"Escape From Innsmouth" 6/25/23

Our intrepid team were asked to investigate the disappearance of Brian Burnham, a young man who had taken a job in infamous Innsmouth, MA, but supposedly turned to crime before escaping police and fleeing to parts unknown.  After some questioning of local sources and leads, the group reluctantly made their way to the ill-regarded town, where things turned out to be just as bad as they expected...

This went really well given the players were all quite familiar with Lovecraft's story.  They managed to play ignorant and get themselves into the correct mindset.  I think Innsmouth is well-presented in the sadly out-of-print Escape From Innsmouth supplement, and it gave me a wealth of material to draw from.  Mr. Waite's wife was an especially effective surprise.  

I have to note our group is a very practical one.  There was no truck with rescuing Ruthie ... her boyfriend's protestations were silenced (twice!) with a well-placed punch in the face.  As for the Innsmouth police, although they've always been careful about dusting mere mortals, I guess hybrid deep ones don't count.  To get to the prisoner's cells, they just locked the door to the police station and killed the cop on duty!  Yow!

It ended with a quite literal escape, with a carful of Innsmouthers in pursuit, finally derailed by a good shot from Judge Plamondon.  I downplayed the number of pursuing vehicles, not seeing how enough time would have been available to stir up the whole town, but spiced up the final chase by throwing in a last-minute attack by full-on deep ones (one of whom jumped onto the car and started clawing away before getting dispatched by a pistol shot), and something else which the team was fortunate to escape and not get a good look at.

A lot of fun with this one, and even the endless fish jokes didn't quite take the edge off it.

Session #1(!): The Haunting (aka The Corbitt House)

 After lo these many years, it has begun…

Though I’d wanted to return to rpg’s for many years, and started developing some potential campaigns in 2008 with the release of Chaosium’s Basic Role Playing, life continued to intervene for another decade-plus.  

Then, just as I was almost ready to start again, the pandemic arrived, and put all my plans (for games and everything else) on hold for another 20 months.

But, on August 15, it finally happened, and I again sat around a table with some friends for a few hours of dice-rolling and imagination.  

And, it seems, it was a success!  

So now, with this long-overdue campaign at last underway, let us begin following the adventures of our intrepid investigators.

Case # 1 – The Haunting aka The Corbitt House

Dramatis Personae:

Judge Samuel Prescott Plamondon, retired judge

Dr. John Silence, theologian and occultist

Vlad, man of mystery

Our tale began at a private (ahem) cocktail party, where a late-evening conversation with a local acquaintance led to a request to investigate a possibly “haunted” property in Winthrop, MA.  

Accepting the job, our intrepid investigators* went to work, with Vlad checking out the neighborhood and the outside of the Corbitt house (unrevealing) , while Dr. Silence attempted to communicate with the unfortunate former occupants (a somewhat inconclusive but hopefully creepy affair), and Judge Plamondon dug through public records to learn the house’s unsavory history – short-term tenants, rumors of hauntings, and a former occupant with sinister occult connections.

This led to a trip to the ruins of the Church of Our Lord, Keeper of Secrets (that name drew a collective exclamation of enthusiasm), a burned-out crypt of creepiness, wherein our heroes scored themselves a full-on copy of De Vermis Mysteriis (I wanted them to have access to some good magic and potential Cthulhoid knowledge right out of the gate – we’ll see what they do with it).

Finally, it was time to pay a formal visit to the Corbitt house.  After a close call with some very dangerous poltergeist activity, and a thorough investigation by the still very skeptical Judge P, it was time for a full-on assault on the house’s deepest, darkest secret – predicated by some serious debate about whether it was even worth the risk!  

The denouement, as the team faced off with the final menace of the Corbitt house, was one tense affair.  Only some quick-action and good educated guess saved Vlad from being torn to shreds.

With the Corbitt house destroyed, our heroes returned to Arkham … with some reading material…

*We have committed the heresy of not concerning ourselves with how these characters came together, or (gasp!) what their motivation is to pursue sinister mysteries.  Suffice it to say that (1) the already know each other and (2) it wouldn’t be much of a gaming session if they didn’t choose to investigate. To paraphrase Dickens, we must accept that these characters would go adventuring, or nothing wonderful will come of it.

Comment: After all these years, the hoariest of all Call of Cthulhu scenarios still works!  It seems the scenario was a hit (I know I had a good time) and the game is at last, afoot!