Games Expo 2023 - fun was had by all...except when the Hilton bar ran out of ale!

 Blackwater Creek - the endgame (contains spoilers)

• System: Call of Cthulhu
• Scenario – Blackwater Creek
• Played on: RPG Nook Discord server / VTT Roll20
• For preparation information and first session see earlier blog entries.

We opened the next session with the investigators stuck on a road.  Its 9pm at night they are surrounded by the bodies and gun smoke of their shoot out with the farmers (some may say murderous rampage). Safe to say the first session had taken an unexpectedly severe turn.  My planned roughing up of the investigators to give them the impression that this place was generally unwelcoming had turned into a shoot out that had left one of the investigators (Nathan) with a few less SAN points while killing the three farmers (including a crit at short range with a 12g shotgun) – two heads blown off and one gutted by gun fire.  Nelson was covered in head matter and brains as he had been standing close to one of the farmers that had got blown away by Nathan (the aforementioned crit).

As a Keeper what have I learnt from this? Probably best to not arm those that are meant to be merely ‘ruffians’ with shotguns in the first encounter – as lethal force suddenly becomes the go to action when the situation escalates.  I had intended this to be an intimidation tactic to ensure the investigators didn’t do anything ‘silly’, as the outcome would have been bad for them! I could also have avoided the farmer being running over by Wolford as he unexpectedly reversed while the initial encounter was starting, maybe take a point of damage or two, but a fumble is a fumble and should lead to complications.

If my rolls had been a bit better, the outcome could have been that the scenario ended at this scene with four dead investigators.  I am not a ‘total party kill’ kind of Keeper but that was certainly an outcome that I was thinking of as the scene unfolded.  Certainly, there is no room for fudging rolls when using Roll20 virtual dice.  So, first lesson learnt – don’t go for the big guns early on in the scenario.

Now the players had to deal with the aftermath – three dead bodies, the farmers truck in the road riddled with bullets, their own car with bullet holes and at least two of the players covered in dead farmer.  As a caring Keeper I thought this was the correct time to have the vet, John Merritts car be seen heading up the road in the distance, head lights flashing around the bends in the road as it got closer.  

John Merritt encounter

In the scenario John Merritt is a useful source of information, conveying the sense that something is not quite right in Blackwater Creek.  The animals in the area have strange problems.  Of course, a lot of that went out the window as John Merritt had to respond to the situation he came across, but they did get some basic information about the animals being deformed.  Merritt does not have NPC stats as I am pretty sure this is not what Scott Dorward had in mind when he wrote the scenario.  So, the Investigators had tried to hide the bodies, they tried to fast talk and persuade Merritt but the rolls were truly against them.  In the end Merritt had figured out that something bad was occurring and tried to drive away at speed to inform the authorities in nearby Dunwich.  Prof Wolforth had other ideas and gave chase in his car managing to cause Merritt to crash into a ditch at the side of the road.  Merritt escaped into the wilderness.  The investigators decided to try and frame Merritt for the murders and wiped blood on his car, intending to inform the authorities when they got to Blackwater Creek.

Entering Blackwater Creek and Dick Sprouston

At this point the investigators had their first taste that something was not quite right as they made their POW rolls.  Nathan made the required roll and started perceiving the steady heartbeat of the mother as described in the scenario.  I didn’t do much more with this as a game dynamic at the time, although it comes into play a little later at the Jarvey Farm.  Running this scenario again I will use this effect more, and ensure this is something they perceive all the time while around the area.  Maybe it could be a way to get the affected investigator to be drawn towards the location of the Mother, or feel in some way connected to some of the NPCs the investigators encounter, particularly Dick Sprouston – maybe making them more susceptible to his suggestions.  

As the investigators were entering the town gone 10pm, it was obvious that the kids and others wouldn’t be running around and the opportunity for the investigators to see the ‘wormy water’ via the children was not going to happen at this point.  But, they would meet and be hosted by Sheriff Dick Sprouston.  I made sure he not so subtly dropped hints that Prof Roades and his wife probably had been accosted by the Carmody brothers.  His motivation being that he wanted the investigators to confront the brothers, maybe kill them or at least disrupt their operation so that he could take advantage of this and use it to this advantage to get the Mothers favour. He would then go and pick up the pieces, destroy the dam the brothers had built and spread the Mothers water into the Miskatonic river to spread her glory far and wide.  

The lesson I learnt here was not to make the Carmody brothers out to be gangsters and dangerous.  As the investigators have no incentive to go and confront a gang who may or may not be holding the professor.  The investigators are basically academics, so going to a big confrontation or putting themselves at that level of risk is not a good motivation. Instead I would suggest, maybe have Sprouston say that he hears that the brothers are looking after the professor and his wife as they had an accident and had to be rescued, or that the last people to see them were the Carmody brothers, a pair of trust worthy farmers who were concerned about the professor.  Of course, this is contradictory to information obtained from the students at Miskatonic University, but that is for the players to decide what to do.  Having the brothers being complete nut cases and them being told this by Sprouston will put the investigators off going there unless they are themselves a group of ‘fighter types’.

Dick managed to get them to talk and drink his whisky, although they do get the slight taste of rotten fruit.  I purposefully didn’t get them to make the required CON checks immediately as this would have given away the fact that something was dodgy with the drink, they could make those checks later after rest.  Tip for Keepers - prepare a sheet or similar so you can track which PC has failed or made the rolls for the Mothers gift.  It is easy to lose track of this dynamic and not quite know where each investigator is with the progress, particularly as you may run this over three or four sessions.

Jarveys Farm

The investigators head to Jarveys farm after talking with Sprouston.  This is one of the set pieces in the scenario.  The investigators come across the burning of the sow and get information from Malcolm Jarvey about the problems they are having.  The investigators are welcomed by Edith Jarvey in the farmhouse and sit down for some food and drink after their long journey.  At this point I had no intention of making this anything other than an opportunity for some roleplaying and maybe to get some additional information to the investigators, so I played this pretty straight at the start of the encounter.  

As it proceeded the normality of the meal seemed to take on a different tone – serving the lovely apple pie that just seemed so good, the milk that had the same rotten fruit smell as the whiskey, the divulgence from the Jarveys that some of their ailments had started to remedy themselves.  Old Pete was also introduced – his spitting of the chewing tobacco didn’t go unnoticed along with the fact that he didn’t have any chewing tobacco.  After the scenario the players indicated that this scene had some troubling undertones as they weren’t quite sure what was happening – the dissonance between the normality and the strangeness made it a bit unsettling.  After the meal Prof Wolforth and Nelson went to the barn to sleep, and on the way I gave them another hint that something was not quite right as the cows were staring straight at them with a look that was something akin to intellect.  Again, this was part of the scene setting to make it seem slightly off in terms of the environment.  This could be played up more, maybe they see a cow giving birth to a calf that is deformed or the chickens all pecking their own eggs open to eat the contents, something a bit odd but not too horrific.

Onwards to the main action of this scene – the disturbance in the night.  After all being awakened by the animals going crackers (and Nathan hearing his mother screaming  as he had failed the POW roll on the way into the town), they then confronted Brutus the Boar who had smashed his way out of his pen in the madness being generated by The Mother.  Or rather, two of the investigators did.  Prof Wolford headed straight out of the barn and past all the animals eyes that were watching him to find refuge in a tractor that was parked near the cess pit.  As a keeper sometimes you have to keep an eye out for when opportunities arise that are handed over to the random effect of the dice.  This was one such opportunity.  The tractor was near the cess pit, so I had Prof Wolford make a luck roll to avoid any complications on getting to and into the tractor that was near the cess pit – cue the inevitable fumble.  Ok so this just got serious – but being fair could the professor avoid a complete dunking by making a DEX check – in this case no.  So, into the cess pit the Wolforth goes.  

Nelson seeing this goes to help.  For some reason Nelson as a PI has hand cuffs.  He attempts to grab Wolford and hand cuff himself to him so he can pull him out.  You can guess what happens.  Both of them end up in the cess pit - literally drowning in shit.  For the drowning in the cess pit I asked for a swim roll, and if that failed then the CON roll. If failed the CON roll take 1d4 damage from drowning in shit.

Meanwhile Nathan and Johan are trying to prevent Malcolm Jarvey getting killed (they fail), Brutus gores Malcolm, Nathan tries to shoot the boar, misses, and then the boar kills Malcolm. The boar incensed goes after Nathan eventually goring him to the point where he is unconscious (failed CON check).  Johan eventually kills the boar after taking a serious amount of damage by throwing a pitch fork and rolling an extreme success.  Eventually Johan gets a rope out to Wolford and Nelson and they drag themselves out of the cess pit.  Quiet descends on the farmstead, all that can be heard are the sobs of Edith Jarvey as she holds her dead husbands shredded torso.  Oh, and the last gurgle of Old Pete who chokes and dies on the black pus that has engulfed him.

What next for our investigators? 

The investigators woke to the sounds of Edith preparing breakfast in the Farmstead, and as they ventured downstairs Edith was talking to her dead husband who she had sat at the table and was preparing his breakfast.  The strangeness of this situation was enjoyable – it was fun playing out this scene with Edith dropping hints that there was something else going on that involved Sprouston and his preaching that was more than just the standard teachings of God.  The PCs soon made it out of there and went to the dig site where they found evidence of strange bones and misshapen skulls.  These were not natural. 

The investigators followed the dry creek and came across the camp site of Prof Roades and his wife Abigail.  This is the point where Prof Roades had went from with his wife to the caves and lost her in there.  Also upon his return the Carmody brothers had kidnapped him and now had him stored away at their farmstead. Here they managed to put some pieces of the puzzle together, with Wolforth pushing them on so he could claim the site as his own and get the academic recognition he felt he so deserved from his peers.  Nelson Germander had found some trails leading into the forest and they followed them – this lead to an encounter with the Embryonic Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath.  At this point the SAN losses started, with three of the PCs losing some SAN after seeing these hideous trees.  During this encounter Nelson became paranoid (5 San loss in one hit) and very nearly attacked the other PCs as they came to help him.  Luckily no one got injured even thought Nelson was firing his gun wildly.  After the bout of insanity passed the players avoided the trees and made their way up the dry bed of the creek.  

They then came across the dam built by the Carmodys and using Nathans spy glasses managed to view the Carmody farm in the distance.  This then was the critical decision – did they go to the Carmody Farmstead or did they continue on to the source of the water behind the dam?  In the end they done what I believe most parties do when playing the scenario in the classic investigation mode – they went for the source of the dam.  I skipped the encounter with the creature in the dam that was an aggregate of all the flecks as I was conscious of time and the pacing was such that getting to the cave entrance would help with building the sense of nearing the end and whatever waited in store for the players.

At the cave entrance only Nathan spotted the crate of dynamite left behind by Prof Roades all those months ago when he blew open the cave entrance.  Nathan kept this information to himself and did not inform the other players.  

The climb into the cave through the water that is pouring out of it always makes for an interesting time for the players.  Inevitably the climb roll gets them in some way or the CON roll from the contaminated water.  On this occasion the fall from the climb and a FUMBLE on a first aid roll contrived to ensure that only three of the investigators made it into the cave.  Poor Nathan really had bad luck all the way through this scenario, and the character had not really recovered from the mauling from Brutus the boar (he still had a major wound from this) when he fell for more damage and then Johans first aid check fumbled causing more complications from which Nathan did not recover.  With Nathan also went the knowledge of the dynamite left at the mouth of the cave….

So now the PCs venture into the cave as they can hear the mother crying and talking down in the cave.  Could they rescue whoever was down there?  

The end

The end when it came, came quite quickly.  The SAN rolls ensured that Prof Wolforth ran out of the screaming and babbling (he failed and took the D20 SAN loss – 15 in one hit), the others made but Nelson was grabbed by the mothers tentacles and as he was lifted away he tried to hold onto Johan by hand cuffing himself onto Johan.  Unfortunately, neither Johans or Nelsons strength was enough to resist the Mother in the cave and they were inevitably dragged to her, lovingly cradled to the pulsating flesh and then brutally killed by the many mouths that bit into their flesh….

Meanwhile, Prof Wolforth had fled the horror screaming and even made it out of the cave, falling out and landing at the bottom of the cave mouth.  He took the damage and looked up feeling lucky to be alive…..then behind him he heard Sprouston, he turned and noticed that all the people of Blackwater Creek were dressed in robes, Sprouston appeared to be their leader and he had a large dagger, the type that is often used when making sacrifices.  Prof Wolforth probably felt a pang of regret as he realised his pioneering discovery would never be published as the sacrificial dagger was driven into his flesh…..

So ended the adventure into Blackwater Creek.  The investigators didn’t make it out, Prof Roades was not rescued and many lessons were learnt along the way.  The main learning points for me were:

• Don’t use minor encounters where the antagonists have access to shotguns.
• To increase the chances that the players go to the Carmodys, Sprouston must make them out to be nice and be looking after Roades.
• Don’t underestimate how much damage Brutus the boar can do.  It is a pretty hard encounter for a bunch of academics!
• Maybe change the premise of the scenario – have the players be doing the dig themselves or part of a rival dig to Prof Roades.  Maybe they could go in as undercover Police trying to find out what is going on.  There are a few ways you could take this using the same scenes but having the players come in from a different perspective and with different motivations.

So finally this is the end of my walk through of Blackwater Creek.  I hope you found parts of it useful, until next time remember Parrying Is For Wimps!