Masks of Nyarlathotep (Inactive)

Game Master Aubster

Can you save the world? Can you stay alive? Can you keep your sanity???

I'm interested in running the wonderful, classic CoC campaign 'Masks of Nyarlathotep.' I'm looking for 4 to 6 foolish...I mean brave, investigators to explore the awful truths that lie beneath the surface of their pitiful existence.

The time - Roaring 20's...jazz, flappers, Gatsby, speak-easys and horror.

The place - Your adventure will start in New York City but you'll have a chance to see the world (before it is destroyed).

The goal - Fun

The rules - Savage Worlds + Realms of Cthulhu Setting

The requirements - You never need to have played Savage Worlds before (we can work through that as it is not a complicated system). You don't need to be familiar with the Lovecraft Mythos (but it doesn't hurt). You do though need to agree to post regularly (once a day would be great but a few times a week works). You need to be ready to say goodbye to you beloved investigator as mortality will be high (we'll work on how to have backups ready to go).

What to do...if you're interested just say so and come up with a character archetype and a reason why you're in New York...archetypes can be almost anything from entertainer to athlete to detective to criminal to professor to hobo, etc., etc...if you have a reason to be that in New York that's good enough...

I am not sure if it works in the 20's, but someone who likes to explore the lost tunnels of major cities sounds interesting.

I am not sure if it works in the 20's, but someone who likes to explore the lost tunnels of major cities sounds interesting.

Sure it works...

You could be a professor of history that specializes in how cities build themselves on the ruins of older cities, or an antiquarian who is explores the tunnels to find interesting items either to sell or just for his own collection or a dilettante who fills his otherwise boring existence by adopting eccentric hobbies such as tunnel exploring.

Hank "The Stank" Harrison is a pilot for the United States Post Office Department, carrying mail from New York to destinations as far away as Cleveland.

Or at least he was, until his beloved DH.4 "Bessie" came down hard in a pea-soup fog and ground-looped into a ditch. Now his runs are being flown by some hotshot kid in a patched-up war surplus SPAD with half the capacity and a third the range.

He'll do anything to get Bessie fixed up and airworthy again, and his service in the war prepared him for the worst humanity has to offer.

(No, "The Stank" doesn't refer to his hygiene. His first solo attempt "stank up the airdrome for 50 miles" according to his instructor. The name stuck.)

Savage Worlds has free test drive rules available at the Pinnancle website or at Drive Thru RPG. The rules start about 1/2 through the book as there is a free adventure in the front half.

Free Savage World Test Drive Rules

Hank "The Stank" Harrison is a pilot for the United States Post Office Department, carrying mail from New York to destinations as far away as Cleveland.

Or at least he was, until his beloved DH.4 "Bessie" came down hard in a pea-soup fog and ground-looped into a ditch. Now his runs are being flown by some hotshot kid in a patched-up war surplus SPAD with half the capacity and a third the range.

He'll do anything to get Bessie fixed up and airworthy again, and his service in the war prepared him for the worst humanity has to offer.

(No, "The Stank" doesn't refer to his hygiene. His first solo attempt "stank up the airdrome for 50 miles" according to his instructor. The name stuck.)

Very nice...

Pilot: The pilot is a skilled aviator who enjoys nothing more than the rush of adrenaline they get from flying. Whether in the military or private sector, the pilot often learns to work on his craft and perform routine maintenance as well.

All of the Savage Worlds skills are available.

The following Edges are not available to investigators in Realms of Cthulhu: Arcane Backgrounds, Power Edges, Champion, Gadgeteer, Holy/Unholy Warrior, Mentalist, Mr. Fix It, Wizard, Weird Edges, and Power Surge

Do you have the Horror Companion? There seems to be a lot of useful stuff in there.

Do you have the Horror Companion? There seems to be a lot of useful stuff in there.

I don't but if there are edges or hinderances that you like feel free to use them.

It is only fair to warn you, if I get into the Black Crusade game, then I will not have time for this. I hope I do not kill this.

It is only fair to warn you, if I get into the Black Crusade game, then I will not have time for this. I hope I do not kill this.

No worries...I'm questioning my sanity trying to run a CoC campaign using Savage World rules on the Pazio message boards. It's probably not too logical. That being said, I like the folks that I've gamed with one these forums so I'm going to give it a try.

Sigh one of my favorite campaigns. In one of my favorite systems.

Opening just after I started running a Necessary Evil campaign.

ARRRRRGGGG

I cannot commit but I will be lurking and who knows ......

Join ussss. Jooooiiiiinnnn uuuuuuuuussssssss!

Some good news/bad news, I did get accepted to the Black Crusade game, so I am going to have to with draw. Good luck though.

Some good news/bad news, I did get accepted to the Black Crusade game, so I am going to have to with draw. Good luck though.

No worries...thanks for letting us know.

I've never played with Savage Worlds rules but I'm probably too familiar with the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. I was running it as a tabletop game back in 1998 until we ended with a TPK. As it turns out, my daughter was born a few days later and I wasn't able to game for a little while anyway.

But if you want someone or feel you need someone who knows old style CoC around, I can try my best to keep player knowledge from leading the investigation too strongly. I think a Private Investigator or Journalist could be a good source of research advice - helping to suggest avenues of investigation they might be missing. Or maybe a wealthy benefactor helping to collate the team's materials...

I've never played with Savage Worlds rules but I'm probably too familiar with the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. I was running it as a tabletop game back in 1998 until we ended with a TPK. As it turns out, my daughter was born a few days later and I wasn't able to game for a little while anyway.

But if you want someone or feel you need someone who knows old style CoC around, I can try my best to keep player knowledge from leading the investigation too strongly. I think a Private Investigator or Journalist could be a good source of research advice - helping to suggest avenues of investigation they might be missing. Or maybe a wealthy benefactor helping to collate the team's materials...

That sounds great...I've never run a CoC campaign and would love pushes if things are running off the rails. To make it interesting for you, Savage Worlds allows for a very different feel. Combat will be 'pulpy' so not nearly as deadly as CoC...however, the threats to an investigator's sanity is still very real.

Cool. I did most of my own CoC playing about 20 years ago with 3rd edition and some very effective other players. So I learned a lot about PCs can get a lot of research done and solve these mysteries.

I'm checking out the Savage Worlds test drive now...

I'm interested. Currently thinking a writer of some sort, probably writes the kind of stories that ended up in pulp magazines of the time. I'll see if I can't work something out.

I am INSANELY interested in joining you in this! (And then getting my eyes sucked out of various orifices from an unknowable horror upon which man was never meant to gaze).

But aside from that, this is gonna be great! (Until we all die in a rage-and-insanity filled pit of despair from which our souls will never escape.)

Give me a moment's time to gather my thoughts so that a character of appropriate wisdom and guile may be constructed (for you to tear apart in a grimly amusing way).

Woot! =)

It does appear that we have 4 willing sacrifices (I mean investigators). I'm going to keep this recruitment thread open as 2 more investigators would be great.

I'm opening the discussion board for the game for you all to use as you create your characters.

Please try to figure out ties that bind you together as a team.

Just as a head's up, the mystery will begin with a letter to the writer from another writer that is a close friend.

I'll post in the discussion tab also with questions/comments/suggestions as the characters come together. I will also start posting some additional campaign and setting information over the next few days.

Ooh! Ooh! Me too! I wanna play too! I've been itching to play savage worlds for a while now, it's been quite a while. I'd be building my character with the newer core book if that's alright? I have the original explorers edition as well if that's what you'd prefer. I'm currently thinking about playing a Circus Strongman trying to make a new life for himself as a police officer, but we'll see.

I have a character for this, using the original rules.

Ahem.

I present to you: Jake Westfield; Virile Male StuntMan/Movie Star!

Backstory:
Born Jakob Wojowitz, he became fascinated by the movies as a young lad and changed his name to get into the business.
He started as a stuntman, but though he could take a fall he didn't have the strength or coordination to succeed. Fortunately, a director noticed his good looks and put him in some bit roles in front of the camera.
Now having had some success acting in a series of cheesy westerns, he is now known as "the poor mans Valentino". Using his intelligence, he began arranging stunt work and now wants to direct. He just needs the right story...
Having read Jackson Elias' works, he thinks that he has a doozy of a story; it would be perfect for a movie!

Ooh! Ooh! Me too! I wanna play too! I've been itching to play savage worlds for a while now, it's been quite a while. I'd be building my character with the newer core book if that's alright? I have the original explorers edition as well if that's what you'd prefer. I'm currently thinking about playing a Circus Strongman trying to make a new life for himself as a police officer, but we'll see.

That sounds great! Feel free to use whichever rule book you prefer.

I have a character for this, using the original rules.

Ahem.

I present to you: Jake Westfield; Virile Male StuntMan/Movie Star!

Backstory:
Born Jakob Wojowitz, he became fascinated by the movies as a young lad and changed his name to get into the business.
He started as a stuntman, but though he could take a fall he didn't have the strength or coordination to succeed. Fortunately, a director noticed his good looks and put him in some bit roles in front of the camera.
Now having had some success acting in a series of cheesy westerns, he is now known as "the poor mans Valentino". Using his intelligence, he began arranging stunt work and now wants to direct. He just needs the right story...
Having read Jackson Elias' works, he thinks that he has a doozy of a story; it would be perfect for a movie!

That's great! Jake should be easy to convert to Savage World Rules. I'll post some conversion recommendations later today in the discussion thread!

I'm probably too late to the party, but if not I'd like to make up an Indian (American) Mystic/Shaman of some sort, or an "oriental" mystic monk type character. Let me know.

Good to see you firing up a game of your own, Aubster!

I'm probably too late to the party, but if not I'd like to make up an Indian (American) Mystic/Shaman of some sort, or an "oriental" mystic monk type character. Let me know.

Never too late...please consider yourself part of the team...make sure you take a look above at the forbidden edges when you're working up a character.

Good to see you firing up a game of your own, Aubster!

Thanks Froggy! I'm going to limit myself to running this one and playing in your DW campaign...more than that lowers my sanity considerably.

I have a character for this, using the original rules.

Ahem.

I present to you: Jake Westfield; Virile Male StuntMan/Movie Star!

Backstory:
Born Jakob Wojowitz, he became fascinated by the movies as a young lad and changed his name to get into the business.
He started as a stuntman, but though he could take a fall he didn't have the strength or coordination to succeed. Fortunately, a director noticed his good looks and put him in some bit roles in front of the camera.
Now having had some success acting in a series of cheesy westerns, he is now known as "the poor mans Valentino". Using his intelligence, he began arranging stunt work and now wants to direct. He just needs the right story...
Having read Jackson Elias' works, he thinks that he has a doozy of a story; it would be perfect for a movie!

I spent some time working on converting Jake to a SW character.

Stats to Attributes. In SW, you get 5 points to spend on you attributes. One point raises an attribute by one die type. All attributes start at d4 (so going to d8 takes 2 points).

For Jake, here are his original stats and the corresponding attributes. The number in parentheses is a running count of how many points are needed to get to the die type.

DEX 9 = Agility d4 d6 (1)

INT 18 = Smarts d4 d6 d8 d10 d12 (2, 3, 4, 5)

POW 12 = Spirit d4 d6 d8 (6, 7)

STR 9 = Strength d4 d6 (8)

CON 14 = Vigor d4 d6 d8 (9, 10)

So, Jake would need 10 points to get to the equivalent scores and only has 5. If you take 4 Pts of hindrances, you can buy 2 more die type increases so then you would have 7.

Humans get a free edge so you can use that to either make him attractive (increases charisma) or brawny to make him bigger or rich to equal his CoC credit score.

It's up to you...

For your skills, in SW you get 15 points to buy skill levels. You have to pay 1 point to go to d4 itself. Here's a chart of CoC percent and the corresponding die types that you could use to convert Jake's skills.

CoC RoC
01-25 d4
26-50 d6
51-75 d8
76-84 d10
85-94 d12
95-97 d12+1; Professional 98-99 d12+2; Expert (expert) 100 d12+2 and Master (Edge)

Also don't forget that every skill has a linked attribute that is sort of a soft cap in that exceeding your LA's die type costs 2 skill point

For example, Billy has an agility of D6, but wants a fighting score of D8, it'll end up costing him 4 points total. One to rank to D4, one for D6, and two for the D8 that exceeds it's linked attribute.

(Just for any newbies)

Here are the basics of Kwan Ho. Still need to do background, and equipment.

Kwan Ho

Recruitment is now closed...we have hopefully 7 investigators.

Here's a list of players. Please speak up if I missed you!

Caro Cogitatus playing Hank Harrison (pilot)
Atlas2112 playing Father Murphy (priest)
Loup Blanc playing Spencer Colin (writer)
Scranford playing Kwan Ho (monk)

The 4 above have their character's basics completed (some of them are still being fine tuned).

The next 3 players have said that they want to play and just need to make their characters. If one of you want to be a doctor with training as a psychiatrist that may come in handy ;)

Camros
Gypsy Mischief
Bill Dunn

I'm going to open up the gameplay thread now so feel free to begin having your investigators start posting there. Task number one for everyone is to figure out why all of you are bound together in some way. As a heads-up, the action will commence when Spencer receives an odd letter from an old friend.

Thanks to everyone for playing and have fun!! until you lose your sanity that is...

I'm working on an internationally focused investigative journalist - probably fresh from covering events in Italy in Europe. So I'll be ready shortly - still kind of figuring out the character options.

OK, character submission (because I want to make sure I'm doing this right):

Guthrie Wilson - international investigative journalist

Agility: d6
Smarts: d10
Spirit: d6
Strength: d4
Vigor: d6

Pace: 6
Toughness: 5

Edges: Linguist, Savvy
Hindrances: Vengeful (minor), Obligation (minor), Curious (spent on +1 attribute point, +Edge)

Skills:
Investigation: d10
Notice: d8
Persuasion: d6
Shooting: d4
Stealth: d6
Streetwise: d8

Languages (thanks to linguist): Farsi, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Latin, Greek

Defining Interests:
Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Forensics, Photography, Politics

Did I miss anything? Did I see something about an equipment budget?

OK, character submission (because I want to make sure I'm doing this right):

Guthrie Wilson - international investigative journalist

Agility: d6
Smarts: d10
Spirit: d6
Strength: d4
Vigor: d6

Pace: 6
Toughness: 5

Edges: Linguist, Savvy
Hindrances: Vengeful (minor), Obligation (minor), Curious (spent on +1 attribute point, +Edge)

Skills:
Investigation: d10
Notice: d8
Persuasion: d6
Shooting: d4
Stealth: d6
Streetwise: d8

Languages (thanks to linguist): Farsi, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Latin, Greek

Defining Interests:
Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Forensics, Photography, Politics

Did I miss anything? Did I see something about an equipment budget?

Character looks good...add Sanity and Corruption to your stats though...Sanity is 1/2 of Spirit plus 2...Corruption is 0

In regards to equipment, if it makes sense for your character to have it just assume that you do...so Guthrie would have an excellent camera, a decent car, a typewriter, various suits of clothes, books, etc. I'd guess he'd have some sort of small revolver since he probably goes into rough neighborhoods every now and then but wouldn't have a machine gun.

Hello Everyone - we are down two players in this on-going campaign and are looking for some replacements. You don't need to know the rules to play, you can learn as we go along.

Bump. As a player in this campaign, i have a vested interest in making sure this pops up to the top again.

No deaths so far!
Only a little insanity!

Yes. Come join us in our slow (hopefully) descent into madness.

Seriously everyone, this game is hella fun. There are books you're not supposed to read (that we've read), things you're not supposed to see (that we've seen), and and people you're not supposed to talk to (that we've killed).

What are you waiting for? =)

Still looking for a couple of players. I can honestly say that the 4 active players are a hoot. If you want to have a lot of fun while you watch your character struggle to hold onto their sanity even as they try to stop a global apocalypse, then this game is for you.

Still looking for 1-2 more players. If you have any interest in the Cthulhu Mythos this could be a really fun campaign for you.

So, Atlas pointed me at this one. I can rough out a character pretty quick, but I want to have a sense of what's going on and where I'd be entering.
Skimming the play thread, it looks like the scene is in or around London, and there's

a monk (muscle)
a virile male western movie actor (looks)
an investigative journalist (brains)
and a priest (more brains)

(pick any three and have them walk into a bar)

I'm thinking you really lack a cheeky lass of some sort. I'll think on it.

Huh. You do have a point. This party has been of the sausage variety.

Mind you, since we're very good role-players, you might open up yourself to all the sexist remarks that this era has to offer.

Not that _I_ would possibly say any of them, of course.

Now do be a dear and go get me a sandwich.

o.O

(Just kidding, you thought police. Just kidding. ;-)

So, Atlas pointed me at this one. I can rough out a character pretty quick, but I want to have a sense of what's going on and where I'd be entering.

Skimming the play thread, it looks like the scene is in or around London, and there's

a monk (muscle)
a virile male western movie actor (looks)
an investigative journalist (brains)
and a priest (more brains)

(pick any three and have them walk into a bar)

I'm thinking you really lack a cheeky lass of some sort. I'll think on it.

Hey Snake Charmer,

Thanks for taking a look (and thanks to Atlas for the lobbying effort). With a small group, any kind of character works and has a roll (we've lost our pilot and our dilettante in case those sound interesting ). The group could use a medical person, especially a psychologist - as Atlas' character is about too become insane ;). Don't tell the current players but combat is about to become more frequent if you want to keep that in mind.

a virile male western movie actor (looks)

Don't forget Money as well! [Waggles eyebrows]

This is a character who was actually made for this game....same as Jake!

This is a character who was actually made for this game....same as Jake!

Love to have you in the campaign if you'd like to play. Are you familiar with Savage Worlds rules at all? If so, then you just need to convert the stats and tweak the backstory - if you move your shop to London that would be perfect. Chang could easily know the publisher of the tabloid newspaper and also to have consulted with Inspector Barrington at Scotland Yard.

If you're new to the rules check the beginning of the recruitment thread for a link to a free sample of Savage Worlds and some campaign specific information. Jake can probably give you some hints about converting a character from CoC.

I am looking over the rule set. I hope I get it right, will take me a bit of time to get everything up to date.

I am looking over the rule set. I hope I get it right, will take me a bit of time to get everything up to date.

No worries...this is not a high pressure game. Let me know if you have any questions.