Stone & Storm

As one of the worst storms hits Boston, people gather along the harbour awaiting news of the arrival of the SS Champagne, late from the other side of the Atlantic and caught in the weather, seemingly adrift and in danger of running aground at the Massachusetts port. The harbour master has already acted and sent the FV Foggy Sea, a fishing trawler, out to where the SS Champagne was last sighted and there, have her crew board her, discover what has happened and ensure that the passenger liner is not lost with either hands or passengers. Once aboard, what the crew of the FV Foggy Sea discover is a charnel house. Signs of blood and death everywhere, corpses dismembered in ways unimaginable, with looks of terror upon the faces of the decapitated heads. There seems no reason to this bloody shock, this carnival of death which seems to have been played out up and down the length of the ship, from one deck to another. What or who caused this massacre of passengers and crew alike? Is it still present aboard the SS Champagne and are there any survivors? This is the big, opening dramatic scene for The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts.

The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts is a campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition published by Chaosium, Inc.. It is a short campaign, intended to be played in a few sessions, but can be played via multiple means and it includes not one, but three different set-ups to help the Keeper get her players and their Investigators into the campaign. First, The Order of the Sone can be played using standard Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition rules; second it can be run using Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos and there are notes contained within its covers to do so; and third, it can be run using the rules given in the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set. The first set-up has the Investigators as members of the faculty and student body at Miskatonic University, specialising in history and archaeology, asked to go to Boston to check on the arrival of a fellow academic, Doctor Nicolus Sebastian, and his team, who are returning to the USA from a successful if troubled archaeological dig in Ireland aboard the SS Champagne. The second set-up is for existing Investigators simply awaiting the arrival of cousin aboard the SS Champagne. Experienced players, if not their Investigators, will quickly realise that none of this bodes well for the poor cousin. Well, this is Call of Cthulhu after all… The third set-up is the investigators as the crew of the FV Foggy Sea. If the second set-up reeks of familiarity, then this third set-up is genuinely interesting and novel, bringing a streak of bold muscularity to the roleplaying game as well as presenting the Investigators with the pre-packaged Investigator organisation. No matter which group the Investigators are drawn from—and to be honest, the Investigators as the crew of the FV Foggy Sea is original and startlingly different—they will all find themselves aboard the fishing trawler, headed to the SS Champagne. Also, The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts can be played in conjunction with Call of Cthulhu: Arkham, since although the campaign has its origins in Ireland, it plays out in New England. That said, the first and second set-ups, with either students and staff at Miskatonic University or pre-existing Investigators, works best with this last option.

The set-up of the campaign does make it difficult to adjust other periods, more so for a modern setting. The introduction provides a good overview of the campaign and its background, and also notes that throughout, at the end of key scenes, the leads that the Investigators need to find in order to progress are clearly marked. Then it is very quickly into the first scenario, ‘Terror on the SS Champagne’. There is a certain familiarity to the scenario. A ship adrift, seemingly abandoned—or in this case, its crew and passengers rent from limb to limb, and a dark and nasty threat stalking its passageways and rooms, and then, once it is aware of them, the members of the other crew who have come aboard to check for the living and/or salvage. Everywhere is a bloodbath and the Investigators will need to work hard not to join as they try and work out what has happened on the ship. The SS Champagne is given a detailed description to accompany its deck plans and there are several scenes and encounters that the Keeper can insert into the Investigators’ progress through the stricken vessel. These escalate the scenario’s growing sense of peril, enhanced by the worsening storm, until the Investigators find themselves stalked by the Mythos entity at the heart of the campaign. Should any Investigator suffer from a Bout of Madness, there is a useful list of possible phobias to suffer. ‘Terror on the SS Champagne’ is quite straightforward and will probably end with a bang—though other options are discussed too, but it does leave the players and their Investigators with a conundrum. What do they tell the authorities when they get back to Boston?

The second scenario, ‘Murder in Greyport’, opens with a strange revelation. Marco Torres, one of the passengers aboard the SS Champagne not only managed to get off the ailing passenger liner, but lived long enough to be murdered mere weeks later! Which begs the question, “If one person managed off the SS Champagne, did anyone else?” If ‘Terror on the SS Champagne’ was action driven and linear, ‘Murder in Greyport’ is more open and investigative in nature. Taking place in Greyport, a fishing town to the east of Arkham, the investigation will primarily consist of two lines of enquiry. First, who murdered Marco Torres, and secondly, how did he get off the SS Champagne? The investigation is very clearly organised and so easy for the Keeper to follow. As with the first part of the campaign, the description of the town and the various NPCs and what they know, all nicely interconnected, are accompanied by a series of events, driven by the Investigators’ presence in the town and their asking questions here and there over the course of a day or so. All of them are confrontational in nature, whether with the local townsfolk or with outsiders who have more than a vested interest in the Investigators’ activities. There are options here also, first to add a possible motivation for the Investigators, and second, to add other murder plots, but they do complicate the situation. By the end of ‘Murder in Greyport’ should have solved the murder, determined that the victim was not the only person to escape the SS Champagne, and worked out where they have gone. This middle scenario is surprisingly mundane, its horror one of small-mindedness and human emotions, though there are more than traces of the Mythos at the end.

The third and final scenario, ‘The Hunt’, narrows the story down to a confrontation with the forces and agents of the Mythos deep in the Massachusetts backwoods. The Investigators may gain some allies, and thus a potential source of replacement Investigators if their interactions with the other outsiders in Greyport went well, if not, the Investigators may find their efforts to stop the cultists’ plans somewhat hindered. The climax of the campaign takes place in the hills above a children’s summer camp, long closed down due to a canoeing accident, requiring a trek into the woods in the bloody wake of the cultists and their master. In the ruins of colonial era settlement, the Investigators have a chance to counter the activities of the cultists and so save the world. These scenes are fairly complex in comparison to the rest of the campaign, so does need a careful study upon the part of the Keeper.

Rounding The Order of the Stone are several appendices. These in turn detail all of the new tomes and spells in the campaign and then the crew of the FV Foggy Sea as pre-generated Investigators. This is a diverse mix of characters. Physically, The Order of the Stone is cleanly and tidily presented. The maps are serviceable, but the artwork is excellent. Oddly, two NPCs that appeared earlier in the book are given entirely different illustrations in different styles in the third scenario.

The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts is a small-scale campaign both in terms of its play length, its scope, and its factions. It offers a solid mix of both Mythos and mundane horror, interaction and investigation, in a tight story that works well as an easy to prepare first campaign.