Cthulhu Dark

Here’s a new rule for Cthulhu Dark. Try it and tell me how it goes.

Sometimes, you want your character to attempt an action and fail.

Example: Graham is playing Mitch McCafferty, a librarian. He is trying to learn a ritual that banishes Ithaqua.

Mitch, the character, wants to succeed in learning the ritual. Graham, the player, thinks it’s much more fun if Mitch learns the ritual wrongly.

In situations like this, roll to fail, rather than rolling to succeed. The highest die shows how badly you fail.

On a 1, Mitch makes a minor error: Ithaqua is banished, but can find his way back, and Mitch knows it. On a 5, Mitch fails utterly: he believes he has banished Ithaqua, but has, in fact, only angered him. On a 6, Mitch fails utterly and glimpses beyond human understanding: he believes he has banished Ithaqua, but in fact, has fallen under Ithaqua’s control.

Use this sparingly. The default is: you advocate for your character and the dice tell you when you fail.

This rule is there for the specific circumstance when you think: I’m rolling, but I really don’t want to succeed. When you think that, roll to fail.

Here is a first attempt at Moves for a Cthulhu Dark Keeper: the things you should do during a game. If you don’t know what to do, look at this list. They’re divided into sections.

With many moves, if you use it twice, you should escalate it. For example, if you retaliate by cutting telephone cables, retaliate later by sabotaging the Investigator’s vehicle.

1. DESCRIBE THE WORLD

Describe the location

This theatre is shabby, with a smell of mould and something repellent and unknowable.

Ask for practicalities

Where do you stay? How do you get there? Do you eat before talking to the farmer?

Let them talk

To NPCs or each other.

Summarise what is happening

So you’re all in the bar.

Move time on

Later that night, the bar is closing.

Ask what they do

What do you do?

2. GIVE INFORMATION (use with TWIST THE INFORMATION, below)

Describe the harm

There is a brain in a cylinder. (See Misdirect and Add Distance).

Describe weirdness

There is a strange vibration in the air. (Use with Add Distance and Misdirect. Do this especially when someone rolls a 6 to investigate.)

Describe signs of the creature

There is a footprint here. (Use with Add Distance and Misdirect.)

Give them something to study

There is a black stone / some books / some footprints here.

Give them an NPC

A surly farmer greets you.

Describe the horror

There’s blood flowing here, in rivulets, congealing around your feet.

When you do this, take a moment, all to yourself, to paint the horrific picture.

3. TWIST THE INFORMATION

Misdirect

There is a brain missing from this corpse. (The harm is “They put brains in cylinders”, so you misdirect a little.)

Add distance

Old Jim said there was a brain missing from the corpse, but he often drinks.

Ways to add distance include:

• Obfuscation: It was foggy, but you think you saw X.
• Glimpses: Just for a moment, you saw X.
• Other interpretations: It may have been X, but it could have been the trees moving.
• Reports: Old Jim said X. There are folktales of X. Someone writes you a letter about X. The newspaper says X.
• Unreliability: Old Jim said X, but he seems insane.
• Distance: In the distance, you glimpse X.
• Barriers: You hear X through a wall.
• Anonymity: Once, X happened to a farmer (rather than “Old Ammi, the farmer”)

Colour the information

You remember folktales of corpses, found without brains, dating back to Georgian times and perhaps earlier, in the mountains of Tibet. (Do this especially when someone rolls a 5 to investigate.)

Give specific time periods or remote geographical locations.

4. RETALIATE

Approach

Late at night, you hear something moving outside your window.

Leave a trace

The next morning, you find footsteps outside your window.

Throw the monster at them

At the end of the scenario.

5. OTHER RANDOM STUFF

Look for other endings

If the Investigators fight each other, that’s probably the end.

Turn moves back on them

Like it says.

Offer a lose-lose choice

Do you kill the Deep One Hybrids or let them live?

If you’ve ever read Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World, you’ll have been tempted to steal its ideas. This, then, is a first attempt at stealing its GMing ideas for Cthulhu Dark.

The principles of being a Cthulhu Dark Keeper are as follows.

Make the world real

Whereever the Investigators are, make it detailed and fascinating. Either do your research or improvise well.

Focus on the characters

This isn’t about you telling your story. It’s about how they react to the horror. Focus on them.

Reveal your story

The stuff you’ve planned is there to be revealed. Do it.

Respond with fuckery

You’re reading books in the library? You’re trying to capture a Mi-Go? That’s not going to go well.

I’ve suggested you create a world the Investigators can freely explore. Given that, I must explain remote locations.

There are two reasons you might use a remote location.

1. You like that location.

That’s fine. It’s a geographically remote location (perhaps, for example, a clue in London leads to Edinburgh). But it’s not narratively remote. The Investigators can go there, more or less whenever they like, as soon as they realise Edinburgh is significant.

When you use a location like this, then, ensure it’s easily accessible.

2. You’re deliberately trying to keep stuff separate.

Now, this is difficult. Normally, it’s not something I’d recommend: certainly, I wouldn’t suggest building a railroad of separate locations, with clues leading from each to the next.

However, it can often be useful to quarantine horror, by keeping it in a separate location. This prevents the following problem. Let’s say the Keeper has planned a scenario based around a Shoggoth in the basement. Here’s something that can happen.

Keeper: So you’re in a mansion, with three floors and a basement.
Player: I go to the basement!
Keeper: Okaaaaay. Well. I guess you find a Shoggoth there. And that’s the end of the scenario.

And here’s something even worse that can happen.

Keeper: So you’re in a mansion, with three floors and a basement.
Player: I go to the basement!
Keeper: Okaaaaay. It’s locked. With an unpickable lock. And you can’t crowbar it.

And, as we know from many railroaded scenarios, there is a key to that lock, which will be found at the end of the adventure.

Thus, we put that horror somewhere the Investigators won’t wander. Specifically, we put it in a named location, which they must know before exploring. For example, we put the Shoggoth in the Old Sewers, which aren’t near the mansion. It’s narrative sleight-of-hand: a more palatable version of the unpickable lock.

There’s a good reason to do this. It quarantines the horror: it ensures that the Investigators won’t see the Shoggoth until the end of the scenario.

So…you know. It’s not ideal. But it’s a valid technique and, right at the moment,  I can’t think of an alternative. So…I guess…you can put the horror in a separate, named location.

As you might know, I’m working towards Keeper rules for Cthulhu Dark. I’m still working it out, but in these posts, I’ll begin sketching it out.

First, scenario generation. It goes like this. (If you’ve read all the PDFs, you’ll have seen some of this before.)

Answer the following questions.

Where is the scenario set?

Make the setting rich. Research it.

Which Mythos creature are you using?

Just one, please. (Unless you’re using a linked pair, like Elder Things and Shoggoths).

That Mythos creature carries lots of stuff with it: artifacts, weirdness, themes. For example, the Mi-Go have a black stone as an artifact, a strange vibration as weirdness and mining as a theme. The Deep Ones have jewellery as artifacts, a smell as weirdness and immortality as a theme. Remember these: you’ll use them in later posts.

What harm has the creature done to humans? And who has it harmed?

Make it something that creeps you out. If it doesn’t, make it worse. The Lloigor are draining energy from citizens of London? Not enough. They’re luring citizens to London to drain them? Better. They’re causing polypous growths to grow on people that try to leave? Ew.

And it’s harmed someone already. Who?

Now fill in the detail.

Add NPCs. Add books. Add whatever you need.

Crucially, all of this information is there to be revealed. Don’t hide it. Don’t plan to dole it out piece-by-piece. Don’t force it into a railroad of locations. Just give the Investigators the first piece, then let them explore freely to reveal the rest. Gradually, they’ll uncover the creature and the harm it does.

Thus, produce a world that the Investigators can freely explore. (But see Remote Locations and Quarantine, in the next post.)

If you need injury rules for Cthulhu Dark, try the following.

Take a red Harm Die. Like the Insanity Die, it starts at 1. Every time you’re injured, roll it: if you get above your current Harm, increase your Harm by 1.

When your Harm gets to 6, you die.

When you’re prepared to risk injury to succeed (and when this makes sense), add your Harm die to success rolls. If it rolls high, make a Harm roll, as above. (You can’t do this if you’re also adding your Insanity die.)

When your Harm reaches 5, you can reduce it by seeking strength from the Mythos. This includes: staring into the Yellow Sign, taking the Oaths of the Deep Ones, eating a piece of Mi-Go in the hope of gaining its strength.

When you seek strength from the Mythos, roll your Harm die. If you get your Harm or under, reduce your Harm by one. Simultaneously, make an Insanity roll: if you get your Insanity or over, increase your Insanity by one.

Once your Harm goes below 5, you can continue seeking strength from the Mythos. And, each time you successfully seek strength, explain how your body deforms.

I’d love you to translate Cthulhu Dark. First, get in touch (graham, at the domain thievesoftime, dot com).

I’ll ask that you:

• Keep my copyright (Graham Walmsley 2011) and
• Ask people to contact me if they want to distribute it further (for example, include it in a published scenario) and
• Distribute the translated text freely.

This is an optional rule, for more traditional campaigns, where physical stuff (including combat) is important.

Your exhaustion begins at 1. You get a black die to represent it.

You can optionally roll your exhaustion die any time your character is doing something that is physically exerting, such as fighting, climbing Antarctic mountains or running away. If your exhaustion die ties with any other die that you rolled, increase your exhaustion by 1.

When your exhaustion reaches 6, you are dead.

Any time you fail a physical task, you can roll your exhaustion die after the fact as many times as you want. Each time you tie with another die you rolled, increase your exhaustion by 1.

This globule tweaks Cthulhu Dark to feel a tiny bit more like a traditional roleplaying game.

Roll 4 dice for your occupation.

You get 2 skills at 3 dice, and 3 skills at 2 dice.

Roll 1 die for everything else.

Sample Occupations:

Antiquarian, Archaeologist, Artist, Dilettante, Historian, Journalist, Linguist, Physician, Occultist

Sample Skills:

Athletics, Breaking & Entering, Driving, Fighting, Languages, Lying, Research, Sanity*, Shooting, Social Standing, Stealth, Woodsmanship

* Sanity is treated as before, but you read the highest die.

Here’s how to run a chase in Cthulhu Dark.

On the centre space of the Tracker, place one marker for each Investigator. The Dark Star, on the left, represents the pursuer. The Light Star, on the right, is safety.

Each Investigator makes a roll, as normal, to determine how successfully they flee. Also roll one die for the pursuer.

Then, take the difference between each Investigator’s highest die and the pursuer’s die. Move the Investigator’s marker that number of spaces: towards safety, if that Investigator rolled higher; and towards the pursuer, if the Investigator rolled lower.

As always, the Investigator may add their Insanity die to the roll, before or after rolling.

Continue this for three rolls. If an Investigator reaches safety, they have lost their pursuer. If they reach the pursuer, they are caught. (If the pursuer is a monster, they die.)

If, after three rolls, the pursuit is not resolved for some Investigators, pause and describe a change in the pursuit. Perhaps the Investigators reach a sheer climb. Perhaps they reach a car. Or perhaps they become lost. In any case, the challenge they face should subtly change.

Now continue the pursuit for three more rolls. This time, the pursuer gets two dice.

If that still leaves the pursuit unresolved, describe another change in the pursuit and continue for three more rolls. This time, the pursuer gets three dice.

If even that leaves the pursuit unresolved for some Investigators, those Investigators get one last roll to escape. Whatever number their highest die shows, they move that number of spaces forwards. If they reach safety, they escape. If not, they are caught.