Musings about the world, life, and everything in it.
Sunday, October 25, 2026
Morgan's Miskatonic Repository Con 2026 Adventures
A free online convention where the authors are running their own scenarios. There were issues with daylights savings which was hitting other countries. In the USA, it doesn't happen until Nov 1, the next week. So, there were issues with start times, late GMs, late Players. So, I started messaging people in various game threads verifying the start times. So, picking this or next week for this convention is a bad idea.
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5 Players: Kim J (as Dr Evelyn Cartwright), Martin E (as Eleanor Hargrove - photojournalist), Bill F (as Reginald Beauregard - detective), James H idioticbus (as Father Thomas Callahan), Morgan Hua (as Elise Dupont - psychiatrist)
The Joyful Visions cartoon studio was once known for its wacky creativity. After years of financial troubles it finally closed its doors and developers now seek to repurpose the studio but both reported supernatural events and the disappearance of the crew prompt an investigation.
Setting was 1936 USA. I enjoyed the game, but the pacing was fairly slow until the very end.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
GM showed us the map of the toon factory and I immediately noted that the location of the stairs from the first floor to the second floor didn't work. Also all the pregen female names (and NPCs) all started with the letter 'E'. I mentioned this and I assume these things will be fixed.
We explored every room in the factory and not every room was that interesting. The best bit was when my PC got sucked into a cartoon ballroom and had to dance properly to return back to the real world. We did find 3 survivors and various clues.
The sense of dread was pretty good as ink started to seep through door cracks and walls, giving us apparently no avenue of escape. Two PCs got infected, the Father's ear and PI's left pinky turned into gelatinous ink appendages.
We used some explosive nitrate film (which didn't help), found secret stairs going from the 2nd floor down into an underground cavern filled with drums of ink. There Oswald, owner of the cartoon factory, was feeding ink to humans (cultists) and mannequins (golems). I started to kink the hoses feeding the mannequins and yanking the hoses out before they could animate. The PI murdered Oswald and most of the cultists. I had to shoot the last cultist with my derringer at the very end. We caught a freight elevator back up as the factory sunk into a pit of ink.
Mr. Goth didn't pay us the balance of our 1/2 payment. The Father's inky ear and the PI's left pinky vanished. We got our epilogues which were tied into what had happened during our adventure, so that was nicely done by the GM.
5 Players: John - scarlotti. (as Sparky - Electrical Eng), Adam S - WarshTub (as Orville - inventor), Miguel A T (as Sandford Beaumont - PI), Morgan Hua (as Walter - Building Mgr)
The investigators have all been assigned to the night shift of the Electricity Building for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Opening day is just one week away and some strange occurrences have taken place in the building related to the electricity...
The PCs had different jobs in different parts of the building. Though I dislike one-shots where the PCs are all split up, I enjoyed this scenario and we had a good GM and table of Players.
There's some nice floorplans and pictures. This might be a better pulp game because the building is full of "new" technology.
We started off split up in a 2 floor building + basement. There were a number of NPCs. As strange occurrences happen inside, and the bodies pile up (the NPCs), and we figure out what's happening as various machines malfunction.
Some machines exploded, some people got electrocuted, some people got possessed and breathed lightning. I liked the creepy self-powered tricycle that stalked Orville. At one point, the tricycle was overloading and Orville tried to huck it off the 2nd floor balcony, but he failed his roll and it blew up in his face, scarring him badly with battery acid and pieces of metal.
I had my safety metal trash can (hoping to drop it over the head of the next lightning breathing zombie), but never got to use it.
In the end we unplugged the exhibition building from the main power, angering the supernatural electrical creature (well, it was already angry and killing people), then we worked at disrupting its electrical field and killed it.
In the end, I blamed the innocent Emilene Hayward, the NPC female electrical engineer, for booby trapping the exhibits and killing all the other people. Sandford had to shoot her three times (she was actually possessed). No need to mention a creature made of living electricity.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
8/25 Sun 11am-3pm (4 hrs)
The Deepdale Detestation (Part 1)
System: CoC
GM: cthulhuchris (chrisbduck4744 - Chris B)
6 Players: Andy R (as Dorothy Walters - investigative journalist), Elizabeth H (as Letitia Matthews - medium/spiritualist), Bill F (as Henry Davenport - soldier), Mehvish A - WishMoon (as Sarah Hughes - science student), Helena N (as Prof Ben Jones), Morgan Hua (as Paul Crane - bartender)
The first scenario within a multi-part adventure. Investigators in 1920s England are called to help their colleague, an Oxford professor who has gone missing whilst investigating occult history in the rural, misty and forboding Cotswold hills. Can they find him before an ancient evil is unleashed?
This was still a play test, so it's not available yet.
This was a very good scenario. We had a good GM and table of Players. This was my favorite game of the three.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
PCs get a letter telling them a friend, Ian, is in trouble in Deepdale. Letter tells us the locals are hostile and weary of strangers. Of course, we show up like a herd of elephants in two taxis and book 4 rooms in the only inn. Then ask about our missing friend (who we're told checked out several days ago, but we got a letter written the previous day).
I break in to his "vacant" room through an alleyway window and find some clues. Other PCs in the pub get some more clues. PCs go to the library and find the young "friendly" librarian (to Ian according to his letter) has been sacked. Old librarian leaves to get the local police. Party A (Paul, Sarah, Letitia) breaks into the special reserve books, steals some material, and goes to the stone circle behind the manor house. Party B goes to the "friendly" librarian's home, sees a fancy car heading to the library, but continues to the librarian's house and convinces her to go with them to the vicar to ask for help, maybe Ian has hidden there, but find the vicar gone and more clues. They decide to go to the stone circle.
At some point, I was wondering if Ian and the young librarian were the bad guys and the locals were the good guys, but as we got more clues, I found out I was wrong. The town is full of cultists doing unspeakable rituals.
Party A runs into a mutilated sheep in the field. Party B runs into an eldritch horror, shoots it with a shotgun, and loses the "friendly" librarian to it; one of its heads is the vicar's. Party A, reading the stolen material realizes there's a ritual the next night, probably requiring a sacrifice (Ian), breaks into the manor home's cellar, just as Lord Albert Delaney in his car returns with his thugs. Party A finds a secret passage and finds Ian chained up, and a failed sorcerous experiment.
That's where we left it the game as we ran out of time.
I enjoyed the mystery and trail of clues. There were some good interactions between the Players.
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