Post by Death on Dec 20, 2016 15:32:42 GMT -4
Ever felt meaningless? Like the entire world is stacked against you? That you have literally nothing to live for? Then these stories are for you! Well... If you like Tabletop roleplaying anyway. Basically, over the summer me and my friends would play short Call of Cthulhu adventures that led up to largest game based in the Masks of Nyarlethotep supplement (noted for being one of the most lethal supplements in the entirety of Call of Cthulhu history when it comes to PCs. Seriously, when we finished it last Thursday, we had only one character left who had known one of the original crew members- who then died fairly shortly after they met.)
It was near the start of my summer break on a weekday, and I was told to bring a character. Our DM had told us prior these adventures would be fairly short and we'd be going further and further into the future. We started out in 1858, just when refrigeration was starting to really be put into use, and our characters were either sailors or passengers. My character was a plucky, up and coming sailor who had joined the vessel they were on (The H.M.S Oceania) and were tasked with ferrying goods from Britain to Australia back and forth with several other ships.
We were given around half an hour of real time to introduce our characters, meet NPCs like Captain Julius Horatio and a guy known simply as The Quartermaster. About halfway through the voyage between Britain and Australia, the ship convoy stopped moving. The ship in front of the Oceania had come to a complete stop; and a large, yellow flag was being flown- a quarantine flag. My character, named John O'Neil and some of his other compatriots (a doctor from Prussia and a young scientist from the middle of London) were very perturbed by this. My character, being the up and coming, Dublin grown, Irishman that he is, is the first to volunteer when the Captain requests those to go across the divide to search the ship.
The others, being high intelligence characters, immediately try to pull the typical CoC player thing and just decline and go back to their cabins. However, the DM had the captain do something that would kind of force them into action- they weren't moving until what had happened on the ship had been figured out, which, and I quote: "Ignorant numbskulls who couldn't tell a heart from a lung" would probably end up getting themselves infected and delaying the ship's travel even further; plus making the travel slower in general.
So, begrudgingly, they come along for the ride. The captain of course stays behind because he's a cowardly prick he needs to watch the ship and make sure it continues to function. So we go over to this ship, the H.M.S Howardson on a small dingy armed with nothing but our wits, because what would we have to fight, right? We had around seven other crew members with us.
Boarding the ship, there's almost immediately something wrong. There's no one on the deck of the ship- like, it's completely barren. Things are scattered all over the deck, like the crew members had just suddenly vanished. O'Neil threw caution to the wind and began roughly searching about the ship, finding the doors to the lower deck all locked and barred.
My character broke the door down with an extremely lucky strength roll. We enter to find... Nothing. Again, nothing. Not a soul in sight.
Our DM was new to the whole Call of Cthulhu thing and took the whole... Being subtle thing too seriously. Yes, with Lovecraft you have to be subtle, but not to the point of there being nothing for the PCs to be scared of.
We had to end the session there due to our DMs lack of understanding of Lovecraft- which is where I will end this until I find my notes.
I know this may seem slightly redundant, but I do need to give you some backstory before shit really hits the fan.
