Miskatonic Monday #335: Ectoplasmorphia

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.

—oOo—

Name: Ectoplasmorphia

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Hyacinth

Setting: USA, 1926

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty page, 3.22 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Two houses, one plot, never the twain

Plot Hook: Lost outside two lonely houses, which do they enter?

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, three handouts, and one map.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Haunted house mystery

# Easy to adjust to other eras for Call of Cthulhu

# Taxidermiphobia

# Zoophobia

# Dysergia

Cons

# Why are the pre-generated Investigators together?
# More haunted house mystery than a Mythos one

# Two locations for the same scenario, once a location is chosen, the other cannot be reached, so does it actually matter?

Conclusion

# Decently done haunted house horror

# Sadly, no Hoots Mon There’s A Moose Loose Aboot This Hoose

Friday Fantasy: The House of 99 Souls

Once, Brightmoore Manor stood as a house of elegance and civility, a beautiful home to noble Lord Faulken Brightmoore and charismatic elven wife Lady Narielle, and their children. Now, two hundred years later, it is empty, unoccupied in all that time, its dilapidated exterior bedraggled with branches of overgrown trees, its stonework pitted and missing blocks, its eaves rotten, and its roof pockmarked with broken and missing tiles. Grimy windows only hint at the lumps of furniture to be found within, for no-one who goes in comes out. The house has stood alone and forlorn for decades, the original village of Brightwood being abandoned not long after servants from the village entered the house as they did daily, and then, one-by-one, failed to return. None knew what was going on in the house, but they could speculate. Some said Lord Faulken Brightmoore had gone mad in his jealousy of his wife’s continued good looks or wasted away, stricken with grief at his death of his wife or children, or even both. More, Sir Reghinald Moore has discovered amongst his family papers, documents that show that he is heir to Brightmoore Manor and has sent several family retainers to assess the house and its condition, and prepare it for his visit. None have returned, and worried for their safety, hires a band of adventurers to find out happened to them and to determine if the manor is safe. Or the village of Brightwood is beginning to be repopulated, new settlers restoring the long-abandoned ruins of the old village and building anew, but concerned by the presence of Brightmoore Manor looming over their homes, hire a band of adventurers to determine if the building and whatever is inside it, is a threat to them. Or, now, adventurers, caught in a dreadful storm, take refuge in the only place it seem safe—Brightmoore Manor. These are hooks for the scenario, House of 99 Souls.

House of 99 Souls is a scenario published by Hellwinter Forge of Wonders for use with Old School Essentials, Necrotic Gnome’s interpretation and redesign of the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Steven M. Marsh. It is designed to be played using Second to Fourth Level Player Characters. It is a haunted house scenario, a Gothic horror scenario played out across the twenty or so rooms of the manor and its two floors, as well as the cellars below. Once the Player Characters have all crossed the threshold, the doors slam shut and they are locked inside until they can find a way to unlock the doors. Doing so requires a detailed exploration and examination of the house, laid as much as it was once, but covered in dust and grime, skeletons sitting or lying there they died, the rooms dimly lit through the dirt smeared on the windows. There are signs of death and despair everywhere, and the Player Characters will encounter members of the Brightmoore family, each desperate in their own way, some forlorn, some dangerous, but each with a twinge of hope…

As the Player Characters progress through the house, they will gather clues and intimations as to what is going on and what happened in the past to the Brightmoore family. From these, they can begin to work what they need to do resolve what is going on in the manor and enable them to find their way back out. Although they will not necessarily be aware of it, the Player Characters are up against the clock, but in terms of the narrative, it is a clever clock, one driven more by their actions rather than the actions of the villain of the scenario. Of course, if the completion conditions of the clock are fulfilled, they will face a greater challenge at the end.

One of the pleasing aspects of House of 99 Souls is its scale. Although a haunted house scenario, it is not a big sprawling affair such that the Player Characters have to spend an interminable amount of time searching it from top to bottom in order to work what is going on. Which means that the story plays out quite quickly. Similarly, the scale of the haunting is quite constrained as well. There are pleasing little moments like when a Player Character attempts to look out of one of the grimy window, a skeleton arms grabs him and smashes his face against the glass or reaches up out of a sink of dirty water to attempt to pull the Player Character into the water to drown him, rotten floors collapsing under a Player Character to temporarily trap his feet, and so on. Another pleasing touch is that atmosphere is allowed to build, the Game Master only rolling for random encounters once the Player Characters return to a room they have previously examined. Most of these encounters are creepy rather than deadly, though the house is definitely not without its dangers.

The scenario is also quite restrained with choice of monsters. It is not overrun with different types of undead. There are skeletons aplenty and there are also new monsters such as Bone Spiders which attack in swarms. Most of the monsters are particular to House of 99 Souls though. Rounding out the scenario is a set of six pre-generated Player Characters. These are all Third Level and are created using basic version of Old School Essentials rather than Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. Some do have minor magical items, but not all. There are some interesting magical items to be found in the scenario.

All together, House of 99 Souls can be played through in a single session, perhaps two at most. It is also very self-contained, which means that it can be played as single one-off scenario. In addition, this means that the Game Master can very easily drop this into her campaign.

Physically, House of 99 Souls is well presented and the layout clean and tidy. The artwork is decent and the cartography good. House of 99 Souls is a charmingly small scale and underplayed Gothic haunted house scenario that is very easy to use and add to campaign.

Horror House Hell

Have you wondered what would happen if a group of squatters looking for a place to stay or estate agents showing around prospective buyers got trapped in a haunted house? It is an intriguing idea, perhaps more interesting than the traditional trick or treating kids or new homeowners. After all, we already know how desperate either group is. The squatters desperate enough to break into an old house looking for somewhere to sleep and the estate agents desperate to make a sale and get the property off their books. If you are intrigued, then This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is what you want. This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is roleplaying game of ordinary folk being trapped in a haunted house, scared, petrified, and even dying from the frights that the spiritual trauma bound into the building are inflicting upon them. Initially uncertain, the protagonists—or victims—will over the course of three acts, suffer creepy events such as footsteps in another room or a music box playing by itself and then face obstacles like the lights going out and having to scrabble about in the dark or the faces in all of the portraits or photographs suddenly breaking into screams, before confronting the ghostly or ghoulish doings with a séance to appease a spirit’s woes or one of their number becomes possessed and begins to stalk everyone else in a murder spree!

This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a micro-game published by Parable Games, the British publisher best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. It was funded as part of the publisher’s Parable Games ZineQuest RPG Buffet on Kickstarter. It pitches very ordinary—quite literally, each one is an everyman—folk into a terrifying situation, puts them through the ringer, and sees which ones survive. And survival is the prize. It is designed to be played in a single session, is very light in terms of mechanics, and comes packed with a bunch of prompts to use at every stage of the game. Some preparation is required in terms of the Housekeeper—as the Game Master is known in This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED—deciding upon the type of haunted house the Player Characters will be trapped in. Will it be a classic gothic mansion, a crumbling castle on the hill, or some irritating millionaire tech bro’s mansion? The choice will help the Game Master decide upon the nature of the haunting and how it will manifest over the course of the game. Beyond that though, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a very low preparation roleplaying game, so good to have as a back-up or impromptu game.

In terms of the Player Characters, what the Game Master and her players need to decide is what the characters are. Several options are suggested, including the squatters and the estate agents, and beyond that, nothing. No Player Character has any skills to speak of, at least in a mechanical sense and the only stats are Harm and Will, like this:

Margorie Whittingham (Mrs.)
Estate Agent
Harm: 10
Will: 3

Mechanically, for a player to have his character overcome a challenge in This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED, he rolls two six-sided dice and attempts to get a result of seven or more. If he succeeds, fine. If not, he fails and bad things happen to him. The player is free to decide if his character is above average at this task or below average. In which case, he receives a bonus or penalty of one, respectively. The difficulty of the task can levy a penalty ranging from Difficult and -1 to Why Bother? and -4. Combat is primarily narrative driven, and since the Player Characters are ordinary folk, they rarely have the initiative or an advantage. If the threat is incorporeal, then the Player Characters will need to use the occult or some other means, to inflict harm upon them.

A Player Character suffers physical damage to his Harm and mental damage to his Will, including being scared. Both physical damage and frights can come from creepy events, obstacles, and confronting the danger itself, as well as from failing a roll on occasion. Reducing his Harm to zero will kill a Player Character, but when his Will is reduced to zero, he will become petrified. This imposes a further penalty on all rolls. However, if the player succeeds at a roll when his character is petrified, some Will is recovered and he is no longer petrified.

This is the extent of the rules to This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED, just two pages out of its twelve-page running length. The rest of the roleplaying game is dedicated to helping the Housekeeper create her haunted house and decide upon its nature. There is some advice, actually decent advice given the length of the game, and then lots of tables with lots of entries. These include reasons why the house is haunted and the ‘Minor Creepy Events’ for Act One, the ‘Haunting’ events for Act 2, and the nature of the final confrontation in the ‘Finale’ for Act 3. This is accompanied by a long list of ghostly enemies, from Poltergeist, Banshee, and Ghoul to Demon, Hellhound, and Legion. The Player Characters are supported by a list of possible weapons, from the mundane, like the rolling pin and the cleaver, and the magical, like the ritual dagger and Latin Dictionary (although the latter has a one-in-six chance of working, and a one-in-six chance of the Player Character failing in a Latin word salad).

Structurally, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is played out over three acts. In the first act, the Player Characters explore the house and suffer minor haunting effects. By the end of this, they will realise that they are all trapped inside and cannot escape—and of course, there is a table for this—and then in the second act, the serious haunting begins. This is when the Player Characters scramble for resources to survive and the means to overcome the threat they will confront in the third act, the finale.

Physically, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is simply, cleanly laid out and written. It is easy to read and the tables easy to use, since the Housekeeper is going to be referring to them on a regular basis. It is pitched as a fanzine, but really, that is only because the roleplaying game is short rather than the the format or inspiration.

This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a quick and dirty horror roleplaying game—low preparation, easy-to-play, and packed with prompts and ideas. Perfect for a gaming group in need of a fast game now and for the Housekeeper happy to improvise.

House of Horrors

At the end of the street stands a house behind a crumbling wall. People who pass it, look at it askance, wondering why it stands empty after so long and why nobody has bought it. They only half remember it from their childhoods and if they did, they would realise that the building has been in the same state for decades. The children whisper that the house is haunted, that some kid went in there, and never came out. Even so, they dare each other to climb the wall and break in… just as their parents once did. They go in to see what treasures or secrets they can find. The one that has gone unlived in for years. Sometimes a few hearty souls creep in, it is said, Most find nothing—just an empty old house. Some return shaken. A few never come out at all. The house is thus a lurking presence, perhaps not in this town, but in the next, or the next one over? Or perhaps in all of them? And if the house has been lurking all that time, what happens to it when it sits alone for so many long years? What jealousies and hatreds does it quietly nurture? What secrets does it contain, waiting to be discovered within its dark walls, crouched within its dank and dreary rooms, hungering for the return of life?

This is The Darkest House. It is a horror scenario sent in a grand house, fallen to ruin, riven by madness, stained by trauma and emotional scars. Those it draws in, it torments out of hate and spite, and even as they discover some of the house’s secrets and its origins, perhaps the best outcome they can hope for, is to escape it confines, though not the same as they were when they crossed its threshold. Published by Monte Cook Games, The Darkest House is something different, a horror scenario originally designed to be played online and with any game system. As the former, it was originally designed and delivered as an app and a set of electronic documents, combining details of the ‘Darkest House’ itself, a set of handouts in terms of texts, images, and sound files, all richly detailed. As the latter, it comes with its own ‘House System’ which allows Player Characters to be adapted from any game system run The Darkest House using the ‘House System’, the simplified nature of its mechanics making it easier to run online. A Game Master—not calling the Game Master the House Master really is a missed opportunity—could even run The Darkest House with the different Player Characters from different systems and settings if she is ambitious enough.

The Darkest House is now available as a book, which presents all of this information in physical format, but marked with QR codes to link to handouts and downloads. It enables the artwork to shine and as the Game Master to see the motifs and flow of the scenario in one place.

A Player Character in The Darkest House is measured as a Rating on a ten-point scale. Between one and two, they will need to employ stealth and avoid direct confrontations with the dangers of the house; between three and six they will still be danger, but can still survive; and seven and up and they can survive with only minor difficulty. The aim though, is not to create Player Characters particular to The Darkest House, but rather draw them in from other game systems. This points to its intended universality and is underpinned by a conversion guide that adapt those Player Characters from other roleplaying games and fit them on the ten-point scale of the House System. This is whether a Player Character’s level or primary attributes are measured on a twenty-point, six-point, or percentile scale. Thus, it would work whether the Player Character comes from Monte Cook Games’ own Cypher System, Chaosium, Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, or Free League Publishing’s Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying. The process is more rough and ready then exact, and will very likely require the Game Master and the players to adjust as necessary to account for particular abilities, powers, spells, or skills. This is done by awarding Boons rather than adjusting a Player Character’s base Rating. Further, some spells and abilities and their effects can be applied narratively rather than mechanically. This is likely to be easier than working out the exact effects even on the limited scale of the House System and the overall effect of the House System is one that is rough and ready rather than exact or elegant.

Mechanically, the House System measures a Player Character’s Rating versus the Rating of the task involved. The Rating of the task is added to seven to give the target number for the player to role for his character to succeed. The player rolls three six-sided dice, one of which is called the House Die. The Rating of his character is added to the result of the two ordinary dice and not the House Dice, the aim being to roll equal to or higher than the target number. If the task Rating is six or higher than the Player Character’s Rating, the task is impossible to achieve, whilst if it is six or lower than the Player Character’s Rating, the task is impossible to fail. Under the House System, the player always rolls, which means that the player rolls for his character to act and rolls for his character to avoid actions against him. Boons and Banes make a task harder to achieve, respectively, and if a Player Character has one or more of both, they cancel each other out until either the Player Character has none, or a Bane or a Bane leftover. Whether the Player Character has a Bane or a Boon, his player rolls an extra die in addition to the two six-sided dice and the House Die. If a Boon, the player discards to die with the lowest result, and if a Bane, he discards the highest result.

What then does the House Die do? In general, nothing. Under special circumstances, it comes into play. This occurs when it is the highest result on any die rolled and when the player, in desperation, has his character ‘call upon the House’ for help. Neither of these are good. When the highest result on any die rolled is the House Die, the House Acts. This begins with creaking sounds, footsteps, or similar noises being heard by the Player Characters, a figure associated with the section of the House the Player Characters are in suddenly appearing, and so on, but that is only the beginning. It escalates each time the House Acts, step-by-step, up through ten steps, and starts again at one, recycling round and round as the Player Characters explore more of the house, and roll the highest result on the House Die again and again. When a player has his character ‘call upon the House’ for help, the House Acts just if the player had rolled the highest result on the House Die and the character gains a Doom. Doom affects a Player Character in a number of ways, such as if he is wounded and falls unconscious, the number of points acting as a penalty to the player’s roll to see if the character dies. However, what a player can do is ‘spend a Doom’, which gives the Game Master permission to do something terrible to his character. Whatever happens, though, it must be significant, be bad for the character, and at the time of the Game Master’s choosing—and the Doom points can be saved as well. Worse though, the Doom Effects can linger if the Player Characters leave the House…

Harm in The Darkest House is also kept simple. The Rating of the attack is added to a roll of a six-sided die, whilst the defender’s Rating is deducted. If the result is a positive number, that is wound that the defender suffers. The House Die is not rolled for damage, a Banes and Boons can be. Physical armour will reduce this damage. Mental damage is suffered in the same way. Wounds also mean that the rolls for all actions are made with Banes.

Effectively, what the House System is a meta-system, a set of rules and ultimately guidelines since it cannot cover every eventuality and every nuance from every system. It is that lack of nuance, at least mechanically, where The Darkest House is going to be lacking. What this means is that the Game Master is going to have to pick up the slack of the House System and shift what is nuance in another game system over to more narrative, even more storytelling resolution and outcome in The Darkest House.

The last thing to note about a Player Characters is that they enter the Darkest House with a truth or a lie. This essentially is weaponised as part of the play of The Darkest House, the House using it against the Player Character, attempting to shake his faith as part of the story rather than to victimise him. The Game Master should be building these truths and lies into arcs that will run throughout the Player Characters’ exploration of The Darkest House. In terms of advice, The Darkest House suggests reasons for the Player Characters to enter the house, stories that can be told in the House, and some of the objectives that the Player Characters might work towards, intentionally or not. It highlights how the house contains anachronisms even if fantasy characters venture inside, and there is magic to be found too within its walls. The House also isolates the Player Characters, making contact with the outside world technically impossible, though this will not be apparent to the Player Characters. The Game Master can instead use this against the Player Characters, deceiving them through the figures that they would otherwise trust. There is good advice on both running The Darkest House and on the challenges of running The Darkest House, all of which readies the Game Master for the campaign and the details of the House itself.

The House is described Room by Room in a lengthy series of two-page spreads that make up the bulk of the book. These come complete with a floorplan, description, overview, an illustration, and a QR code. The latter opens up a website with images and handouts that the players and their characters can view and peruse. It can include sounds too, their presence marked with an icon of its own. The commitment to the format even includes a darkened hallway, which follows the first location. Divided between areas of the House labelled father, mother, dining room, sister, lover, and ultimately, the Original House, voices whisper to intruders, a Mother figure lurks with her skeleton children in her arms ready to rebuke the Player Characters for their lack of love for her and ready to launch her children at them, a father figure looms over the Player Characters ready to deal out a beating, a door has been plastered over with notes telling the reader not to open the door, but someone keeps knocking from the other side, a clockwork child stalks the halls with a knife clutched in its hands, and so on. It veers from the little unerring uneasiness to grand theatre of the guignol and back again, always unsettling, weird, and worrying as the Player Characters edge their way from one Room to the next, picking at puzzles, poring over possible clues, and wondering what might happen next.

Lastly an appendix lists and details all of the handouts that the Player Characters might find in the House. The Game Master will still need to download these and again, they come with their own QR code. It means that even playing The Darkest House offline, the Game Master will still need Internet access and may want her players to have it to best access the scenario’s handouts and downloads.

In terms of play, The Darkest House can be played as a single big scenario, but it is really designed to be slotted into an ongoing campaign. Almost any campaign in which a ‘haunted house’ could appear. Nor is it necessarily designed to be played in one go. The Player Characters can leave and they can be pulled back in, plus there are ongoing consequences for leaving the House, especially if a Player Character has unspent Doom points. So, the Player Characters may enter the House explore some of it, escape, but re-enter the House at a later point in the campaign. Once the Player Characters have entered the House and come out, it is going to remain a lurking presence until they decide to return and deal with it.

Physically, The Darkest House is very well presented in rich dark colours, the text in red and white. The artwork is excellent, much of it seeming to lurk in the background with its repetition serving to enforce that sense of things and people lurking, ready to leap out and scare the Player Characters. It is well written and it is liberally littered with quotes from authors such as Stephen King and Shirly Jackson.

However, what must be stressed is what The Darkest House is not. It is not a traditional haunt house and it is not a traditional mystery. It means that there are not the ghosts to be found, their origins to be discovered, and their bones laid to rest, problem solved. There are ghosts, but neither ghosts nor the House are ever really going to go away until the Player Characters find a way to make the House go away and never come back. In terms of a mystery, this is a dark, haunted house, and whilst there are secrets to be revealed and aspects of the House’s history to be discovered, much like the ghosts there is no clear beginning, middle, and end, in which its origins can be discovered and the House completely dealt with as a threat. The author of The Darkest House even goes so far as to state that there are secrets to the House that he has not and will not reveal. What this means is that The Darkest House is pervaded with a sense of the ineffable and the unknowable, and whilst there is a mystery to The Darkest House, it is not a mystery to be solved and that may confound some players. This does not mean that The Darkest House cannot be played and cannot be completed. Rather it means that the expectations of what The Darkest House is and is not, are going to be different from the traditional haunted house.

The Darkest House is an audacious creation, a product designed in response to the Lockdown under COVID-19 and thus specifically designed to be played online and with any type of character from any game system. It is both grand and intimate, the great sweep of the House contrasting with the disturbing intimacy of the detail to be found in the individual Rooms, its horror lurking at the edge of the senses before cavorting at the Player Characters and then retreating… Like any big scenario or campaign. The Darkest House demands much of the Game Master, but The Darkest House demands more both mechanically because of the need for adjudication of its House System and because The Darkest House is campaign that is going to directly needle and work at the Player Characters. This also demands players mature enough to accept that this is part of the genre that v falls into.

Perhaps still best played online, The Darkest House is an ambitious design, a fantastic perturbation of puzzles and perils, torments and terrors, which combine to make a great roleplaying horror story.

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Monte Cook Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Miskatonic Monday #125: Overdue

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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.

—oOo—

Name: Overdue

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Nathan Pidde

Setting: Modern Day Massachusetts

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 1.29 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Hell hath no fury like a librarian scorned

Plot Hook: A missing boy leads to a missing book leads to a...
Plot Support: Staging advice, five handouts, four pre-generated teenage Investigators, three NPCs, and one Mythos monster. 

Production Values: Decent.

Pros

# One night one-shot

# Enclosed space, focused scenario

# Decently detailed handouts

# Rats in the Library

# Entertaining NPC for the Keeper to portray

# Potential for an NPC to become an ‘Investigator’

# Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Dreams in the Witch House’

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# NPC switch could have been better developed

# Primary NPC has to be very persuasive

# Artwork not always appropriate

# Slightly clichéd pre-generated Investigators

# No floorplans

Conclusion

# Short, focused booked-based investigation inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Dreams in the Witch House’ which delivers an entertaining single session of horror.

Miskatonic Monday #124: Dream House

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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.

—oOo—

Name: Dream House

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Evan Perlman

Setting: Jazz Age Boston

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-one page, 4.30 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A spiritual successor to The Haunting

Plot Hook: Helping an old friend reveals horrible secrets
Plot Support: Staging advice, two floor plans, three handouts, six pre-generated Investigators, eight NPCs, one Mythos monster, and one Mythos tome. 

Production Values: Decent.

Pros

# One night one-shot

# Enclosed space, focused scenario

# Creepy sense of déjà vu

# Fun for the Keeper to run

# Literally a spiritual sequel to The Haunting

# Potential sequel down another trouser leg of time

# Potential to play around with multiple protagonists

# Can be run with player-created or pre-generated Investigators

# Good with two Investigators as it is with five
# Failure is not the end...

Cons

# Another sequel to The Haunting?

# Failure is not the end...

# The déjà vu requires careful handling

Conclusion

# Literally a spiritual sequel to The Haunting with a creepy and claustrophobic sense of déjà vu that is cleverly designed and thought out.

Miskatonic Monday #123: Cat’s Cradle

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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.

—oOo—

Name: Cat’s Cradle

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Aaron Sinner, Todd Walden, and Christopher Olson

Setting: Jazz Age Boston

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-four page, 31.62 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Suffer the little children’s wrath

Plot Hook: Nightmares linger in the wake of your descent into the Corbitt house. 
Plot Support: Staging advice and two Keeper aids, twenty-four handouts, four new spells or spell variants, three NPCs, and one Mythos creature.

Production Values: Decent.

Pros

# Sequel to The Haunting

# Deep investigative dive into the backstory to The Haunting
# Advice on making the horror personal

# Advice for the Keeper to run Cat’s Cradle with other sequels to The Haunting.

# Focused investigative sequel

# Creepy, creepy children

Cons

# Needs an edit

# Scenario does involve children

# Better aids for the Keeper than handouts for the players?

# Photographic anachronisms?
# Good clue links to locations, but not from locations

# Better sequel than standalone scenario

Conclusion

# Solid sequel to a classic scenario, The Haunting, which both explores the backstory to the scenario and personalises the consequences of the Investigators’ actions in the Corbitt house.

# Creepy, creepy children should leave the Investigators with paedophobia

Dungeons & Jinkies!

Zoinks!! Someone has gone and turned Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! into an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In fact, that someone has gone and turned it into two adventures for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition—of which A Night of Fright! is the first. However, this is not a straight adaptation of the long running cartoon, so not a modern-set adventure. Rather, it is a parody adventure, ‘A haunting adventure of meddling heroes and their talking gnoll’! And since you get a talking Gnoll, it can only be Dungeons & Dragons fantasy, but that is Dungeons & Dragons fantasy with the aforementioned talking Gnoll, The Clue Cruiser,* five pre-generated Player Characters, four Subclasses, ghosts, a mystery, and of course, an opportunity for the Dungeon Master to utter the classic line, “And I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!!”

* Sorry, no Mystery Machine, this is a parody, remember?

A Night of Fright! casts the not-Scooby gang—or rather the S’koobi gang—as members as Mystery LLC, the area’s leading mystery solving meddlers. Together, many years ago, Sha-Gi, Sir Frederick, Dafni, S’koobi, and Vell’mah, helped a man named Uldryn Beauregard who believed his vineyard to be haunted, until the team that there were no ghosts, but rather a rival winemaker attempting to drive him from his property. Now they have received a mysterious invitation from Uldryn Beauregard—if they can spend a full night in a haunted house, they will receive one million gold pieces!

Thus we have a classic set-up—and of course, it only gets worse. For not only do the team have to spend the night in a haunted house, it also has to do it with some thoroughly unpleasant members of the Beauregard family! Then it only gets worse, for the team find itself trapped in the haunted house, of course, still with some thoroughly unpleasant members of the Beauregard family! With nothing else to do, the team begins do what it does best, and that is, investigate the greatly dilapidated house, dusty, grimy, strewn with cobwebs, and worse… All the classic elements of a haunted house are here—secret doors, paintings in which the eyes move, ghostly moans and arms reaching out of mirrors, faces in mirrors, books that float in the air, and more. Plus, there are traps and puzzles to discover and deal with, clues to find (because this is a mystery after all), and this being a S’koobi mystery, villains to run away from and ultimately unmask.

However, as much as A Night of Fright! is a parody of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, it is no straight parody of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Being written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition means that the Player Characters are a lot more powerful than the members of the actual Scooby gang, but equally they are not up against ghoulies and ghosties as those that appear in A Night of Fright! In addition, the Dungeon Master gets to fling encounters at her players. These come in three flavours—Scary, Very Scary, and Important. These scale up, so that Scary encounters are simple parlour tricks intended to scare the members of Mystery LLC out of the Beauregard mansion; Very Scary encounters are actually real, definitely sinister, and potentially deadly; and Important events are story events, important plot points upon which the story turns.

In addition, the mansion is laced with traps, some of which are designed to separate the members of the Mystery LLC. Of course, this runs counter to the play of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in which you never split the party, but it is perfectly in keeping with a Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! mystery. However, this means that the duties of the Dungeon Master are doubled up as she has to keep track of where each group of Player Characters is and which of the three flavours of encounters—Scary, Very Scary, and Important—apply to which group. It also means that the Dungeon Master will need to give the scenario a very careful read through so as to understand how they work and when they apply, especially as once the Player Characters are separated, the advice for the Dungeon Master is to switch back and forth between the various group so that neither focus nor tension is lost. Ideally, the Dungeon Master should prepare some floor plans of the Beauregard mansion and plot the movement of the Player Characters as they move about the house or suddenly shifted from one part of the house to another. Fortunately, A Night of Fright! comes with several maps of the mansion, including plain and squared, as well as a set of tokens for all the Player Characters and the NPCs in the scenario. Which means that with a little bit of effect, the scenario is ready to be set up and run online.

Included with the scenario are five, ready-to-play pregenerated Player Characters. These are the five members of Mystery LLC or S’koobi gang, all of Fifth Level. It is possible to play the scenario using other characters, in which case, they also should be Fifth Level. The provided Player Characters come as ready-to-play character sheets or in plain text, although the latter will need some adjustment in terms of their layout. All five use the standard character Classes from the Player’s Handbook, although S’koobi is designed as a talking Gnoll, and all have their own Subclasses. The four new Subclasses are ‘The Way of the Coward’ for the Monk, the ‘Oath of Traps’ for the Paladin, ‘The Damsel’ Otherworldly Patron for the Warlock, the ‘College of Snacks’ for the Bard, and the Bespectacled Sleuth for the Rogue. Which correspond to Shaggy Rogers, Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Scooby, and Velma Dinkley, or rather in A Night of Fright! to Sha-Gi, Sir Frederick, Dafni, S’koobi, and Vell’mah. Thus, ‘The Way of the Coward’ is all about running away, including being able to run away so fast that you temporarily leave an Afterimage behind you; the ‘Oath of Traps’ favours nets and snares and spells such as alarm and ensnaring strike; ‘The Damsel’ Otherworldly Patron receives Distress Points whenever she activates a trap or is restrained or grappled, which can then be spent to increase damage from the spells she casts; the ‘College of Snacks’ specialises in magical cooking such as Courage Crunch treats that grant allies Advantage on the next attack or end particular Conditions they are suffering from; and the Bespectacled Sleuth has to wear glasses that there is chance of being knocked off, has a keen ear for catching lies, can use insight to gain a tactical advantage over an opponent and make a Sneak Attack from any angle, and of course, has Advantage on Investigation and Perception checks. Now because A Night of Fright! is designed for Player Characters of Fifth Level, none of the pregenerated characters—Sha-Gi, Sir Frederick, Dafni, S’koobi, or Vell’mah—have all of their Subclasses’ abilities, but in A Night of Fright! campaign?

Physically, A Night of Fright! is decently presented. The cover is very nicely done, but the rest of the scenario uses publicly available artwork, which though all appropriate to a haunted house is a little disappointing after the tone set by the cover. The floor plans are decent too, though the Dungeon Master will find herself flipping back to them a lot. The layout is busy and that does make finding things and quite grasping what is going on a little more challenging.

A Night of Fright! does have something of a split personality, that of Dungeons & Dragons versus the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Or in other words, the not really being scared of Dungeons & Dragons versus the ‘Zoinks!!’ and you are definitely going to be scared of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! The designers of A Night of Fright! push the latter rather than the former, with lots and lots of fear checks, the failed outcome being that the Player Characters will flee—if only for a little while. This may become a little tiresome in play, the advice is that the players should lean into them as much as they should be leaning into their characters and genre, and anyway, the scenario very quickly turns up the scares all the way up to the climax.

A Night of Fright! is a fun, silly parody of its source material that goes not just one step further in turning up the scares and the horror, but several. Doing so means that the Player Characters have to be lot tougher to face the blood and the monsters that the scenario also throws at them, and the nicely done members of Mystery LLC are exactly what is needed. Players and Dungeon Master alike should enjoy the knowing mix of horror and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! coventions in A Night of Fright! before the Dungeon Master really turns up the genre!

Miskatonic Monday #68: The Haunted Place

 Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was a Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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.

—oOo—

Name: The Haunted Place Or The Witch of West Providence

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Andy Miller

Setting: Jazz Age New England

Product: The Haunting, take two?
What You Get: Fifty-Six page, 29.09 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Some hauntings never get old...

Plot Hook: Providence brings a haunted man into the path of their oncoming automobile.

Plot Support: Detailed plot, ten decent handouts, five maps, four NPCs, two Mythos tomes, and six pre-generated Investigators. 

Production Values: Excellent.

Pros
# Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Shunned House’

# Inspired by Sandy Peterson’s ‘The Haunting’

# Simple, but highly detailed set-up

# Clue rich

# Lots of historical detail

# Easily adapted to other periods

# Suitable for one or two Investigators

# Suitable as an introduction to Lovecraftian investigative horror

# Easy to drop into a campaign (or start one with)

# Playable in a single session

# Not ‘The Haunting’, but like ‘The Haunting’

# Has its own bed frame-window moment.

Cons
# Not ‘The Haunting’, but like ‘The Haunting’
# Potential information overload

# Challenging NPCs for the Keeper to roleplay

# Challenging NPCs for the Investigators to interact with

# Scope for conflict between the Investigators

# Potential Total Party Kill

Conclusion

# Not ‘The Haunting’, but like ‘The Haunting’

# Simple, but highly detailed set-up

# Suitable as an introduction to Lovecraftian investigative horror

# Loving tribute to Sandy Peterson’s ‘The Haunting’

Horror House Hell

The careers of Delta Green agents tend not to go well—they dabble in the secrets of the Unnatural or they become so obsessed with a mystery or a case that they lose perspective, threaten their very sanity, and even the secrecy of the conspiracy itself. This is certainly the case in scenarios such as Delta Green: Need to Know and Delta Green: Kali Ghati, so it is with Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room. Also available in the anthology, A Night at the Opera: Six Terrifying Operations for Delta Green: The Role-Playing, this is essentially a haunted house scenario, but done in the style of Delta Green rather than another horror roleplaying game, such as Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room, published by Arc Dream Publishing, takes place in the small town of Meadowbrook, New Jersey. The Agents are directed to investigate and determine the cause of the death of FBI Special Agent Arthur Donnelly who was found dead at 1206 Spooner Avenue, his throat and his blood sprayed around the room where he was found dead. Although his death has been ruled as a suicide, Delta Green suspects that there is more to it because the previous owner was also found dead under the exact same circumstances. Although the FBI considers the matter closed, Delta Green does not, and that will both drive and possibly hamper the Agent’s investigative efforts. The Agents are tasked with determining whether or not the house is tied to the deaths—and if so, how, and then if the house remains a threat to the public at large.

Effectively, what this means is that Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room is divided into two halves—much like its precedent, ‘The Haunting’ for Call of Cthulhu. In the first half, the Agents investigate the history of the house, its occupants, the reasons for their selling up, and in all too many cases, the terrible things which happened whilst they were in 1206 Spooner Avenue. The Agents will have to work hard to dig into the history of the house, and even harder to avoid arousing the suspicions of the proper authorities, but there is a richness of clues for the Agents to uncover. Beginning with a couple of local contacts as well as a local Green Box—a repository of equipment, clues, records, and leftovers from previous other investigations, the trail of clues leads through the records of the ownership of the house, death certificates, surviving past occupants, and more. As well as warning the Agents not to alert the authorities, Delta Green also notably warns the Agents that they should take extreme care in investigating the house, suggesting that it may have had an influence upon the deaths which took place within its walls. Hopefully, this will be strong enough of a warning for the Agents to do their due diligence, rather than rushing off to physically examine the house (though there is nothing to stop them from doing so if they wish).

In the second half of the scenario, hopefully forewarned by discoveries made during their investigations in and around Meadowbrook, the Agents enter the house and explore its confines. The descriptions of individual rooms and what is in them feel quite lightly drawn—the Handler may well want to add a little more detail here, whereas the descriptions of what might happen in each of the house’s rooms and when, is highly detailed by comparison. The encounters and experiences to be had  from room to room in the house play are a major factor in the scenario’s second half, many involving flashbacks and pleasing in places, all five senses, and the investigation of the actual house, the majority of them varying according to the Agents’ Will Power stat. This enables the Handler to tailor the encounters and experiences to the players’ Agents, enabling her to start with a sense of unease during the first few scenes in the house and then build up through creepy to weird and then outright bloody confrontations. Although this needs to be handled with some care lest it be overplayed, there are some entertaining shocks to throw at the Agents and their players. The Handler may want to pick and choose which of these to use lest the horror becomes too sudden, too often.

Although there one or two nods in Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room to its forebear, ‘The Haunting’ for Call of Cthulhu, most notably the two act structure of the investigation and the inclusion of a family from Quebec, Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room is very different. Not just its modern milieu, but also because it is creepier, the whole house seemingly haunted and potentially a source of scares and threats to the Agents. The secrets of the house and its past occupants are also not as obviously found, and the Agents will have to work increasingly hard to discover a great many, if not all, of the scenario’s clues. If the scenario’s investigative process is also challenging—more so if the Agents are trying to conceal their interest in the house, let alone their investigations, then determining and potentially applying a possible solution that will solve the mystery is extremely difficult. In fact, so difficult that some players may even come to see Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room as a no-win scenario.

Physically, Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room is a well-presented scenario. It is well written, but the Handler will need to read it carefully as there is a lot of information that she will potentially have to impart to her players and their Agents. The single set of floorplans is clear, but perhaps a little plain and could have done with a few internal details added to help the Handler describe each room. The few handouts could also have been collected at the end of the book for easy use by the Handler. Given the wealth of clues to be found in the scenario, the players should be prepared to take a lot of notes for their Agents.

Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room is a dark foreboding scenario, one with a strong sense of claustrophobia, both within of the walls of 1206 Spooner Avenue and in the town itself—especially if the Agents’ activities come to the notice of the townsfolk of Meadowbrook and they begin to gossip and take an interest in them. The Agents’ investigative efforts also have potentially disastrous consequences if they are not careful. Overall, Delta Green: Music From a Darkened Room is an enjoyable mix of challenging, but rich investigation and spine-chillingly unpleasant, often macabre atmosphere and encounters in a haunted house.