Ebon

I have a lot of commitments. I run two games - a periodic Call of Cthulhu game that I run 'monthly' through the Time to Harvest campaign, and a D&D group with whom I'm currently working on the Curse of Strahd. I have used many techniques to manage both of these campaigns, and my style can change. Originally, when I only had the D&D group, I wrote down everything. I have a big white D&D folder within which are all my campaign notes for a whole 3-year campaign. That worked really well, but it was often hard to decide what to keep and what to throw, especially since later on in the grand scheme of things, my notes were sometimes very brief and I ran whole sessions without notes when I didn't have time to prepare. After that campaign, I ran a second homebrew campaign. This one was much shorter, lasting about six months, and in this one I did all my planning online. It was great to have it up there and I didn't have any issues keeping track of things. We played at the table, but I usually keep my laptop up for music anyway, so having the browser open was easy. I used Obsidian Portal to do it; what I did was write down my won notes in the 'GM ONLY' section and play off them. I scanned my maps in and used them off there too. I found it comfortable and intuitive, which was a pleasant surprise. Currently, as I am running pre-written campaigns, I have less need to write down things/keep track of things. I have a pad of paper on which I write important game-changing events: this many people of the original Vermont team are dead, this many escaped. This was the tarokka reading in Curse of Strahd; this is the locations of the important magical artefacts. Things like that I keep track of in an entirely unorganised manner, but it is enough for me to keep the campaign afloat. In short, I use both and I enjoy both. Which one will I use next? It depends upon the style of the campaign. However, I can say that it is good to try both and to experiment with different ways to keep track of your campaign. Without trying a whole bunch of them, you won't find what works best for you.

I have updated Nathan's wanted poster (check the dropbox link for the file). I'm quite unfamiliar with Canadian dialect, so I suspected that I missed something there. Thanks for the heads-up, Dithral. Also, thanks for the kind words, Bazil.

Hey guys! Thanks for all the well-wishes for the Episode 2 cover. I've decided to make one for Episode 3 as well. I know that most people have probably already run it, but it's better late than never, as I always say. I've also done a 'wanted' poster for Nathan Roche, as detailed in the Tuque Police Station in Appendix B. Please find the two files available on dropbox right here, alongside the cover for Episode 2. Credits ATtH episode 3 cover Background Image circa 1920 image of Michigan from Wikicommons Mi-Go from Wikicommons (couldn't find the original artist, sadly) Crater (supposedly of the one in Vermont, but actually of one in Russia) from Siperian Times and republished through earthsky.org The Purple Gang (they don't feature in the scenario, but they were active in Detroit around that time), period photograph. Font is the Telegram HPLHS font by the wonderful HPLHS, distributed free under the Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License (for details, see the HPLHS site). Nathan Roche Wanted Poster - I have written the prop in French (a good chance to brush up!) but it says the same thing as is written in the text of the scenario. Picture of Nathan Roche (actually a picture of Napoleon) a period sketch, through Wikicommons Title Font The Slab Serif HPLHS font, distributed under the same licence as the font I used in the cover. Details Font Modern No. 20 available through the Microsoft Office Suite. It came on my computer Anyway; that's it! I hope you guys enjoy and find it valuable.

N'aw, shucks. Thanks for the kind words, MOB. I guess I'll keep bringing them out with each release, then.

Hey fellow Cultists! I have a particular love for printing off my scenarios so I can mark them with pens and multicoloured highlighters, but I realised that Episode 2 didn't have a proper cover for me to print off in front of the scenario. Naturally, I opted to make one. It's not at all necessary, and it doesn't really benefit the players, but for those who would like a cover, you can chase it up on my Dropbox. Credits: The Misk.U logo is the one by Propnomicon (propnomicon.blogspot.com) and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. The background I found digging through Google Images. It is the image of a 1925 Patent Office. The font is the HPLHS 'OldStyle' font, distributed free under the Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License (for details, see the HPLHS site).

p. 32, Laurence Jarvis' stat block. His MP is 12, when he should have an MP of 21 with a POW of 110 (an MP of 12 actually makes a number of the events impossible). Also, in his telekinetic abilities, the 'alter reality' ability is not mentioned, which can make him harder to run if the keeper wants all the info in one place. p. 37, Right-Hand column, third paragraph. The text describes the Pickman Collection as being in the basement. The map at the back of the scenario shows the collection labelled as "Massacheusets History and Local Genealogy" and it is on the third floor, not the basement. p. 39 in the section describing the President's house, it reads: "President Wainscott has declared that he thinks the ostentatious building is an eyesore; although, the necessary funds to undertake such work have yet to materialize", but it doesn't explain what 'such work' actually is. Not actually an error, but a point that must be made: particularly when the action picks up and amnesia sets in, the body-swapped students change between their body's name and their mind's name, sometimes in the same scene (see page 27, left-hand column paragraphs 2 and 3 for a good example). This can make it VERY difficult to figure out who's doing what. Perhaps in the final print version, you write the body's name (as this is what the Keeper must describe to the players) with the mind's name in brackets. For instance, using the aforementioned scene, you could write: Higgins (Ludendorff) and Laslow (Jarvis).

I ran the whole thing in one session, but it took me about the same amount of time all in all as Morganhua (10 hours for me in total). However, I also think I could have cut the game to a much shorter length had I removed some of the roleplaying, and focussed more on the major events (the accident, the abduction, the forest) than the explorative nature of Cobb's Corners. I don't think it would be difficult to cut it to 4 hours, as long as you are using pregenerated characters and the players are somewhat familiar with the system/RPGs in general.

Greetings fellow Cultists! Just last night, I had the fantastic opportunity run A Time To Harvest episode 1, so I thought I'd share with you all my experiences and thoughts about the adventure. Before I begin, I will mention that I ran ATtH with six players; I usually run Cthulhu games with three to four. Two of the players were new to Call of Cthulhu; one played other RPGs before, the other had played none before. (Cult mission: accomplished!) Naturally, I played the game with the 7th-edition rules in which the campaign is published. TIME I ran the entire episode in one session; it lasted me about 10 hours all in all; this included a brief dinner break and character generation (I used the point-buy system from the core rules), so I would say about three-quarters of that was the game itself. The devs weren't joking when they said that it was long, but I didn't mind: nobody realised the time until it finished and we looked at our watches to find that it was 4 am! I could have cut more from the game, but I chose to balance time with immersion as I wanted Cobb's Corners to make a lasting impact on the players. I repeat: the writing and the story was so solid that the players really didn't care one iota. It was brilliant. WRITING The game was really well written, and Dean's props were magnificent. All in all, from a writing point of view, I thought it was really fun, but I also found the structure to be quite strongly 'on rails'. I have not run a Cthulhu campaign before, and not knowing what comes next made it difficult to keep things on track without breaking immersion. Nonetheless, the events were very clear and very easy to run because of their clarity. I would have liked to prepare a little more and re-arrange a few bits and pieces in the scenario; I thought the setup was difficult to move through as Joe was the first character mentioned but the last I introduced, and a description of Cobb's Corners would have been nice to have repeated within the scenario itself. Perhaps even putting info about Cobb's and Miskatonic (which we have been promised for episode 2) into a separate 'campaign supplement' book would have been nice. I found the zoogs to be the hardest creatures to describe as I found the descriptions lackluster in the book. I chose to do the classic Cthulhu trick: vague description. This proved to be quite reasonable. I found it very difficult to keep them on track towards the end. After Joe died and they killed the drunk (who attacked them in the night) and had found bones under the flower bed, a few of them were keen on simply packing up and leaving. This was eventually accomplished, but not the way they wanted. I think they found this part to be a bit of a stretch, and the weakest point in the 'railroad' for this adventure. (Understand: railroading is in many ways important. I am not against it, but one must be very cautious with it so that the players maintain the sense of agency. This was what was stretched - the sense of agency - toward the end). THE OPENING I opened the game with a military march playing (see MUSIC below). I had all my players line up as Blaine did the roll call. Everyone enjoyed this aspect. I also gave everyone a note pad with which to jot notes. Because I'm running one session a month, I don't expect people will remember all of the details, so giving them paper to take notes was useful as it helped them order their thoughts but it also means they can look back over them later -- and boy did they take notes! They had a blast with that! THE GROUPS Throughout the game the characters were split in two groups. To run this, I had two rooms of the house organised for the game. One group would leave for the other room when they split up to the dig and the folklore-ing. This was tricky, and I could have done this better. The folklorists had a lot they wanted to get done, and took a lot of time to do it, humming and hawing as they went through. I would have liked to cut this short - have them interview unnamed PCs - and then have everyone spend some time in town to talk to named ones together. This is something worth trying for next time. Beyond that, the splits worked really well, as everyone compared notes afterwards and discussed their options in a way I haven't seen before. THE RED HERRINGS They fell for Jason's witchcraft and were really suspicious of him from the get-go (they found him reading occult texts in the truck). Suspicion quickly fell on Blaine, too, but then they lost suspicion when he gave them whiskey. They did not fall for Sarah's shade, though they did chase up the doctor's vampiriphilia. They also noticed the large number of children's deaths. They kept trying to chase up the folklore stories but I did not have much to give them (and the more I gave them, the hungrier they were. They kept returning to Wendell with another scandal so they could search through obituaries to see if the people really had died or not). They believe at the moment that there are sacrifices, and the children are being sacrificed to the things in the hills. They have no idea what is going on, though some Dreamlands talk is going around when I gave them points in Dream Lore. LETHALITY When Jim attacked the farmhouse things got very out-of-hand and two investigators suffered a major wound. Nobody died, but the zoogs dropped one investigator to 1 hp after she was separated while running from the moon-beast. No-one was unscathed, though after healing only two characters remained seriously wounded. THE MUSIC I selected tracks for each main 'scene'. If anyone is interested in my choices, please find them below. Scene | Song - composer/OST Blaine's Debrief Palmetto Quickstep - performed by the 2nd Carolina String Band Vermont Country Naval - Yann Tiersen The Farm (day) The Land of Wind and Shade - Homestuck Gaiden - Land of Fans and Music The Farm (night) AKA THE DREAMS Neji - Elfen Lied OST Cobb's Corners I River Waltz - The Painted Veil OST Cobb's Corners II AKA FOLKLORE The Trap - Chad Fifer's Sense Impacts Deputy Cutter AKA THE TOUR It Don't Mean A Thing - performed by Duke Ellington Ghost Stories Core Chant - Meredith Monk (True Detective OST) The Deluge AKA NOAH'S FLOOD EIRE - Yann Tiersen (plus storm sounds from YouTube) The Accident AMAZONA - Epic Soul Factory Volume One (plus the YouTube storm sounds) The Bellweather Witch Main Title - Fahrenheit OST Sugar Maple Serenade The Promise of Shadows - Peter Gabriel The Moon-Beast Water Snake - Sphere OST Cabin in the Woods Adgt Vpaah Zong - Dante's Inferno OST One Way to Go Down (Blaine clears the farmouse) The Whisperer - Chad Fifer's Sense Impacts Chaos (Mi-Go Attack) The Necromorphs Attack - Dead Space OST Jail/Professor Harrold Ben Heals Kerrigan - Jeff Beal (Carnevale OST) End/The Train AKA TIME TO HARVEST THEME When Johnny Comes Marching Home - Canadian Brass THE HOOK The players still don't know what happened at the dig/the farmhouse, as most of them were in the forest. Only one player chose to go to the dig site, and she ended up fleeing for her life. Harry Higgins accompanied her for a bit, but when he fell and broke his ankle, she left him for dead. THE VERDICT I think we're in a good place for the next scenario. I can't wait to get my hands on it! This is a five-star product, and the props, the writing, and the roll-out are all to Chaosium's credit. Have we got the next Big Campaign on our hands? It certainly feels like it. I highly recommend this to any Cthulhu GM.

Thanks, Morganhua. Your players must love you if you put this much effort into the games that you run.

Morganhua, how can I get my hands on larger versions of your portraits for the field trip NPCs? I'd love to use them to make NPC cards so I can help PCs visualise who's with them and keep my tabs on them easily. Also, let me say that all of these are beautiful and useful, especially that coloured Cobb's map!

EP 1 Page 14, RH column, line 6: you use 'effect' when it should be 'affect' EP 1, Page 15 RH Column, Mi-Go Stats (I don't know what paragraph it is at that point) in 'ARMOUR': you say it 'causes all piercing weapons...' when it should be 'impaling weapons' EP1, Page 20, Map of Vermont: The map description on the left-hand side is clipped when printed and bound; maybe move it more centrally so that it causes no issues for people when you are printing it properly?