2024 Retrospective

As is traditional (well not on this blog yet because it’s the first time but anyway) it’s time to look back at the year and reflect on what we’ve done. CW: there’s quite a bit of personal stuff and mentions of mental health and death and general ramblings of a grumpy middle-aged man.

So this year:

On a personal side, the year started with my father’s funeral. Then the cat died at the end of February.  Unfortunately, I’m at the age where a lot of people I know have also lost love ones through the year.

On a brighter note, 3 kittens arrived in May bringing total madness and 1 dead bird (so far). Also, 3 people I roleplay with have got married.

I have been suffering with depression for a while now but a number of things have helped me this year.  I attended a number of sessions with a mental health nurse and talking through things has helped.

I started collecting and painting miniatures. I’m not very good but it’s quite relaxing. This really started with the gnome blood-bowl team but I’ve painted loads of things for my D&D game.

My partner requires carers but we had funding problems at the start of the year. When this got resolved, I was able to go into office for a couple of days a week, which has made me more productive at work

I started this blog back in January, which has been a good outlet for my terrible puns of nothing else.

So onto roleplaying games:

My Monday group passed 15 years of playing together - online since 2020. I’ve played numerous sessions of Space 1887 using Hero system rules and also Dr Who..

I ran one session of Call of Cthulhu for them, which seemed to work out ok. No-one died.

On Fridays, I was a player with my face-to-face group as we finished off Strahd (5e). My monk-librarian decided to become a Lich.

I then ran 24 sessions (including session 0) of Night’s Dark Terror (also 5e). This has run even longer than I thought it would - it’s amazing how much content some of those old modules had. However, there were several memorable bits that emerged from play or I added in: the dual between the half-elf and a goblin king, Droop the snake-worshipping goblin and of course, the goose hydra.

I’m really enjoying being a DM again despite getting more and more disenchanted with the 5e rules. 

On my blog I also wrote one review and one rant about D&D.

I think my favourite rpg book that I got this year was the WFRP 4e Imperial Zoo, which was fun to read.

I bought a number of good minis, including a massive pathfinder Gold Dragon, the goose hydra (obviously), the warhammer darkoath marauders especially the chief’s New Romantic horse and a number of weird 3D prints by Vae Victis. Special mention must go to the gnome blood bowl team that started all 

Other stuff from this year: 

I managed to read quite a few books this year - I started trying to read in the evenings before bed. Highlights included Anna Smith Sparks grim-dark Empires of Dust books, a couple of Tana French’s Dublin Murders books, The Boys in the Valley - horror novel by Philip Fracassi and also Kim Newman’s Guineveve warhammer stories (some of which I hadn’t read before).

I think the best tv show was Shrinking on Apple.  There were quite a few other things I watched that weren’t as good as previous series.

Podcasts I’ve enjoyed this year include: what would the smart party do, how we roll, grizzly peaks radio and Hell or high rollers.

I didn’t play many video games of note. The Arkham Horror video game with props Road to Innsmouth and my colleague’s game PrinterSim are the only ones that spring to mind.

I didn’t manage to go to the theatre or cinema as my partner is a bit housebound at the moment. I think the only album I bought was the final Shellac one.

I was going to look ahead to next year but I’ve already gone on too long so I’ll do that later.

So with that, 2024: off you pop. Happy new year.

NDT session 22: Xitiqa you and I know How the heartaches come and they go

 Ext. The vicinity of Xitaqa.

Rurik and Namfoodle retreated back to camp to luck their wounds and decide what to do next. There they found Sbske in conversation with a young Human woman and a Halfling man.

The irritating woman said her name was Rosie and she was looking for her mother, who was the Halfling’s wife. The halfling was a veteran fighter named Ham.

The group decided to rest up before heading back to the ruins. The night was uneventful apart from some growling nearby and the group headed off towards the tower.

Approaching the tower, the group came under fire by a small band of hobgoblins. This annoyed Rosie who charged towards them and turned into an angry bear.

Rosie-Bear, Ham and Rurik made short work of the hobgoblins but were then attacked by another winter wolf that emerged from the tower. It’s icy-breath caused some damage to the pcs (mainly Snake) but was wilfully put down.

The group rested up in a nearby empty building before entering the tower from a side entrance. Inside they found a dusty library full of old scrolls and a giant spider. Rosie turned into a spider as well and proceeded to win the duel of the spiders.

Ham then blundered into the spiders nest which was the home of its mate who attacked, protecting her young. Ham killed it with one might blow of his great-sword - the magical one they had obtained from Vlack.

Within the nest were many little spiders and a scroll case containing a comprehend languages spell.

DM notes: the  creature passing in the night was a wandering mountain lion, which I decided wasn’t suicidal. Rosie is a Barbarian-Druid and Ham is a champion Fighter. 

Review: 264 Corbitt Street

264 Corbitt Street is a modern day scenario for Call of Cthulhu from Shadowlands Games games. This review may contain some spoilers but I’ll try to avoid the big secrets. 

This scenario is, as you might have guessed, an homage to a famous starter scenario for Call of Cthulhu. It’s also a kind of sequel - what happens next if the investigators totally mess it up The Haunting.

I have run the start of this scenario from the pdf and the players used the pre-generated characters.

Scott Dorward (of various Cthulhu publications and many decent Cthulhu podcasts) came up with a game called We Call the Police, in which players don’t engage with the scenario and call the police. 264 Corbitt Street gets around this by having the police already been called and the investigators are the police. 

The investigators will learn that the homeowner had hired another group of (non-police) investigators but things have gone wrong.

After the initial investigation of the house, the scenario has a fairly open structure which will lead up to a final confrontation. However, the scenario also provides a more structured version of the events for keepers who would prefer that.

Some of the places are familiar from the original scenario but there is a lot of new people and places to visit. The opponents have motives of their own and will change their plans according to how the investigators act.

There are some pregens provided: a couple of uniformed police officer, a couple of detectives and also a forensic scientist. It would be difficult to fit the scenario as written into an existing campaign unless at least some of the investigators worked for the police. The first scene only involves two investigators to start with (the first responders) but the others could be brought in sooner if needed.

The scenario would take some tweaking to work in an earlier timeframe. It is set in the US (Boston) but one piece of art for a pre-gen is of a police constable from the met police in London. However, as the scenario starts with reports of gun-shots this would have been tweaked to work in the UK. 

Structurally, the scenario seems quite well written. There are handy summaries through-out. No maps are provided which I found a bit tricky - I used the one from The Haunting. 

I initially couldn’t find any stats for basic cultists (when everybody else has stats even some characters the investigators should never meet) but then I realised that they were there but the sub-title hadn’t been translated. Otherwise the translation is pretty good.

Overall, I think this is quite a fun scenario - a variation on a classic that makes it more than just a haunted house. Some of the ideas could also be nicked for a true sequel to The Haunting, depending how that had played out.

It has also made me think of the potential of a  string of scenarios where the police are called out after classic CoC scenarios, e.g. investigating reports of a lorry load of salt being dumped at a house. Or for most of the times I’ve played: reports of arson.

I purchased a copy of this as an add on to The Howl of the Chimera. At time of writing, it only seems to be available (in English at least) as an add-on to one of Shadowland’s Cthulhu crowd-funding campaigns.

Session report: Call of Cthulhu Christmas 2024 Mash-up

Warning: contains spoilers for a couple of CoC scenarios and a 1990 Christmas film. And possibly Christmas.

I just ran Call of Cthulhu for the first time and online for the first time via Skype. 

So, around this time last year, I had a spark of inspiration. In the classic beginner scenario, The Haunting, the investigators enter the house of someone who has set up traps to catch intruders and hilarious hijinks ensue. Now, my very warped mind realised that this is very similar to the plot of Home Alone. 

However, I couldn’t quite see how to fit them together without the joke wearing a bit thin.

This idea percolated for a year until recently I got a copy of the Shadowlands Games’ scenario, 246 Corbitt Street, which is a modern-day scenario that is both a homage to and a sequel to The Haunting. This starts with the players being police personnel getting called in to effectively have to deal with a bunch and of investigators who have made a complete hash of completing The Haunting.

I realised I could use this start for a two-hour one-shot, getting the players into the house without doing prior investigations. Pregens were supplied in 246 Corbitt and I managed to persuade my Monday night group to let me run something for them.

So we started with an on-duty uniformed police officer giving lifts home to two detectives and a forensic scientist on snowy Christmas Eve 2024. However, the policeman gets diverted to a suspected burglary at a seemingly abandoned house.

The detectives offer to provide backup and they soon find a dead body in the dark house. The man had been killed by a crowbar and also had significant burns to his head. The forensic scientist began investigating.

In the living room, there were many broken Christmas ornaments on the floor. A blood trail was spotted leading upstairs to a locked bathroom. When the door was kicked in another man was found, babbling about traps and crowbars and basements. He became violent but was swiftly restrained. He was suffering from cuts to his feet from broken glass and an old nail. He also had a large bruise and burn on his face.

His identity was radioed in and the dispatch said he was a known petty criminal and burglar.

Also up stairs was a room with a bed that moved for no reason but the policeman dodged it. It was now time to enter the basement.

The policeman carefully went down the stairs, avoiding any nails and ball bearings. His torchlight revealed a load of old junk, some open boxes and a large hole that had been broken into a wall with a sledgehammer.

At this point, the crowbar rose up from the corpse and struck the forensic scientist knocking her unconscious. 

While the detectives rendered first aid, secured the wounded man and stop the flying crowbar, the policeman was horrified to see the dedicated, wizened figure of a boy appear in the opening.

The child did not respond well to the policeman’s attempts to play ball with it although it was briefly distracted. 

The detectives managed to grab the crowbar and revive the scientists and then made their way down to the cellar opening fire on the child-thing. It soon went down in a hail of bullets and crumbled into dust.

After that things returned to normal. The surviving by burglar was detained in a secure hospital and the police personnel made it through various reviews and suspensions.

However, a year later, Christmas Eve 2025, they all found themselves in a police car being called to attend a suspected break in at 246 Corbitt Street. After all, this is a Christmas film, it gets repeated every year.

The Haunting is available in the Call of Cthulhu QuickStart rules from Chaosium.

At time of writing, the English version of 246 Corbitt Street seems to be available only as an add on to the Scions of the dark goddess backerkit or the Howl of the Chimera kickstarter from Shadowlands Games. I intend to post a review of this soon.

If you are reading this around Christmas then Home Alone is probably somewhere on your telly right now.

Finally, I’m going to award bonus points to Mark for being the first player to say it was Home Alone.

NDT session 21: You’ve finally made a baboon out of me

 Ext: Xitaqa.

Featuring: Bait, Glimmer, Rurik and Namfoodle

The group has arrived at the ancient ruined town of Xitaqa with old buildings built into the walls of the gulleys and a large tower visible.

They decided to enter the first building they came across. This was the home of some angry baboons upset by the intruders. The party opted to fight, suffering a couple of wounds and slaying 3 monkeys before deciding it was a rather pointless fight and leaving.

As the moved a little further on the heard some footsteps approaching and attempted to hide. Unfortunately, they were spotted a by a group of hobgoblins accompanied by some trained baboons.

Confident that his new half-plate and a sanctuary spell would protect him, Bait moved forward to draw the baboon attacks. Unfortunately, some lucky strikes from the baboons quickly brought him down. 

The others suffered damage from the hobgoblin’s crossbows as they closed in. 

A rather chaotic fight followed as attempts were made to save Bait and fight the baboons and hobgoblins. Eventually sheer weight of numbers threatened to overwhelm the other. Namfoodle began retreating first, followed by a badly wounded Rurik. Glimmer decided to valiantly/suicidally cover their retreat and was brought down by a baboon. 

Namfoodle managed to finish off the hobgoblins with magic missiles and the baboons were quickly defeated. Unfortunately, this was too late for both Glimmer and Bait.

Namfoodle and Rurik were left wondering what to do next.

DM notes: this was a rather brutal session. Unfortunately, for Bait I rolled 3 crits and a couple of 18s in one turn against him (plus the baboons had made their saves against sanctuary). After that things rather went downhill…

I had offered to run a one-off Call of Cthulhu scenario that would probably been less deadly than this was.

NDT Session 20: Another ropey session

 Ext. Wulfwolde Hills.

Starring: Namfoodle, Bait, Glimmer and Droop

As the group approached Xitiqa they spotted a group of horsemen approaching (men on horses not centaurs) from some distance. As they got closer Bait realised they looked hostile so Namfoodle cast rope trick and the party hid up the rope. 

Unfortunately, the horsemen’s leader worked out something was up so left 4 of his men to guard the area before the rest headed off.

The party tried several means to distract the men before Namfoodle succeeded in distracting some with his owl familiar and a magic mouth spell. 

The group descended the rope and quickly killed the men. Namfoodle noted they had similar markings to the men who had attacked them back in the river (session 1). 

The party continued onto Xitaqa and soon saw a tower looming over some gulleys, just as Loshad had described. Soon after that a group of baboons attacked them but were defeated with the survivors fleeing into the rocks.

DM notes: a short session this week but the group have finally reached the outskirts of Xitiqa. Let’s hope those goblin gits haven’t been lying about this being where Stephan is.