Welcome

Welcome, dear reader. This is the first post in this here blog about Lovecraftian horror and investigative roleplaying a la Trail of Cthulhu by Pelgrane Press. Ever since I read the excellent The Armitage Files campaign written by none other than the respected and prolific Robin D. Laws I have wanted to run it. According to the Pelgrane Press website:

The Armitage Files presents a boldly innovative way to generate blood-chilling adventures for your Trail Of Cthulhu investigators. Players seize on clues presented in the ten mysterious documents.

They choose which leads to track down. The Keeper, using clearly broken down step-by-step techniques introduced in this volume, improvises suitably mind-blasting mysteries in response to their choices. Weave these together into an epic campaign of madness, dread and danger.

Sounds intriguing, doesn't it. I know I fell in love with this idea immediately. However, I have never been overtly improvisational GM as I like to be well prepared for each session and have at least a general idea on how the session is going to unfold (considering no plot survives contact with players). So, even though I am an experienced GM, the idea of a fully improvisational campaign felt a bit daunting at first and I decided to try out my wings with a one evening session first.

Elementary, my dear Watson

I decided to use a single Armitage Files style document and combine it with another idea that had wanted to run. So, I took Arthur Conan Doyle’s original intent that Sherlock Holmes, the world’s greatest detective, really did fall to his death at the Reichenbach Falls. However, one year later a strange clock in his room at 221B Baker Street chimes and opens to reveal notes from Holmes. The players took the roles of Dr. Watson, Inspector Lestrade, and Irene Adler and set out to solve this final case based on these notes as well as deal with their feelings of loss, inadequacy, thirst for revenge etc.

When the evening came to an end I was quite pleased with how it all went down. The case ended up being a story about Dr. Moriarty’s The Dynamics of an Asteroid; old officers’ yearn for the influence of the days of the East India Company, and the avatar of Chaugnar Faugn trapped within an icehouse. Encouraged by this experience I decided to run a longer adventure using this same method.

Propmaking

H. P. Lovecraft and Cthulhu Mythos are a treasure trove of inspiration for prop makers and such sites as Deviantart, The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and Propnomicon feature amazing occult items and Mythos artifacts created by enthusiastic artists and HPL aficionados. I have dabbled in propmaking a bit myself and the aspect that has always intrigued me the most is the narrative side of it. It is fascinating to see how one picture of an occult statue, a few newspaper clippings, and a Miskatonic University label can create such gripping glimpses into the prop’s Mythos history.

Props and handouts have always featured greatly in Cthulhu gaming starting with the venerable Call of Cthulhu. Being able to hold in your hand the last letter of the professor you know went insane brings a tactile element to the gaming table that feeds imagination and immersion. The Armitage Files presents an amazing set of ten beautifully terrifying documents that the players can delve into and choose which clues to follow. These handouts combined with the pre-prepared elements in the book (NPCs, locations etc.) allow then the GM to run a sanity blasting campaign. In my opinion, to do it justice you would need to run it as a longer campaign and as things stand now that is just not feasible with my current group.

I recently finished a Mythos prop mask. As I was putting the finishing touches on it, I started thinking how I would present it, what kind of narrative was behind its discovery, and what kind of esoteric history I would hint at. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I could run an Armitage Files style Trail of Cthulhu adventure to create a history for the mask. And so, here we are. This blog will be, besides an attempt to try my hand at blogging, a collection of my musings on putting together this adventure and GMing it, as well as write-ups of the gaming sessions. 

More on the mysterious mask in my next entry.