Monday 17 February 2014

Call of Cthulhu: The Crack'd and Crook'd Manse


So I spent most of Sunday, the first really nice day in quite a while, cooped up in a darkened room, sitting around a table and rolling dice. It was awesome. I always forget how much I miss playing RPGs until I actually sit down and play one. Call of Cthulhu is a brilliant game, despite the big paradox right at its foundation - which I intend to write about at a later date.

For the moment, I just feel like talking about the adventure we played on Sunday, titled The Crack'd and Crook'd Manse. Of the five Call of Cthulhu adventures I've played, I think this is the one I enjoyed the most, and weirdly, it's because we all almost died. The threat of death is a pretty constant companion in Cthulhu, and I remain honestly amazed that the entire party got out of this particular haunted house alive. 

It started out as you might expect for a Cthulhu game: a missing person and associated mystery, talking to people and reading through the records to try and learn more about them, before heading off to their house to properly get the investigation underway. First great thing: a real sense of creeping dread. The garden was completely overgrown, and the plants kept shifting as we walked through it, knocking Big Callum on the head and tripping Thea over. It was very weird, which, for a game based on weird fiction, is important. Second great thing: mishaps, injuries, and unexpected apparitions in the house, keeping us nervy and on our toes.

It was the finale that cemented this as my favourite Cthulhu game to date, though. The cosmic abomination du jour was, we were later informed, the spawn of Shub-Niggurath, which when it eventually appeared looked like a giant amoeba. Big, sentient pile of ooze with grasping pseudopods. Unpleasant. Responsible for the overgrown garden and decayed, rotting house. By this point, Josh's character - earlier incapacitated with a broken leg - had vanished, taken by the creature, and it had blocked the rest of the party's attempt to get downstairs. 

It was at this point, with Josh gone, the creature's pseudopods dragging Stassy away, and the rest of us fleeing up the stairs while flinging salt (its weakness) at it, seemingly achieving nothing but pissing it off, that the panic set in. It was a very tough battle, and in that moment I genuinely thought a total party kill was on the cards. Things only got worse from there - the creature latched onto my character's face, guns had as good as no effect on it, and Thea abandoned us by jumping out the window to escape. Eventually, once I'd got free, Big Callum, Stassy and I did the same - which resulted in me being horrifically injured and reduced to -1 hit points. 

Before everyone ran away, they decided to just throw everything we had at the creature in one last, desperate attack. Miraculously, this was enough to kill it, meaning Stassy, Big Callum and Thea were able to rescue Josh and stabilise me. 

I couldn't believe no one had died, even if I was only just barely alive. It's the only time in a tabletop RPG where I've actually feared for a party wipe, and in Call of Cthulhu, that's a great feeling. It's a cosmic horror game, it should be tense, dramatic and frightening. It was a great adventure - even though my character may still be in the hospital by the time we play another one.

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