Chaosium Digest Volume 9, Number 11 Date: Sunday, February 26, 1995 Number: 3 of 3 Contents: The Past is Doomed, Part Three (Geoff Gillan) CALL OF CTHULHU -------------------- From: Geoff Gillan Subject: The Past is Doomed, Part Three System: Call of Cthulhu The Past Is Doomed, Part Three Copyright (c) 1995 Geoff Gillan DAY TWO The People Hammerman and Glenda are again separate for the day. Hammerman returns to the set, while Glenda is keen to find out what is happening with the official enquiry about the missing Zabrich. She visits the police and the investigators, if she is aware of them and thinks they are likely to turn anything up. By the afternoon, she returns to her hotel room, where she spends the time on the telephone. By the evening, Hammerman has returned from the set and the pair go to dinner together at the fanciest restaurant they can find in town. They return at a little before midnight, with Hammerman a little drunk and ranting, "The past is doomed, and so are we..the past is doomed and so are we all," over and over. (Investigators who approach him in this condition get a very curt kiss-off from Glenda. She bundles Hammerman into his room and they do not emerge for the rest of the night). Zabrich sends a letter to the investigators. He does this only if they have been making sensible progress. Any craziness on their part makes him suspect them, and he backs off for another day. If the letter comes, it arrives anonymously, slid under their door by the doctor himself, while they are out of their rooms for any time. The letter incriminates the film people. It is addressed to Doctor Zabrich from Hammerman personally, begging the Doctor to show the man a draft of his book The Chronicles of a World Gone Mad. Hammerman explains that he wished to use the book as the basis of his next picture. It is dated three months ago. The Servitors The Servitors now begin to take an active interest in the investigators, especially if they have been making good progress. The incidence of their shadowing the investigators intensifies; they also make an effort to snoop into the investigators' rooms or homes and discover what they might know about Zabrich and about the film people. The Servitors use standard break-in measures, so as to not alert the investigators to their presence. (Keepers may wish to establish Investigator contact with Douglas Stoop, so that he can be suspected of burglarizing their rooms, rather than supernatural forces.) While the images of the past continue to plague the investigators, a new one is called up the Servitors. * The Ambulance - and old ambulance streaks by. This is a world war 2 field ambulance, a fifties version, even a seventies one (this may be harder to pick, but a Spot Hidden reveals something not quite right about the vehicle or History establishes its period as belonging to the past). In the back, investigators see a bloodied figure sitting in the window, waving back at them and smiling. Each Investigator sees their own face on the torn and brutally injured person. DAY THREE The People Hammerman and Glenda both decide to get the investigators out of the picture, each in their own way. Hammerman calls the investigators and tries to buy them off with a bribe. The deal is four hundred thousand dollars (out of the film's budget) if the investigators leave Arkham. Even if they are locals, Hammerman does not care. They should take a holiday. Hammerman sees their departure as concrete proof that they are upholding their side of the bargain. Hammerman's excuse is that the snooping around the investigators are doing is costing him a loss of face with the studio, something he can ill afford. He wants them out of the way. Presumably the investigators say no, or yes with a plot to deceive Hammerman. Glenda's form of getting the investigators out of their hair is a little tougher. She sets the Servitors on them (see Servitors actions, below). Zabrich for his part stays quiet and lies low. He senses danger in the air, and does not wish to buy into it. The Servitors At Glenda's behest the Servitors get tough. They launch physical attacks against the investigators that night. Keepers should choose moments when the investigators are alone or vulnerable. See Servitors section in Statistics, for description of their possible tactics. DAY FOUR The Small Hours By midnight of day three, Hammerman and Glenda have put their plan into action. Everyone asleep in Arkham that night loses 1D10 Magic Points. If any character loses more than their total magic points from this, they have lapsed into a mysterious coma, from which they can only be awoken by the destruction of the focal point within the movie set. If the investigators know or suspect something is afoot and wish to prevent this, then they must journey to the motion picture set on the outskirts of Arkham. If this is the case, they do not encounter The Journey Through the Past and the changing of Arkham, but do encounter the altered set. Most likely however, they are taken by surprise like the rest of Arkham, and have a very strange night's sleep. SIDEBAR - DREAMS OF THE PAST Throughout the next section of encounters the investigators will scarce know if they are awake or asleep, dreaming or living a walking nightmare. During the dream-passage of the Journey Through The Past, investigators are certainly asleep. A loss of Sanity or hit points in these encounters leads to a roll on the Dream Past Nightmare Table below. Within the dream, once investigators are trapped (see description in each section) they must undergo a SAN roll. Success loses 1 Sanity Point and sees them wake, tense but essentially safe and sane. Failure loses 1D10 Sanity Points and has them undergo a Nightmare effect. Once the investigators reach the set they find that reality has warped and may as well be a dream. In this instance the investigators have sanity loss and wounds as they normally would, as the great power tapped by Glenda's spell has altered the very reality of the Set and its surrounds. Dream Past Nightmare Table (Based on Dreamlands Nightmare Effects Table) Choose or roll 1D6 1. Dreamer becomes one of the creatures in the dream which they would normally revile. They chase and harass other dreamers, but upon waking or seized with overwhelming guilt which continues to dog them. 2. Dreamer changes location to another Arkham/Dream Past. 3. The Investigator wakes but sees the room he or she is in as decorated exactly like the past era they just were in. San loss 1/1D6. 4. As above, except affect lasts for the next 1D10 minutes. As they walk through the streets Investigator hallucinates that everything is taking place in this past era. 5. As 3 except effect lasts 1D10 hours. 6. Investigator rolls for SAN loss and matches it against CON. On failure Investigator suffers mild coronary arrest. If a roll of CON X 10 fails he or she dies. If successful 1 point of CON is lost. THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE PAST If the investigators have not acted against Glenda and Hammerman, they undergo a dream during the early hours of day four. They dream they arise as though the day is normal, then it begins to take on horrible new meaning. Finally the investigators must run the gamut of the dream until being flung violently - and probably less stable as a result - back to the future. As they journey out into the town itself, streets and locations remain exactly the same - it is as though the past has seeped in and overwhelmed the town. This is a spill-off from the activities on the set. Keepers should consider such alterations to be similar to the dream-states in the Dreamlands. While they are not real, they certainly seem so, and investigators encounter the changes as though they are in fact, reality. Beginning at the north end of the town and running down to the south, the town has been divided into different historical periods. Within these sections everything is as it was during that period, except with a slightly sinister edge. All the activity within the sections seems to concern unrest and social upheaval of one kind or another. Investigators have three things to gain by undergoing this dream state. * Insane Insight. Failed Sanity Rolls allow the investigators an insane but telling glimpse into the realities of the situation. They sense a lurking presence behind the scenes, a malevolent figure, tantalizingly hovering over the entire scene, which cannot however be glimpsed or uncovered no matter how hard the investigator tries. They gain an immediate knowledge that this is how it was - these things did not simply happen on their own, they were the tinder ignited by some devious and deadly supernatural spark. * The Concentric Crowds. When under attack by crowds if investigators are flung back out of the dream, on a Spot Hidden they see that the crowds form a concentric pattern, a special surging picture which directly parallels the pattern investigators may have seen on the empty set, or later discover when they visit the studio for the final time. * The Destination. Once the investigators have succeeded in getting through this Arkham of the past, they reach the edge of town. There the woods fall away as if by some giant hand and left standing is the Film Set. Around it shimmers some horrible figure. A great gaseous thing, layered with circles and spheres hovering about it, ever threatening to coalesce into some unspeakable and terrible entity, but mercifully never quite managing to. It is though it has almost sufficient power but not enough, that there is something missing. From within the Set comes a dull chanting, and with each syllable the form gains greater cohesion. A successful Cthulhu Mythos identifies this thing as a form of Yog-Sothoth, but happily not one of its more devastating manifestations. Sanity loss in this case is 1D4/1D20. Whether or not the investigators manage to remain sane, they awaken form the dream state back in their beds after this penultimate vision (should they not already have been returned there during the dreamlike adventures). SECTION ONE : North Arkham (towards Kingsport) south to Armitage Street. The 50s This section of town completely resembles life during the fifties. But far from being the happy go-lucky time it is often depicted as, people are shunning strangers, as Cold War fever has them tightly gripped in its nightmare clutches. Investigators are viewed suspiciously and begin to get trailed through the town by government agents. If they do not hurry out of here, they are eventually pursued by an angry mob, arrested, and with the horrible speed of dreams (or nightmares) find themselves in the electric chair for being spies. The surging burst of current through their pain-wracked bodies flings them back into the present. SECTION TWO: Armitage Street to Water Street The 60s The streets and people are made to be from the sixties, but now their are riots and protests. Brutal thug-like cops and crazed feral hippies clash in bloody violence. Investigators are flung into the middle of such riots and must flee or be dragged into and possibly injured by the raging throng. Finally if they remain, they are surrounded by either cops or protestors. If they are surrounded by cops they realize to their horror they are dressed as hippies; if they have been swarmed by hippies they are clothed in police uniform. The resulting terrible attack flings them back into the present. SECTION THREE : River to College Street The 70s As soon as they enter this section the investigators are in the uniforms of Vietnam soldiers, marching through the town and being harangued on all sides by the townspeople, who loathe and revile them. Finally one woman bursts through the ranks and claws at one of the investigators, screaming abuse in their faces and spitting on them. This creates a tidal wave of reaction as the crowd surges in from all sides, attacking the investigators and their companions mercilessly. Unless they can escape, the ensuing carnage ends with the investigators deposited once more in their own time frame. SECTION FOUR : College Street to Washington Street The 80s Investigators must make Luck rolls. On a failed roll they become drawn and thin, and find themselves in ragged clothing shuffling along streets, their joints limbs stiff with hunger and fatigue. Gradually their outlook becomes bleaker and their health worse, until at last they fall against the curbside and die. Investigators who succeed in their Luck rolls become rich and wealthy. They find themselves prowling through Arkham in a limousine. But, as they go, they begin to take in more money and more food and more drink, and even as they pass the destitute around them they swell fatter and fatter until they burst within the narrow confines of the limo, showering its interior with their strewn innards. Only if they can resist the urge to succumb to such a condition (abstracted as a POW X 5) can investigators escape from the streets, to the final outcome, glimpsing Yog-Sothoth, which is described above. INVESTIGATOR ACTIONS Once having returned from the dream-past, the investigators must decide what to do. The key lies in the studio outside of town. Now, however a new evil has risen here, and the place is no longer the innocuous empty set it was before. Investigators soon discover that Glenda and Hammerman left for the set just before midnight and have not been seen in their hotel since. ZABRICH ACTS Once things have got to this point, Ernst Zabrich cannot help but act. He sees in the investigators an opportunity to have allies, and a chance to bolster his always flagging courage. Also at last there is something to fight, something tangible, and this gives him hope. If the investigators have not previously discovered him, he is waiting at their hotel when they wake up from their past-nightmare. Zabrich announces himself and discards his disguise. He insists the answer lies at the set and that the investigators must go with him and destroy the evil that lies within. "We can do nothing about the past, but the future still has a chance," the old scholar intones. THE ALTERED SET Once the investigators journey again to the set they find it remarkably changed. The sets themselves are as before, but they have taken on a new life, becoming like the dreams the investigators underwent, filled with horrible, ghastly pastiches of the worst element of the past. On each set, now a horror has overtaken it, and investigators venturing onto the set must defeat it or at least escape, before they can deal with the real threat. A description of the set and how it works. With the following changes and conditions: Set One A swarm of zombies inhabits this shopping mall, ravening and tearing at anything that comes near, a gross symbol of consumerism gone made. They are all dressed in name brands, and are especially attracted to the investigators if they possess the same. Suspended above the mall is a massive net of consumer goodies, reached by a narrow ladder, or from the top of the escalator. A Mechanical Repair roll operates the winch and lowers the goodies down to the zombies, which immediately placates them and allows the investigators to escape. Set Two The mock white house is now filled with grinning ghouls as the investigators must fight through a sea of tapes and bugging devices. If the ghouls manage to inflict a wound on the investigators, their face becomes a mirror of the investigator's own. Sanity loss for seeing this is 1/1D6. Against the window of the white house is a giant tape head and a set of speakers projecting out. If the investigators manage to run a loop of tape over the heads they can project the truth out to the people and escape. Set Three The jungle is hissing with rain and seemingly alive. Investigators must face dead men emerging from the underground tunnels, armed with lethal weapons which do not work in the hand of the investigators. The four holes must be simultaneously plugged for the creatures to cease emerging. There is a pile of First Aid packages lying in a stack, which can be used for just such a task. Set Four The investigators must watch helplessly as they are the ones with guns in the hands at Dealey Plaza. Even if they throw away the weapons, seemingly everyone on the knoll has a gun of some sort. The conspiracy is an endless nightmare. If investigators make sufficient racket and draw enough attention to themselves they find an opportunity to escape while the Presidential cavalcade speeds off. Set Five A trial at the HUAC hearings in which the investigators must prove to a group of cannibalistic ghouls that they have not now or ever been the ghouls' enemies. Since the ghouls insist everyone is their enemy, they wish to take the investigators and cook them in an enormous chamber with a chair within, that bears a horrible resemblance to a cross between an electric chair and an oven. Between the sets Going between the sets is not so simple once the powers of the dark past have been set in motion. Long dark tunnels seemingly without end link up the sets. These are pitch black within and have no apparent beginning or end. They simply start as the investigators walks off the set, and end some 1D20 rounds of walking later. Once in the tunnel, there is a 20% chance investigators are pursued by the denizens of the last set and a 15% chance for a Servitor to physically attack. Both these attacks break off if the investigators reach the next section. SET SIX: THE FINAL VORTEX There are two possibilities for this section. The first is that the investigators are prompt and come to the set before the magic points of the town have been tapped to create the dream of the past. The Investigators are Early If this is the case they find Hammerman and Glenda bent to their task. The lines of the vortex on this set are glowing and begin to move in three dimensional fashion forming a complex web of arcane design. Glenda can use the vortex to summon aid, and call Servitors, and she and Hammerman flee into the studio as the sets take on their new life as described above. The Investigators are Late The second is that vortex of the past has been set in action by the tapping of the magic points of the town of Arkham already In this case the sets are already altered, and investigators must battle their way to this location in order to halt the summonings of Yog-Sothoth. When the investigators reach this point, they find the headless Hammerman, dangling upside down above the vortex, his body swinging so that his blood traces the lines which may have been perceived earlier. Ringed around the vortex are six Servitors. In the center, in a section unbloodied, stands Glenda, a gleaming blood-stained knife in her hands. She waits for the vortex to be painted by Hammerman's blood and once empowered by the stolen magic points, it shall be a gate for Yog-Sothoth, her master. Investigators can see within the vortex more visions of the terrible and desperate aspects of the past. This can become overwhelming, and investigators who fail their sanity roll lose 1D4 points and stand fixed to the vision until the Call is completed. The Servitors hold the circle closed from those who would interrupt the ceremony. Investigators may break through the circle by force, or climb above the set and cut down Hammerman's body from its grisly circuit. Once Yog-Sothoth arrives investigators who succeed in their SAN rolls perceive the entity as a terrible knowing, a certainty that their lives are futile and needless and that their world is slowly crumbling. Those who fail the roll are instantly catapulted into gibbering insanity. SUCCESS If investigators succeed: Yog-Sothoth is banished from having an earthly foothold. Glenda and her minions must be dealt with, but in the terrible blast of the elder thing's defeat the Servitors are sucked backed into the dreadful otherworldly void from which they have been summoned. Glenda is alone and quite insane, staring at the headless corpse of her lover and mouthing silent inanities. Investigators gain 2D10 Sanity points for banishing Yog-Sothoth, but lose 1D6 from the knowledge that a foothold has already been gained, that however they may fight for the future, the past is doomed. FAILURE If the investigators fail: Yog-Sothoth is summoned and proceeds to destroy the investigators as threats. Afterwards, the elder god deals with its servant Glenda, giving her more power and gaining a foothold in Arkham, from which to unspool its past into a dark and deadly future. Glenda goes on to wreak more havoc and surviving investigators may wish to pursue her as she returns to L.A. to further the cause of calamity. Arkham begins to see its past begin to impinge on its present. Many mysteries which people had thought buried forever come to alight again, and there is a long shadow of fate over the township. Investigators lose 1D10 further Sanity if they realize they had it in their power to halt this and failed. STATISTICS Ernst Zabrich, Hungarian Academic turned Visionary, 67 STR 10 CON 12 SIZ 11 INT 20 POW 14 DEX 11 APP 9 EDU 22 SAN 15 HP 11 Damage Bonus: None Weapons: None Skills: Art: Writing 85%, History 95%, Library Use 67%, Persuade 55%, Psychology 79%, Henry Hammerman, Film Director and Cultist, 45 STR 11 CON 13 SIZ 14 INT 16 POW 11 DEX 13 APP 15 EDU 18 SAN 10 HP 14 Damage Bonus: +1D4 Weapons: Fist 50%, 1D3+1D4 Skills: Accounting 75%, Art: Direction 56%, Credit Rating 86%, Persuade 77%, Glenda, Film D-Girl and Servant of Yog-Sothoth STR 10 CON 12 SIZ 12 INT 17 POW 16 DEX 14 APP 18 EDU 15 SAN 0 HP 12 Damage Bonus: 0 Weapons: Handgun 65%, 1D10 Skills: Credit Rating 90%, Persuade 85%, Drive Automobile 40%, French 74%, Listen 55%, Spot Hidden 75%. Spells: Summon/Bind Servitor of the Doomed Past Call Yog-Sothoth Hollywood Security Guard, around 30-40 Not only are these men tough and loyal to their boss, they look good, always wearing reflective sunglasses and chewing gum elegantly. They are all potential movie stars. STR 16 CON 15 SIZ 17 INT 9 POW 10 DEX 12 APP 18 EDU 11 SAN 50 HP 16 Damage Bonus: +1D4 Weapons: Nightstick 75%, 1D6+1D4 Handgun 59%, 1D10 Skills: Chew Gum 90%, Listen 60%, Spot Hidden 55%. Rex Chase, FBI Special Investigator, 28 STR 15 CON 13 SIZ 16 INT 13 POW 11 DEX 12 APP 16 EDU 19 SAN 55 HP 14 Damage Bonus: +1D4 Weapons: Handgun 85%, 1D10 Fist 90%, 1D3+1D4 Kick 65%, 1D6+1D4 Skills: Accounting 59%, First Aid 85%, Hide 45%, Library Use 34%, Listen 76%, Track 55% Douglas Stoop, Tabloid Reporter, 37 STR 10 CON 6 SIZ 11 INT 17 POW 13 DEX 14 APP 8 EDU 15 SAN 65 HP 9 Damage Bonus: 0 Weapons: Acid Put Down 75% Skills: Persuade 88%, Spot Hidden 65%, Listen 76%, Sneak 82%, Pick Pocket 55%. SERVITORS OF THE DOOMED PAST These creatures appear as humans, always dressed in wildly anachronistic styles. They have an almost canine appearance in profile: long tapered head and protruding lower face, although their features are human enough. The Servitors are keepers of the destroyed chances of the past, caretakers of the ill days of yore. Aside from physical attacks Servitors have an array of devastating psychological attacks, which they often combine to deadly effect. STR 18 CON 15 SIZ 15 INT 17 POW 18 DEX 12 Move 3 HP 15 Damage Bonus:+1D6 Weapons: Bite 50% 1D3 Claw 65% 1D4+1D6 Doomed Past Image 90% * Doomed Past Interaction 90%** Armor: 5 points of coarse furred skin on body Spells: Most summonings, Evoke Past Sanity Loss: 1D3/1D6 Skills: Dodge 55%, Hide 75%, Sneak 65%, Track 90%. * Creature matches POW vs victim's POW. If successful victim sees some image from the past on television, or some disturbing image (like the ambulance) linked with a past era. Each image costs a Servitor 6 Magic Points. Servitors can link together to create more spectacular images. This power can also be used with Doomed Past Interaction. ** Creature can place victim in some past vision. This is how they conjure the image of a victim in a newspaper story. A POW vs POW struggle must first be fought, followed by the expenditure of 10 Magic Points on the part of the Servitor. Again, Servitors can band together and form a pool of Magic Points to overwhelm victims, but since this is costly it is also rare. [Note: Servitors often combine their psychological weapons with their physical ones, softening up victims with a barrage of images and dislocating sensory input before their physical attack]. MOVIE SET ZOMBIES Use Standard Zombies in Call of Cthulhu Rulebook MOVIE SET GHOULS Use standard Ghouls from Call of Cthulhu Rulebook Copyright (c) 1995 Geoff Gillan Geoff can be contacted via Mark Morrison (bassst@zikzak.apana.org.au). -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial discussion forum for Chaosium's Games. To submit an article, subscribe or unsubscribe, mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu. The old digests are archived on ftp.csua.berkeley.edu in the directory /pub/chaosium, and may be retrieved via FTP.