People
seem to be enjoying the player handouts that I created for the Chaosium
introductory scenario entitled “The Haunting” so I thought I would do
some more. This set of handouts is designed for a beginners’ level adventure
that was released with the sixth edition rules back in 2004. It was written by
Keith Herber and is entitled “Edge of Darkness”. It appears in the
rulebook right after “The Haunting” and is a good follow-up to that
story. It reveals to neophyte players exactly how the business of Summoning,
Binding and Dismissing alien entities works in “Call of
Cthulhu” and gives players a first-hand experience of the various levels
and effects of sanity and its loss. It’s also set in the Arkham environs during
the Classic Era period of the game, so it’s a solid entrée to
Mythos roleplaying.
First
up, the players are summoned to the bedside of an Old Friend (not my
favourite way to hook in a group, but never mind). Rupert Merriweather is dying,
and it transpires that he and his extinct friends have left behind them a huge mystical
mess that needs sorting out. It involves – initially - the contents of a metal
box:
(There
are a number of boxes in this story – it pays to keep track of them!)
Within
the box are an envelope containing a deed to a farming property outside of the
Arkham city limits, along with the key to it; a journal; and a small gold box
shaped like an Egyptian sarcophagus. Obtaining this stuff is contingent upon
working around Merriweather’s snarky son and heir, so some deft arbitration is
called for.
The
main focus of attention is the golden box. It’s shaped as a traditional
sarcophagus (a Greek word meaning – quite appropriately – “corpse eater”) and
it has hieroglyphs on its lid, within a cartouche, along with another set of
glyphs on the underside of the same – these are quite different in style.
The
most interesting thing about this item is that it has practically nothing to do
with the story. It’s a MacGuffin to hang future adventures on and, while it’s
of little use in the present situation, it’s loaded with all kinds of
possibilities for an erstwhile Keeper.
A
more pertinent source of clues is the Journal of the Dark Brotherhood.
In the scenario as presented, the Keeper is instructed to determine which
player character takes charge of this object and to dole out information to
them as outlined in a section entitled “Reading the Journal”. I’ve
broken up this information into a number of graphics which should be
distributed in the following order:
The
original scenario parcels this information up into a different arrangement of
documents, but ultimately, it all works out the same as presented here.
On
the basis of this reading, the party is encouraged to do some research in the
local libraries about what they’ve just discovered, and some of those options
are summed up here:
For
characters who successfully use their History or Egyptology
skills there's this:
And
this is for characters who successfully use their Occult skills:
(I
couldn’t resist throwing a reference to James Churchward in here – he was an
English writer and polymath who conducted serious research on the Lost
Continent of Mu. His major opus, The Lost Continent of Mu: Motherland of Man,
was published in 1926 and was thoroughly pillaged by H.P. Lovecraft and E.
Hoffmann Price.)
Finally,
for characters who choose to trawl through back-issues of the local newspapers
there’s this:
Next,
after absorbing all of this information, the players may decide to head out to
the sleepy village of Ross’s Corners to check out the farm. The locals are reticent,
and the place is a mess, but soon another box is found – this time an old cigar
box, with two small containers and a sheaf of yellowed pages within.
Again,
the contents of the box are of minor interest. The canister contains a
necessary material component for the Summoning ritual while the small
box is full of the Powder of ibn-Ghazi – not really necessary for this
story, but a mean trick on anyone who uses it on the Summoned, partially-invisible
horror!
The
information on the sheaf of papers is the good oil here:
Six copies of the chant required for the Summoning;
Some reference and background information on sources (I threw in this reference about a colleague with access to the Restricted Library because the scenario doesn't cover how Allen got to see Prinn's book and also to further show how shonky he is!);
A picture of the Pentagram with some cryptic chemical information about the brown powder in the small tin canister;
And the transcribed details for running the ritual.
(The
original scenario calls for 13 pages all up in this bundle, but I’ve condensed
it down somewhat for the sake of brevity.)
And
that’s it. This is a nice little introduction to Lovecraftian horror
roleplaying with lots of scope for embellishment by the Keeper and room to
create ongoing story material. Seek it out and see what you think!
(All
information presented here is copyright Chaosium Inc., taken from CALL OF
CTHULHU 6th Edition, 2004.)
Nice, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThanks again! Is there a particular scenario that you're interested in that I could dummy-up the handouts for, while I'm twiddling my thumbs on holiday? Let me know!
DeleteThese are awesome! I am a new Keeper and I am preparing this investigation. Thanks so much. Due to containment, we are playing online.Do you happen to have a higher resolution image of HistoryEgyptologyResearch and JournalEntry2. Thank you so much again for these! - John
ReplyDeleteThanks, John! Let me see what I can do about those pics...
DeleteDue to the current pandemic, I'm also planning on running this scenario this coming Friday. I ran across these images and would like to praise you for excellent work. Thank you for making these!
ReplyDelete-Nick
Many thanks, Nick - I hope it all goes well!
DeleteI have found many handouts for this scenario, but yours are by far my favorites.
ReplyDeleteLove this handouts! I do have one quick question: the reading of this chant differs from the handout in the 7e module text (that one mentions Nyarlathotep). Is this simply a creative difference, or does it have a bearing on the story?
ReplyDeleteThe information here comes from the CoC 6th edition rules - the chant is not even described. I can see why they might have wanted to include it in the 7E do-over but that's not what I had to work with. My images are fairly crude though - you can slip the Big N in here fairly easily if it suits your own narrative!
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to hop on and echo what these folks have already said. I have gotten back into COC during quarantine and your handouts are top notch. Thanks for sharing them for other keepers!!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, Mitch. I'm looking for my next project - any suggestions?
DeleteThese are amazing ! Thank you! Have you done any other scenarios like this?
ReplyDeleteI've been doing handouts for all of the scenarios listed in the back of the 6th edition "Call of Cthulhu" rulebook (just because I have it to hand in a physical form). I've done 'The Haunting", "Edge of Darkness" and "The Madman" so far - "Dead Man's Stomp" is a work in progress. After that, I'll be working my way through Keith Herber's "Spawn of Azathoth" campaign...
DeleteI've created a ton of material for the Dead Man's Stomp, The Mauretania and The Auction. However, the auction items themselves I'm not happy with. There is at least one auction catalog out there that someone created. It's ok, but the primary item, the Brazen Head, is not very good. I wanted to recreate the illustrated head in the scenario in photoshop, but alas my skills with that program is lacking...
DeleteThe handout of the book describing the sacrophagus (or characters who successfully use their History or Egyptology skills there's this:
ReplyDelete) is not suited for printing as it is a bit low quality. Is it possible to get a better version?
Leave it with me, Jonas - I'll see what I can do...
DeleteHopefully that's better - at least the hieroglyphs in the book match those on the sarcophagus now!
DeleteThose are great handouts. How did you make the Orne Library stamp on the Shapcott handout?
ReplyDeleteI work in a secondhand bookshop - a lot of books come in that are ex-library and have such marks. I scan and collect those that look useful for projects such as this. In this instance, I found one that had all of the letters I needed to make the word "ORNE" and just shuffled them about in Photoshop.
DeleteGonna be running this as the second ever adventure I've run. I'm glad I don't have to do these on my own. you did such a great job. Thanks for letting people use 'em.
ReplyDelete