Through a Glass Darkly and Other Unsettling Tales

my Call of Cthulhu campaign set in the modern era

My Call of Cthulhu campaign started as a series of isolated adventures run at Stabcon, the bi-annual Manchester wargames convention. Somehow it has taken on a life of its own and I now run roughly quarterly with six excellent players. Here are the adventures so far…

The diary writers:

St John Cartwight-Fiennes – a New Age traveller living in a campervan in Avebury, Wiltshire (played by Ian Miller);

Cameron Cartwight-Fiennes – a military alter-ego of St John, brought in to being by an attack of insanity (played by Ian Miller);

Dr Belinda Durham - an archaeologist specialising in the European pre-Roman period (played by Meriel Jones);

James Elliott - a computer programmer from Ravensworth, Yorkshire (played by Ian Miller);

Dr Eliza Jamieson - a medical doctor now based at the Royal Berks hospital (played by Ian Thomas).

Barbara Smythe - who works for English Heritage in their Heritage Security department (played by Tamsin Earney);

Adam Walters - a Faith Healer and Gestalt Therapist (played by Geoff Brown);

Alex Douglas - a detective in the Cumbrian Police Force (played by Jim McStravick);

Gloriana - a swashbuckling young noblewoman from the Six Kingdoms (played by Meriel Jones);

The Horror in the Tube: this was the first adventure in which various PCs, including just two of the above, encounter something unpleasant in the Underground after a late-night power failure. Alas I no longer have my own notes but there's one diary entry from Eliza…

Through a Glass Darkly: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." I Cor. 13:12 – the Call of Cthulhu rulebook recommends M R James as a source of inspiration and 'A View from a Hill' is the principal source of much of this adventure, which ran rather tightly and to schedule; I particularly like the binoculars. Only James and Eliza's diaries are from PCs, all the rest are NPC viewpoints. Officialdom always calls this the 'Gallows Hill Incident'.

Confidential MOD Summary of the 'The Gallows Hill incident'

James Elliott's diary January 3^rd to 7^th 2005

Eliza Jamieson's diary January 3^rd to 7^th 2005

SAS reports on 'The Gallows Hill incident': Major Alan Smith, Trooper Frank Savage, Trooper Andy Price

James Elliott's diary from January 7^th 2005

Observer Sunday 16th January 2005: 'The Truth about Ravensworth' an Observer Exclusive

The Hunt for Ibrahim: this was the sequel to 'Through a Glass Darkly', run at Stabcon the following summer but set in February 2005. The adventure effectively started with a bunch of sightseers, including James Elliott with a photographer, visiting Gallows Hill, the site of the previous misadventure. It turned in to a search for Ibrahim Al-Sudat and Bernard Connelly, a previous PC assumed to have been in collusion with the occult terrorist, though in fact having suffered a San collapse on seeing the Dark Young. Again just two diary entries but they illuminate things pretty effectively, I think.

MI13 Confidential Report on the Gallows Hill Incident dated February 20^th 2005

James Elliott's diary February 14^th to February 22^nd 2005

Eliza Jamieson's diary February 20^th to February 23^rd 2005

The Raggedy Man:
"An' The Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes,
An' tells 'em, ef I be good, sometimes:
Knows 'bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, an' Elves,
An' the Squidgicum-Squees 'at swallers the'rselves:
An', wite by the pump in our pasture-lot,
He showed me the hole 'at the Wunks is got,
'At lives 'way deep in the ground, an' can
Turn into me, er 'Lizabuth Ann!
Er Ma, er Pa, er The Raggedy Man!
Ain't he a funny old Raggedy Man?"
 
'The Raggedy Man' by James Whitcomb Riley

While spending a slow day at home surfing certain specialist news sites, I came across two different RL news stories: one was the opening of a hole in the top of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, the other was the sighting of big cats in the county. It seems some livestock kills had been attributed to big cats by certain persons, though the idea was poo-pooed by the powers that be. It seems the incidence of these really quite gory kills approximately coincided with the opening of Silbury. What if the two were linked? Could something have crawled out? BTW, I used real news footage for this, with very little editing indeed.

Now I had a truly settled group of players and we began meeting roughly quarterly. Only two diaries again but good ones…

The Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson January 7^th to 13^th 2006

The Personal Diary of St John Cartwright-Fiennes January 7^th to 13^th 2006

The Raggedy Man's Revenge: of course, a shoggoth probably can't be destroyed by a flame-thrower and anti-tank missile. So what does a poor Shoggoth do once it's recovered from such a severe and painful savaging… It goes looking for revenge, of course. By now, all my PCs are writing diaries, so without further ado… (Warning, some of these are a bit long.)

The Personal Diary of St John Cartwright-Fiennes February 1^st and July 20^th to 29^th 2006

The Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson July 20^th to August 3^rd 2006

The Personal Diary of Barbara Smythe July 20^th to August 3^rd 2006

The Personal Diary of Dr Belinda Durham July 24^th to July 31^st 2006

The Personal Diary of Adam Walters July 25^th to August 3^rd 2006

The Personal Diary of St John Cartwright-Fiennes July 30^th to August 8^th 2006

The Personal Diary of Dr Belinda Durham August 1^st to August 6^th 2006

The Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson August 3^rd to August 6^th 2006

The Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson August 6^th to August 9^th 2006

The Personal Diary of Dr Belinda Durham August 6^th to August 10^th 2006

A Report by Cameron, St John’s alter-ego August 8^th to August 9^th 2006

The Personal Diary of St John Cartwright-Fiennes August 8^th to August 10^th 2006

This brings The Raggedy Man's Revenge to a close.

Perchance to Dream: a mini-scenario introducing the investigators to the Dreamlands, adapted from the Dreamlands supplement. It proved a relaxing diversion, introducing Alex Douglas, police detective and dreamer…

The Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson Late August 2006 to January 5^th 2007

The Personal Diary of Dr Belinda Durham October 2006 to January 5^th 2007

The Personal Diary of St John Cartwright-Fiennes December 16^th to January 5^th 2007

The Hand That Wounds: this scenario was based on my favourite episode of the X-Files, ‘Sie Hand Sie Verletzt’.

The Personal Diary of Dr Belinda Durham January 2007 to May 2^nd 2007

The Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson January 2007 to May 2^nd 2007

The Personal Diary of St John Cartwright-Fiennes May 1^st 2007 to May 2^nd 2007

The Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson May 2^nd 2007 to May 3^rd 2007

The Personal Diary of St John Cartwright-Fiennes May 2^nd 2007 to May 3^rd 2007

The Personal Diary of Dr Belinda Durham May 2^nd 2007 to May 3^rd 2007 and after

In Dreams… “All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.”  ~Elias Canetti: this is sequel to The Hand That Wounds, set almost entirely in the Dreamlands during the night of May 3^rd 2007 as the investigators seek to rescue the souls of the four teenagers murdered in the previous scenario (well, three murdered and one suicide). In Dreams… is about three quarters finished. The next episode will have to wait until after we’ve moved house but should take less than one session. Upon the conclusion of In Dreams… I intend to embark upon a major campaign story arc.

The Personal Diary of Gloriana, heir of the Pinarii, part 1

The Personal Diary of Dr Eliza Jamieson, part 1

The Personal Diary of St John Cartwright-Fiennes, part 1