Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
ULTIMATE Chicago Games Day Story Hour
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 467520" data-attributes="member: 2205"><p><em>I may have gotten a name or two wrong. If so, one of the guys who played our game can correct me, I'm sure. </em></p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: gold">What Lies Beneath (the Surface of Lake Michigan): a Chicago Games Day <em>Call of Cthulhu</em> Session</span></strong></p><p></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Near the shores of Lake Michigan, a little north of Chicago, lies the small pedagogue facility of Abernathy College, a quaint little college with decent departments in biology and liberal arts. The Abernathy College Library is also known for its small Special Collections Department which has some unusual and rare pieces. The curator of the Special Collections is now one Dr. Horley, a small, elderly man with a position on the faculty of the Archeology Department. He's actually only been the curator for a little less than a year. The prior curator left his position under mysterious circumstances.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">One Friday night in the fall, a number of folks are scheduled to assist the professor in a graveyard shift at the library to catalog and verify the collection contained at Abernathy college. Earl is a dock worker -- not a real bright fellow, but someone who sees this as a way to pocket a few extra bucks. Jeff is also a bit older -- a mid-thirties occult writer who is hoping to get a glimpse at the restricted section of the library that non-faculty rarely get a chance to see. Marcus is just there to get a few points of extra credit. Jennifer (engineering major) is there to be closer to Rex. Mark actually works at the library normally and just helping out with this special project. Rex is a lacrosse player who is there on athletic scholarship (his only hope at getting into college, by the way...)</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">At about 7:00 PM on Friday night, the college is starting to get dark, and is quite quiet at this point. The library is closed and dark with the exception of the area in which we are working -- a dusty old room that smells of ancient, mouldering paper, with a large table in the middle around which we all sit, a number of shelves around the walls full of ancient books. At the back of the room is a caged area, and behind that are even more books and other items. Professor Horley came in and explained our task -- we were to be verifying the catalogs. Each of us had a list of books, and all night long we were to verify that the books were shelved and present as the catalog showed. Although we would have to pull books down to do so, we were strongly encouraged not to flip through the books, as they were extremely old and many of them were very fragile. In addition, we were each given a pair of latex gloves to wear so as not to get oil from our skin on the pages. The professor himself would be present, but occupied with his own cataloging and study requirements in the cage.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Earl asked about how he was to punch in, and with that, we were put to work. The professor himself was just visible inside the cage (with the gate open) looking at books, clay tablets and strange statues that left us with an odd eerie feeling, as if something were not quite right. But for the most part, we ignored him and went about our work. Rex picked up a book, and was promtply yelled at by Jennifer for not having put on his gloves. "Dude!" he said, quickly donning them.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Earl was quickly bored with the task. Looking through a few books, he was shocked to find one that appeared to be written in blood! "Look at this!" he said to a few folks. "Dude!" said Rex.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Jeff, meanwhile, was more interested in other stuff. He caught a glimpse on his list of <em>The Cthulhu Fragments</em>, a book he had heard about in frightened and whispered conversations with occult experts. Ignoring the other books on his list, he went straight to that one. He was amazed to find that it seemed to be bound with human skin. He spent a few minutes perusing the book, with his back to the professor. Finally, on a page with a picture of a strange humanoid creature with a squid-like head in Polynesia, something clicked in his mind, and the fragments of a greater puzzle starting to come together for him. His mind wasn't prepared for the revelation, however, and it quickly shut down, leaving him completely catatonic.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Earl noticed this and went to snap his fingers in front of Jeff's face. No reaction. He looked at the book, but he didn't understand it well enough for it to effect him. He did notice the human skin book.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">"Hey, this guy is weirded out from looking at the skin book," he exclaimed. Everybody else came to check him out, but nobody could get a reaction out of him. Finally, Mark decides he needs to talk to the professor and explain to him that there is a medical emergency of some kind -- Jeff is having a seizure. The professor was busy comparing a strange idol to a diagram in a book, and seems somewhat confused and ineffective as Mark tries to take stock of the situation. Apparently the library is locked and they cannot easily make their way outside. When Mark insists that an ambulance be called, the professor leaves for his office. Mark follows behind him.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">The other folks quickly look inside the cage at strange things like chipped African masks, rough-hewn claw tablets and the like, but they cannot tell at what the professor himself was recently looking.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Then the janitor comes in. He smells horrible, almost sewer-like, and when the group tries to address him, he does little more than grunt and give confused one-word replies. Deciding that he is an absolute idiot, the group continues to try and get a reaction of some type from Jeff, although a few of the guys watch the janitor warily as he works inside the cage itself. "Dude!" says Rex. "Are you supposed to be in there?" Then, he recognizes him as Professor Chen, a former biology professor who disappeared mysteriously from campus a couple of years ago. "Dude!" he says again.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Then, like a striking snake, Professor Chen/Bob Chen the janitor grabs some largish clay tablets from the cage and makes a break for the door. The crowd tries to stop him, but he pulls a gun from his jacket and holds everyone at bay. "You're all one of them!" he says. "It must stop!" Earl, in a surge of heroism decides to try to grab him, but he is shot and falls to the ground in pain. Rex tries to stop him as well, but the man shakes him off. Mark, who had tried to follow the professor, but was still just around the corner hears the shot and comes back. He sneaks up on Janitor Chen and disarms him. He still manages to run, though, and heads for a fire escape concrete stairwell. The group chases him (except for Jennifer, who wants to keep an eye on Jeff and Marcus who hides under a table) and Mark even tries to leap over the guard-rail to catch him on the next level. He misses and slams flat against the concrete stairs. Earl tries as well and is more successful, knocking Chen flat and pinning him down against the stairs.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Marcus, who it turns out is a bit of an outdoorsman, tries to tie Chen up with backpack straps, but rolls a 1 on his Use Rope check, thus creating a pretty, but ineffectual bow. We also discover that a Treat Injury check DC 15 can snap Jeff from his catatonia, which Jennifer is finally able to do. Chen is finally secured, Jeff looks at the tablets he wanted to take. He recognizes something about Deep Ones on the tablets, a term he's vaguely familiar with, especially after his recent bout with mental stretching, but he feigns ignorance in horror at what Chen may have been trying to do. The tablets are hidden under Mark's jacket in the back of the cage, and Jeff frantically looks for an unlocked office door outside of the Special Collections area where they can be hidden. Before a place is found (all doors are locked and Chen has too many keys for us to try more than a handful of them) Horley comes back and is shocked at what he sees. Mark rather angrily explains what has happened and demands an explanation for what is in the cage and what is going on. Horley doesn't say much except to shake his head slowly and say that "It's begun already!" He tells Mark and the others that there are other creatures, formerly of our world, who want to regain a foothold any way they can. The tablets Chen was trying to steal were necessary for the very last step in a ritual that would bring some of them to our world. Jeff, with his background in the occult (and his recent experiences with <em>The Cthulhu Fragments</em>) and a judicious Sense Motive check decides to trust Horley, while Mark angrily demands that the police be called. When Horley is reluctant to do so, he stamps out to find a way outside. Once there, he makes a cellphone call to 911 and requests a police officer.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">However, when he sees us leaving, he decides to join us, leaving a tip with the police that we are heading for the docks. A clever clue, that Chen smelled like sewer and that the Deep Ones would come from the water, leads us to the only place in Chicago where a large sewer drain joins with Lake Michigan. Another item that seemed odd -- when Mark left the building, the alarms sounded very loudly. In the stairwell in the back, however, we noticed that the alarms were not sounding and appeared to be disconnected. "Dude!" says Rex. Two cars are taken, Jeff's '67 Chevy Nova and a large van.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">There is a place on the docks where a large sewer opening opens to Lake Michigan, but the group spreads out slightly. Horley, Marcus and Rex walk out on a dock that extends over the lake surface, while Jennifer heads nearer to the sewer entrance. Jeff tries to stay midway between the two groups, especially since Jennifer happens to be closer to the cars. Mark stands on a large crate somewhat behind Horley, with the gun still ready in case Horley tries to betray them, while Earl decides that the cockpit of the large crane nearby is probably the safest place for him to wait.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Horley begins chanting now, in weird words that bend themselves around the listeners ear like blasphemous curses. Then he throws the tablets to the water, and surprisingly, they shatter on contact with the surface. Then the world gets quieter for a moment, and three strange shapes crawl up from the lake. Vaguely humanoid, and strongly piscoid, they crawl up on the dock. Rex yells, "DUDE!!" and Marcus faints straight away as Horley shouts out, "Here, my brethren, are sacrifices for you to destroy! Now, I can finally be one of you!" His shouting is interrupted as the Deep Ones rip him to shreds and cast his torn, spindled and mutilated body into Lake Michigan. Jeff runs for the car, Jennifer runs for the sewers to hide and Rex tries to drag Marcus to safety. Earl tries to pick up a large crate with the crane, thinking to drop it on the abominations in front of him, but with his nervous shaking hands, he is unable to manipulate the controls finely enough to successfully pick anything up. Mark jumps from the crate to make his way to the cars, but slips on landing, hurting himself badly and knocking himself unconscious. Jeff makes it to the Nova, and gets it started. Rex continues to make some progress with Marcus while Hank decides that with a 4 ft. steel crane claw, he really doesn't need to pick up a crate. Swinging the claw over towards the dock, he releases it to fall heavily, smashing through the dock and splashing into the lake. The Deep Ones dive out of the way, taking only minimal damage from the crane, but are now prone. Jeff, meanwhile, is driving his Nova straight for the Deep Ones and (rolling a natural 20 on his drive check) he flattens all but one of them with a satisfying double ba-bump sound under his tires. Earl drops the crane a final time, turning the last Deep One into a smear of blood and small silvery scales.</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p><p><span style="color: wheat">Sadly, just when it looked like a succesful Treat Injury check on Mark would have enabled our entire group to survive our first encounter with the Cthulhu-ian world, Jennifer's trip into the sewers puts her face to face with rats crazed from feasting on the flesh of a Deep One. Before she can react, she is killed and eaten by the rabid creatures. Also, although it was beyond the scope of our adventure, we will no doubt have a difficult time explaining to the police why we have the gun that shot Chen and Earl, why Jennifer and Horley are dead and what the strange fishy thing is smeared on the dock that we destroyed. <img src="http://jdyal.freezope.org/ohwell.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> However, surviving the encounter with our sanity jostled yet reasonably intact is surely as good as we could have hoped!</span></p><p><span style="color: wheat"></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Desdichado, post: 467520, member: 2205"] [i]I may have gotten a name or two wrong. If so, one of the guys who played our game can correct me, I'm sure. [/i] [b][color=gold]What Lies Beneath (the Surface of Lake Michigan): a Chicago Games Day [i]Call of Cthulhu[/i] Session[/color][/b][color=gold][/color] [color=wheat]Near the shores of Lake Michigan, a little north of Chicago, lies the small pedagogue facility of Abernathy College, a quaint little college with decent departments in biology and liberal arts. The Abernathy College Library is also known for its small Special Collections Department which has some unusual and rare pieces. The curator of the Special Collections is now one Dr. Horley, a small, elderly man with a position on the faculty of the Archeology Department. He's actually only been the curator for a little less than a year. The prior curator left his position under mysterious circumstances. One Friday night in the fall, a number of folks are scheduled to assist the professor in a graveyard shift at the library to catalog and verify the collection contained at Abernathy college. Earl is a dock worker -- not a real bright fellow, but someone who sees this as a way to pocket a few extra bucks. Jeff is also a bit older -- a mid-thirties occult writer who is hoping to get a glimpse at the restricted section of the library that non-faculty rarely get a chance to see. Marcus is just there to get a few points of extra credit. Jennifer (engineering major) is there to be closer to Rex. Mark actually works at the library normally and just helping out with this special project. Rex is a lacrosse player who is there on athletic scholarship (his only hope at getting into college, by the way...) At about 7:00 PM on Friday night, the college is starting to get dark, and is quite quiet at this point. The library is closed and dark with the exception of the area in which we are working -- a dusty old room that smells of ancient, mouldering paper, with a large table in the middle around which we all sit, a number of shelves around the walls full of ancient books. At the back of the room is a caged area, and behind that are even more books and other items. Professor Horley came in and explained our task -- we were to be verifying the catalogs. Each of us had a list of books, and all night long we were to verify that the books were shelved and present as the catalog showed. Although we would have to pull books down to do so, we were strongly encouraged not to flip through the books, as they were extremely old and many of them were very fragile. In addition, we were each given a pair of latex gloves to wear so as not to get oil from our skin on the pages. The professor himself would be present, but occupied with his own cataloging and study requirements in the cage. Earl asked about how he was to punch in, and with that, we were put to work. The professor himself was just visible inside the cage (with the gate open) looking at books, clay tablets and strange statues that left us with an odd eerie feeling, as if something were not quite right. But for the most part, we ignored him and went about our work. Rex picked up a book, and was promtply yelled at by Jennifer for not having put on his gloves. "Dude!" he said, quickly donning them. Earl was quickly bored with the task. Looking through a few books, he was shocked to find one that appeared to be written in blood! "Look at this!" he said to a few folks. "Dude!" said Rex. Jeff, meanwhile, was more interested in other stuff. He caught a glimpse on his list of [i]The Cthulhu Fragments[/i], a book he had heard about in frightened and whispered conversations with occult experts. Ignoring the other books on his list, he went straight to that one. He was amazed to find that it seemed to be bound with human skin. He spent a few minutes perusing the book, with his back to the professor. Finally, on a page with a picture of a strange humanoid creature with a squid-like head in Polynesia, something clicked in his mind, and the fragments of a greater puzzle starting to come together for him. His mind wasn't prepared for the revelation, however, and it quickly shut down, leaving him completely catatonic. Earl noticed this and went to snap his fingers in front of Jeff's face. No reaction. He looked at the book, but he didn't understand it well enough for it to effect him. He did notice the human skin book. "Hey, this guy is weirded out from looking at the skin book," he exclaimed. Everybody else came to check him out, but nobody could get a reaction out of him. Finally, Mark decides he needs to talk to the professor and explain to him that there is a medical emergency of some kind -- Jeff is having a seizure. The professor was busy comparing a strange idol to a diagram in a book, and seems somewhat confused and ineffective as Mark tries to take stock of the situation. Apparently the library is locked and they cannot easily make their way outside. When Mark insists that an ambulance be called, the professor leaves for his office. Mark follows behind him. The other folks quickly look inside the cage at strange things like chipped African masks, rough-hewn claw tablets and the like, but they cannot tell at what the professor himself was recently looking. Then the janitor comes in. He smells horrible, almost sewer-like, and when the group tries to address him, he does little more than grunt and give confused one-word replies. Deciding that he is an absolute idiot, the group continues to try and get a reaction of some type from Jeff, although a few of the guys watch the janitor warily as he works inside the cage itself. "Dude!" says Rex. "Are you supposed to be in there?" Then, he recognizes him as Professor Chen, a former biology professor who disappeared mysteriously from campus a couple of years ago. "Dude!" he says again. Then, like a striking snake, Professor Chen/Bob Chen the janitor grabs some largish clay tablets from the cage and makes a break for the door. The crowd tries to stop him, but he pulls a gun from his jacket and holds everyone at bay. "You're all one of them!" he says. "It must stop!" Earl, in a surge of heroism decides to try to grab him, but he is shot and falls to the ground in pain. Rex tries to stop him as well, but the man shakes him off. Mark, who had tried to follow the professor, but was still just around the corner hears the shot and comes back. He sneaks up on Janitor Chen and disarms him. He still manages to run, though, and heads for a fire escape concrete stairwell. The group chases him (except for Jennifer, who wants to keep an eye on Jeff and Marcus who hides under a table) and Mark even tries to leap over the guard-rail to catch him on the next level. He misses and slams flat against the concrete stairs. Earl tries as well and is more successful, knocking Chen flat and pinning him down against the stairs. Marcus, who it turns out is a bit of an outdoorsman, tries to tie Chen up with backpack straps, but rolls a 1 on his Use Rope check, thus creating a pretty, but ineffectual bow. We also discover that a Treat Injury check DC 15 can snap Jeff from his catatonia, which Jennifer is finally able to do. Chen is finally secured, Jeff looks at the tablets he wanted to take. He recognizes something about Deep Ones on the tablets, a term he's vaguely familiar with, especially after his recent bout with mental stretching, but he feigns ignorance in horror at what Chen may have been trying to do. The tablets are hidden under Mark's jacket in the back of the cage, and Jeff frantically looks for an unlocked office door outside of the Special Collections area where they can be hidden. Before a place is found (all doors are locked and Chen has too many keys for us to try more than a handful of them) Horley comes back and is shocked at what he sees. Mark rather angrily explains what has happened and demands an explanation for what is in the cage and what is going on. Horley doesn't say much except to shake his head slowly and say that "It's begun already!" He tells Mark and the others that there are other creatures, formerly of our world, who want to regain a foothold any way they can. The tablets Chen was trying to steal were necessary for the very last step in a ritual that would bring some of them to our world. Jeff, with his background in the occult (and his recent experiences with [i]The Cthulhu Fragments[/i]) and a judicious Sense Motive check decides to trust Horley, while Mark angrily demands that the police be called. When Horley is reluctant to do so, he stamps out to find a way outside. Once there, he makes a cellphone call to 911 and requests a police officer. However, when he sees us leaving, he decides to join us, leaving a tip with the police that we are heading for the docks. A clever clue, that Chen smelled like sewer and that the Deep Ones would come from the water, leads us to the only place in Chicago where a large sewer drain joins with Lake Michigan. Another item that seemed odd -- when Mark left the building, the alarms sounded very loudly. In the stairwell in the back, however, we noticed that the alarms were not sounding and appeared to be disconnected. "Dude!" says Rex. Two cars are taken, Jeff's '67 Chevy Nova and a large van. There is a place on the docks where a large sewer opening opens to Lake Michigan, but the group spreads out slightly. Horley, Marcus and Rex walk out on a dock that extends over the lake surface, while Jennifer heads nearer to the sewer entrance. Jeff tries to stay midway between the two groups, especially since Jennifer happens to be closer to the cars. Mark stands on a large crate somewhat behind Horley, with the gun still ready in case Horley tries to betray them, while Earl decides that the cockpit of the large crane nearby is probably the safest place for him to wait. Horley begins chanting now, in weird words that bend themselves around the listeners ear like blasphemous curses. Then he throws the tablets to the water, and surprisingly, they shatter on contact with the surface. Then the world gets quieter for a moment, and three strange shapes crawl up from the lake. Vaguely humanoid, and strongly piscoid, they crawl up on the dock. Rex yells, "DUDE!!" and Marcus faints straight away as Horley shouts out, "Here, my brethren, are sacrifices for you to destroy! Now, I can finally be one of you!" His shouting is interrupted as the Deep Ones rip him to shreds and cast his torn, spindled and mutilated body into Lake Michigan. Jeff runs for the car, Jennifer runs for the sewers to hide and Rex tries to drag Marcus to safety. Earl tries to pick up a large crate with the crane, thinking to drop it on the abominations in front of him, but with his nervous shaking hands, he is unable to manipulate the controls finely enough to successfully pick anything up. Mark jumps from the crate to make his way to the cars, but slips on landing, hurting himself badly and knocking himself unconscious. Jeff makes it to the Nova, and gets it started. Rex continues to make some progress with Marcus while Hank decides that with a 4 ft. steel crane claw, he really doesn't need to pick up a crate. Swinging the claw over towards the dock, he releases it to fall heavily, smashing through the dock and splashing into the lake. The Deep Ones dive out of the way, taking only minimal damage from the crane, but are now prone. Jeff, meanwhile, is driving his Nova straight for the Deep Ones and (rolling a natural 20 on his drive check) he flattens all but one of them with a satisfying double ba-bump sound under his tires. Earl drops the crane a final time, turning the last Deep One into a smear of blood and small silvery scales. Sadly, just when it looked like a succesful Treat Injury check on Mark would have enabled our entire group to survive our first encounter with the Cthulhu-ian world, Jennifer's trip into the sewers puts her face to face with rats crazed from feasting on the flesh of a Deep One. Before she can react, she is killed and eaten by the rabid creatures. Also, although it was beyond the scope of our adventure, we will no doubt have a difficult time explaining to the police why we have the gun that shot Chen and Earl, why Jennifer and Horley are dead and what the strange fishy thing is smeared on the dock that we destroyed. [img]http://jdyal.freezope.org/ohwell.gif[/img] However, surviving the encounter with our sanity jostled yet reasonably intact is surely as good as we could have hoped! [/color] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
ULTIMATE Chicago Games Day Story Hour
Top