I’ve recently begun listening to James Lovegrove’s wonderful “The Cthulhu Casebooks.” This series is an interesting twist on the life of Holmes and Watson and their various run-ins with eldritch horrors and Elder Gods.
To put a quick summary down, Watson and Holmes are real, there is no Arthur Conan Doyle, and everything Watson ever wrote of his adventures with the Great Detective was a lie fabricated to sell stories and financially support Holmes after his very first adventure awakened hi to the “truth” of the universe.
Lovegrove’s style is an almost perfect replica of Doyle and while the characters are somewhat rougher (given that Watson in his writing idolized Holmes to further sell the stories) the core of who they are and their speech and mannerisms remain.
I have always been a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and count the novels and short story collections as part of my formative literature along side Tolkien, Burroughs, Howard, Lovecraft and Smith. The world weaved by Doyle was was one that was wet, lived, in and utterly immersive and Lovegrove manages deftly – in my opinion – to bring that same world to life while adding it into the more abstract and surreal universe created by Lovecraft and his contemporaries. I could go on at length about Lovegrove’s trilogy but this is not the place for that. This is a place for roleplaying games!
An Eldritch Playground
I have reviewed and spoken of the amazing line of settings/adventures from Limitless Adventures entitled Fifth Evolution (or 5Evo for short). Today, I particularly want to draw attention to White Chapel which in it’s pure form is a street level murder mystery adventure with setting rules set during the Victorian Era. The cool part about 5EVO is that while it simplifies somethings ( You have the ability to – and are even urged – to use an Apocalypse Engine style playbook) it leaves others like monsters, abilities, and the like beautifully alone. This means that you could easily take some of the eldritch horrors found in D&D or from 3rd party sources books and import them seamlessly into the dark, wet climes of White Chapel’s Victorian Britain.
The only issue is the inability to mix archetypes (the aforementioned playbooks) so a Holmes-like character who would be a pugilist/scholar cannot exist. Likewise Watson would be a Doctor/Soldier. There is a minor counter to this in the “Skilled” ability that all Archetypes may purchase for 1,000 experience … and to do that multiple times to gain the “build” you want.
A Quick Scenario
The Profaned Idol Out of Time
Background
A small cargo vessel has recently made dock at the Isle of Dogs along the Themes. Amongst its cargo of tea, silks, and other goods from China and India were several curios purported to have been “recovered” from a lost city on the fringes of the vast mountain ranges that border India’s northern lands. The ship, however, did not make the papers for that reason, instead coming to local attention for the sorry state of it’s crew, who to a man were stricken with some mental derangement and found to have been mutilating their own bodies while jabbering in some unknown barbaric tongue. Only the ship’s Lieutenant, boatswain, and cabin boy seemed unaffected by the madness. Together by some miracle and good English Bravery they managed to lock the rest of the crew in the cargo hold and wrestle the ship up the Themes before crashing into West India Docks. They were found nearly dead from dehydration and fatigue by docks-men and taken to St Paul’s for care. The rest of the crew currently rests in an overflow facility in Bedlam and are under professional care. Local Police surveying the cargo hold after the removal of the crew found that the vast majority of the goods and curios had been irreparable destroyed, soiled, desecrated by the crew in their maddened state – except one article. A small idol carved of magnetic black stone which is being held in the West India Warehouse under police guard.
The Dog’s Cry – Sunday Edition November 1889
To most this was the end the tale, however, more can be gleaned from the journal’s diaries, and local accounts of time. Bedlam orderlies spoke of the crew of the ill faded ship disappearing slowly, night after night for a fortnight, of the strange changes that racked their bodies and the strange inhuman cries coming from the outdoor cages the Doctors and administrators called an “overflow facility”. Local waifs could be heard whispering of friends going missing in the night from their shambled homes in the sewers and underpasses. Other residents of Dog Isle would remark of how the Winter of 1889 saw a welcome decrease in the amount of stray and feral animals that prowled the back streets and docks. Most of all the personal files of local constables saw an increase in mental distress amongst the officers tasked with guarding the strange idol.
Set-Up
The group has been requested to assist in this strange scenario by one of the following:
Detective McRally – McRally is a good officer and diligent in his post. He is becoming concerned for his men who have been experience mental breakdowns, turns to drink and the poppy, and in two cases the taste of lead. He would like the group to investigate, find the cause for this troubling turn, and to put an end to it before more of his people have their lives destroyed.
Sister Anne – A hard working woman and one of the caretaking staff at Bedlam. She is worried that undesirables – maybe even Satanists! – are kidnapping and experimenting on the poor crew of the cargo ship. She cannot offer much but wishes the group to find the missing crew and save them from a foul fate.
Constance Bordane – A young wife to a dockworker, she asks the group to find the people responsible for her husband’s disappearance and if possible to return him to her.
Interlude
Since this is a quick scenario and not a full on adventure – if you’d like that please see my Patreon link above and join if you are so willing as I will be returning to that shortly as well – much of the investigation, footwork, clues and interesting NPCs the players would find are for the Game Master to invent, steal, or borrow as per his or her will.
Some suggestions I could offer are that the players can be conned by some street urchins who steal their money and a chase through the streets of Dog Isle to retrieve the pilfered coin. A back alley brawl with some local toughs or drunk dock workers to change the pace up, or assisting a sick homeless woman so that she may live another day.
That said, in the end the players should end up at the West India warehouses, specifically the warehouse that holds the strange idol. This is where we will now pick back up.
The Warehouse
The warehouse is barely lit by four lanterns that have been hastily placed on crates and barrels. The normal lighting is out and the two constables charged with guarding the warehouse are nowhere to be found. Three figures are move about the place. Two appear human but absent of mind or purpose, the third is a creature out of nightmare and pre-history. It looks like man from afar but upon closer inspection it has a thick scaled hide, bulbous silted eyes, and forked tongue that flicks in an out of its mouth randomly. This creature is drawing something on the ground around the idol, dabbing it’s left hand into a pot to bring more of a thick red/brown liquid to its large brush.
Upon seeing the creature the players need to make a Wisdom Check if they fail they are frozen in fear for two rounds and actions for three round thereafter are at Disadvantage
As soon as the players are seen, the strange creature will utter something in a strange guttural language and the two blank eyed humans will attack.
T – Thrall – Use Thug from the SRD
S – Snakeman – Use Sahuagin Acolyte
The Snakeman will do everything it can to continue it’s ritual and avoid the fight. If left alone after three rounds a purple flash of light will envelop the warehouse and when it clears the Snakeman and the idol will be gone a DC 10 Check of the appropriate skill will lead the players out a hole in the far wall and to an open sewer grate. If the Snakeman cannot complete the ritual in that time frame or one of the Thralls falls the Snakeman will panic and runaway through the above mentioned hole in the wall.
If at this point the players do not decide to purpose the case goes unsolved, animals and people will continue to go missing in the Isle of Dogs area at increasing rates, the yellow papers will run stories of strange snake-like creatures in the back alleys of London, and eventually all of the former crew go missing. Before anything to horrible happens an explosion rocks London, collapsing part of the Isle of Dogs area and allowing the Themes to flood in, ending the threat. Witnesses will claim to have seen a group of strangely attired Yankees scrambling out of the sewers mere moments before the explosion. Eventually the explosion and the strange mutilated bodies it unearthed will be explained as a natural gas explosion and the twisting of street peoples bodies by sickness, malnutrition, and the horrible forces of the explosion.
If the players do follow the Snakeman’s trail come back tomorrow for the:
SEWERS OF DREAD!
