Curse of Nineveh

[Uncle Riotous]

I've run a couple of one shot CoC games this year (some that went better than others) and in September when my group gets back together after the holidays I'm looking to start running Curse Of Nineveh (Cubicle 7).  I wondered if anyone had run it and if so any tips on getting it to run smoothly for a relatively newbie GM (especially toCoC).

I've also got the two journals in pdf format which I'm really looking forward to simply handing to the players.  While getting the Neve Selcibuc one in is obvious I'm a little nervous that the players may miss the Campbell Thompson one.  I don't want to just hand it to them but I'd like to increase the odds of them coming across it.  Any suggestions?

[nclarke]

I'm playing in an on-line campaign of this and we haven't yet come across the opportunity to get either book as far as I remember. The actual campaign should have some suggestions for passing these out to players I would suspect.

I'd recommend a thorough reading of the material before starting and noting down anything that should happen outside the players immediate view so that you don't miss anything that should have happened while they were off doing something else. It might be useful if someone isn't keeping notes for you to provide a written synopsis before each session to refresh the players memories about what's currently happening.

[Uncle Riotous]

Thanks mate.  I've read through it a couple of times and am building a wiki for it on Obsidian Portal.

[Otto Harkaman]

Hello sounds fun you are running this, I have the main book but not the journal handouts. Seems many times people don't want to read a lot of text, perhaps you could break down the information to them as radio broadcasts they overhear or as articles they happen to see in the newspapers. 

As an aside Reginald Campbell Thompson is a very interesting person beside his being a British archaeologist, assyriologist, and cuneiformist. He worked for the British Intelligence service as a code breaker. 

Reginald Campbell Thompson represented a select breed of intelligence officer: the archaeologist. As a child he collected flints and bits of Persian pottery, and by his teens was translating ancient Assyrian texts from their original cuneiform script. The earliest known system of writing, cuneiform was made up of symbols carved into clay tablets. Developed by the Sumerians, it remained in use for thousands of years, growing in sophistication as it passed through the Babylonian, Assyrian and Hittite civilisations. The art of reconstructing and deciphering cuneiform from archaeological fragments was the perfect training for work as a codebreaker.

After studying Oriental languages at Cambridge, Thompson embarked on nearly 20 years of wandering the Middle East, moving from one excavation project to another, collecting and then recording his finds in a series of books that included trailblazing studies of the magic, demonology and astrology of the Babylonians. Clauson affectionately described him as a ‘curious old bird with a most amazing inverted brain’. Clearly Thompson had an unusual mind. He liked to visit the cinema because ‘he solved many of his hardest problems as he watched pictures floating across the screen’. But he was also a man of action; more Indiana Jones than Nutty Professor. He was a crack rifle shot and an accomplished sailor. He regarded exercise as a ‘moral obligation’. He had little patience with those lacking the physical toughness to endure the rigours of field work in harsh and hostile landscapes, believing a man should be able to withstand ‘heat and cold, hunger and thirst’.

There is a lot more about him in, "The Codebreakers" by James Wyllie

[Uncle Riotous]

I might have to get that and have a read.

I pickedup the journals in a sale on DriveThru so they weren't too expensive. The book suggests summaries so I'll give the players the information in that form and then the pdf to read and reference. I think the group I have for this game will enjoy that.

If you're going to run the game I'd say the Campbell Thompson one is better and helped me visualise some stuff.

I think I'm going to remove the spot hidden roll required to notice it, hopefully that'll be enough that they'll spend the time working out how to steal it.