Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

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Koakai
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Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Koakai » Thu May 22, 2014 5:01 pm

This is not to be a piece of fiction per say, but rather a place to put down thoughts on a scenario that has been bubbling through my head for a while now. This scenario takes place in the early 1940's, and uses a few elements from local history to me.

The characters will all be members or hangers on of the PCMR, or BC's home guard. Older men and younger boys with experience in the wilds and who were either in protected jobs like lumbering and mining, or were just not suitable for service in the regular military. They got together once or twice a week in order to train, build trails and otherwise be a home guard for BC.

The group was founded in early 1942, and by June 4th, had over 200 men in one company. At their peak over 17000 individuals were involved in some way with the PCMR.

The group in question have been pulled from their companies (volunteers) in order to assist in the decommissioning of an old naval base that was considered unusable and obsolete. Given a crash course in demolitions (1d20?) they are to take over from a group of regulars who are being sent to other duties.

The island will be based off Cole Island, a ammo depot founded in 1860 by the royal navy of britian, who used it to store munitions such as shells, gun cotton, gun powder and the like just off-shore on their major BC naval base. The royal navy left the island in 1905 when they withdrew from BC. The navy of Canada took over the island in 1914, leaving a nice gap of time for things.

In reality this is in a bay and very close to the shore. I would stick it further off-shore and given the name Cole island, turn it into an auxiliary coaling spot and armory considered too unprotected to be useful during a time of war. Maybe a small group of islands.

Naval security would be provided by members of the Gumboot Navy. Converted fishing vessels, these lightly armed ships were founded early in the war and served as coastal protection when regular warships were withdrawn. By 1942 there were over 48 vessels in the fleet, served by a mix of volunteers and fishing crew members paid to serve in this fashion. The fleet continued to grow even larger after the confiscation of Japanese fishing vessels during August 1942.

I will add more to this later, but real work just showed up at the job. ;)
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Koakai
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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Koakai » Fri May 23, 2014 5:55 pm

Timeline of events: Rough.

June 17th, 1942. Convoy of three boats leave base to go to island to pull off members of garrison. Your boat is one of them. 1 hour out, your boat has problems, other two go on ahead. You have to turn back.

June 18th, 1942. Other boats pull off garrison members, leaving two of their guys to stand watch in your stead. You boat has completed repairs and is on the way. A thick fog rolls in and further delays you and you do not wind up showing until o dark 30 on the 18th.

June 19th, 1942
You are met by a deserted wharf. No lights showing, no signs of life. Eeriness of the fog, slapping of water on the wharf. Creaking of the dock, whispers of the damned.

Radio is damaged, cables ripped from the walls.



June 20th, 1942. Your boat is gone from the dock, signs they left in a hurry. No reason why is given. (On June 20th, 1942 there was the only attack on Canadian soil by the Japanese when the sub I-26 fired 25-30 shots at a lighthouse. And failed to hit a damn thing. The boat has been rapidly recalled by the government for anti-sub duties, forgetting that you do not have a working radio on your island).
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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Keeper Jon » Fri May 23, 2014 6:34 pm

Koakai wrote:June 17th, 1942. Convoy of three boats leave base to go to island to pull off members of garrison. Your boat is one of them. 1 hour out, your boat has problems, other two go on ahead. You have to turn back.
Can the investigators jerry-rig repairs while on the boat? Assume that your players will think that this is a challenge in the scenario that they have to overcome. They will need a concrete reason on why they cannot do an "in flight" repair of the boat.
Koakai wrote:June 18th, 1942. Other boats pull off garrison members, leaving two of their guys to stand watch in your stead. You boat has completed repairs and is on the way. A thick fog rolls in and further delays you and you do not wind up showing until o dark 30 on the 18th.
What investigation or encounters will occur during this time so the players can advance the narrative of the scenario? If they are only sitting back and listening to the Keeper tell them what is going on, they will quickly lose their investment in the scenario.
Koakai wrote:June 19th, 1942. You are met by a deserted wharf. No lights showing, no signs of life. Eeriness of the fog, slapping of water on the wharf. Creaking of the dock, whispers of the damned. Radio is damaged, cables ripped from the walls.

Awesome. This area of the scenario sounds like it will be chock-full of stuff of the investigators to snoop through and check out. Lots of clues to be had here. Nice.
Koakai wrote:June 20th, 1942. Your boat is gone from the dock, signs they left in a hurry. No reason why is given. (On June 20th, 1942 there was the only attack on Canadian soil by the Japanese when the sub I-26 fired 25-30 shots at a lighthouse. And failed to hit a damn thing. The boat has been rapidly recalled by the government for anti-sub duties, forgetting that you do not have a working radio on your island).
Will the investigators hear the attacks by the Japanese? Is it possible that the investigators might have a portable radio with them? Can the damaged radio be repaired?

Good start. I like how this is opening. Just be sure to have areas for the investigators to interact, (and possibly alter), the course of the scenario.

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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Dr. Gerard » Sun May 25, 2014 12:11 pm

I would so very much like to see this take shape as a scenario, so I can run it!
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Koakai
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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Koakai » Mon May 26, 2014 3:47 am

Warring around in my head is a way to take this in a certain way.
I was figuring liigorr as the big bad mythos baddie in this one.I was thinking that the islands had been important to the native people, the navy saw a strategic spot and claimed the island. I was thinking that there was a whaler's shrine (lots of skulls and carved figures of men and whales) that was there and accidently sealed by the construction. One of the powder magazines was built into the entrance of it or something. The Lliggor as kind of sort of like the myth of the thunderbird. And used their powers to attract whales in exchange slaves. (Rival tribes were often taken as slaves in the bad old days. In fact an american blacksmith was captured as a slave in 1803 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Jewitt ).

Yes this is summon fish on a huge scale. ;)

The lliggorr is weak from lack of slaves, and was making do. Then the two guys were poking around, bored. The one decided to make off with something from the commandants office. A slave killer, imbued with the power to protect the one, but requiring the sacrifice of the other?




By the end of this adventure all I can see remaining is a huge crater slowly filling in with water. Either green glowing stuff from the lliggorr, or the investigators with nearly unlimited supplies of explosives will create it.


I just need to get my thoughts in order about this all to tie it all together correctly. figure out how I want to get from point a to boom.
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Koakai
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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Koakai » Mon May 26, 2014 3:56 am

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Also, I stumbled across these documents while at a local gun show. I actually wen to see if there was anything related to the PCMR available, and ran into two collectors there. But I figured, these might make an interesting way of generating a character is you go about it right.
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The one, I could add a bit more to. Like I am familiar with the following: Checkbox style list of trapping, logging, mining. The weapons portion gives us our pistol and shotgun/rifle bits. The card would make dandy name tags for a con game. And I could stick a skill cheat sheet on the back for players.
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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Dr. Gerard » Mon May 26, 2014 10:59 am

Oooh any of those docs would be evocative to see at the table. I love how the oath pledges allegiance to His Majesty.
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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Whitechapel Jack » Mon May 26, 2014 6:13 pm

Is there any way to make those a fallible PDF? Thats over my head but there are so many of these things that would be a wonderful addition if a Keeper could customize them for players....

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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Dr. Gerard » Fri May 30, 2014 9:47 pm

You know, I wonder if the folks at the HP Lovecraft Historical Society would give some advice about how to do that. They are incredibly approachable and excited to give advice to people like us who love game props. I'm not saying they would do all the work for us, but I bet they would be happy to answer questions.

If anyone out there would like to get the ball rolling, you can reach them at keeper@cthulhulives.org.
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Re: Not really Fiction - Scenario musings

Post by Koakai » Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:19 pm

I really need someone to hold my feet to a fire when it comes to writing stuff down. I just do not do it, despite the ideas percolating in my head.

Right now I have three ideas I could work on, and I am not sure which one to attack.

Project 1) The above seed with the PCMR and the strange goings on with Cole island. People going missing, and the discovery of a whaling shrine and the deeper darkness that lurks below.

Project 2) Nanaimo. 1912. You are a group of assorted individuals tasked with deciding the feasibility of reopening the Wellington mine. Troubled from the start, the recent fire have led the owners to flood the mine to control the flames and keep it from spreading in the seam. Labour troubles tied to this have led to sabotage and the militia being called out. The owners want to reopen the seam. But is it more trouble then it is worth?
I have a good idea for a monster to throw in here. Migo who were trapped in suspended animation and lost in the mists of times and who's ship/base was trapped in the coal seam. The fire/explosions of mining have woken them up. The idea came to me via some vintage newspaper accounts of small earthquakes happening in the late 1890's, and the numerous accounts of explosions and issues in these mines.
Deep underground, deep under the ocean, narrow tunnels, accounts of the dead scrawling their goodbye's in the dirt as they were buried alive after mine collapses. Good, creepy stuff.

Project 3) I want to do something with the Silk trains that used to run across america, carrying their precious cargo to the textile mills in the east. Then it came to me.

You are a group of guards. You are clearly senior in your field and or lucky as you have been assigned to one of the silk trains that carry anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 dollars in raw silk from the ports on the pacific back east. Running flat out and non-stop and with priority routing all the way, the job is a milk run 95% of the time. Even still you have the big guns, just in case some group of robber's gets cute.

The thing is, this most recent load of silk. Something has been off ever since it got loaded. Not only do you have more bales then the manifest list calls for (damn clerks and their errors), but you are sure there have been some odd types keeping an eye on the train as it was loaded. Now though you are headed flat out across the countryside, and heaven help anyone that tries to rip off something from you.

**Spoilers**
You are what you seem. Dedicated to your job. But those shady people....

Investigators.
Yep. Someone is smuggling something mythos related back east and they got wind that it was hidden in those extra bales.
They need to stop your train to get the evil maguffin, but you simply don't walk up to a bunch of guys guarding something that valuable and say you want to root around in it. So they need to stop the train, and get the goods.

And just how is the cult supposed to pick up the goods in the end? Something evil coming out of the night and ripping the top off the train perhaps.


----
I'm not sure which one I ought to pursue first.

Give me ideas. Give me direction. Badger me till I work on one of these. Without a group to run for, I find little enough motivation to work on them. :)
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