I’ll be serializing this scenario for Trail of Cthulhu, set in the Twin Cities (Minnesota, USA) in the 1925 over the next few weeks. Originally run in an abridged format at Gen Con 2017, it will be presented here in its entirety for the first time. If you’re a member of my local gaming groups, you may want to steer clear of this one, even if you’ve played this scenario before: The background elements (discussed in depth in this first post) aren’t fully revealed in this scenario and may feature in future scenarios I design.

STARTING DATE
Friday, November 13^th, 1925

DAWN OF MAN

Tanit and Ra are both incomprehensible alien intellects which came to Earth (or perhaps arose on Earth) in a prehistoric era. Some legends speak of them as brother and sister, suggesting the possibility that they are both exemplars of a single species (or perhaps a single entity turned against itself). But it’s more likely that they are utterly unlike in nature except for their shared point of commonality in humanity.

Before the origin of the conscious mind, humans were simply very smart apes. In anatomically modern humans, tool use and even agriculture were more advanced than among other animals, but they did not possess true intellect.

THE HERDS: This made them ideal hosts for Tanit and Ra, both of whom infested the minds of man like viruses and turned them into extrusions of their will. The resulting herds created the first civilizations, although they still did not exist as individuals – they were merely tools wielded by Tanit or Ra; a physical host for a vast hive consciousness.

THE FIRST HUMANS: The First Humans came to exist when Tanit attempted to infect the herd of Ra (and vice versa). Human consciousness was born from the friction between them. The bicameral mind is, in fact, a manifestation of this conflict between Tanit and Ra – and in its asymmetry, human consciousness is given form in the discontinuity between the mind’s two halves.

THE REBELLION: The First Humans rebelled against the herds. In Egypt, there is some evidence that the ensuing rebellion may have even fractured the Ra consciousness (into Amun-Ra and Aten-Ra). Tanit endured in her last refuge of Carthage until the Punic Wars razed the city.

FUNDAMENTAL METAPHYSIC: To be clear, it is not the case that there is a human identity which is plagued by Tanit and Ra. Rather, all human identity is nothing more than a byproduct of the conflict between vast alien intelligences. The lateralization of brain function in each individual is merely the wavering frontlines of an ancient war. Your entire sense of self and all of your conscious thought is nothing more than a metaphysical fever boiling out of the trench warfare being fought in the sulcus of the cerebral cortex.

Note: Ra is primarily active in the left hemisphere of the brain. Tanit in the right.

TANIT

In a fully realized host (i.e., one in which the taint of Ra is not present), the parasite which is Tanit manifests as an eye in the palm of the left hand.

THE FASCICULUS: Tanit forms a cluster of nerve tissue within the hand, suborning the Ulnar nerve and altering the structure of Guyon’s canal. This cluster is the actual seat of the Tanit consciousness, with this “mind” or “eye” of Tanit remotely controlling the primary brain of the host. It is capable of operating the hand as an independent entity in the case of death (a “hand of Tanit”); and in some cases may even lend a semblance of motion to an otherwise brain dead host (as long as the brain stem is intact), creating a shambling, zombie-like thing.

INFECTION: Tanit is a parasite — microscopic and slightly purplish in color. When a host is infected by Tanit, the parasites cluster in the left hand, where they join together (in accordance to a biology utterly foreign to terrestial life) to form more complex structures.

Child Sacrifice: Tanit uses rituals of child sacrifice to create tophet serums of viral payload capable of overriding (or destroying) Ra’s presence in the host. This effectively kills the human “personality”, and creates a fully realized Tanit host.

FACE OF BAAL: Tanit is also referred to as the Face of Baal (a word meaning “Lord” or “master” in primal Semitic tongues). This suggests that perhaps the Tanit hive consciousness is nothing more than a representative or tool of some greater and even more inexplicable entity.

RA

Ra transmits itself to new hosts as a primarily memetic virus — it is written that Ra created man by “speaking their secret names” (proper verbal coding can actually alter the Broca area of the brain, effectively infecting the host; fortunately, the memetic payload must be customized to each victim). Direct transmission via liquid, however, is also possible — in another Egyptian tale, Ra weeps and from his tears man is given birth. In the Book of the Dead, Ra cuts himself and his blood transforms into the personifications of Hu and Sia.

HU/SIA: When fully realized, Ra’s hosts manifest in two forms — the Hu (authority) become central coordinators while the bulk of the host is made up of Sia (mind). (Hu is the deification of the first word, the word of creation, and was “companion to the pharaohs”.)

Hu-manifestations are at least somewhat resistant to the Tanit parasite. Those with a Hu-strain of Ra may experience this as an enlightened/mystical state. But the more a Hu-infected host opens itself to Ra, the more its own personality is destroyed.

Note: There could be fourteen different manifestations of Ra (in the “train of Ra”). In some translations of the Book of the Dead, Chapter XVII begins: “I am Tem in rising. I am the only One. I came into being in Nu. I am Ra who rose in the beginning… The pillars of Shu were not as yet created. It is Ra, the creator of the names of his limbs, which came into being in the form of the gods, who are in the train of Ra” (i.e., the gods who personify his phases) “– fourteen Spirits, seven dark and seven light…”

APEP SERPENTS: Hu-infected hosts can be particularly long-lived, with their bodies undergoing severe transformation which eventually leaves them in a form similar to a huge, misshapen, white wyrm.

Apeptosis: Apep serpents can sometimes undergo a bizarre fission, rapidly undergoing a clonal fragmentation in which their mass collapses in a multitude of small serpents — almost maggot-like in character, but incredibly fast. These small serpents can enter potential hosts through eyes, ears, or other orifices and rapidly infect them with Ra.

Replication Errors: Apeps are dangerous to Ra, however, because they can diverge from the parent-state and become independent entities. In a fully-realized Ra society, therefore, Apeps are often killed before this happens. In the modern world, Apeps are particularly dangerous because there is no guarantee that their apeptotic fission will maintain a state of equilibrium with Tanit (which could result in anyone being infected by them having their humanity destroyed).

EYE OF RA: Eyes of Ra were extensions of Ra’s will. They included Hathor, Sekhmet, Bast, Wadjet, and Mut.

SISTERHOOD OF FATIMA

A coven of witches who have passed the secrets of Tanit and Ra down through the ages. They are particularly focused on preventing outbreaks of the Tanit parasite.

The Virgin Mary, Miriam (sister to Moses), and Fatima (daughter of Muhammad) were all members.

The inner mystery of the Sisters of Fatima is that they are all Hu-manifestations of Ra. Their mystic rites are the result of opening themselves to Ra, and their interest in crushing Tanit is not entirely wholesome for mankind.

THE HANDS

HAMSA: Also referred to as the Hand of Fatima and the Hand of Miriam, the Hamsa is a protective sigil or charm taking the figure of a hand with an eye in the center of its palm. It is supposed to guard against the “evil eye” and is widely recognized throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

In mundane scholarship it is theorized to have originated in Carthage and to spring from Tanit worship. The reality is the inverse: True Hamsas are created by the Sisterhood of Fatima to both “warn and ward” against Tanit and her cultists.

MANO PANTEA: Also known as the Hand-of-the-All-Goddess. Known to Egyptians as the Two Fingers, with the fingers representing Isis and Osiris; the thumb, their child Horus. Used to invoke a protective spirit of parents over their child, it was later adopted (through Byzantine) by Catholicism as a sign of benediction, derived from a Roman symbol meaning “to speak” and eventually gaining a retconned meaning of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Mano Pantea was used by Tanit cultists to identify themselves to each other. The meaning inverted when agents of Ra began using the symbol to expose Tanit worshipers (by initiating false calls and returns; you give the sign and if the other person responds you know you’ve found a Tanit cultist), eventually eking into common Egyptian culture as a general ward against children Tanit infections.

Tanit cultists still use it as a ritualized greeting for each other. (The fact that a number of organized religions adopted it suggests Tanit cultists infiltrated them at very high levels.)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part 1: Revelation List
Part 2: Background & General Research
Part 3: Arrival at Hill House
Part 4: The Hill House Investigation

Node 1: The Black Cats
Node 2: Minnesota 13
Node 3: Alicia Corey’s Boarding House
Node 4: Harriet Tubman’s Asylum for Colored Orphans
Node 5: Fatima’s Shrine
Node 6: Davis Farm
Node 7: Harris Chemical Plant
Node 8: Minneapolis Federal Reserve
Proactive Nodes

Pregenerated Characters

DOWNLOAD
Patron PDF + Prop Pack

Trail of Cthulhu contains some rudimentary guidelines for the use of explosives. They can be found on my system cheat cheet, but I’ll briefly summarize them here for easy reference.

SETTING EXPLOSIVE DEVICES: Requires an Explosives test. A Sense Trouble test (difficulty 4 or the result of the Explosives test) can be made to dive out of the way our pull comrade to Close range.

THROWN EXPLOSIVE: Make an Athletics test (difficulty 2 for point blank range, 3 for close range, or 5 for near). If aiming for for a very specific spot the difficultyies are 3 for point-blank, 4 for close, or 7 for near. If the explosive is not balanced for throwing, add +1 difficulty.

OTHER EXPLOSIVES: Artillery/mortars use a Mechanical Repair test. Rifle-Grenade uses a Firearms test.

TRANSPORTING EXPLOSIVES

These basic guidelines are quite useful. However, at the, let’s say, “prompting” of my players, I’ve found the not-so-occasional need to figure out what might be involved in the transportation and use of truly prodigious amounts of explosives. In the case of globetrotting campaigns like Eternal Lies or Masks of Nyarlathotep, this has often included hauling explosives on lengthy wilderness expeditions. (You’ll probably have similar experiences with the scenarios in Pelgrane’s Mythos Expeditions, although I don’t own that book personally yet.)

DEDICATED PORTER: An additional porter is required per 1 large gun or 1-3 charges of dynamite.

CARRIED BY INVESTIGATOR: If explosives are carried by an Investigator, they will suffer damage per day and an increased difficulty to physical tasks (as shown on the table below). A maximum of 6 charges can be carried by a single Investigator.

URBAN AREAS: Transporting large amounts of explosives through metropolitan regions usually requires a Stealth test (or similar precautions). The difficulty of this test is increased based on the number of charges (as indicated on the table below).

When running a globetrotting historical Trail of Cthulhu game — whether set in the 1890’s, the 1920’s, or the 1930’s — it’s not unusual for the investigators to find themselves trekking out into the wilderness, akin to those expeditions described by H.P. Lovecraft in The Shadow Out of Time or At the Mountains of Madness.

Pelgrane Press has actually published an entire collection of such scenarios in Mythos Expeditions, which I understand to also include a rather robust set of rules for organizing and running such expeditions. I’m afraid I don’t actually own that particular volume, and the rules you’ll find here are unrelated to whatever full-fledged mechanics you might find there. What I wanted/needed was a relatively streamlined set of mechanics that could be used to meaningfully organize expeditions as part of a larger campaign in which they were not necessarily the primary focus, but nevertheless a significant part.

EXPEDITIONS

These guidelines assume a modest, personal expedition consisting of a fairly typical group of investigators, perhaps one or two local guides, and their porters. They’re not appropriate for larger groups, industrial-scale explorations, or military expeditions into the wilderness (although adapting them to such might not require too much effort).

SUPPLIES: The supplies for an expedition require a 1-point Credit Rating spend per week of supplies.

PORTERS: The expedition requires 1 porter per investigator, plus 1 porter per guide. It generally costs a 1-point Credit Rating spend per porter, but Bargain reduces the total cost by 1-point. A 1-point Bargain spend halves the total Credit Rating cost for porters.

If an expedition will last for more than three weeks, the number of porters must be doubled (due to the increased number of supplies to be carried).

GUIDES

In broad terms, a guide will provide a pool of Outdoorsman points (and other expertise which may or may not be useful). In certain circumstances, guides may also possess specific navigational knowledge (i.e., the location of a “lost” locale or local watering holes) or other advantages (friendship with local, usually hostile tribes).

TRACKLESS WASTE: Navigating through a trackless waste is not trivial. It requires a 1-point Outdoorsman spend simply to navigate out of the waste. (For example, getting to the Atlantic coast from the midst of the Amazonian jungle.) Getting to a specific point of your choosing is a 2-point Outdoorsman spend.

However, a map or compass each counts as a 1-point Outdoorsman spend. (So if you have the Outdoorsman skill, a map, and a compass, you can get to a specific point of your choosing without any spend.)

FINDING A “LOST” LOCALE: Sometimes you don’t actually know the specific point at which you can find whatever it is you’re looking for. (For example, you might be searching for the lost city of Irem.) For each week of the expedition, the expedition rolls 1d6. Assuming the location actually exists and is in the region they’re searching for it, they’ll find it if the die rolls “6”.

The Investigators and their guides can spend points to enhance the search. For every 3 points spent, they can roll an additional d6. Such spends could come from Outdoorsman, Archaeology (analyzing ruins throughout the area), Anthropology, Oral History (questioning locals), or any other skill for which a logical purpose can be proposed. (This will be highly dependent on the particular circumstances of the specific locale being searched.)

INTERPRETERS

Whether on an expedition or not, any Investigator without an interpreter who cannot speak local languages must make 1-point spends with Interpersonal abilities that would otherwise function without a spend. Acquiring an interpreter generally requires Bargain or Streetwise.

Acquiring an interpreter without Assess Honesty may result in hiring an unreliable fellow. Such an interpreter may do something that could inconvenience or even harm their employer (abandoning them, stealing from them, warning local cultists, etc.).

OTHER CONCERNS

Depending on where the expedition is located, it may be appropriate to use a Heat track (or similar environmental impact mechanic). Investigators who insist on hauling large quantities of explosives into the outback will find themselves saddled with additional logistical concerns.

Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

Mirroring my experience with airports when I originally ran Eternal Lies, those instances where a very specific hotel was established in both my imagination and the imaginations of my players resulted in much richer and more interesting play than when a generic hotel served as a generic homebase for their operations in an area.

In returning to the campaign, therefore, I decided to get much more deliberate in setting up these hotels. And, once again, this afforded me the opportunity to inject more historically-sourced material into the campaign. Although some of the hotels in this addendum are fictional, the significant majority of them are real hotels that you could have rented a room at in 1934-35.

Simply prepping a single hotel for each locale, however, was generally not sufficient. Deciding on where they wanted to stay (and how that would inform their strategy in approaching each locale) was actually quite important for my original group, and quickly proved the same for my second group.

As such, for most locales these addendum contains three different hotels, each representing a different class: High, Middle, and Low. (There are some locales where accommodations are scant and beggars can’t be choosers.)

• High class hotels require a 1 point Credit Rating spend.
• Middle class hotels have no mechanical effect, but they generally lack the security of higher class establishments (and the GM should take that into account when the bad guys become aware of them).
• Low class hotels also have no mechanical effect. They, too, lack security, but this can be made up for by the fact that PCs may find it easier to fly under the radar here. On the other hand, these facilities can often create complications in their own right. In addition to the mundane, they’re often an appropriate milieu for some of the grubbier floating scenes (as described on pg.125-144 in the campaign book).

The GM should also keep in mind that these hotels can be used in other ways than simply PC accommodations. For example, when the PCs concocted an unexpected strategy for pursuing the cultists in Savannah, they were able to track them back to their hotel. Since I had two other hotels on tap, it was easy to just pick one on-the-fly and decide that the bad guys had been staying there.

Make sure to also grab the Props Packet for this addendum, which contains photos and other props for many of the hotels. (This packet includes a video that can be played for your players.)

Note: There are no hotels given for New York (as it is not anticipated that the PCs will spend significant time there). No hotels are given for Thibet, as that’s a traveling scenario and the PCs are not anticipated to remain in one location for prolonged periods of time.

ETERNAL LIES ADDENDUM – HOTELS

(PDF)

PROP PACKET – HOTELS

(Zip File)

Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

When I originally ran Eternal Lies, I semi-coincidentally included a couple of local airports. This was primarily because (a) I wanted to make the opening scene really specific and filled with lots of historical details in order to immediately begin immersing the players into the time period and (b) while searching for visual references of DC-3 planes for the Silver Sable I stumbled across this amazing photo:

In any case, roughly two-thirds of the way through running the campaign, I realized that getting very specific with each airport they arrived at was a very effective technique for this type of campaign. Compared to using a sort of “generic airport”:

• It made the arrival at each location memorable and distinct, creating a clear starting point for each regional scenario.
• It immediately established the transition in environment and culture.
• It transforms arrival and — perhaps even more importantly — departure into a scene which has been much more specifically framed. This seemed to encourage meaningful action (by both the PCs and the NPCs) to gravitate towards the airports, which had the satisfying consequence of frequently syncing character arcs and dramatic arcs with actual geography and travel itinerary.

In other words, it’s true what they say. First impressions are really important, and it turns out that in a globe-hopping campaign the airports are your first impressions.

Now that I’m running the campaign again, therefore, one of the things I prioritized was assembling similarly specific research on the other airports in the campaign. (As with other aspects of the campaign, I find that using historically accurate details seems to both heighten immersion and create a general sense of satisfaction both for myself and from my players.) As an addendum to the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies, I’m presenting these notes in the hopes that other GMs will find it useful.

One thing I realized in the process of assembling this material is that, even moreso than I had suspected, during the ‘30s air travel was this incredibly experimental, regionalized, and freeform ideal. Today we associate airports with these massive, institutional, homogenous experiences, but in the ‘30s every airport had its own unique flavor. This is something that I think a GM of Eternal Lies can really lean into, because it will emphasize just how much bigger the world was back then compared to day. How much more isolated; how much more strange; and how much more alienating.

Make sure to also grab the Props Packet for this addendum, which contains photos and other props for many of the airports.

Note: New York’s airport (Floyd Bennett Field) is fully detailed in 1.1 New York and is not detailed below.

ETERNAL LIES ADDENDUM – AIRPORTS

(PDF)

PROP PACKET – AIRPORTS

(Zip File)