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Roleplaying in Call of Cthulhu Campaigns

Posted on Keeper Doc

Call of Cthulhu adventure campaigns can differ from other styles of play within the setting, notably one-shots or a campaign composed of multiple modules linked together. From our standpoint, adventure campaigns can shift the heavily story-centered focus to include more character-propelled narratives. The classic Call of Cthulhu adventure campaigns, most notably Masks of Nyarlathotep, but also Horror on the Orient Express and Beyond the Mountains of Madness, provide a longer format in which the players can become attached to their character. The Pulp Cthulhu ruleset now allows the replacement of squishy Investigators with durable, robust Heroes further lengthening character longevity. This allows players to potentially enjoy roleplaying a Call of Cthulhu character for an extended

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Cat Links England, MoN - Keeper

Mythos Monsters – The Thing in the Fog

Posted on Keeper Doc

The noisome London fog offers the perfect cover for Edward Gavigan’s Mythos invisible pets, the gish-rla (pp. 206-207). These viscous vapors referred to throughout the England chapter as “The Thing in the Fog” provide the Keeper with an atmospheric (pun intended – Ed.) threat to your Investigators on the dark streets of London. The Thing may be employed as an alternative to your routine cultist encounters, particularly after your Investigators have irritated or threatened Gavigan. The nature of the Thing precludes normal combat solutions, instead offering a deadly puzzle for your players to solve. We will discuss a variety of ways to present this other-worldly monster with consideration to incorporating it throughout the chapter.  Before

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Cat Links Keeper Tips

Mythos Corruption – Random Cosmic Horror Effect Tables

Posted on Keeper Doc

We return to our Mythos Corruption framework, which provides an alternative to the classic Call of Cthulhu Sanity mechanic allowing the Keeper and players to move away from Insanity and mental health associations used in the traditional ruleset. We have previously discussed Vulnerability to address Mundane Horror and optional rules to help tailor Corruption to your game. Here we offer alternative tables for Cosmic Horror (Bouts of Madness) and Unsettled Reality (Indefinite Reality) for completeness sake. While the effects of Mythos Corruption may appear outwardly as Insanity, they represent profound alterations of the Investigator’s reality.  Rather than purely punitive events, some Psychic Detonations may have both negative and positive features, which may be exploited by both

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Cat Links Campaign Narrative, Peru

Peru – Who is Jesse Hughes?

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The two men leave the table and speak with the wait staff on the way out. Despite his hostile exterior, de Mendoza takes great care in escorting the wavering Larkin out of the restaurant and has an explosive outburst in Spanish when a server nearly strikes Larkin with a lofted tray of food.  Arthur addresses the table: “Odd, that man de Mendoza said nothing our entire meal, but when I just heard him speak…I’ve been in South America for a while now, he sounded nothing like any of the local accents. I do believe he sounds like a Castillian. I took Spanish lessons from one before traveling abroad…” “Trust me, there is more odd about

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Cat Links England, MoN - Keeper

Chapter Inspiration – England

Posted on Keeper Doc

  The England chapter offers a dramatic range of settings and encounters for your players to explore, and you can unveil a variety of locations and characters to create a dreadful, and even gritty, depth to this corner of the campaign. We like to imagine our Investigators arriving in London with visions of Downton Abbey and Oxford professors only to find themselves soon mixed up in the seedy underbelly of the city.  London:  For an inspirational piece contemporary to the setting, we strongly recommend Hitchcock’s 1927 classic silent thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. The plot, based on Marie Belloc Lowndes’s 1913 novel, centers on the hunt for the “Avenger”, a serial

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Cat Links MoN - Keeper, New York, Tomes

Mythos Tomes – Life as a God

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Location: Roger Carlyle’s Library Physical Description: Poorly bound in scarred human skin over wood, numbering 150 pages in duodecimo format. No title on the cover, but the frontispiece features a low-quality faux-Egpytian styling opposite the handwritten title page. The content is handwritten in a brown-black scrawl that occasionally fades out.  Author:  Montgomery Crompton, an English soldier and amateur artist, who traveled to Egypt in 1805 and became a minor priest in the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. Originally from a prominent English family, he served in the military and became interested in Egyptian history and art. Research into Crompton while in London (Library Use) can be revealing. Originally born in 1780 and raised in Gloucester,

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Cat Links MoN - Keeper, Peru

Mythos Artifact – The Golden Mirror

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  In addition to the piles of kharisiri treasure hidden underneath the ancient pyramid, your Investigators have the chance to acquire a potentially valuable Mythos artifact during the Peruvian Prologue. If your players can wrest the Golden Mirror from de Mendoza, they will have access to a useful foreshadowing device.  The Golden Mirror (Peru, p.64 & Artifacts, p.649) takes the form of a six-inch square solid gold Mask following a design similar to other artifacts found at Tiwanaku excavation sites. While the front depicts a face constructed of the typical Tiwanaku raised-block geometrical designs, the back reveals a highly polished, reflective surface that functions as a mirror. And a conduit to access dark visions and

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Mythos Corruption – Optional Rules

Posted on Keeper Doc

Call of Cthulhu encourages many different styles of play and formats, such as one-shot survival horror, short and deadly investigative modules, and long-form heroic campaigns to name just a few. The alternative Mythos Corruption framework we have presented may not mesh well with every game, but we would like to present some optional rules that could facilitate its incorporation at your table.  Modified Mythos Resistance (Sanity) Costs You may wish to compensate for the fact that your Investigators no longer suffer losses related to Mundane Horror by making a simple cost adjustment. Every check will result in the loss of at least one point of Mythos Resistance (Sanity). That means your Investigators will always experience

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Cat Links Campaign Narrative, Peru

Peru – The Promise of Treasure

Posted on Keeper Doc

The conversation and introductions carry on briefly before the maitre’d interrupts the party to inform them that Mister Larkin and his other guests await them at their table in the dining room. The follows the staff across the tile floor, enjoying the smells of seafood and fried beef wafting from the heavy wooden tables. Thanks to the tall ceilings, the room feels open and inviting despite the dark wood. As the group approaches their table, they take note of three men. A thin almost forced smile passes across the face of a thin, pale man seated at the head of the table. He steadies himself as he rises and after brushing his greasy hair from

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Cat Links New York, Tomes

Mythos Tomes – Amongst the Stones

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Location:  Roger Carlyle’s Library  Physical Description: Bound in the skin of a Hunting Horror, handwritten contents with few inked sketches of high-quality, 96 pages in length, a written note from the author (described below), no date of publication or publisher Author:  Justin Geoffrey, an avant-garde English poet of questionable repute, born in 1898 (will die in 1926). Rare review pieces will describe him as an obscene blend of de Sade and Baudelaire. In an interview with the poet (Library Use), he discloses his interest in poetry began after a summer night spent sleeping in a long-abandoned, decrepit farmhouse. He recounts spending many nights as a youth sneaking from his bedroom and wandering the woods in

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