Stealing X-Files (Part 2)

In my last post, I talked about how X-Files plots can be taken (er, stolen) and used as paranormal investigative scenarios; specifically Lovecraftian horror scenarios. In this post, we'll dig a bit deeper into the episode/scenario we are using, Darkness Falls, and mythos-ify it!

The plot of our scenario is as follows:

• Contact has been lost with a remote lumberjack camp. The investigators are sent in to figure out why.
• The camp is miles away from civilization. The PCs transportation breaks down just outside of the camp.
• When they arrive, the camp is empty and the generators have been destroyed.
• While exploring, the PCs find a body, or bodies, wrapped in a cocoon webbing and hanging from the trees. (SAN CHECK!)
• The only way out is to hike.

In order to flesh the scenario out more, there are some questions we need to answer.

What is going on? Who or what is behind it?

In a Call of Cthulhu scenario, these two questions often go hand-in-hand. In our scenario, we need to decide what happened to the loggers, and what mythos creature is behind it.

I'm the first to admit that I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Cthulhu mythos, or every creature/GOO that is related to them. Therefore I often reference two books to help me out: The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia and Malleus Monstrorum. I've used both books many times to find an interesting Great Old One or mythos creature to put as the bad guy in a scenario.

For this scenario, the main horror component so far are the bodies wrapped in cocoon webbing. The first thing that I think of when it comes to webs in the Cthulhu Mythos is Atlach-Nacha.

Atlach-Nacha is a Great Old One in the form of a giant spider, that spins a web across an immense, underground chasm. The end of the world will begin when it finishes its web and bridges the chasm. Many tunnels lead into the chasm, and the tunnels lead out to various parts of the world, and the Dreamlands. Perfect!

However, I don't like using GOO's as the main bad guy when I can avoid it. Lovecraft rarely made a GOO the main opponent in a story, and it doesn't necessarily make sense in this case to do this.

Reading further in the Malleus Monstrorum entry for our GOO, we find that the Spiders of Leng worship Atlach-Nacha. This is perfect! We have a mythos creature that we can use as our main bad guy.

But what is going on? The tunnels leading in and out of Atlach-Nacha's chasm provide this answer and the rest of our plot for us.

While cutting down a section of the woods, the ground under a felled tree revealed a passageway underground. Unbeknownst to the lumberjacks, this was one of the tunnels that leads to Atlach-Nacha. That night, a number of Spiders from Leng emerged from the tunnels and attacked the camp. Some of the lumberjacks were taken to the Great Old One as sacrifices/food, and the rest were cocooned for use as food for later...or worse.

In the next post, we'll finish up the scenario - adding in atmosphere, clues, and everything else the investigators will need.

Stealing X-Files (Part 1)

I recently read Stealing Cthulhu by Graham Walmsley. Stealing Cthulhu is an excellent resource for anyone running Lovecraftian RPGs, and I highly recommend it. The book discusses how we, as Keepers, can steal the original plots and creatures from Lovecraft's stories, change them a bit, and turn them into brand new scenarios. I've already modified one of my own scenarios in this fashion and the play through went amazingly well.

The book got me thinking. There are tons of other places that GMs can steal ideas from (and have). One of these places is The X-Files. Week after week, Mulder and Scully would travel to strange places, and investigate the weird and paranormal. Sounds familiar, huh?

Like Stealing Cthulhu does with Lovecraft's stories, we can steal episodes of The X-Files, modify them to suit our needs, and turn them into a great scenario to play through. As an example, lets take the episode Darkness Falls and turn it into a Call of Cthulhu scenario.

WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW IF YOU
HAVE NEVER SEEN THE EPISODE!!!

The plot of Darkness Falls finds Mulder and Scully traveling to a remote logging camp, accompanied by a ranger and logging company rep, to investigate the disappearance of the logging crew. At the camp, they find a lone survivor, an eco-terrorist, who tells them that the rest of the camp was killed by strange bugs. A number of cocooned bodies are found, as well as the iridescent green bugs who only attack in the darkness. After spending a night with a sputtering generator, the remaining members try to make it out of the woods, only to be attacked and cocooned by the bugs. In the end, Mulder, Scully, and the ranger are the sole survivors.


We can use most of the plot from this episode directly. Note that some of these things would need researched for a classic CoC scenario. (e.g. did they have generators then?)

• Contact has been lost with a remote lumberjack camp. The investigators are sent in to figure out why.
• The camp is miles away from civilization. The PCs transportation breaks down just outside of the camp.
• When they arrive, the camp is empty and the generators have been destroyed.
• While exploring, the PCs find a body, or bodies, wrapped in a cocoon webbing and hanging from the trees. (SAN CHECK!)
• The only way out is to hike.

So far, we have been able to develop a great plot almost directly from the episode. The PCs are isolated with limited resources. Something strange is going on. There are hints of it around the camp, and finding a body is a sure sign something bad is going down.

If we throw in some NPCs, like the company man, ranger and a surviving saboteur, then you also have conflict that the PCs have to deal with. (Plus a few more corpses you can add into the mix.) And we haven't even added in any mythos!

In the next post, I'll add to this scenario and mythos-ify it a bit more!

A Midsummer Night's Haunting

In my last post, I discussed the Cthulhu Dark scenario I wrote for the RPGGeek contest.

Turns out, I won!!!

The scenario, entitled A Midsummer Night's Haunting, is about three college girls trying to be witches that end up summoning some bad things. The PCs get pulled into the scenario through any number of ways, and have to protect them through the night.

The scenario can be downloaded from its RPGGeek page, or from my Google Drive Cthulhu Dark folder.

I was really surprised I won - there were a lot of great entries in the contest. I feel very honored to have been chosen by many people who I respect on RPGGeek. Thanks!