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| Screen shot of Eternal Lies on iPad |
I'm over three years into Eternal Lies, the epic Trail of Cthulhu campaign from Pelgrane Press. There's three of us involved, all of us forever GMs. It all came about because we were talking about how much we'd enjoyed reading the campaign and how it would be challenging to get a group together to commit to such a long form adventure. Until Rich pointed out that we'd all done this before (we've played through pretty much every Esoterrorists campaign together) and we all wanted to do it. Naturally, as our resident Gumshoe GM, he also offered to run the game. We immediately said 'yes'.
We couldn't find another player, but we didn't let that daunt us. Gumshoe lets you design a group of investigators to cover all the bases based on the number of players. So Ben and Lotte were created. Ben being Dr Mitch's character, an American Antiquities Dealer, and Lotte, a German refugee journalist who had married the editor of one of the New York Dailies. Both very different, but with very complementary character builds. Between them they had a solid balance of skills, both general and investigative. We talked this through during character creation and where there was overlap we agreed who would lead on this. Effectively we were agreeing who would get the spotlight for that kind of moment in the game. We also picked drives that very much enable Rich to push our characters along the path of the scenario should he want to (Lotte has 'Duty' as a drive and Ben has 'Curiosity'). Trail of Cthuhu has a mechanic that rewards you for following a drive or damages your stability if you act against your nature.
Playing with a duo of investigators is pretty intense. Typically, half the time you have the spotlight and need to be on form. The other half, you need to be thinking how you can compliment the other character. You don't really have time to be a passenger, so coming into the game if you've been behind on sleep or after a long day at work can be pretty daunting. However, it pays off in spades. That's not to say that we don't get distracted and break off into asides and reminiscences, of course we do. But generally, the immersion levels are high. We did have a third investigator for a while, but ill-health on the player's part meant that they dropped out. I also suspect that it may have been challenging joining the game part way through when there was such an established dynamic, despite being a regular player in some of our previous games. While he was with us, I did feel that the pressure I'd felt being in a duo fell off, and that I missed it.
Having read the campaign before, I knew what we were in for. However, by the time we started I could only remember what was going on in broad brush strokes and neither of us playing have let it influence what we've been doing. What has surprised me is how the tone of the campaign has shifted at each location that we've visited, starting from the creeping corruption Southern-Gothic horror of Savannah, then moving to the grubby noir of Los Angeles before a brief respite back in Boston and New York. Mexico City had a flavour of its own, and the expedition to the Yucatan was humid, wet and hot. Malta left us feeling the weight of the threat we faced, but helped us to realise that we couldn't back down. We've just arrived in Africa under Italian occupation, and are facing into the need to go deep into the desert and check something that we really don't want to explore.
Each chapter has had its own beats. They all start slowly, and the horror begins to emerge. Sometimes the game has slipped into what has felt like a pulp mode*, as we've desperately acted to try and stop the threat. With the intensity the game is played at, it really feels like you are putting life, limb and sanity at risk. Success, even partial, is a relief. It does feel like we are standing on a beach as the tide rises, and waves break closer and closer to us. Like kids playing, we get tempted to go deeper into the waves, while all around us the sea is rising up the beach. There are moments of respite when the waves fall back for a moment of calm, but you realise that the sand you're standing on is still water-covered when before it was dry.
[*Trail of Cthulhu has different modes; pulp games are more survivable and purist games more deadly. Eternal Lies defaults to the purist end of the spectrum.]
Our characters are definitely changing. They're becoming closer to each other, an unavoidable side effect of the threats and knowledge they've been exposed to. Lotte is probably facing the slow failure of her marriage as her husband Jack does not understand what is going on and why she wants to travel the world 'after this story' with another man. She's drawn closer to Ben, but so far they've remained completely professional. I'm not sure if that can last, with the pressures they face and the lack of anyone else who understands. However, for now, Lotte's duty drive holds a line in her mind.
I do see a future when I (or Dr Mitch, depending upon circumstances) brings in Jack to investigate what has happened to his wife and/or the person she was exploring with, after news of their deaths reaches the United States.
We've also noticed that the characters are becoming harder and more brutal. It started in LA, when Lotte was threatened at gunpoint by a thug in her hotel room. They've both become more and more hardened; both have been injured, and both have killed in the pursuit of this quest. Neither have a real understanding of what is going on; they know the organisation (cult) that they face is spreading corruption with the drug they distribute, but they aren't completely certain what the deeper objective of the cult is. Lotte has touched infinity when they communed with an entity outside time and space; she has a spell in her mind that touches on the hyper-geometry** of existence. It does still feel like we are stumbling through a web of corruption and lies, trying to get a clear vision of what is going on and what we need to stop.
[** Yes, I know 'hyper-geometry' is a Delta-Green term, but it perfectly fits Lotte's scientific background and what we experienced in-game.]
Inherently, Gumshoe's point spend mechanic also ratchets up the tension; as you spend pool points, your resources are falling and you constantly need to make decisions whether you want guarantee success on a roll, or risk failure.
The campaign and game is an incredible experience; I think that playing in the smaller group has made this more so. However, if you want a different look at this, check out the Alexandrian's thoughts on the campaign. I think that this may be the finest traditional Cthulhu campaign that's been written, and has an arguable case to be seen as one of the best campaigns around.
We shall continue into the investigation and play to find out if we drown or get swept out to sea in the rising tide, or perhaps eventually return home with memories that are hard to forget.
12 April 2024
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