Smoke & Mirrors

Designed to be used with the GORE™ Open Game Content Rules published by Goblinoid Games—best known for the Old School Renaissance Retroclone, Labyrinth Lord—The Fenworthy Inheritance proved to be an interesting scenario that was almost, but not quite a Call of Cthulhu scenario. Set in the 1920s, The Fenworthy Inheritance is a one-shot scenario set in England’s West Country in which a walking holiday goes awry when the characters encounter death on the road, rural superstition, village politics, and revenge from down the years… Compatible with Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition—and with some effort with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition—the scenario came with pre-generated characters and some excellent artwork. Although hampered by some poor production values, The Fenworthy Inheritance was a worthy first horror scenario from MontiDots Ltd. Now it has a sequel—The Smoking Mirror.

The Smoking Mirror is not a one-shot and is very much designed as a sequel to The Fenworthy Inheritance. This does not mean that it cannot be run as a one-shot or as part of an ongoing campaign, but it requires experienced investigators and the need to remove or change any reference to the seven pre-generated investigators that are included and which are part of the series. Besides these seven pre-generated investigators, it comes with ten or so decently done handouts, a sheaf of maps, and some excellent illustrations. It also includes a quick guide to the GORE™ Open Game Content Rules, to which are added rules for reading occult tomes, as well as casting various spells. 

The scenario takes place in the last week of August, 1922. It takes the investigators away from the countryside of The Fenworthy Inheritance to the cultural high spots and low spots of the Big Smoke. Just as the British Museum has taken delivery of a consignment of artefacts from a newly discovered city in Honduras, one of its employees from the Department of the Americas goes missing. Tristam Soames is a specialist in hieroglyphics and his father, Lord Soames, is worried enough to hire the investigators rather than the police. Their investigative efforts will hopefully reveal a plot involving Doctor John Dee, Aztec cosmology, the Bright Young Things, and potentially, the wish that the Spanish Armada really had invaded England in 1588. Not only is the plot timed, being a race against the clock, there is even potential for the scenario to get all ‘time-wimey’ and the investigators to get a second go at solving the mystery and thwarting the threat should they fail the first time around.

The Smoking Mirror is quite a tight little scenario, both geographically and chronologically. The latter because it takes place over three days and the former because it mainly takes place in Bloomsbury and Soho, though there is the possibility of a day trip out to Oxford. The tight time frame also means that the Game Master needs to keep track of where each of the NPCs are at any one time. Thankfully, the tight nature of the scenario also means that there are only a few NPCs that the Game Master must keep track of, but doing so is important because it determines what they know and consequently, what their actions will be.

In terms of its plot, The Smoking Mirror is nothing that we have not seen before, but many elements of said plot benefit from a fresh pair of eyes. That said, it has the potential to overburden the investigators with books, many of which take days to fully understand and there may not be enough time to really benefit from their contents. Also, the climax—the summoning of a very bloody god—could have been better handled and more clearly presented and the scenario leaves what happens if the investigators succeed up to the Game Master to determine. These will not necessarily be much of an issue for the experienced Game Master, but anyone less experienced may have a problem presenting or developing solutions to these problems. 

Physically, The Smoking Mirror is a mixed bag. Both the layout and the floor plans are clean if perfunctory, whilst the artwork is excellent. The latter should be no surprise given that the author is also a published artist. Unfortunately, The Smoking Mirror is in need of two things being fixed to make it a decent scenario. One is the better handling of the climax and its aftermath. The second is its editing. The Smoking Mirror suffers from a case of too many homonyms and too many awkward phrasings. Now none of this is sufficient to hinder someone from running The Smoking Mirror, but in several places a Game Master will need to pause to check and see if that is what the author really meant to say. 

There is much to like about The Smoking Mirror. It has some lovely illustrations, it has a solid, playable plot, and it makes good use of the locations it details. Certainly, the scenario handles its visits to the British Museum in a far better manner than the previous efforts of Lovecraftian investigative horror—Madness in London Town and Five Go Mad in Egypt—and the limited selection of locations and their descriptions make them easy to bring into a game. That said, the scenario could have benefited from another editorial, if not a developmental, pass—perhaps two. Then perhaps, the scenario will be as professional a release as the author and artist wants it to be. The Smoking Mirror is not unplayable and it is not unenjoyable, it is just not as polished as the author intended it to be.

—oOo—

At the time of publication, MontiDots Ltd. did not have a website. It does however, have a presence on Facebook and the author can be contacted directly via email: info@montidots.co.uk. As of September, 2016, MontiDotsLtd. titles are available on RPGnow, including both The Fenworthy Inheritance and The Smoking Mirror.

Fenworthy Hammer Horror

The Fenworthy Inheritance is almost, but not quite a Call of Cthulhu scenario. Published by MontiDots Ltd., it is a scenario set in the classic period for Chaosium, Inc.’s RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror, the Jazz Age of the 1920s; its mechanics do involve percentiles and they do make use of a sanity-style mechanic; and it is a horror scenario. More specifically, it employs the GORE™ Open Game Content Rules published by Goblinoid Games—best known for the Old School Renaissance Retroclone, Labyrinth Lord—to which MontiDots Ltd. has added its own Horror Rating System. As to the horror, although there is certainly a nod to the Lovecraftian, it is feels more influenced by the works of Dennis Wheatley and Hammer Horror with perhaps a tip of the deerstalker to The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The Fenworthy Inheritance is a one-shot scenario set in and around the village of Fenworthy on Dartmoor, in the county of Devon in southwest England in the years following the Great War, specifically 1922. It is the destination for businessmen and Great War veteran, David Farrington, who has been instructed by their parents to take his sister Jinx on a walking holiday in order to recover from her having spent too much time in the company of the Bright Young Things. They will each be joined by various friends, enabling the scenario to be played by between two and seven players, though four to six is probably the optimum number, there being seven pre-generated characters provided to that end. Unfortunately, a sedate weekend is the last thing that they will enjoy when they encounter death on the road, rural superstition, village politics, and revenge from down the years…

The scenario takes place over the course of a long weekend. The set-up is fairly lengthy, but it should be enough to draw the player characters into the strange things that are going on in and around Fenworthy. This is very much a physical investigation. There is very little in the way of having to read through musty tomes and instead the player characters will find themselves relying upon interaction, perception, and stealth if they are learn anything. Of the seven pre-generated investigators provided, only one of them is a natural investigator, a journalist, so the others may have to be worked hard to involve themselves in the strange goings on in the village.

Although there is no advice as to using The Fenworthy Inheritance with characters other than the ones provided, the scenario does come with suggestions as to possible sequels. These push the events in The Fenworthy Inheritance towards a more Lovecraftian bent, perhaps even verging on Delta Green territory just a little...

The Fenworthy Inheritance is written for use with Goblinoid Games’ free to use GORE™ Open Game Content Rules, themselves based on a 1980s role-playing game. Parallels between GORE™ and Call of Cthulhu are certainly apparent, most obviously in the use by GORE™ of a Challenge Table that looks very much like the Resistance Table to be found in Chaosium, Inc.’s Basic Roleplaying and the other RPGs based on its mechanics. The basics of the percentile rules are explained in the opening pages of the scenario, including some notes towards character creation, though this explanation is not fully detailed. To this, the author has added a new set of rules for handling being exposed to the unknown and the supernatural and the shocking effect this has on the psyche. Every character—player character or NPC—has a Stability rating, a percentile score that represents his state of mind. If he encounters a horrific event, then a character can lose points from his Stability, leading to a deterioration in his state of mind. The strength of any horrifying encounter, whether discovering a dead body, reading a malignant tome, or being chased by something eldritch, is measured by its Horror Rating. This Horror Rating is compared against the character’s Power attribute on the Challenge Table—modified by the character’s Stability rating—to give a saving value he needs to roll under.

Over all, the Horror Rating and Stability mechanics are a rough facsimile of the Sanity mechanics from Call of Cthulhu. They are not quite as simple or elegant, being a bit more complex and fiddlesome, but they do get the job done. Together with the GORE™ Open Game Content Rules, they provide a familiarity that makes The Fenworthy Inheritance readily accessible for anyone who has played Call of Cthulhu—at least up to Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition. Then again, like all material published for Call of Cthulhu, it would not be a challenge for the Game Master to adapt The Fenworthy Inheritance to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

Physically, The Fenworthy Inheritance is a study in contrasts. The spiral bound book is well presented with some excellent illustrations—all done by the author. Some are used over and over, but they are good pieces, the better being of monsters and buildings. The cartography is also decent, clear and simple, although perhaps lacking in flavour. In some cases, the maps are perhaps a little bigger than necessary. The layout is also clean and tidy, but… The scenario is in need of another edit at the very least, if not another round of development. The problem as such is not the content itself, but the way in which it is presented. In some places there is too much information, in others not enough, and not always in the right place or order.

For example, much of the scenario’s opening description meant to be read out to the players should have been subsumed into the backgrounds of the pre-generated investigators to make them stronger and enforce roleplaying ties and relationships which are otherwise underwritten. Elsewhere, NPCs are described in the order that the author would introduce them if he was running the scenario or writing a novel, so that the GM needs to give what is otherwise a straightforward scenario a good read.

Now this all sounds as if The Fenworthy Inheritance is a terrible scenario. This could not be further from the truth. There is everything within its pages for a good adventure and a solid roleplaying experience—a familiar setting, a reasonable plot, and decent support. Unfortunately, this is not always presented as clearly as it should be and for more experienced players, the plot may well too familiar, if not an out and out cliché. What this means is that the GM will have to put a little extra effort into understanding the plot and being able to present it to his players.

The Fenworthy Inheritance is a complete scenario, if just unfinished. It comes with everything necessary to play, but as written and presented, it just lacks the polish that the author wanted to achieve.

—oOo—

At the time of publication, MontiDots Ltd. did not have a website. It does however, have a presence on Facebook and the author can be contacted directly via email: info@montidots.co.uk. As of September, 2016, MontiDotsLtd. titles are available on RPGnow, beginning with The Fenworthy Inheritance.