Our fourth and final session of Cthulhu Dark, continuing from session zero, session one, and session two, running through the classic Call of Cthulhu module The Watcher in the Valley by Kevin A. Ross, from the anthology Tales of the Miskatonic Valley. This was our miniseries finale, played with a smaller group than usual. We had several horrific scenes in fast succession, and it made for a satisfying ending. Read on for the play report.
Play report
The characters
- Margaret “Peggy” Sullivan, stenographer (DZ)
- Howard Pemberton, automobile mechanic (NtH)
What happened
We resume play on the morning of Day 7. On her way out of the camp together with her sister Winnifred, Peggy runs into the Stubbs brothers. They’ve brought moonshine and want to sell it to the dig crew. Reluctantly, Peggy and Winnifred take them back to the camp. No one is interested in the moonshine. The men leave again.
The weather gets increasingly muggy. The attitudes of dig members have deteriorated. Some are increasingly fearful.
Peggy still wants to leave but has no transport out of there. Howard intends to keep digging.
They return to the mound. Hanshaw joins them. They begin scraping the next layer of soil from the top. As they work, Hanshaw turns very red and complains of the heat, sweating profusely. They see his hair stand on end, his clothes begin to smolder. Peggy wants to push Hanshaw off the mound into the marsh but is too weak. She succeeds in nothing more than tipping the poor man over. As he falls on the ground, he spontaneously combusts, screaming, jets of flame spraying from his mouth and eyes. In no time at all, not much more than some charred bones is left of him.
Horrified, they return to the camp to tell the others what happened. An argument breaks out. Despite everything, Mildred and Mills want to stay. Francks’s fear wins out over his enthusiasm, and he has had enough. He wishes to leave. Despite Mills’s protestations, he does so. Penahac is despondent. His dream of the dig bringing white men and his father’s people closer together has been shattered.
Mills and Mildred return to the professor’s tent to study their papers. There must be some defense against all this, is what Mills insists.
Peggy goes into the men’s tent to rummage through Hanshaw’s belongings. She finds his car keys. She overhears Mills and Mildred discuss something about an “elder sign” from the next tent over.
Meanwhile, Howard is in the lab tent, continuing the work of skeleton reconstruction. He is not aware of a previously assembled skeleton rising from its table until he hears its footsteps approach. It has sharp claws and teeth and makes to grab him. It is blocking the way out of the tent. Howard grabs a shovel, smashes the skeleton to smithereens, and runs out of the tent.
Mills and Mildred have figured out the Elder Sign and explain its significance to the remaining dig members. They fashion amulets to wear as a form of protection. The ritual takes a lot out of them. And they have so little energy left already.
Peggy takes her amulet but secretly decides not to wear it.
Howard and Mildred return to the lab to tidy the mess left from the fight with the skeleton. Mills disappears back into his tent. Peggy and Penahac improvise something resembling dinner. Night falls. They go to their beds.
Day 8. Dig members have had better sleep than has become the norm. Except for Peggy. She feels as bad as ever.
Peggy tries to convince her sister Winnifred to leave but does not succeed. They argue. Unseen by anyone, Peggy leaves in Hanshaw’s car.
They work in the lab tent. Have a semblance of a lunch.
They are briefly visited by Irene Place, a crazy old lady from Dunwich who insists she can foresee the future by reading entrails, and what she has to tell the investigators is nothing but bad, bad news.
Mills suggests they try and ward the mound using another elder sign. Howard, Mildred, and Jim agree. They go to the mound and begin planning out and engraving the large sign. Jim goes to fetch and mix plaster. As they all work on top of the mound, the wildlife once again goes silent. The mound begins to vibrate, and a humming sound increases in volume. The water around the mound begins to boil. Motes of light sparkle in the surrounding air. Everybody has dropped what they are doing and is transfixed by what is occurring. At the very last moment, Howard snaps out of his reverie and runs from the mound, which explodes with a loud bang. Howard is thrown across the marsh to the bank. Rocks, soil, mud, and body parts rain down around him. Dazed, he tries to get up. Across the marsh, a shape emerges from the water.
The monster roars and approaches Howard. He flees.
We see Howard run through the abandoned camp.
We then see him enter his beloved car in a rush.
The car won’t start. He sits at the wheel sobbing.
We see Howard stumbling along the side of the Pike’s road, entering Arkham’s city limits.
We dolly back. We fade to black.
Epilogues
Peggy visits the widow Hanshaw in Boston to return her late husband’s car. Later, we see the police visit Peggy. The widow has reported her. She is suspected of somehow being culpable for George Hanshaw’s death.
We see Howard Pemberton return to his wife and children’s home. He knocks on the door. Is there still hope for Howard?
Director’s reflections
Players, take note: spoilers ahead!
The ending was satisfying. You’d think that’s despite the low player count. And of course it would have been fun to have most of the characters there. On the other hand, having only two investigators remain active did underscore the creeping sense of doom and isolation.
Players complained of a lack of agency. Which is an interesting tension, because they could have done more than they did, but somehow the affordances were not apparent to them. I did give them a printout of the area map with some details removed. But maybe I should be even more explicit in the options players have for avenues of investigation. When anything is possible, sometimes it feels like nothing really is.
Anyway, it’s very satisfying to definitively conclude a scenario like this, with an actual “bang” to boot. In the past our Call of Cthulhu games would usually peter out or end inconclusively. Cthulhu Dark gives me license to take more authorial control. In hindsight, we wasted some time in the first few sessions due to me not fully grasping the degree to which I should manage the pacing as director. I guess you could complete this scenario in 2-3 sittings, depending on how long you go each session.
In the original Call of Cthulhu module, the Elder Sign plays a defensive role in the scenario’s final act. I neglected to port these rules over to Cthulhu Dark ahead of the session, which was an oversight. Here is my after-the-fact conversion:
The Elder Sign
A plug-in rule for Cthulhu Dark for use with “The Watcher in the Valley.” These rules have not been playtested yet.
Sources
The Elder Sign can be learned from Quiskamohan’s more in-depth knowledge of the mound legend, from Mills’ reference books (particularly Studies of the Indians of the Miskatonic Valley by Morris Wheaton), or from copies of the Wheaton book held at Miskatonic University or the BSAIR library. The Director decides when an Investigator has done enough research to attempt the learning.
Learning the Spell
When an Investigator attempts to learn the Elder Sign, they roll their Insight Die. If it rolls higher than their current Insight, their Insight increases by 1. Whether or not Insight increases, the Investigator learns the spell. The knowledge itself is the danger: even understanding the Sign means glimpsing something beyond human knowledge.
Casting the Spell
Before the spell can be cast, the Investigator must physically inscribe or carve an Elder Sign onto an object. This takes time, tools, and freedom from interruption. An unactivated Sign is just a symbol and has no effect.
To activate the Sign, the Investigator rolls their Drain Die (see The Drain Die). This roll follows the normal Drain rules: if the result is lower than the Investigator’s current Drain, their Drain decreases by 1. An Investigator at Drain 1 cannot cast the spell.
Casting the spell and witnessing it being cast both trigger Insight rolls.
Effects
Personal protection. Worn while sleeping, an active Elder Sign shields the Investigator from the lloigor’s nightly drain (no Drain Rolls). The lloigor notices and will single this Investigator out for other forms of attention: possession attempts, targeted attacks, or turning others against them.
Warding the mound. Placed atop the mound, an active Elder Sign prevents the lloigor from drawing on the power stored beneath it. The lloigor will use everything at its disposal to remove the ward: possessed NPCs, animated skeletons, and telekinetic force. The Sign works as long as it stays in place.
Limits
An Investigator can maintain only one active Elder Sign at a time. The Elder Sign does not kill or banish the lloigor. It blocks a path; it does not end the threat.
Insight and the rotating cast
We did not see anyone go crazy. That may be a function of the rotating cast of player characters. When not every player is there for every session, characters may get fewer insight rolls in total over the course of a scenario than would otherwise be the case. I am not sure if I want to do anything about that, though. It doesn’t really break the game. I could force an insight roll for characters that missed the previous session. Or I could have characters that join later set their insight at the party’s average. But all of that may be more trouble than it is worth and a bit too game-ist.
What’s next
Anyway, this was fun. Also nice to run a miniseries for a change, rather than the infinite campaign that is Planet Karus. Although I do look forward to going back to some old-school D&D, where I get to be a referee, not a director, and just let random die rolls govern most of what happens at the table, rather than improv and judgment.
But first, it looks like we might be switching over to a spot of Mothership, where I get to, yes, play for a change.
One reply on “Cthulhu Dark: The Watcher in the Valley – Session 3”
Woo-hoo, not-quite-forever GM!