Percy Fawcett

[girtablilu]

Who else would like to see a scenario or campaign based on Percy Fawcett's last expedition?

About a year or two ago I read David Grann's The Lost City of Z (soon to be released as a feature film) and then Exploration Fawcett by Percy and Brian Fawcett (his youngest son).  I still think about the story.  I think the Mysteries at the Museum I saw last night about him brought it to my mind again this morning. 

Fawcett went in search of the lost city of Z (his name for El Dorado) in  Mato Grosso, Brazil, in 1925 and vanished along with his eldest son, Jack, who would have been about 22.  Fawcett was 57 at the time.  There have been several rumors about what really happened to him:  he was killed by indians or even cannibalized, he planned to stay in the jungle and start a commune, he became a chief of a local tribe and had children.  There were several expeditions, even in recent years, sent to determine his fate, all unsuccessful.  

Interesting notes:  He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society.  There were rumors of Fawcett being influenced by Theosophy.  He was friends of H. Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle (who wrote The Lost World based partly on Fawcett's search for Z).  Throughout his expeditions, Fawcett reported seeing gigantic snakes and other animals, still yet to be discovered by others.

I think that the Cthulhu mythos would be interesting to sprinkle into this mystery.   And the local tribes would make excellent cults or allies.  There is a wealth of information about these still isolated cultures that I think would make for a great scenario/campaign.  Even today there are a great number of uncontacted peoples, societies that have yet to be contacted by the modern world.  The characters would be quite isolated from the outside world as well, making things even more difficult for them.  

 

[EricW]

What an interesting character - From Wikipedia; During the following decades, various groups mounted several rescue expeditions, without success. They heard only various rumours that could not be verified. In addition to reports that Fawcett had been killed by Indians or wild animals, there was a tale that Fawcett had lost his memory and lived out his life as the chief of a tribe of cannibals. 

An obvious plot point, what would one of the rescue missions which were sent do if they found Fawcett had become the cannibal leader of a degenerate Cthulhu tribe? Would they be more interested in preserving his reputation than his life?

[girtablilu]

2 hours ago, EricW said:

What an interesting character - From Wikipedia; During the following decades, various groups mounted several rescue expeditions, without success. They heard only various rumours that could not be verified. In addition to reports that Fawcett had been killed by Indians or wild animals, there was a tale that Fawcett had lost his memory and lived out his life as the chief of a tribe of cannibals. 

An obvious plot point, what would one of the rescue missions which were sent do if they found Fawcett had become the cannibal leader of a degenerate Cthulhu tribe? Would they be more interested in preserving his reputation than his life?

Very interesting character, indeed.  He was very disciplined, and unforgiving of his party members who could not keep up with him.  Even in his 50's, he could run circles around the young team members he brought with him into the jungles.

I like the plot point you noted.  What did Fawcett and his son find in their last expedition?  A powerful Mythos artifact?  A cult to a Cthulhu deity?  A deity itself?  What was the outcome?  Did they become cannibal chiefs to a Cthulhu cult?  Did they lose their sanity and simply die in the wilds, victims of the elements or Indians?  As traditional as Fawcett was, did he join a regular tribe and father children, even though he still had a wife back home?  Did they die trying to stop a Mythos deity from awakening?  Did he just decide not to return home after learning of the Mythos and becoming disillusioned? There's a lot of possibilities here. 

It would be an important and difficult decision to make about preserving his reputation.  He was world famous as an explorer, like a rock star of today, hence the 100+ expeditions to find out what happened to him.