Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix
Campaign Notes – Diorama – Props Packet
Los Angeles is, in many ways, the heart of this remix. By scattering several additional clues around the area (and obfuscating some of the material originally found in Trammel’s Testament), the PCs’ investigation is complicated (while, in some ways, also becoming clearer). They’re still given just as many options, but it will hopefully feel less like those options are being presented to them on a platter and more like they’ve been hard-fought and hard-won.
LOS ANGELES NPCs
One thing to note about the Los Angeles location is that there are a lot of NPCs running around there. Hopefully the NPC briefing sheets will help you run them all, but it should also be noted that several of the NPCs could be easily forced into becoming proactive nodes if the PCs are running into problems. (For example, private security or publicity agents hired by Olivia Clarendon could easily tip her off that people are poking around subjects she would prefer remain buried.)
PROP NOTES
Ayers Research Notes: Note that there are two versions of this prop. Give the players the first version when they discover the research notes. Give them the second version after they’ve spent time poring over the research notes.
Safe Deposit Box: Similarly, note that there’s a secondary prop for the safe deposit box that is only given once the books of account have been successfully decoded.
Walker’s Report on the Investigators: As indicated in the file, make sure to scrawl a phone number on the top of the page. You’ll want to change the specifics of this prop (and the Telegram from Bangkok) to match the specifics of the PCs. (Only include these props if the PCs have been observed by the thugs in Savannah or otherwise detected by cultists working for Savitree Sirikhan.)
De La Luz Recording: You can burn the audio recording onto a CD and then use the Neato CD label to print a label for the front of the CD. (Or you could just play the MP3, I suppose.)
Trammel’s Testament: This prop is heavily based on a prop from Yog-Sothoth, but it’s been significantly reworked to fit this remix.
Books of the Los Angeles Cult: The props file for this location does NOT include the cult’s Cthulhu mythos tomes. Those are presented separately (see link below).
As best I can tell in your remix it’s still expected that Investigators can get Lowman’s address from the Testament, but unless I’m missing something it’s not visible in the prop. (This isn’t a demand you do more work, just a check on which way you intended it. I was comparing to try to figure out exactly what information you’d added/removed from the Testament. Yog Sothoth forums currently seem to be broken.)
Different question: it appears that there was never a Major Mouth in Echavarria’s mansion, possibly because the Liar’s summoning (reawakening?) had not happened yet. And yet there was Nectar. Presumably they were somehow harvesting it from Minor Mouths? But nowhere else in the campaign (that I can find) does it seem to be suggested that this is possible. That would have implications for scenes like Haunted by Mouths, especially if an investigator has been tempted by Nectar.
In any case, it seems improbable to me that there would be no evidence of calcified Minor Mouths or other occult badness left in Echavarria’s mansion, beyond the library. It seems surprising, and maybe a bit cheap, to just say “fine upstanding citizens live here now, nothing to see, move along” like the adventure does.
Re: Lowman’s address. What I’ve actually done is add the ability to simply research Lowman’s name in Bangkok and track him down. You can get the address without the name from some other sources (notably shipping invoices from Mexico City).
Re: Echavarria’s Major Mouth. There’s some pretty hazy continuity around the cult and the ritual in ’24. Another good question is what happened to the bloated-man manifestation of the Thing With a Thousand Mouths: It showed up, killed several people, and was definitely NOT killed (because they would have completed the ritual). So where did it go?
As far as the Nectar in ’24 is concerned, my solution was to assume that there WAS a Major Mouth. It was in the Barn. Which is why the ritual needed to be performed there, because that’s where the gateway/connection to the Maw was. The ritual was basically causing the Thing to vomit itself into existence through its own Mouth. When the ritual collapsed, it broke the connection to the Maw and that Major Mouth ceased to exist. (The bloated man which it had effectively become may have simply faded away or it might have fled the area. One could imagine him somehow founding the Pair-O-Dice Club in Las Vegas in 1931 and being the power-behind-the-Syndicate in the early days of the Strip.)
The hang-up with this is that it’s supposed to take a focus of depraved acts to create a Major Mouth, and those were all taking place at the mansion. One could hypothesize that if the current owners of the mansion ripped off the drywall, they would find the arcane sigils that refocused the energy of that carnal veneration at the barn.
One of the reasons I would keep the idea of no permanent mark left on Echavarria’s mansion is that it’s indicative of the Thing’s growing power and influence over the world. 10 years ago you could blow it up and there would be very little trace of its former existence. Now its touch is permeating the world: Not only around the Major Mouths, but also around people who were merely touched by it (like Winston).
Jason, I feel stupid, but I haven’t figured out where the MP3 of De La Luz’s song can be downloaded. Please give me a pointer. I will appreciate it.
Thanks, Chick Lewis
It’s in the Props Packet zip file (link at the top of the post, just under the photograph).
After years I am finally going to run this. Your remix seems awesome. Looking trough this chapter’s handouts I notced that the Trammel book handout in the props packet has 1937 dates in it but you stated in the overview that you changed the dates to 1934. Is this a different handout?
Hi Jason;
I’m currently running the LA Chapter and in your Campaign Overview document in the Clues to the Apocalypse section, under the “Echevarria’s ritual had two layers” heading there is the following entry: “Investigating the Farm where the ritual took place reveals two incompatible sets of Mythos imagery”. What is the imagery please? I could not find anything in either the published campaign or in your remix notes. Maybe I have been looking in the wrong places?
Cheers, Cedric