Call of Cthulhu - Day of the Beast
"The Year is 1927. For America it is a time of growth and prosperity. Lon Chaney, Babe Ruth, and Charlie Chan are celebrities, while the average young American enjoys speakeasies, jazz and the new "talkies". All that is about to change. A young psychic by the name of Paul LeMond has seen the future, and it is a sight which has driven him insane." - Call of Cthulhu, Day of the Beast.
Overview
Setting: The United States of America, but many more places awaits us all.
Time Frame: Late 1920's, the golden age of jazz and everything illegal.
Magic Availability: Haha, good joke. But seriously there may be magic, though beware your sanity.
RPG system: Call of Cthulhu - 7th Edition
Welcome to Call of Cthulhu, the fan favourite tabletop RPG that's both entertained and terrified their players for decades! Not in the least me, who absolutely love this game! I'm happy to present to you lucky few investigators a campaign that will send you across the globe to stop the world from chaos, madness and destruction. I'm looking for a group of four to five devote players to partake in this adventure, in order to better manage the story. But before we're presented with the story, what exactly is "Call of Cthulhu"?
Call of Cthulhu is a tabletop roleplaying game made by Chaosium, based on the fictional works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors who have contributed to what is known as the "Cthulhu Mythos". To quote the Wikipedia article on said topic, "An ongoing theme in Lovecraft's work is the complete irrelevance of mankind in the face of the cosmic horrors that apparently exist in the universe." These horrors, either beings associated with gods or inhuman monsters, are either unaware or simply not interested in humanity. Those who do use humanity for their own evil purposes through their many cults around the world, or seek to wipe us off the face of the Earth for good. But what about us, humanity?
Not only are us non-hairy primates insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. Humanity would go mad if we were to know the awful truth; "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
What is the goal of Call of Cthulhu then? What are you supposed to do? The player characters, referred to as "investigators", are normal human beings with average jobs who live every day lives. Mostly. For one reason or another, your investigator gets involved in a mystery connected to the Cthulhu Mythos. Either directly or indirectly caused by the dark powers unknown to mankind, your goal is to solve the mystery and make sure the Mythos doesn't cause more damaged than already done. This of course strains the investigators mental health, their amount of sanity. The more you learn about the truth about the cosmic horrors, the closer you crawl towards the abyss of madness. Lucky investigators die as heroes, while the rest live long enough to become the villains themselves. Until then, you are the first and last line of defense against the Elder Gods, Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep and the rest of the Mythos.
Good luck, you will all need it.
Plot
Our story begins in the summer of 1927. Charles Lindberg, the aviation hero, is paraded through the street of New York after his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The Great Mississippi Flood affects up to 700 000 Americans, while the Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are excecuted for murder. Mount Rushmore gets its first chizel. The silent movie "Wings", the only of its kind to win an Academy Award, is premiered. It is still two years until the economy crashes, and for all the underlying tension in the American society, the future is bright.
We find you and the investigators in the village of Corbis Wood, New Hampshire. For one reason or another, you have all decided to travel to the supposedly haunted Tannerhill house - Either through reading an advertisement in your local newspapers or being contacted by the spiritualist Paul LeMond, his agent Herb Whitefield or the man owning the haunted house, Robert Carrington. You all are about to attend the publicized seanse that seeks to verify the validity of Mr. LeMond. Are you there to support a good friend, experience the occult and supernatural, or just for a good laugh at someone believing too hard in ghosts?
Whatever your intentions with the coming weekend in the Tannerhill house may have been, the following events will thrust you and your investigator onto a path that will take you across the world on an adventure. An adventure to save the world from an evil cult and the summoning of "The Beast". Only time will tell who this cult is and what the beast is, but one is certain. If left to their own devices, the world as we know it will be cleansed in madness. So step forth you investigators; doctors, librarians, scientists, private detectives, adventures and mechanics! The world, though it does not know it yet, needs you.
Rules
- GM's word is law. Discussions and in-put is much appriciated during the course of the campaign, but I have the final say on whatever matter is on the table.
- Previous experience and rulebooks. I'm not requiring previous experience with Call of Cthulhu for participation in the RP, neither that you actually own the Investigator's Handbook. Both are of course recommended and useful, but if not I will be assisting as much as I can. The free CoC quick-start rules is a recommend quick read to get the gist of the rules.
- Posting-Habits. In order to keep the story going on for as long as I think it will take, players are required to post at least once a week. If you can't make that commitment, this campaign is not for you. A post consisting of something between 200-250 words spread between paragraphs is desired.
- Even more posting-habits! Posts are to written with a provided header that includes character's portrait, location, skills used, current HP and Sanity Points. Edits to your own posts are prohbitited, and must be given permission by me in case an edit is needed.
- Realism and Horror! This is a slice-of-life RP, where actions have real consequences for your characters and their surrounding world. Only realistic characters are accepted, in true Lovecraft fashion. Terrible things will happen that your characters can't simply shrug off. Prepare for gore, cursing and such will occur.
- No Meta-gaming. Seriously, this is the worst. Know the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge. The characters will learn the horrific truth in the end, it's the slow burn that's fun.
- Character Creation. Only characters made using the Guild's built-in dice roller and the character sheet provided below will be accepted. You're mostly free to decide for yourself who and what your character will be, though I reserve the right to request changes I see fit. Believable characters are more fun to play. Only characters ACCEPTED by me personally can be placed in the character thread and gain entry to the story.
- Skills skills skill. Throughout the RP we'll be using skill rolls to determine what your characters can or cannot do. CoC uses a percentage-system, meaning that a skill has a certain percentage chance of being successful compared to how many skillpoints have been invested in said skill. Either I'll request a roll from your characters in the Keeper's Post, or you can request a roll that sounds appropriate for the occasion. In order to get your rolls, go to the Guild's dice roller and create your own campaign under the name "Call of Cthulhu - Day of the beast: Your Character Name". Remember to link the campaign to your character under the "Anything else" section, and link the respective roll in your posts when done. Add a description to what the roll was for.
- Have fun! No matter the rules and cosmic horror I as Keeper hold, we're all here to have fun, aren't we? I certainly am, and steps will be taken in order for the story to remain entertaining in the long run.
Character Sheet
Here is the provided character sheet we'll be using. Copy-paste the text and fill it out as approriate. Remember to pick a different colour than what's provided in the code as it is, to add at least one character portrait that fits your character and ask for my approval before they're accepted into the RP. If in any doubt and in need of assistence, PLEASE do ask! Better to ask once too much than too little.
Posting In-Character
When your character is done and accepted, we'll come to actually posting in-game. When you post as your character, you'll be using a header-template as to make it easier for both you and the rest of the group to identify your post and your character information. The header includes:
- Character name
- Small character portrait
- Character's current location
- Character's Hit Points, Sanity Points and Luck.
- Character's current mental state: Sane, Temporary Insane or Indefinete Insane.
- Character's attempted skill
