Player Handouts: “The Madman”

This is the third scenario from the sixth edition of Chaosium’s “Call of Cthulhu” roleplaying game. It’s a relatively straightforward narrative – strange things are reported in the press from a remote area in Vermont and a trail of evidence leads right to the heart of the matter, via an alcoholic backwoodsman in the thrall of Mythos entities. In terms of handouts, everything is fairly upfront – a bunch of newspaper articles forms the background of the mystery and then it all boils down to talking to the locals. There is a pretty stiff fight at the end against the invaders of Strafton Mountain, which could lead to some party fatalities if not approached with forethought.

The bulk of the evidence can be found in the pages of the “Brattleboro Tattler”:

(This is based on an actual image of the ‘Tattler from July 1911 – I’ve obscured the date somewhat so that you can fit it in better with your own campaign timeframe.)

The only other piece of physical evidence which the scenario calls for is a piece of crumpled paper with a name written on it in pencil. This may or may not be discovered in a wastepaper basket in the missing journalist’s home.

And that’s it! From here on it’s all over bar the shouting!

(All information presented here is copyright Chaosium Inc., taken from CALL OF CTHULHU 6th Edition, 2004.)