Rip It & Run! Ripples & Aftershocks...

In the late 1930s in the US, several incidents occurred across the country, which were linked by peculiar circumstance. In a number of large urban centres, sightings of strange creatures were reported, along with attacks upon people after dark, leading to several instances where vigilante groups were formed to unearth and put paid to the offending menace. After diligent investigation by the authorities, most of these cases turned out to have no basis in fact, or were night-time sightings of ordinary events which were blown out of proportion.

In Mobile, Alabama, where the first of these incidents took place, the panic was started by a district judge who warned a repeat-offender appearing before him in court that “if he did anything like this again, they would have to unleash the Mobile Monster on him”. After issuing from the mouth of the white judge, the poor populations of Mobile took him at his word and the Monster of Mobile was born.

Crazed reports of shadowy figures ensued, followed by reports of savage attacks; packs of terrified and armed men roamed the districts, prepared to gun down anything that moved. Eventually, the “Monster” turned out to be an unusually large otter which had wandered into the district for the easy pickings which overflowing garbage bins presented.

And that would probably have been the end of things, except for the involvement of the Press. After the first sightings, the local reporters spilt much ink over the phenomenon and soon, similar reports were coming out of Miami in Florida. Once the blue touch-paper had been lit, the explosions just kept on coming.

How is this of interest to the Keeper of a “Call of Cthulhu” campaign? These kinds of panic situations are food and drink for a Keeper wishing to keep their party on its toes. Rumour, suspicion and paranoia, can all get in the way of a well-oiled investigation; just imagine if a vigilante pack spots our team of heroes at yet another reported attack site – soon they may well be blamed for the outbreaks themselves!

The Keeper tries to provide a narrative adventure set within a believable background; occasionally, that background can get a bit sketchy and dependable. Players tend to make plans without realising that the world makes plans of its own and sometimes those plans are counter-productive to the party’s goals.

Let’s assume that our players have tracked some Dimensional Shambler activity to a factory on the outskirts of town. A nightwatchman saw an ominous shape and ran screaming from the facility; he was picked up by the police and questioned and then turned loose to go home. Our heroes – for whatever reason – are summoned to investigate. So far, so good. Our party gets on with things – dowsing for mysterious energy levels, researching library books, examining the crime scene. Only now, however, after our skittish nightwatchman has blurted his story to the Press and jabbered to his associates, there’s a background of hysteria brewing.

Suddenly, reporters are dogging our players. Perhaps, the factory owner wants the mystery cleared up with no fuss and now, it’s on the front page of the local newspapers. Can our party effectively conduct a midnight stake-out when a posse with guns, or a reporter accompanied by a photographer, are following them? Suddenly a simple investigation has turned into a massive headache.

NPCs behaving irresponsibly can present the Keeper with endless possibilities for moral questions and insights: should they protect these unwanted intruders? Or leave them to their own devices? Should the party be pro-active with the Press, in an attempt to minimise community fall-out? Or should they just cry “havoc!” and let slip the Hounds of Tindalos?

Anyone who’s read up on any kind of Fortean incident, looking for inspiration, will see this kind of thing at work repeated endlessly. Take for instance, the case of Spring-Heeled Jack. This London bogey-man was reported attacking individuals around the capitol for over 60 years and the descriptions of him and his modus operandi alter dramatically across this period. Initially, he appears as a man in a tight-fitting oilskin suit with a leather mask, obscured by a theatrical cape. His eyes glow fiery red, he belches fire and his hands are equipped with metal talons with which he would scratch and rake his victims. There are only two attacks which contain this description and they are the earliest ones; later sightings report ‘Jack as a flitting shadow, a pantomime devil figure, even a giant bear. Finally, his last manifestation is as a clattering of footsteps across tenement rooftops.

What’s clear is that Spring-Heeled Jack started out as something concrete, but soon vanished into the stuff of legend. The Press played up the presence of this villain enormously and soon, ‘Jack had his own penny-dreadful title and was generally illustrated as a Mephistophelean baddy, bouncing away from imminent capture and laughing all the while. What “Call of Cthulhu” party of investigators could make anything of this mess?

Try, as well, the strange case of the Devil of Devon. In the unusually cold winter of 1854-5, many people awoke to discover a trail of hoofprints which wandered through five parishes, into and out of buildings, along rooftops and through gardens – a journey of almost 100 miles. The prints were of cloven hoofs, 4 inches long by almost 3 inches, with a pace of about 8 inches. In places – most notably while crossing in front of a church – the prints seemed to have burst into flame. The people of Devon were convinced that their part of the world had been visited by the Devil.

Newspaper articles appeared almost immediately and the incident became the sensation of the day. Bishops and Archbishops stood up in pulpits to deride the notion of Satanic visitation, claiming that foxes, or donkeys, even an escaped kangaroo, were to blame. Finally, Sir Richard Owen, naturalist and ‘go-to guy’ for anything to do with animal anatomy, declared that they were the prints of a badger woken early from hibernation, and that badgers were known to place their hind feet into the tracks made by their fore-feet. Thereafter, a posse of unconvinced villagers armed with pitchforks and flaming brands began regularly scouring the countryside for the Beast Among Us!

The case is unsolved, but what if it were a Mythos event? How would the Investigators deal with all this hoo-hah? Not only is the Church involved, but an eminent scientist has stuck in his oar as well – if the Powers That Be are saying this much, how much more is there to know that they’re not saying? And again, the last thing a party of Investigators needs while searching for clues, is an angry mob bearing down on them with fire and farm implements.

In summing up therefore, it pays to think about how the world around the Investigators will react to the (often bizarre) things that they get up to. Don’t let your party operate in a vacuum; let the Universe gang up on them a little!