Heroic Cthulhu

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Spirits Over Arkham

This module is one of the free downloads from Yog at:
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=5
It has been heavily modified.
Discussion of what I did to it can be found here:
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=10462

Alternative plot track for ‘Spirits Over Arkham’

I’ve extensively rewritten this one. Some of it was too formulaic and D&D’esque. An easy ‘kill the bad guy’ mod. Some of the notes may be seen as ‘tongue in cheek’. THEY ARE. If you are not sure if some of the stuff you have read is humorous, try reading it in a high, squeaky voice. It may not answer the question, but it will make me feel better. If you are still not getting it, read it all as serious (your sense of humor won’t get in your way, I assure you) but know that I love the author of the original module as though he were my own cousin and all gamers as though they were my other cousins.

This module is not recommended for new adventurers. Medium or high powered groups, lovely.

The main thing – boiled down – of this module is that there is a house full of violent gangsters parked on top of a ‘pan-dimensional rift’ with a ghost/spirit trapped in it trying to escape. The only way the spirit can try to escape is by having four (more) people die very nearby. Note, it must be people. To make it worse, the gangsters are pretty much insensitive to the spiritual manifestations and whatnot – I figure you’d have to be to live there for a few months. Perhaps we can make it one of those things where if you don’t believe in ghosts and such then you don’t see them. Might hear noises and such, but it can all be explained away. People who do believe in ghosts and such (like the PC’s) will be given more of the full range of the spirits special abilities.

This is kind of a good test for the PC’s as well. In nearly ALL RPG’s, killing all the bad guys means you ‘win’. The GM may tell you it doesn’t, he may sulk and pout and throw ‘grudge monsters’ at you – but you know that killing is good. In this, killing the bad guys (mobsters) means you LOSE.

Because of the unfortunate training other systems (which involve a d20 in them) have given the PC’s, I will plain for them to fail. It would be an odd module indeed if they killed a gangster or two and said “This seems to be causing the gate to go more crazy – we should pull back.” If it does, the PC’s need only to wait till the gangsters get their last shipment and quietly leave. Then, they can go build a church or whatever – they win. Praise their cleverness and dance around like a demented smurf, because obviously you live in a fantasy world. Here is what will really happen. The PC’s will kill one or two gangsters and say “Obviously their high priest which is hidden in the house is casting a spell. We had better hurry up and kill his minions which are attempting to keep us away from him so that we may stop his evil…by killing him a lot. When the PC’s have succeeded in blasting away the minions they will say “Ah ha! The priest has succeeded! We are now in MORE trouble (has someone Pi** off the GM lately?) – a giant monster will now emerge from the hellish pit to do fierce battle with it and we will have to KILL IT EVEN MORE!

It will confuse them when nothing comes out of the pit.

They will then think about going into the pit. Obviously, there is something down there they have to kill. They will buy lots of rope and want to lower themselves into the hole. Going to hell and killing the Demon King Dude is obviously what is needed here to make the problem go away. Killing works – why change it? Cthulhu tried to by making many of the creatures to big and hard to kill – but everyone knows that if they could kill them it would make the world a better place. But they can’t. Not yet, anyway.

But inside of the pit looks to have a lot of lava. The PC’s will want to go down there and explore and do stuff. Lets not have it go anywhere. Lets have it a big hole filled with lava that the PC’s can clearly see has NO side passages. Doubtless one or more of them will attempt to swim around in the lava. Have them take say 3d6 per round they are in the lava (area of effect attack, poz only rerolls the damage, good luck). That should get rid of a couple of the die hard ones.

The others will believe it is a ‘wait for it’ module. The kind of module where you have to wait for the High Priest to get to just the right word in the book or the right incantation before you – SHOOT HIM. Or some more creative way of killing him to get the same effect. Alternatively, other PC’s will say ‘Ah – it is not a person which must be killed but an object!’ They will have grand visions of taking the nifty treasure item (the skeleton thing) and tossing it into the lava filled hole and having that somehow solve their problems. They ‘killed’ an item – that’s not as good as killing something alive, but close. They will believe that their massive internal struggle at giving up an excellent piece of treasure was a painful combat that they won. PC’s like giving up treasure less than people enjoy a good IRS audit. They will toss it in reluctantly – unless they haven’t figured out what it does – in which case they will chuck it in. They will chuckle about the GM having put in a great piece of treasure which he knew they would never ever get to keep simply because it was the key to ending the module. And all they will be doing is wasting a pretty nice piece of treasure. The GM should try not to point and laugh at this point. It shows low character and may lead to real life pain.

The combatant minded of the group will be happy and relieved when gargoyles (didn’t like the dinosaurs, replaced them) emerge from the lava and will happily shoot away at them. It won’t help at all. There are always more. The PC’s will suspect that after they have killed enough of them, that something big will emerge to be killed and that killing it will somehow make the big lava filled hole in the ground go away. It won’t. However, it will cause the government to get alerted. Leveling a town should alert the government. The government will come out and fix things. Badly. Make them worse later.

And this will leave the PC’s with a hollow empty feeling because they didn’t get to kill anything that caused everything to be OK. It will take a strong GM to run this module. The whining of the PC’s will be loud. It will be tempting to tell the PC’s what happened and why – but you must rate that against the possibility of running the future time module. If you think your PC’s are un-trainable, by all means tell them. They will say “That is stupid” because everyone knows that killing means you win. If your PC’s kind of figured it out and managed to seal the rift, it might be good to keep the specifics under your hat so that you can do something with this giant plot hook later. Maybe the Prophesized One shall return or something.

‘Waiting for it’ as the phrase goes will not be a good thing. Researching and such won’t really solve their problems. This will confuse and enrage the PC’s. they will insist (and possibly be right) that they won’t learn anything from this experience even if they figure out that killing stuff just doesn’t work. The PC’s will get to see the things that go on and wring their hands and wonder why the GM is ‘out to destroy Arkham’.

This module requires the PC’s to be clever in a non-violent way. There will be much scratching of heads and knitting of brows and vain attempts to figure out who needs killing.

Hence, the GM should only run this if they don’t mind Arkham becoming a ghost town.

There are a lot of stories about a ‘fiery hell’ – we’re going to give them one.

ORDER OF PROBLEMS AT THE BIG CRACK (AKA THE CRACK OF DOOM AKA THE PC’S NEMESIS AKA THE ‘WHEN THE HELL IS THAT BIG MONSTER WE ARE SUPPOSE TO KILL GOING TO GET HERE’)

• Big crack in the earth, glowing lava visible in it. (Geologists make your SAN roll for thinking you are on a volcano).

• Crops/soil around the place withers and dies.

• Twisted toadstools and mushrooms grow around the crack. (We can make this a tribute to Zelazny’s famous ‘black road’.

• Shoot a lot of cr*** into the air. Big black cloud.

• Crops die.

• Animals and children get sick. Some will die but in general it should be something to make them bedridden. Give it a good ‘black plague’ appearance with boils and sores.

• Gargoyles come out to carry people off. Depopulate Arkham.

• Over time (day, week, whatever), Arkham becomes a ghost town. Desperate battles fought. Combative PC’s will be happy. They may even ‘win’ enough to drive the cr*** back to it’s crack. Good for them – but it doesn’t ‘win’ it yet.

• Military comes in. Nobody gets to depopulate tax payers! The military (through sheer firepower) contains the rift but annoys the PC’s by putting up barbed wire fences and guards to keep everyone (especially the inept PC’s) out. Because they put up a fence and a bunch of signs that say ‘no trespassing’ the PC’s will be desperate to get in. Sure, they had awhile to play with it before the fences were put up and got no where but now that there are obstacles they obviously need to get in. We will have to develop the post commander (make him a real d*ck) and some guards. Numerous attempts to fast talk and get in on the side of the army so that the PC’s can figure out what they are up to should all fail miserably. The PC’s had – and blew – their chance.

• The government brings in experts and egg heads. Like the PC’s, but more competent. They eventually come to an impasse with the rift. It’s not closed but at least it’s not eating people at the moment. Although the military likes to level and area and ask questions later, their eggheads give them other advise and they (eventually) take it.

• The government repopulates Arkham by having a military base (like ‘Area 51’) there and soldiers now live in Arkham. Maybe declare martial law in Arkham (with curfew) so that the government can push around the PC’s. This is referred to as ‘grinding their faces in it’. Mayor Peabody resigns and is replaced with General Armbuster (or some such). A general who believes he knows enough to advise God. He likes a lot of order and discipline and Arkham becomes a less nifty place to live.

• Eventually, this can (if needed for the modern campaign) become a Majestic 12 base. They make ‘deals with the devil’ and whatnot and screw up humanity just a little more.

You will notice there is NO TIMELINE. Do whatever seems correct in respect for the narrative. If the PC’s are sitting around bored, weapons in hand, speed up the timeline. Might only take a few days or a week to get up to the military coming in. If the PC’s are trying new things (as opposed to sitting around thinking about trying new things which never does anyone any good) then slow down the advancement.

Now, the big question that everyone is wondering – how can the PC’s close the rift?

Lets take it for granted that normal PC’s won’t come up with this stuff but in case they do:

• Since the loss of life (hate?) caused the rift, perhaps love will cause it to close. It is not likely that the PC’s will have a ‘love in’ but it is an option for the keeper.

• Doing the stock COC answer of ‘stick an elder sign on it’ seems problematic as ‘it’ is a big lava filled rift in the ground. Gravity would cause it to fall into it. If they drop one in, the there, slow up the progression for a reasonable amount of time. Let them learn that they can do it as a stalling tactic. I’m thinking of allowing one to give them three days. Of course, it would be impractical to drop an elder sign into (or better yet, throw it into – that lava is hot) the crack every three days. If they can pitch one into there that would buy them time to make a big stopper (concrete, rock, whatever) for it and stick that on top then stick an elder sign on that. If they want to just toss one on top of a pile of rubble and walk off, remember that nothing is really keeping it there. Maybe someone puts it in their pocket and takes it home? Maybe a wild animal takes a fancy to it? Building a structure on top is the plan of the townspeople – a big church. God dislikes evil, right? If the PC’s are clever they will make sure it is correctly stuck into an alter or some such. This will lead to something like the movie ‘The Sentinel’ where someone becomes the guardian between this world and hell etc. [Notice how it is NEVER heaven attempting to invade with some jaded psychopath stepping up to the plate to guard us from that incursion? Odd huh? Guess flames look better on camera than clouds.]

• They could beat the land into submission with something like a bless crops spell, or the greater eye of light and dark or something like that. Those nifty area effect spells that everyone thought were useless – yeah, those. [Yes, I realize full well that some wag will get on the board and talk about how just one such ‘useless spell’ saved the day in their campaign, etc. Just goes to show you how some people will hotly defend any thing – even if it is not being attacked.]

• Since it is a ‘hellish’ area, lets actually have Christian (or fill in your own religion) paraphernalia work for a change. Given that it doesn’t work in JACK ELSE in Cthulhu I think it would make a nice change. A bunch of PC’s carrying large crosses and singing ‘onward Christian soldiers’ marching at the demons and pushing them back into the pit without resorting to violence sounds like such an unlikely end that I doubt it will be seriously contemplated.

• Anything that the GM thinks is bloody clever and should work.

Now, the fun part – all of these solutions can either be temporary or permanent, depending on the GM’s wishes. If they, for example, solved it with ‘bless crop’ spells, they might find that they need to go back every year to do it. Whichever is best for the story. It depends on if the GM is wanting to do anything with this in the future. It can even appear to be fixed only to fester again in the future. Whichever.

Posted by Logan H at 21:28 | MAKE A COMMENT

Monday, Jul 30, 2007

Common Courtesy 3 (final)

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Table top roleplaying game, uncensored.

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Monday, Jul 30, 2007

Common Courtesy2

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No idea why the first clip is only six minutes.

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Monday, Jul 30, 2007

Common Courtesy

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Monday, Jul 30, 2007

Set4 (final)

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Monday, Jul 30, 2007

Set3

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Sunday, Jul 29, 2007

Set2

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Table top gaming, uncensored.

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Sunday, Jul 29, 2007

Set1

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Table top roleplaying game, part 1. Note that the Set series is the prelude to the Spirits modules.

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Thursday, Jul 26, 2007

Murder, part 7 (final)

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Posted by Logan H at 16:45 | 1 comments

Thursday, Jul 26, 2007

Murder, part 6

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Thursday, Jul 26, 2007

Murder, part 5

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Thursday, Jul 26, 2007

Murder, part 4

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Thursday, Jul 26, 2007

Murder, part 3

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Thursday, Jul 26, 2007

Murder, part 2

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Thursday, Jul 26, 2007

Murder part 1

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 15

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 14

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 13

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 12

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 11

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 10

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 9

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 8

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 7

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 6

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 5

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 4

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 3

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 2

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Haunted House, part 1

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007

Edge of Darkness, part 8 (final part)

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Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007

Edge of Darkness, part 7

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Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007

Edge of Darkness, part 6

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Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007

Edge of Darkness part 5

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Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007

Edge of Darkness, part 4

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Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007

Edge of Darkness, part 3

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Monday, Jul 23, 2007

Edge of Darkness part 2

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Monday, Jul 23, 2007

Edge of Darkness

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Monday, Jul 23, 2007

Disappearance part 3

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Monday, Jul 23, 2007

Disappearance pt 2

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Monday, Jul 23, 2007

Disappearing Man1

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Tabletop roleplaying session

Posted by Logan H at 07:16 |

Sunday, Jul 22, 2007

Veil 2 Remastered

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This is the first podcast of Heroic Cthulhu. It starts about midway through the 1920's-1930's campaign. That campaign ended shortly after the module 'Dunwich'. After that module, a modern day campaign started. I would recommend folks go listen to a recent podcast to check out the current quality. The quality of the older modules is not very good and is beyond my ability to fix.

Table top roleplaying game aka 'actual play'.

NOTE: If you'd like to get in on a game of HC, go to the HC boards and find out how you can join!

You can either get individual game MP3's here:
http://heroiccthulhu.mypodcast.com/index.html
or subscribe to the podcast here:
http://heroiccthulhu.mypodcast.com/rss.xml
The Heroic Cthulhu boards can be found at: http://heroiccthulhu.proboards105.com/index.cgi

Posted by Logan H at 23:18 | MAKE A COMMENT

Sunday, Jul 22, 2007

Veil 1 Remastered

(78 downloads)

Download this episode (60 min)
This is the first podcast of Heroic Cthulhu. It starts about midway through the 1920's-1930's campaign. That campaign ended shortly after the module 'Dunwich'. After that module, a modern day campaign started. I would recommend folks go listen to a recent podcast to check out the current quality. The quality of the older modules is not very good and is beyond my ability to fix.

Table top roleplaying game aka 'actual play'.

NOTE: If you'd like to get in on a game of HC, go to the HC boards and find out how you can join!

You can either get individual game MP3's here:
http://heroiccthulhu.mypodcast.com/index.html
or subscribe to the podcast here:
http://heroiccthulhu.mypodcast.com/rss.xml
The Heroic Cthulhu boards can be found at: http://heroiccthulhu.proboards105.com/index.cgi

Posted by Logan H at 19:43 | MAKE A COMMENT

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