Rip It & Run! Kids' Stories...

I have just watched the latest re-working of Stephen King’s It and my brain has suddenly been teeming with possibilities: next time you’re thinking about establishing a new “Call of Cthulhu” campaign, why not seriously consider having all of your characters be children? If your usual crowd of ghostbusters and monster wranglers are starting to feel as though they’ve seen it all, let them raise the stakes by dropping the age range.

The thing that holds true of most children’s fiction is that the adults who impinge upon the kids’ worlds rarely take time to 1) listen to what the children are saying, and 2) give them any credence. When trying to explain that the thing at the bottom of the garden that’s taking the chickens is not a fox but a shoggoth, kids will most likely find themselves being sent to bed without any supper rather than being listened to.

Children have the added benefit of being willing to suspend disbelief more readily than adults. If one of the local children tells your band of young Investigators that there’s a troll beneath the bridge on the outskirts of town, then your party will just take this on board rather than trying to supplant the information with rational explanations. When faced with the inexplicable, kids tend to find an explanation that suits their worldview, rather than trying to jam an ill-fitting puzzle-piece into the background of a “normal” reality.

Of course, when it comes to kids, as Keeper, you need to prepare adventures that suit the capabilities of your team. Obviously, EDU scores are going to be lower and Credit Rating scores will suffer a detriment. The likelihood that your characters will have a facility with Urdu, or Latin, will be quite low and their Drive: Automobile skills will be slight at best. That being said, kids have advantages that adults don’t: they’re smaller and can wriggle into places a fully-grown person cannot; if they start acting peculiar – moving strangely and chanting odd doggerel – adults tend to ignore them, or tell them to take their silly "ritual game" elsewhere; if they start painting strange symbols with their watercolour paints, or take odd books out of the library, more often than not they’ll be encouraged in their attempts to explore their creativity or to push their linguistic boundaries. Kids are often simply overlooked, or ignored, by the grown-ups around them.

All this being a given, it probably doesn’t mean that, as Keeper, you can set your junior Investigators on the trail of a globe-trotting Shub-Niggurath cult; adventures will most likely be of the local variety and of the low-powered type. Holidays make great excursions for kid teams, giving them a defined area in which to Combat Evil. Cultists proliferate everywhere and often engage in criminal activity to finance, or facilitate, their peculiar lifestyles: kids might notice the predations of a smuggler’s racket that the adults are oblivious to, or they might spot a sharp decline in the number of village children which the grown-ups are writing off as “naughty behaviour”.

Dreamlands adventures are almost your go-to option here as the World Beyond the Veil of Sleep is pretty much tailor-made for kid’s adventures. If you’ve ever read The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, you’ll know the way to proceed: just swap out the Christian subtext for a Mythos rationale and you’re good to go. And, while you might not want to set your kid’s team up against Cthulhu, or Azathoth, a big gun like Nyarlathotep, oddly enough, is a perfect nemesis for a children’s gang.

As source material, there’s almost too much to take onboard. Kid’s books have the added benefit – for the most part – of having been turned into films at one point or another, but you’ll need to pick and choose amongst what’s on offer – some, especially more “modern” interpretations, can be quite bad. Here’s a quick literary list, in no particular order:

Ray Bradbury:

The king of the creepy kid’s tale, hands down. Try Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dandelion Wine, The October Country, or The Illustrated Man. Something Wicked was made into a movie in the 80s starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce – it’s a bit dated, but still worth the effort. Many of Bradbury’s best works are short stories and the last three titles here are compilations organised by a loose rationale. All good stuff.

Alan Garner

Elidor, The Moon of Gomrath, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Owl Service. Garner’s stuff tends to focus on young adults rather than true kids, but the first three titles listed here are definitely children’s territory, with Moon and Weirdstone forming a two-part adventure. He can really bring the creepy – I particularly remember being freaked out by the Brollachan in Weirdstone as a child. All his books tend to end dramatically at the climax, so don’t look for any denouements in his novels.

Susan Cooper

All you need to know about Susan Cooper is The Dark Is Rising sequence. It comprises five novels – Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King; and Silver On The Tree – there’s enough drama and tension to keep anyone enthralled here, while demonstrating just how capable kids can be in the investigation of ancient magicks. There’s even a worldwide cult in the background; however, in this case, they’re the good guys! If you get nothing else out of these great books, you will at least come away knowing how to pronounce Welsh words.

Enid Blyton

The Secret Seven and, most of all, the Famous Five, are the mainstays of childhood adventure. In fact, they’ve become so entrenched in the English-speaking vernacular that they’re often parodied, not always to bad effect.

At the place where I work, we have an alternate name for Five Go Off In A Caravan:

In fact a friend of mine once wrote a convention module in which the players adopted the roles of the adult versions of the Famous Five and took on Nyarlathotep, who dangled the prospect of returning to their younger days before them, as an escape from their tawdry, disillusioning adult lives – powerful stuff! There are many titles in the series and you don’t even really have to read them in order to riff off their vibe. Imagine what you could do with this:

Stephen King

Kids are an obvious target for mayhem in horror novels, because most peoples’ natural tendency is to shelter them from harm. King understands this almost as much as Guillermo del Toro (who kills kids fairly casually in his movies). It and “Stand By Me” (the film based on his 1982 novella, “The Body”) are two obvious mentions here, although the kids in ‘Salem’s Lot and Pet Sematary also rate a mention. It must be said that the first two titles here are pretty much the same story – with supernatural horror and without – so take your pick. Of course, movie versions abound.

*****

There are many more authors who can be mined for inspiration – C.S. Lewis (as referenced above) and E. Nesbit, among others – and of course there are Mythos staples too: Arthur Machen, with his dreamlike and disturbing tales set in the golden pre-War days of Edwardian England, has much to offer the Keeper seeking to take this diversion.

Rolling-up child characters is somewhat problematic, and depends upon which rule system you’re using. SIZ and EDU are your main bugbears. Roll 2D6 alone for your Investigator’s SIZ and give them 1D6+3 for their EDU – this reflects the limited amount of received knowledge which they’ve accumulated in their few years of schooling, although a higher score could be argued for under certain circumstances. Remember that EDU reflects the number of years the character has attended formal education, however that is defined. You might wish to impose a -3 penalty to STR if you’re feeling particularly mean, but I would suggest that the rolled physical statistics should be read as a guide to relative power within the group, rather than universally – a kid with a STR of 18 is still going to be no match for an 18 STR adult. All you need to do now is decide what happens to kids when they go mad.

There are many ways to pursue this, and they will depend upon what options you think are the most credible. You might decide that children have more durable psyches and are able to weather a sanity-blasting storm better than adults (who always try to explain and rationalise everything they encounter). In this case you might give your child Investigators a one-time +15 SAN bonus, to kick things off. On the other hand, you might feel that human brains – adult or otherwise – all suffer the same way under duress and therefore provide no benefit or detriment. It’s really the Keeper’s call and trial-and-error will reveal which is the best method.

One thing that I think you will find with this approach is that, rather than “dumbing things down”, you will start to explore different ways of achieving successful resolutions. Without easy access to weapons, cash, or societal assistance, your players will be forced to adopt new strategies in order to win through. For a hidebound and jaded team, this could well be a way to inject new vitality into your gaming.

Seasonal Greetings...

Re-Thinking the Fungus...

My recent look at the Solar System and its various Mythos features and literary sources, set in motion an interesting train of thought that has led to some curious thinking. I would like to share these cogitations with you, dear reader, but I warn you to steel yourself – some of what I’m about to reveal flies in the face of canon Yogsothothery and may trample some sacred cows.

My thoughts lingered on what appeared to be a conflation by de Longnez concerning the Mi-Go and the Shan. In his writings he seems to merge the two species together. This seemed harmless enough, after all he was writing at a time when thoughts of creatures living on other planets was about as far-fetched as it got, and, when it comes to the sources of Mythos knowledge, “garble” barely begins to scratch the surface. So I went back to look the material over and some interesting things popped out at me.

Firstly, it’s a Mythos given that there are Mi-Go roaming around the solar system, and – whether “Yuggoth” is the dwarf planet Pluto, or some other “Planet X” lurking out there in the void – that’s where they come from. Secondly, we know that the interstellar insect race known as the Shan invaded Uranus at some point, enslaving the locals before becoming seduced into the worship of the god L’rogg, for which they were driven out by Azathoth. Third, there’s that throwaway reference by de Longnez about fungus-creatures living on Neptune. It’s possible that the fungus creatures and the Mi-Go are one and the same entities and that de Longnez lost something in translation; but suppose they’re all the same creature?

When you look at one of the Mi-Go, what do you see? Basically, it’s a big bug with an acne-d football for a head. They’re called a fungus, but they look like lobsters, or some other kind of exoskeletal invertebrate. Not unlike a Shan. Suppose there were “mushroom men” living on Neptune: what if they were actually a particularly virulent strain of fungus? What if some of the Shan, fleeing the anger of Azathoth on Uranus, stopped off at Neptune and encountered the “mushroom men”, only to be infected by them? What if the Mi-Go are actually a kind of composite creature, a parasitic symbiote, combining fungus and insect?

Here on Earth, there exist a range of fungi under the collective name Cordyceps. They are normally found in humid jungle settings and they reproduce by infecting ants and other insects and arachnids (one species Cordyceps ignota, particularly encroaches upon Tarantulas). The fungus lives within the insect’s body slowly growing fibres called mycelia within the exoskeleton, throughout the creature’s body, which begin to replace the host’s tissue. When it comes time to release spores, the so-called “zombie ant” is directed to find a perch on the underside of a leaf or branch and grasp on firmly with their pincers. Then the entrenched mycelium of the fungus produces an elongated fruiting body called an ascocarp, which bursts, releasing spores into the environment with which to carry on the cycle.

Looking at the standard image of a Mi-Go, it’s remarkable how similar the head of the creature is to the fruiting body of a Cordyceps fungus. Might it be possible that, under certain circumstances, the Fungi from Yuggoth can forestall the bursting of their ascocarp and maintain a parasitic control over the corpse of their victim, effectively creating a robotic armature to allow them to move about in their local environment?

One argument against this theory is that, traditionally, the Insects from Shaggai aren’t as big as the Mi-Go, being only roughly the size of a human head. However, we do know that, within insect species, there are caste divisions, with certain modified members of the species being dedicated to specific roles within the hive/nest. Mightn’t the Shan have larger versions of their race – say, a warrior caste that defends the rest of the hive – which might have been an ideal vessel for the Mi-Go spores? This also answers that other question about the Mi-Go and the fact that they seem to be made of some extra-terrene matter, unable to be photographed: the Shan share this same extradimensional quality.

Under this view of the Fungi from Yuggoth, we see that the fungus is actually just that – a nebulous mass of self-aware mycological matter, capable of parasitizing other living forms for its own ends. This opens the way for these creatures possibly invading the bodies of other creatures, even human beings, although there is mitigating evidence to refute this. Through this lens, the traditional Mi-Go brain cylinder begins to look like a means whereby the fungus tries to replicate its own intelligence translocation by mechanical means, for hosts which it is unable to parasitize. Still, there are also those Himalayan legends about yeti (the migou) which might indicate that there’s at least one other form of life on this planet that the fungus can adopt as a host.

The invasive sentient fungus theory has another terrifying aspect: telepathy. This is explained by the fact that the fungus is simply one overly-extended mass of matter, and that what happens to one part of it, happens to all of it. This means that knowledge is shared equally by all “representatives” of the race and that regular returns by outlying cadres must occur for newly-discovered information to be assimilated (that is, scout parties must return to the main body of the growth in order that knowledge can be shared). It has another aspect as well: the Fungi, having no sensory organs themselves, are able to psychically “tap-in” to the sensory input of the creatures around them. That is, what those with eyes and ears in their vicinity know, they know. This makes it very difficult to surprise them, but it also explains why they hang out with other species so often (and, again, why they are so fond of carrying peoples’ heads around in jars).

Another aspect of this psychic facility is the ability to manipulate the sensory input of those around them, allowing the Mi-Go to affect how they are perceived by others, or if, in fact, they are perceived at all. This lends extra weight to the “Whisperer in Darkness” scenario, in which the expedient of using a man’s dissected face and hands as a disguise has greater force when backed-up by the sensory manipulation of the target.

A final issue is the notion of Mi-Go technology and whether it actually derives from the Fungus at all. Perhaps the “Electric Gun” and the “Mist Projector” are actually weapons made by other races which the Mi-Go have encountered and which have been replicated using their own ingenuity. It has been said that the alien “Greys” are automata manufactured by fungal technology – are they perhaps robots, or a kind of telemetrical apparatus, created by mycological processes? Only further research will reveal the answers…

Review: "Van Helsing - Season One"

NANKIN, Michael, et.al. (Dirs.), “Van Helsing – Season One”, Universal Pictures/Echo Lake Entertainment/Nomadic Pictures/Dynamic Television/SyFy,

Note to me: stop buying what the SyFy Channel is shovelling.

This is the third series which I’ve wandered into from this production house and things still haven’t clicked. “Haven” was horrible; “Helix” was hideous; but this - this – is a new low. From my current perspective of having been thrice-bitten, I can see a definite picture emerging and it speaks volumes as to how the SyFy people put these things together. It’s definitely a camel by committee.

I should really have baulked at the name: to date, anything with the name ‘Van Helsing’ in the title has been a load of rubbish, so that should have been a clue. I did, however, entertain some vague hope that it would tie back into Stoker’s novel at some point – other than just being a story about vampires – but no, no it didn’t. It has simply paved the way for some Millennial reader to pick up (or download) a copy of Dracula and go, “Hey! There’s an old dude in here named after that chick from that SyFy Channel show!” You can hear me groaning already.

This is a vampire story. Even better (I’m being sarcastic here) it’s also a zombie story, because the producers want to have their cake and eat it too. In this iteration, there are two levels of vampires – the ‘Feeders’, who are all smart and think-y, and the ‘Ferals’, who are not. Our story concerns a group of people holed-up inside a hospital: at the start, there’s just one guy – a US marine – and a vampire in a cage, who he feeds on his blood through a tube stuck into his arm. Also in the facility, is an unconscious woman lying on an operating table in her underwear, whom the marine refers to as “Sleeping Beauty”. His mission, as he often repeats from this time forward, is to protect Sleeping Beauty and keep “the Doc” (that is, the vampire) alive. It’s the one note of this unprepossessing character and, by God, he sticks to it!

Other characters pile into this well-defended hideaway, depending upon whose turn it is to take over the script. One of our marine’s soldier buddies returns unexpectedly with a bunch of humans whom he has rescued while out in the wilds of downtown Seattle. There’s a deaf guy (the ubiquitous Chris Heyerdahl), a black kid with street smarts, three women – one hard-nosed, one about to have a nervous breakdown, and one who gets killed horribly pretty much immediately – and one angry guy who just wants to get out and find his wife, Wendy (and is prevented from doing so, for reasons). It’s the quintessential George Romero set-up and you can see where everything is headed.

As expected, zom-, er, “vampires” break in and cause chaos, and in the fall-out, we discover that Sleeping Beauty’s blood turns vampires back into human beings. Quelle surprise! And then, we’re off to the races…

The problem with these shows is that they don’t seem to have an over-arching storyline. It seems that, with each episode, a new writer and director get on board and says “Okay, now we’re going to do things MY way”, with the result that nothing gets resolved, nothing gains focus and nothing makes any sense. In fact, the whole show reeks of commitment issues, especially amongst the undead. Each time we see the vamps doing their thing, the scenes come across with an air of embarrassment as if the actors can’t quite believe what it is that they’re being made to do/say/wear. ‘Uneasy’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.

As for the rest of the cast, they’re all two-dimensional and less than edifying. Our heroine – the one that the show is all about - is completely unsympathetic. While laying down her back-story, I felt that there wasn’t another person in this program I could relate to less. Even the one-note marine was more relatable. In terms of catching our sympathy, she may as well have been made of Teflon; as it is, she's mostly wood. The key word here is ‘bland’.

The politics is all over the shop too. At one point, the marine walks in on Sleeping Beauty as she indulges in the statutory ‘post vampire episode’ shower, declaring that, with the shortage of water “it makes sense” that everyone doubles-up on bathing. Hmmm. It's really just a ploy to get the two lead actors to nude up. When we first meet her in a flashback, Sleeping Beauty beats up her best friend’s boyfriend when she discovers him maltreating her; this devolves into a lesbian-overtoned invitation from the girlfriend to get drunk and hang out, prevented only by the fact that Sleeping Beauty has birthday duties to execute for her completely alienated daughter (much eye-rolling, here). It feels like the writers are trying to push too many of their own personal envelopes vicariously throughout this show.

Then there’s Sleeping Beauty’s “super-powers”. We know that her blood can turn vamps human. Okay, that’s fine. However, sometimes it works when the vamps bite her; other times it works when she bites them. Sometimes it knocks her out; sometimes the vampires simply die. Occasionally, she displays Wolverine-level regeneration; at other times she’s comatose for days while healing. Again, pick one thing and stick with it, people; don’t try to be all things to everyone.

Another inconsistency is all of the booby-traps and gadgets that our one-note marine constructs about the hospital. In an early episode, one set-designer decided to place a dinky little windmill made of scraps on the roof of the building; in a later episode, that prop gets trashed in a rooftop fight and, suddenly, it’s revealed that this piss-poor object was the only thing providing them with power. Excuse me? That piece of crap couldn’t have powered the bulb from a torch, much less the racks of batteries required to power the banks of UV lights keeping the undead outside! Along with this, we get moments where our marine points significantly to a point in space for the benefit of his companions, while nodding and smiling and going “huh? Huh? You see what I mean?” Apparently, this is him showing his friends a booby-trap, in the hope that they’ll avoid it in future. Not that they need to: despite an implicit plethora of these devices, not one of them is set off by a human or a vampire to any real effect. (One of them does almost cut an annoying child in half, but I was left wondering how she couldn't have seen it from across the room. In the end, I just assumed they were being equal-opportunity: if you're gonna have a deaf character, you may as well have a blind one too.)

The background to this mess is that Yellowstone National Park, which we all know is built on top of a super-volcano, blows its stack and covers the Earth with clouds of ash. This prevents daylight from hitting the ground and so all the vampires – who have been living amongst us, unnoticed, all along – press their advantage and begin wholesale eating and enslaving humanity. However, before we even reach the halfway point of this mess, the ash begins to clear and the vampires are suddenly on the run. There are a few problems with this: first, if Yellowstone blows up, we’ll all know about it because that’ll be it – all over, Red Rover; secondly, when volcanoes of this size erupt, the ash they emit stays in the atmosphere for years, even decades, not a handy fortnight. London had blazing red sunsets for ages after Krakatau blew, and the Tunguska Impact (which we all know was Azathoth paying us a house call, right?) had similar effects too. So, we learn that science is the first casualty of a vampire/zombie invasion. But hey! It’s all taking place in trendy downtown Seattle so that’s cool, right? Right?

Whatever benefits this show has it more than makes up for it in the tally of its ‘lacks’. It lacks heart; it lacks character; it lacks consistency; it lacks anything which may endear it to its viewers; and it lacks sense. Other than that, it’s just dull. Avoid it.

Two Tentacled Horrors.

Rip It & Run! A Comics Offering...

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!

Deep Waters - Two Heads...

The Firebird grumbled though the town square in front of the Gilman House as I circled the block and slipped down the service road that led to the laundry buildings out back. Once we were tucked into the shadows behind the crumbling pile, I cut the lights and killed the engine. As we stepped out into the night air, the distant pulse of the disco beat shot through the smell of rising damp and questionable plumbing.

As we crept back towards the hotel front entrance, I posed the question:

‘What’s our plan here, Boothe?’

‘Well, we need to neutralise those guys,’ he said. ‘First, because they’re a threat to your community, and second, ‘cause they’re unnatural. So we shut them down, or work out what’s going on with them. Or both.’

‘I figure,’ I said, peeking out into the Hotel forecourt, ‘that we need some extra help. We should go up and get the guys. Strength in numbers and all that.’

Boothe nodded, but hesitantly, as if he wasn’t entirely convinced. I slipped out of the shadows and crept towards the front steps. Mounting them, we passed through the grimy glass doors and into the velvet mustiness beyond.

Inside the elevator car, the muzak cut in and out fuzzily, thanks to some defunct speakers. Boothe hunched against the wall and pushed his hands deep into his pockets.

‘What’s up Boothe?’ I said, ‘you seem like you kinda got cold feet all of a sudden.’

He shrugged.

‘Just a bit worried is all,’ he said. ‘We’re about to go back to a place where we were earlier on. Benson, it’s really important that we don’t run into our earlier selves.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

He shrugged again, widening his eyes and spreading his fingers. ‘Dunno,’ he said, ‘it’s just bad, is all. The first thing they tell you when you start messin’ with this stuff is Don’t Interact With Your Past or Future Self. They never say why; just that it ain’t good.’

I looked up at the floor indicator and grunted. ‘So how do we tell who’s who?’ I asked.

‘Well, you’re easy,’ he replied, ‘your past self has two sleeves on his jacket and isn’t covered with all that sparkly crap…’

I looked down at myself. ‘Shit – I thought I got rid of all that.’ My jacket and jeans were still twinkling from the accumulation of glitter I’d picked up from – would pick up from – Prudence’s car. It was ground in real deep along the seams of everything I had on. I brushed uselessly at it.

‘Leave it,’ said Boothe, ‘we’ll need to be able to spot you.’

I looked at him. He had pulled his arms in though his T-shirt sleeves and he was turning the garment around on his torso so that the “Rush 2112” logo was facing backwards. Since the thing draped shapelessly upon him anyway, it really didn’t make any difference which way he wore it. He spread his hands out to either side seeking approval.

‘Well okay,’ I said, ‘now that we can tell ourselves apart, let’s get this done.’

The elevator door chimed and slid open to reveal the dismal corridor beyond, with Winston’s suite behind the door at the far end. We trod sticky footsteps towards our goal. As we passed a door on our left, I heard giggles coming from beyond. I put out a hand to stop Boothe.

‘What are you doing in there anyway?’ I asked. He just shrugged.

‘Jus’ partyin’,’ he said. ‘C’mon – you know I’m gonna be steppin’ out here in a few minutes…’

As we neared the door, I tuned in to the throb of the prog-rock soundtrack emanating from within. Accessing my finely-honed awareness of all things heavy metal, I sensed that we were arriving earlier than our last visit and I quickly opened the door and pushed Boothe in ahead of me. I heard the lift at the end of the corridor behind us “ping!” as I shut the door once more.

Inside there was low light and a heavy fug of gathered bodies and smoke. I stepped over a couple of prostrate forms and dodged around a standing lamp: ahead of me I had spotted Prudence striding towards the door, her head tipped back draining a large plastic cup which, when she finished, she crushed and dropped with a loud belch as she reached for the doorknob. I made sure to keep the lampshade between us as meagre light flooded in from the corridor.

‘Why, Benson Waite,’ her voice wafted back into the room, ‘I was wondering when a real man would be joining this shindig…’

Taking Boothe’s warnings to heart, I scampered further inside, not wanting to even hear my past, future, whatever, incarnation speak. Dodging a coffee table on top of which lay an opened and all-too-familiar briefcase, I ran straight into Winston. He stopped me with a hand to the chest and breathed out a dense wave of smoke over me.

‘Hey man!’ he slurred, ‘where’ve you been? I was about to send out a posse…’

I turned my head quickly to scan the door and caught Boothe throwing me a quizzical wave as he headed towards the mini-bar. Looking back at Winston, I caught a flash of another Boothe over his left shoulder, diving behind a couch on the other side of the room.

‘Uh, hi Winston,’ I stammered, ‘you know me – better late than never.’

He gave me a sly look and flicked his gaze over his shoulder. Seeing nothing to bother him, he went on:

‘We did okay tonight,’ he declared, waving his joint at the briefcase, ‘showed those rubes who’s kingfish.’

Beside the briefcase and its pillaged goodies, Ned Pierce snored, his cheek pressed flat into the marble top and his face powdered white. I looked back at Winston: as my head turned he seemed to shift slightly with a few disorientating trailing afterimages. I rubbed my eyes.

‘About that Winston,’ I said, ‘I have a feeling those guys are going to be back for revenge – and I’m pretty sure they’ll be loaded for bear.’

Amused, Winston snorted smoke which – weirdly – seemed to stay still while everything around it moved gently in waves.

‘Let ‘em come,’ Winston said. He bent his legs suddenly, turning side on to me. He waved his arms dramatically in circling motions, which made him look like some kind of fashion-conscious, many-armed Hindu idol. ‘We’ll see whose kung fu is stronger.’

He threw a few feints to either side, his fringed jacket thrashing disconcertingly while doing his best Bruce Lee impersonation. His wheeling-about turned him into a crazy blur whilst leaving solid trails of smoke in the air. Feebly, I tried to grasp an arc of stubbornly unmoving cloudiness, before tumbling backwards into blackness.

The last thing I saw was Boothe, jumping up from behind his couch and calling out my name in alarm…

*****

When I came to, I opened my eyes to see two Boothes standing over me. One was goggle-eyed and slack-jawed; the other was quizzically regarding himself, a bottle of Jack Daniels under each arm and a bottle of vodka and some glasses in his hands.

‘Ouch!’ I said, sitting up and rubbing at the intense throbbing coming from the back of my head.

‘So,’ said the bottle-bearing Boothe to his doppelganger, an intrigued light shining in his eyes, ‘what are we up to, then?’

‘No,’ answered the other Boothe holding up a warning finger, ‘no, no, no, no, no: this is bad. We shouldn’t be doing this.’

‘Well, from where I’m standing, I think it’s a bit late for that,’ said the first Boothe.

‘Whoa!’ Winston wobbled into my field of vision. He looked at both Boothes, one after the other, and then looked at the joint in his hand. ‘I am so baked,’ he said. ‘This is some good shit!’ He wandered away into the ambience.

‘Wanna drink?’ said Boothe.

‘Are you crazy!’ said Boothe, ‘we shouldn’t be interacting at all!’

‘I thought we just couldn’t touch each other,’ said Boothe. He waggled the fingers of the hand holding the vodka bottle at his double.

‘Don’t do that!’ yelled Boothe flinching away, ‘you don’t know what will happen! That ain’t funny!’

Boothe waggled his fingers some more. ‘I dunno,’ he said, ‘it’s a little bit funny.’ He took a half step forward: ‘I ain’t touching you… I ain’t touching you…’

‘Okay, that’s enough.’ I hauled myself up to my feet. I immediately regretted doing so and grabbed the nearest Boothe by the shoulder to steady myself.

‘Eeek!’ shrieked the other Boothe.

‘See?’ The Boothe I was leaning on patted my hand. ‘Nothin’ happened.’ He turned to address me: ‘I assume you ain’t the Benson Waite from this timeline, right?’ I nodded my head while rubbing my eyes.

‘You coulda exploded!’ yelled Boothe.

‘Coulda. Didn’t.’ he replied. ‘Anyway. What’s goin’ on with you guys?’

‘Bad guys headin’ this way,’ I murmured, ‘one of ‘em’s got some kinda movable gate…’

‘Benson! Ixnay on illingspay the eansbay!’ Boothe was making rapid throat cutting gestures with his fingers.

The other Boothe’s eyes lit up like it was Christmas. ‘A moving gate?’ he breathed, ‘how’s he doing that?’

‘No idea,’ said Boothe, ‘but it’s bad. They’re carrying some kinda extra-dimensional entity ‘round with ‘em, an’ it ain’t friendly!’

‘That’s far out,’ breathed Boothe drinking the concept in. ‘That’s what I’m gonna ask Him for…’

‘Ask?’ I queried. ‘Who you gonna ask? Santy Claus?’

‘Oh. Nothing.’ Both Boothes said it simultaneously while pointedly trying not to look me in the eye. I narrowed my gaze at them.

‘I’m gonna bookmark that question and get back to you two later. Right now…’

‘“Bigger fish”…?’ one of the Boothes quoted helpfully

‘That’s right.’ I turned to the assembled party-folk and raised my voice. ‘Okay people – on your feet. We’ve got villains in town and we need to take care of them before they do any damage. It’s our turf and our town and we need to make them regret ever hearing about Innsmouth, Mass. Who’s with me?’

There was no response. So I turned the music off and tried again.

*****

To Be Continued...

Deep Waters - (Not even a) Close Encounter...

With hindsight, that was a pretty dumb question. There was plenty about to go wrong.

I was about three-quarters of the way through the salt-marsh, when I hand-braked a left turn off the levee and skidded to a slushy halt in front of Rodney’s Rubber Worx (It Does!). I grabbed the comatose Boothe and threw him over my shoulder before wading through the mud to Rodney’s office door. Through the corrugated iron I could hear the strains of “Lost Without Your Love” booming. Growling, I booted the door open and stormed in.

‘Aiee!’ shrieked Rodney. Then, ‘quick: shut the door!’

I complied, then dumped Boothe onto the pile of beanbags. Turning to the record-player, I turned the volume knob right down, all the way.

‘Oh,’ said Rodney, blinking in the sudden silence, ‘it’s you. I thought you were someone coming to kill me…’

I fired him a pained look. ‘And so you asked me to shut the door first?’

He looked at his hands. In one he held the record sleeve clutched against his chest; in the other was the mother-lode doobie I’d seen him concoct earlier that evening.

‘Well, it’s gnarly weed,’ he explained; ‘couldn’t let it go to waste.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Quick,’ I said, ‘give me a hand with Boothe.’

Instead, he looked at the door. ‘Where’s Winston?’ he said, ‘I mean, you guys’ve only been gone a few minutes…’

‘Never mind Winston,’ I growled, ‘help me with Boothe…’

I dragged the kid into an upright position and gave him a quick shake. His head just lolled around on its stalk, his lank black hair flopping wildly.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ wheezed Rodney through a mouthful of smoke.

‘He saw something that freaked him out,’ I explained.

‘Something like what?’

I looked at Rodney – he was squinty from the sting of his exhalation. I decided to soft-pedal things.

‘It was a bright light.’ I patted Boothe’s cheeks hoping to snap him out of it.

‘Wait – a bright light?’

‘Yep,’ I said, ‘kinda shiny.’

‘And was there music?’ Rodney was interested now, crouching beside me and shaking Boothe by the shoulder.

‘Music?’ I had lost the thread.

‘Yeah. You know: bah-bah, bah-bah, BWAH!’

My temper was slipping. ‘There was no music, Rodney; just some guys with guns.’

He stood up shakily. ‘Not a close encounter then,’ he said, ‘not even of the first kind…’

‘Moving gate!’ Boothe suddenly returned to life, sitting bolt upright with staring eyes. ‘It’s impossible! Benson! You saw the one I made – it can’t happen. If that guy has a gate inside him, he should be cutting himself to ribbons each time he tries to move!’

‘Easy, Boothe,’ I soothed, ‘we don’t know exactly what this is yet…’

He scrambled to his feet, fighting the bean-bags.

‘We have to find out,’ he said, ‘this could change everything…!’

‘Have a beer,’ said Rodney thrusting an opened bottle at the kid, ‘you need to chill out…’

Boothe grabbed the brewski and chugged hard.

‘Bottle baby,’ Rodney sniffed, ‘I can always pick ‘em…’

When Boothe came up for air I grabbed his attention:

‘So: back to the Gilman House?’

He nodded his agreement so I hauled him upright from the cushions and we headed for the door.

‘Love me and leave me, huh?’ Rodney complained in the background.

‘Sorry Rodney,’ I answered, ‘bigger fish to fry.’

‘Well, just…’ he began, but I cut him off.

‘I know – I’ll shut the door quickly behind us.’

*****

To Be Continued...