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I'll share my favorite Call of Cthulhu story, I tell it everywhere else. A few years back, at the Philadelphia Science Fiction Convention, or Philcon, (Back when it didn't suck and wasn't in friggin' Jersey) I got to play a game of Call of Cthulhu with a friend of mine and a bunch of new guys. The six of us played six relatives who were coming together for the death of an uncle and the inheritance of his creepy old mansion. I was playing the eldest, a stodgy banker, and everyone else was given similar work-a-day characters and weird secret ties to one another. Best roleplayer was Phil Khan, who really, really loved having the same name as the convention and was high as a goddamn kite. Listening to him talk, you could believe he really saw those horrible demons. Possibly because he was looking at something about five feet behind and two feet above whoever he was talking to at the time. Anyway, we go to the funeral, do the introductions, start poking about this creepy mansion just as the sun goes down, and then my parents show up--they were lending me the car, but the price was I had to drive 'em back home from the convention when they wanted to leave, so I said my goodbyes and my character left the mansion to go do some emergency banking in town. With the rough traffic, and the fact that we were giving a ride to someone else too, even late at night the round trip was just under two hours. When I came back, the game was still going, but I had completely missed all the supernatural elements--the long dead five year old boy had passed away, and the two demons released from the kaleidoscope prison had grown bored of tormenting the players and headed off to do demon things. So what my character returned to at the mansion was not a supernatural horror show, but five adults cowering in the dark, dancing in odd ways instead of walking (Any sound that repeats itself SUMMONS THE DEMON! Don't walk normally! Unplug the phoooooones!) breaking all the lights (If two light sources light the same place, a demon appears there! Put them all out to be safe! We can use moonlight!) and using mirrors and spoons to watch behind themselves for that drat kid with the knife who kept showing up. So my banker did the only responsible thing--he called the police, who showed up in a few dozen cars with flashing lights and blaring, repeating sirens to have all my depressingly demented relatives taken into custody. Such a pity! He had to have them all declared mentally unfit, and then appointed himself executor of their estates to pay for their stays in the sanitarium. The mansion was inherited by him alone, of course--but he'd share once they were better. I can't imagine a more Lovecraftian ending to a Call of Cthulhu adventure than someone showing up and sending everyone to the crazyhouse. Apparently there was some plot where our uncle was a warlock studying Shub-Niggurath? Also the others had traumatic, repressed memories of a murdered child used in a foul rite to seal demons here long ago? Phil Khan assured me that there was the eyeball of some gigantic creature looking up at him from the well out back, but he was pretty baked. All I know is, my character tripled his financial holdings, gained no Mythos skill, and lost no sanity. Suck it, bitches! I won Call of Cthulhu!
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Feb 4, 2012 15:00
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 18:40 |
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