If you ask a gamer who played Masks of Nyarlathotep how many characters he lost in Peru, he’s likely to think you mean a different game… or that all the games he’s played has become muddled in his head. The Peru chapter didn’t exist in the first printings of the campaign. It was created by Mike Mason, Lynne Hardy, Paul Fricker and Scott Dorward to complement the work of Larry DiTillio and Lynn Willis.
The purpose of the Peru chapter is simple: to get the characters to become attached to the NPC Jackson Elias. The next chapter begins with the investigators headed to Jackson’s hotel room to visit their friend only to stumble upon a murder scene, where their friend lies slaughtered.
The Peru story exists to create emotional attachment to Jackson before his untimely death. The rest of the campaign hinges on the fact that the investigators are emotionally connected to Jackson and so upset by his murder that they embark on a globetrotting expedition to discover his murderer and solve the last mystery he was working on.
The Peru chapter revolves around Augustus Larkin, a millionaire playboy who fell for a Kenyan sorceress name M’Weru (she becomes instrumental in the rest of the campaign). Larkin tried to flee but was drugged by M’Weru and her cultists. They performed a ritual where they tattooed a sign on Larkin’s chest, binding him to the Crawling Chaos, Nyatlathotep.
Under Nyatlathotep’s control, Larkin traveled the world performing tasks for the Great Old One. Now, he’s come to Peru to release a mask of Nyatlathotep, kept prisoner in a lost pyramid. The investigators are part of this expedition. Along with them is the talented and charismatic associate Jesse Hughes, which is a pseudonym chosen by Jackson.
From the beginning, it’s vital that the other investigators like Jackson/Jesse. He helps when needed. He doesn’t steal kills from the other party members, but he’s willing to put himself in harm’s way to rescue a companion. He has a vast knowledge of the occult, being a writer who specializes in cults around the world.
The trick is to keep Jackson in the spotlight without making him get in the way of the other characters. They should feel free to ask questions and suggest possible methods to solve a problem without Jackson always jumping in with the answer. He should always be there to help but not to rob the investigators of their agency or the spotlight when things go well for them.
The main villains of the chapter are the Kharisri. They are undead creatures turned into abominations by another Kharisri feeding on them like a vampire. After feeding, the undead develop pot bellies and long to carry the drained life fluids to the lost pyramid where they vomit the consumed liquids into the pyramid to sustain the trapped mask of Nyatlathotep known as the Father of Maggots.
The assistant to Larkin, Luis de Mendoza, is one of the original Kharisri. He was one of the original conquistadors who found the lost temple hundreds of years ago. Along with the other conquistadors, he found the walls covered in gold decorations. They broke off a piece and tried to flee. However, doing so allowed the captured mask of Nyatlathotep to be able to extend its influence beyond the temple. The conquistadors were cursed and turned into the first Kharisri.
That piece of gold broken off from the temple, as well as the journal of one of the conquistadors, is in a Peruvian university’s basement. The graduate student studying these artifacts and connecting them to the lost temple Larkin is hungry to find gets attacked by de Mendoza. Based on the investigators’ actions, she might die from her injuries. The attack provides the group with their first evidence of the actions and attacks of the Kharisri.
This won’t be the last opportunity for the group to see the Kharisri in action. Farmers will be driving the monsters from their land after the creatures injure a child. The monsters hunt the investigators as everyone closes in on the lost pyramid.
When the expedition reaches the pyramid, Larkin encourages everyone to loot freely. The more of the golden décor they remove, the more they’ll break the wards keeping the Father of Maggots trapped inside the pyramid.
My group figured it out pretty quickly. They knew the pyramid and Larkin were no good before they even left Lima. They brought along with them a barrel of gasoline and pumped the gas into a crack in the top of the pyramid, right into the Father of Maggots’s chamber. Kharisri attacked from all sides. One investigator knew she was about to be killed, so she immolated herself, grabbed the Kharisri who would have slain her and threw them both down over the crack where the gas had been poured into the pyramid. The abomination and investigator went up in flames, as did the Father of Maggots.
The biggest challenge this chapter held for my players was getting them into a Call of Cthulhu mindset. They were used to Savage Worlds and Earthdawn, where you throw your might at the problems in your way. Even in Pulp Cthulhu, you’re not encouraged to take on the Mythos toe to toe, which my group did. It cost them several characters.
There would be a smaller body count over the rest of the campaign as the group learned to play more conservatively and keep a distance from the horror of the Mythos if at all possible.
