Alongside the regular games I’ve played in 2021 is the Masks of Nyarlohotep campaign in which also I’ve been taking part. This is a classic campaign which was first published in the mid 80’s which attests to how good the story is! Even though updated to 7th edition of the Call of Cthulhu Role-Playing Game. Keeper 4AcrossIsEmu is taking the campaign a step-further running it for Pulp Cthulhu! Not only are our characters more resilient to damage, they have better statistics, special talents and use luck to save their skins when the dice roll against them! I’ll have a blog early next year going through the creation of my Character Nadia Byron. This luck ability to pretty much come back from the dead came in very handy when an unexpected critical hit saw Nadia run through with a sword which would have killed a normal Investigator outright. Instead, Nadia fell to the floor injured, blood everywhere however in a comic twist to the serious situation I explained that ‘as luck would have it’ the sword blade tore through a bag from the butchers Nadia was carrying.
This near-death experience was a bit of a wake up call as although Nadia is a Pulp Hero, she has nearly half the hit points of some investigators in the group as her size and constitution are very average. Where Nadia excels is in her talents, she can reign down gunfire on a target delivering large amounts of damage to it very quickly. In a tribute to Tomb Raider, Nadia has two “Broom Handled Mausers” which, carrying one in each hand, can fire three shots for each gun per round. If all shots are hits, then that could be 6 to 60 points of damage. Now I know the Call of Cthulhu Role-Playing Game isn’t known for it’s combat scenes but utterly blowing something away to be left standing there with two smoking guns is pretty epic.
The part I am struggling with in the Campaign is figuring it all out! The story is truly world spanning with groups who start as friends turning into enemies and whilst we try and figure out who we can trust we also need to know what is going on and who we have to stop. I’m just about able to pick-up what we have to do in the episodes but how it relates to the story-arc is tricky for me so when we pick the campaign up in the new year I’ll have to concentrate! The other part I struggled with is drive for my character even though the Keeper has laid seeds of extra adventure for each player. I utterly missed my story like a kid at Christmas who unwraps a present only to throw the gift away with wrapping paper and is happily left with a rather nice empty box but kinda wishes something was in it. In the end the Keeper had to have an NPC steal my characters passport so Nadia would follow them and despite shooting the plot contacts dead (they started it) she did get onto the extra story track! What will the second half of the Masks of Nyarlohotep campaign have for us!
And wrapping up the year as we take a break from the campaign, I’ve been part of play tests on the RPG Nook – where I play nearly all my games. The RPG Nook is sent games to try out and, over on the Nook YouTube channel, they are reviewed. I’ve taken part in three adventures and given feedback on two and it has been a mixed bag. Most seem to create a wonderful world in which Investigators can adventure in but, compared to the world, the beginning of the adventures seems lacking in their mystery and build up but do have really great endings. Let’s hope the next adventure they write has it all!
That was a great year of investigation in 2021, so until we Roll4Sanity again in the new year, have a wonderful existence on this speck of dust as it drifts through a void of cosmic uncertainty!