His Arduous Journey Into Night

 

Ok, I was wracking my brain trying to think of what I should run for yesterday's game.  

Very soon, I want to create some kind of Cha'alt + Wretched New Flesh scenario, running it for my group and then self-publishing it through The Red Room... or letting them publish it themselves (I don't really care, as long as it gets out there to fans of both Cha'alt and Wretched New Flesh).

A few interesting details came to mind, but the stuff that was supposed to gel in order to fashion an entire adventure just wasn't coming.  Time was running out, unfortunately, so I didn't think I'd be able to get a Call of Cthulhu type scenario ready by the game.  It's Halloween season and with my 5 kids, there are so many activities happening that free time is precious few at the moment.

But then the night before the game, I buckled down because I knew I had to get something on paper as time was running out.  And then an idea for another investigative, Lovecraftian horror scenario entered my brain and I feverishly wrote it down.

That's what we played yesterday.  Well, sort of... I have my own Call of Cthulhu hack that's perfect for a rules-light D20 Game Master like myself.

Same characters.  We lost one player, but picked-up two more.  Here's the roster of PCs...

• Aleister Bird - artist who dabbles in the occult, really good with his hands and capable of stabbing people with his paint brushes.
• Jack Hawkins - ex-cop turned private eye who's a marksman
• Ha'akeem - the son of a wealthy Arab diplomat who consults for Two Jacks Detective Agency, knows sleight of hand, likes to gamble, and wears a turban.
• Billy "Knuckle Samich" Cannoli - low-level mob enforcer who provides security and drives the investigators around in his car.
• Finneus Smythe - university professor and amateur parapsychologist who wears a fedora and pencil-thin moustache.  His sexuality is questionable.  

I'm not going into a ton of detail for this scenario, similar to last session report because I'll be self-publishing these two adventures.  I also came to another decision that I'd been waffling over... what to run for this March's Gary Con?  

I keep being pummeled between the twin forces of consistency and variety.  I don't want to run all one thing the entire con, but I also think running a wide variety of stuff during my six-session shift is a mistake.  

On Saturday morning, I'll be running the first scenario, and Saturday evening I'll be running the second.  The other days, I'll either be running Cha'alt, Alpha Blue, or a mix of both!

The situation is as follows - last month, a person was murdered on each night of the full-moon (I'm going by standard Buffy/Angel full-moon cycles that last three consecutive nights).  This month, the full-moon phase has just started and the person murdered the previous evening was a friend to the investigators - Finneus Smythe's player took it upon himself to engage with this bit of roleplaying, suggesting that he had a somewhat closer relationship with the deceased.  

So, the PCs took up the adventure, and began their investigation.  Same as before, Chicago 1929.  I didn't forget the sanity checks this time!  And by the scenario's end, there was a whole lot of shaken, not stirred going on.

When I run these scenarios at Gary Con, I'll have not only revised them slightly but will provide some period color in the way of props (or at the very least, pictures).  I almost included some non-plot related period action, but decided against it due to not having foreshadowed it from the beginning.  Something I'll rectify when I'm running it at Gary Con.

All in all, the game was a success.  It was nice diverging from Cha'alt... and yet I feel myself being drawn back into my eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse, humorous, sleazy, pop-culure, grindhouse exploitation campaign setting.

Speaking of which, I decided to put the Cha'alt X-Cards [info about that here] on DriveThruRPG.  It should have final approval and be available to download for FREE tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

VS

p.s. I've still got Cha'alt hardcover for sale - get a deal here!  And, of course, there's July's VENGER CON III: Revenge of the OSR in Madison, WI - grab your weekend badge here!  If you're inquiring about getting your own custom, tentacle-made set of Cha'alt X-Cards, email me at: Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com