Movie Recommendation

 No game this week, though here is a 'Lovecraftian, and yet not Cthulhu' style movie recommendation...really original piece.  

 

Episode 4 - A Fistful of Dynamite

The characters pull away from the eastern side of the Lough, immediately being pursued by groups of the MacAllen clan using their own boats. Having  gained some time, they stop at the island mid-way, with a view to setting Macguffin’s unstable dynamite to destroy the first of the obelisks. Schmidt notes that there is a symbol on this one – and that it seems older than the other one previously observed; the symbology is clearly some sort of ancient map, and he takes a rubbing. The party wastes no time and sets a short fuse, taking to the boat, with the MacAllens in hot pursuit.

'Stop the carefully constructed wooden aquatic craft.'

Having sensed that they are tampering with the pentagramic pattern denoted by the obelisks however, the Lloigor attacks them mid channel. In a rush of violence, using its powers to set MacGuffin alight, and then rush toward Schmidt with jaws opening wide. In the confusion, McQuaid falls into the water, and a flurry of close range shots, and tossed dynamite from Sinead, create chaos.

Apparently the 'Watcher' from the Lord of the Rings was a Lloigor, who knew...

With Schmidt between its jaws, (and impossibly small amounts of damage done despite a fair crit) the beast is driven off, explosives detonating inside its jaws as it submerges; reaching the far bank in time, gives the characters time to ambush the onrushing boats of MacCallen cultists (with the help of the now dead MacGuffin’s remaining Lewis Gun ammunition).

The carefully drawn white-board map, becomes a mess...

 They head for a second obelisk, hoping to eliminate the threat, once and for all. This second set of detonations is much more successful; Sinead looks on at the practicality of her expertise; as the pentagram is finally broken, the Lloigor rears up in agony out of the lough, falling (apparently dead) onto one of the MacAllen boats, the rest withdrawing in apparent disarray.

Days later…and silence settles upon Lough Fein and the town of Gregor. The characters tie up loose ends, exploring the now quiet MacAllen farms (and finding a random copy of Cultes des Ghoules, and relocating Erma to Inverness, after Sinead (as a random act of poison laden vengeance) sorts out Erma’s husband (and not in a good way).  

'A sordid, undefinable stench settled over the place, and the ancient spirit slept...' H.P. Lovecraft

 The characters go their separate ways, Sinead disappearing into the Scottish criminal underground, Schmidt returning to London, where he discovers that he has been offered tenure at Miskatonic University in Arkham, where he will be contacted by members of the Order of the Silver Twilight…

The characters may have bigger fish to fry...

The coming campaign - Shadows of Yog Sothoth

 The best quote from the pending campaign (starting just after the Scottish episode) has to be with regard to the characters' adversaries who range from...

'...living wizards to undead horrors and alien monsters, who plan to raise dread R'lyeh, the city of Great Cthulhu, from the bottom of the sea, and [thereby] unleash the Elder gods upon a terrified world. If the players' investigators do well, they will save the world. If they do poorly, well ...'

 

Watch this space. 

 

 

Episode 3 - Goin' Underground

 Schmidt, McDaid and Macleod, having agreed to help Paten MacGuffin in his search for vengeance, start to cross the Loch toward the ruins of Castle MacLaraig.

Sinead Maguire, who has stayed back at the guesthouse keeping an eye on the still mourning Elaine, assembles and takes stock of her ‘bag’o’bombs’, keeping a close eye out for interference from the MacAllens. (Uncannily, rolling a straight 100 fumble on her ‘spot hidden’…oops).

Flash back to the chaps on the Lough …as McLeod’s eagle eyesight at night, spots a group of torches, heading north along the western bank, toward the castle. Reckoning they can make it there first, and choosing a route that avoids McLeod’s estimation as to the epicentre of the pentagram, the party rapidly beach the boat, and make their way through the marshland to the ruined castle.

As the torchlit procession makes its way toward the ruins. McLeod spots the fact that the eight MacAllens fiends, have a captured and bound Elaine and Sinead with them. (Rolling a fumble for a spot hidden rarely bodes well for the roller…and Sinead discovers that she has been nabbed by the MacAllens…along with Elaine, clearly with the help of Erma’s husband at the guesthouse).

The true horror..uhhh maybe

 

A quick search of the castle reveals a trapdoor, but there is no time to investigate that just yet, as there is an ambush and a daring rescue to spring! Having MacGuffin with his Lewis gun (well stocked with ammunition) pays dividends as his vengeance eventually plays out, bullets flying in the night at the head of the MacAllen column as it rounds the bend into the ruins, the captives safely in cover, and the ends of the column being shot to pieces. Schmidt shouts ‘get down’ in German, knowing that Elaine at least will understand it, though gaining a strange look from MacGuffin, whose memories still lie in the mud of the western front trenches.

plotting a route that avoids that hatched bit in the middle...

 

The ambush, potato chip flank...as the party shoots up the MacAllen column...

 A turn of surprise actions, and accurate close range fire from the party makes short work of the inbred and hulking MacAllens, and the slaughter is complete… Releasing the ladies, the party leaves Elaine and MacGuffuin on watch (Macguffin takes great pleasure in disposing of the bodies), the rest descending below to check out the dungeon level of the castle, before any more of the MacAllens turn up.

McDain and McLeod take the lead, knowing that it is ‘SAN roll’ time… The disgusting remnants of horrible rituals are found in two of the chambers; in one, leathery paralysed corpses posed in horrific death throes, whilst in another, the charred bones of the MacAllen’s nefarious activities (or the activites of something else…). In some cases evidence of spontaneous combustion seems obvious. Despite the potential for it all to become too much for the investigators, they have seen worse on the western front, and keep their stiff upper lip intact (SAN rolls passed).

The charnel house room is last in the tour however, decorated with ancient and recent blood stains and the stench of vile depredations. In the corner of the room sits a strange curved mirror, an ancient gallic text carved crudely onto its dark oak frame. Despite her best efforts, Sinead can not translate it (which is probably a good thing). McLeod has a strange feeling examining the thing. The party endeavours to destroy the mirror, drawing straws to see who gets to carry out the deed.

NOT the mirror in the bathroom...

 Just as McDaid and Sinead are about to use shotguns to destroy it...something stirs…dust on the floor swirls, and small motes of burning ember seem to float up in a vortex, an image, then a solid form, of the vile dreaded head…of the Lloigor forming from the bloated charged air in the vile dungeon… ROLL YOUR SAN!

...just the tip, of the Lloigor

 

Both pass, running like hell (but lose a point anyway), slowed by that burning sensation in their chests, a heat, a flame, an agonising pain as their burning lungs strive to find oxygen as the thing makes them pay for their transgression.

Luckily they make it out in time, despite some lung damage to both, and race to the surface, just in time for MacGuffin to warn them, that torches, many torches, can be seen moving from the MacAllen farms…toward the castle.

The next day is Samhain…Halloween…a festival bloodily celebrated through the MacAllen’s ghastly rituals. Perhaps the dreaded inbred sect of evil, wishes to start its celebrations, a little bit early…with the investigators as the prize.

 

Episode 2 – Can’t Stand the Standing Stones’ Stand-off!

 With the resulting standoff in MacKenzie House, Sinead Maguire , now with MacLeod pointing a pistol at her, and seemingly also supported by his two new friends, drops her bag and raises her hands. She opts not to reach for the oh-so-tempting bottle of unstable nitro, that has got her out of so many situations in the past.

She does opt to produce her one bargaining chip – the Willard Gibson notebook that she found whilst staying in his old room. This then appears to placate the rest of the party, and bearing in mind the potential dangers (and her bag full of dynamite), they agree to work together, at least for a time.

 There are several points to decipher in the notebook. Willard had made friends with a man called Paten MacGuffin up the lough, and had conversely managed to annoy the vile and malignant MacAllens, whom Erma MacKenzie, upon being assessed by the wily Schmidt (rolling a 01 on psychology) is terrified of. 

 Further ‘intense probing’ reveals that not only have the vile MacAllens killed Paten’s wife, and caused upset in the town, but they are somehow linked to the 'thing' in the Lough, and vile bouts of ‘keeping it in the family’. Sinead resolves to stay at the guesthouse for the evening, and keep an eye of Willard’s daughter Elaine, who heard the entire discourse.

See the toepath..just there...yep that's it...

Resolving to walk the toe-path around the lough as darkness falls (I mean, why wouldn’t you?), they discover the wreckage of wooden boats on the shoreline. They also encounter one of the deformed MacAllens, with an even more deformed dog called ‘Satan’ who crosses their path, the off kilter moron assuring them that they are being watched. No shots exchanged (at least in terms of lead) ,the two parties move on. 

According to AI this is a 'mad inbred Scottish farmer from 1925 with a dog called Satan and a shotgun'

As it grows dark, moonlights glints off something in the tree line, and they discover an out of place, rune marked, horribly black obelisk style, standing stone …which appears to be acting as part of a magnetic field (confirming Schmidt’s earlier research regarding standing stones). It has also been cleaned of muck, perhaps even unearthed by the local mad men MacAllens?

I asked AI for a black obelisk - this was option B...

 

The lands surrounding the Lough seem controlled by the MacAllens, except for one area, a well positioned  and stockade protected farm…Paten MacGuffin meets them with his friendly shotgun in hand, though McDaid manages to fast-talk him with regaled tales of the war and the party’s knowledge of Willard Gibson, and they are allowed into the farmhouse.

Inside is a mess, since the death of MacGuffin’s wife Sara, though they do see an intact rowing boat (called the ‘Sara’). MacGuffin confirms their worst fears regarding the stones, of which it seems there are five. Consulting the map of the area, MacLeod correctly assesses that they form the shape of a dreaded pentagram, and whatever is in the lough, might rise at  the epi-centre.

 MacGuffin is distraught since the death of his wife, at the hands of the MacAllens. He wants only vengeance, and the characters might be just the vehicle he has been waiting for …combined with the boxes of unstable dynamite and a handy-dandy Lewis Gun, currently needing a little oil, in the barn… 

Episode #1 – The MacKenzie House Showdown

 The first episode in the latest run through of a (very much expanded, due to its unintelligible plotlines..) ‘Shadows of Yog Sothoth’, with the players from the Wednesday Night Bunker. There are scenarios from other older supplements, and even some ‘made up crap’ in the context of this campaign. If it suddenly ends, you know that the players have en masse, taken the ‘Keeper of Arcane Lore’ out back and beat him with bricks…

Dramatis Personae

Professor Wolgang Schmidt (not used to hide his true surname: Von Junzt, definitely not, honest) – ex German officer from the trenches of France, now the doyenne of English Archaeology through means not altogether wholesome.

Cameron McDaid – the English officer who took him prisoner at the end of the war, now his great friend, and an artist, with a penchant for chemical cocktails of explosive import.

 

Sinead Maguire – Irish explosives expert fleeing after the civil war, and on the run… (sensing a theme). App7, due to an 'accident' in the past. 

 

John MacLeòid - A Scottish Private Investigator, contracted to catch the Maguire woman, by organisation(s) unknown.

Wolfgang and Cameron attend the London funeral of Willard Gibson, a noted palaeontologist found murdered at Gregor, near Inverness, in Scotland.

They comfort his daughter Elaine, a student at the London university, who gives the men letters she had received from her father, having asked for Schmidt’s help. They undertake to accompany her north to determine what happened at Loch Feinn, as information from the authorities is sparse. She advises that her father had asked if Wolfgang could find a copy of ‘Unspeakable Cults’ from the university library, which he dutifully ‘borrows’ with McDaid running interference.

Meanwhile, McCleod is closing in on Maguire in the remote Scottish village of Gregor, north of Inverness. He is at Inverness station when he bumps into his old friend McDade, and the Wolfgang party…

They head north, opting to check the guest house and room where Willard Gibson stayed…Erma McKenzie (who runs a fine boarding house), welcomes them, informing them (1) they should not waken her enormous, drunk and sleeping husband currently occupying the entire lounge, and (2) an Irish woman is in Willard’s old room currently.

Maguire, over-hearing the whole thing, grabs her gear, and the notebook she found in the room, and leaves via the window, escaping into the street below…

Using her superb disguise still, she opts to return dressed as a bloke – hoping to spring a trap. At the top of the stairs, McLeod ‘s eyes narrow, as he recognises his prey at the door, despite best disguise…

 

 End of Part One

Aaaaand we're back...again! Apparently Great Cthulhu is upset

 On the 4th anniversary of the 6th regenerative rub at re-beginning, the blog that will eternal lie (in true politician style - see what I did there...) - I HAVE RETURNED.

In this episode of 'Return of the Keeper of Arcane Lore Who Never Came back... I am re-constituting this (apparently Fantasy Wargaming) Blog into an RPG 'thing', mainly since after my 5e D&D expedition(s), I am now running the one true game - Call of Cthulhu.

Currently running this campaign every other week, and likely to run it again on a weekly basis with a different group: 

 Now, if I am good, and blog in timely fashion..updates may appear here, with character details etc., as I might also run...this (yes - that 1st edition version...I am what you might call a Tradionalist - watch this space):  

  

Now, Call of Cthulhu has been on my shelves for many a year (Ed: tell the truth - since 1984) - in fact I may have sold more of it off, than I currently have, but I am resisting the temptation to buy it all back from ebay...so far. Of course, I am running a mish-mash lying between 2nd, 4th and Edition 5.6 - I mentioned Tradition right?

Did I mention the Fantasy Wargaming blog is now an RPG 'thing'?