Play@YSDC

Welcome to The Madman! It’s a pleasure to have you all on board for another adventure. This is a fairly short one from the 6th edition rule book. It’s short on detail but it does look like fun.

It has possibly the weakest hook in a game known for weak hooks; I quote – “Suspecting Mythos activity, the investigators drive to Vermont”. Oh, sure. (Thank goodness for Delta Green!)

A journalist has gone missing investigating strange fires on the mountain. A personal relationship with this man would give a reason to get involved, and I suggest that Henry be the one, as he is the only one we don’t know about in regards to birth details. If he is from the Brattleboro Vermont area, and the journalist in question was a friend of his father’s, or an inspirational figure or something, then he might have a reason to get the group back together and “drive to Vermont”. Hell, I’m tempted to get in the car and go myself.

How does that sound, innsmouth?

That sounds fine. Henry is always keen to help out friends of his late father, or it could be that the journalist helped Henry get some early stories published?

For the record I once drove to Vermont even without suspecting Mythos activity so you know none of this is completely implausible ...

I'll let you decide on the connection. Everyone learns of the goings on through newspaper reports, which I'll post later.

Why doesn't everyone post a little introduction about what your character is doing now, three months after the events at the farmhouse? Then I can post the articles. And then, to Vermont!

I am on my way to work, suspecting mythos activity.

Alice is helping Henry with his new novel. In addition to typing it up, she can proofread and edit it, and do anything else needed to get it ready for publication.

Isadora is preparing an exhibition of her works in Vermont. She is in touch with the rest of the Scooby gang after the events of "Edge of Darkness", and when she learns that Henry and Alice are going to Vermont, she thinks that this is more than a coincidence. Something along these lines?

Sounds like Isadora alright! I'll put the new thread up later tonight.

Henry has just finished a first draft of The Curse of the Gold Sarcophagus. He has been paying the now unemployed Alice modestly to help with typing and editing which has allowed him to finish the book quite quickly. Sales of his earlier work have dried up and he is now quite short of money although he has not mentioned this to Alice. He is planning a trip to Boston to hand the draft to his publisher. It is unclear how the new work will go down as it has a peculiar quality and hints at the Mythos. He has accepted an invitation from Isadora to read to her society and intends to read the first chapter.

It was really hard not to write:

"Alice, is the manuscript packaged up? Two copies? And the paper for the Theo-wotsit Society? So nice of Mrs Carmichael to invite me ... Say look at this in the Gazette ... a fire on Strafton Mountain! That's not far from where I grew up. I suspect Mythos activity. Let's get in the car and drive to Vermont."

innsmouth wrote:It was really hard not to write:

"Alice, is the manuscript packaged up? Two copies? And the paper for the Theo-wotsit Society? So nice of Mrs Carmichael to invite me ... Say look at this in the Gazette ... a fire on Strafton Mountain! That's not far from where I grew up. I suspect Mythos activity. Let's get in the car and drive to Vermont."

"Quick! To the Mythos Mobile!"

Sorry Team, busy day, be with you tomorrow, promise!

Congratulations on your new position as keeper Evil! I want to play in a game run by you, but I'm not really such a modern setting person. Please forgive me! Do a classic of gaslight setting next.

HoneyDog wrote:Congratulations on your new position as keeper Evil! I want to play in a game run by you, but I'm not really such a modern setting person. Please forgive me! Do a classic of gaslight setting next.

Thanks! I like every era, but I'm interested in playing the "middle ground" of the 1960s-1980s, something that's not explored enough in CoC games. For a gaslight setting, I'd probably do something heavy on occult brotherhoods, maybe use ideas from The Golden Dawn sourcebook... But let's see how this one goes first!

I'll definitely play the Golden Dawn one. I will probably try running a gaslight game in the future.

HoneyDog wrote:I'll definitely play the Golden Dawn one.

I love how the sourcebook models the workings of the occult society, with its outer/inner circle, various rituals, resources, spells... Historically correct, to a certain extent, but also intriguing and "gamable".

I'm not too keen on the scenarios presented in the book, though. But I've only skimmed them.

I haven't read it myself. But I really like reading about the Victorian era and I think the Mythos suits it a lot. Plus London is a lot more familiar to me compared with New England. I have to apologise if my descriptions of Vermont fall short of the reality!

I think the advantage of this format though is that maybe you have the time to take the scenarios in any direction they seem to be pulling towards, `cause the pace is so slow.

"I suspect Mythos activity!" whispers Isadora, and stabs her husband with a fork. "He wouldn't let me investigate Mythos activity again..." she explains.

Honeydog owes us a beer for making this all so seamless

I'm a sucker for unusual settings, though I also enjoy playing in the traditional ones. I've run some scenarios in the 1960s-1980s period here. Space Oddity, which was never completed due to all of the players disappearing, took place (mostly) in Philadelphia in July 1969. The Shadow Over Dunwich was set in 1985 in Dunwich, England.

I hope in-game beer is acceptable. Role play the slurping.

We're still in Prohibition times, right? So keep down the slurping, it might attract the cops!