End of the Golden Dawn campaign
I had two Call of Cthulhu games over the weekend. I'll talk about the first here, which was the finale of the Golden Dawn campaign which I had been game-mastering since last June.
I think it was one of the better campaign ends which I've been in. There were a few ways in which it felt forced, but in general it went very well.
The Pieces
During the sixteen sessions of the campaign, I used material from five published adventures.
Similarly, a key point of "Signs Writ In Scarlet" was the doctor sending the minds of patients back in time. In my game, the doctor was a colleague of a PC, and indeed Dr. Norton himself suggested use of "regressive mesmerism" to him.
One of the keys of much Lovecraftian horror is horror at oneself and one's own heritage. I think that I did quite well in this campaign at making all of the horrors personal. One of my key techniques was twisting things so that whatever they chose turned out to result in terrible consequences. (Often it didn't require much twisting, mostly by simply not providing any non-hideous choices.)
Personal Horrors
Donovan Shankley (played by Dennis) was by far the most dedicated cultists of the original PCs. He was a writer of popular books on the occult, and considered a rising star within the Golden Dawn -- and was the target of jealous ire from egotistical founder Mathers. Twice he lost his memory for extended periods (when Dennis couldn't make it to the session), and found himself in completely unknown places. At the start of session #8, he found himself in a hotel in France with a bloody knife among his things and a huge tattoo of a Sheela-na-gig on his chest. It was strongly implied that he had murdered Mathers. He eventually went indefinitely insane and was almost immediately killed by a creature in session #11.
Stopford Coneybeare (played by Jim) was also an interested occultist. In session #6, he learned of Prynn's Crux Ansata -- a magical ankh -- and created one to banish a creature. He also became tied up in several occult searches, and made a deal with the 'fae' creature Anstaria to get himself out of jail. In a edge-pushing twist, at the end of session #13, he learned the more complete story behind the ankh (of my invention). The ankh is closely related to the symbol of Venus used for femininity, and is a powerful symbol of fertility. Coneybeare learned that by imbuing the ankh, he was changing into a hermaphrodite.
Dr. Woodsworth (played by Daniel) was for a while not closely connected. As a coroner, he was a peer and personal friend of GD founder William Westcott. In session #14, though, he was killed by purely random fall of the dice. At that point, it seemed perfect to introduce the grail. He awoke many hours later as a living dead, brought back by Arthur to continue the fight. The idea of a living dead coroner was a bizarre coincidence. He then swore fealty to Arthur.
Dr. Norton (played by David) was a puzzle for me for a while. He was a rationalist who did not seem at all susceptible to horror or other emotions. I tailored his horror, then to this. The leader of the goddess cult, set to turn him from his male, purely scientific ways, gave him a book, "The Multicameral Anatomy of the Brain" which described the different sides -- and presents the logical scientific mind as needing to be balanced by the emotional side. He had already had episodes of sleepwalking, and later he received a note on his desk written in the mirror image of his own handwriting. There was a side to him that was even more ultra-rationalist.
Nathan Hardewick (played by Dennis for the last few sessions) was originally an NPC in the adventure "Plant Y Daear". He had a very obvious internal horror: he was the result of his mother having been raped by subhuman snake-men that formed the basis of "Little People" myths in Wales. I let Dennis trade in SAN points for two special skills: "Lull Prey" (a hypnotic effect on any non-carnivores) and "Reptile Speech" (communication with any vaguely reptilian creatures).
The Finale
I would say the center of the finale was around David's character Dr. Norton. In the previous episode, Dr. Norton had received another note in the mirror image of his own handwriting -- fitting a theory he had read that this was another half of his brain, which might be an even more logical, scientific side. The note suggested that the best way to deal with the serpent-like creature Thursif slowly awakening below London was to shock them into suddenly rising with a dramatic rise in temperature for a week. It said that this would cause it to emerge physically, confused, and it could be killed by physical force. In the last episode, they committed to this plan, using an ancient weather machine they had found to cause an unnatural heat wave.
However, after they started the heat wave, he saw some suspicious signs as a rival of his suddenly went helplessly insane from a drug overdose. Then a day later he received another note, where his logical mind explained that the turmoil caused would be good for him/them, for science, and for Britain. It calculated odds, and in its cold, amoral logic estimated that this was the best course.
You can read the full plot in the Session Summaries.
The nice thing in my mind was again that there was pressing pacing which they were in the middle of. They had committed to a plan, and then having started it they suddenly find that it was the scheme of the power-mad ultra-rational side of Dr. Norton's mind -- and that rather than facing the one horror they were expecting, they would have to face three. And ultimately, they didn't precisely save the day. The Queen was assassinated; and a monster ravaged downtown London killing hundreds of people; and a psychotic leader escaped to plot further mischief. However, they also did get a strong sense that they did have a strong impact for the good (i.e. the psychotic did not become King).
Strength and Weaknesses
I think that all five of the adventures I picked were excellent bases. Two of them ("Sacraments of Evil" and "Sheela-na-gig") I used more as background rather than the adventures as written. But their imagery was so strong that it's hard to fault them.
I think I did a good job overall of making the different plots all flow together. There were a few dropped bits -- I introduced a mind-controlling monster called Nevik that was basically dropped, for example. However, I think the blending in of all the NPCs as natural and integral parts of the adventures was done extremely well.
The Call of Cthulhu rules I was increasingly disappointed with. I generally stuck by the rules for most of campaign, but in later sessions I fudged more, and in the finale I pretty much abandoned it. The finale had a lot of combat which the PCs were mostly incidental to, and also had the PCs widely separated.
The insanity rules did work pretty well. I have many small quibbles, but in general they worked fine. There was a problem in general with the organization of the rules (using edition 5.6.1). A lot of times we could sort of remember a rule, but had to flip around a bunch to confirm it.
There are some very obvious problems with learning magic. Learning a spell from a book takes 2d6 weeks, often repeatedly because there is a low learning chance. More than one adventure called for using a spell in a book introduced in that adventure, but doing so is impossible under the rules. Further, the excessive time taken for spells means that anyone not learning spells is stuck doing nothing for a while.
Combat was so rare in this campaign that the combat rules made little difference overall. I will say that the two PC deaths that we had both came off pretty well. In my experience, it has been rare for PCs to actually die as a result of random die rolls. However, here it worked pretty well. Dying at 0 hit points seemed quite abrupt to me, but I think for a horror game it's better for it to be over with than to have a drawn-out process. The high whiff factor did drag out a few less lethal fights, made especially so because all of the PCs were non-combat types.
This likely says more about my play style than anything else, but I had little problem with randomized investigative rolls. I think a big part of this was that I dumped a lot of automatic information to the players. Rather than having to roll investigative skills to find many things, they often intimately knew them from the start. For example, the villain of the piece was often someone they had personally known for several sessions.
Themes and Tone
I think the central point of this campaign was much of the borrowed images where we took an idealized image from English culture -- Anglican cathedrals, Christ, the Little People, King Arthur, the Holy Grail -- and turning them into things which were horrible and utterly unromanticized. I also pushed things more in the direction of the Lovecraftian tendency towards wierd science as opposed to magic, compared to some of the published adventures and the rules themselves which suggest a more magical worldview. I had psychic powers, strange creatures, and alien artifacts, but less of hocus-pocus magic on the principle that it was more romanticized.
I think it was one of the better campaign ends which I've been in. There were a few ways in which it felt forced, but in general it went very well.
The Pieces
During the sixteen sessions of the campaign, I used material from five published adventures.
- "The Room Beyond" by John Tynes I used pretty much straight as the introduction. It played out as an excellent two-session adventure, even though I would say it was quite linearly plotted. It concentrates on atmosphere, with few players choices or investigation. It listed four names in its book: Zorlith, Anstaria, Thursif, and Nevik -- which are undefined that I used to hook in later material.
- I then had two establishing sessions without much overt horror, using material on the Golden Dawn members as well as establishing other elements of the upcoming adventures.
- "Signs Writ in Scarlet" by Kevin A. Ross followed, taking up sessions #5 and #6. I changed many of the NPCs around, having previously established the evil psychiatrist Dr. Fotheringay-Phipps as a peer of the PC Dr. Norton. However, most of the key horror elements were taken, including the horrific victim Billy, Joan Bayldon and her murders, and the hound chasing her.
- At the end of that one, I established that the 'hound' had awoken a horrible reptilian thing beneath London. The next two sessions (#7 and #8) adapted a few key elements of "Sacraments of Evil" by Fred Behrendt. Again, the central figure of Dean Bristol was an NPC I had interwoven with previous action. However, the action was quite different than the adventure -- except for the monster at the end, which was Behrendt's brilliant idea of a complete perversion of Christianity, a clay statue of Christ animated with evil force. I heavily twisted the context, connecting this to Sheela-na-gig carvings, one of which was on Rochester Cathedral where Bristol was Dean. (I changed this from York to be both near London and have a genuine Sheela-na-gig.)
- The next session was purely original, and was dealing with the aftermath of the PCs having shot an Anglican dean in the face with a shotgun. However, I used a character (Anstaria) that I would tie into the next adventure.
- The next session (#10) adapted "Plant Y Daear" by Kevin A. Ross. This was closer to the adventure as written, but it had a vastly different introduction. Coneybeare started by having made a deal with Anstaria, who represented the creatures in the adventure. So they started out having agreed in principle to bring young Nathan Hardewick to the Fae, only to be horrified by what they turned out to be.
- The last six sessions were mostly original material. There are some key bits of background that I took from the scenario "Sheela-na-gig" by John Tynes -- namely the raising of King Arthur, the goddess cult, and the Holy Grail. However, the adventure was completely different. The overarching plot was that a doom was coming over London, as one of the 'dragon kings' of a past age was predicted to rise -- and the PCs were searching for ways to stop it.
Similarly, a key point of "Signs Writ In Scarlet" was the doctor sending the minds of patients back in time. In my game, the doctor was a colleague of a PC, and indeed Dr. Norton himself suggested use of "regressive mesmerism" to him.
One of the keys of much Lovecraftian horror is horror at oneself and one's own heritage. I think that I did quite well in this campaign at making all of the horrors personal. One of my key techniques was twisting things so that whatever they chose turned out to result in terrible consequences. (Often it didn't require much twisting, mostly by simply not providing any non-hideous choices.)
Personal Horrors
Donovan Shankley (played by Dennis) was by far the most dedicated cultists of the original PCs. He was a writer of popular books on the occult, and considered a rising star within the Golden Dawn -- and was the target of jealous ire from egotistical founder Mathers. Twice he lost his memory for extended periods (when Dennis couldn't make it to the session), and found himself in completely unknown places. At the start of session #8, he found himself in a hotel in France with a bloody knife among his things and a huge tattoo of a Sheela-na-gig on his chest. It was strongly implied that he had murdered Mathers. He eventually went indefinitely insane and was almost immediately killed by a creature in session #11.
Stopford Coneybeare (played by Jim) was also an interested occultist. In session #6, he learned of Prynn's Crux Ansata -- a magical ankh -- and created one to banish a creature. He also became tied up in several occult searches, and made a deal with the 'fae' creature Anstaria to get himself out of jail. In a edge-pushing twist, at the end of session #13, he learned the more complete story behind the ankh (of my invention). The ankh is closely related to the symbol of Venus used for femininity, and is a powerful symbol of fertility. Coneybeare learned that by imbuing the ankh, he was changing into a hermaphrodite.
Dr. Woodsworth (played by Daniel) was for a while not closely connected. As a coroner, he was a peer and personal friend of GD founder William Westcott. In session #14, though, he was killed by purely random fall of the dice. At that point, it seemed perfect to introduce the grail. He awoke many hours later as a living dead, brought back by Arthur to continue the fight. The idea of a living dead coroner was a bizarre coincidence. He then swore fealty to Arthur.
Dr. Norton (played by David) was a puzzle for me for a while. He was a rationalist who did not seem at all susceptible to horror or other emotions. I tailored his horror, then to this. The leader of the goddess cult, set to turn him from his male, purely scientific ways, gave him a book, "The Multicameral Anatomy of the Brain" which described the different sides -- and presents the logical scientific mind as needing to be balanced by the emotional side. He had already had episodes of sleepwalking, and later he received a note on his desk written in the mirror image of his own handwriting. There was a side to him that was even more ultra-rationalist.
Nathan Hardewick (played by Dennis for the last few sessions) was originally an NPC in the adventure "Plant Y Daear". He had a very obvious internal horror: he was the result of his mother having been raped by subhuman snake-men that formed the basis of "Little People" myths in Wales. I let Dennis trade in SAN points for two special skills: "Lull Prey" (a hypnotic effect on any non-carnivores) and "Reptile Speech" (communication with any vaguely reptilian creatures).
The Finale
I would say the center of the finale was around David's character Dr. Norton. In the previous episode, Dr. Norton had received another note in the mirror image of his own handwriting -- fitting a theory he had read that this was another half of his brain, which might be an even more logical, scientific side. The note suggested that the best way to deal with the serpent-like creature Thursif slowly awakening below London was to shock them into suddenly rising with a dramatic rise in temperature for a week. It said that this would cause it to emerge physically, confused, and it could be killed by physical force. In the last episode, they committed to this plan, using an ancient weather machine they had found to cause an unnatural heat wave.
However, after they started the heat wave, he saw some suspicious signs as a rival of his suddenly went helplessly insane from a drug overdose. Then a day later he received another note, where his logical mind explained that the turmoil caused would be good for him/them, for science, and for Britain. It calculated odds, and in its cold, amoral logic estimated that this was the best course.
You can read the full plot in the Session Summaries.
The nice thing in my mind was again that there was pressing pacing which they were in the middle of. They had committed to a plan, and then having started it they suddenly find that it was the scheme of the power-mad ultra-rational side of Dr. Norton's mind -- and that rather than facing the one horror they were expecting, they would have to face three. And ultimately, they didn't precisely save the day. The Queen was assassinated; and a monster ravaged downtown London killing hundreds of people; and a psychotic leader escaped to plot further mischief. However, they also did get a strong sense that they did have a strong impact for the good (i.e. the psychotic did not become King).
Strength and Weaknesses
I think that all five of the adventures I picked were excellent bases. Two of them ("Sacraments of Evil" and "Sheela-na-gig") I used more as background rather than the adventures as written. But their imagery was so strong that it's hard to fault them.
I think I did a good job overall of making the different plots all flow together. There were a few dropped bits -- I introduced a mind-controlling monster called Nevik that was basically dropped, for example. However, I think the blending in of all the NPCs as natural and integral parts of the adventures was done extremely well.
The Call of Cthulhu rules I was increasingly disappointed with. I generally stuck by the rules for most of campaign, but in later sessions I fudged more, and in the finale I pretty much abandoned it. The finale had a lot of combat which the PCs were mostly incidental to, and also had the PCs widely separated.
The insanity rules did work pretty well. I have many small quibbles, but in general they worked fine. There was a problem in general with the organization of the rules (using edition 5.6.1). A lot of times we could sort of remember a rule, but had to flip around a bunch to confirm it.
There are some very obvious problems with learning magic. Learning a spell from a book takes 2d6 weeks, often repeatedly because there is a low learning chance. More than one adventure called for using a spell in a book introduced in that adventure, but doing so is impossible under the rules. Further, the excessive time taken for spells means that anyone not learning spells is stuck doing nothing for a while.
Combat was so rare in this campaign that the combat rules made little difference overall. I will say that the two PC deaths that we had both came off pretty well. In my experience, it has been rare for PCs to actually die as a result of random die rolls. However, here it worked pretty well. Dying at 0 hit points seemed quite abrupt to me, but I think for a horror game it's better for it to be over with than to have a drawn-out process. The high whiff factor did drag out a few less lethal fights, made especially so because all of the PCs were non-combat types.
This likely says more about my play style than anything else, but I had little problem with randomized investigative rolls. I think a big part of this was that I dumped a lot of automatic information to the players. Rather than having to roll investigative skills to find many things, they often intimately knew them from the start. For example, the villain of the piece was often someone they had personally known for several sessions.
Themes and Tone
I think the central point of this campaign was much of the borrowed images where we took an idealized image from English culture -- Anglican cathedrals, Christ, the Little People, King Arthur, the Holy Grail -- and turning them into things which were horrible and utterly unromanticized. I also pushed things more in the direction of the Lovecraftian tendency towards wierd science as opposed to magic, compared to some of the published adventures and the rules themselves which suggest a more magical worldview. I had psychic powers, strange creatures, and alien artifacts, but less of hocus-pocus magic on the principle that it was more romanticized.