[CoC-D20] I would like some help with this adventure plot...

[Lord Zardoz]

I have been running D&D campaings for some time, and I am also very familiar with D&D 3rd Edition, so I am not a newbie DM. However, I have yet to run a Call of Cthulhu session, and the kind of gameplay implied by Cthulhu is typically based more on solving a mystery then defeating an evil plot. To that end, I would like some advice on the adventure I have put together. Here is the text of the adventure.

What the players think happened:
The locals are trying to locate Dr. David Smith, a surgeon who is suspected of the murder and
mutilation of his wife, Sarah Smith. The particularly gruesome manner in which Sarah was
killed has marked the Dr. Smith as a very dangerous man. The recent deaths of two of Dr Smiths
patients at the hospital where he works have also been re-filed as homicides. Recent re-
examination of Dr. Smiths actions over the last few months have made it clear that the deaths
could not have been accidental as was previously thought. The players have been hired by
Thomas Edwards, a local Lawyer who is Sarah Smiths brother, and offered a reward if they can
locate Dr. Smith and bring him to justice.

What Really happened:
The locals have recently discovered a natural spring located beneath the town. Local business
leaders, Thomas Edwards among them, have set up a plant to bottle and sell the water locally.
The water is contaminated, and is infecting the populace with sentient parasitic worms that will
slowly consume the insides of the victims, and then control the victims as puppets for some time.
Dr. Smith discovered the worms in an early stage in several of his recent patients, and surgically
removed them. Of 5 surgeries, two were un-successful. The worms were discovered in a natural
spring in Cambodia, and were originally encountered by an Johnathan Fitzgerald in 1922, who
recently died. Johnathan Fitzgerald’s estate was also purchased Thomas Edwards, who is a
private collector of artifacts from ancient civilizations. Thomas had been trying to buy the
explorers Cambodian souvenirs for some time. However, Johnathan had absolutely refused and
never gave any explanation as to why. Thomas, who was convinced he could resell the artifacts
for a great deal, quietly made arrangements for Johnathan to die in a Hit and Run accident, and
re-wrote Johnathan’s will.

The worm parasites operate as a hive mind and the infected worm minions can recognize each
other on site.. The worms have a poor tolerance for alcohol, however, and cannot infect someone
who has recently consumed alcohol. In those already infected, alcohol will render the worms
dormant. The doctor in question is a heavy drinker, and has not been infected. Johnathan
Fitzgerald had been known for his legendary consumption of Vodka, which was something that
his friends and family found odd after his disastrous trip to Cambodia in 1922, since before then
he was not much of a drinker. The worms became aware of the doctors suspicions, since he
confided in his wife. However, his wife was already possessed. A fight ensued, and the doctor
murdered his wife in self defense.

Here are a few other details. Thomas Edwards is the Bad Guy, who is using the bottoled water to infect the town with Parasite Worms. Infection with the worms starts as the Stomach Flu (which a few of the characters will come down with during the adventure).

I consider this to be a more then good start. However, There is one problem that I would very much like help with. I am not entirely satisfied with the way that the villian (Thomas Edwards) and the Parasite Worms are linked. Here are the problems.

1) Thomas has a motive for killing the old explorer (Johnathan Fitzgerald) and taking the assorted aftifacts from Johnathans estate. However, I am not satisfied with they bottled water method of spreading the worms. Thomas does not have a good reason to get involved in bottled water. Is there a more plausible way to link him to the bottled water, or a better way to spread the infection?

2) I intend for only Dr. Smith to know of the Parasite worms and how to remove them. I also wish to keep the fact that there were 7 operations performed in which he removed parasite worms before they could develop fully. However, what of his assistants in the operating room? Other then infection with worms, what is a good reason for the nurses and, surviving doctors not to report the worms?

Any other criticisms and possible solutions to the two problems I pointed out are greatly desired, and more then welcome.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[DnDChick]

Zardoz? You came here in the giant floating head, didn't you?



Now, to answer your questions, the nursing staff that assisted in the operations probably would have no professional reasons for keeping quiet, and that would certainly be unethical. Maybe you could re-write it so that the worms weren't removed surgically, but in some other manner? Like perhaps flushed out of the body via infusions of alcohol?

As for the means of delivering the worms, Dr. Smith could easily be planning some way to put them into the local reservoir. His rental of a water tanker truck could be part of the paper trail that leads the PCs to the truth.

Excellent adventure, by the way! Bravo!

 

[DnDChick]

Or, if you would prefer sticking with the surgical route for removing the worms ...

Perhaps Dr. Smith found one nurse who agreed to help him with the unorthodox procedure. Maybe he had something over her and blackmailed her.

At some point during the surgery, Dr. Smith had to distract her so he could remove the worms without her seeing. He would have her check some patient montor or somesuch task -- being the only two in the OR, this is reasonable since they would have to spread themselves pretty thin over the necessary duties.

During one (or perhaps several) of these surguries, the nurse saw what Dr. Smith didn't want her to see. It shattered her sanity, and pushed her over the edge.

During their investigations, the PCs could encounter a stark raving mad homeless woman, ranting about worms and puppetmasters, and reeking of cheap whiskey. If the PCs dig into her history, they find that at one time she was a respected surgical nurse ...

 

[Mik]

If you do go with the worms being poisoned, weakened, or otherwise inhibited by alcohol, it provides some neat hooks;

1) Everyone in a nearby town except the heavy drinkers is under the sway of the hive-mind. Your players may consider the word of the drunks to be a bit suspect, so you can plant 'clues' in their words.

2) If your game is set in the 1920's, you have a nice lead in to the growing temperance movement. Maybe old Carrie Nation has a little something tangled up in her medulla oblongata (a short discussion of Carrie N.)

3) Will your investigators start knocking them back to keep themselves free of worms?

Of course, for maximum impact, the source of the worms themselves could be either one of the elder races or servitors of an Old One....

Mi-go: possible. If the fungi from Yuggoth need specimens to examine or need to clear an area for mining, they might engineer a little mind control.

Yithians: unlikely. While they have a good working knowledge of thought, human minds, and consciousness, they'd probably just possess the humans through mind transfer and make them do whatever they needed.

Shaggai: iffy. The Shan have their own very direct ways of getting inside your head.

Elder Things: I can't see it. The Elder Things are generally inactive, and they had no interest in humanity. The worms may have been a last ditch attempt to bring the shoggoths under control, one that just escaped its containment and has latched on to the first 'intelligent, non-elder thing' creature it encountered.

Perhaps there is a relative of Eihort buried here who is sending out its own brood...

Anyone else have more sinister ideas?

Good luck with the adventure. I'm planning on putting one of my own together to offer to my current D&D 3e gaming group as a change of pace.

=Mik

 

[Scud-O]

another possible way to handle the "nursing staff" issue:

Dr. Smith was not a "good" man per se. An effective doctor to be sure, but not an effective husband. His affair with his chief surgical assistant, Nancy Hargrove, was common, if not well-publicized, knowledge. Dr. Smith was also known as a bit of a lush. Mever on the job, mind you, but pretty much at all other times.

The first of the "worm removals" happened late one night under emergency conditions, when Dr. Smith discovered local streetperson Stan "Stinky" McGee writhin in pain outside the entrance to the town's small hospital. Dr. Smith performed the operation himself and more than a little drunk. Fearing that he wouldn't be believed, he kept quiet about it. Several days later, he and Nancy performed another emergency procedure, this time on a young girl who had been complaining of ever-increasing abdominal pain and had begun seizing in the examination room, vomiting blood. Dr. Smith recognized the symptoms from McGee's case, but allowed himself the luxury of disbelieving his own experiences of a few nights prior. When he and Nancy discovered the parasite, they agreed to keep it quiet until they could examine it further.

At this point, Sarah Smith has been infected.

Over the next few days, a handful of further cases come through the small town's infirmary. Dr. Smith and Nancy keep them quiet if they can, but news of two of the failed operations make the rounds in the local watering holes and such. In public, Dr. Smith starts warning people about a nasty flu bug going around.

Nancy and Dr. Smith finally connect the spring and the worms. They hatch a plan to blackmail Thomas Edwards and his partners.

In a celebratory mood, Nancy and Dr. Smith retire to the Smith's house for a little of the old wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. While Dr. Smith cleans up in the upstairs bathroom, Nancy goes about making the den ready for their afternoon activities, pouring drinks, dimming lights, and so forth. Sarah Smith emerges from the basement with an ax and chops Nancy into several pieces. Her screams bring Dr. Smith downstairs, where he struggles with his possessed wife. The worms grant more than human strength, and in the end, Dr. Smith is forced to kill Sarah in order to survive. But, who will believe him? His wife and mistress found dead, his fingerprints everywhere, and people are starting to ask questions about the deaths, about his drinking. He goes to ground.

Thomas Edwards likes money. He is a failed Wall Street businessman who moved to this small town in order to buy cheap real estate and find some way to exploit the surrounding natural resources to rebuild his lost fortune. Then he found the spring. Naturally, he was scared out of his mind by the worms when he first found out about them. But then he started thinking about them. Wouldn't being able to control your buying public be the perfect marketing solution. the worms have a biological imperative to create more puppets and as such, those infected will atempt to infect others...with his SPRING WATER. He does research and finds out about John Fitzgerald and his run-in with these creatures. Fitzgerald shows no signs of ever having been infected, so Edwards incorrectly surmises there must be a way to control the things, some artifact or ritual or something that grants dominance over the hive-mind of the worm. His partners in the Spring Water venture are unaware of the worms, and will become victims if they find out and threaten to blow the whistle. In fact, having one of them turn up dead mid-adventure and having Edwards blame Dr. Smith would be a good red herring.

perhaps think about a way to control the behavior of the worms actually existing. Perhaps a ritual, one in which a sacrifice is needed. perhaps Edwards plans on using Dr. Smith as the victim, then claiming self-defense. having this happen in game would completely confuse the PCs. or maybe there's a "worm-king" and allowing yourself to be possessed by it gives you control over the worm-thralls, or something. anyway, adds that insane cultist angle that CoC loves.

i am rambling now, forgive me. but please, let us know how things go and what worked didn't work. i'm always interested in running a better CoC game.

--Eric

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Thanks for the initial feedback...

I like the initial responses so far. I particularly like the idea of having Dr. Smith sleep around with the nurse / assistant. It does give a reasonable way for Dr. Smith to get the necessary assistance he would need to perform the operations. Another way does occur to me also. It could be that the Doctors involved wished to "get published', and kept the discovery secret until they could satisfactorily explain it. Of course, the immediate staff involved could then have become infected.

Having Thomas Edwards "like Money" also gives me a good modification as to how he could have crossed paths with Johnathan Fitzgerald. It could be that Thomas was really after some property that Johnathan owned, which had a natural spring under it. Johnathan refused to sell, so Thomas had him killed and had the will altered. I also have an explanation for how the natural Spring was infected. Of the original expidetion to Cambodia, only Johnathan, and Roger survived to return. However, Roger was infected, and Johnathan had to fight him. Roger ended up drowning in the Spring, which in turn, caused the spring to become contaminated.

And perhaps I should have also mentioned that I did intend for Thomas to be infected with the "King Worm". I also intend to run this adventure in Modern times. The current trend for the Health Club types to drink bottled water makes my planned route of infestation more plausible.

One good point brought up by Mik is that I really did not bother figuring out which of the Ancients would be behind the Cambodian Devil Worms. The Mi-Go do not make sense since they have their own way of creating puppets. And the idea I have come up with does not really build off of any of the Lovecraft stories that I have read. Any plausible explanation that would bring in the presence of an Old one is greatly appreciated.

The worms tend to be found in natural springs, deep wells, and simular locations. Fully grown, they are roughly 1.5 meters long and 10 cm wide at their longest point. They tend to consume vital organs and take over the functions of the Stomach, Heart, Lungs, Liver, etc. Those infected become much stronger, and difficult to kill (+8 Con, +4 Str).

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Mik]

Lord Zardoz:

Okay, I can better see where you are going with your adventure seed. The idea of seeing people swill down overpriced "LeMontaigne Springs" water in the nearby health club will come back with a crack when the investigators learn of the parasites.

Now, this also gives you a nice class-division issue in the distribution area; the worms are taking over the relatively affluent people who can afford overpriced well water in plastic bottles. Soon enough, your more well-off people in town are sick with a bug, then back up and about with a bit of a personality change. They will certainly start recommending the 'refreshing' liquid to others, and they'll tell two friends - and they'll tell to friends, and so on, and so on....

The intensity of the 'flu' worries me though - if it's obviously a painful and dangerous condition, people who can't afford the fancy water are going to start making the connection. Of course, some free samples to the medical community, police, and so forth might go a long way.

As to your 'king worm' and the connection to higher powers in the Cthulhu cosmos: Perhaps Thomas Edwards is being used by the worms, tricked into thinking there even *is* such a thing, while the puppetmaster pulls the strings from another location. If there is a lead in the mentality, it could be Nurse Nancy who has it.... This mucks with the excellent double homicide plotted out by Scud-O, but gives a credible reason for Hello Nurse keeping quiet about the surgeries (she's advancing the agenda).

If the worms and the parasitic initial forms require water to live, there may be some nice "shockers" you can spring on the investigators...

*) maybe the 'spring' isn't a spring at all - it's a pocket of trapped water in a mountain cave. When the water runs out, the worms will all die, unless they can find another location to multiply. Nurse Nancy has been doing some research, however, and has hired a slant drilling operation to come up and see how possible a horizontal bore to the second largest aquifer in the country is.... ... the source of water for more than five thousand communities...

*) perhaps the spring is the melted remnants of an ice meteorite that crashed down and was sealed into the soil of Cambodia millions of years ago by one of the elder beings. How dangerous *are* these things if the likes of Tsathoggua, the Gnoph-Keh, or even the Yithians are willing to devote time to trapping them? Are these things as dangerous as the flying polyps but more subversive because they understand how other creatures think?

Of course, we all have to ask if there will be time for a delicious Mike's Hard Lemonade (just kidding).

=Mik

 

[Lord Zardoz]

The Flu can help with a false lead...

After all, why not have someone from Public Health issue a statement about some contaminated Beef? Such news would cause a public outcry, but they will be mollified when they discover that the Flu like symptoms are only temporary.

And though the thought had not occured to me, I really like the idea of having Thomas Edwards as a decoy and pawn of a Greater Power. I am not entirely certain that Nurse Nancy is a good choice for the ring leader of this cult, however. After all, while she might have participated in one operation to remove a parasite, she would not particpate in Seven.

So why not dig up our old friend Roger LeMontaigne, Johnathans long dead friend and fellow explorer? I do not see any reason not to allow our old friend and ally rot in some deep natural spring. Why should someone who had discovered the Cambodian worms be left out of the conspiracy anyway? All I really need is a consistant way to integrate Roger into the workings of the town in a way that the players would meet him a few times under perfectly innocent circumstances.

Ideally, I would want to drop the name Roger LeMontaigne in association with Johnathan Fitzgerald (probably within Johnathans private memoirs). I would also want the players to personally meet Reginald DeMonte, the modern alias used by Roger.

However, I need a satisfactory role for Roger to play. One that fits these requirements.

1) He cannot have had any chance to stop Dr. Smith

2) He cannot be a public figure that Johnathan Fitzgerald would have met or know of.

3) He must have a connection to Thomas Edwards, preferably an involvement with LeMontaigne Springs Bottled Water Co.

As for which elder race or elder thing to tie Roger into, I will need to look at some source material to find out which one I like. I will check chaosim's site for links or information, but any other sources that you can suggest are greatly appreciated. Remember, I have not had any real experience running a Cthulhu Mythos game before. I do have a good source of info for the Mi-Go and for cultists of Hastur from an adventure I obtained recently. The rest I simply know nothing about.

Thanks again for the responses. By all means, keep the suggestions coming.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Mik]

Lord Z:

You don't strictly need to connect the horror to HPL's existing cosmology so much as maintain the 'flavor' of things - that beings vastly old and more powerful than we humans exist, and that they have desires and plans that humans can't even comprehend. Additionally, we pitiful creatures can only delay them, not defeat them.

I have a link for HPL's works online that might help, though it does not provide the works of his fellow authors. H. P. Lovecraft Library

Reginald DeMonte could be an old friend of Fiztgerald's. An old French-Canadian handyman in town who was fast friends with Fitzgerald until, in a 'dispute over land', DeMonte killed Fitzgerald in the woods. While the body was never found, DeMonte was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Fitzgerald went to Cambodia to explore the deep wilds not trodden by the Cambodians. An ancient stela unearthed during a dig in Thailand, written in Mon-Khmer (ancient Cambodian language) indicated 'the people of the air worm' dwelt in these far off mountains, worshipping a point where ice of the sky fell in ancient eons.

Fitzgerald connected the term "air worm" to the flying polyps he had learned of through the writings of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee (see The Shadow out of Time by HPL). Fitzgerald mounted an expedition that was blocked by the Khmer Rouge closure of the country. While waiting for the political situation to change, Fitzgerald obsessively read everything he could get from Miskatonic's research archives, forming strong ties there.

Fitzgerald had to wait until 1993 - the UN pressure for general elections led the government to make some concessions to westerners in hopes of being seen in a better light.

Fitzgerald returned from Cambodia as a host of the leading consciousness of the Cambodian Worms. Fitzgerald had changed behavior and personality dramatically, and began searching the mountains for a pocket of trapped glacial water. The King Worm needed to locate a body of water that would not be exposed to light (or something), which damages and kills the embryonic, pre-parasitic form of the worms.

Fitzgerald found his trapped water body, and DeMonte was horrified to see his old freind gleefully disgorge writhing, nearly transparent tangles of worm pupae into the cold, ancient waters. The King Worm attacked him, and DeMonte fought back, taking a chunk out of Fitzgerald's head with a prospecting pick. DeMonte fled as Fitzgerald fell back into the black pit of icy water, then hid at his home in the town's old French Hill district.

Police searching for the missing Fitzgerald arrested and questioned DeMonte, the local Medical Examiner determined that the blood and brain matter on the pick were Fitzgerald's, DeMonte as much as confessed to the killing, but refused to lead police to the scene of the crime (fearing the worms could be released). The one person he did tell was his defense attorney. He was defended by one Thomas Edwards, a former 'big city lawyer' who had moved to the area a while back. Edwards argued that his client was unfit to stand trial, but the court disagreed, tried him, and sentenced him to a prison term under psychiatric observation.

Edwards investigated the location of the spring, was unable to find the body, but took a sample of the water back to town for testing. Test after test showed no contaminants, so he decided to see what effect it would have on animals. Animal tests showed nothing (worms need a sentient host), so he moved thoughtlessly to human subjects.

Starting with people who would not be missed, Edwards was at first horrified by the severity of the flu-like symptoms. The vomiting and convulsions, however, were due to the high blood alcohol content of the subjects - transient drunks and alcoholic drifters.

Edwards found that with healthier, less alcohol-soaked subjects, consuming the water from the "spring" led to a short period of mild illness followed by susceptability to suggestion. Possibly, flashes of bright light in a particular shade made the subject mentally malleable or something. At this point, Edwards got Dr. Smith involved - possibly infecting his wife with the real tainted water and giving Dr. Smith plain tap water, fooling him into thinking he was infected.

Then the surgical investigations began. Unfortunately, they went wrong from several points of view:
1) the townspeople are starting to connect the dots between the deaths, the Doctor, and the greasy lawyer.
2) the worms are not pleased about how much Edwards' mucking about is harming them.
3) King Worm, in the now fully-transformed body of Fitzgerald, lying in the bottom of the inky pool, is really beginning to get pissed at the death of his broodlings.

But now what? How do we get from here to Thomas Edwards bottling the spring water and making the start of a new fortune from susceptible buyers?

=Mik
(edited to add Cambodia info and fix a spelling error)

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Further Details

I am quite aware that I do not need to directly link my adventure to the already existing Cthulhu mythos. However, I would very much like to. The link you gave me will proove to be quite useful.

Most of the details you suggest can be directly applied Mik, but there are a few points that are not quite as applicable.

First, within the chain of events I have so far envisioned, Johnathan and Roger/Reginald had made their expidition to Cambodia back in the 1920's / 1930's. Johnathan would have been keeping his secrets for about 70 years or so. Roger / Reginald would be the "King Worm", and manipulating our good friend Thomas Edwards. As such, Johnathan happens to be a good guy who took to alchohol abuse to keep his worm infection dormant for all of those years.

One thing that would make a fair bit of sense to me is the following. Thomas Edwards Senior could have defended Johnathan back in the 1920's / 1930's, and kept notes. Then Thomas Edwards Jr, who has sent run his inheritance into the ground trying to play the stock market could have gone back over his fathers old case notes looking for a likely person to blackmail. In an effort to locate Rogers body, he goes to the cave. He finds the spring, and the well preserved body frozen under the ice. He tries to extract it, but Roger, who was merely dormant and not dead due to worm intervention, pulls Thomas in. Thomas is then infected.

Now, as for how we get to the contaminated Bottled Water conspiracy, that can come out of the following. Thomas and Roger quietly infect some of Thomas' more questionable clients who have can help obtain funding. A few presentations are made to the right people, who are offered samples of this remarkable spring water, and after a while, all agree that it is a great business plan. Thomas has some of his clients arrange for the death of Johnathan Fitzgerald, an they buy the land from his estate.

I think that about wraps up the how the Conspiracy came into being part of things. Any other suggestions / questions / criticisms are certantly welcome.

END COMMUNICATION