Continuing the Dunwich experience (spoilers for players - do not read) - advice needed!

[dracopticon]

Hello all!

OBS! SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE "RETURN TO DUNWICH" CAMPAIGN! Do not read further if you are a player in the setting.

I had been running the "Return to Dunwich" campaign for quite some time before Covid-19 came. BUT: I run the campaign BEFORE the happenings of the story "The Dunwich Horror". Now I am ever so slowly beginning to take it up again. But there's not really time yet. Maybe in a few weeks - or months. This has happened last we played:

The year is 1924, not 1928 and the date is 30/7.  The characters have trekked through the caves of Dunwich and managed to follow them (with gasmasks on) through all the way to the Whateley family house and came out inside it - surprising Noah Whateley who, after a heated exchange of words, tried to lay a nasty spell on them but was gunned down. Fortunately for the characters no one else was there (downstairs), and they have yet to examine the other parts of the house. So, neither Wilbur or Lavinia is there just now. They will be returning, and if the characters explore further, it can be a shortened campaign for at least one of them. To be totally honest, when the pandemic started I was in a pickle as a Keeper. As they had killed Noah, and the others were absent, apart from one very notable exception, the return of Wilbur+Lavinia was going to be equally bloody or not. I couldn't really decide how to proceed further.

So my question is; now that I will begin the story again, what do you think should happen next? All input is welcomed. Thanks! //Erik B.

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by dracopticon

[EricW]

Have they burned the body? Or is it sitting there, waiting for some ghastly ritual to reanimate it? If Lavinia is still alive Wilbur can still pass for human, so he is not in a desperate hurry yet, and Noah has a copy of the Necronomicon.
 

Wilbur might decide it’s worth the trouble to resurrect Noah, if he hasn’t learned what he needs to control his brother. A resurrected Noah would be a nightmare, because some rituals like essential saltes would cure his dementia and restore his full faculties.

Dont underestimate Noah, a back woods self educated wizard who almost singlehandedly engineered the end of the world.

Edited June 12, 2021 by EricW

[dracopticon]

On 6/12/2021 at 3:27 PM, EricW said:

Have they burned the body? Or is it sitting there, waiting for some ghastly ritual to reanimate it? If Lavinia is still alive Wilbur can still pass for human, so he is not in a desperate hurry yet, and Noah has a copy of the Necronomicon.
 

Wilbur might decide it’s worth the trouble to resurrect Noah, if he hasn’t learned what he needs to control his brother. A resurrected Noah would be a nightmare, because some rituals like essential saltes would cure his dementia and restore his full faculties.

Dont underestimate Noah, a back woods self educated wizard who almost singlehandedly engineered the end of the world.

First of all, thanks for your reply EricW! I thought I would never get any answers to my questions. So, I am really thankful for your words.

Nope, they have not burnt the body. And yes, it's on the floor right in front of them, as they're all right now "alone" in the house (but not for long). The Child of Yog-Sothoth is of course on the second floor, but I have a hard time determining what actual size and maturity it is in now (in 1924, four years before the actual "Horror" story). That room is closed and locked, but they can of course pick the lock or perhaps find keys (?). Nice idea that the other family members can reanimate Noah. 🙂 I'll keep that in mind.

The Necronomicon will come in handy. And the salts! yes, that is a grisly idea. 🙂 Thanks. This gives me incentive to build the next encounter. And if the PCs try to enter the room with the Child and it is anywhere near the horrendous creature it becomes in 1928, surely at least one of the snoopy investigators will be picked up by "something invisible" and in a true terrorizing fashion drained and eaten...

Edited June 13, 2021 by dracopticon

[EricW]

Pick a size 🙂. Maybe pigmy Rhino size? Almost as tall as a man but much bulkier? they had to remove internal walls, but the floor was still intact.

Give the PCs a chance, maybe a mythos roll, and a chance to notice whatever is in the locked room is very big.

“The nethermost caverns,” wrote the mad Arab, “are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.”

(The Festival, by HP Lovecraft)

 

[dracopticon]

Yep, I'll probably use the old "POWx1"-rule for their sixth sense to kick in and give a bitter taste in their mouths. I mean a Child of Yog-Sothoth, no matter how old or large, should somehow radiate evil that can be felt through wooden or even stone walls. Maybe they can have a kind of "waking dream-nightmare" insights. Either way I'll make sure they have enough chance to feel the oozing presence, even if they can't see it (at first).

It will be a memorable few minutes. I have also checked beforehand if any of the players had read the novel "The Dunwich Horror", but no one had.

[dracopticon]

This is my drawing of the old Whateley house in 1924, when it is still whole and obscures the hill side grotto entrance.

[Darius West]

There are plenty of options for the remains of Noah Whately.  He might simply spontaneously come alive again, as such is the reputation of wizards that they seldom ever truly die, and (proverbially) uneasy is the town wherein a wizard is buried.  Perhaps Wilbur keeps Noah's living head in a cookie jar, like in some B movie, to ask it questions now and again?  This means that Noah is still an actor in the story, but the players don't feel as if they have to fight him all over again, just shriek and find a way to dispose of this newly discovered horror.

Not also, that when Wilbur is killed at the Miskatonic Library by Napoleon the watchdog, that he has all sorts of bizarre limbs and organs inside him.  This is somewhat reminiscent of John Carpenter's "The Thing".  There is also the "what if" scenario where the dead Wilbur has these limbs burst forth in a live and functional monstrosity.  This won't necessarily work for Noah and Lavinia of course.

The Dunwich Horror is perhaps the most classic CoC scenario that Lovecraft ever wrote imo.  It's a good choice to run.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Darius West

[dracopticon]

On 6/15/2021 at 12:08 PM, Darius West said:

There ae plenty of options for the remains of Noah Whately.  He might simply spontaneously come alive again, as such is the reputation of wizards that they seldom ever truly die, and (proverbially) uneasy is the town wherein a wizard is buried.  Perhaps Wilbur keeps Noah's living head in a cookie jar, like in some B movie, to ask it questions now and again?  This means that Noah is still an actor in the story, but the players don't feel as if they have to fight him all over again, just shriek and find a way to dispose of this newly discovered horror.

Not also, that when Wilbur is killed at the Miskatonic Library by Napoleon the watchdog, that he has all sorts of bizarre limbs and organs inside him.  This is somewhat reminiscent of John Carpenter's "The Thing".  There is also the "what if" scenario where the dead Wilbur has these limbs burst forth in a live and functional monstrosity.  This won't necessarily work for Noah and Lavinia of course.

The Dunwich Horror is perhaps the most classic CoC scenario that Lovecraft ever wrote imo.  It's a good choice to run.

Thank you Darius West for that excellent answer to my question! And sorry for my late reply back. Yes, I'm beginning to understand that "The Wizard" is not necessarily dead when he's taken down by gunfire or otherwise. That fact is horrendous in itself and once it dawns on the characters that he is back and this time perhaps more (pissed and powerful) - whether in a jar or not - they may just make a run for it.

As a side note: I think I played the caves wandering part of the story a little bit too easy on them. And that's in spite of them seeing an NPC geting transformed into a translucent jelly and then he getting skewered on the grotto walls, splitting into several twitching parts before them stamping it out, SEVERE SAN ROLLS!. It was a collegue from the MU university that they had rescued from the pyramid. They themselves didn't even get near to that fate. I ruled that the 1920s gas masks held tight, possibly a bad revision of history, but I wanted to keep them alive. There's so much to experience in the Dunwich area, so much for them to do. I have run several side-stories connected to Dunwich, but ...

The overall assignment for them is to conduct a three-year health survey of the Dunwich Valley for the MU, including a Phrenology skull-measuring analysis to see if the inhabitants are "lesser human beings" or the greater part of them have been mentally compromised somehow, as there are so much sickness and poverty happening there.

I plan to run other scenarios interceeding with this one, at least try on the Masks campaign, as I thought the Peru part was quite good, even if it means backtracking timewise. But this sandbox first!

Edited June 16, 2021 by dracopticon

[Darius West]

On 6/17/2021 at 12:04 AM, dracopticon said:

There's so much to experience in the Dunwich area, so much for them to do. I have run several side-stories connected to Dunwich, but ...

Chaosium's Dunwich Campaign pack is excellent imo. It is very much the sandbox, which is how I like to run my games too.  I encourage my players to develop their characters with a sense of agency, and avoid railroading altogether.  By comparison, I think Masks of Nyarlathotep is a lot more railroady, and Horror on the Orient Express actually benefits from railroading (for obvious reasons).

I enjoyed your reference to phrenology in the Dunwich area.  Maybe it's inbreeding?  Maybe it's Maybeline. 😆

 

[dracopticon]

On 6/18/2021 at 11:24 AM, Darius West said:

Chaosium's Dunwich Campaign pack is excellent imo. It is very much the sandbox, which is how I like to run my games too.  I encourage my players to develop their characters with a sense of agency, and avoid railroading altogether.  By comparison, I think Masks of Nyarlathotep is a lot more railroady, and Horror on the Orient Express actually benefits from railroading (for obvious reasons).

I enjoyed your reference to phrenology in the Dunwich area.  Maybe it's inbreeding?  Maybe it's Maybeline. 😆

 

Thanks for your reply Darius West! I am sorry for my late reply, I don't get any info of replies to my Hotmail inbox, so I gotta change some notifications here. Yes, I also think that Masks of Nyarlathotep is very much a straight line and IMO particularly Horror on the Orient Express is like that in the most tedious way. Then again, railroading can be good if it's done well without too obvious "tracks".

And yes! 🙂 I thought Phrenology would be an excellent wink to how various racial thinking actually were OK in those days, which is horror in itself. So the characters go around measuring skulls and performing physicals on the rednecks, who totally fall for the "scientific importance feel" of visiting "big city folk" and are much obliged for cost free examinations.

Edited June 23, 2021 by dracopticon