Morgan's PAX Online 2020 Adventures

PAX Online was held Sept 12-20, 2020.

The convention was held completely online and was free.

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Stalker in the Moonlit Mall

9/18/20, Friday, 11am-4pm (5 hr slot)

Duration: 4 hrs

GM: Mr. Snyde

6 Players

A violent death is ignored by the local police as a “minor workplace accident”, but the developer of the soon-to-open Brighton Fair Mall knows that such incidents can play havoc in the press for risky investments like this. So he reaches out to investors and associates hoping they can look into this before the public is allowed to roam the glitter halls at tomorrow’s gala. Pregenerated adventurers provided. (Call of Cthulhu Modern Era, 6 players per table, 4 hours long; beginner).

Scenario is pretty straight forward though enjoyable. We had a good table. Two Players dropped out early as the game or table wasn't for them. I think they found that they couldn't get a word in edgewise and didn't have the patience for the other four players. There's a certain rhythm to playing online and you just need to figure out when to speak up. But the remaining 4 players gelled and played well together. We had a good time.

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6 PCs are asked to investigate a questionable death before the opening of the new mall. A pillar of concrete tumbled and killed a security guard late at night.

We found that the guard was mauled by something and that the security cameras showed sudden cold fogging.

We learned there was a sinkhole that had to be filled-in in a different wing of the mall. We arranged to come back after the mall closed at 9pm.

We checked out the local historical society and found an article pointing to alien creatures in a specific basement, so we did more digging and found a German copy of Nameless Cults and clues that the owner was trying to send some cults of Ithaqua back to whence they came. We found a partial ritual in the owner's daughter's house's cellar. We assumed the missing part was Ithaqua's name, but we weren't sure. It did note that the last phrase would be known by the cultists.

We went into the mall, thinking maybe we could just play the ritual on the PA system, but rereading the ritual seemed to indicate that we needed human agency. So, we looked for the sinkhole cross referenced with an old map of the area before the mall with built and found a cracked section of cement fill in the mall's subbasement. That lead to a tunnel which we followed to a ritual chamber filled with Ithaqua worshiping ghouls. Written on their skin were symbols.

Luckily, most of the ghouls were entranced in worship and we only had to deal with one ghoul guard. I think the GM took pity on us because the two combat characters were the two Players who left the game. We double checked that the symbols written on their skins referred to Ithaqua. We then tried to do our counter ritual, but the Ithaqua priest woke up and tried to stop us. We stopped him, surviving multiple spells thrown at us, and completed our counter ritual.

The underground complex started to collapse, so we ran for it and got out in the nick of time.

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The Mummy of Pemberly Grange

9/19/20, Friday, 4-9pm (5 hr slot)

Duration: 3 hrs

GM: Nick Carruthers

4 Players

Rich Socialite and Egyptophile Jessica Pemberly has shipped a mummy all the way from Cairo and invited some of the town’s richest and brightest to an unwrapping party at her newly purchased, self-named manor house. What could possibly go wrong? This VIP session is brought to you by Allan Carey from TYPE40. Award winning prop maker from Melbourne, Australia and Chaosium licensee. This will be a treat as you are immersed in the rich world of props during this unique experience. Your Keeper will be in 1920s costume, with a separate camera on which you will be able to view the in-game artifacts.

Due to this running at the same time as a identical event, not all props and special features of this session will be available.

I was hoping for props galore, but we only saw a partial picture of the bottom of one of the props and that was it. No handouts. I was disappointed. Overall, 1/2 hr was taken with technical issues, and the game ran for 2 hrs.

One PC died early on, about 1 hr into the game, and he sat out the rest of the scenario.

The scenario was pretty straight forward and without the props most of the time was taken up by combat.

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Game was very straight forward because the GM admitted it was a 1000 word short idea by Allan Carey to be sold later. I guess the props will be sold also? I wasn't too sure. That said, there wasn't enough clue trails and no backup for the clues.

A mummy rises and we must put it down as it drains our POW, creating a ticking clock. It also starts to hunt us down in order to kill us and its descendant, Jessica Pemberly.

In our game, there was a vital clue in a letter translated by the only PC who spoke German and it wasn't clear enough that we had to speak ritual words while consuming organs from Canopic jars. So, we consumed the organs and that wasn't enough. Luckily another PC who could read Egyptian was able to translate the bottom of the Canopic jars before he died.

The mummy was invulnerable and basically hunted us down and killed us all. PCs used fire, bullets, knives, and a car in trying to kill the mummy.

The game was basically 2 hours of combat.

The best part was that during the unwrapping, the mummy's face when revealed resembled Jessica Pemberly.

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