Miskatonic Monday #354: The Plague of Scratches

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Plague of Scratches

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Maude Cort

Setting: A U.S. mining town

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Two page, 1.42 MB Black & White PDF
Elevator Pitch: “To die, - To sleep, - To sleep! Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life;”

― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Plot Hook: There’s a murderer or there’s a plague or there’s both

Plot Support: Staging advice, fourteen named NPCs, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Sparse

Pros

# Barebones presentation
# Easy to adapt to different eras

# Multiple plot hooks

# Good for the Keeper that really, really likes to improvise

# Dipsophobia

# Somniphobia

# Oneirophobia

Cons

# From the author of Millan’s Tomb

# Presented in a backwards fashion

# Needs development

# Keeper will need to supply stats

# Needs a slight edit

Conclusion

# All the right elements, not necessarily in the right order

# In need of development to flesh out the story, let alone the stats