So,
there’s this:
I’ve
been thinking for awhile now of how to take this short tale and inject it into
a “Call of Cthulhu” campaign. It’s
just a short narrative with a cute twist and certainly nothing that could be
extended into a full-length story arc in an ongoing campaign; however, many are
the times that a session of gaming is planned and then all but one or two of
the players and the Keeper suddenly have their lives intrude and everything
goes south. Little stories like this – which can be drawn out to a single
session’s play – are great ways to fill in these holes in the campaign
schedule.
Firstly,
this is a comic obviously created in the 70s and heavily influenced by Hammer
Horror movies. We can safely ignore most of the trappings - such as hair,
costume and make-up - and alter these to suit whenever our campaign taking
place. It’s really the mood that we want to preserve, and the cunning twist at
the end. The crucial element which we need to construct is a means of injecting
the players’ characters into the narrative. In the comics format, the reader embodies the role of the presumptive
player character; what we need is a means of placing the character into the story, to be the witness who experiences the
shocking revelation.
Another
thing to address is the scripting. Since this is a comic – and a heavily
space-restricted one, limited to only one page – the story has been pared down
to its merest essentials. Obviously, in transferring this narrative to a
roleplaying format, we have to let go of any notion of a script: after all, the
Keeper and players are here to tell their own tale, not to put on a
play-reading. That being said, there have to be enough trappings present to
keep the session grounded and on track towards the final, shocking, reveal.
Let’s
begin then. First, let’s assume that your regular Friday night get-together has
largely fallen-through and that only you (the Keeper) and, let’s say, one other
player have shown up. Not wanting to waste the beer and pizza, you decide to
play a short side story, a sidebar to the campaign’s main events. Here’s a
tricky bit: you’ll need to sideline the other characters. That’s easily done if
they’re Librarians or Researchers – you can just assume that they’re banging
the books. Fighters and Tinkerers can be out “on patrol” if that’s appropriate.
If the last session left your party on a cliffhanger, you may want to jump back
in time and play this short story as an earlier event (even inserting some
handy widget or piece of information, if the party looks set for falling off
that cliff!).
Begin
with the player’s character at their usual abode – their home, the group’s
headquarters, or somewhere else that they regularly frequent and where they are
likely to receive mail. If they have a clubhouse, let the player be the only
one there when the postman calls and have everyone else incommunicado for one reason or another. The letter that arrives
should be addressed to the group as a whole (if sent to their base of
operations), or personally, to the player character.
The
letter is a bit short on detail, but makes it clear that the writer has heard
of the character’s (or the group’s) exploits with the supernatural and seeks
their assistance with such a matter that very night at a local graveyard.
Allow
your player to make whatever arrangements they like for the meeting – telegrams,
or e-mails, to the other party members; assembling a ghoul- or vampire-slaying
kit; cadging some holy water off the local priest. Crucially however, there
must not be a great deal of time for them to do any in-depth research about the
author of the letter, or else the cat will be let well-and-truly out of its
bag. On your side here, as Keeper, is the relatively little amount of info.
about the sender contained in the missive.
Here,
I want to make a significant change to the original material. In the comic, our
protagonists are “Teresa and Michael Smith”; in order to keep our players
guessing, we’ll need to be a bit sneaky. We’ll re-name our bereaved husband
“John Parker” and our ghostly heroine will also take on a “J” name: in a
Victorian or Edwardian setting, she could be a “Jane", or “Jemima”; in the
Twenties, a “Juliet”, or “Josephine”; in the modern era, a “Jacinta”, or
“Jodie”. Whatever seems to fit. In this way, having signed the letter “J.
Parker”, the missive could have originated with either party. Sneaky, huh?
Now,
down to business. The graveyard should be nearby and accessible. In densely modern
urban, inner-city necropoli, the
gates are generally shut after hours and security guards run patrols; in less
densely-populated areas, such measures aren’t necessarily observed. You want to
select (or invent) a gnarly, spookily-overgrown and tomb-infested cemetery near
to your group’s base of operations and you want to set up some plausible, but
not overly onerous, barriers to entry. Of course, security concerns are really
only a requirement for Modern
settings: in Gaslight or Classic era games, the thought of
entering a graveyard after dark to spray graffiti, or kick over headstones,
doesn’t really enter any normal person’s head, and any policeman encountered
walking his beat could be deterred from interfering by offering a gentlemanly
assurance of good intent. If playing a Modern version of this tale, your
players might have to cut a gate lock, dodge a security camera and avoid the
patrols of a security company employee, but this stuff should be relatively
easy for a seasoned operator. Again, rural graveyards don’t often have this
kind of security.
Arriving
at the appointed time, our player character enters the cemetery to find it
shrouded with a thick fog. Any obstructions should be quickly dealt with and a
short walk through the obscured headstones and morbid statuary ensues. An owl
hoots overhead in the dark. Underbrush is disturbed by some creature of the
night. Clouds overhead promise rain later on. Everything is good to go.
Suddenly,
a young woman steps out into the light, and is momentarily startled by our
adventurer. She is dressed for the outdoors (another slight change from our
source material) and in a mildly-excited state, given the weather and the
situation. If questioned, she reveals that she is “J____ Parker” and responds
delightedly with the exclamation “Oh! You got my message!” (here, she is not
referring to the letter, of course, but to the traditional – we assume –
attempts by all departed souls to contact the living via séances or Ouija
boards). Now comes the tricky part.
Having
encountered our spectral lady, the Keeper has to maintain the illusion that she
is alive, a living breathing being. She reveals early on that tonight is her
husband’s birthday and that “at the moment of their parting” he appears beside
the family plot. After an all-too-brief moment he then vanishes once more,
until the following year. She lets on that it has happened for the last five
years without fail. This particular house of cards can come crashing down if
certain pertinent questions are put to her: what did he die of? Where is he
buried exactly? The Keeper needs to play our heroine in a somewhat histrionic
fashion, glossing over details that could reveal the truth too quickly. If all
else fails, the old ‘A-Yowling-Cat-Jumps-Out-From-Behind-A-Grave-Marker’
routine can momentarily distract too searching a line of questioning. To really
play this non-player character effectively though, it’s time to sort out some
history…
How
did she come to die? Traditionally, ghosts only make a nuisance of themselves
because some important piece of business was left undone by their deaths, or
some act of revenge is required to allow them to rest in peace. What would
cause “J____ Parker” to show up by her grave each year on her husband’s
birthday, only to glimpse him momentarily before vanishing? Here’s a thought:
perhaps she was murdered. Who would commit such a horrible deed? Well, perhaps
someone who was jealous of the fact that she was married to John Parker. And
who could that be? How about John’s best friend? Things begin to look
intriguing…
Let’s
say that John has been coming to the gravesite these past five years with his
best buddy – let’s call him “Howard” – in tow. Because Howard is accompanying
him, our murdered bride can’t maintain her presence in order to pass on the
truth: when John shows up with Howard, “J” has to vanish. If only she could get
a moment alone with her beloved to tell him what happened that fateful night,
his combined birthday and wedding celebration six years ago…! Of course, we’re
moving outside the ambit of our source material here; but if the original
writer had been given more room in which to pen their tale, they might have
stuck in a “Howard” also.
When
they reach the graveside with our murdered bride, the player character may ask
them what happens when John shows up? She will say that there’s a sort of glow
that appears out of the mist and which gets stronger and stronger, until
finally he stands forth. The player may interpret this as someone moving
through the dark with a lantern, or a flashlight, and decide that some kind of
chicanery, or scübidüberism is taking place. They might feel a little foolish
about bringing along the vampire-hunting kit…
Once
we’re at the graveside, the players may wish to examine the final
resting-place. Here we have to be very cunning and, again, depart from the
source material. In the comic, the headstone inscription is the big reveal
(although, sneakily, it’s right there in shot in the first panel also), but we want the identity of the interred to
be kept a secret for as long as possible. Our headstone should be well-obscured
by some kind of rambling rose, solidly-entrenched after five years of
unrestricted growth. If you want, you can have the words “Sweet Prince” clearly shown on the stone surface, which, if the
greenery is stripped away, clearly reads “My
Sweet Princess” – God knows this couple seem treacly enough for this kind
of epitaph! It will take a Resistance
Roll of the character’s STR vs. the rose’s STR of 20 to tear this foliage
away.
Soon,
our character discerns a growing light appearing through the mist and the sound
of someone approaching – booted feet crunching gravel. A Listen Roll by the character will reveal that there are two voices
getting closer; should they ask the woman who this other person might be, she
will say something like “Oh no! It must be Howard! He mustn’t see me here!”
What happens next is up to the player and whatever they believe is happening.
Do they hide in the undergrowth and wait to see what emerges from the darkness?
Do they rush forward to make contact with the intruders before they reach the
graveside? Or do they wait and see what happens? It’s up to them – as I said
earlier, there’s no script.
According
to the rules we’ve established, once the married couple clap eyes on each
other, the ghost fades away into nothingness for another year, so getting the
woman to Hide or leave the grave to
watch unobserved from a hidden locale will allow her to hang around for a while
longer. This effort must be instigated by the player and the character’s own Hide Skill is their chance of remaining
unseen (she’s not really there after all). Once she’s hidden, the player may
step forth to reveal themselves without her pulling a disappearing act.
Confronting
the approaching visitors will bring forth some questions from “John Parker”
(for it is he) along the lines of “Who are you?” and “What are you doing beside
my wife’s grave?” The person beside him urges him to calm down and insists that
there must be some explanation: this is Howard. Once the character identifies
themselves John says “Oh, then you got my letter! We must have missed you at
the cemetery entrance!” The pieces fall neatly into place.
At
this point, the player will be more or less aware of what has been going on.
Now they can question the bereaved husband more closely about the circumstances
of his wife’s death, and how he discovered that her phantom appears by the
graveside each year on his birthday. Questions reveal that his wife was knifed
outside the church in which the wedding had taken place; the only witness to the
attack was Howard who, as the best man at the event, was waiting with her while
she prepared to leave on her honeymoon. He claimed that thugs, or possibly a
demented hobo, perpetrated the deed while they were waiting for the bridal car
to be brought around and he himself suffered wounds in the assault. A year
later, a tearful and drunken John asked Howard to accompany him to his wife’s
grave on the anniversary of her murder: he claims that he saw her ghost
momentarily but that she vanished soon after they locked gazes. Howard says
that he saw nothing and that any spirits John saw were the ones at the bottom
of a bottle.
During
the discussion, it will be clear that John believes he saw the ghost and Howard
firmly maintains there was nothing to be seen; however, they come to the grave
on every anniversary at Howard’s insistence. Howard also strongly implies that
John is losing his marbles – attending séances and using Ouija boards and such
nonsense - and John is a short step away from agreeing with him. If our
character makes a Psychology Roll
while talking to the two of them, they will realise that Howard is lying about
having seen nothing at the grave and also has a vested interest in convincing
John that he is losing his mind. In fact, Howard has learned that J____ is around each year at this time and
fears that she might spill the beans about how he murdered her outside the
church in a jealous rage. He shows up to keep her from squealing and will soon
get John committed – a sure way to sweep him under the carpet and out of the
way of learning the truth.
But
now, Howard is faced with the fact that his best friend has told this “ghost
hunter” about their annual shenanigans. He’s keen to find out what our
Investigator knows and whether he’s about to ruin his plans. He will be nervous
and cagey, asking searching questions of his own. If pressed, he will reveal
that he carries a pistol, if the country has appropriate laws and it seem
reasonable that he do so – no, wait; that’s only in the US; in any other place
on the planet, he carries a knife. He will threaten to kill the Investigator,
or John, or both, at which point a soul-shrivelling scream rings out across the
cemetery. A quick character will take this opportunity, while Howard is Surprised, to disarm and neutralise him,
leaving John to head towards the source of the baleful noise and learn the
secret of his beloved’s demise…
*****
Well,
that’s one way it could play out anyway. Like I said, this isn’t a dramatic
reading.
Again,
this proves that inspiration for “Call of
Cthulhu” ideas come from many different places, even cheesy old 1970s
romance comics. Lock this one away in your ‘rainy day’ adventures folder and
you might make something of that non-starter game session after all!
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