Three things to know about Stephan Barrows:
Stephan is often the face of Dr. Singerfeld's exotic archaeological expeditions, his bodyguard, and occasional wilderness guide. He is as much pitchman as he is organizer, so when the doc says New Delhi, he can usually figure out the who's and what's to get the doc and his team there.
Being a bit of a cad and bounder, Stevie is known among some of the seedier back alley speakeasies of the Prohibition era, in a few major cities. He likes jazz music, loves flappers, and prefers real Canadian import booze over most bathtub gins, at least when he can get it.
Stephan often gives brief speeches, discussions, and reports on behalf of Dr. Singerfeld to newspapers, journals, and interested groups regarding the doctor's works, interests, and theories. He may not understand them fully but he is good at parroting what the doc tells him he wants the public to know.
Stephan sounds like a very interesting guy but I'm at a loss as to how he might hook up with Dorothy the "unlucky in love" author and Eugene the grad student mathematician. Perhaps your "squeeze" is related in some way to Dorothy and, knowing the sort of guy you are, she asks you to help Dorothy out?
Evie Mae is both a great balm to Stevie's woes but also a secretarial school graduated receptionist. She could be a former schoolmate, a relative, or perhaps work at the publishing house for which Dorothy works, where at the pair struck up a friendship over their shared experiences of being overlooked by bloviating men strutting themselves over "those uppity women" daring to leave the home...
As for Eugene, with the numerous talks and appearances Stephan has made for Doc. Singerfeld, perhaps the pair bumped into one another among the halls of academia.
Perhaps Eugene has worked some to help out his cousin Mac with cooking the books of his small bar to hide the profits from his speak-easy side business.
Perhaps Eugene has consulted with Doc. Singerfeld to corroborate some of his astronomical or computational theories used to locate remote and forgotten temples or cities.
Just spitballing here, really depends on the others and their backgrounds I suppose.
Dorothy and her author acquaintance could both write for the same publishing house, and both know Evie the secretary. Now for the mathematician. Where does he fit in?
[EDIT] Crossed post.
How did Stevie get to Boston? Did he drive? Does he have his own automobile? Maybe he drops by the publishing house for some reason and Evie asks if you could drive Dorothy to where she needs to be as she doesn't own transport of her own. It's not far from Boston.
Stevie doesn't own his own car, he travels abroad too much with the doc to need one. Depending on how and at what point you want to start the campaign he could have taken a train to Boston and picked up a hotel room for two nights (to be deducted from his assets once ready). I used the pretense of running an errand to put him in Boston, that's where we would have needed to be for the other adventure you mentioned, but that isn't set in stone, depending upon your needs. If Evie and Dorothy are connected, she could have asked Stevie to check up on her, deliver a late birthday gift, whatever reason seems most appropriate to you.
The blurbs Stephan has done so far are pretense, and easily adjusted to fit your needs. Escorting Dorothy as a chaperon and bodyguard would work just as easy as anything else.
Sorry for being absent for the past few days. I’ve neither played nor read the “Sun Spots” or “Doors of Darkness” adventures so no worries there.
I like the idea of Dorothy knowing Evie Marie, either as a secretary-school classmate or even a cousin. I can also easily move Dorothy to Boston (or any other city) if that’d help the adventure get started. I thought it’d be easier to have Dorothy living closer to Arkham in western Massachusetts or southern Vermont.
Since Stephan gives lectures, maybe he gave one at Arkham that Eugene attended...some clay tablet artifacts that had triangles and dots which Eugene realized were ancient math calculations or something rather mundane like that. Or even at Eugene’s first university, before he went to grad school so that Stephan and Eugene have known each other for a few years.
Lovecraft Country is basically all of New England so Dorothy could be based in pretty much any city or town of that region. The investigators will in any case have a reason for getting together - Dorothy's concerns for her author acquaintance. They could just be meeting up in Boston prior to commencing the scenario.
It's certainly possible that an associate of an Egyptologist might call on Eugene for his mathematical knowledge, such as to calculate the dates of certain atronomical alignments etc.
Once all the investigators are ready, they will get together in some central location they can all reach fairly easily where Dorothy will reveal the letters she received from her author acquaintance and her desire to make sure he's OK. The location they will travel to from there is in Essex Country, MA.
OK, Gene's backstory is typed up. It fell into place almost just as I'd been putting it together in my head, so that's nice.
Some possible ways to hook Gene into the story would be:
His advisor, Professor Claus Wagner could be giving a talk in Boston and Eugene has come along either for a minor presentation or because attending Mathematics talks and conferences is something graduate students do.
His aunt Mary Jane Smith at the Arkham Police department knows about something and has asked him to help her help an old friend out.
His friend Randy Warbington has any number of contacts that Gene doesn't understand and could direct him that way somehow. If there's any reason to think that it might be connected to the occult this could play into things.
One or more of those could be combined, depending on what we want for the story.
What time of year will this take place?
What time of year will this take place?
The scenario starts on the 6th of February 1929. The temperature is below freezing. There is frost on the windows and maybe some snow on the ground.
Posted a little blurb to the gameplay. Feel free to chime up and tweak however you feel appropriate. Seemed a simple way to tie us together, people who know each other but don't really KNOW each other. Coworker level of understanding so to speak, friends of friends.
His friend Randy Warbington has any number of contacts that Gene doesn't understand and could direct him that way somehow. If there's any reason to think that it might be connected to the occult this could play into things.
Dorothy is concerned about an author acquantence of hers after he sent her some worrying letters. He happens to be a writer of ghost stories and the like, if that links him in any way to Randy. It's possible Gene might know the author by name or have been to one of his book signings if he's into that sort of literature.
Posted a little blurb to the gameplay. Feel free to chime up and tweak however you feel appropriate. Seemed a simple way to tie us together, people who know each other but don't really KNOW each other. Coworker level of understanding so to speak, friends of friends.
No tweaking needed from my side. Gene's writeup says he owns a couple of occult fiction books, quite possibly ones written by Dorothy's author acquantence. If so, he might be keen to tag along to meet the great man himself.
Does anyone know what would be the best way of posting graphical player handouts?
I use Google Docs and share links for the PbP I host.
I just created a Dropbox account. Hopefully that will work.
I'll create Dorothy's profile tomorrow. Here's her background (modified 10 minute background)
Background (5+ points):
Dorothy’s father was 47 and mother was 26 when Dorothy was born.
Dorothy’s father died when she was 23, six years ago. The will provided her with a small portfolio of investments. The interest provides about half of her yearly income.
Her mother now runs a boarding house in Philadelphia.
She has four older half-siblings (from her father’s first wife) and one older brother.
William Harrison was her first fiancee. He returned from WWI with a Belgian wife.
In 1926, her second fiancee, George Trudeau, crashed his car while driving intoxicated. During his long convalescence he fell in love with his nurse and eloped.
Member of the Green Mountain Club and loves hiking and raising money for the Long Trail's construction.
2 secrets: 1) She writes under a number of pseudonyms, but the most embarrassing material she creates is by J.P. Randall for magazines such as Ginger, Tropical Tales, True Romances, and The Spice Book. 2) Unknown to Dorothy, her oldest brother changed their father’s will just before he died to give her about a quarter of what she was originally entitled to.
These were the listed skills under “Author” in the 6th edition.
Some of these are missing the base sill points. Otherwise
Base %...
Navigate: 10%
Stealth: 20%
Survival: 10%
Oh, and I have Dodge base as half DEX, not DEX.
If anyone doesn't have access to 7th edition rules download the 7th edition character sheet from the Chaosium site if you are unsure of base Skill levels.
Are you still looking for players, or is the group full? I'd love to join in, and might even be willing to take a turn at running the game at some point. I've been playing CoC since the 80s, but I've never played it PbP.
Either way, have fun and enjoy!
Not sure about the Keeper, and obviously I can't speak for him, but I think a fourth character might be doable, though I'm not familiar with the scenario scope/limit. Perhaps if you pitched him an idea for your character and how they might fit into our current dynamic connection-wise it might sway his decision.
Just my two cents.
I usually prefer to play academics of some kind in CoC. I could play a medical doctor, whether GP or psychiatrist.
Perhaps he can be a teaching colleague of Dr. Singerfeld's? Or a therapist that one of the other characters or one of their friends or loved ones has seen as a patient?
I am open to work it out however, if there's room. :)
Hi Oniwaban. I will allow you to join the group. Welcome aboard. Please check the other players' investigators for how they've done them and create a 7th edition character of your own. Currently we have an Explorer, an Author and a Scientist (Mathematics specialty). Someone from the medical profession would complement the group well. Please see the Gameplay thread for events so far. I hope you have not read "Doors to Darkness" as we are playing a scenario from that. If your character is a psychiatrist he could be sitting in the restaurant, overhear the talk about Danvers Asylum, and come over to offer his assistance. If a GP he could be the family doctor who persuaded Larry Croswell to commit himself to Danvers Asylum and could join the group through a phone call from one of the current investigators (e.g. "I'm concerned about a patient of yours. Could you meet me and my colleagues in Boston to discuss further").
When creating your investigator please use the point buy method. You may not add points to skills that take them over 75, although any that are over 75 by default (e.g. Own Language based on EDU) don't have to be adjusted downwards. For Luck, either make a public 3d6 roll or ask me to make the roll for you when you are ready.
Thank you very much! I will whip something up and get it posted soon.
As for luck...
...he's unlucky... better not make him a surgeon. :D
If the surgeon isn't lucky the patient better hope they are instead...
His Luck is 7 x 5 = 35, so yeah, not too lucky.