Call of Cthulhu: Riot of Red Plank

4 July 2015: 2pm: Call of Cthulhu: Riot of Red Plank

• GM: Phredd Groves: The Man
• Nick Trambino: Heikki
• Ben Morgan: Jori, younger brother to Heikki
• Jonathan Bagelman: Ville, union rep
• Me: Einari Rantala, Deacon
• Frank Halewi: Ruppo

Marko was unclaimed, but also the most expendable.

The scenario was set in Michigan, 1904, in the entirely fictional town of Red Plank, a company town. The company was the Hekate Mining Company.

The town was on a peninsula, and the only route out of the peninsula was the ferry. Ville was, obviously, pro-union. Einari was not. Heikki and Ruppo were (or were played as) hotheads, while Jori was calmer, but all were, I think, more sympathetic to the union than Einari. Jori and Heikki had lost two brothers to mining accidents, possibly one during the game -- I forget.

There was a disagreement over the safety of certain mining practices, and Peter Oag, a County mine inspector -- NOT a company man -- had arrived to inspect the mine, with the somewhat grudging cooperation of the shift boss, John Gundy.

Once Gundy was out of earshot, Oag told the others that he favored the mining practices that all of them except Einari, who wasn't involved in that part of the mining, favored, and did not think the practice that the company required was safe.

Before much more could be said or any inspection even begun, there was an explosion, and the group was trapped. Oag was dead, but the rest were rescued after 2 hours, some odd visions of purplish immaterial creatures notwithstanding.

They then spent some hours recovering and eventually recuperated enough to walk around. They discovered, to their surprise, flyers calling for a strike. This was not Ville's plan. And, we wondered where the flyers had been printed, when, and by whom -- things were moving far too fast for anyone, even Einari, not to suspect an agent provocateur.

Jori wanted to talk to the shift boss, but was told to come back the next morning. Heikki arrived then, and if one of the Kampponnrt brothers did indeed die during the scenario, it was either in the explosion or sometime after, which would explain Heikki's forceful approach.

He banged on the door of the shift boss's home or office. The boss opened the door.

Shift Boss: You're the wrong Kampponnrt.

Heikki: Two Brothers!

I forget the rest of the conversation. I think Jori went via ferry to the newsletter, and Heikki and Ruppo did some less than rational planning over drinks. There was a dark and stormy day and a dark and stormy night.

Heikki and Ruppo had a plan to break into explosives storage.

Either Heikki or Ruppo: Don't get it wet in the rain.

The two made sure the others knew nothing of what they were doing. So, while they were sneaking around, the others were doing an accounting for the explosive powder, and learning that over the last 2-3 weeks, enough powder had gone missing to bring down a wall. All of this happened during the PCs' shift, as if everyone had taken an extra pinch, even Ville, who was doing the checking and knew that could not be the case.

Ville also got in touch with union contacts via telegraph. The union folks said they'd do their best to gather a strike fund, but that this had been rather sudden, which was true.

7 pm at Italian Hall was a meeting of the miners, and the PCs who were there (as opposed to sneaking around with explosives) realized that there were agents provocateur, including one Andrew Kilkenny, Grading's man. Einari unmasked him, but made sure no one harmed the man. He still wasn't in favor of unions, but he did recognize shenanigans when he saw them.

Later, Heikki and Ruppo did something involving a wheelbarrow and we joked about a holocaust cloak. They knocked out the watchman so he wouldn't have to decide whether to stop them or not.

"We're doing him a service..."

And they encountered Andrew Kilkenny, who had a pistol, and Gundry, who had a rifle.

Ruppo: We saw what you did!

Gundry: Guarding the staff house?

Ruppo: From what?

Gundry: Well, apparently, from you!

And matters, ah, escalated, and... there might have been something of an explosion, perhaps.

Jori: And... the first thought in my mind is, "Heikki, what did you do?"

But somehow, events unfolded such that it looked to the others as if the company was doing something very shady indeed.

Somewhere in here, Pinkertons showed up, ready to keep order, especially if there was a strike, which they seemed to be expecting, perhaps even hoping for. But, no strike happened. And, they were looking for Gundry, I think. And somewhere in there, there may have been a conversation with the big boss or mentioning the big boss, whose name was Mr. Noyes.

Eventually, Heikki and Ruppo told the others some story or other that really made it look as if Gundry and Kilkenny were up to something very nefarious with explosives, and there was even a grain of truth in all of this. Einari saw no reason not to tell this to the Pinkertons or to tell them where Gundry was, now that he a) knew and b) could say with utter honesty that he hadn't known before. In addition, one of the others had contacted a sheriff of the area who was out of town, and the sheriff arrived in the midst of the wrap up.

One of us: And it's raining --

GM: Nope -- the clouds have just up and gone away.

As for the sheriff:

GM: You're telling all of this to Andy Griffith, essentially.

Player: Better than Barney.

And Kilkenny and Gundry were thrown to the wolves. The group had, somewhat luckily, somewhat accidentally saved the miners. They never learned that the company planned to replace the workers with enslaved ghoul miners or that the Mi Go were behind the trust whose face man was Mr. Noyes (cf "Whisperer in Darkness").

Fred said that he'd written this in 2002 and that he'd probably made a mistake having the flyers appear too early. Perhaps more time should have passed before the group recovered.

We weren't sure. As Graham Walmsley said in Play Unsafe, if you think something is too obvious, _go_ with it. The players will think you're a genius. The flyers showing up too early was actually a great clue that there were agents provocateur at work.

I think Jori had the only printing press, so an alternative method of getting the clue there would be to make it clear that the flyers were definitely not printed on his press.

Apparently there was one character, Jackson, who, while mistrusted by the PCs, could have been safely brought in. As the GM put it, he was "an asshat, but _honest_". That said, Gundry and Kilkenny were perfect patsies. They'd been supposed to provoke a strike so that the Pinkertons could take action to suppress the strike. The Pinkertons, while not necessarily nice people, were just there to do a job, and had no knowledge whatsoever about MiGo or undead ghouls. They did want to find Gundry, since at that point, he'd screwed things up for the company.

I hope I wasn't playing Einari as too sympathetic to his union co-workers. He had genuinely believed that accidents had happened due to fast, careless work. But honestly, when confronted with evidence that folks are hoarding explosives for no good reason, and really good evidence that these same folks just tried to blow up the mine -- and no evidence whatsoever that Ruppo or Heikki had actually done anything they shouldn't have (for some reason, Jori did not share his suspicions with Einari), it's no longer a question of union versus company, but a matter of specific people up to no good.