Masks of Nyarlathotep: OOC [CoC d20]

And at the last from inner Egypt came
The strange dark One to whom the fellahs bowed;
Silent and lean and cryptically proud,
And wrapped in fabrics red as sunset flame.
Throngs pressed around, frantic for his commands,
But leaving, could not tell what they had heard;
While through the nations spread the awestruck word
That wild beasts followed him and licked his hands.

Soon from the sea a noxious birth began;
Forgotten lands with weedy spires of gold;
The ground was cleft, and mad auroras rolled
Down on the quaking citadels of man.
Then, crushing what he chanced to mould in play,
The idiot Chaos blew Earth's dust away.

- H.P. Lovecraft, Fungi from Yuggoth - Sonnet XXI.



This Game Keeper would like to run a Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign using Call of Cthulhu d20 rules. Wanted: Four to Six stout adventurer and/or adventuress to unravel the fate of the doomed Carlyle Expedition. The campaign, set in 1925, is a Lovecraftian exercise in horror and mystery. Play begins in New York City. This is a classic and great campaign.

There will be a healthy mix of investigation, mystery, role-play, and terror filled combat. All player characters should be connected in someway with each other and/or Jackson Elias, a author who specializes in writing about death cults such the Thuggees or Amazonean headhunters. The players will come up with these connections as they build their characters.

Character's will start at 4th level. Hit points max at first and roll normally after that. Abilities will be generated using this standard array: 17,15,14,13,12,10. You my assign these numbers as you wish. I want to see a varied and interesting group of characters. If you don't have the rules, I can help you in building characters.

This is a long campaign and I promise to keep it going as long as there are players who want to play! Any questions, suggestions or comments on my style or the game will be appricated.


Ok I have my players and will change this over to the OOC thread.

Count me in.

I'd like to play Corso Balboa, a portuguese antiquarian that currently lives in Toledo, Spain.

He and Jackson Elias became well acquainted over the years through their common interest
in the rare written accounts of Portuguese explorers of Brasil from the 16th and 17th century.

Corso might have been Elias' principal book dealer for some years, or something like that.

Would that be acceptable?

That sounds good but there needs to be a reason why he is in New York City.

CoC, count me in! I would like to create a character that would be something of a Private Investigator, hired by an unknown source to investigate the author. Simply taking another job, he has introduced himself to the man, just to get a feel for the type of character this author is. Otherwise, he is working for someone and simply keeping tabs on this man, through surveillance.

As for New York City, it's a nice place to get a job, lol.

Gomez said:

That sounds good but there needs to be a reason why he is in New York City.

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- I should point out that I know absolutely nothing about the Nyarlathotep campaign. I had no idea this would be starting in NY. If you like, I can take a character with an American background as well.

Now, if we stick to Corso, is there already a specific reason why he should be in New York, or can it be just anything?

Maybe Corso is just there on vacation, having crossed the Ocean in a zeppelin,
and now wanting to visit the Metropolitan Opera. Maybe the director of the Met is an avid collector of old books himself and has invited the antiquarian to deliver
the latest piece he has found for him in person.

[Sorry if that personality is somewhat exalted. I actually watched *The Nine Gates* a few days ago, and Corso would obviously be modelled after the movie's main protagonist.]

Well, Gomez, it has been awhile since our Delta Green fun and I certainly have the itch for some Cthulhu. I would certainly be up for a game. I don't have my d20 Cthulhu with me, but I would like to play an athlete/football hero/baseball hero type who gets drawn away from the bright lights and into the horrific reality of Lovecraft's mythos. I'd have to do some research into the athletics of that time period and think how this character knows Jackson Elias. Well, I could always play a doctor again if you need one!

Is an athlete of some sort acceptable?

Fangor the Fierce said:

CoC, count me in! I would like to create a character that would be something of a Private Investigator, hired by an unknown source to investigate the author. Simply taking another job, he has introduced himself to the man, just to get a feel for the type of character this author is. Otherwise, he is working for someone and simply keeping tabs on this man, through surveillance.

As for New York City, it's a nice place to get a job, lol.

Click to expand...

A PI would fit great into the game. Though you would not be investigating the author more like you have worked with him before and/or is a friend.

Hrothgar said:

Well, Gomez, it has been awhile since our Delta Green fun and I certainly have the itch for some Cthulhu. I would certainly be up for a game. I don't have my d20 Cthulhu with me, but I would like to play an athlete/football hero/baseball hero type who gets drawn away from the bright lights and into the horrific reality of Lovecraft's mythos. I'd have to do some research into the athletics of that time period and think how this character knows Jackson Elias. Well, I could always play a doctor again if you need one!

Is an athlete of some sort acceptable?

Click to expand...

Hey there Hrothgar!! Nice to see you again. I hope things are going well for you.

An athlete would be just fine as long as you have some connection ot Elias. What ever you want to play.

Ivid said:

- I should point out that I know absolutely nothing about the Nyarlathotep campaign. I had no idea this would be starting in NY. If you like, I can take a character with an American background as well.

Click to expand...

Hey I don't mind the character at all! He sounds great and we can certainly work out a good reason why he is in NYC.

I'd like to propose Dr. Anthony W. Harden, evaluation and appraisal expert at the Met, occasional lecturer at Columbia University and all-around dilettante.


Anthony is a brilliant mind whose achievements are only limited by his fickle and inconsistent character. He has dabbled in widely varying fields such as archaeology, history, linguistics, psychology and even a little bit of the occult amongst others. Blessed with a fanastic memory that approaches nearly eidetic levels, he will dive headlong into his current activity and work on it to the point of exhaustion, only to completely cast it aside once he deems the matter finished and never look at it again.

But Anthony has not always been like this. Prior to an "extended vacation" in Europe 1917-1920 he had been a rather ordinary, if overly ambitious, law student. Tearing through his courses to join his father as soon as possible in his law office, the events of 1917 threw Anthony's plans completely. The urge to enlist brought him quickly into Intelligence since he still spoke and read German fluently. (Despite being of the second generation born in America, Anthony [and the whole family] had never let the knowledge of their original mother tongue lapse.) But soon Anthony grew bored with work he was doing which, to his mind, was just 'more of the same' - theory, theory, theroy. After requesting transfer to the frontline several times, he was finally granted his wish.

Even his parents would have had problems recognizing the young man with snow white hair who returned to America in 1920, had they not died in car-related fatal accident one year ago. He simply declined the offer from the law office to assume his father's partnership which they had held open for him on the grounds that his priorities had changed and cashed it in. The relationship to his two sisters and their families remained cordial, but distant. With the money from the law office he resumed the studies he had started after the war in Europe, a search for the "Why?" and "How?".

Having recieved his doctoral degree for his groundbreaking study of the effect of the Great War on the human psyche (publíshed as Der Einfluß des Krieges auf die menschliche Psyche unter rechts-theoretischem Geschichtspunkt - Eine vergleichende Studie an Frontkämpfern und Nicht-Kombattanten. Doktor-Dissertation der Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Georg August-Universität zu Göttingen. Göttingen 1920.) Anthony spent the next years in archives of all kinds around the globe, still searching for his ultimate answer. And yet he never found it.

Still, this work taught him one thing - to differentiate truth from falsehood, forgery from original. Over the years Anthony's interests had slowly begun to change as his 'holy grail' proved ever elusive and upon his final return to America 1923, he resolved to leave the past behind him. By now his fortune had decidedly started to dwindle and so Anthony Harden, 28 by now, sought steady employment for the first time in his life. His unique abilities and the knowledge he had gained in his study of human nature quickly landed him a job as evaluation and appraisal expert at the Met. (He had of course cheated to gain this job by simply memorizing an enormous number of auction catalogues and results which obviously enabled him to assign appropriate values to artifacts with the added touch of mentioning that similar pieces had scored comparative, higher or lower prices previously.)

Anthony has also started to lecture at Columbia university on his own special field: "Contemporary Forgery".


Personality
Despite his flaws, Anthony has made numerous public appearances in official capacity for the Met. Handsome and exceedingly polite and well-behaved, he knows how to dress and brings a certain, elusive "Old-world-charm" (from back before this meant the Kaiser's tanks) to bear. In fact, his mind is perfectly suited to the inconsequential small-talk at galas and receptions. (The Met made the mistake only once to send Anthony to an academic lecture. During the first half he still made the effort to correct the lecturer every time he erred, the second half he spent with translating a previously unknown Homer fragment.)


Anthony W. Harden and Jackson Elias
Anthony first met Jackson Elias shortly after his return in 1920 during a public presentation/reading of Elias' latest book "Witch Cults of England". His own insight into the human mind and some tidbits he had gathered on the side while living and working on the estate of an english nobleman who had taken him in for a few months made for a spirited discussion between Anthony and Jackson. Though not an immediate friendship, the two certanily took a liking to each other and Anthony even functioned as a sounding-board for Jackson's next book "The Black Power". When Anthony returned to America 1923 after accompanying his english friend to Egypt in late 1922 and attending his subsequent funeral, he brought with him a lot of material and first-hand experiences Jackson had asked him to collect.