Mister X

I need a way to bring the characters into the plot and in a good, old-fashioned Call of Cthulhu tradion I will use an NPC who is an old acquaintance of the PCs. This Mister X will serve as a starting point for the adventure, and as the investigators sort through clues and uncover the true nature of his esoteric reasearch they will be lead to the actual gist of the adventure - the Unnamed Mask.

However, to make this Mister X more mysterious and multifaceted each PC knows him from different circumstances and is familiar to a different aspect of him. The goal here is to give the players an image of a man who has many different sides to him and has only revealed one aspect of him to any given person. This will give him an aura of mystery and emphasize the fact that he is a man of many secrets.

Structure and Theme

Concerning Structure

My first thought was that this would be an adventure set in one room where the investigators sort through clues and the history of the mask is revealed through 3 or 4 flashbacks before the bad guys barge through the door. The “present day” part would form a frame narrative around the flashbacks take place in times and locations influenced by player input and as there will be several of these flashbacks it would be too much of a hassle to create characters for all of them. Therefore, my reasoning is that the players will create investigators for the 1930s US and these PCs will then serve as sort of avatars during a flashback, their skills adjusted to suit the period (or actual avatars if this turns out to be some kind of Yithian plot). For example, a Detective could be a sheriff or a Military could be a gladiator or a samurai warrior etc.

The Unnamed Mask

The gist of this Trail of Cthulhu adventure is a strange, unnamed mask and its esoteric history. As the investigators unravel its mysteries they inexorably doom themselves to a descent into madness and death as the mask’s Mythos truths are revealed to them. Hence, the actual physical prop will be a key component of the adventure and will be used like the documents in The Armitage Files to fuel player imagination and encourage them to make choices and give narrative input that will then be used by yours truly to improvise a mystery for them to solve.

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.