Cthulhu Trials

         This was a series of Cthulhu games run in 2011 - 2012, with Daniel as GM.

Trail of Cthulhu: The Black Drop

A published adventure with pregenerated characters set in a remote South Pacific island. The characters had set out to evacuate the settlers there, and happened on an ancient German sect trying to stop an apocalyptic uprising.

Trail of Cthulhu: The Dying of St. Margaret's

Another published adventure with pregenerated characters, investigating odd happenings in a private girls school on a remote Scottish island.

Call of Cthulhu: The Madman

We started a continuing Call of Cthulhu campaign with this early scenario.

Call of Cthulhu: Shadows of Yog-Sothoth

Continuing the campaign, we played through this classic campaign - with some modifications.

The Black Drop game used Trail of Cthulhu, which was my introduction to that system. In general, I was unimpressed with the system, and I felt like the meta-game choices were arbitrary and unsatisfying. The scenario was going to a distant south seas island, Port Couvreux, in the 1930s to evacuate the remaining colonists there. I played a doctor who was essentially a Nazi (part of the Le Faisceau movement). His drive was arrogance, and his pillars of sanity were "First, do no harm" and "The Teutonic destiny is to rule". The full player characters were:

• John as Dr. Jean Waechter, contracted physician
• Gareth as Marc-David Desmarais
• Jens as Prof. Irving Lederman, German expat at Oxford
• David as Lt. Carlisle Bullard, American soldier

The action was interesting, and the plot overall resolved like a decent Call of Cthulhu plot. However, the mechanics of how we got there were criticized.

For the continuing campaign, our characters were:

• David playing (1st) Doctor Arthur King, (2nd) Lance Uppercut
• Jens playing (1st) Zeke Rackham, (2nd) Clyde Subblefield
• Renee playing (1st) Anita Jameson, (2nd) Egon Von Trapp
• Gareth playing (1st) Sarah Taylor, (2nd) Enrico Canelli
• John playing (1st) Rico Bertolini

There were also more characters. It was fairly high lethality, with many typical events of a Call of Cthulhu campaign. My own character was a gangster, so took the more practical and violent view - while others were playing more civilian characters.