Chapter One

WARNING: This story hour contains spoilers for "The Haunting" (a.k.a. "The Haunted House") scenario contained in the main Call of Cthulhu BRP rule book.

Keeper's Note: This title is not an aspersion on any one player. Each had moments where they earned the title "moron" during this adventure. Basically, I believe they all role-played beginning investigators very well. Bravo, team!

Five gentlemen were called in, for various reasons, by a lawyer and charged with a small task. Before he can begin discussing the assignment, a sixth gentleman (Robert Brooks) shows up, saying that he has been requested to attend the meeting. He shows the lawyer the letter requesting his attendance, but Dan Walker says that he did not write the letter. Believing that he has been treated rudely by someone he was going to assist, Robert leaves in a huff. (Note: this player was going to play a coal miner, but changed his mind at the last minute. As a result, I basically forced him to role play his rather awkward bluff to "crash" the meeting since I had no plot hook for him. He did a great job and it was a fun scene to role-play.).

Dan begins the meeting. A landlord client of his has trouble renting out a house, and wants to make sure everything is on the up and up. The last tenants left and he hasn't been able to rent it since. He gives them the address, keys to the house, and a $50 advance. He hands these items to William Ostmueller, the man he most trusts.

The group spends a few minutes in the lawyer's office planning what to do. Journalist Wesely Jordan asks for a lift to a hotel, as he has come directly from the train station to the meeting (he lives in Boston). Jimmy Pearson has a car, and offers to drive him to the Knickerbocker hotel. It's only a few blocks away, and the others decide to walk and meet them there for lunch, as Wesely's luggage takes up most of the back seat of Jimmy's Model T.

As Joseph, Willhelm, and Aidan walk to the hotel, they engage in conversation. In discussing their backgrounds, Adain casually mentions that he was in "the pen" for a while. When pressed by Joseph, he simply says that he has paid his debt to society and is looking to move on.

Jimmy drives like a maniac to the hotel, but he and Wesely arrive safely.

Neither group notices the car following them.

At the hotel, the group sits down to luncheon. As they discuss what to do, several ideas are floated: research the property at the library, check City Hall for records concerning the property, look in back issues of newspapers for clues, etc. Sadly for them, but rather happily for The Keeper, all of these fine suggestions are ignored and the group decides to proceed directly to the house. They pile into Jimmy's car and head for the house. (Note: all three of those places are explicitly mentioned in the scenario with pertinent information; it was difficult not to laugh or grin maniacally when they ignored all three ideas!)

Willhelm unlocks the front door and opens it. He, and the others crowding by the front door, see a long hallway with no lights. It looks like there are six doors, three on each side of the hallway. Wesely steps into the house with Willhelm. They enter the first door on the left, which is apparently a storage room. There is a large cupboard, which is boarded up, in the room. Since there is no light in the house, Willhelm goes outside to undo the shutters. Aidan just stands in the doorway, waiting to see what everyone else does.

(Now, at this point, it gets a bit confusing, so some of this may be incorrect--but you get the gist. I think I will record the next session to get the details correct.)

Jimmy and Joseph decide to go upstairs (even though they have seen no stairs yet). Willhelm has entered the building, and then left to go outside and open the shutters. Meanwhile, Robert Brooks has gotten out of his car (parked about 100 feet away) and approached the house. Willhelm sees him, and shouts out a pleasant greeting, "Herr Brooks!"

On the way to the stairs, Jimmy decides to take a quick peek into each room. He looks into the first door on the right and sees a normal living room. Hearing the shout, Joseph goes outside. After Willhelm greets Robert, Joseph begins to grill Mr. Brooks about his motives and reasons for being at the house.

Wesely leaves the house, and wanders the area searching for locals who may know something about the house. No one really knows much about the house, but a cigar vendor recalls some "bad business" with the "Church of Contemplation" a few years back.

Joseph, satisfied with Mr. Brooks' answers, also leaves the house and goes to one of the office buildings next door. He uses a phone to call the lawyer and get the name and phone number of the house's owner. He calls the owner, Sam Brody, and asks some questions about the last tenants of the house. Joseph learns that both the husband and the wife went insane and are both committed to Bellevue. The children have been sent to live with relatives in Baltimore.

Willhelm moves around the house and undoes the shutter. He then remains outside, continuing toward the back of the house. There are no more windows on this side, but there is a door. Since Willhelm has the keys, he begins unlocking the various locks on the side door.

Aidan explores the storage room on the left, and Jimmy looks around the living and takes a cross from the many religious gee-gaws decorating the room. He then exits and living room and continues down the hall to try the next door (which is on the left). It opens into another storeroom. The next door is on the left and he moves toward it.

No one has seen Willhelm in a short while.

Robert who satisfactorily answered Joseph's questions several minutes ago, finally proceeds into the house. Robert then decides to go into the cellar.

As Jimmy opens the third door on the left, he is blinded by some (relatively) bright light flooding into the dark house. After his eyes adjust to the illumination, he sees Willhelm opening a door from the outside. The room is apparently a small mud room; nothing much to see here.

Jimmy proceeds to the third door on the right. He enters the kitchen.

Willhelm starts locking the multitude of locks on the mud room door.

Robert finds the door leading to the cellar heads down the cellar stairs.

Just as Wesely and Joseph return to the house, everyone hears a crash, followed by a gun shot. Everyone runs to the end of the hallway, where the door to the cellar is ajar.

Keeper's note: Robert has failed his DEX roll to make it down the stairs safely. His player asks, "Does my gun go off?" Granting his wish, I ask for a Luck roll. He fails, so his gun goes off. I ask for another Luck roll, to see if his gun might hit him. He fails, so it's pointing at a body part. I have him make a Firearms roll--it's a hit. Thankfully, it's not an impale. Still, he takes 1 point of falling damage (yay for min damage!) and 7 points from the gun (on a d8 roll--yay for almost max damage!). He fails his shock roll and is unconscious. Some quick First Aid helps him but he remains unconscious.

Everyone sees his crumpled body at the foot of the stairs. They head down to help him and Willhelm falls down the stairs as well. (With two successful attacks by the stairs, the group declares the stairs to be their arch-enemy.) They finally manage to get Robert up the stairs. Wesely and Jimmy put the unconscious Federal agent into Jimmy's car and he takes off for the hospital.

George, Robert's chauffeur, approaches the house and asks the investigators what they're doing with his boss. Professor Ostmueller tells him that Robert fell down the stairs, discharging his gun, and they are taking him to the hospital. Aidan and Joseph decide to stay at the house, as Willhelm goes with George to the hospital. Willhelm has left the front door unlocked, so Aidan and Joseph can enter and exit the house as they wish; he assumes they will lock the door if they leave.

Jimmy's driving doesn't get any better during an emergency. (Note: The player put a lot of skill points into Drive, but usually rolled just above his % in that skill.) He crashes his car into a lamppost. Jimmy tries to commandeer a passing motorist's car, but fails miserably despite flashing agent Brooks' badge and claiming to be a federal agent (rolled 100 on his Fast Talk). Unfortunately for him, the passing motorist is a police officer who notes his license plate and heads to the station house to get a couple of uniformed officers to look into the nut case with the badge. Wesely flags down a motorist, who offers to take Mr. Brooks to the hospital. Jimmy remembers a garage nearby and calls them to tow his car into the shop as Wesely and the unconscious Robert head for the nearest hospital. Luckily for Jimmy, the tow truck arrives before the cops show up (rolled 01 on a Luck roll; this was the most hysterical set of rolls in our group's history).

Meanwhile, at the hospital, Robert gets settled in and receives some decent medical care.

Aidan and Joseph decide to track down the former tenants, and go visit the local insane asylum. They leave the house unlocked when they depart. They meet both the husband (Vittorio Macario) and his wife (Gabriela). Vittorio does not communicate at all, but they do learn that the wife believes there is "a presence" in the house, an evil presence which tried to kill them. She gets upset and the men are asked to leave as an orderly attempts to calm her down. They decide to stop by a hardware store on the way back to the house, and purchases a crowbar and a light (a very heavy, cumbersome crude set-up--a battery with a feeble lamp on top).

Convinced that Robert is in good hands, Wesely and Willhelm journey back to the house. As they pull up in a taxi, Aidan and Joseph return from the asylum. Jimmy soon shows up, walking from the garage which is repairing his car.

Our intrepid investigators decide to finish going through the house.

They start to venture upstairs, but then re-think their strategy. They look for a fuse box and find one in the kitchen. What's more, there are fuses in one of the cupboards! There are only four fuses and there are six sockets, but Willhelm manages to get the power turned on in both the kitchen and upstairs.

They finally (!!) open up the boarded-up cupboard in the storage room. In it, they find three books--apparently it's a diary of someone named "W. Corbitt" who once lived at the house. Wesely (the journalist), Joseph (the bonds broker), and Willhelm (the professor) each take one of the volumes for later perusal.

The group heads upstairs.

There are four doors in the upstairs hallway; they decide to open them in order. They check out the lavatory, with no surprising findings. The next room has an empty bed frame, a night stand, and a dresser. As they stand around, blood starts to drip down the walls in three different spots. Wesely takes a picture or two of the blood. Willhelm goes into the next room to see if the blood appears on the other side of the wall; it does not. He returns to the first bedroom. The window starts rattling. Everyone decides to move on, and Willhelm decides to look at the window before leaving. As he does, the bed slams into him, knocking him out the window. Hearing the loud noises, everyone rushes in and see the professor lying on the ground outside the window. They hurriedly go outside and tend to him. He's injured and unconscious.

Another trip to the hospital. Aidan stays with the professor, to get the keys when he wakes up. But the professor does not regain consciousness, so Aidan leaves.

Three investigators return to the house. Fortunately, Willhelm (being unconscious) did not lock the front door when he left and they can enter the building easily.

The next two bedrooms are nondescript: a children's room and a parent's bedroom. Nothing of much interest, but Wesely does take a breviary from the night stand, and Jimmy takes a few more religious icons.

The three remaining investigators finally decide to venture into the basement. The fiddle with the fuses to make sure the light is on downstairs. They head down the stairs. Jimmy takes extra care going down the steps and proceeds without a problem. Wesely scoots down the stairs on his butt and, also, has no problem. Joseph, lugging the heavy battery/light in one hand, and his gun in the other, is not lucky and falls down the rickety stairs. (Third successful attack by the stairs.)

Jimmy heads for the opposite wall, as Wesely begins searching through the mess in the room and Joseph rubs his aching fanny.

Wesely finds an odd, ornamental dagger in the debris scattered around the room. As he is handing the dagger to Jimmy for closer inspection, the weapon suddenly leaps out of his hands, attacking the former pilot! Surprised by the dagger, Jimmy tries to shoot it (bad Idea roll), to no avail. Wesely and Joseph, too, are surprised and not sure what to do. The dagger attacks Jimmy again--and hits again. He grabs a trash can lid and tries to defend himself againt the dagger. Wesely, after snapping a photograph of the knife attacking Jimmy, grabs a box and attempts to grapple the knife to the ground, but fails. Joseph is not sure what to do. Wesely manages to hit the dagger, and so the vile blade tries to attack him. Fortunately for him, the dagger misses. Jimmy dashes upstairs and brings down the bread box from the kitchen. After a few more ineffectual attacks by the dagger, Wesely ensnares the dagger with his box trap!

As Jimmy puts the vile blade in the metal box for safekeeping, Wesely bends over, picks up a piece of pipe, and bashes Joseph with it. Startled, the gentleman cries out in pain and asks Wesely what he's doing! Joseph also notices that Wesely's eyes seem glazed over. In self-defense, Joseph draws his gun and begins shooting at Wesely, eventually hitting but not felling the (possessed?) journalist. Jimmy hits the journalist with a cross taken from upstairs, but the holy symbol has no visible effect. In desperation, Jimmy decks Wesely, sending the journalist slumping to the floor and his camera sliding into the debris. Joseph begins dragging Wesely's body up the stairs, going slowly so he won't fall off. Almost at the top, Joseph's eyes roll back for a second and Jimmy watches in horror as Joseph's eyes glaze over and he pushes Wesely's body off the stairs. ("Does that count as a fourth attack by the stair case?" Jimmy's player wonders.)

Frantic to save the journalist's life, Jimmy rushes over and gives some quick, but life-saving, First Aid. (Thankfully, he rolled a 17. Whew!). He then punches Joseph, knocking him out. He manages to drag both bodies out of the basement and out of the house. He runs to a phone and calmly asks the operator to send an ambulance and squad car to the address. Wesely and Joseph end up at the hospital. Where, now, four out of the six original investigators are patients.

Wesely is unconscious and appears to be muttering in delirium. No one pays much attention to his fevered whispers of "my camera....get my camera....."

The next day, Aidan calls on Dan Walker (the lawyer) and tells him the house can not be rented because it's haunted. He asks for payment and Dan, a bit confused, replies that when they've gotten rid of the ghost(s), they'll get paid. Aidan leaves in a huff.

Jimmy seeks out a psychic, to see what information can be learned about the knife. The psychic he finds tells him that the knife is evil. Switching the subject, Jimmy asks if she knows anything about ghosts. She replies that ghosts are her specialty. Jimmy asks if she knows how to get rid of them. The psychic replies that ghosts are bound to the earth in the spot of some horrible trauma. To release the ghost, you must undo the trauma. Jimmy, a bit puzzled, asks how it's possible to undo something that has already happened. The psychic replies that no one has ever figured that out; that is why you can not get rid of ghosts. Desperate for some help, Jimmy asks if she knows of anything that can help against possession. She replies that she can give him an ingredient list for a protective charm to help avoid possession. Some of the ingredients are rather unusual, but Jimmy has time to track them down and the psychic helpfully gives him the names of a few select shops which should have the ingredients in stock. He sets out to buy enough ingredients to make six such charms.

While Wesely, Willhelm, and Joseph recuperate in the hospital, they all read the diary. It describes the occult life of a man named "Walter Corbitt, Esq." and details his magical experiments. The thoughts of the writer are so horrific, that each man feels uneasy after reading the diary. And they are all surprised to find instructions to perform some sort of summoning ritual, but they're not sure exactly what the ritual will bring forth.

After recuperating a week, Wesely and the others decide to do some research on the house. Robert Brooks is still hospitalized, but the others feel well enough to leave. In searching the local newspaper clippings (the "morgue"), City Hall records, court records, and the library, they find out some interesting facts. The house was built around 1835 and purchased by a Walter Corbitt. Years later, his neighbors sued to force him to move out, but there is no record of whether or not that suit was successful. The leader of a local church (which turned out to be a cult) is named the executor of Corbitt's will. The church/cult was raided eight years ago (neighbors suspected the group in the disappearance of several local children), and several people died in the debacle--three policemen and seventeen cult members. The pastor was caught, convicted of second-degree murder, and imprisoned, but escaped three years ago. Additionally, the autopsies on the victims are curiously cursory. Reading all the data with a critical eye, Wesely suspects some sort of cover-up by powerful individuals--why else would such a tragedy not have made national headlines?

Jimmy then leads the group to the coroner's office, where the coroner who worked on the case is still employed. He answers questions as best he can, but offers no new insight.

And that's where we called it a night. We spent about an hour finishing up characters (the backstories were all done, and two of the players made their characters in advance). We then spent about 4.5 hours gaming and it was a blast! The next session is in two weeks.

 
 

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  Page last updated 6 May 2005