Jump to content

How Would You "Fix" Shadows of Yog-Sothoth?


AlHazred

Recommended Posts

So, back in the day, before Chaosium made box mega-adventures, there was one "mega"-adventure: Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, released in 1982 for CoC 2nd edition (AFAIK). There are some problems with the scenarios (Grognardia review, Unspeakable Oath review, etc.) but I've always loved some aspects of it. It was a globe-trotting campaign years before Masks of Nyarlathotep did it; it even has references that link back to Masks. And the Silver Twilight Lodge from the popular Arkham Horror board game had its start in this campaign as well. It got a reissue in 1989 in the Cthulhu Classics line to try to address some of its shortcomings, but it has never enjoyed the popularity of the bigger hits: the aforementioned Masks, Horror on the Orient Express, or Beyond the Mountains of Madness, for example.

So, how have others fixed the issues? I know a lot of people have replaced sections with other adventures; if you did, how did that work? Has anybody worked to tie it more strongly to Masks or any other scenarios? I know my own thought was to link it to "The Haunting" and start off with that one.

Edited by AlHazred
  • Like 1

ROLAND VOLZ

Running: nothing | Playing: Battletech Hero, CoC 7th Edition, Blades in the Dark | Planning: D&D 5E Home Game, Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle, HeroQuest 1E Sartarite Campaign

D&D is an elf from Tolkien, a barbarian from Howard, and a mage from Vance fighting monsters from Lovecraft in a room that looks like it might have been designed by Wells and Giger. - TiaNadiezja

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I first read the supplement back in the day, my thought was that there was no reason for the PCs to be interested in the Silver Twilight Lodge in particular. So, I thought a good way to get them started with them was actually to use the STL as patron. I would turn Mr. Knott, the landlord of the Corbitt house in "The Haunting" into a member of the Silver Twilight Lodge. I'm on the fence as to whether it makes more sense for him to dangle introductions to other Lodge members in front of the party, or if they just notice a Silver Twilight emblem prominently displayed in his office. It also makes a difference if the party is mostly female characters, as a lot of fraternal organizations were strictly men-only in the era; on the other hand, making them this progressive, forward-thinking organization that turns out to be bad guys could be bittersweet when they figure it out.

Anyway, when they investigate the house, things go as usual. They should find a reference to Corbitt being a member of the "Knights of the Silver Twilight" either in his diary or on some certificate kept in a storeroom or something. The main "villainous organization" in the adventure is obviously the "Chapel of Contemplation and Church of Our Lord Granter of Secrets," which shields the Lodge somewhat from immediate investigator suspicion. Then, maybe run a few more scenarios where Lodge members are patrons. Give the idea that to rise in the ranks of the Lodge you need to uncover evidence of things mysterious to Science, kind of like a fraternal order made up of members of the Fortean Society. Have one or two patrons just stop meeting the PCs after a while; don't draw attention to it, just make sure there are disappearances I can point to later in the book.

Anyway, the idea being eventually the investigators should have an idea of the kind of thing the STL does, and maybe imply that it's potentially a good resource for the PCs. Once one joins, you can then follow Chapter 1 of SOYS fairly well. The 2004 reissue adds a lot to this chapter of the scenario, fleshing out NPCs to use as other members of the Lodge. Highly recommended.

References:

  • Harms, Daniel (2010, December). "The Chapel of Contemplation: A Cult for Three Eras." Unspeakable Oath (issue #18), pp. 22-31. [For further development and ideas for The Chapel of Contemplation and Church of Our Lord Granter of Secrets.]
  • Huth, Chris (2016, February 01). The Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight. The Elder Sküll. http://elderskull.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-hermetic-order-of-silver-twilight.html [Good article placing the Lodge among the fraternal societies of the time.]
  • Silver Twilight Lodge. The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki. https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Silver_Twilight_Lodge [A view of the Silver Twilight from the standpoint of the Arkham Horror board game.]
Edited by AlHazred
  • Like 1

ROLAND VOLZ

Running: nothing | Playing: Battletech Hero, CoC 7th Edition, Blades in the Dark | Planning: D&D 5E Home Game, Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle, HeroQuest 1E Sartarite Campaign

D&D is an elf from Tolkien, a barbarian from Howard, and a mage from Vance fighting monsters from Lovecraft in a room that looks like it might have been designed by Wells and Giger. - TiaNadiezja

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All of that should lead into Chapter 1, which is where the investigators find out about the evil machinations of the higher-ups in the Silver Twilight. This chapter isn't fitted with a hard-and-fast flowchart of events, rather the PCs are supposed to just find out about the evil of the Lodge and then dig deeper; most of the chapter includes a floorplan and detailed contents of the various rooms of the chapterhouse.

As an adventure locale it's not bad. I'd love to punch up the chapterhouse with nice floorplans and have a little more detail of the rooms for color purposes. For example, fraternal organizations usually do public-facing social events; if the Lodge wants to blend in with regular fraternal societies, they should probably have some of those. The scenario notes that the Silver Twilight is not listed on a register of fraternal organizations, but that's garbage -- it's their cover, and registering generally only involves some paperwork and a convenience fee in the 1920s era. Why wouldn't they register? And they have a whole slew of rich and eccentric members as cover, they need to give them tasks to do, preferably ones that won't involve them finding out any of the deeper secrets of the Silver Twilight.

One plan is to have a cast of NPC characters as other Lodge members or prospective Lodge members. From my framework idea of the previous post, the investigators should be looking into mysteries for some of them, and then they need to quietly disappear when nobody's looking. I'm thinking one of those disappearances should be the tipping point for the investigators deciding to check out the Order.

I can see some more work needs to be put into the research portion of the adventure. In Masks of Nyarlathotep, you get scads of leads early on, and then most of the scenario involves chasing down the promising ones, taking the group around the world. Shadows of Yog-Sothoth tries to be a proto-MoN, and does provide the group a few leads to later chapters, but they're few and you have to dig for them, they're not handed to you. I'm thinking investigators checking up on a disappearance should stumble onto a file being kept by their friend, which contains clippings and other leads. I probably need to do some work on props.

ROLAND VOLZ

Running: nothing | Playing: Battletech Hero, CoC 7th Edition, Blades in the Dark | Planning: D&D 5E Home Game, Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle, HeroQuest 1E Sartarite Campaign

D&D is an elf from Tolkien, a barbarian from Howard, and a mage from Vance fighting monsters from Lovecraft in a room that looks like it might have been designed by Wells and Giger. - TiaNadiezja

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I saw this post a while ago and wanted to wait to finish the full campaign before I replied at length. Our gaming group wrapped up the entire Shadows of Yog-Sothoth campaign at the end of November 2021, which ran from late February 2021 meeting every other Saturday evening on Fantasy Grounds (almost 10 months).

I'm going to write up what changes I made as the Keeper to the campaign chapter by chapter and then post them here. I should be able to complete this in another week or so, so please check back then.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking forward to it!

  • Like 1

ROLAND VOLZ

Running: nothing | Playing: Battletech Hero, CoC 7th Edition, Blades in the Dark | Planning: D&D 5E Home Game, Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle, HeroQuest 1E Sartarite Campaign

D&D is an elf from Tolkien, a barbarian from Howard, and a mage from Vance fighting monsters from Lovecraft in a room that looks like it might have been designed by Wells and Giger. - TiaNadiezja

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

It took me a few weeks, but here is my catalog of the changes I made to the full-length 'Shadows of Yog-Sothoth' campaign I ran as Keeper, chapter by chapter.
The main problem with SOYS, in my opinion, is that the campaign lacks a coherent progression between its chapters, especially as the narrative reaches the last several chapters. My notes below are an attempt to address this issue and make the campaign more playable for a team of investigators.

***MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW, QUITE OBVIOUSLY***

Chapter 1 - The Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight

My gaming group's ongoing campaign was centered around city of Arkham and Miskatonic University in the early 1920s, with the investigators belonging to the Miskatonic chapter of the world-spanning Society for the Exploration of the Unexplained (SEU). The dean of Miskatonic University's Archaeology Department, Dr. Charles Harkness, is the head of the local SEU chapter and the Keeper's NPC in the game.

The players had previously completed "The Haunting" scenario in Boston early in our 1920s campaign, so I decided to make the sorcerer Walter Corbitt a Lord of the Silver Twilight (now, finally, deceased) and the Chapel of Contemplation a former front organization for the Order of the Silver Twilight to add some continuity between the scenarios.

The investigators are brought to Boston and the Silver Twilight lodge by an MU alumnus and a former student of Dr. Harkness, Dr. Edward Call. The doctor has already introduced a new character from the Boston area (who later becomes an investigator) into the Silver Twilight lodge as a Neophyte in the Order, and the remaining male investigators are then admitted under the guise of new candidates. Dr. Call and the Boston investigator have both begun to suspect there is more to the Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight than the organization would have its new members believe, so Dr. Call reached out to Dr. Harkness and the SEU's public-facing chapter for assistance.

I added several clues to Chapter 1 which initially hint at the nature of the Order of the Silver Twilight or otherwise foreshadow what is to come. These included a portrait of Walter Corbitt in the lodge's second floor library, creased, faded photos of the giant stone heads (Moai) on Easter Island folded into a book, and unidentified constellations among the star map on the second floor Lodge Room's ceiling. Some information found in the third-floor library referred to "The One Who Waits in the Dark" which is an avatar of the Outer God Nyarlathotep from “The Haunting” scenario.

The investigators eventually confront the Lord of the Silver Twilight sorcerer Carl Stanford in the dungeons underneath the lodge, who then makes his escape using a Gate Box kept in the alcove rooms. The investigators have learned that the Order of the Silver Twilight is actually an occult organization and that they've made an enemy of Carl Stanford by bringing down the Boston lodge. Before the revenant John Scott was destroyed in the dungeons, he made a reference to "the return of Our Lord Cthulhu" while taunting the investigators during their fight.

Chapter 1 is very good, and didn't require many changes, except to link SOYS to my ongoing campaign.

Chapter 2 - Look to the Future

After rescuing James Clark from the Silver Twilight lodge's dungeons in Chapter 1, the lodge is investigated by the Boston PD and is temporarily shut down. The negative publicity turns away new prospective members, but James Clark is soon assassinated by an agent of the Silver Twilight while recovering at a Boston hospital (he is injected with the black fever virus from the bunker lab later in Chapter 2, by someone posing as a nurse). The role the investigators played in (temporarily) saving Mr. Clark made the Boston newspapers, and an MU alumnus formerly from Boston, New York banker David Lee, learns of what happened with the Silver Twilight. Mr. Lee writes a letter to Dr. Harkness, inviting the SEU to come to NYC for a visit as he has some information about the Silver Twilight and its Boston lodge.

The investigators meet with David Lee, and he tells them of another Silver Twilight front organization called "Look to the Future." He was a member for months, but eventually found the organization and some of its members to be very suspicious, especially a one Mr. Lostalus Black (i.e., Nyarlathotep). Mr. Lee also mentions Carl Stanford as a member in the letter.

The only extensive changes I made to Chapter 2 were with the Brick Annex residence across from the “Look to the Future” Meeting Hall. I set a laser-beam trap in its hallway, as Carl Stanford can time travel with the help of Nyarlathotep. The beams of the trap, when tripped, summon a Spectral Hunter guardian (like the Spectral Hunters from Chapter 4), unless the lasers filling the hall are first disabled using the hidden keypad behind a wall panel at the Annex's back entrance (use the 'Cryptography' skill).

The Brick Annex's study is Carl Stanford's, which has a figurine of the bound Spectral Hunter guardian on one of its bookshelves, along with a keycard to the underground bunker under the Meeting Hall hidden beneath its desk. The investigators also find the book 'In Old California' in Stanford's study, which mentions the Hotethk Indians and the Arc of Vlactos from Chapter 4, as well as a miniature replica of the R'lyeh Disk. Some research earlier in the New York City Hall of Records revealed that the Annex building was once owned by Walter Corbitt, and that the property across the street from the Annex was later purchased by Carl Stanford, with its buildings torn down to allow the construction of the Meeting Hall.

I kept the bunker under the Meeting Hall mostly the same but made the guard men from the future instead, with a Chapel of Contemplation "eye" insignia on their uniforms. I made the computer in the Computer Room a modern, 21st century computer (with a Chapel of Contemplation "eye" symbol screensaver), holding stored digital files including 3-D images of the full R’lyeh Disk and the Arc of Vlactos, and extensive notes in both English and Aklo.

While the investigators only had so much time to read through the information before the Shoggoth breached the Power Plant room (automatic rifle gunfire and explosions earlier during the fighting with the guards agitated the monstrosity), they received several clues that the Silver Twilight is searching for the R'lyeh Disk in Scotland, the Arc of Vlactos in California, and that both occult items are intended for use in a Mythos ritual to raise a sunken city from the oceans that imprisons the Elder God Cthulhu.

I didn't try to hide the Silver Twilight's intentions from investigators, but I also didn't give them any more information than what I believed was necessary to direct the narrative for the rest of the campaign.

There was no possible confrontation with Lostalus Black, Carl Stanford, or the others during our playthrough of this chapter. The investigators almost immediately sought to break into the Brick Annex and then the Meeting Hall bunker the same evening after a disguised investigator attended one of the weekday "Look to the Future" meetings.

Chapter 3 - The Coven of Cannich

The investigators now have a motive to either travel to Scotland or California after discovering the bunker's computer files, but there are no specific clues which might tell them were to begin to search for the two artifacts mentioned. So, Dr. Harkness receives another letter, this time from Jacob Hancock, the nephew of Dr. Harkness' friend and associate, fellow archeologist Dr. Henry Montague Hancock. Jacob Hancock believes his uncle has met with foul play at his estate in the Scottish Highlands and requests the assistance of Dr. Harkness in finding his uncle, who the local constable insists has only left on another expedition to Africa.

The investigators meet Jacob Hancock in Denver, Colorado and read the three letters ostensibly sent by Dr. Hancock; Jacob tells the investigators the last one is almost certainly a forgery. He provides them with paid passage to Scotland, and a notarized letter of introduction for Constable MacDougall, who will provide the investigators with the keys to Hancock House upon proof of agency.

This turned into a very long chapter, with many improvised changes, so I'll only summarize some of the main ones below.

The investigators arrive in Inverness and learn from Constable MacDougall that the maid and butler from Hancock House resigned their positions at the mansion shortly before Dr. Hancock and Dr. Chisholm seemingly left the country without notice. Obtaining the domestic servants' home addresses, the investigators find that Mary Ives (now "Mad Mary") has lost her mind and is babbling about snakes walking on two legs and black-robed men lurking in the woods outside her employer's mansion.

The investigators then visit the home of the butler who, after breaking in following no answer at the door, is found to have hanged himself from the kitchen ceiling. They then discover his diary, which becomes increasingly incoherent and disjointed before stopping abruptly, revealing many of the clues normally obtained from this chapter’s various NPCs, but instead condensed into one source.

At Hancock House, I gave Henry Hancock's ghost the ability to possess investigators and also attack in ghostly form, with successful hits on an opposed POW roll draining magic points + Sanity loss from chilling touch (reaching zero magic points kills the investigator instantly). I also put Henry Hancock's dig site journal in the mansion basement, which revealed yet more information, including notes about the Roman history behind the dig site and what was eventually found there. I placed yet more clues among the books in the mansion library.

After Hancock House is locked up by the constable following the discovery of Henry Hancock's corpse behind the walls upstairs, the investigators decide to stay in Cannich to determine what happened to Dr. Chisholm. They are told there are no vacant rooms at the King's Head Inn, but they can stay with a local farmer, Ian MacLennan, and his wife who own a sizable home with guest rooms. Their pretty French "niece," Anne (Anne Chantraine), is also staying with them for a time.

I gave the sorceress Anne Chantraine some powerful deeper magic spells, including the ability to astrally possess (within certain limits, including a successful opposed POW roll) investigators while they slept on the grounds of Ian MacLennan's small holding. Anne failed to possess the two female investigators during her nighttime visits but was able to successfully possess a male investigator later. The male investigator found Anne laying in a trance-like state on a bed as he searched the rooms at the King's Head Inn while everyone else was away at church on Sunday morning (this was a trap).

The investigators, including the one controlled by Anne Chantraine, next visited the Roman dig site at Loch Mullardoch. They find Henry Hancock's Elder Sign stone in his personal tent, which is later used to dispel the chthonian in the Serpent People's caverns. The investigators also find the second piece of the R'lyeh Disk but leave before discovering Dr. Chisholm's corpse buried under the dig site rubble.

The major change I made to the dig site was that the Temple of Azathoth's (SITE F) Gate on its floor was an active Time Travel Gate, bringing the investigators back to the moment two thousand years ago when the Serpent People and their chthonian attacked the Roman legionnaires (apply Sanity and magic point losses for time travel effects). The investigators fled back to the present, just as the Fortified Tower (SITE K) was destroyed by the chthonian.

Through a series of events, all but one of the investigators are taken prisoner and end up in cages in the caverns of the Serpent People. Anne Chantraine stops possessing her investigator and now has all three pieces of the R'lyeh Disk. Farmer Ian MacDonald has also been taken prisoner along with one of the investigators who was staying as a guest at his farmhouse. He is then sacrificed by Anne Chantraine on a stone altar in the glowing crystal-walled cavern in Point 10 (A Small Chamber) in an Aztec-style ritual (i.e., cutting out his heart), which merges the three pieces of the R'lyeh Disk into one seamless artifact.

The sole free investigator comes to the rescue and is nearly led into a trap by the Serpent People leader who uses a spell to appear as Dr. Chisholm ("Follow me, I know how to escape from these caves!") But his shadow on the cave wall gives him away, and the Serpent Man dies by shotgun blast to the head.

The imprisoned investigators are freed, they battle a Silver Twilight cultist working with the Serpent People, dismiss the summoned chthonian with the Elder Sign stone as the cavern almost collapses, defeat Anne Chantraine (she withers into a 300-year-old crone upon her demise), and then recover the intact R'lyeh Disk. The investigators also save the MacRae baby, who was resting in a basket in the caves with the label "Lunch" attached.

One final, important change I made was allowing the investigators to discover Duncan McBain's house and thus the entrance to the caves of the Serpent People by following Wille Wassle at night over the moors, who then disappeared behind Duncan McBain's cottage among some faerie stones. The dispelled chthonian later returns after the investigators leave, causing earthquakes which bury the Roman dig site, as well as the entrance to the caves of the Serpent People, hiding anything that might reveal their existence.

Here is my central criticism of this chapter which, however, contained many great ideas: it's all over the place. There are far too many NPCs and too much information provided from various sources, so much so that the chapter can't be presented without bogging down both the Keeper and the investigators during play. The chapter's information, clues, and situations should be much more condensed and focused, but without leading the players through on rails, of course. I re-read this chapter several times in its entirely while playing through, and I still couldn't keep track of everything - it's that convoluted.

***

Wow, that's a lot of information! I'm going to stop here for now, and then resume with Chapter 4 next week sometime.

Edited by ColoradoCthulhu
  • Like 3
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/26/2021 at 2:50 AM, ColoradoCthulhu said:

Here is my central criticism of this chapter which, however, contained many great ideas: it's all over the place. There are far too many NPCs and too much information provided from various sources, so much so that the chapter can't be presented without bogging down both the Keeper and the investigators during play. The chapter's information, clues, and situations should be much more condensed and focused, but without leading the players through on rails, of course. I re-read this chapter several times in its entirely while playing through, and I still couldn't keep track of everything - it's that convoluted.

Agreed. I'm still pondering how I would change this chapter myself. I think it works with the modifications I posted above, but I also think the Keeper needs to tighten the focus or risk the players going off on any of a number of tangents.

  • Like 1

ROLAND VOLZ

Running: nothing | Playing: Battletech Hero, CoC 7th Edition, Blades in the Dark | Planning: D&D 5E Home Game, Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle, HeroQuest 1E Sartarite Campaign

D&D is an elf from Tolkien, a barbarian from Howard, and a mage from Vance fighting monsters from Lovecraft in a room that looks like it might have been designed by Wells and Giger. - TiaNadiezja

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/2/2022 at 4:57 PM, AlHazred said:

Agreed. I'm still pondering how I would change this chapter myself. I think it works with the modifications I posted above, but I also think the Keeper needs to tighten the focus or risk the players going off on any of a number of tangents.

Exactly. I will post my notes for Chapters 4 to 7 later this week; the holidays got in the way of finishing this.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/26/2021 at 6:50 PM, ColoradoCthulhu said:

 

Chapter 2 - Look to the Future

There was no possible confrontation with Lostalus Black, Carl Stanford, or the others during our playthrough of this chapter. The investigators almost immediately sought to break into the Brick Annex and then the Meeting Hall bunker the same evening after a disguised investigator attended one of the weekday "Look to the Future" meetings.

When I was last a CoC Keeper I had fun with the "Look to the Future" organization.  Amongst other things there was a showing of a glimpse of the future in the form of a documentary called Star Wars, which told the story of plucky Americans fighting against the British Empire in space.  It went over quite well given the failure of Wilsonian diplomacy during the Versailles negotiations, and the threat of increased global imperialism.  The Death Star was obviously a reference to what would happen if naval and related military technologies were allowed to proliferate without civilized checks.  I made all the characters take a 1d4 SAN loss for seeing the movie, because I remember what it was like in 1977 when it hit the screen, and I can barely imagine what it would have been like to see a color and sound movie of this type in 1921 (when I set the scenario).  The characters came out of the "special viewing" entertained, but shaken to their cores by what they had just witnessed, and desperately wanting to see it again to confirm that they hadn't somehow dreamed the whole thing.  Obviously this clued the players in to the notion that there was some sort of time travel involved, but gave them the opportunity to roleplay a very strange situation and they loved it.  Suffice to say that Look to the Future also made money from various souvenirs of the movie they referred to as "merchandise" for some reason.

Edited by Darius West
  • Like 2
  • Helpful 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...