I played this game of FiveCore Pulp Adventures over a week ago now. I ran Amanda and Finnegan through a game on a Tuesday evening when we would regularly have been playing Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound... but I was feeling wildly unprepared and had these rules on the brain and had been dreaming up countless scenarios and adventures for the game since I'd played my first solo game two days days earlier (also, i'd just played a game of Five Men at Kursk earlier in the day!)
Will THIS become ANOTHER campaign!? I'm not sure... both said they had fun and would play again... but we're already playing Soulbound and Warhammer Quest - WEEKLY - which already seems like a bit much, sometimes... perhaps some other night when I'm not feeling like running Soulbound...?
Situation
New Orleans, Louisiana, 1930
The group of heroes, summoned to Louisiana by Inspector Legrasse, as investigations into local cultist activity have led him to believe there might be another incident like the one he witnessed back in 1907...
Scenario
For this game I let Amanda and Finnegan pick out a Hero and an adventurers for them each to play (and had them name the characters)...
Amanda's hero(ine) was Helen Rogers
her Adventurer was Ivan McDowell
Finnegan's Hero was Edmund
and his adventurer was Sister Yvanne
Accompanying them were Inspector Legrasse, Constable Johns, Constable Smith, Constable West - all of whom were Followers, and then there was Harvey Holden a reporter from the local newspaper - a Hanger-On!
In the scenario there were worshipers around a monolith and three pairs of other cultists patrolling between three patrol points - the small campfire, the smaller idol, and the brick shithouse. (I was using the Stealth/Commando operations rules from Five Men at Kursk.)
Ma and Pa, the owners of the land - who were just as mad as the cultists - kept a keen eye out for interlopers that might disturb their friends ritual.
Ma and Pa were static Sentries that could attempt to spot anyone that moved within line of sight.
inside the cabin were their sons Judd and Jethro.
At the beginning of each Patrol Phase - on a roll of ONE - one random member of the family would decided they needed to go use the shithouse and would walk out towards it - much like a sentry moving towards a patrol point and would stay in the biffy, until the alarm was raised or another one was rolled, then they'd head back to the cabin.
another veiw showing relative positions of cabin and worshiping cultists.
After a number of turns of these cultists are chanting... something nasty would be summoned!
The Game
All set up and ready to go...
I gave the option of approaching stealthily or just go in guns-a-blazing! They chose stealth.. and then IMMEDIATELY decided that was taking too long and started doing full moves, putting out noise markers and drawing the attention of the Patroling cultists!?
The heroes and police approach the cultists ritual site - chanting can be heard in the distance.
Cutlists chanting away...
There was about a turn of attempting to be stealthy... but that was too slow and the heroes (or... their players...) got impatient.
Edmund, crashing throught he woods, made noise and drew the attention of the Patrolling Cultists, but they did now spot him.
Another turn of crashing through the forest...
More cultists turned to investigate.
The everybody was rushing through the woods making noise... Cultists were drawn into the woods to investigate...
Ivan Mcdowell charged forth and attacked one of the Cultists!
Killing one with a swift, silent blow, he turned to the other patrolling with the first...
And took her out silently, without alerting other sentries or raising the alarm!
Yeah... I probably need to make proper cultist casualty figures/markers... looks little weird using these... looks like he punched them right out of their cultist robes!
Another pair of Sentries were drawn in the direction of Edmund... HE'D actually attempted to be stealthy that turn... but the cultists were drawn towards the noise markers made by others! One failed to spot Edmund, but the other drew closer and got close enough to automatically spot him and raised the alarm! So Edmund blasted the shouting cultist with his shot gun!
Helen Rogers also started blazing away with her rifle!
Edmund shot another cultist, as did Constable Smith.
The partner of the cultists shot by Smith, charged Smith.
Smith fled the melee, and the cultist, feeling rather sure of himself charged into attack Ivan McDowell... that went less well!
Helen Rogers maneuvered around to start taking shots at the leader of the Cultists!
Constable West, blundering through the woods, came to the edge of the woods and found himself face-to-face with Ma! BLAM! He shot her point blank with his shot gun and she went down!
In the distance, Jethro, witnessing the shooting let out a cry of distress and then started shooting at the copper in the woods. Constable West flinched and fell back into the woods to take cover
Pa and Judd made their way up to the Brick Shithouse to further investigate the disturbance on their property!
One of the worshipping cultists, after being shot at by Edmund, turned to return fire... or throw daggers... or... whatever the 12" shooting attack of the cultists represents!? (we imagined it was daggers they were throwing!)
and TOOK RDMUND OUT!?
Helen Rogers was also downed by one of the Cultists who turned away from workshipping to defend his master!
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Then Imspector Legrasse was taken out of action! Things were not looking well for our heroes!
Constable West and Pa exchanged shots, after Pa had wandered back into the woods to see what was going on...
West gunned down Pa, just like he did his wife!
Constable Johns exchanged fire with Judd..
Jethro rushed up to check on his Ma and shot Constable West!
Upon investigating Ma, he discovered she, too, was out of action!
Sister Yvanne was injured and downed by a Cultist...
who also injured Constable Johns!
Constable Smith and Ivan McDowell had fled combats and just could not rally!?
Eventually Ivan McDowell rallied... just in time for Jethro to rush forward and shoot at him with his rifle.
Jethro missed. McDowell returned fire and he did not miss...
Constable Smith also rallied and moved forward with McDowell under cover. Judd had also taken cover and was shooting at them.
One of the cultists had moved in to try and finish off Sister Yvanne and that did not work out for him... she rolled over and filled him full of lead and retreated to the cover of woods!
Sister Yvanne checked on the downed Helen Rogers and got her patched up and back into action.
and then snuck forward and started shooting at the Cultist Leader.
It was Helen Rogers that finally put a bullet through hin and stopped his chanting..
But the other cultists continued their chanting!!
Judd continued shooting at Ivan McDowell and Constable Smith.
Ivan eventually decided he'd had enough and charged out of the treeline, across the open and cut Judd down with his machete!
One final cultists continued chanting on his own!
He was briefly halted when bullets got a little too close!
But then quickly rallied and finished off the incantation...
a monsterous beast from beyond space and time appeared... and ate the cultist!
Ivan McDowell was terrified by its sudden appearance and once again fled into the woods!
Sister Yvanne and Helen Rogers started blazing away at it with their firearms...
Ivan McDowell rallied and joined them!
The trio spread out and kept blazing away!
It was Helen Rogers that finally put it down!
In the end, it was discovered that Inspector Legrasse and Constable West has been killed in the exchange! Constable Johns recovered from his injuries... but was never quite the same...
Edmund was found alive but quite injured by the Cultists throwing knife! He will have to sit out the next adventure (should we play one!)
The bodies of Ma, Jethro, and Judd were also recovered... Pa was nowhere to be found. A blood trail and drag marks lead off into the Bayou and it was assumed that 'gators had got him!
If I did it again, I would make it WAY HARDER to damage the shoggoth... but maybe gave it less lives... Perhaps any time it got injured by a kill die, I'd roll a kill die of my own and could take the lesser
Eleven of the Cultists had died in the fight, only one was arrested. The leader, however, seemed to have slipped off in the confusion of the battle with the otherworldly beast!
I realized AFTER the game we'd forgotten a number of things... REACTIONS, somehow!? And In-Game Events... Ah well...
The spoils from the adventure only yielded Two Fistfulls of Dollars... It did turn up one Lead!
If we did play again, I'd let them recruit a new group of Followers and Hangers-On.
I did choose Harvey Holden, news reporter, to roll and see if he "graduated"... He did not... He will remain a Hanger-On... for now...
If we DID continue with these. I might be tempted to dig out the many, MANY Call of Cthulhu adventures I have and use them as plots foe the campaign, just read through those and find ways to turn them into tabletop encounters!
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