The band of investigators emerged from the ever-winding corridors beneath the Sphinx to find a chamber longer and wider than three football fields. The ceilings were invisible in the darkness because they were so high. Lit torches hung from numerous pillars across the span of The Great Chamber of Nyarlathotep. The investigators heard screams shrieking across the massive complex. They followed the reverberating sounds to the edge of a pool filled with giant leeches and two bound Egyptians trapped inside. Larry, the archaeology student, adjusted his glasses to confirm what he thought he was seeing. Unfortunately, he missed the seven-foot-tall man in pharaoh robes with the head of a hippopotamus sneak up behind him and jam a ceremonial dagger in his back. Larry collapsed in a pool of what was partly his blood, the rest being blood spilt from numerous sacrifices. The rest of the investigators drew their firearms and quickly dispersed the hippopotamus-headed creature.
Then, Dr. Rico broke out his medical tools and set to work on the fading student. Something distant and evil entered his eyes. He reached into the pool and snatched a leech, using his scalpel to quickly dissect the creature. He used the dead leech to stitch up Larry. The teen’s breathing grew shallower and shallower. The already pallid student became even more pale. Then, he stopped breathing.
The group chose to leave Larry dead on the floor of the Outer God’s sacred space. After going in circles through the corridors, they reemerged into Nyarlathotep’s Great Chamber. They saw the pool of blood Larry had lain in. The body was gone.
“You will also never leave this place alive,” spoke Larry’s voice. The investigators spun and looked up at the bridge connecting two towers. Larry’s body was animate, but the rigid posture and confidence was not his own. The yellow eyes and fanged teeth also proved this was not Larry. The vampire sprung down from the bridge, claws extended, intent to feast on Dr. Rico’s blood…
This was a scene from my Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. We were using the Pulp Cthulhu rules, which allowed for investigators to do things beyond the scope of reality, such as telepathy, weird science and even using medicine skills in combination with the Cthulhu Mythos skill to raise the dead. Dr. Rico’s character had walked the line as his sanity waned, grafting parts of Cthulhu Mythos monsters onto fellow investigators to see what would happen. It was not a big surprise when Dr. Rico used the giant leeches as tools to heal Larry.
The healing roll failed. Dr. Rico pushed the roll, meaning he got a second chance to attempt the skill check. This time, if he failed, the consequences would be dire. Technically, a failure should result in Larry’s death.
For a Call of Cthulhu character, death is too easy and not the worst thing that can be done to them.
As the Keeper, I thought about the leeches… blood suckers. What other blood sucking creatures existed in the game? Vampires! I chose to transform Larry, the nervous archaeology student, into a bloodthirsty vampire. In most games, this is the point when the character would cease being a PC and become an NPC… but not for me. Besides, why would I want Mike, the player of Larry, to sit and do nothing until his next character could enter the story? I messaged Mike the vampire stat block and told him to have fun.
The thing about vampires in Call of Cthulhu, like in other games, is they can’t be killed unless slain in their grave. The investigators killed Larry the Vampire two more times, and he kept returning to haunt them. Finally, they tracked Larry through the tunnels to the dirt he was using as his nest or grave… and they unloaded on him, slaughtering him for good.
It is tempting in Call of Cthulhu to kill off characters as an easy final move when monsters attack… or mad doctors graft giant leeches to the victim. The Keeper should avoid this and find more ways to make the character suffer. Star Wars got it right with cutting limbs off instead of killing off the characters. Let them scream in pain and crawl to safety. Kill Bill also did it right by plucking the remaining eyeball from Elle Driver’s face… then leaving her alone with the black mamba in the dilapidated trailer.
A great Keeper will deny the characters the sweet release of death and prolong the suffering, with dismemberment, capture, implanting an alien inside their chest, and of course exposure to fire. The longer the character suffers, the more they’ll wonder what else the Keeper will do to their character. It will create a quandary for the other investigators about whether they should put their brethren out of their misery themselves.
If a kraken knocks an investigator off the side of a ship with a tentacle, is it more fun to say, “Okay, you die,” or to have him captured by Deep Ones and turned into a man-shark hybrid hellbent on killing his former investigative partners?
If the Keeper chooses to go down this macabre road, he should keep the player of the suffering character involved as long as possible. Players will love to run monsters, especially monsters that were once their characters. After all, why should the Keeper alone have the joy of creating the terror?
