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Thursday, September 22, 2022
Doors to Darkness - Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed - Review
Doors to Darkness (CoC 7e, 2016, 144 pages) is a collection of 5 scenarios slated for beginner GMs because the scenarios are easy to run and don't contain red herrings to lead your Players astray. The first chapter is 7 pages of GM tips. All the scenarios are set in the 1920s. The book has 10 pre-generated PCs that can be used in any of the scenarios.
I've run all the scenarios and some multiple times at various conventions.
I'd rank the scenarios in order of preference: 1. Genius Loci 2. Ties That Bind 3 (tie). Servants of the Lake 3 (tie). None More Black 5. The Darkness Beneath the Hill
Overall, I recommend the scenarios. Though it is aimed for beginner GMs, it doesn't mean it's only for beginner Players, veteran Players would enjoy these scenarios also.
Most of my sessions are 3 hours long. Different groups take different times, but my run times are here for comparison purposes. At conventions, I generally book a 6 hour time slot which includes time for explaining the system and a break for food.
I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
The Darkness Beneath the Hill
Time Period: 1920s
Location: Providence, Rhode Island
Pages: 21
Run Time: 1 session
Hook: A friend invites you to visit his newly inherited house.
My least favorite scenario of the 5. I probably will never run this one again.
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The Plot: Your friend's house connects to an underground tunnel complex for smuggling slaves which connect to a Serpent People complex. He disappears and you've got to rescue him because he got captured by Serpent People. The Bad Guys: Serpent People and their servants.
I didn't like this scenario because it's very much like a dungeon crawl. The rooms and illustrations are pretty interesting and I love showing them to the Players. The only real danger is that the Ghasts you can run into are very deadly for inexperienced PCs. The Serpentine Scientist is also dangerous, but most PCs just ambush him. Some of my Players have flooded the complex after rescuing their friend by breaking through the wall to the River.
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Genius Loci
Time Period: 1920s (1925)
Location: Danvers State Hospital, Massachusetts
Pages: 21
Run Time: 1 session
Hook: A friend, a patient, at the Danvers State Lunatic Asylum sends you a letter asking for help.
My favorite scenario in the book. The only drawback is that a map of Danvers State Hospital isn't included in the scenario. Luckily there's a website where the GM can look up all this material. I've put a link in the spoiler section for the GM.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Plot: A Lloigor is living off of the pain of the patients in the hospital. The PCs need to restore a broken seal to re-imprison the Lloigor. The Bad Guys: Crazy Doctor and a Lloigor
One of my favorite scenarios as there's lots of online resources for Danvers. There are pictures and maps of the facility. https://www.danversstatehospital.org/
People have recommended watching the movie: Session 9 (2001) It was filmed at Danvers before it was torn down.
You can also find loads of insane asylum inmate pictures online. I sorted them in order of creepiness into the G, H, I, J Wards. Going from nice normal pictures of a place you'd send your grandma to to a place that looks like it's rife with abuse.
G Ward
G Ward
H Ward
H Ward
I Ward
I Ward
J Ward
J Ward
If you want to, you can just relocate Danvers to Arkham and make it the Arkham Asylum and make this a Miskatonic University scenario. The patient can be either a friend of the PCs or a PC that finally broke and has been institutionalized.
p.s. I was asked about the Elder Sign. So, I looked at the scenario again and sure enough, there is no advice about resealing the Lloigor. Dr Shine's papers at Salem Hospital should include more information about "Hathorne's Disk," the Elder Sign.
If you want to extend their quest a bit more, you can add a note saying that Dr Shine's final request was to place various papers and items with his body. Thus necessitating a visit to the cemetery at night with shovels. You can put a shattered Elder Sign inside his coffin or instructions for creating one. I put a shattered one which the PCs had to put back together before tracing out the sigil. They then visited Abner Wick (from Crimson Letters in Keeper Rulebook) who taught them how to make an Elder Sign, for a price, but he refused to enchant one as it cost 10 POW (permanent loss), so a PC had to do this.
The PCs wanted a more permanent solution, so they had a large Elder Sign made out of metal by a company that made manhole covers. This necessitated two people to move. They took that, a wheel barrel, and bags of cement. PCs also knew by calendar when the new moon was, so they wanted to do this before the night Larry gets sacrificed. They snuck onto the Asylum grounds at night, avoided the guards and interns who patrolled the grounds. As the Elder Sign got closer to the Lloigor, it noticed it and alerted Dr Berger and other helpers. Then it became a race to place the Elder Sign in the right spot. The PCs didn't know exactly where to put it, but knew it needed to be placed somewhere in the Amphitheater, as that was part of the remodel that removed the disk. Some PCs fought Dr Berger and his interns, while another PC slid the Elder Sign around, trying to figure out the right spot, and the Lloigor started spinning up his Vortex Attack. I used the Vortex Attack as a count down clock. The PCs knocked out the humans and got the Elder Sign on the right spot before the Vortex Attack reached its full power. How do you know you got the right spot? When the Lloigor gets bottled up and becomes powerless, the Vortex Attack suddenly collapses. The PCs then poured concrete over the Elder Sign, so no one would find or disturb it.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Servants of the Lake
Time Period: 1920s
Location: Squatters Lake, Massachusetts (can be tied to Miskatonic University scenarios)
Pages: 20
Run Time: 1 session
Hook: A student from MU has disappeared on route to Kingsport.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Plot: The student disappeared at a motel, snatched by cultists and turned into a zombie. The Bad Guys: Cultists, Zombies, and an Avatar of Gla'aki
Almost everybody suspects the motel owners right off the bat because it's such a horror trope. That's ok, because the real horror is finding the zombies which are a big surprise. One time, a PC fell into the well in the old settlement in the middle of the night. As the other PCs went to get a rope, a zombie fell into the well too. Loads of fun. Nobody has gotten rid of the Avatar, most of the time, they kill the Cultists, run over a few Zombies, and flee.
You can also use this like Dead Light, a between scenario that happens on the road. Instead of making it an investigation, just drop this into your campaign as the creepy Motel the PCs have to spend the night in.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Ties That Bind
Time Period: 1920s
Location: Ipswich, Massachusetts (can be tied into Miskatonic University scenarios)
Pages: 20
Run Time: 2 sessions or a 6 hr convention slot
Hook: PCs are asked to investigate a case of vandalism and strange stones left behind.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Plot: The strange stones are Byakhee eggs. The Byakhee just wants them back. The Bad Guys: Paramentals in the swamp, Momma Byakhee and Daddy Byakhee
I love this scenario because it's so different from other CoC scenarios. I've run this loads of times. The solution is to just hand over the eggs and the hatched Byakhees. That has happened a few times, a few times the PCs went toe-to-toe with the Byakhees, sometimes using a car as a weapon, another time, a PC decided to become the new Marsh Wizard and bound the Byakhees to her bidding.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
None More Black
Time Period: 1920s
Location: Arkham, Massachusetts (can be tied to Miskatonic University scenarios)
Pages: 15
Run Time: 2 sessions
Hook: A student at MU has died.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Plot: Cultists are selling The Black, a Mythos drug, on the MU campus. They're making it at an abandoned meat packing plant. PCs need to kill the head cultist who makes the drug. The Bad Guys: Drug dealing Cultists, Nightgaunts, and Raw Head.
The Nightgaunts are very deadly. They usually kill at least one PC. The Raw Head is optional and even deadlier. I've never used it. The general outcome is burning down the meat packing plant. Since the meat packing plant is on the river bank, I assumed the plant dumped its raw offal sewage directly into the river, no real health regulations back then, so there should be a sewer pipe that runs from the river to the floor drain in the Main Slaughter Area. Grossly coated with old coagulated blood, animal fat, decayed meat, and flies. Great to crawl through. And it takes you directly under the meat hooks. Oops.
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