During the 90’s I had a long running CoC campaign that I called “Canal House.” The character home base was in a small, two story house on the newly built Canals of America in Venice Beach, California. The house was owned by a mysterious, well-travelled man named Mr. Troy (sort of a chubby little Truman Capote type guy) who filled the house with antiques, many of which had an occult background. It was set up as an antique shop, appointment only.
In the very first game Mr. Troy, who had a lot of Hollywood friends and associates, held a party at Canal House that included the new player characters. They came from diverse backgrounds, but for one reason or another were at that party. There was a Texas cowgirl who was coming to California to try to be a star in westerns, a big heavyweight boxer who was looking for his big time break, a New York gin mill torch singer who had survived a previous CoC campaign I did, and a private investigator with a heavy military background.
Occultists looking for an artifact in the house assaulted the party with clubs and knives. They were dressed in white robes and skull masks, and as most guests ran in terror the player characters stepped up and fought them off. Impressed, Mr. Troy hired them on the spot to stay at Canal House and work for him in occult investigations. In return, he would use his contacts to help them with their desires. A few adventures were had, including fighting more occultists in the Santa Monica mountains, fighting off attacks by Deep Ones that swam right up the canals to Canal House, and facing a fire God on the Santa Monica pier (on the same date as the pier burned down in real life).
Several games in one of my regular D&D players, Planet Janet, decided to give Call of Cthulhu a try (she fell in love with the game right away after hemming and hawing about playing it). She came up with Tasha Romanoff, a sort of Anastasia type who escaped from her mythical Finnish kingdom when her evil satanic uncle killed her family and took over in a military coup. Hiding out in Venice Beach, Tasha was attacked by agents of her uncle, and was saved by the players. Tasha joined the house group and adventures continued.
One great scenario was in a New Mexico mining town under sway of Mythos forces. A pair of evil mine baron brothers ran the place, and some cool encounters took place, including a cowboy style shootout on a dark street in the middle of a rainstorm. At one point the big boxer and Princess Tasha were stripped and tied up by a weirdo brother who intended to molest them both. But the other brother, a fast draw revolver fanatic, demanded a fast draw between him and the naked and bound boxer. The boxer was untied, and with an amazing roll on his to-hit percentage shot the gun toting brother dead, and knocked the other one out. This was actually one of a few times the boxer had saved Tasha, and he became sort of a bodyguard for her. You will see the irony of this at the end of the story.
Eventually it became time for Tasha and friends to go to her kingdom, “Midgardia,” and wrest it from the clutches of her evil uncle. She had gotten word that a rebellion awaited, so off they went to Europe to infiltrate the land. Hooking up with loyal soldiers of her family, Tasha and friends stormed the castle, fighting their way in. Tasha was separated, and ended up in a chamber with her uncle and some monks. She was tied up naked on an alter ready to be sacrificed to uncle’s dark gods.
The party and soldiers fought their way to the sacrificial rooms, and it was the boxer, Tasha’s protector, who burst in first. Now, boxer was a rough and tumble dude, but at this point in the game he was relying on his now trusty elephant gun more than his wits or fists. You know how over reliance on guns can backfire in CoC. Even though there were some of uncle’s soldiers with rifles in the room, boxer shot his elephant gun at uncle, although his focus was suddenly on the invaders and not Tasha.
I told the player “Gary, you know that there is a chance you’ll hit Tasha, right? Her and uncle are pretty much in the same hex.”
Gary was just all “Gotta do it. Gotta.” He was always the combat hog who wanted to take out the bad guy.
So ‘click’ ‘boom’ Gary’s boxer shot his gun, and rolled a 00. Now, CoC had no crit or cruddy, but in any game I run I ask my players before a campaign if they want crits and fumbles. They almost always say “yes.” So it was with this game, and a 00 is going to mean a malfunction, or a hitting another target next to the intended target. Sooo…Gary misses, and I tell him to roll damage. It ended up being something like 16 points. Tasha, with 9 hit points, leaves this veil of tears in a violent way as her young, lovely dark haired head is blown into a hundred bits by a gun designed to take down mastodons.
The soldiers open fire and kill the boxer. Soldiers and the other characters come in and after a bit of shooting fun take out uncle and his men. When the PC’s fully realize what happened, there is some nice sanity loss all around for all. Young Princess Tasha has come home.
In the campaign wrap-up, the PC’s take train and boat home. On the long trip, they lay their heads down at night. They dream of the horrible things they have fought together and overcome in America all the way to Europe, and the dream usually ends with visions of beautiful Princess Tasha’s head turned into red, oozing oatmeal on an alter to dark entities.
Nice, eh? Could you ask for a sadder and more horrifying end to a campaign? Well, it is Call of Cthulhu after all.
