The 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook has interesting guidelines on how to create Cthulhu adventures.
The first bit of advice is to start with the setting. In my adventure Choo Choo I was curious about the Buffalo Central Terminal, which had been abandoned and kept behind a fence for many years. Friends of mine became involved in efforts to restore the historic site. This made me think of what secrets lie within the shadows of the old building.
The second piece of advice is to start with an event. This strategy seems like a good way to create Quantum Leap-like plots. I’ve done adventures for Doctor Who and Ghostbusters involving the assassination of President William McKinley. I could easily adapt one of those adventures to have a Cthulhu Mythos flavor to it.
Going along with the event, the book suggests creating an alternate history. I think again to my Doctor Who adventure, where a time traveler who was a relative of a man who tried to stop the McKinley assassination… and his role in the event was downplayed because of his race.
Many Cthulhu entities could become involved in a historic event and alter how it actually played out. The players will know things are changed, but the investigators will be none the wiser. It reminds me of the Quantum Leap where Sam tried to stop the assassination of JFK and failed… but he did save the life of Jackie, who died in the original timeline.
The next piece of advice is to start with creating an original cult. For my adventure Choo Choo I started with the train station location but was equally inspired by the entry in the Malleus Monstrorum for Atlach-Nacha, a spider goddess. I’ve written about her before. I created a cult that dwells in the subbasement of the train station, worshiping the spider goddess and performing rites that transform sacrifices into the Daughters of Atlach-Nacha.
The Keeper’s Rulebook proceeds by suggesting the aspiring writer examine basic horror themes, such as survival horror and isolation. With survival horror, consider the movie Alien with the crew of the Nostromo being hunted down and slain by a xenomorph. The movie also uses the theme of isolation, with the crew being in deep space with no one they can rely on to help them. The marines aren’t coming… and they proved not to be that big of help once they did get involved.
Speaking of isolation, the book discusses social isolation. Consider running a game where the investigators are criminals wanted by the law and can’t rely on the protection and services of civilized society.
The book proceeds from themes to suggesting coming up with a cool opening scene and building the rest of the story to support it. Remember From Dusk Till Dawn with the intense scene in Benny’s World of Liquor? The law officer is hunting for the protagonists, and the most paranoid of the investigators suspects the liquor store owner is signaling the law officer that something’s wrong. Everything comes to a head in blood, bullets and a fireball. And that’s how the adventure begins.
What drove the investigators to commit those crimes? What situations will they potentially find themselves in while trying to escape their pursuers and reach a safe haven? Add a healthy amount of the supernatural and turn the intensity dial up to ten.
You don’t have an idea for the start, but you have a dramatic climatic finale in mind. Work backwards to create a story to support your cinematic ending. Consider the b-movie classic The Brain That Wouldn’t Die where a disembodied head stops the murder of a young woman from being made by her mad scientist fiancé, who wants to use the corpse as a new body for the disembodied head. The creature who is the subject of the scientist’s experiments becomes inspired to break free and kill his tormentor, sending the whole lab up in smoke in a grand fire. All the while, the disembodied head laughs. What a memorable ending for a twisted movie!
Perhaps you think like M. Night Shymalan and have an idea for a story-changing twist to work into the end of the tale. Create a story that leads up to the twist, offering opportunities for the investigators to realize the truth during play of the scenario, before the twist is revealed.
The final piece of advice for creating a Call of Cthulhu scenario is to start with the investigators the players will be bringing to life. What are their stories? What skills are they good at? Those skills should be called into play during the course of the scenario. Are there things in the characters’ backstories that suggest something sinister is going on?
Creating stories directly from the backstories of the pregens is an excellent way to create an intense one-shot the investigators take personally. It is difficult to mine enough material from backstories to create a full campaign. The group won’t want to work together fighting the forces of the unknown for too long a time, solely based on one another’s problems.
The Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Rulebook offers a multitude of approaches for gestating an original scenario. Whether you start with a theme, a beginning or end or even the characters, you’re working with a solid foundation the rest of your adventure can support.
