I play Caleb Sale

Delta Green: Chicago Hopeless

We began a new campaign on Discord and Foundry VTT. This time it’s Delta Green, gamemastered by Ivan. Delta Green is a game of conspiracy of Lovecraftian proportions set in the modern age, and published by  Arc Dream Publishing. It uses a variation of Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying  System for Call of Cthulhu. This was the second time I played it. The adventure was played over two nights and my title for it is obviously not what it really is. Dramatis Personae Jim Kurtz – Bill Mueller – Dan Palmer – Doug Sale – Hisham Part 1 Played 12th February 2021 My name is Sale. Caleb Sale. I used to be a mechanic, an Airman First Class for the United States Air Force. My speciality was rotorcraft maintenance, specifically the V-22 Osprey. One day, I saw something strange that changed my view on life and how the universe worked. I weathered […]

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Cthulhu Hack and dice

Cthulhu Hack: The Man of the House

Cthulhu Hack The Man of the House Cthulhu Hack continued today with my colleague Robert. After a day investigating the disappearance of his high school classmate and threatened by law enforcers to leave town, our investigators holed up for a night at the Helton Hotel. After breakfast at the hotel café, private detective Sean Columbo and his friend and partner Dr. Bogdanowicz considered their options. Where would the real estate broker Margaret Hilton could have disappeared to? Why did everyone believe the Woodson estate, which Margaret was trying to broker to developers, was haunted? How did the Woodson house burn down 35 years ago, killing the matron of the family Evelyn Woodson and her sons David and John? He remembered the two photos he had salvaged from the ruins of the Woodson house the previous day. They then took a cab to the Leon County Public Library to look up […]

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Cthulhu Hack player and GM

Cthulhu Hack: The Woodson Estate

Cthulhu Hack The Woodson Estate Today at work I ran Cthulhu Hack for the first time. I have the rulebook with me for some time now and had not tinkered with it last weekend. Then, Irfan and I went through character generation and the dice basics, just to get the hang of it. Later I read several of Michael LaBossiere’s online scenarios, after which I decided to adapt “Woodson Pond”. Here is the story from the game I ran for my colleague Robert who like me also teaches English. The Letter The year was 1980. It was on a Friday during one of his lull weeks when Sean Columbo received the letter. The Seattle-based private eye discovered that the letter was from his former high school classmate Margaret Hilton, a real estate broker in Tallahassee, Florida. Margaret had was set on acquiring and selling a land to a developer as […]

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CoC 5.5 Edition

Call of Cthulhu: Happy Endings

Episode 5 Happy Endings Last time on Call of Cthulhu (back in June) our solo protagonist, the young Detective DJ Stark failed to stop whatever unholy occult occurrence at Horton Opera House. Stabbed by cultists, blind luck caused a passer-by to notice him and call for an ambulance. The incident cost Stark another two weeks in the hospital, but he insisted on returning to duty quickly. Mr. Chao had all but disappeared, and there was no sign of the cultists in the opera house. There was no clue as to what the swirling bright light that he saw before he fell down the trapdoor. At the end of his shift he was approached by his new partner Detective Alex Sim, a young Asian woman who knew of Stark’s proclivities with investigating strange and unexplained things and getting into severe injuries. She warned him that she did not wish for her […]

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Winter is coming

Call of Cthulhu: A Night At The Opera

Episode 4 A Night At The Opera Last time (a year and 4 days ago in real time), despite being badly injured and walking on crutches, Detective DJ Stark (played by Irfan) succeeded in thwarting the scheme of the Cult of the Pale Nurses in their bid to summon the extradimensional being Sharakh-Kheth from crossing over into our universe and utterly demolishing the Saint Agatha Medical Centre in Brisbane, San Francisco. (Yesterday afternoon we continued the Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign to see how Detective Stark was faring. Polyhedrals and paperminis deployed, Irfan wondered what Lovecraftian creatures and machinations he would encounter in this session. It was six weeks later in game time…) Stark had been back to work at his precinct for two weeks, getting quickly bored by a desk job. His phone rang. A familiar elderly voice could be heard. “Mr. Chao,” said Stark. “I take it my […]

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I hope they all brought lunch

Patreon: Lovecraftian Investigators 3

Lovecraftian / 1920s Pulp Investigators paperminis have been released on Patreon! For this batch, I drew six new artwork, namely: the Actress, the Game Hunter, the Professor, the Singer (or the Musician), the Farmer and the Writer who looks a bit like H.P. Lovecraft! Download them from the Patreon page here! The new group meets a Nightgaunt! But not for dinner! The Writer stays all the way at the back! But then the Writer gets surrounded by a trio of Mi-go. The whole gang together! For the higher resolution Mariner-class release, or the Voyager-class release which includes a printable pdf of character artwork please support the Patreon and download them here.

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CHEEEEESE

Patreon: Lovecraftian Investigators 2

New Lovecraftian / 1920s Pulp Investigators paperminis have been released on Patreon! For this batch, I drew and setup a range of characters on the pdf, namely: the Librarian, the Hobo, the Dandy, the Alienist, the Grave Digger and Aviator! I’ve always wanted to draw a hobo. Download from the Patreon page here! Read some suggestions on how to assemble the paperminis here! Let’s see how both batches look like assembled after glued, folded and cut as seen above. The Alienist, Aviator and Hobo come face-to-face with some Flying Polyps. The Dandy walk down a street at the bad side of town and are tailed by some sort of strange hounds. The Grave Digger: “Why does it have to be Ghouls?” The Librarian break up a scuffle between the Mi-go and the Nightgaunt. Here’s everybody from both batches, bunched together for a group photo, with the Dandy attempting to grandstand. […]

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Prepare for some SAN loss

Patreon: Lovecraftian Investigators

Latest Patreon papermini release from Hishgraphics Papermini Patreon! Lovecraftian / pulp investigators from the 1920s! All prepared to lose their marbles upon investigating and being exposed to unspeakable horrors! With: the dilettante, the detective, the doctor, the police officer, the reporter and the nurse! As usual, the Pioneer-class release is free for download while the higher quality releases are for Mariner- and the Voyager-class patrons only! Fhtagn! Click here to download the pioneer-class pdf from Patreon! Also, as a free bonus download, some Lovecraftian papermini monsters for your player characters to tangle with – or to be player characters, I don’t judge. Click here to download some Ghouls and Mi-go the Fungi from Yuggoth on Patreon.

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Nurse Cutler

Call of Cthulhu: Cult of the Pale Nurses

The first confirmed recorded appearance of the Pale Nurses was in a hospice in Massachusetts in 1925, although there might have been unconfirmed activity hundreds of years before in hospices and monasteries that cared for the sick. As far as investigators and researchers are able to tell, the Pale Nurses have a blood pact sealed with some form of magic to relieve pain from the suffering. They have since come to believe that all human life is a constant suffering of pain and it is their duty to remove it by killing all life. When first they only slowly take over hospitals and kill off the patients, they have now moved on to summoning powerful extradimensional entities to wipe out all life on Earth. Constant use of their arcane rites causes their skill to turn pale and sallow, with sunken eyes. Their nails are elongated and becomes tough and sharp […]

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Horror GM-Dad

Call of Cthulhu: Healthcare Blues

Episode 3 Healthcare Blues Last time on Call of Cthulhu (almost two years ago in realtime), Detective D.J. Stark played by Irfan (the youngest Call of Cthulhu player ever? I have no idea) killed his partner who turned out to be a ghoul cultist and prevented an entity called Sharakh-Kheth from emerging from its universe into ours. However he was badly injured – lots of broken bones – and was hospitalised. Three weeks later he was moved from intensive care into a shared hospital ward at Saint Agatha Medical Centre in Brisbane, San Francisco, located all the way in Firth Park Canyon. Doctor Geisler was his doctor. His ward-mates were three other elderly men Beck, Dolce and Nunez. The ward had one window that had an iron grill installed. Stark could see trees outside from the third story of the hospital. Day One In the morning, Eleanor Stark a professor […]

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It's a copper!

Call of Cthulhu: Stark Raving Mad

Episode 2 Stark Raving Mad For several weeks, Irfan was asking me if I could run the continuation of his first Call of Cthulhu game where he roleplays SFPD Detective D.J. Stark. Finally I had the time to sit down and write prep notes for a short session. Irfan got into Detective Stark’s shoes, trench coat, shirt and tie, and then got right into it. The game started out where the previous session ended: Captain Greta Hack gives the bruised and battered Stark a week’s off after he shot his turncoat partner Lee Wilson and rescued Paige Riordan from the vicious underground creatures. Stark really has a Glock 9mm, not a revolver Returning to his apartment, he was ambushed by one of the foetid, muzzle-mouthed creatures in his kitchen. He felled it with a shot. The rest ran out the corridor and down the staircase. Stark pursued, but he was […]

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Make a Spot Hidden check

Call of Cthulhu: The First Game Ever

Episode 1 The City By The Bay I’ve had the Call of Cthulhu RPG for a decade now. I’ve never run it… til now. It was a gift from Gary before Irfan was born. We used to joke that if I couldn’t find anyone to run it for, I should someday run it for Irfan – who was then still unborn. And at the time I had yet to discover GOKL. Almost ten years later, I have refereed Irfan in a Call of Cthulhu game, who rolled up his character yesterday: a young detective in San Francisco named D.J. Stark. Here follows the actual play report: Detective Stark and his new partner Wilson hear of an abducted 9-year-old named Paige Riordan and go for a look. Another detective prevents Stark from entering the crime scene, warning him that this was his case. Stark fails to fast talk his way through. […]

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