Scenarios with an eerie feel to them...

[midwinter]

I posted this in another Cthulhu-forum but I might as well post it here, making it my first post:

 

I'm fairly new to Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu (but not horror rpgs) and I would like to know what scenarios people have found creepier than others. I'm not talking brains in jars, gore or things intended just for shock. I'm talking more of an ambience, a feeling of dread or that something is off-kilter in a creepy fashion, a mood like some novels and movies have. If anyone can recommended some shorter scenarios in this vein, I would be grateful. It might be a bit difficult to understand what I mean with ambience, but people familiar with movies like The Haunting, The Legend of Hell House, Rosemary's Baby, Let's scare Jessica to Death, Suspiria, Pumpkinhead, The Wicker Man, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home and The Changeling might get the point. I might add, any horror movie/story involving old, wrinkly people as villains/monsters, for some reason. Stephen King's short story Gramma is an example of that.

I feel that the big Cthulhu campaigns like Horror on the Orient Express and Masks of Nyarlathotep seem more geared towards pulp, wild shootouts with cultists, grandiose schemes and Indiana Jones-like exotic travels. The campaigns are well made of course, but I don't consider them that kind of horror, really.

Edited July 4, 2018 by midwinter

[CastingsofCthulhu]

Theres a few short scenarios that can build up suspense without the need of a big bad monster in it. Mr Corbitt from the mansion of madness book is one of my go to games for new players who don't know much about the mythos as your not dealing with a monster directly. Also I recently ran 'Blackwater Creek' from the Keepers screen pack and 'The Dark Wood' from the Adventures in Arkham county back to back with the same group and they're slow build ups. Blackwater is a good one as its a slow build up with a few possible shock moments.

[Psullie]

I've always had best success when almost everything is mundane, the unseen but whispered at horror can be far more unsettling, For example, if every session has the investigators killing cold ones or defeating mad wizards then a book made from human skin is not even noteworthy - but when things seem normal the realisation of what such a book means becomes eerie and disturbed. So what ever you play establish the baseline of normalcy then slowly turn up the heat.

[midwinter]

Thanks for replying and thanks for the scenario suggestions. A slow buildup from the mundane is pretty spot on what I'm looking for. I don't mind exotic locales at all but globetrotting world saving campaigns just feels like another genre to me.

I haven't been a Keeper, or played CoC but I have GMed/played rpgs since 1984, mostly Swedish ones. I have watched and listened to alot of Call of Cthulhu scenarios online, like the ones on Into the darkness on Youtube and Skype of Cthulhu. I'm also trying to write my own scenario. In my "studies" I have noticed that alot of scenarios seem to overdo it in terms of monsters, for instance ghouls seem to be squeezed into alot of scenarios, just for the sake of some action/horror. They've been reduced to the equivalent of fantasy orcs it seems. Of course, as a Keeper it's quite easy to modify published scenarios. But regardless, I'm looking for scenarios that are pretty close to what I have described earlier. So hopefully this thread stays alive for some time, so that the scenario suggestions can keep coming.

[clarence]

Good to see more Swedes here. Welcome!

[midwinter]

Thanks for the welcome!😀

[CastingsofCthulhu]

15 hours ago, midwinter said:

I haven't been a Keeper, or played CoC but I have GMed/played rpgs since 1984, mostly Swedish ones. I have watched and listened to alot of Call of Cthulhu scenarios online, like the ones on Into the darkness on Youtube and Skype of Cthulhu. 

Have a listen to How We Roll http://www.howwerollpodcast.com/ They've run some very good CoC games.

[midwinter]

I will. Thanks for the link, Castings.😊

[EricW]

There's a theory called the uncanny valley created by roboticists to explain why it is so difficult to create a convincing Android.

If something doesn't look remotely human, we're kindof OK with it. If something is indistinguishable from human, we accept it as human. But if something seems almost human, it really messes with our heads, most people find that very difficult to cope with.

This is the horror of The Thing, or HP Lovecraft's story The Whisperer in the Darkness. 

Not a direct answer maybe, but something to bear in mind. That which terrifies us the most is the alien which can almost pass for a human.

[realfinney]

Delta Green's "The Night Floors" form Count Down really delivered on this for me. The book as a whole has a lot of good stuff, especially on Spolier Hastur (which is drawn on for Night Floors)

[midwinter]

Thanks, Eric and realfinney for the suggestions/thoughts. I will check The Night Floors out.