Call of Cthulhu: A Night to Remember

Misty Fortner: GM

Rebecca Roberts: Molly Brown

Me: Esther Hart

Andy Tucker: Benjamin Hart

Jessica Brett: Dr. Alice Leader

Ken ???: William Stead

Dean Norman: Henry Elkins Widener

This was a very well done historical Call of Cthulhu scenario. Oh, there were a couple of liberties taken, of course, but the GM was up on her research. All of the PCs were based on real people who boarded the Titanic. All, except for the Harts, were in first class.

The Harts had an interesting story. Benjamin Hart decided to pull up stakes in England and travel on the Titanic to start again. Esther Hart was filled with a terrible premonition of dread. She did not sleep at night, convinced that that was when disaster would strike, but lay awake, fully dressed, sleeping during the day. The only reason she boarded the ship was that her husband, Benjamin, picked up their six-year-old daughter, Eva, brought her up the gangplank, and informed his wife that she could join him or return alone to her mother. All of this was actual history, as well as what was on Andy's and my character sheets.

The only piece of fiction that Misty invoked at this stage was that the Wideners invited the Harts to the Captain's party, hoping that it would calm Esther down, even going so far as to supply a nursemaid for Eva. This was to give the Harts, who were passengers in second class, a way to interact with the rest of the PCs, who were passengers in first class.

Misty supplied two coffee table books about the Titanic, the cargo list, and blueprints blow up to easier to read size. We didn't have to search through any of these at any point. She was always on top of things and ready to hand us the piece of paper most relevant. Whenever folks were moving from one part of the ship to the next, she would say, "Okay, you are here, on this map. You are going to here, on this one. It is now X time. By the time you arrive, it is Y time."

I played Esther as desperately wanting to get back to her daughter, but cowed enough only to suggest that she leave, allowing herself to be overruled. When she was finally allowed to go back to her room, in company with the other two women PCs, she discovered that all was not well.

Little Eva Hart was missing from the room. Blood was everywhere, the blood of the poor nursemaid. There were paw prints from a large cat. There was a fragment of a label for cargo belonging to W. Stead.

The guy playing Stead had most of the best lines. He referred to the "Alleged Tiger Cat" and claimed that the cargo he had on board was cheese.

Stead: A woman is dead, your daughter has gone missing, and my cheese is missing.

The group gradually realized that Stead's crate contained not the cheese he insisted he'd put in it, but a mummy of a child. They gradually learned, by consulting odd books that various people had with them, that the mummy's spirit had possessed Eva, and needed to kill a thousand people to be able to do so forever. If she did, Eva's soul would be destroyed, iirc.

But, there was a ritual that could be performed to prevent this, presuming the child could be found.

As they searched, the group went up to the bridge. There, they found that the bridge crew had been turned into skeletons. The skeletons neither attacked nor acknowledged the living. But, they made sure to steer the ship onto the fatal iceberg.

Realizing they were running out of time, the passengers redoubled their efforts as the living crew began to realize the problem and start attempting to evacuate the ship. Esther pleaded with a pregnant Mrs. Aster to get into one of the lifeboats, for the child's sake, if not her own.

Then, the group found Eva. She had a cat with her, and asked Esther if she could keep the kitty. Esther, realizing that the cat had turned into the tiger which had killed the nursemaid, immediately agreed to allay the suspicions of the creature possessing her daughter.

By now, the woman playing Dr. Leader had left. (The player had warned us in advance that she'd have to leave early.) So, the GM played the doctor as an NPC. Part of the group had already prepared a ritual area after some question about where it should be.

Steak: Well, here's the thing -- we don't want to be carrying a possessed demon child _up_ a flight of stairs.

They considered tying up Eva, but the GM had the doctor point out that she could simply chloroform the child. The PCs agreed, and then made their most brilliant tactical decision of the evening: They told the doctor to chloroform the cat as well.

This went off without a hitch, and the first part of the ritual was completed, trapping the mummy's spirit in an odd figurine. The group now had 7 hours to give the statue to a hero, a savior who did not participate in the ritual. If they did not do so, the spirit would break free and return to Eva's body.

After some looking around for a hero and considering, among others, a minister, the group realized, with some gentle GM prodding, that the hero needed to be alive, not doomed on the sinking ship. She also noted that the rescuers might be considered saviors. So, the three women of the group went to find seats on the lifeboats, while the men stayed behind, as there were too few lifeboats for everyone. Mr. Hart had acknowledged that his wife had been right, and they commended each other to God's care.

As the women found empty places for them and the sleeping Eva, they saw an elderly married couple. The man urged the woman to board a lifeboat, but she refused, preferring to remain with her husband.

Esther (thinking to herself): That is very sweet of them. I get on the lifeboat with my daughter.

It isn't that she didn't forgive her husband, but the reason she forgave him was that he was staying behind, I think.

One woman got out of a life boat with her child, looking for her other child. That child, unknown to the mother, was on another lifeboat. Sadly, the woman and the child with her died, the only child who died on the Titanic.

As the ship slowly sank, the three men got drunk, or at least pleasantly buzzed.

Widener: So, your mummy is now under the water.

Stead: _My_ mummy? It was just _cheese_!

Widener: Just don't give me the cat!

Stead: Well, this was quite a night!

Widener: Thanks to your mummy!

Stead: It wasn't _my_ mummy!... All right. I have a confession to make...

To no one's great surprise, he confessed that he had snuck the mummy on board. Sailors were superstitious about such things, so the cargo would have been refused had he admitted to its nature. Instead, he claimed it was cheese,

Misty read a haunting description of the sinking ship, and then described the rescue of the passengers on the lifeboat by the ship Carpathia. I would not have thought that this would be a good idea, but it worked remarkably well. I think part of it was that Origins CoC players tend to be folks who really want to play the game straight (except for scenarios clearly billed as tongue in cheek), and we had been doing our best to act more reserved and formal, even in extreme moments. But, part was also that Misty had a very good sense of what to summarize and what to slow down for, just as she had a good sense of what materials to provide and how to make them as easy to use as possible.

Molly, who had the figurine, gave it to the captain, saying he was their savior. And, indeed, this is what actually happened. In real life, all three ladies survived. All three men died. Mrs. Aster did board the lifeboats. Mr. Aster was terribly burned when the ship's boiler exploded, before it finished sinking.

Someone: ... And there really were skeletons?

Me: What about the cat?

Misty: The cat came on board with mummy. It went to the cabin, and Eva followed the kitty to the cargo hold. Chloroforming the cat was the best thing you could have done. It was a shapeshifter avatar of Bast.

And, she read the final lines of the scenario. Rescuers asked, "Where is the Titanic?"

One of the rescuees said, "She's gone down."