[Technically this should have come out last week. I had internet issues.]
It's here at last! Or it will be once I sort out DriveThru.
See, I trusted that Beta system DriveThru has in place. I used the Old Ways for the initial post, the Main Book. That's why you saw that on DTRPG but nothing else; the old ways work. Then I figured I'd use the Beta for the other three in the series.
Well, gosh. Also, darn.
Won't be doing that again.
What I will do is re-post using the Old Ways, so you should be able to see all four books soon.
However! Far be it for me to witter when I could Witter. It's out! It's here at last!
For those of you wondering, the Main Book covers everything you need to know about the main campaign concepts, the setting, important recurring locations, Read House, and so on. That's why that one is set as Pay What You Want. I was in two minds about this. I could have set the price at $4, same as the rest, since in terms of word count the Main Book is about the same count. Longer, if anything. But that didn't seem right, so I went with PWYW.
An Extract!
Rome's Four Things
You know what Rome is, for Many Mansions: Cthulhu in its Chorazin avatar. What does this mean in practice?
1.Dream Logic, especially bizarre and disjointed imagery.
2.A Sensation of Drowning or being trapped in a suffocating situation or location.
3.Empty Houses and Shopfronts, places that have been abandoned to time and the elements.
4.Blank-Faced Creatures or People, wiped clean of all features and expressiveness, with nothing left but a vacant mask of flesh.
As Keeper, feel free to invoke Rome whenever it suits you, or suits the plot.
For example: the investigators walk down a busy street on a Saturday morning. Everything seems bright and cheerful. Until they turn around and look back the way they came and see that the houses and storefronts they just walked past are all empty.
For example: the investigators walk into a dust-filled room. At first they choke and cough. Then their lungs begin to fill with liquid – or is it liquid? Can’t breathe! Can’t breathe! Must get out! Must get air!
For example: the investigators step out of their bedroom and straight onto Broome Street. How did that happen? Why did it happen? Why is it nighttime, when only a moment ago it was early morning? Why do all the clouds in the sky look like laughing faces?
For example: the librarian’s face is wiped completely clean, featureless, blank as the surface of an egg!
The other four books are scenarios in the campaign.
In Memoriam - In which the investigators may attend a funeral in a church that does not yet exist.
When Tides Are Right - In which the investigators may find themselves adrift on Pilot Island.
Your Number, Please - In which our protagonists chase up rumors of a fault on the telephone line.
I enjoyed writing these! I have a weakness for Dream or Dream-inspired stories, it's why I have a fondness for Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany. This let me play with that idea for ... so many words!
One of my weaknesses as a writer is that I have difficulty believing I can finish a novel-length project. I don't think I'm alone in this. Projects like Many Mansions proves to me - and me is the only audience I care about - that I can finish a novel-length project. Between them, the whole thing's about 60,000 words, more or less.
I'm also getting better at Omitting Needless Words.
See? I Omitted a stack of Needless Words just now. You can't tell, because they're Omitted.
Darn, that feels good.
Anyway! The added bonus is that I could slot in more of these without causing trouble for the existing work. None of them are timeline dependent. None of them depend on another scenario for their plot. Two of them introduce characters who could remain in the narrative but don't have to.
So! Want to see more of these? Then buy these. Encourage your friends to buy them. 'Cause the only thing which will get me to write more is sales, buddy, sales. Also, constant praise. But mainly sales.
I hope you enjoy Many Mansions!
Now, since I've had this in every other Many Mansions boost it feels a shame to leave it out:
This week's post comes to you from a state of exhaustion.
I've been working on a play for the past (I have forgotten how many) weeks and we unexpectedly lost a cast member this Thursday gone, so we're starting off on the back foot. Her replacement's working out but it's still a slog at the end and I shall not be sorry when opening night has come and gone.
However!
I've been working on a Many Mansions series to be published via the Miskatonic Repository and thought it time to boost the signal by posting about it.
There are three scenarios:
In Memoriam - In which the investigators may attend a funeral in a church that does not yet exist.
When Tides Are Right - In which the investigators may find themselves adrift on Pilot Island.
Your Number, Please - In which our protagonists chase up rumors of a fault on the telephone line.
All of these stories take place in Kingsport, South Shore, in the 1920s. It's part ghost story, part Dreamlands, with a dash of Jacob's Ladder thrown in for fun - and if you recognize that film reference then you know where this is all going.
Part of this will be recognizable to those of you who followed the Many Mansions posts a while back. This is an extension of that concept. It's written for Call, not Trail.
I don't want to beat you down with references and trivia since the whole point of a teaser post is to, well, tease (you naughty thing, you). However, since we're here, let me tell you a bit about South Shore and the Underwood Park cemetery, where the action takes place.
South Shore
The Many Mansions scenarios all take place in Kingsport and are focused on Kingsport’s South Shore neighbourhood.
South Shore is mostly residential with a smattering of tourist businesses. Some of Kingsport’s oldest, most historically significant places are in South Shore.
The oldest part of South Shore is that section which is closest to the sea proper. Merchants and families of merchants used to sit atop their houses’ sea-facing walks and cupolas, watching activity in the harbour.
The most modern sections, built in the mid-1800s or later, are towards the south of South Shore. These are often large, with walled gardens, and are some of the more expensive pieces of real estate in Kingsport.
It’s very rare to find a house in South Shore built later than 1900.
As this is a section popular with tourists, street lighting is more common and better maintained here that other sections of Kingsport. The roads tend to be paved and in good repair, often with modern sidewalks. Cars are often seen here, and there are plenty of places where interested persons can rent pedal cycles.
The public wharves and Coast Guard station are in South Shore, as is the rather exclusive Stratton Yacht Club. While there are some fishers that operate out of South Shore most of them are in Harbourside, along the Water Street wharves. The boats that call South Shore home tend to be more expensive, delicate creatures, not workhorse fishing vessels.
You’ll find more out-of-towners in South Shore than anywhere else in Kingsport. It’s not uncommon to hear refined French, Russian or German spoken; refugees from war-torn Europe with money in their pockets.
There are plenty of ghost stories in South Shore but most of them are gaudied up for the tourists. The most gruesome centre on Underwood Park cemetery, though that’s probably because most of the graves and tombs there are the over-elaborate and evocative kind favoured by wealthy, lachrymose mourners.
Lawyer Charles Bompas has his offices in a grand-looking building on Beach Street, not far from the Coast Guard station. He deals mainly in real estate disputes and wills and is well-regarded, if not well-liked.
Rome: nearly every house in South Shore has a witch ball hanging in the window. These small glass balls are supposed to ward off evil. At night, at about one in the morning, they glow with a peculiar greenish light and it is difficult to avoid the feeling that something inside the ball is peering out. SAN 0/1 penalty.
Underwood Park
This is one of the most recent cemeteries in Kingsport; the others are much older, but for the most part are no longer used. Underwood is practically the only cemetery in town with empty plots.
The cemetery is unfenced and well-maintained. Its groundskeeper and stonecutter is old George Cotton, who lives in a cottage nearby. Old George knows almost everything there is to know about Underwood; he was born the year the cemetery was founded and grew up alongside it. His father Hepson Cotton was the first groundskeeper.
Underwood Park was created by the Underwood family back in the mid-1800s. The Underwood family vault is one of the grandest in the cemetery and was the first ever built. One of the very earliest photographs of Kingsport features the Underwood vault, mid-construction.
The Underwoods wanted a cemetery befitting them and made sure it would be sizeable, verdant, and visible. They took land from the Read House to build it, making sure that Thomas Read would have to look out over their cemetery, at their vault, for as long as he lived.
Thomas Read is not buried at Underwood. Nobody knows where his corpse lies.
Underwood is overstuffed with gaudy memorials. Weeping angels, somnolent cherubs, elaborate masonry and saccharine epitaphs prevail.
Underwood’s trails are well-marked and wide, but it’s still possible to get lost in them. Old George has to rescue tourists now and again, who find themselves at a loss how to get out of Underwood.
Underwood has plenty of ghost stories and Old George knows them all. Once a year at all-Hallow’s Eve, Old George hosts a nighttime storytelling session out at the Underwood vault. Invitation only, and Old George is quite particular. Money doesn’t buy you entrance; Old George has to like you.
Rome: Those who go into Underwood at night say that the cemetery is much larger then than it appears during the day. Those who go there when the moon is full say that, if you stand at the Underwood Vault and look out over South Shore, you see a completely different, alien Kingsport. SAN 0/1D2 penalty at night, rising to 1/1D4 at a full moon.
This is a Trail of Cthulhu scenario seed set in New England and loosely based on the deaths of Stewart Mason and his wife, Leslie. From: The Last Voyage of the Lusitania, 1957, A.A. and Mary Hoehling, published by Longmans of Toronto:
On board also were, inevitably, newlyweds. The Stewart Masons had been married in Boston on April 21. He'd come from Ipswich to wed his brunette Yankee bride, Leslie, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Lindsey. Her father was a man of many talents: writer, actor, patron of drama, and millionaire, whose huge stone mansion brooded over the Charles River in baronial splendor ...
Soon, he was sure, he must encounter Bill Lindsey's little girl, Leslie, or her husband, Stewart Mason. He never did. Yet Leslie was there. [American] Consul Wesley Frost found her, on an embalmer's slab in an improvised operating room in the rear of the Cunard office. "She lay like a statue typifying assassinated innocence." Stewart was washed ashore further up the [Irish] coast. The news was cabled to Lindsey in Boston. It 'hung' forever after like a cerement over the big stone house next to the Charles River. It made the great hall, and the oaken staircase flaring upward on either side, from which Leslie had thrown her bride's bouquet days before, seem to Lindsey like a mausoleum ...
The seed is nominally set in Kingsport but can be relocated.
Hook
In 1915 the daughter of millionaire widower Charles F. Kinshaw died with her husband in the wreck of the Lusitania. That tragedy blighted his life, and all but ended his career as an early entrepreneur in silent cinema. From being a widely travelled angel investor he turned into a recluse, spending all his time at his Kingsport mansion by the sea. This former captain's mansion, built in the mid-1800s, was where young Sarah and her husband were married; ever since that day, it has had a funereal pall.
This hasn't changed, but recent activity at the mansion has Kinshaw's friends and family intrigued. Kinshaw, his artistic expertise undimmed, recently added a small film editing studio to the building. Nobody's sure what it means, exactly, and nobody knows what film he's been shooting if he's been shooting any film at all. However, some wealthy and influential people would pay good money to find out.
Enter the investigators.
Awful Truth
Kinshaw is under the influence of Deep Ones who have promised to return his daughter to him if he does as they ask.
They contacted him through dreams, pretending to be Sarah's husband William. William's body had never been recovered after the sinking, and the Deep Ones pretended that William was trapped in time and only able to communicate, imperfectly, though dreams. However, if Kinshaw were to build a special film camera to William's specifications he could improve the connection, and possibly establish a bridge between himself and his daughter strong enough to allow her to cross back over and rejoin the living.
Though nobody realizes it, Kinshaw has spent the last few months filming the sinking of the Lusitania from every possible angle, again and again. He now has enough film in the can to show every moment of the tragedy, from the perspective of every single person who died - 1,193 souls.
Though Kinshaw doesn't realize this, the Deep Ones are using subliminal stimuli. Each frame of his picture is underscored with Ry'leh and Cthulhu imagery; the Lusitania footage provides the impetus, the Mythos undertones are the punch. The overall intent is to create a kind of gate, using Kinshaw's emotional energy and the energy of anyone who happens to be in the room when he shows off his film footage, that directly connects that spot with Ry'leh. Not only will this cause a physical reaction (mostly involving several tons of transported icy ocean water) it will also spike a huge rush in hideous dream energy which in turn will blanket the East Coast with Cthulhu's message.
After putting the film together, Kinshaw intends to have a preliminary screening at a Kingsport cinema before taking it to New York. The Kingsport screening will be invited audience only. Some of the biggest names in American cinema will be there, as well as local dignitaries.
It's going to be one hell of a show, unless the investigators intervene.
Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91, Trail of Cthulhu]
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB
The Setting of any campaign is a delicate and tricky thing to get right. You want it to sing, but you don't know how it will change over the course of play. What if it doesn't work? Will you need to fix it? Is it broken forever?
The thing you need to bear in mind - whether with this or any other RPG - is that you don't have complete control over the Setting, any more than you do the plot. Even if this were a stage play, carefully rehearsed for weeks and with every least action plotted out and calculated for maximum effect, every performance is its own animal. You just don't know what will happen when an actor moves to center stage and opens their mouth, any more than you know how or when the audience will react, laugh, gasp, or sit in enraptured silence.
What you do know is that the audience - the players - are a vital part of the experience. A good play can die on its feet if the audience aren't engaged. A middling play can seem brilliant beyond compare, if the audience laughs.
If you don't believe me, check out this Broadway thread about the best night to go to the theatre. I tend to agree with the folks who say Thursday is the best night to go. Friday, the audience is too frazzled. Saturday, they're not paying attention.
Incidentally, this is also why, in any stage production, that the director hands control over to the stage manager before the opening night's performance. The director has done all they can. If they stuck around, they'd be tempted to fiddle with the performance and that would never do. The stage manager is best placed to look after the show, and won't be tempted to stick their thumb in the soup.
All you can do is write a certain amount, rehearse a certain amount, and leave the rest to chance. Exactly what that certain amount is, is up to you. You need to be comfortable, so you can raise the curtain without having a panic attack. It takes time to work out how comfortable you need to be.
Personally I've always liked sketching out the bare bones of the narrative and leaving the rest to the performance on the day, but then I've acted on stage since I was 15, done plenty of improv, and am comfortable performing. Your milage will vary.
So what do we know so far?
We know about the Antagonists.
We know this is Purist Dreamworld.
We know this is Kingsport, which means we have a certain amount of pre-written material we can slot in about Terrible Old Men and their peculiar ghosts, and houses up on high.
We know that the ultimate big bad is Cthulhu, attempting to create a critical mass of believers so it can break free.
We also know that the underlying plot point that pins all this together is dream logic. As described in the first post:
Let's say that this whole campaign takes place in the mind of someone who's going slowly insane. That the characters are aspects of this person's personality, fighting back against the horrors which are eating this person's soul. If they win, then the person wakes up - which means the characters die, fading away like dreams.
Of course, if they lose, then the person never wakes up.
That sounds pretty Purist to me. Further, it allows an extra little fillip: should a player character fall, then even if that character is replaced a section of the game world crumbles and becomes either less reliable than before, or downright dangerous. The loss of that portion of the personality = danger for the rest.
So this isn't real world Kingsport (assuming there is such a place). This is a dream version of that quaint little New England township. That means it doesn't have to conform to the version found in the written RPG guides, or Lovecraft's fiction. It can be just as odd as I like, and I like odd.
Remember, a CORE CONCEPT tree bears CORE CONCEPT fruit. Everything about the Setting needs to reflect Purist Dreamworld, and now's the time to think about what that looks like.
I find it helpful to divide the setting into Thematic and Quest elements.
Quest elements aren't automatically adventure locations; they can also be places the investigators need to go to find out more about the adventure locations. Libraries, forgotten chambers in long-abandoned chapels, that kind of thing. Places where they might find grimoires, sinister artwork or something else that will help them in the narrative. Those things will probably cost them Stability/Sanity too, but probably not a lot. No more than 3 points potential loss per Quest object, and ideally no more than 8-10 points overall spread between the group. You want them to feel tested, like they had to go to some trouble to get this stuff, but not so utterly trashed that they can't go on.
This may seem slightly high. After all, assuming a four person group with an average of 6 Stability each, 10 points Stability lost is close to 50% of their total. Remember, this is Purist. If it were Pulp, I might dial it down a bit. Purist is a rocky road; the investigators ought to pay a little extra for every potential benefit.
Also, don't forget you don't have to call for a Stability test if you don't want to. Or, if you feel you must, you don't have to ding the investigators more than a point if they fail. The players never get to see how the sausage is made.
I put it in terms of Stability and Sanity because, in Trail, those are the equivalent of Hit Points in any other RPG. Using a different ruleset I'd probably stick to the same ratio; that is, slightly less than 50% of the [Hit Point] total spent in Quest locations. Not that they have to lose that much, just that they ought to risk losing that much.
Thematic is exactly what it sounds like. Whatever this setting element may be, it fits the theme and so reinforces the theme. It doesn't have to lead to anything useful. It might, of course, but it doesn't have to. These are the in-game equivalent of the crazy person waving a sign that reads The End Is Nigh. At first you might dismiss that person; later, after one or two brushes with the uncanny, you may think they have a point. Later still, perhaps after you've lost a point of Sanity (remember, you don't get those back), you might realize that the sign doesn't read The End Is Nigh at all - and then you wonder what it really does say.
They Live (1988)
With all that in mind, and using the Rule of Four, what kind of Thematic and Quest Setting elements are there in Many Mansions?
Thematic:
Lightning and the Colonel a popular comedy radio show that airs every week on Thursdays. It stars Lightning, a clever but lazy employee at Wingate Boatyard, his long-suffering and slightly dim employer, the Colonel, and their extended families. It's set in Kingsport, and the action mirrors the investigators' actions. So, if last week the investigators went out to Pilot Island to find out more about the mysterious mists, then this week Lightning and the Colonel find themselves adrift near Pilot Island. This seems peculiar at first; it gets stranger, as the investigators realize they're the only ones who hear this broadcast. Everyone else thinks it's a completely different show, set in Milwaukee.
A horse-drawn Hearse, elaborately decorated is seen again and again around town. At first it's just background noise, something the investigators might notice while about their business. Still, it keeps showing up. The driver is sullen and uncommunicative, and under certain light the casket glows a peculiar green. How much business can one Hearse have? Why does it seem to be trailing the investigators?
Peculiar Whispers on the Telephone might just be a problem with the party line. These things happen. Yet why do these whispers seem somehow prophetic? When that woman says 'what a shame that poor woman died' why is it that the woman she talks about is named in the obituary column the very next day? What does it mean when that man repeats a phrase again and again? Who are these people, and why do they keep showing up on the party line no matter which telephone the investigators use?
Bellow's Cream Ale is locally brewed and very popular, particularly among fishermen. It's a little strong, and while hard-drinking watermen can down it in quantity and not collapse the average weedy investigator may find it rich for their blood. Investigators who get drunk have the most peculiar dreams, of a different time and place altogether. Very vivid dreams; almost as if they're living a different life. Oddly, it's always the same life, the same person. Even more oddly, though Bellow's is locally brewed, nobody seems to know where the brewery is.
Quest:
Mislow's Antiques in the Hollow is a known hangout of book thieves and other ne'er-do-wells. Mislow, an outsider who moved to Kingsport from New York in the 1920s, boasts that if it's in print he can get a copy, no matter how rare or whose library it's in. Mislow's a surly character, but investigators willing to take the time and play a few chess games with him get Mislow to open up a bit.
Saint Andrew's Shrine down near Harbourside's wharves is a good place to go if you want to hear fishermen's gossip. They don't open up easily around strangers, but folks willing to show Saint Andrew some respect earn their trust. Plus, every so often someone leaves peculiar offerings at the Shrine, offerings which might repay study. Where did those peculiar trinkets come from?
The Downtown Public Library is a good place to go for general knowledge, local history and other tidbits, and the librarian, Tredwell, knows a great deal for someone as young as he seems to be. He sometimes sounds more like a child of the 16th century than the 20th. If you want to know who's buried at that grave site, or who used to own that crumbling mansion, Tredwell is the one to talk to.
The Hilltown Artist's Colony is a good place to relax among liberal-minded types. You can talk here and let your guard down; nobody's going to be gossiping about you or spilling your secrets, Plus, some of the art these bohemians create seems relevant to your current investigation, and you're not sure why that should be. How do they know about the Green Foulness in the Hollow, or have any idea what's in those crumbling Mansions in West Town?
That's enough for this week. Next week, the final episode: Session Zero.
Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91, Trail of Cthulhu]
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB
Last time I discussed the ground rules for Many Mansions. This week it's the OPFOR, and to discuss them I'm going to talk about the Rule of 4.
The Antagonists come in all shapes and sizes. Small and creepy, large and squamous, impossible to comprehend and so on. The chief thing to bear in mind whenever designing OPFOR, no matter what the setting, is that they have:
Power, appropriate to their function within the narrative.
Goals.
Assets, to be used to achieve their goals.
Power, in context, doesn't necessarily mean POWER. It means they have some means, preferably a thematic means, to affect the course of the plot. Or, as everyone's favorite lich Xykon would say, 'Power equals power. Crazy, huh? But the type of power? Doesn't matter as much as you'd think.'
So what do we already know about the OPFOR?
Well, they are operating within Kingsport, that dream-ridden coastal New England town. We already know a little about Kingsport, thanks to Lovecraft and various other RPG books that describe Kingsport. We're not going to take all that information as gospel; we're going to make this Kingsport our own. That said, it's useful and time-saving to borrow some of what we'll need from other sources.
[Brief aside: let's say this wasn't Kingsport. What then? Borrow from the real world and use that. I can't begin to tell you how useful having, say, the Times Atlas of Geography, the Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, or the replica 1930s A to Z Atlas and Guide to London are. Having texts like these in your library exposes you to aspects of the real world you may not have realized existed, and are an incredible source of inspiration. Can't buy? No problem! This is why sources like Gutenberg exist.]
We also know that the big bad is Cthulhu, which in turn means that the ultimate OPFOR is going to be directly serving Cthulhu's goals in some way. Whether they're human cultists or from the cold, unfeeling depths of space, time and nightmare, they work to achieve Cthulhu's goals.
Added to that - because this is always true, no matter the setting or ruleset - it's useful to have a ground-level set of OPFOR that aren't the ultimate badasses. These are the grunts, the also-appearing-in-this-narrative, the supporting cast. These guys aren't working on Cthulhu's behalf, nor do they really have any idea that Cthulhu exists or has goals. Their sole purpose in the narrative is to muddy the waters, and if in the process they give the characters a few easy victories, so much the better.
If this were Dungeons and Dragons, and the main objective of the scenario is to breach the walls of Castle Ravenloft and put an end to that wicked tyrant Strahd, then the ground-level OPFOR are the random encounters in the forest on the way to Castle Ravenloft. Or maybe some luckless bandits, fellow adventurers, Vistani or other folk the characters meet along the way.
So having established these basic principles, what next?
Next is the Rule of 4, which works like this:
Whenever designing OPFOR - or for that matter anything else, whether it's the town the adventurers start in, the organization they work for, or the theatre which they notice as a potential adventure location, design four highlight points and no more than four.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The average player's attention span is short, and yours is not any better. You could go deep in the weeds and design twenty different things about the OPFOR, but who apart from you will ever know it? Even you won't, not really; in the heat of play you'll forget half your notes and curse yourself later when you realize you could have used the Thing, dammit, the THING, and never did.
That's why you limit it to four. You can remember four things. So can the players. That means come next week, or the week after, when they encounter whatever-it-may-be, they'll remember, and you'll remember, that this encounter relates back to the information they gained in the first episode. If they learned twenty things in that first episode then your chances of them remembering any one thing is virtually zero. Four, on the other hand, is doable.
For every one of the four things you detail, you can then add four things that are their specific highlight points. Four begat four begat four, and before you know it there's a plague upon the land and everything's Marmite forever and ever, amen.
Don't think for a second your four are the only elements in the narrative. The players will also be adding theirs, consciously or unconsciously. If they think, say, that the Deep Ones are somehow behind the [whatever it may be] then presto! They are. Same goes for any other element of the narrative, whether it's a question like 'is there a back door to this place?' or 'I wonder if the cops are secretly working with the bad guys.' If the plot element fits, wear it.
How does this work? Let me show you.
Many Mansions Primary OPFOR (Kingsport)
Peculiar storms swirl out at sea, concentrating on Pilot Island. It's said the lighthouse keeper at North Point knows more than he's telling about those storms, but whether he does or doesn't folk are becoming concerned at the strange mists and unseasonable squalls out there.
Empty mansion houses once the home of Kingsport's merchants and traders cluster in the West Town. Year after year another family dies out or moves on, and the grand mansions and beautiful gardens they once enjoyed go to rot. Strange lights can be seen there after dark, though most dismiss this as idle talk of the superstitious.
The Antique Emporium on Hall Street is where the Circle of the Sun meet, after hours. They say they're a civic organization like the Odd Fellows, but you suspect there's more behind that bland façade than meets the eye.
The Hollow, that odd low area between three hills, cobbled and ancient, hides something foul. Three people have died in suspicious circumstances, and the last had time to babble something about the Green Foulness before she expired. What uncanny thing haunts the Hollow?
Four things. Four leads to chase up . At this point you don't need to know a great deal about any of the four beyond the details given above, since the whole point of the ground-level OPFOR is to delay the characters and give them something to think about before the characters encounter the primary movers-and-shakers.
However with this information you can start salting the dig site, layering tempting nuggets of lore that lead to the primary OPFOR. The storms at sea make the news. Peculiar chanting is heard at the Emporium, or unfamiliar lights seen in those mansions. Depending on which of those nuggets the characters like the look of, you then start adding four things to the primary OPFOR the characters want to chase after.
If they concentrate on the Hollow, then the Hollow is where you add those four new things. If the Mansions, then add four things there, and so on. Always give the characters something to chase, but you don't have to push them towards something they're not interested in.
Which brings me to:
Many Mansions Ground-Level OPFOR (Kingsport)
The Rowdy Yates gang of loafers and bullies have a hate for [pick a character] and follow them around like wolves haunting sheep. What is their problem, and is there anything [character] can do about it?
The allegedly Haunted House on Harbor Street has been a local legend for forty years. It's said the vengeful spirit of the murderer's wife stalks those creaky corridors. Nobody's ever been able to prove anything one way or the other - sounds like a challenge!
Patrolman Donaghue of the local police is making things very difficult for [pick a character] and will roust them at any opportunity. If Donaghue shows up, things are about to get much more complicated.
Miskatonic University Students calling themselves The Magicians, after the Tarot card, are hot on the heels of some mystery or other and seem especially interested in Kingsport for some reason. No matter where the characters turn, there The Magicians are. What do they want, and what do they know?
Moreover there's enough blank space for character growth and development, on the players' terms. Why does the Rowdy Yates gang have a hate for [character]? Do you, as Keeper, need to know why? No. Not at the outset, anyway. All you need to know is that they do have that hate, and will work to fulfill it. It's between you and the affected player what that hate means. If none of the players are interested in exploring the Rowdy Yates angle then the whole business can be quietly shelved after a brief appearance or two. If they are interested then the Rowdy Yates gang gets its own four new things to explore.
Unlike the primary OPFOR you need to know a little about the ground-level OPFOR. You need to stat these out, to a degree. You need to have a rough idea what's in the Haunted House. However, you don't need to kill yourself with work at the opening. There's only so much the players will accomplish in the first scenario. They aren't going to knock out all four elements in a couple hours at the table.
Say we were talking about the Haunted House. Yes, you need to know what haunts it. You need rough stats for it, a concept of its power set. You need a floorplan of some kind for the house itself. All those things will be necessary if the players decide to make the Haunted House their primary objective in the opening scenario.
If.
On the other hand, if they don't, then feel free to add other elements to the Haunted House in your spare time between scenarios. They can even be thematic elements; say, Patrolman Donaghue dies on the same street as the Haunted House and is added to that hideous domain's repertoire. Perhaps you expand the basement, or add a secret tunnel that leads to other locations, magical or otherwise. You have time.
If the players decide not to go to the Haunted House at all, your work isn't wasted. Maybe the specter of Patrolman Donaghue switches locales, or that extra basement is added to a different OPFOR location. You can afford to be flexible. Your players never get to see how the sausage is made.
I hope you see the developing pattern. Eight things total, four of which are ground level and four of which are primary OPFOR. Any one of those items can be further developed with four more characteristics, but only if the players show interest. Otherwise after a brief appearance any one of these things can be put to one side. Perhaps the Rowdy Yates gang all die in the Hollow, victims of the Green Foulness, whatever it may be. Perhaps Patrolman Donaghue is transferred out of Kingsport after that unfortunate brawl in the coffee shop. The Haunted House on Harbor Street might burn down. Any or all of these things might happen, to close out an unprofitable side plot and also to emphasize the importance of the main plot.
Now let's round this off by talking a little about power, goals and assets, and how they affect the rule of four.
Going back to the Rowdy Yates gang, and without adding four new characteristics for the moment (though we could, and it might be fun), what power, goals and assets do they have?
It's not reasonable to suppose a street gang made up primarily of loafers and lowlifes control the hidden secrets of the universe, or even the hidden secrets of the coffee machine down at Screamin' Beans Coffee House. However, they do affect narrative (in their limited way) which means they have power, goals and assets. So what are they?
Power: there's a lot of them. They have buddies. Their buddies have buddies. If you put one or more of them out of commission then one of those buddies will try to avenge them.
Goals: they want to push [character's] face in, humiliate them at every turn. Why? Decide that with the player's cooperation. This doesn't mean they always want to beat [character] up; slipping a mickey in their drink or marking up their car might be just as fulfilling.
Assets: Not much (they're basically Credit Rating 0) but one of them has a car, another's uncle has a fishing boat, and a third has pals on the police force (Donaghue, maybe?) so in a pinch they're both mobile and capable of punching a little above their weight, occasionally.
Moreover if the Rowdy Yates gang becomes more important in future episodes then they might worm their way into better power and assets, say by striking a bargain with the Circle of the Sun or encountering the Green Foulness and surviving, with strange new gifts granted them after their confrontation.
Anything is possible.
That's it for the Antagonists. Next week: the Setting!
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB
As a change of pace, I thought I'd spend some time designing a Trail mini-campaign. When I say 'spend some time' I actually mean the month of May, so you have that to look forward to for the next few weeks.
Before I dive deep into the weeds, let's set some ground rules.
First, what kind of game will it be?
Purist, I think. That tends to be more interesting, though I have noticed that a lot of games which start Purist end up Pulp. I don't think any game that started Pulp went Purist - though I'm open to being proved wrong.
Second, what's the main Mythos threat?
Cthulhu, why not. He's rarely the star of the show any more; it'd be interesting to see what can be done with ol'squiddy.
Third, what's the campaign location?
Lovecraft Country, I think. Starting in Kingsport. We'll see where we end up after that.
Fourth, why that quote?
Because when I noodled around with this idea I re-read the Trail section on the greater Mythos entities, and was reminded of this bit:
Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91]
Many mansions in this instance means many hidden places within the human psyche, in which hides the Great Old One. Or, as you'll soon discover, many hidden rooms within the crumbling houses the investigators will search, looking for clues and finding only pain.
Let's take that one step further.
Though it sails a little close to Only A Dream for my liking, there's a way to play this which could be really ... peculiar.
Let's say that this whole campaign takes place in the mind of someone who's going slowly insane. That the characters are aspects of this person's personality, fighting back against the horrors which are eating this person's soul. If they win, then the person wakes up - which means the characters die, fading away like dreams.
Of course, if they lose, then the person never wakes up.
That sounds pretty Purist to me. Further, it allows an extra little fillip: should a player character fall, then even if that character is replaced a section of the game world crumbles and becomes either less reliable than before, or downright dangerous. The loss of that portion of the personality = danger for the rest.
So why do this?
Well, it occurs to me that I've never really worked much with Trail of Cthulhu. Bookhounds, Night's Black Agents, pretty much every other Gumshoe line has had its time in the sunlight - but not Trail, and not for a while. I think the last time I wrote Trail, the Unspeakable Oath was still a physical magazine.
Also, I haven't often worked in Lovecraft Country, and when I do it's nearly always for Call, not Trail. The two systems share a great deal but they're not identical by any means. It will be an interesting intellectual exercise.
Also, fun. Which is always important.
Next week I'll start thinking about the OPFOR, but as a conclusion let's discuss the Tree a little.
A CORE CONCEPT tree bears CORE CONCEPT fruit.
So what is the core concept?
Purist Dreamworld. Not, I point out, Dreamlands - that's a whole different ball of wax. No, this campaign setting exists within the dreaming mind of so-and-so (we can discuss who that is later) and it does so because this is all taking place within that person's "human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors." Cthulhu is trying to take over that person's mind, to make them into a believer so as to create one more means - one more mansion, effectively - by which Cthulhu can emerge.
I don't think I need to discuss dream logic here; I'm sure you're familiar with that concept. As a reminder, Purist is defined as:
A game of philosophical horror, in which the act of uncovering the truth dooms both active seeker and unfortunate bystander alike. [main text p7]
So every event, every scenario needs to reinforce that core concept. The fruit of the Purist Dreamworld tree is Purist Dreamworld; it spreads more Purist Dreamworld events, situations, locations. The investigator's efforts run counter to the Tree; they are always trying to stop more Purist Dreamworld from propagating.
That's enough for this week. Next week, the Antagonists. The week after that, the Setting.
