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Chaosium Digest Volume 29 Number 03
Chaosium Digest Volume 29, Number 3
Date: Wednesday, December 15, 1999
Number: 1 of 4
Contents:
* Trust No One - Especially Yourself (CTHULHU)
by Geoff Smith gmsmith@wolf.co.net
* Woods Haven (CTHULHU)
by Ricardo J. Méndez Castro rmendez@sheertalent.com
* Sweet Child of Mine (CTHULHU)
by Jorge Palinhos neonaeon@mailcity.com
* Cat Song (CTHULHU)
by Andy Clements Andy@satanspawn.freeserve.co.uk
Editor's Note:
It's the biggest issue of the Digest this year! We have four
great Cthulhu submissions: Trust No One - Especially
Yourself presents an interesting method to put some real
fear in the game mechanics of Insanity, Woods Haven and
Sweet Child of Mine are classic-style CoC adventures
featuring Mi-Go and Ghouls respectively, lastly we have Andy
Clements third and final, so he says, adventure featuring
H.P.L.'s favorite animals. All four are excellent
submissions.
This is also the last call for submissions eligible for the
Call of Cthulhu Hardcover Contests! Check out this issue's
Recently Released section for details on the prize. As I
stated last issue, all submissions must be received on or
before December 30 to be eligible for the contest. Entries
will be judged by Chaosium and they will also be handling
shipment of the prize to the winner. The last issue of the
year will be sent out on December 31 with all entries
received between now and then. My sincerest thanks go out to
Dustin Wright of Chaosium SW, who set up this contest for
all you fans who spend the time and effort on some great
submissions!
Lastly, as we don't have an up-to-date WWW archive due to
lack of space, I want to let everyone know how to access the
majordomo archive. The software that distributes the
Chaosium Digest also automatically archives everything that
is sent out. To get a list of all archived files, send mail
to Majordomo@chaosium.com with the following command in the
body of the email:
index chaos-digest
If you see files in which you're interested, you may
retrieve them by using the "get" command and specifying the
list name and archive filename. For instance, to retrieve
the files called "profile.form" (presumably a form to fill
out with your profile) and "demo-list.9611" (presumably the
messages posted to the list in November 1996), you would put
the lines:
get chaos-digest profile.form
get chaos-digest demo-list.9611
in the body of an email to Majordomo@chaosium.com. That's
basically how it works.
Now, I'll let you get on with the rest of the issue. Happy
Holidays!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
* December 7, 1999
THE CONSPIRACY COMES HOME
Official Delta Green web site more popular than ever, adds
new features
SEATTLE -- Pagan Publishing's DELTA GREEN campaign setting
for the CALL OF CTHULHU role-playing game is the company's
best-selling product line--and now its official web presence
(http://www.delta-green.com/) has reached a new plateau of
popularity, serving almost a thousand page-views every
single day.
Case Officer "Christopher", the site's shadowy admin, has
also completed a reorganization of the site, making its
massive databases easier to access than ever. "With live
chat, a message board, and a robust internal search engine,"
Christopher stated in a coded transmission while on
assignment in Borneo, "our fellow conspirators have an
easier time than ever of meeting a dismal fate at the hands
of the unknown."
The site's deep content includes short stories, game
scenarios, field reports from agents, online game
transcripts, images and sounds, and much more. More than
1200 files comprising 40 megabytes of data are available for
free viewing, and submissions from the public are actively
encouraged. Guidelines for fans who want to create their own
authorized Delta Green sites are also provided--the official
Delta Green webring lists almost two dozen such sites.
A recent weekend promotion with Microsoft's MSN.com brought
a surge in traffic that has persisted in the weeks since,
and a new audience is learning of the Cthulhuoid dangers
faced by the brave men and women of Delta Green. In
September the site moved to a new server capable of handling
the site's mushrooming files and rising popularity. November
brought the Delta Green email discussion list archives--a
searchable set of files containing many megabytes' worth of
high-signal-to-noise-ratio conversation on millennial
madness, Mythos monstrosities, and malignant malapropisms.
In coming weeks the site will begin hosting Davide Mana's
ICE CAVE, a threaded collation of the message board traffic
hand-organized by topic, and forming an indispensable
resource for DG fans.
"Alphonse", the seemingly faceless leader of the Delta Green
conspiracy, could not be reached for comment. A Pagan
Publishing marketing intern sent to interview him in person
has disappeared, leaving only a toothbrush and a scrawled
note behind in his abandoned Washington, D.C., motel room.
Police have confiscated the note and it was unavailable at
press time.
---
The Delta Green web site: http://www.delta-green.com/
The Delta Green web ring:
http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=deltagreen;list
Case Officer Christopher: christopher@delta-green.com
Pagan Publishing web site: http://www.tccorp.com/
**RECENTLY RELEASED!**
CUDDLY CTHULHU
5200 $14.95 GOING FAST!
The Wizard's Attic still has a few of them available in red
and blue.
http://www.chaosium.com/cthulhu/rpg/5200.shtml
TALES OUT OF INNSMOUTH
6024 $13.95 ISBN 1-56882-127-1
http://www.chaosium.com/cthulhu/fiction/6024.shtml
MELNIBONE: ISLE OF THE DRAGON LORDS
2901 $20.95 ISBN 1-56882-001-1
http://www.chaosium.com/elric/2901.shtml
ELDER PARTY Y2K NOMINATION KIT
2383 $14.95
http://www.chaosium.com/cthulhu/rpg/2383.shtml
** UPCOMING CHAOSIUM RELEASES**
All books are expected to print in the month listed...
But we all know Chaos Happens.
>>> DECEMBER Releases
For Call of Cthulhu
>Last Rites
2379 $14.95 ISBN 1-56882-137-9
Four new challenging horrors for today. A book of wretched
poetry, an incautious summoning, a Satanic coven, and a
house where bad things keep happening are the basic
ingredients. Useful as stand-alone adventures, or as changes
of paces for insertion into an ongoing campaign. Though
suitable for beginning player characters, these adventures
are dangerous, and incautious beginners will regret rash
decisions.
> Call of Cthulhu RPG (Hardcover)
2386 $37.95 ISBN 1-56882-148-4
The Great Old Ones ruled the Earth aeons before the
incidental rise of man. They came from the gulfs of space,
waged war upon one another, and then were cast down by even
greater beings. Remains of their cyclopean cities and
forbidden knowledge can still be found in the remote
extremes of our planet. Upon uncharted islands, within dark
ocean depths, under burning desert sands, locked within
polar ice, miles below the Earth's crust, they lay
imprisoned. But when the Stars are right they will awaken
and walk this earth once more.
Call of Cthulhu is our classic role-playing game of
Lovecraftian horror in which ordinary people are confronted
by the terrifying and alien forces of the Cthulhu Mythos. A
bestseller with over 300,000 copies sold world-wide. Call of
Cthulhu has won dozens of game awards. In 1996 Call of
Cthulhu was elected to the Academy of Adventure Game
Designer's Hall of Fame. Call of Cthulhu is well supported
by an ever growing line of high quality game supplements. No
Gaming library is complete without a copy of this book!
This new hardback edition is completely compatible with all
our previous 5th edition supplements for Call of Cthulhu.
Some sections of the book have been revised and clarified,
and the book includes some new interior art. This book is a
complete role-playing game in one volume! All you need to
Play Call of Cthulhu is this book, some dice, and your
friends.
-----------------------------
Trust No One - Especially Yourself
by Geoff Smith
Introduction:
"You drop to the ground drooling." "You scream and run out
of the room in terror." "You start shooting blindly at
everything in the room." If you're sick of saying this
stuff when a character loses his mind, read on. Insanity can
add a lot to role-playing. Unfortunately, it's too often
glossed over or treated in the most stereotypical of ways.
Hopefully, this article will help you make a memorable
gaming experience out of a little insanity. Use it as a
subplot and seed it into an existing adventure. The next
time a character goes mad, just pull this out and away you
go. We're going to explore the darker corners of an insane
character's mind. More importantly, we're going to try and
do it without the player knowing. In the details that follow
you will find references to terms used in Call of Cthulhu,
but this really is system neutral.
Putting the madness back into insanity:
The party, led by Simon P. Robinson, Esquire enters the old
building. Suddenly they're faced with the sight of a
semi-rotted corpse which is blasphemously active. In fact,
they seem to have interrupted it's awful meal. Everybody
makes a sanity check. Simon loses it. Badly. All of the
characters are momentarily too stunned to move. The horrid
creature (never come right out and say "Ghoul" or give away
any information the party hasn't earned with quick thinking,
blood and lots of terror) spots the investigators and comes
rushing hungrily towards them.
Freeze.
It's time for some fun. We're not going to let Simon off
with just a little drooling or wetting himself. No way!
We're gonna give him the full treatment. Simon (the
character) is gonna lose his marbles. At the same time
we're gonna make the player (let's call her Sally) so
paranoid she doesn't know what's going on or who to trust.
In fact, we're gonna try and make her question the sanity of
everyone around her including her own character. Because of
the shock and extreme terror, Simon is now quite mad. Simon
(the character) is now suffering from indefinite insanity in
the form of acute paranoia. Along with the paranoia are
occasional blackouts and hallucinations. Without Sally's
(the player) knowledge you must build the framework for her
character's insanity. In an attempt to remain intact,
Simon's mind has now constructed an elaborate web of lies
and delusions. The world must now bend to his perception.
Unfreeze.
The gore-covered fiend is rushing at the party. Now you ask
Sally (the player) to step out of the room and leave her
character. (Let's get a little Player - Character
separation-anxiety going) The fight now progresses as
normal, but you run Simon (the character) for the moment.
Make sure the character empties his gun, gets scratched,
falls and bumps his head, muddies and tears his clothes or
some other obvious things. When the smoke clears allow
Sally to return. Inform her, "You must have blacked out for
a minute there. The creature is lying dead (and remember to
sometimes let them think a monster is dead when it's really
still alive or unalive as the case may be). You don't
remember the fight, but your shirt is ripped and you're
bleeding from a cut on your arm." Now let play progress as
normal. The other players can fill Sally in on anything
else that happened (make them role-play it. From here on
your goal is to convince Sally that the other PCs, or at
least one of them, have gone mad. This is just one example
of how the threshold between the sane and the demented would
first be crossed. Try to choose an appropriately traumatic
experience to trigger all this. This isn't hard in Call of
Cthulhu.
How do we convince the player that something is very wrong?
That perhaps the other characters are members of a cult
That for some reason they're trying to make Simon think that
he's crazy - of course he knows they're the crazy ones
That THEY are out to get him
That the whole world has gone
crazy
Well, let's try a few things and remember it's your story,
these are just ideas. Add your own personal touches. Keep
'em guessing and keep it fun.
-- Simon pulls out his gun to shoot something. He pulls the
trigger and 'click' it's empty. Although he doesn't recall
doing it, he emptied it himself. As subtly as possible he
should be led to believe another character is trying to
sabotage him/get him killed.
-- While the characters have separated for whatever reason,
Simon glimpses (hallucinates) one of the other PCs walking
into an obviously seedy/unsavory place. If he goes in he
can't find them. If he mentions it to them later they will
quite rightly deny it. Was he mistaken or are they lying?
-- A note in crazed and wild handwriting is left for him
someplace only he and other PCs go. E.g. he wakes up in his
hotel room with the note pinned to his pillow. It says, "I
KNOW THAT YOU KNOW SIMON! IF YOU TELL ANYONE YOU'RE DEAD!
DEAD DEAD!!!! DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD" Maybe
it's just cultic looking gibberish written in goat's blood.
If someone highly skilled in psychiatry and handwriting
compares the note with handwriting samples from the
character they'll be able to identify it as the character's
own writing.
-- By chance Simon spots one of the feared Cthulhu Mythos
texts in the possession of another PC. Maybe at first, he
just gets a glimpse of odd writing and troubling pictures.
Simon might want to nab and destroy it, or just keep it as
evidence. He will remain convinced that the Sears & Roebuck
catalog (or whatever it really was) is an unholy text.
-- When another PC gives him a drink of wine (coffee, milk
)
Simon gets a fierce headache after just a sip. He even
finds himself throwing up while his stomach cramps horribly.
Be sure that the player gets the idea that it was an attempt
to poison him!
-- Late one night when all the PCs are sleeping at the same
place (hotel, tent
) pull the other players aside one at a
time very briefly. Ask them some mundane questions about
security precautions or whatever. Then talk to Simon's
player. Inform him that something wakes him up in the
middle of the night. Before he can get back to sleep he
hears the others outside his door (adjoining room, tent).
Have him make a listen roll and either way, tell him he only
catches snatches of their conversation. Something like
"mumble mumble
Simon's suspects
mumble
get rid of him
..not
yet
.."
-- Maybe Simon has a pet parakeet/cat/dog. He should find
that friendly companion nailed to his kitchen door.
Perhaps, he's got a nasty scratch that he can't remember
where it came from.
-- Simon is talking to someone on the phone and after the
other person hangs up, he hears another person hang up!
-- Pass notes back and forth at odd times with the other
players asking them for one bit of information or another.
-- Someone shows up and insists that Simon called them and
said it was an emergency. That they had to come
immediately. Simon of course knows he didn't call. Someone
either pretended to be him or the person that showed up is
lying. But why?
-- At some point the other character's will probably become
concerned for poor Simon. "He's sure been acting funny"
Perhaps another character tries to convince him he needs
help. Professional help. Maybe he should commit himself
for a couple of weeks. Have him make a psychology roll and
then pass Simon's player a note saying that the other
character seems kind of twitchy and overly anxious to see
him put away. Maybe Simon suddenly "notices" the other
character is wearing a ring with cultic symbols on it.
Conclusion:
Just how far things go is up to you. Does the character
secretly want to be found out and helped? Is he leaving a
little trail of clues behind that will eventually point to
him? Does his mind deteriorate into further delusions and
even murder? Be careful to keep the mystery alive. Most of
the overt acts, by necessity, will have to take place when
other characters are either distracted or not around. Some
of them however are figments of the character's own troubled
mind and therefore can happen in the middle of a crowded
room.
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Geoff, Susan, Alex & Isaac
check us out at
http://www.geocities.com/area51/dimension/1125
(continued)
--
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