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.