Tomes and Tentacles
Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2018 1:05 pm
Anyone listening to the podcast Tomes and Tentacles? It's Call of Cthulhu.
*Spoiler*
In it there is a play that completes a ritual that summons Unspeakable Evil (tm) when performed. It seems like such an Earthdawn-friendly plot device. I don't have time to write up an adventure right now, but how do you like this: a manuscript that marks the reader, who goes to any effort to put the play on. Each performer or stagehand that reads the script after that point may be marked as well. Like The Scottish Play, its production is cursed, resulting in several deaths and injuries. Minor horrors might even plague one of the rehearsals. The producer, growing paranoid, is convinced that they are being sabotaged. If the play is put on, the audience members become cursed with bloodlust. They must make a Toughness test each minute the play is being performed or take step 4 damage, no armor protects. The only way to avoid the damage and abate the terrible thirst is to bath one's hands in fresh blood. Disrupting the play requires a Willpower test. Leaving the theater requires the killing of a living thing. The Horror lurks nearby, feeding. If any of the actors or stagehands tries to disrupt the play, it inflicts Pain on them.
At the end, the horror forces the cast & crew to distribute copies of the play to other playhouses around Barsaive.
The PCs could be involved at any stage of this cycle.
*Spoiler*
In it there is a play that completes a ritual that summons Unspeakable Evil (tm) when performed. It seems like such an Earthdawn-friendly plot device. I don't have time to write up an adventure right now, but how do you like this: a manuscript that marks the reader, who goes to any effort to put the play on. Each performer or stagehand that reads the script after that point may be marked as well. Like The Scottish Play, its production is cursed, resulting in several deaths and injuries. Minor horrors might even plague one of the rehearsals. The producer, growing paranoid, is convinced that they are being sabotaged. If the play is put on, the audience members become cursed with bloodlust. They must make a Toughness test each minute the play is being performed or take step 4 damage, no armor protects. The only way to avoid the damage and abate the terrible thirst is to bath one's hands in fresh blood. Disrupting the play requires a Willpower test. Leaving the theater requires the killing of a living thing. The Horror lurks nearby, feeding. If any of the actors or stagehands tries to disrupt the play, it inflicts Pain on them.
At the end, the horror forces the cast & crew to distribute copies of the play to other playhouses around Barsaive.
The PCs could be involved at any stage of this cycle.