Chaosium Digest Volume 18, Number 9 Date: Sunday, March 16, 1997 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: Experienced Characters (Joerg Ellermann) CALL OF CTHULHU A Matter of Taste: A Tale of Terror (Peter Devlin) CALL OF CTHULHU Strange Vistas Request for Submissions (Ricardo J. Mendez) CALL OF CTHULHU The Adventure of the White Stag (Mar Calpena) PENDRAGON Elric! Cost of Living (Patricio Gonzalez) ELRIC! Editor's Note: Greetings all. As promised, an overflowing digest this week (from all over the world). Next week I have stuff for Mythos lined up, but new submissions are still extremely welcome. Shannon RECENT RELEASES: * Call of Cthulhu - _The Xothic Legend Cycle_ (Chaosium, 288 pg., $10.95), by Lin Carter, edited by Robert Price, is the thirteenth book in the Cthulhu Cycle series of fiction. It contains the Carter's Xothic writings, most of it rare and unavailable. _The Hastur Cycle, Second Edition_ (Chaosium, 320 pg, $10.95), edited by Robert Price, is a reprint of the first Cthulhu Cycle book. It contains all of the original stories plus "The Feaster from Afar", by Joseph Payne Brennan. _Delta Green_ (Pagan Publishing, 298 pg, $27.95), by Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, and John Tynes, is the ultimate sourcebook on mythos conspiracy in the 1990s. It's got Majestic-12, greys, saucerwatch, secret governmental agencies, and much more. RECENT BOOKS OF NOTE: * Elric! - _Elric: Stormbringer #1_ (Dark Horse & Topps Comics, 32 pg., $2.95) is the first issue of an all-new comics adaptation of Michael Moorcock's _Stormbringer_ novel. Over ten years ago, Pacific Comics adapted Elric of Melnibone, and in the following years First Comics adapted the next four novels of the classic Elric series. This is the one that finishes the series off. NEW ELECTRONIC RESOURCES: Igrayne's Gaming Homepage http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/5027 This page includes some Pendragon and Call of Cthulhu resources, though most of them are currently only available in Spanish. -------------------- From: Joerg Ellermann Subject: Experienced Characters for CoC System: Call of Cthulhu Peter Devlin's article in Digest 18.8 ("Startup Sorcerers") made me think about a set of optional rules I could incorporate in my long-running campaign so that _experienced_ players (only!) can generate experienced characters. The idea is: * To make new characters slightly more powerful by giving them spells, skills, and some mythos-related experience ("I must confess that I am not surprised by this strange happening. In fact, I have seen such monstrous creatures before. A long time ago...") * To make them pay for it with sanity loss and, maybe, some mental disorders ("This hideous scar is not from an old war injury, as I have told you. I received it when running for my life in that remote part of the arabian desert. Since then, these dreams continue to haunt me every night...") * To make players invent a (however short) background story that explains how the character has confronted the hidden forces "of a cold and mechanical universe" before. It gives not only depth and color to the game but provides a handy way for the hard-working GM to twist the plot of an otherwise simple scenario by adding something from the character's past ("I've seen this man before! Back in 1911, when this ill-fated expedition of ours stayed in Cairo for a few days, we were followed by some sinister Egyptians. Then came that terrible night when Professor Weatherby was murdered... I'll never forget this face!"). Remember, it's always nice to meet an old adversary. The way we play it is as follows : 1) There should be some prerequisite for playing experienced characters, e.g. an Occult skill of at least 25% or so. 2) The GM has a list of mythos-related tomes that are common, in his campaign at least, complete with spells, SAN losses, etc. Some of these books are nearly useless (poems praising the Big C), while some are full of useful spells and knowledge and therefore are quite mindblasting. If a player wishes to play an experienced character, he randomly determines up to three books he has read before in his life (Don't let them pick the books or else anybody would choose the most useful books and the spells with the lowest Sanity loss). The character then loses half the usual amount of Sanity for the book (It's been a few years ago that he read them so he could recover from it) and gains Cthulhu Mythos and other bonuses according to the book. 3) The player learns every spell in his book (if any) and it is assumed that he has cast every one at least once, so he vaguely knows the effects. The Sanity loss for a single casting is lost (rolled by GM). If it is a spell connected with monsters (Summon/Bind, Contact, Call etc.), he has encountered that monster once in his past, maybe even fought against it succesfully, so he does not lose SAN for that monster any more. Of course, he has lost SAN for seeing it the first time (GM rolls). 4) If the player feels that he has learned enough (or lost enough SAN) he can stop after just one or two books. Remember, the maximum is three for every new investigator. 5) After determining all books, the player rolls once vs. his new SAN to see if he has developed any mental disorders in the past. I highly recommend Chaosium's _Taint of Madness_ sourcebook on asylums and madmen, as it provides far more realistic and interesting rules for playing insane investigators than the basic game. If you feel that the players have to pay a higher price for being more powerful at the beginning, make up a simple table for determining POW, CON, and APP losses. Or perhaps an old enemy is still out there looking for him after all these years. And what about that Hound of Tindalos he contacted back in 1907? Did he _really_ throw it off his track then? Or, thinking back to that incident in 1911, in that french village, when he shot that evil cultist, Dr. Otto von Grolstein, in self-defense... the french police may not have forgotten about that. And there's always Interpol and the FBI. 6) In our campaign we have a table for randomly determining a few useful NPC connections, aquaintances, and friends for new characters (lawyers, police detectives, scientists, mafiosi, etc.). For every book the character read, the player can pick one of those connections to be a person that has some _minor_ mythos experience, probably someone with whom the character has confronted the mythos before. It is quite useful to know a psychoanalyst/lawyer/policeman etc., who will take the character seriously when he tells him about tentacled aliens responsible for these unexplained murders in the MU library. Just keep it in the right perspective. The _players_ are fighting the unknown. Any connections they have may prove useful in the investigation, but nothing more than that. 7) Finally, the most important aspect of pre-game-experience: every player has to explain when and how he has got this knowledge. This should outline the horrible events the character has experienced and briefly state how and why he learned and applied those sinister rituals to solve this particular mystery. Was it an aeon-old cult he stumbled upon? The ill-fated expedition he undertook in 1886? The monster in his grandma's bathroom? Many of those details the players make up can be incorporated into the ongoing scenario. Cults are connected with each other, the old amulet he found some twenty years ago and nearly forgot may suddenly go missing and so on. There can be skeletons in his closet, ghosts of his past, etc. You get the idea. Adopt, adapt and improve. Please tell me if you give it a try : * Joerg Ellermann * Braunschweig, Germany * j.ellermann@tu-bs.de -------------------- From: "Peter Devlin" Subject: A Matter of Taste: A Tale of Terror System: Call of Cthulhu A nasty little investigative scenario for CoC, ideally played out on a hot summer day over the remains of a satisfying outdoor barbecue! A Matter of Taste Peter Devlin (c) 1997 Mrs. Jane Crispin is a local character who lives in a little detached house on the edge of town. Although in her 60s, she is still hale and hearty despite the handicap of her near-blindness (she is exceptionally near sighted, and only sees blurred colours through her milk-bottle lensed glasses). Mrs. Crispin makes a modest living selling the product of her labours in her well-equipped kitchen. All across town her pies are famous for their wonderful pastry and delicately herb-flavoured meats. Horror stalks the town at night. It has come to light that senior citizens are being slain in their beds or are disappearing in the night, never to be seen again. The bodies that remain at the crime scene are mutilated horribly, missing limbs and organs. The authorities have been unable to keep the murders from public knowledge, but they have been able to conceal the fact that they have been occurring sporadically for over a year! The glare of the media spotlight has forced the police to institute a manhunt, and they have no manpower to spare to chase a new (although very slim) lead. Their lead comes obliquely from Mrs. Crispin, who has reported a strange man hanging around her herb and vegetable garden. Under normal circumstances such a report from a blind old lady would receive little attention, but with a maniac on the loose, things are different. Independent, discrete, and trusted persons may be able to assist the police by looking into the matter. Talking to Mrs. Crispin brings unexpected results. She is very sorry to have disturbed the police, because she is really fine. The stranger is no longer a stranger, but a new friend whom at first she mistook for a potential thief. Her friend George is a shy type not easily traced. She doesn't know where he lives, but he helps her around the house and garden, and does errands for her. Possibilities: 1) Mrs. Crispin is being stalked by George the homicidal odd-job man. His modus operandi involves befriending his victims to lull them into a false sense of security. He also gets a thrill from the stalking. George is a genuine gardener (or social worker), real name Henry George Baird. He lives out his twisted dark fantasies by killing the pathetic senior citizens upon whom he depends for his living. George lives with his innocent Christian wife, Mary, an organizer of church fetes and charities. Mary provides many of his initial contacts. George and Mary are childless due to George's impotence, one of the factors which has sent him over the edge. George has an extensive collection of tools such as scythes, hammers, axes, and saws, as well as a furnace, a nondescript van, and a good sized garage next to his rose garden. 2) Mrs. Crispin's new friend, George, is a genuine ghoul who moved to town in the last year or so. He has been unable to let go of the world of man, and can often be seen raking through garbage bins and scrounging. Unless scrutinized carefully, he appears to be just another homeless person. Naturally, he is quite sneaky and very good at moving around unobserved. George and Mrs. Crispin met by accident when George was attracted to the smell of her cooking. As Mrs. Crispin couldn't see him, George found it easy to make friends with her. George has started running small errands, but he keeps the money that he should spend on butcher meat and substitutes the best cuts from his victims. Forensic examination of remains has identified odd partly-human bite wounds on the victims, but this has not been made public and will only be divulged after much bureaucratic maneuvering. Mrs. Crispin's usual butcher Andrew Cross will drop the clue that the amount of meat he supplies her has decreased in recent weeks (as the rate of murders has increased). The distributor of her pies, Norman Kent, is most pleased at how well Mrs. Crispin's pies are selling, and is due to call on her to ask if she can increase her output. Norman may unwittingly become an ingredient in her next batch! 3) Mrs. Crispin is a homicidal cannibal who has been doing a nice line in "long pig" pies for over a year. She is inhumanly strong due to her unnatural diet and, although blind, has the senses of a bat. She is very adept with her old-fashioned razor-sharp butcher's knives. The offal from her victims helps her herbs and veggies to grow rapidly. Mrs. Crispin selects her victims during her bi-weekly visits to the Women's Guild and senior citizens' outings. She also is a member of the local Societe des Gourmands, a small club composed of cooks and food fans which dines out around town once a week, and informally at members' homes. Mrs. Crispin has a number of loyal friends who share her dietary tastes, including a local councillor and a minister! All are just as sneaky and homicidal as Mrs. Crispin. The mysterious George is a relative of one of her victims who met her just before his own mother, Eleanor Trent, was killed. He feels sorry for the blind old lady and is working out his grief (and suppressed guilt at having left his mother alone to be killed) by looking after Mrs. Crispin. He should be looking after himself. Peter Devlin (c) 1997 pdevlin@scotsys.co.uk -------------------- From: "Ricardo J. Mendez" Subject: Strange Vistas Request for Submissions System: Call of Cthulhu STRANGE VISTAS SUBMISSION REQUEST Call of Cthulhu is a game that can be set all over the world. It is more likely than not that a keeper doesn't know any specific information about the country (or state) he's setting his adventures in, and you can't just go by with the information provided by the supplements. Also, it is possible that you don't have any information for, say, Guatemala in the 1920s, and therefore can't set an adventure idea there which you believe would fit perfectly with their pyramids. Chaosium has done a great job with their sourcebooks, but we can't just wait for them to do a World Almanac Sourcebook. The idea with Strange Vistas is to compile information about every country in the world in different periods. It might be a period in which CoC adventures aren't usually set, like the 1530s, but the information can serve as a background for further campaigns. So, what is Strange Vistas exactly looking for? Information. Any kind of world information. Historical, weird, or local myth information is welcomed. Please state if the information is factual or only local folklore. I'll be compiling the information and posting it on my personal web page, so you can send your submissions to ricardo@tecapro.com. Now, what isn't Strange Vistas looking for? Problems. Which can be translated to copyrighted materials, images, or maybe even original adventures. I'm planning for a second stage in which to include original adventures that are cross-linked to each period/country, but first I want to have clearance with Chaosium since it's their system after all. Also, I haven't decided about an image format, so please don't send any images yet. Also, images can be a tricky copyright issue if they were scanned. It might be obvious, but please don't send any copyrighted material even if it's copyrighted to the sender. Why? Well, because it's going to be posted on the Net, up there for grabs for anyone who wants it. I'm sorry for taking all of this security measures, but the information is going to be at the company site, and I don't want to jeopardize them because someone thought his scenario was being ripped off. I guess the following could be a submission format. Please contact me with any suggestions you might have. NAME AND E-MAIL: Of the person making the submission, so that you are reachable if anyone wants to ask about it. Please notify me if you don't want your e-mail included. COUNTRY: Name of the country to which the data pertains. If it is a country that doesn't exist any more, please include both the old and the new name. PERIOD/YEAR: Year of the data. STATUS: Historical fact, local folklore, etc. DATA: The data itself. Again, please don't mention anything like "an apparition was sighted that made everyone lose 1d6/1d20 sanity points" ok? Think of it like you're writing to an occult tabloid. :-) Any comments are welcomed. Good luck, Ricardo J. Mendez http://www.TecApro.com/ mailto: ricardo@tecapro.com -------------------- From: "Mar Calpena" Subject: The Adventure of the White Stag System: Pendragon This is the first adventure I ever wrote for Pendragon. I'm afraid it's not the best, but I still like it. Sorry for the rusty English. This adventure was first published in LIDER magazine. This is a Pendragon scenario that touches on the most dreamlike aspects of the Arthurian universe. The group should contain, at minimum, a romantic knight and an knight errant. The game master should emphasize the atmosphere. The scenario may be played as a one shot, or it may be the start of a campaign set in a forest full of cursed places, perhaps Forest Perilous. There's no set time for this scenario. ** The Adventure of the White Stag ** Characters should be passing through a forest when thay heark a somewhat weird noises, quite similar to a painful whining but more melodic. When they move closer to the noises they'll see a narrow path and a beautiful castle looming at a distance. A white stag will run past the characters, and whatever thay do, thay'll lose track of it. (The stag is really trying to lead the knights to the castle.) Once the player knights get to the castle, they'll see that even though the building isn't too old, it seems completely deserted. The stag, which is waiting at the castle's door, will lead the players throuh a dining room into a bedroom. In the middle of it is an unconscious knight lying on a bed. There are three fire horses surrounding the bed that will stop anyone getting near the bed. At this point, the stag will speak: "My name is Mariette, former chatelaine of this castle and now I suffer this beastly shape because I refused an alliance with God. My brother, who lies before you, and I inherited this castle when we were very young. Our lack of experience led us to a lack of piety and mercy. We tortured and mocked a visiting priest, who damned us to this fearful curse. However, he was far more pious than we were for he told us that in seven year's time visitors would come and rescue us. Now is the time. We have none of our old pride and we just want our old servants and friends to come back. The priest left three riddles for our saviours to solve. Will you help us?" THE RIDDLE OF THE GOLDEN FRUIT Assuming the player knights accept, Mariette will present them with the first of the riddles. She says: "You will get the golden fruit in the garden if you manage to make everything harmonic with its parts". Mariette will suggest looking in the castle's garden, where she can't go because a sparkling light blinds her. If Mariette accompanies the players to the garden, she'll start complaining about the light as soon as they get anywhere near the garden. The light is just a soft glow that shines from a golden apple hanging from a willow tree. It initially appears that anyone ascending the tree will be able to grab the fruit without problem. However, anyone attempting a [DEX] roll to climb the tree will receive 4 points of damage (no armor) courtesy of the bee swarm guarding the fruit. Then he or she will fall into a sad slumber [temporarily -12 to Eneergetic], where he'll hear a strange tune that doesn't sound proper (it actually sounds rather discordant because it's being played backwards). Then, he'll wake up. The trial consists of playing the song correctly. roll [Play (musical instrument)] to do so. If the player knights do play the tune properly, the swarm will take a human shape and delicately place the apple at the feet of the knight playing. There's hardly another way of getting near the fruit, but you ought to give players a fair chance of solving the problem if they are imaginative. THE RIDDLE OF THE SHALLOW LAKE When the players get back to Mariette with the apple, she'll tell them about the next riddle: "Patience and learning are the key to all doors, even the one at the bottom of the lake". There's a big pond near the castle. No matter how hard knights look for a door they won't see one. However, if they spend a whole day watching the surface of the lake, and succeed at an [Awareness] roll, they'll see a key ascending to the surface with the last ray of sunlight. The lake will become very shallow and it will possible for knights to reach the key on foot. Hopefully the knights aren't wearing chainmail, for the shallowness will only last for thirty seconds as the sun sets. The first time the players try and get to the key, they'll probabnnly make it halfway across the lake before the waters rise up over them again. In fact, the key is at the bottom of the pond. The easiest way to reach it is by having lots of patience and a ready horse. With the player knights return to Mariette with the key in their hands, the three fire horses will turn into magical knights. They are there only to frighten the characters, but don't let your players know this. They won't attack, at least not until Mariette tells the knights about the third riddle. THE RIDDLE OF THE SACRIFICE The third riddle goes thus: "If you offer everything, you will win everything. If you lose false life, you'll give true life. Make your virtues stand and fear not". The guardian knights will ask for a sacrifice in exchange for the life of the sleeping knight. If someone offers their life, make them roll [Trusting], [Generous], and [Brave]. If they succeed, just when the massive axes of the guardians are going to kill the knight, the guardians will turn into ash and the sleeping knight will awake. Mariette will turn into a very beautiful lady and the servants and furniture will appear out of thin air. Players may alternatively try and fight the guardian knights if they wish, but they'll find them to be very tough [use Faerie Knight statistics]. AFTERMATH If the knights don't succeed in one of the trials, they'll lose a point of their religion traits and find themselves at the forest border. They can't get near the castle or find the path that led them there. The knights may receive the following glory during the adventure: 30 glory for anyone solving the riddles 100 for every trial the knights overcome 150 for offering oneself as a sacrifice in the last trial 300 for overcoming the last trial Finally, the gamemaster has a few options for how to end the adventure: 1.) Happy ending. Mariette and her brother are rich and may make a good marriage to a knight or any lady they know. 2.) Paranoia ending. Mariette and her brother are complete liars and they will now pester the players (just as the priest that cursed them in the first place). -------------------- From: Patricio Gonzalez Subject: Elric! Cost of Living System: Elric! COST FOR LIVING SUMMARY (in bronzes, per month) I use this table to lessen the PCs money (hehehe!). But it's realistic anyway. This includes housing, taxes, food, etc. Peasant Style of Living: 95 Low Class Living: 155 Mid Class Living: 520 High Class Living: 1300 Minor Noble: 4100 Wealthy Merchant: 7900 -Patricio Gonzalez- :-) -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial electronic 'zine about Chaosium's Games. In no way should it be considered representative of the views or beliefs of Chaosium Inc. To submit an article, subscribe or unsubscribe, mail to: appel@erzo.org. The old digests are archived on ftp.csua.berkeley.edu in the directory /pub/chaosium, and may be retrieved via FTP.