The Kingsbury Horror Play Report Session #2
Please see the previous blog entry, this is Play Report from the Gumshoe RPG Trail of Cthulhu, a one-shot of The Kingsbury Horror.
The intrepid trio is joined by an old pal of Johny's, Archaeologist Rick Rickricksonsonson (Ian), on a quest for the most ancient of artifacts and a few dollars to boot. The previous trio, now a new quartet, make their way into Frank's apartment, Johny is left in the car, see the previous session. Knuckles goes in first, with Charles shadowing him in the entrance, a brief game of cat and mouse entails before Frank is pistol-whipped and spills the beans, he confesses to killing Flo, but Charles deduces it's all a sham, why would he lie? A search of the apartment turns up some cocaine and smut photos - "I got 'em from one-armed willie" says Frank. The photos show the same man, with a tribal tattoo on his shoulder having sex with the victims, a painting, the whirlpool is seen in one photo and a bas-relief of sandstone(?) in the other, but it's too small to see what is carved on it, a magnifying glass would help.
The group head back to Lester's Bar to try and find a lead on "One-Armed" Willie, he's not been that active recently but they are told they may run into him down in the Roaring Third. The group split up and head to the east and west of Broadway respectively. Charles and Rick notice a tattoo parlor Nadie's Tattoos, with a design very similar to the one in the photo. Bracing Mondo, the owner, a bit of flattery and streetwise skills from Rick, gets the duo on the better side of Mondo, he spills on the slick-haired gringo who asked for the tattoo design and how he then used the pattern to create a version for a local gang, The Headhunters. Mondo mentions about a dog on the shoulder of the gringo but then acts dumb when asked what he meant by Dog, the design looks nothing like a dog!
Knuckles and Johny do the rounds in Hobo town aka The Flats. They brace a few low life's, but come up short, they think they catch glimpses of a one-armed figure but nothing definite, a chase through the rail yards comes to nothing. As time passes, strange things happen, a paper blows by, three years old, from the date of the beginning of the murders, Knuckles stumbles and almost falls as they cross over a bridge, a massive sense of deja vu hits him hard. As dusk falls, they head back to the Roaring Third to try and find the others.
Meanwhile, Rick and Charles are on the lookout for Willie, a few aimless hours of trudging the streets before they spot Willie heading down an alley, they corner him and he starts to babble ... "..the doctor already showed me papers says I'm gonna die in the past." "I bin spit up by the whirlpool, just like in the story, and I'm gonna get sucked back in." "The doctor gonna cut my arm off and kill me in 1929, and the one that gets away just runs until he gets sucked in."
Seemingly meaningless nonsense, but the good doctor Withers tries to calm Willie and get some responses out of him...
"Where does he cut off your arm?" "Under the train"
"What whirlpool?" "Saw the boat in a pitcher. Caught in the whirlpool"
"What Story?" "Cribdis. Greek story. Next to the dogs."
"Who is the doctor?" "Rich white man with greasy hair lives under the train."
"Did he kill Flo/Ed/Rose?" "Didn't know he was the doctor the first time before he killed me, so I gave up Flo and Ed and Rose to him. Builds dogs out of 'em."
After falling silent, Willie stares off into the distance, the group tries to get more information out of him, when... ... a splash of blood comes out of a hole in Willie's neck and splatters onto Charles, accompanied by the sound of a great onrushing wind, Willie's head simply tears loose and disintegrates in a mist of blood and snarling noises. As Willie's body falls backward it vanishes into thin air with a sucking splash.
Rick and Charles look on in horror, as around the corner come Johny and Knuckles, frowns on their faces as they eye up the white ashen looks of their comrades.
Keeper Thoughts:
This was an incredibly enjoyable session, everyone participated and from the skulking around Frank's apartment to the investigations across the Roaring Third, the Flats and Nadie's it felt like a real depth of story was unfolding. The cliffhanger ending of poor Willie's demise came at the perfect time.
As a Keeper, there was quite a lot of work/prep to keep the core story moving and then slot in the time-related incidents, before building to Willie. Whilst it was a nice cliffhanger, it also meant that by the following session, a lot of the Willie Q&A had been forgotten and I had to continue to reinforce items they'd uncovered but needed reminding of.
The small time-related snippets/flavors are, I think, a great way of filling time, as well as building up the atmosphere and keeping the group motivated between major scenes.
It was my first proper combat, between Frank, Joel and Charles and it went okay with a slight bending of rules, by rights I should have been a bit more diligent in going through surprise rules and testing sense trouble, etc but I do find the ToC rules could do with some clearer explanation/examples of this, the condensed ToC rules, help... maybe this will be addressed in 2nd ToC!
...here be spoilers...
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| Scylla and Charybdis Tablet |
The group head back to Lester's Bar to try and find a lead on "One-Armed" Willie, he's not been that active recently but they are told they may run into him down in the Roaring Third. The group split up and head to the east and west of Broadway respectively. Charles and Rick notice a tattoo parlor Nadie's Tattoos, with a design very similar to the one in the photo. Bracing Mondo, the owner, a bit of flattery and streetwise skills from Rick, gets the duo on the better side of Mondo, he spills on the slick-haired gringo who asked for the tattoo design and how he then used the pattern to create a version for a local gang, The Headhunters. Mondo mentions about a dog on the shoulder of the gringo but then acts dumb when asked what he meant by Dog, the design looks nothing like a dog!
Knuckles and Johny do the rounds in Hobo town aka The Flats. They brace a few low life's, but come up short, they think they catch glimpses of a one-armed figure but nothing definite, a chase through the rail yards comes to nothing. As time passes, strange things happen, a paper blows by, three years old, from the date of the beginning of the murders, Knuckles stumbles and almost falls as they cross over a bridge, a massive sense of deja vu hits him hard. As dusk falls, they head back to the Roaring Third to try and find the others.
Meanwhile, Rick and Charles are on the lookout for Willie, a few aimless hours of trudging the streets before they spot Willie heading down an alley, they corner him and he starts to babble ... "..the doctor already showed me papers says I'm gonna die in the past." "I bin spit up by the whirlpool, just like in the story, and I'm gonna get sucked back in." "The doctor gonna cut my arm off and kill me in 1929, and the one that gets away just runs until he gets sucked in."
Seemingly meaningless nonsense, but the good doctor Withers tries to calm Willie and get some responses out of him...
"Where does he cut off your arm?" "Under the train"
"What whirlpool?" "Saw the boat in a pitcher. Caught in the whirlpool"
"What Story?" "Cribdis. Greek story. Next to the dogs."
"Who is the doctor?" "Rich white man with greasy hair lives under the train."
"Did he kill Flo/Ed/Rose?" "Didn't know he was the doctor the first time before he killed me, so I gave up Flo and Ed and Rose to him. Builds dogs out of 'em."
After falling silent, Willie stares off into the distance, the group tries to get more information out of him, when... ... a splash of blood comes out of a hole in Willie's neck and splatters onto Charles, accompanied by the sound of a great onrushing wind, Willie's head simply tears loose and disintegrates in a mist of blood and snarling noises. As Willie's body falls backward it vanishes into thin air with a sucking splash.
Rick and Charles look on in horror, as around the corner come Johny and Knuckles, frowns on their faces as they eye up the white ashen looks of their comrades.
Keeper Thoughts:
This was an incredibly enjoyable session, everyone participated and from the skulking around Frank's apartment to the investigations across the Roaring Third, the Flats and Nadie's it felt like a real depth of story was unfolding. The cliffhanger ending of poor Willie's demise came at the perfect time.
As a Keeper, there was quite a lot of work/prep to keep the core story moving and then slot in the time-related incidents, before building to Willie. Whilst it was a nice cliffhanger, it also meant that by the following session, a lot of the Willie Q&A had been forgotten and I had to continue to reinforce items they'd uncovered but needed reminding of.
The small time-related snippets/flavors are, I think, a great way of filling time, as well as building up the atmosphere and keeping the group motivated between major scenes.
It was my first proper combat, between Frank, Joel and Charles and it went okay with a slight bending of rules, by rights I should have been a bit more diligent in going through surprise rules and testing sense trouble, etc but I do find the ToC rules could do with some clearer explanation/examples of this, the condensed ToC rules, help... maybe this will be addressed in 2nd ToC!
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