The Spiral of Horror - A Campaign Frame

I don't think this has anything to do with mermaids

I've been playing World of Horror, which officially releases next month (and which you should grab before it's price goes up with that official release), and it's made me think about an old campaign frame I once discussed with one of the Nightwick Regulars but still haven't been able to pull off. Here I wish to revise that campaign frame into something more concrete and see how it sounds to my gentle readers.

First, we need the equivalent of the Spiral from Uzumaki, the overall theme and phenomenon that will drive the strangeness of the campaign. Here is the first place I wish to borrow from World of Horror: we're going to have the imminent return of a Great Old One. For my example here I'm going to pick Cthulhu but I think you'll see any of them can work. An important thing here is we don't want one organization that is trying to summon Cthulhu, but rather he is coming and his influence is spreading throughout the world. If you're playing Delta Green, we can do that literally, but if we're doing more traditional Call of Cthulhu or Liminal Horror, or especially if you're doing Liminal High School, we're going to be focusing on how this effects one town.*

Why a Great Old One? They're thematically broad, like the core phenomenon of Uzumaki. Cthulhu is most utilized in scenarios in the form of Innsmouth/Deep Ones stuff, but remember that the story the Call of Cthulhu is about his effects on dreamers and artists. The madness of dreams could certainly show up in a number of scenarios, as could ancient artwork that seems to resemble the modern, or what of the "white pulpous thing" in the swamps of Lousiana or the stellar nature of his star spawn, or even his defeat of other intelligent races in Lovecraft's Mythos? Maybe a Elder Thing ruin activates an ancient weapon meant to stop Cthulhu's return based on math created by that ancient race but now it will destroy the town the PCs occupy. I dunno. Lots of stuff. If you need ideas for expanding the meaning of your respective Great Old One, check out the section on them in Trail of Cthulhu or, if you have it, the d20 version of Call of Cthulhu.

The stars are right

Next we come up with 1d4+2** of mysteries around the town.*** In my head players will have access to the hooks for these all at once. In my original Lerouxville campaign the analogous list of hooks came in the form of the notes of a missing friend. He had collected a number of notes on the outer layers of various mystery-onions**** and the players could kind of pick which one they wanted to investigate. Unfortunately I did not have these as thematically consistent as we want here - they were just a bunch of weird things - nor did I have the intention of ever revealing the fate of the missing friend. In hindsight I should've probably made that explicit - "you're never going to actually find out who killed Laura Palmer, that's just the frame for the other stuff" - but the first part is remedied by this campaign model. How you develop these mysteries is up to however you do it normally. I'm a fan of the method in the DG Handler's Guide, but you do you.

For the sake of our Cthulhu example, and because I have Liminal High School on the brain, maybe some high school Wicca types were all visited by him in a dream and now they're out in the swamp feeding people to those polypous things. Get a list of NPCs, leads, maybe a handout for one of their dream journals, and you have a scenario.

Do you read Sutter Kane?

Finally, at least prep-wise, we have the main innovation I have taken form World of Horror. In World of Horror, every time you investigate a location some event happens. Often these are related to the case but often they aren't and sometimes an animated head or the missing class of 1971 just pops out of nowhere and you have to run away or fight it. That's a bit... too much if we want to be thematically consistent, but there is something we can take here. What we're going to do is come up with a list of kind of one off random spooky encounters that can be inserted into any investigation. These are tied thematically to the Great Old One.

As I hinted at above, our example for this is going to be a dream-driven deep one with a fire axe that'll attack the PCs during one of their investigations. What's his deal? Unfortunately for the PCs, that's likely to be a dead end; however, he sets up the broader theme of the Great Old One thematically and introduces an element of horrific synchronicity into our game. 

Investigation!

So mechanically what you'd have is the PCs select the scenario - "let's check out what those witchy girls were doing in the swamp our friend seemed so interested in. Maybe they killed him?" They ask around and find out that a fellow student who works at the Shell station***** has seen them meet up in the gas station's attached Subway every weekend before leaving for somewhere else. Thinking they might be able to follow the The Craft wannabes from there, the players decided to stake out the Shell station. The Keeper (or whatever you want to call them) rolls a die - let's say a d6 for old time's sake - and getting a 6, rolls a second die to determine which of his unplaced weird things happens at the Shell. Oh look, it's the fire axe maniac! How convenient for our example! He asks if they read Sutter Kane. They look confused. He attacks them with an axe. Gameplay ensues.

So why do this? What do we get out of it? Well from our example one thing we get out of it is potentially a higher density of weird moments instead of mundane detective work. I know a player who has disliked most of the CoC/DG games run by the Nightwick Regulars because of the lack of relative action. This perhaps does something to remedy that. Hopefully. It also sets up foreshadowing for the final bad thing in our Uzumaki spiral. And if you want to be real pretentious about it, and this is hack work, remember, it adds to the horror of the unknowable or some shit. Spooky!

* You could probably do that with Delta Green too.

** Not necessarily literally rolling dice but I wanted to be more concrete than "a handful." 

*** Or world. Whatever.

**** To slightly borrow a metaphor from some asshole.

***** Get it? Because of the ocean?

Sinister Science Seeds

At the suggestion of Huth I have created a number of hooks for investigative/horror games based on 1950s sci fi and horror movies.

1950

• Reports of flying saucers in a remote area of the country attract government officials, but the intelligence behind the saucers may not be "otherworldly" at all (The Flying Saucer)
• A government investigation into piracy leads to an island dominated by life from another epoch (Two Lost Worlds)

1951

• Scientists observing a mysterious body passing through our solar system believe an intelligence from it has landed in a remote location on Earth.  This intelligence must be apprehended, and interrogated! (The Man from Planet X)
• Strange substances found in the South American jungle awaken alien parts of a white overseer's genome (Bride of the Gorilla)
• A group of arctic researchers and military personnel uncover a spaceship and the entity it contained (The Thing from Another World)
• A cosmic object is on a collision course with our solar system and threatens to wreck havoc.  Experts must work to prevent the disaster or to otherwise ensure the survival of humanity. (When Worlds Collide)

1952

• Strange extraterrestrial transmissions seem to be coming from intelligent life.  Is it a hoax or a genuine alien?  Either way it could throw the world order into chaos. (Red Planet Mars)
• One of a number of lost airman is recovered, raving about a strange civilization unknown to man. (Untamed Women)

1953

• Investigators attempting to stop an alien plot find their inquiries blocked by the police.  Could this be the result of mind control? (Invaders from Mars).
• Freed from its body, the brain of a sinister madman find it has new and terrible powers. (Donovan's Brain)
• Atomic testing awakens a creature not seen in millions of years.  The creature begins a rampage through mankind's greatest cities. (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms)
• Investigators learn mankind may be the true threat when they must decide what to do with the discovery of a benign group of extraterrestrials. (It Came from Outer Space)
• Astronauts threaten the Earth after being mind-controlled by extraterrestrial entities discovered while on a mission. (Cat Women of the Moon)
• Investigators awake to find that they are the last survivors of humanity and that the automated engine of man's destruction is seeking them out. (The Robot Monster)
• An unintelligent but seemingly monstrous phenomenon baffles scientists and threatens lives as it seeks to engulf a town (The Magnetic Monster)

1954

• An expedition into the remote wilds of the Amazon discovers a monster whose biology is completely inimical to human science. (Creature from the Black Lagoon)
• The bottom of the ocean may hold more terrible creatures than the farthest stars, especially when they decide to attack those on land. (Monster from the Ocean Floor)
• A mad scientist uses advanced (perhaps extraterrestrial) technology to create towering robot monsters. (Gog)
• Scientific experiments create horrendous monsters out of normal earthly creatures. (Them!)
• Aliens secretly encourage human exploration into science in the hopes that the resulting monsters will wipe out mankind. (Killers from Space)

1955

• An alien intelligence extends its hive mind to the animals and then humans of a small, isolated town. (The Beast with A Million Eyes)
• A criminal organization uses a scientist to create technology to aid in their crimes - including immortal zombies. (Creature with the Atom Brain)
• An astronaut returns to Earth infected with an alien organism that threatens the whole of humanity. (The Quatermass Xperiment)
• An attempt to put an inhuman monster on display ends disastrously when the creature is freed and terrorize the area. (Revenge of the Creature)
• A think-tank of scientists and politicians turns out to be a front for an alien conspiracy. (This Island Earth).

1956

• A mad doctor creates mutilated horrors out of human test subjects in order to better understand the nature of the body and the mind. (The Black Sleep)
• A mad dictator uses super-science to engineer his people into the perfect subjects. (The Gamma People)
• An alien invasion replaces people with identical replicas. (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)
• Explorers discover a subterranean civilization similar to a lost empire, but adapted to its fantastical surroundings. (The Mole People).
• Mysterious deaths in a mining community are the product of creatures awakened by nearby atomic testing. (Rodan)

1957

• An alien entity seeking to make contact with Earth comes from such an unearthly environment that its physical presence is poisonous to humans. (The Astounding She-Monster)
• Creatures created by atomic testing absorb the memories and intelligences of those they devour, allowing them to plan a world-wide empire. (Attack of the Crab Monsters).
• An alien renegade uses its powers to help it control humans in a remote town but is soon pursued by an alien of the same species that seeks justice. (The Brain from Planet Arous)
• A strange substance brought to Earth by a meteorite threatens to destroy a small town as it replicates incessantly. (The Monolith Monsters)
• A creature terrorizing an isolated village in a remote part of the world is actually a normal insect that was exposed do strange radiation when NASA shot it into space. (Monster from Green Hell)
• A group of seemingly-human like aliens attempt to take over the world with an advanced robot. (The Mysterians)
• An alien's mutilation of Earth creatures (including humans) is actually its attempt to find a cure for a terrible blood disease ravaging its home planet. (Not of this Earth)
• A man is turned into the living embodiment of a monster from folklore after conducting experiments on himself using animal blood. (The Vampire)

1958

• An organism deposited by a meteorite may hold the clues to early life on this planet, but the conditions now are such that the creature grows exponentially and becomes dangerous to humans. (The Blob)
• A sinister scientist uses advanced hypnotherapy to turn those seeking treatment into mindless slaves. (The Electronic Monster)
• A scientist's experiment turns him into a half-man half-monster and relegates his intelligence to a place incapable of dealing with his new form. (The Fly)
• An alien entity seeking to sabotage mankind's scientific advancement takes possession of human children. (The Space Children)
• A mysterious fog in a remote area is actually the portal to another world, and it unleashes a terrifying monster. (The Crawling Eye)
• Radiation gives a man strange powers that he turns towards crime and violence. (The H-Man)
• The strange behavior exhibited by a number of townsfolk may be evidence that they have been replaced by alien entities. (I Married a Monster from Outer Space)
• Experiments into ESP, telekinesis, and atomic radiation go awry, creating a thought-creature hungry for human brains. (Fiend Without a Face)

1959

• A scientists experiments on himself allow him to access other dimensions.  At first he uses this for self-advancement (and even criminal pursuits) but soon realizes it has a horrible toll on his body and mind. (4D Man)
• A sink hole in Florida reveals that ancient monsters aren't just found in far flung locations. (Attack of the Giant Leeches)
• Invaders from another planet seek to conquer Earth using their power to make items invisible to the human eye. (The Invisible Invaders)
• A doctor seeking to end world hunger accidentally makes a group of giant, ravenous shrews.  (The Killer Shrews)
• A scientist unlocks the secret to eternal life, but it requires him to take the brain tissue from living subjects. (The Man Who Could Cheat Death)
• Aliens take on the form of adolescent humans to hopefully catch human authorities with their pants down. (Teenagers from Outer Space)
• An attempt to arrest the aging process turns a woman into a hybrid insect creature. (The Wasp Woman)

Here's a bonus one from 1963, since Blue Oyster Cult wrongly thinks its from the '50s.

• A scientist's experiments with vision allow him to see things normally outside the human possibility space.  What he sees causes misery and madness. (X: The Man with X-ray Eyes)

Lerouxville

A long while ago I ran a modern Call of Cthulhu game on G+ set in a fictional town in Louisiana modeled after my hometown of Hattiesburg Mississippi.  There is a fairly likely chance that I'll be running a mini-campaign for my home group in the Classic/1920s era of Cthulhu.  As a thought experiment this morning, I decided to sketch out what I think Lerouxville and its surroundings would be like in the '20s.

Lerouxville - An Arkham-sized town that, while extant as long ago as 1810, grew in prominence due to a mass migration of carpet baggers after the Civil War.  It was for many decades a combination logging town and rail hub, but as logging has moved to the Pacific Northwest the magnates of the town have come to focus more on other forms of commerce.  The town is surprisingly Klan free, in part due to the Klan's opposition to bootlegging, which has recently lined the pockets of many residents.

Borden College - This college was founded about 30 years ago as a teaching college, but in the intervening years it has added a number of eclectic departments.  It is known throughout the region as a haven for radicals and wackos, many of whom were rejected from the more conservative institutions nearby.

Perilloup - This small community is a mix of Cajuns, African Americans, and mixed raced individuals and the subject of many rumors.  It is older than Lerouxville and by historical accident is home to the Skipwith Parish* courthouse.  It is home to an illicit gambling house and brothel, originally intended to service the loggers in Lerouxville.  These establishments have seen better days.  Many of the residents here make alcohol, which is smuggled to other parts of the country via Lerouxville.

Pinewood - A small farming community of old Southerners with only a handful of last names.  Locals are poor, insular, and bitter.  About halfway between Lerouxville and Pinewood is the Pinewood Asylum, which was built with a grant from the Collins family of Lerouxville.

Bayeux St Foy - About 30 miles south of Lerouxville, many of the Lerouxville magnates have second homes here to enjoy the lush scenery.  Many of these homes include surrounding communities of share croppers.  The town is rounded out with old cajun families who are resentful of the "New People."

*About 1/3 of Lerouxville lies in Skipwith Parish

Home Group Players Do not Read Beyond this Point
The supernatural elements can be roughly broken down as follows:

- The weird shit at the college - strange science experiments, weird ancient books, etc.

- The various turpitudes of the town magnates - usually pacts with Shub-Niggurath or Nyrlathotep for their own prosperity.  Some will have oddly old world or New England character.

- Hoodoo - usually presented as weird practices but some of which will have obvious mythos roots.  Practiced by African Americans, Cajuns, and old Southern families.

- D'Iberville Forest - strange standing stones in a region with mostly clay and sandy soils, "swamp monsters," half-monster squatters

- Yig - might use Yig to tie it all together because of its association with African, New World, and really really old Old World stuff.  Also there's just a lot of snakes

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