Category Archives: Spoilers

by Mark Morrison | April 1, 2021 · 2:20 pm

The real Crook’d Manse

Where you write is often what you write.

In 1983 I moved into a share house in Carnegie with my high school mate Brad and my university friend Leigh. Our landlord’s name was Walter Dodge. The joint was so easy to break into we didn’t bother locking it and just left the back door wide open. Leigh found a small ziplock bag of powder in the back of his wardrobe, around the time we learned from Walter that the place was once raided by the police for drugs. Naturally, Leigh sold it to a work colleague in a government department. We had no phone, but used to call parents from the public booth in a wide green park directly opposite, rendering us uncontactable in those days except by mail. It was an old house full of stories, and the plaster in the walls was cracking above our heads.

It’s still standing. The photo above was cribbed from Google Street View. The wonders of a close crop and a black and white filter to deliver faux history.

We played our first ever games of Call of Cthulhu by candelight in that house, so when I decided to write for the game, I only had to look up to get my inspiration.

“The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse” was my first scenario for Call of Cthulhu, written for Phantastacon 84. I rocked up in the morning hoping someone would be interested in playing, and the organisers said “you’ve got three teams booked in for 1pm, and more tomorrow”. So I cancelled the rest of that day’s bookings, instead grabbing four friends with the introduction “Come play this, you’re running it tomorrow”. Then I went home and typed all night so that they would have a legible outline to run from. That was the origin story of the Cthulhu Conglomerate, our crew of convention Keepers who ran events from 1984 to 1994, spawning a tomb herd of new scenario writers.

The scenario was fun to run. I was pleased with it then, and I still am now. The mystery is buried deep with a few layers to uncover, and I still like the reveal, and the solution. The end is always exciting. I’m a sucker for frenzied yelling at the players to really ramp up the tension while dice skitter all over the table.

Out of the walls and into print

I then wrote the scenario out in full for the local games zine Multiverse Issue 3 (1984) edited by Robert Mun, with maps and illustration by Brad. (Brad didn’t do the magazine cover, but I’m pleased to see an investigator in the lineup anyway. Investigators are always the doomed one.) I can’t for the life of me recall if this was a paid gig. Zines were always a labour of love, but I am unbelievably glad I did it, as it was a brilliant example to show to Chaosium when I first started pitching to them. They accepted my pitch for H.P. Loveraft’s Dreamlands, and in time they bought this scenario too.

It was published in 1990 for Mansions of Madness, a rather splendid collection of haunted house scenarios edited by William Dunn and Keith Herber. Keith always had an instinct for what would make a book useful and playable. (He also wrote the best house for the game in my opinion, with the unequivocal title “The Haunted House” in Trail of Tsathoggua). Mansions of Madness had five scenarios with a brilliant cover by Lee Gibbons, maps by Carol Triplett-Smith and layout and “more good ideas” from Zombie Ben Monroe.

Mansions of Madness Second Edition appeared in 2007, and included a sixth scenario, “The Old Damned House” by Liam Routt and Penny Love (of this very blog). Their scenario was “The Old Damned House” and it was also a Cthulhu Conglomerate tournament from 1992, so a nice circular inclusion. Liam was one of the stalwarts of our Melbourne scene, even sending back his scenario “The Haitian Horror” when he went off to the US to study in Chicago. I first met Liam while running AD&D at Phantastacon ’82, a notable event for so many reasons: our lifelong friendship, but also the AD&D tournament format was so utterly unlike why I loved RPGs that it inspired me to start writing in the first place. In those days roleplaying tournaments were more like wargaming tournaments, if the clock ran out you stopped mid dungeon. I craved a story with a beginning, middle and end, where characterisation was more important than tactical spell use. My first tournament “It’s a Living” featured six thieves on a heist. It’s no wonder I jumped ship to Chaosium games once I found them.

You can’t keep an old haunt down

Chaosium have published “The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse” again for 7th edition in Mansions of Madness Vol 1: Behind Closed Doors. I’m so happy about this. I think it works well as an introductory scenario, because it was written immediately after my first contact with both the roleplaying game and the Mythos at large, so I had just sponged up all that inspiration. For that reason, I think it’s closer to HPL than anything I’ve done since.

It is one of two scenarios included from the first edition, along with three brand new ones, so a great mix of classic scenario writing and more modern approaches. The new maps, art and handouts are incredible, the editorial by Lynne Hardy and Mike Mason is first rate, and the layout by Nicholas Nacario looks easy to use in the dark. I love so many things about it but the best by far is Lynne & Mike’s recasting the librarian and reporter characters as African-American, an obvious choice that this very white Aussie boy did not think of at 20 years of age. Scenarios really are better these days.

That difference of approach is right on the cover, once again by Lee Gibbons. Here they are, side by side. As per usual the investigator is doomed, but the new chap on the right is putting up a mighty fight and might just make it. At least he has backup, if you can call holding the torch and looking alarmed backup.

Many investigators have gone into the house over the decades, and a few have actually come out. My favourite moment when running actually took place nowhere near the house. A friend was playing Call of Cthulhu for the first time, and he visited the graveyard to do some research. I described the dead trees as I pressed play on my go-to spooky soundtrack at the time, Name of the Rose by the late great James Horner. “Nope” he said, and got straight back into his auto.

Here’s some trivia for you; I didn’t realise until I was getting the books out to reminisce about good times in dangerous buildings that the French edition from the 1990s flipped the artwork, cropped it closer and lightened it up. All that extra detail just adds to the doom. (The gatefold for reference is from the inside of the new edition, because Chaosium books are full colour on the inside now too.)

A visit to the manse

A wonderful aspect of nowadays is actual play of Call of Cthulhu scenarios, which acts as both entertainment and also example. Filmed play wasn’t around in 1984, when we had to read books and make it up. Chaosium have the weekly #StreamOfChaos on the Chaosium Twitch channel, and the redoubtable crew of Art, David, Jackson & James have just started playing it; you can catch the Stream every Friday night/Saturday morning depending where you are, and Episode 1 is already up on YouTube. I happen to know that the plaster in the room that Jackson plays in is starting to bulge, so history repeats itself.

Here’s an earlier and more anarchic form of actual play, and honestly one of the highlights of my writing career: Zack Parsons and Steve Summer of Something Awful played the scenario as a text transcript as as part of their D&D, WTF?! series. Contains spoilers and unbridled wit.

Click the link above to read and enjoy, but here’s a sample:

THE CRACK'D AND CROOK'D MANSE
In which the investigstors explore the usual sinister house, only to find a distinctly unusual resident.

Zack: Unusual resident, eh? I am betting horse.

Steve: That doesn't seem unusual to me. I've seen horses all the time.

Zack: Yeah, okay, you see horses hanging out in barns and fields. This is inside a house. That would scare the shit out of me to walk into somebody's house and...BOOM! Horse!

Zack: "Welcome to our house. Here's our house horse."
Steve: "Does it give rides?"

Zack: *Looking nervously at each other and the horse* "I don't think so..."

As to whether there is indeed a horse or not, you’ll have to read, play or watch the scenario.

I’m so pleased that this peculiar literary parallel of my first share house is once again open for visitors. Wipe your feet and leave a will.

HERE BE SPOILERS

For fun, here’s a map comparison: Multiverse (Brad’s redraw of my original sketch), Carol Triplett-Smith in 1990, and the latest version by Miska Fredman. One of the many joys of writing is seeing your words transformed into images. Get the flashlight, let’s see what’s inside…

An Australian in Trieste

Our friend and collaborator, Russell Waters, who wrote ‘Cold Wind Blowing’, the Horror on the Orient Express chapter set in Trieste, visited the city recently and has sent back an account of his travels. Until Mark & I finally reach the city this wonderful description will have to suffice. Be warned, if you are planning to play in the campaign there are spoilers in this post!

Now, over to Russell to tell of his journey…

Outside the Postojna Caves. (Note the T-shirt!)

Upon arriving in Trieste we checked into our hotel, which overlooked the waterfront. As we were there in September, we didn’t have to contend with the bora, although as we arrived and wove our way down from the surrounding hills and through the narrow streets leading leading to our hotel on the waterfront, I’d been delighted to note that some of the streets, (mainly those that were steeply sloping) did have chains strung between poles. Whether this was to assist pedestrians struggling against the blast of the bora, as I’d read in the 1920s era Baedekers that formed my original research for ‘Cold Wind Blowing’, or whether it was to prevent pedestrians stepping off the narrow pavement onto the roadway was less clear.

Trieste (which I discovered is pronounced in three syllables: tree-est-uh) is still a pretty town, at least in the area near the harbor, where there are still many old buildings. There is a single canal, of sorts, which runs inland from the harbor and ends at the church of Sant Antonio Turmaturgo and gives a Venice feel to the immediate area.

Not Venice, Trieste!

Whilst I was keen to visit some of the 1920s tourist sites in Trieste I’d read about in Baedekers, we’d been recommended to visit Castello Di Miramare, which lies a short distance from town. Built for the Austrian Arch-duke Ferdinand Maximilian (Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico), the castle was completed after his capture and execution in Mexico, so he never actually lived in it. I found his bedroom most interesting; Maximilian had been a successful navy officer, and his bedroom had a lowered artificial ceiling and wood paneled walls to make it more like a ship’s cabin. The ceiling of the dining room has a compass rose and an indicator linked to a wind vane on the roof so that the diners can know the wind direction at any time!

Back in town we visited the Cathedral and the Castello, both sitting on top of a hill and named after San Guisto. Johann Winckelmann was buried at the Cathedral, although the actual site of his grave is unknown. The Castello has an interesting museum that features a range of medieval weaponry and is adjacent Roman ruins which, according to some old photos we saw, have been a popular place to promenade and even picnic since the early 1900s.

One of the things I really wanted to see was the Johann Winckelmann monument, which features in ‘Cold Wind Blowing’ and provides the Investigators with their first inkling that “looking up Johann Winckelmann in Trieste” may be more difficult than they thought. Ironically, we fell foul of one of the obstacles I’d set up for Investigators; the Museum in which the monument is situated closes between 13.00h to 16.00h! Fortunately, our weather was fine, so we were able to spend some time at the Cathedral and then exploring nearby streets until it reopened.

The monument has its own building at the end of L’Orto Lapidario, the lapidary garden accessed from the museum. As well as the monument, the building houses an exhibit about Winckelmann and some statuary, including a torso missing head, arms and legs, which aroused my immediate suspicion. Some early designs for the monument apparently included a scene of Winckelmann’s murderer being broken on the Wheel (as actually happened) so perhaps it is a good thing that they eventually went for something a little less confronting!

Note suspicious torso on the right

Whilst in Trieste, we also saw (but didn’t travel through) the tunnel formerly used by the local tram service (now automobiles only); a tramcar (the trams were not running at the time due to an accident back in 2016 which had still not been repaired) and pleasingly, a Roman amphitheatre. I say pleasingly because the Investigators visit a cellar in which one wall appears to be part of a buried amphitheatre, and the amphitheatre we saw was not excavated until the 1930s!

Clues found in Trieste lead the Investigators to the caves at Postumia, now Postojna in Slovenia. Because Marissa and I were not following the Orient Express route, but coming into Italy from Austria via Slovenia, we had actually visited Postojna before Trieste, but I’m mentioning it now to better fit the Horror on the Orient Express chronology.

Cavern entrance

Even back in the 1920s the caves were a big tourist attraction in the area, and our visit reflected this, with large tourist groups being sorted by language so that multilingual guides can then lead their groups on the tours. The caves extend for about 24 km (about 14.5 miles), but the tour only takes in part of this. As was the case for tourists in the 1920s, we initially took seats on a train which traveled 2.5 km (1.5 miles) into the caves before disembarking and walking another few kilometres. There were plenty of signs of underground waterways, but generally the caves were mercifully dry and we didn’t have to go wading at all, or find any dark lake with mysterious stalagmites dotting its shore. To my great delight, we did see some olm, which were kept in a dimly lit aquarium/terrarium (having no natural pigmentation, bright lights distress them). The specimens we saw were about 20-25 cms (6-8 inches) long; not too threatening at that size. The olm are a real feature of the caverns, and are used as a mascot/logo by the cave operators.

Olm decoration at Postojna

GenCon Penultimate Trip Playtest

Crowne Plaza Indianapolis Downtown Union Station. The hotel had once been a train station. After working on the Horror on the Orient Express for so long, anything to do with trains makes us anxious. The staff in the lobby seemed friendly. Or did their smiling faces mask some deep seated, potentially train-related, evil?

Crowne Plaza Indianapolis Donwtown Union Station

The roof looked solid enough.

We nervously followed the hand-scrawled directions we had been given to our destination. The door was ajar…

We sensed something was wrong as soon as we arrived.

It was Gencon Indy 2013 and beyond that unhallowed entrance, Jeff “Mr. Shiny” Carey and his stalwart fellow Keepers, Brandon and Joe, were running the Kickstarter Horror on the Orient Express GenCon Penultimate Trip for six intrepid, and perhaps ever so slightly insane players, Paul, Marc, Samuel, Steve, Graham and Suzanne.

These hardy souls played for five days and nights, and when I mean, nights, I am talking 4 am in the morning. We arrived on the third day to find the players in good spirits, although their investigators were starting to fray at the edges. The Keepers were displaying incredible stamina as they steamed remorselessly onward to Constantinople.

The playtest was also incredibly useful for us as we were able to make several important edits that will help the final book, based on player feedback.

In the photographs below I am going to show some of the room, players, Keepers, props and handouts. If you are going to play Horror on the Orient Express stop reading now for fear of the forbidden knowledge you may accidentally glean from these blasphemous images.

Jeff and his fellows Keepers had done an amazing job and must have spent hours lovingly recreating handouts and props. It was a huge thrill, and truly humbling, to see our work reproduced in such meticulous style. The room was atmospherically lit.

The Exit Sign was clearly marked. Why, oh why, did they not use it?

The props were gorgeous. The players informed us in hushed and worried tones that their full-size Simulacrum had a disconcerting habit of reassembling itself when they went out for meals. No matter how scattered its components around the room, when they returned it was always neatly arrayed in the center of the table.

The Unseen Forces were tidy souls.

The handouts were wonderful. Again people, the following image contains a massive spoiler so please do not not look unless you are genuinely never going to play Horror on the Orient Express for as long as you live, and peeking between fingers doesn’t work. By the way, I know you’re going to look anyway so I blurred the particularly blasphemous part.

That was when he wished he had never learned Latin.

In honor of the hotel’s history some of the rooms were immaculately restored Pullman cars. Jeff and his family were staying in one of these cars and in a truly heroic act of generosity Jeff offered his room to Mark to play his Kickstarter Secret Orient Express History game. This meant neither Jeff nor his folks got to bed until after midnight. It is not often that a Pullman car represents a heart-warming gift to a fellow Keeper.

Jeff’s Pullman Car, with Mark and the Secret History players in the foreground

And yes, these four players now know a secret of the history of the Horror on the Orient Express than no-one else will ever know. You can see by their worried faces that the knowledge is already taking its toll. Thank you, Jeff and family, for sharing the horror.

Graham’s Flickr album for the Horror on the Orient Express contains some evocative photographs of the game, players and Keepers, but again there are spoilers galore so don’t look if you are planning to play the scenarios.

1 Comment

Filed under Chaosium, Conventions, Fun, Playtesting, Spoilers

Tagged as 1920s, Call of Cthulhu, Chaosium, GenCon, Horror on the Orient Express, Kickstarter

by Penelope Love | September 26, 2013 · 9:41 am

The Simulacrum Lives!

Figures fill our worlds. Shop front dummies. Statues in public places. Images on screens. What do these figures want? What do they mean? Do their eyes follow us when we’re not looking back at them?

When we visited the United States recently for GenCon Indy and Necronomicon Providence we were thinking of Horror on the Orient Express as it steamed inexorably towards its publication date. However we were not dwelling on a certain arcane artifact that features within it. My mind was running mainly on proof reading and header styles. And on that note, if you plan to play in Horror on the Orient Express, please stop reading as I am about to offer certain insights into said artifact that may or may not be involved in the investigators’ continent-spanning quest.

In San Francisco I pointed out a shopfront dummy to Mark. ‘why, I said, gaily, ‘That looks just like You-Know-What.’ Chuckling at the coincidence we took a photograph.

The First Simulacrum

Shortly afterwards we saw another figure. This time the coincidence seemed slightly less amusing. Was it because the figure was now, how can put this, unnervingly incomplete? Was it because that this was when we felt the first, haunting sense, of being followed? Nevertheless we were tourists. It was broad daylight. What could go wrong? We do what tourists do. We took a photograph.

The Second Simulacrum

We left San Francisco without further sightings of any mysterious figures. Surely, even if we were being – followed – we could easily elude our follower in the crowds of GenCon Indy? So it proved, for the first few days.

On the third day I was fool enough to leave the convention, and venture down the quiet mall next door. It was a bright, sunny day. Little did I think to discover the horror…oh the horror…

The Third Simulacrum

Who as this good doctor, and why was he being threatened by a crowd of amputated legs? I looked closer.

The Right and Left Legs

I hurried back to the convention center and mingled gratefully with the happy, oblivious crowds. I hoped I might forget. But it was not to be. We found nowhere to hide in New York. It tracked us down, even in broad daylight and amid the bustling crowds of Times Square. Look – up there! On the Times Square Screens!

The Fourth Simulacrum

It was too much. We fled New York for the peace of Providence, Rhode Island. Surely in this quiet university town we could lose this sense of being followed by an implacable and vindictive force? What harm could come from browsing in the hallowed and venerable precincts of the Brown university bookshop?

The Fifth Simulacrum

Averting our eyes from that dreadful, insensate, blank visage we fled the bookshop, seeking the peace of the dreaming, pristine lawns of the university. Surely no horror would dare set foot upon this sacred turf – ARRRRGGGGHH!

The Sixth Simulacrum

Has anyone seen Mark? It’s been a few weeks now and I’m starting to get quite worried.

Honoré Fragonard, Creepy Anatomist

Warning: This post contains a photograph of an 18th century anatomical specimen of a human and equine preserved corpse.

Coincidence is by its nature a startling thing. A historical character can be deemed too far-fetched if found in fiction. Very few of the horrific images we have summoned up in Horror on the Orient Express can surpass those found in the grotesques of the 18th century French anatomist, Honoré Fragonard.

Honoré Fragonard was a careful craftsman, an expert technician, and in his own way a genius. He specialized in the preparation and preservation of anatomical models, called écorchés. This translates as “flayed figures”. Medical students found them essential in the 18th century because of the lack of bodies available for dissection. I am sure the Horror on the Orient Express enthusiast can see where this is heading.

Écorchés were models of bodies with the skin removed, exposing muscles, blood vessels and skeletons. They were made out of different materials, bronze, ivory, plaster, wax, and wood. Fragonard made his from corpses. He kept his methods of preservation secret.

When Louis XV founded Paris’s first veterinary school in 1765 Honoré Fragonard was appointed Professor of Anatomy. He kept his position for six years, during which time he prepared up to 700 pieces although today only 21 survive. Unfortunately, Fragonard’s pieces became too… theatrical. He was expelled from the school in 1771 as a madman. He continued to work, selling many of his later pieces to the jaded Parisian aristocracy. Looking at these dates, we realize that he was at work in Paris in the same years as a pivotal NPC in the campaign. Fragonard died at Charenton in April 1799. We don’t think he died in the asylum, but the proximity is alarming.

His surviving works are on display today in the Musée Fragonard d’Alfort, a museum of anatomical oddities in the École Nationale Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort. In addition to animal skeletons and dissections, such as a piglet displayed in cross-section, the museum contains a collection of what are dryly called teratology. In layman’s terms this means monsters, including preserved Siamese twin lambs, a two-headed calf, a 10-legged sheep, and a colt with one huge eye.

The Fragonard Museum [Source: the museum website]

Honoré Fragonard’s exhibits are all found in the final room and include:

The Horseman of the Apocalypse: a man on a horse, both flayed, surrounded by a crowd of small human foetuses riding sheep and horse foetuses.
Monkeys: A small monkey, clapping, accompanied by another monkey holding a nut.
The Man with a Mandible: inspired by Samson attacking the Philistines with an ass’s jaw.
Human foetuses dancing a jig; three human foetuses, arteries injected with wax.
Goat chest: a goat’s dissected trunk and head.

Contemplating this list you start to get an idea of why the school dismissed Fragonard as mad.

Below is a photograph of the rider and horse. Look no further if you are squeamish.

This is from centuries ago, but it it still a dead person.

For reals.

Okay then.

Sanity loss (0/1):

Rider and horse [Source: Wikipedia]

We found out about Honoré Fragonard and his eerie echoes to our own fictional history only recently, with thanks to the work of Darren, our Stalwart Historian.

1 Comment

Filed under Library Use, Spoilers

Tagged as 1920s, European scenarios, France, Honoré Fragonard, Horror on the Orient Express, Paris, Spoilers

by Penelope Love | March 20, 2013 · 10:41 pm

Revisiting Venice II – The Scenario

Beware, here be spoilers…

Re-visiting the Venice scenario made me think about the reasons why I structured it as I had. It has three strands, Love and Death, and then the Mystery, the results of the players’ investigations. On re-reading the scenario I was shocked by two things. First, my unthinking stereotyping of Italians as cheerful incompetents, for which I’d like to unreservedly apologize to the entire nation. Second, the Venice of my imagination provided excellent background and color but it had a complete lack of actual plot – just keep knocking on those doors, players, eventually you’ll find the right house. What worked well was that the incidents of Love and Death ticked over regardless. There was always something going on in the background which the investigators could choose to investigate.

I was baffled by why I had divorced the Love sub-plot from the actual plot, until I remembered why I’d written it in the first place. In Lausanne and Milan, the players meet characters they cannot help. We wanted to restore their belief that they could save someone. This, after all, is the reason they first boarded the Orient Express. Thus, Love came in. It certainly worked a treat in the play-test. When one of the play-testers suggested not helping the lovers he was thoroughly rounded on; ‘Good God man, we’re British’ was firmly remarked.

It was clear that in my re-write I had to leave Love and Death alone and focus on building an actual plot, as well as allowing the non-player characters some more actual, well, character. Fortunately twenty additional years of writing experience have given me a few more clues on how to structure a narrative. I’ve now moved the thing the players are trying to find around, although never fear, Dear Readers, it still ends up in the same place. I have created a trail of clues to follow, and made one of the NPCs a disabled war veteran (guess what Keepers, he has an artificial leg). In Venice the players also find a clue that sends them to Constantinople at the time of the Fourth Crusade. I feel that Venice now has more than enough plot to go on with.

It is also clear to my older self the deadly nature of the conflict between the Communists and Fascists, which my younger self had unthinkingly played for laughs. One of our play-testers is a historian, and he unearthed the following newspaper clipping. These events precede our scenario by only a few months. There are deep divisions in Venice, in all of Italy, that will only get worse.

Christmas Day fight December 1922 [Source: Kalgoorlie Miner 29 Dec 1922, retrieved from The National Library of Australia, trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/93236637]

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Filed under Spoilers, Writing

Tagged as 1920s, Call of Cthulhu, Horror on the Orient Express, Venice, Writing