleam in his eye and how his hand kept moving towards his revolver.

Once our dear Lady was signed up our comrades removed to the dining room for their repast. Though Dawson was convinced to order he would not eat the food there whilst the others dug into the fine victuals with relish. Kalabos amused himself by trying to chat up a poor women whilst Shambles made firm friends with Colonel Haddock, an old English warhorse, and reminisced with him at length about killing natives in the far reaches of the empire. Meanwhile Dawson wandered over to the bar where the gnarled old barman, whilst giving him his Jack Daniels, warned him that he was in danger and passed him a note. Brave, stalwart Dawson immeditaely cacked his pants and demanded they leave. Lady De'ath agreed with him though this had more to do with the increasingly boorish behaviour of Shambles and Kalabos than anything else. Suffice to say they decamped to the Lautrec-De'ath residence before having the opportunity to sample the coffee and cigars.

Away from the club Dawson was able to reveal what had shaken him so much. The reported disappearances of the hobos, the closeness of Kingsport to a certain ill-fated town called Innsmouth and finally the meeting with Oliver Gardiner had given him susspicions which could only be confirmed by accessing knowledge he had repressed deep within his mind. Knowledge that could drive him to the very brink of madness and beyond but which he must plumb! When he did this he realised that Gardiner was not human he was a Deep One! A half-human, hald-fish creature bent on the destruction of humanity and bringing back the reign of the old gods who would wipe us from the earth! Naturally this had made him a bit jittery.

There were rumours that this all had something to do with an organisation called The Esoteric Order Of Dagon which had operated out of Innsmouth until that ill-haunted town was cleared out by government forces in 1928 but no hard facts. Dagon could be an ancient fertility god, a creation of a mad writer or an ancient god of the sea but who knows?

Finally they turned to the note handed to Dawson at the bar. It revealed little but that his name is Lem Finlayson, he believes that they are investigators just as he is and that the club is too dengerous a place to talk so they should meet him at his boardinghouse on the afternoon of the next day.

After much discussion the party decided to talk to the Armitage Inquiry first thing in the morning then go on to the meeting with Finlayson. With that they retired to bed.

Our intrepid group of cliches sets forth, nightclubbing we're nightclubbing, something fishy's going on

Session two began with all our investigators, barring Prof Shaftesbury who had some marking to do, starting their investigation of the Kingsport Yacht Club. Lady Lautrec-De'ath used her high society connections to discover that the club was a very exclusive one open only to those with an obscenely high credit rating and even then membership could only be gained through the sponsorship of a current member. After a moments pause our Ladyship put her obscenely high credit rating to work and called her old chum Alastair de Vries who turned out to be a member of the club and invited her for drinks at the decidedly swank Miskatonic Club to catch up and see how he could help. Gathering her colleagues together and getting them to smarten up, something which ranged from Dawson making sure he wore the hat without the bullet-hole to loaning Kalabos a whole suit, De'ath prepared for an evenings nightclubbing.

With but a little negotiation De'ath managed to get the maitre de to allow her motley crew into the exclusive confines of The Miskatonic and over the strains of live jazz introduced them to de Vries who turned out to be a thoroughly spiffing fellow who was amused by the Mexican hobo, intrigued by the detectives work and able to ignore the rudeness of the author. Over drinks and nibbles De'ath talked about her interest in the yacht club and de Vries agreed to call the president emeritus of Kingsport Yacht Club, Oliver Gardiner, right away and put her forward for membership. True to his word he had a telephone brought to the table there and then and arranged with Gardiner that they could go over at eight the next evening so De'ath could sign up. As all this happened Kalabos managed to secrete quite a significant amount of silverware, champagne flutes and ashtrays about his person with only a few suspicious glances from the staff. Armed with an opportunity to have two nights on the razzle in a row the group set out to further their investigations.

Real life has got in the way of completing this weeks blogpost so I'm putting this up now and we'll continue tomorrow.

In which our heroes meet, the first Files are presented and the game's afoot

I put this post off as long as possible to allow the players to present their characters in the companion thread but time has run out. Our first session was spent creating characters and introducing the Files.

Ian created ex-boxer, ex-polis officer and current PI Sam Dawson, a man driven by revenge! Ian has been kind enough to introduce the man here and here.He's a salt of the earth upright guy who's undoubtedly going to die horribly.

Martin created Jesus Kalabos the improbably named hobo. Driven by bad luck explaining why he's a hobo, his explanation of himself is here. It makes as much sense to me as it does to you and I'm a little worried he's going to die a horrible death.

Rosa is playing Amelia Lautrec-De'ath an English noblewoman who's family has a dark past that may lead to he dying in a horrible fashion.

Our other two players haven't been able to make a post regarding their characters as yet.

Jamesie is playing Professor Shaftesbury, known as Shaft by his friends, an academdic who speacialises in architecture and is driven by his need to be seen as a great scholar and attain tenure. This may lead to his death. Possibly a horrible one.

Irish Paul plays Tom 'Eagle Eye' Shambles an author who's drive is not yet revealed. Paul spoke at length about how this character is writing about Amelia but to I'm still not sure exactly what this is all about. He's in a battle to get it published before his horrible demise.

Our investigators were summoned to a special meeting of The Armitage Inquiry a secret organisation with Miskatonic University begun after the affairs of The Dunwich Horror and The Whisperer in the Darkness and the disasterous expeditions by the university to Australia and Antartica. From all this the universities head librarian and a few colleagues have learned that our world is really not ours. Aeons before we came Gods and Titans ruled the world and they but sleep until they do so again. Humans are just a pestilence that will be wiped away when they rise. Even worse there are cults within our very own species working to bring these creatures back! The Armitage Inquiry works to put off the inevitable for as long as possible without revealing all to the world and leading it into madness.

At the meeting it was revealed that within days of each other two documents had mysteriously appeared at Miskatonic, both written in the hand of Dr Henry Armitage himself. He has no memory of writing them and their appearance is a mystery. The Inquiry Board are split on what this means. It may be that Armitage is writing them unkowingly, that a cult has forged them as part of an attack or that they come from somewhere else. Reaching an impasse they decide a different perspective could be of use and call our investigators.

Our investigators were then presented with the two documents and asked to ascertain their meaning. Upon reading the documents seemed to suggest that they were sent from the future by Armitage and allude to some sort of apocalypse. Labwork shows that the first document contains traces of blood, pulverised concrete and ither substances and may be from a later date than the second. From the myriad references in the documents our investigators focused on two. A reference to some type of circus or carnival and another to the Kingsport Yacht club. As Kingsport is but the next town over it was here they decided to begin their investigation. I fear it may lead to many deaths, horrible ones!

In which our host introduces himself, fears are revealed and the Armitage Files discussed

So this is the first post of my roleplaying blog and I'm a bit freaked out by the whole thing. I'm not all that concerned about blogging about my game as I've blogged a bit before so it's not a reall hassle, I'm not scared of doing Cthulhu as I've been a keeper of the game for over 20 years, though not of Trail of Cthulhu, but I am shitting myself over The Armitage Files.

You see traditional Call of Cthulhu games are normally pretty tightly plotted. They're mysteries in which there's a clear villain with a clear agenda and it's pretty easy to spot the beats and use them. If anything Trail of Cthulhu pushes this even more with a rule system that concentrates on giving the clues directly to the players making their discovery of the plot everything.

The Armitage Files throws this all out of the window.

The book consists of ten rather long handouts and a host of characters and background. There is no plot. Instead you have a toolkit to improvise the game based on how the players react to the, frankly apocalyptic, handouts. I've done quite a bit of improvisational stuff before and I'm okay at it but this is something different due to the whole mystery angle. I have got to run a mystery game where I don't know who the villain is or their plan. It's a bit scary.