SoSA Campaign #3: Haverford House

[This is the third reflection post on my gaming group's long-running Call of Cthulhu campaign, Sentinels of Strange Aeons. For a little more context, you can check out this earlier post.]

SESSION 3

Synopsis

Having dispatched Corbitt, the investigators turned their attention towards the nearby church that was potentially related to the Corbitt mystery: the Chapel of Contemplation and Church of Our Lord Voice of the Silent. They found the chapel in ruins, burnt down long ago. On a crumbling wall was a strange, painted symbol that caused uncomfortable, buzzing sensation in the investigators' heads when viewed, and, beneath the ruins, lay a basement strewn with skeletons and church records mentioning Corbitt.

The following day, the group returned to meet with Mr. Porter, but only found his associate, the younger man from the trolley, waiting for them. He finally introduced himself as Daniel "Cloddy" Barnhill and informed them that he was to take everyone to meet with Mr. Porter at another location. He drove them out of the city to the western suburb of Haverford, where they met Mr. Porter at an old farm house. He explained that he represented a secret organization, the Laterna Mortuis, which was dedicated to rooting out and eliminating inhuman, cosmic forces that threaten humanity, along with their malevolent human agents. Mr. Porter and Cloddy were ranked members of this ancient society (Porter being a "bishop," and Cloddy a lower-ranking "knight"). Bishops were tasked with overseeing a "House," a group of LM members who worked together, conducting investigations under the bishop's direction. By inducting the investigators into the LM, Mr. Porter wants to reopen Haverford House, the LM House that had operated at that site until 1910, when all of the House members were killed following a horrific incident at the farmhouse. Mr. Porter implored the investigators to join the group and help to ensure a future for humankind.

SoSA Campaign #2: Work Release Program

[This is the second reflection post on my gaming group's long-running Call of Cthulhu campaign, Sentinels of Strange Aeons. For a little more context, you can check out this earlier post.]

SESSION 2

Synopsis
Having reached the subway surface platform, the trolley passengers were rounded up and shuttled off to the nearest police precinct. There, while everyone was divided into smaller groups to await questioning, the investigators were placed in a holding room with an NPC from the trolley, a man named Eric Garfield.

Before long, a strange man wearing a grey suit, fedora, bow tie, and eyeglasses (one lens darkened to cover a missing right eye) came to speak with them. He introduced himself as "Mr. Porter," and offered to get everyone in the room out of trouble with the police, provided they accompanied him for an hour. After sneaking out of the station, he escorted the investigators to an empty restaurant where he made them an offer. He would handle any issues they had with the police if they would assist him by looking into and resolving a problem: David McCullough, a West Philly landlord and associate of Mr. Porter's, managed a house in which recent tenants had developed violent tendencies and gone mad. Also present at the restaurant was a young man who had previously been a passenger on the trolley, involved in the strange encounter with the old woman, and who, it was now clear, was associated with Mr. Porter. The investigators agreed to look into the incidents and report back.

SoSA Campaign #1: Opening Move -- Trolley Trouble

[This is the first reflection post on my group's long-running Call of Cthulhu campaign, Sentinels of Strange Aeons. For a little more context, you can check out this earlier post.]

SESSION 1

Synopsis
At the campaign's opening, the characters were standing on a subway-surface trolley platform near City Hall in Philadelphia. It was Friday, June 4, 1920. None of the characters knew one another and each was traveling somewhere in town for their own purposes. As they all rode along in a Route 34 trolley car, a fight broke out between two passengers (one accused the other of pick-pocketing his wallet). As the fight became heated, the passengers slowly drifted to the middle of the car around the two men and the driver stopped the car in the middle of the tunnel, between stations. People clamored; a few players tried to bribe the driver to keep the car moving; bedlam was erupting.

While this was happening, one passenger (an old woman) discretely grabbed hold of another passenger (a young woman who was pregnant), pressed something in her hand to the young woman's side, and spoke strange words. Though most were focused on the fight, one player noticed the women and tried to intervene, which caught the attention of another passenger (an NPC), who jumped in and separated the two women. The old woman lashed out with a small knife before crawling out an open window, dropping down into the tunnel, and running off into the darkness. Eventually, the driver pulled up to the station, where police were waiting, having been alerted by a Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co. worker who was in the tunnel near the trolley when it stopped.

Chaugnar Faugn Rides the Market-Frankford El

I got back into tabletop role-playing games in 2013 after a long hiatus from the hobby. (Here, I have to give many, many props to my friend, Derik, who started the gaming group that rekindled my interest in gaming.) I could tell that it was only a matter of time before I'd want to run something myself.

This may be the result of my history with RPGs. I first learned about RPGs in what now seems the painfully stereotypical manner: I was young -- probably around 10 years old, in 4th or 5th grade -- and my good friend at the time had a neighbor who lived a few doors down on the same block, a kid who was a few years older. One afternoon, this older kid invited us to hang out on the canopied front patio of his parent's house and try out a new game: Dungeons & Dragons. Sitting on the patio's circular, metal table, among a lot of loose paper, was the famous red Basic Edition box. I played a thief named Einstein (I was still getting my bearings on the parameters of genre convention) and I loved everything about the game. Over the next month or two, we explored a dungeon and then -- if memory serves --  embarked on a journey to the infamous Isle of Dread, which we never completed. I can still recall seeing the bright orange background and odd, green Tyrannosaur of the adventure's cover sitting among the paperwork during our sessions. I bought my own copy of the red box set. Before long, I tore some lined paper from a school notebook and sketched out a regional map and another map for a dungeon within it, which I eventually ran for some other friends a few years later. Throughout elementary school and high school, I continued gaming (transitioning from Basic into Advanced D&D's 1st Edition, then ultimately into 2nd Edition). During the majority of this time, I was our group's DM. I enjoyed playing a lot, but I seemed to frequently gravitate towards the role of active storyteller. I ran far, far more games than I played.