My Call of Cthulhu campaign.

[Alex]

Ok, it's been a while since I've tried to track one of my RPGs. Let's see if I can manage to keep a record. The first session is hopefully going to be on the 26th.

The old house had sat empty for a long time. Even when people had came to stay there, they did not stay long. The house was too strange, too eerie. Odd things would happen that would upset the most stoic would-be tenant who would flee into the night never to return oft abandoning all their worldly possessions.

Whatever lived in that house lived alone and did not care for company.

[Alex]

The investigators:

One.

Betty Robertson. Ex Olympic Gold Medalist (Swimming) & Private Detective.

Betty sat in her run-down office in the bad area of town. Forlornly she looked over at a photo hanging on her well and remembered her glory days, bringing home her Olympic medal. Not for the first time she wished she could go back and relive those days. Whatever had made her think that she could parley her fame into becoming a successful private detective to the stars. Once she had fanfares and medals. Now she had overdue bills.

So. Many. Bills.

Her meagre savings were running low and she had no idea how she was going to pay her secretary at the end of the week. Men just didn't want to go to a female private detective. Not unless they were desperate. Her revere was interrupted as her office door slammed open and a man staggered in. "Well hello Mr Desperate" she thought. "Well hello there sweetheart" she asked flippantly. The man looked at her, panic crossing her face. Thinking she might have just lost a potential client she quickly changed her tone: "How can the Robertson Investigative Agency be of service to you today?"

The man spoke quickly, each word tumbling over the previous one like a faucet that once you turned it on, you couldn't stop. "I'm a relator. I just sold a house, but one of my competitors is out ta ruin me. I don't know which one it is, but every time I get a tenant in the house he drives them out. I tell ya, its killing my reputation. The previous buyers ended up in the nuthouse up at Roxbury. Some new guy has taken over the mortgage which I'd to let go at a fraction of its worth. He arrives in a week, but I need ya to go out there and find out whoever is trying to ruin me. I'm willing to pay you $20 a day, plus if you can make sure my new client won't be scared out of his new house I'll throw in a $100 bonus. You've got a week to complete the job. Whaddya say?"

"Throw in lunch and you've got a deal."

The man looked flustered and I knew I was in no position to bargain, but she needed all the dollars she could get. He twisted his hat in his hands and said "I can't afford any more than that, but..." The man rummaged through his pockets and drew out a crumpled handful of bills. "Here. Have $50 up front. Just find the guy who is doing this to me before he puts me out of business. Here is the address." He shoved a hastily scrawled card towards her. "My address is on the other side. Let me know when the job is done." With that, he turned and practically fled out of the office.

[Alex]

Two.

Father Mark Sheppard. Priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church, Boston, Mass.

The good father was conducting his regular Sunday early morning service. His congregation was made up of many of the citizens of Beacon Hill and the West End, mostly working-class people, but a few of his flock came from much wealthier stock. Not many, but enough to make him better off from his donations than most of his contemporaries in similar parishes. One of those very parishioners hung around after everyone else had left. He looked worried. As the priest walked over to ask the man what was wrong, he asked if he could speak to him in the confessional box. Leading the man over with sympathetic words, he showed him inside the box. "You can't tell anyone anything I say in here right Father? That's how it works isn't it? See I borrowed without permission a tiara from the Boston Maritime. I'm on the board there, and well I slipped a man some money to borrow something special for my wife. I had every intention of returning it, we just wanted to show off for the Paterson's annual. The thing he brought back, well it was gold and very striking, but too large for my wife head. We left it at home and the day after the ball, we realised it was missing, along with one of our servants. The man must have stolen it! Well, I am sure you understand that I can't exactly go to the police, and I can't risk going myself to get it. The man though, he was normally a very religious man from what I can tell. He'd only been in my employ for a week. He was always going on about God and how the second coming was near. I am sure if you went to speak to him, appeal to his better conscience that he'd return it to you. Look I'll even donate" the man went flicking through his wallet and pulled out a couple of pristine notes "$200 dollars if you'll go speak to the man. If you can get it back for me, I'll make a donation at least twice that to the church funds."

Father Sheppard had been trying to think of a way to gently turn the man down, but the sight of $200* could turn the head of even the most faithful man of the cloth. Sheppard swallowed hard and took the money pushed through the lattice of the confessional booth. "Where does this sinner stay. I am sure I can return him to the light of the lord."

Gratefully the man gave the priest the address he had for where his man worked. Father Sheppard had to keep reminding himself that this wasn't a bribe and the money would go a long way to carrying out the lords work.


*The exchange rate at this point of time was around $5 to the £1, so about £40 in old money for those from the UK.

[chainsaw midget]

Sounds decent enough so far. 

How many players do you have?

[Alex]

Four. Hoping to get the rest of the intro written tonight if all is quiet. Hopefully I won't have any idiots phoning up at 3am trying to report flying saucers this time.

[Alex]

Three.

Dr. Geralt Thurman.

Geralt ran his fingers over the deep scars in his face. The Great War had left its mark on him as it had so many others. Ten years on and he still wasn't used to the stares of children and adults as he walked down the street, although he did his best to pretend it didn't hurt him. Sometimes he even believed it.

Before the war he'd been studying medicine and he'd spent the years of conflict as a medic when it interrupted his studies. Being too close to an artillery round during a mustard gas attack had finished his war. By the time he had recovered the armistice (a surrender in all but name) had been signed. The fighting was thankfully over. With his face in ruins, Geralt naturally took an interest in plastic surgery, hoping the repair the damage done to others and save them from the life he was forced to lead.

Newly qualified and having accepted a position at Boston City Hospital, the good doctor bought a house through a local estate agent. The house was old and the area it had been built in had long since become a business rather than a residential one, save for this one last holdout. Geralt had supposed this was the reason for its cheapness and being at the start of his career he could hardly complain about its cost. He'd finished up his affairs a couple of weeks earlier than expected and had decided to put the time to good use. His solicitor had already sent him a copy of the keys. He'd just move in earlier than expected. He took the train to Boston, and then a cab to his new house. On first sight it was hardly an impressive sight. The yard was overgrown and the house itself seemed to lurk in the shadows cast by the two neighbouring office buildings. Still, it was a start. Then Geralt noticed the front door to his new house was lying ajar...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

[Alex]

Four.

Alice.

Alice sat at a party with a drink (mint julep (dirty of course) in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. To someone like her, prohibition was little more than a slight inconvenience. As she normally was she was surrounded by "friends" none of which she really knew the names of. They were just one of those things that came with having money. She was lounged out, while an assortment of hangers-on and admirers stood around. They were talking about haunted houses and daring each other to spend the night.

Alice felt so intolerably bored with it all. One of them (so many of them seemed to be called Simon that she just mentally referred to them as the indeterminable Simons), mentioned about some local house where he hadn't heard of of it being haunted, but everyone who stayed in the house either went mad, committed suicide or fled in the middle of the night. They started betting each other ever-increasing amounts of money to stay the night in one of the houses they'd been talking about. She did her best to hide a yawn and swigged from the bottle a mouthful of alcohol whose cost could have fed an ordinary family for a month.

Alice jumped out of her chair, and under the influence almost fell right over. "I'll do it!" Right then, right at that moment spending the night in a haunted house seemed infinitely preferable to spending another minute at yet another dull party. She pointed at a random indeterminable Simon and said "You must take me immediately dah-ling. Pick me back up tomorrow morning. She hadn't even been paying attention enough to hear how much was being bet on. Not that the amount would matter. Daddy would pay for it. Laughing, and arm in arm with whoever had been standing closest to her, she ran off to the cars, then ran back to grab as many bottles of wine as she could carry in her inebriated state before returning to the cars and jumping in. It was barely lunchtime as she and her coterie of bright young things sped off to find the house.

[Alex]

Betty arrived at the address. The house looked shabby. For some reason, it had survived as the area had developed, stubbornly clinging on like the weeds that choked the garden. The windows were dark and wreathed in shadow giving the whole house the look of some industrial creature's long emptied skull. She walked around the outside of the house. The 'front' door was actually located around the side of the house. The key was a bit stiff and required some forcing, but eventually it turned. She turned the handle and pushed it open.

It opened into a long corridor with several doors on both sides. Down the far end, almost hid in the shadows she could tell there were a pair of staircases, one going up and one down. She picked the door immediately on her right. It opened up into a still furnished living room. Looking around she could see most of the furnature while covered in a thin layer of dust looked fairly new. Evidently the last occupants had been deeply religious. The walls of the sitting room were positively bedecked in pictures of Jesus, crucifixes and other churchy paraphanalia. One wall was open plan and let into the dining room where a silver soup tureen still held the last rotting reminants of a meal. Clearly her client wasn't making too much of an effort to sell this place. Just then she heard the sound of someone entering the house and not being very quiet about it either.

[Alex]

There were plenty of shadows in the old house, and Betty lurked in one as she watched a young woman in an expensive party outfit that most likely cost more than she earned in a year stagger in. She had a bottle of wine in one hand and another three stuffed perilously into her handbag. The newcomer hiccuped and giggled as she staggered into the sitting room, collapsed onto the couch and took a deep swig from the bottle in her hand before falling asleep on the couch. She had drunkenly wobbled her way right past the private detective without even noticing she was there. Was this the person who was causing her client so much trouble? She looked wealthy enough that her necklace alone could buy this property several times over.

In a loud voice she asked "Excuse me madam, but what are you doing here?"

The noise woke the woman, who with startled eyes looked around for the source of the phantom voice. "Huh?" then on seeing Betty she drunkenly slurred "I'm here forra bet. Got to spend the night. Good night" and promptly closed her eyes again following another deep gulp from the bottle. "No way this broad is my problem" thought Betty. She had a whole house to check out first. If need be, this woman was an issue she could come back to later. Leaving her in her drunken stupor she headed down the hall ignoring the other doors and went to check the upstairs. The uncarpeted floor creaked as she walked along and up the staircase. Almost unconsciously she flicked each light switch as she passed them, but nothing happened.