Rip It & Run! The Onion...

Writing a scenario – or a series of scenarios; that is, a campaign – for “Call of Cthulhu” might seem like a tortuous affair. However, if one keeps in mind a few simple guidelines, then it isn’t really as onerous as one might think. There are many approaches to take – and the Interwebz are full of other people’s views on the matter – but here is mine and I think it’s relatively straightforward and easy to use. It’s a process I call the Onion.

An investigation in this game can be likened to the slow peeling away of various layers of information and obfuscation, trying to penetrate to the heart of what’s going on. In essence, a “Call of Cthulhu” story is like the removal, one by one, of the layers of an onion until the heart of the vegetable is reached. Your players are here to unwrap the story you’ve brought to them; it’s easy then, to think of your plot as a gift that you have to wrap up. You simply have to start with the centre of the narrative and cover it up in layers.

First, you need to think of what’s going on, or rather, what is it that is causing something to take place. This is as simple as flipping through the rule book and looking at the Great Old Ones, or Outer/Elder Gods that there are to choose from. Think of this entity as the heart of the Onion: everything that is about to happen stems – intentionally or otherwise - from this source.

Since “Call of Cthulhu” is based upon a coherent Mythos, it’s easy to make significant connexions once you’ve decided upon the core of your menace. Say you’ve chosen Cthulhu as the Great Old One to feature in your story: there are many creatures and beings associated with Cthulhu that are all possible obstacles which your team of Investigators may well encounter in overcoming the threat which Cthulhu represents. Flipping through the various publications associated with the game, along with the many literary sources, you will see that there are Deep Ones, the Yuggya, Star Spawn, and a worldwide human cult that all work to promote Cthulhu’s insidious aims. These associated entities thus inform the progress of your adventure.

If Cthulhu is at the heart of the Onion, then closest to it would be the Star Spawn, being the next most insurmountable Greater Servitor Race; after these, one layer further out from the Star Spawn, would come the Yuggya; out from them come the Deep Ones – both these last creatures are Lesser Servitor Races associated with Cthulhu; further out from these are the human cultists of the Great Old One; and finally, we have the outwardly-unremarkable skin of the Onion. As you can already see, the further you penetrate into the heart of the Onion, the more dangerous it becomes.

Once this schema of increasing danger as the heart of the onion is neared has been determined, the Keeper can then start organising the locales across which their adventure will progress. As noted, Cthulhu cultists exist worldwide, so this makes roping the Investigators into the adventure relatively simple: it doesn’t matter where the party chooses to kick off. Cultists have fairly distinct goals which inform their activity: they seek ancient tomes or artefacts, strange ingredients for potent spells, victims for sacrificial purposes, or access to forbidden areas. Large cults need headquarters and funds, so many of them will have guarded buildings and connexions to either high finance or street level crime. Odd goings-on in these circles of activity will undoubtedly attract the attention of our heroes.

Soon, while pursuing the cult activity, the party will begin to encounter Mythos strangeness in the form of Half Deep Ones and then fully incarnated Deep Ones. Again, following the capabilities of these horrors, the locations for these encounters will push coastwards, moving the action to seaside towns, abandoned canneries, rum-runner hideouts, derelict oil rigs, and sunken vessels. After the first glimpses of these aquatic horrors, the Investigators will begin to revise their strategies to deal with things outside to the normal run of reality and turn to Mythos tomes for answers.

The Yuggya, or Yuggs if you prefer, are a step beyond the B-movie horror of the Deep Ones. They belong to deeply-hidden cults – connected to Ythogtha and Zoth-Ommog, offspring of Cthulhu - lurking behind the human ones connected to Cthulhu and, while they can manipulate human emotions and thoughts, they are wholly alien from the human psyche, or even the Deep One mentality. They are the first insight for the Investigators into the cosmic nature of the Mythos. The Yuggya are able to breed with half-human Deep Ones to produce strange offspring; they can burrow beneath the earth in all directions, and swim with great facility. In short, they can bridge the gap between the landward parts of the Keeper’s campaign and the final encounters.

The Star Spawn of Cthulhu rarely leave R’lyeh and so, logically, our series of adventures will no doubt tend towards this remote locale. Keep in mind that the events described in Johansen’s Journal are thought by some to reveal the capabilities of a single Star Spawn and not Cthulhu itself, so this should give you some idea of what encountering one of these beasties is like. Here, the adventurers have left normal reality behind and the full cosmic horror will start to reveal itself. After this, if everything goes pear-shaped, the Great Old One itself will appear!

Once this series of levels has been constructed, all the Keeper need do is firm up the locations between each layer; that is, build connexions between each of the layers so that the party can wend their way towards the conclusion. NPCs, incidents and locales will reveal themselves as the Keeper starts to create the links between the adventures; reading about the various creatures and gathering ideas for scenes and locations will generate set pieces and various other paraphernalia that can be brought into play. Boats and people to sail them; spear-guns, flare guns and tridents as parts of the party’s armoury; half-shark Deep Ones to explode expectations; spelunking equipment to explore Yugg tunnels: the more you let your imagination run along the bare bones of your narrative, the more surprises and connexions you will make.

Remember also that “Call of Cthulhu” is a game about books. Once you’ve pinned down your major Bad Guy (in this case Cthulhu), you automatically call into play a range of wicked tomes which specifically speak about it and its kind. These include, but are not limited to, the following: “An Investigation into the Myth Patterns of Latter-Day Primitives”; The Black Tome of Alsophocus; The Book of Dzyan; The Book of Eibon; The Codex Dagonensis; The Confessions of the Mad Monk Clithanus; The Cthaat Aquadingen; “Cthulhu Among the Victorians”; Cthulhu in the Necronomicon; Dwellers in the Depths; Invocations to Dagon; The Johansen Narrative; Legends of the Olden Runes; The Necronomicon; “Notes on Nessie”; The Ponape Scriptures; The R’lyeh (or Urilia) Text; Unaussprechlichen Kulten; and The Zanthu Tablets, to name but a few. Of course, any Mythos tome will reveal information about a specific Mythos entity with a successful Cthulhu Mythos roll, but these works have a special affinity with the Dreamer in R’lyeh. Now the Keeper can decide which Mythos tome(s) they want to use in their adventure and pin down what pertinent information and spells it contains that will drive the story forward.

This is a very rough method of writing the structure for a “Call of Cthulhu” campaign. It is very straightforward and will generate a series of adventures which will feel to some players like a traditional “Dungeons & Dragons” adventure; nevertheless, this is exactly how such Chaosium campaign series as “Shadows of Yog-Sothoth” and “Masks of Nyarlathotep” were constructed. Experienced Keepers will try to make their adventures feel like less of a ‘train-ride’ by factoring-in elements pertinent to their players and their characters, and by allowing bizarrely-successful (or dismal) dice rolls to turn the narrative in unexpected directions. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and an adventure outline is simply that – the Keeper’s best-laid plan.

This loose scheme of Mythos ‘dungeon-building’ works for any number of players and for any level of mayhem: by placing a relatively minor enemy at the heart of the Onion, and scaling back the connexions leading to it, the resulting campaign can be tailored for even a single player and still achieve a challenging and satisfying narrative. So the next time you are called upon to spontaneously generate an adventure at the last minute for your keen Investigators, give this method a try – I’m sure that you will find it useful.