Miskatonic Monday #440: Fallen from the Farthest Star

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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Their arrival in Olympia, the state capital of Washington State, on Monday, August 20th 1877, begins with a bang. Or rather several bangs. As one Native American passenger alights and is distracted down a side street by another, the remaining passengers aboard the stagecoach are subject to a hail of gunfire from the surrounding buildings. Native Olympians pull out their own handguns and shoot back, and when they manage to get out of the stagecoach to look, it appears that their assailants are also Native Americans. The exchange of fire quickly fizzles out and if any of the newly arrived passengers go after the shooters, they quickly find themselves lost in the back alleys and side streets of the city, and before they know it, a gun is in the small of their backs. Within moments the passengers, captured at gun point, find themselves whisked out of the city, as is the Native American who was beckoned to from down an alley. In the chaos, one of the female passengers is spirited away by some men with Russian accents. Anyone left at stagecoach, is approached by a scruffy, oddly mannered man, apologising for the attack, explaining that the Native American attackers are Squaxin, one of many Indian tribes who have long lived in the area of the Puget Sound and some of the tribes have strange secrets. One is a very strange secret indeed. Something important is hidden nearby and they would do anything to protect it. Others have recently arrived in the city of search of the secret in order to take for themselves. The man, who introduces himself as Elwood Candy, tells the passengers that he wants to find out for himself and his employers, but will not say who those employers are, except that they are not the US government.

This is the action-packed opening to Fallen from the Farthest Star. This is also the messy opening to Fallen from the Farthest Star. The scenario is for use with Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West, the official Old West sourcebook for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Action-packed because it opens with a shootout, but messy because it is written as a narrative and there is a lot going on. In fact, almost too much for the Keeper to track of. The result is overwhelming, and arguably, whilst it should be overwhelming for the players and their Investigators, the same should not be case for the Keeper. Unfortunately, this is no error upon the part of the author, but rather by design. The aim is actually to split the party and for each Investigator to interact with the different factions involved in the scenario, including two different groups of Native Americans, some Russians, and the strangely singular Elwood Candy. The aim is that all together, they will have a greater understanding of the situation they find themselves in, but only if they can get together and relate what has happened to them in the meantime. What this means is that Keeper will be running longer solo narratives for her players than she might ordinarily do so for a Call of Cthulhu scenario. In several of the situations, the kidnapped Investigators will be asked if they have ‘it’. Which they do not, and further, do not know what ‘it’ is. In fact, ‘it’ turns out to multiple things, but the fact that Fallen from the Farthest Star is a multi-MacGuffin, will again, not become apparent until the Investigators are brought together and can share what happened to them. All this requires a degree of acceptance by the players. The opening and set-up for the Investigators in Fallen from the Farthest Star is anything other than a traditional one for Call of Cthulhu and to high degree, the players and their Investigators are being railroaded.

From this point, the Keeper is going to be switching back forth between the Investigators and the groups that they are with. In some cases, the Investigators are held captive, in others they have more agency, but all have opportunity to interact an NPC or NPCs and gain some information pertinent to the situation. There is chance here too, for some good roleplaying. So, what is going on? The Native Americans are guardians to an ancient mind-bending artefact called the Star Egg, that fell from the sky thousands of years ago, split into two factions who cannot agree what to do with it; the Russians are dissidents turned archaeologists and treasure hunters looking for Spanish silver; and everyone else? They answer to their own masters! The Investigators are part of a prophecy said to tell of a growing threat to the Star egg and are asked for their help. As the different factions discover more of the information they need, they will make their way upriver and inland to the site where the Star Egg is hidden. The Investigators are the catalysts here, ultimately deciding how the scenario plays out and who comes out on top. There are a couple of wildcards thrown into this mix and they may influence what happens next. Along the way, there are some entertaining scenes, including one with the ‘Greatest Thief in the World’ and revelations ahoy as to who Elwood Candy’s true masters are and what they are prepared to tell the Investigators.

Besides the NPCs and Mythos monsters, the scenario is supported with information about Olympia, its history and surrounds, plus information about the Mythos tome, El Naufragio de Nuestra Señora de Loreto, that drives part of the story, the various devices that the Investigators might get their hands on, and the alien ship itself. These are nicely detailed. There is also a timeline for the scenario; maps of both Olympia and its surrounds—for both the players and the Keeper; and floorplans for the various locations. The floorplans are period pieces and do vary in quality. The handouts include the colourfully bizarre pictograms as well as NPC pictures (some of which look not a little familiar) and details of two pistols new to Down Darker Trails. Lastly there are six pre-generated Investigators. They consist of a Hispanic gunfighter, an aspiring artist, a soldier, a Native American cowboy, and a dilettante would-be writer. The aspiring artist previously appeared in The Schoolmarm’s Ghost.

Physically, Fallen from the Farthest Star is generally well presented. However, the writing is not as clear it could have been in parts and the artwork for the pictograms cartoonishly contrasts the rest of the scenario. That said, the NPC portraits are all period photographs, as are the maps and floorplans, and they do add a degree of verisimilitude. The floorplans could have been clearer though.

Ultimately, the problem with Fallen from the Farthest Star is the writing. There is a lot of context and background up front, including some decent advice about adapting the scenario to other periods, and a detailed—likely overly detailed—history and description of Washington state, Olympia, and nearby—it throws the Keeper into the action without much thought or advice as how the set-up, let alone the rest of the scenario is going to play out.

Ultimately, the problem with Fallen from the Farthest Star is the writing. There is a lot of context and background up front, including some decent advice about adapting the scenario to other periods, and a detailed—likely overly detailed—history and description of Washington state, Olympia, and nearby—it throws the Keeper into the action without much thought as how the set-up, let alone how the rest of the scenario is going to play out. It is not until after the shootout and its aftermath is there any advice for the Keeper, who is told that the next(!) “…[S]ection of the scenario might be a little confusing.” By this point it might be too late. There is no denying the ambition of Fallen from the Farthest Star, but it really going to need an experienced Keeper to run well with its multiple moving parts, and even then, said Keeper will need to pull some parts of the narrative—the gunfight at the start of the scenario, in particular—apart and put them back together to her satisfaction to have them work effectively.