In medias res

 It's been quite a while since I updated anything on here. Moving to the UAE has been an experience and required a lot of effort, so gaming had to go on hold until I became used to work life and stuff. I have been playing my solo version of Federation & Empire/Star Fleet Battles and painting some ships, but no tabletop gaming with people. I did try to run my Stormbringer campaign but it doesn't work too well across the void of the net because the plot lines have become rather intricate. I may well pick it up again when I see my players (aka them pesky kids) when I am home for several weeks in the summer.

To fill the void, I decided instead to try running Call of Cthulhu for them. The good thing about Cthulhu is that it lends itself well to episodic play, plus my three offsprung are a bit older now, so this game has more appeal. Beth has been into SCP for a while now anyway, so we decided to take the plunge.

It has worked better than I anticipated over Zoom, and we now have several sessions under our belts. The game is set in the early 1920s and their characters are all relatively young. Thomas plays Scott, the eldest of the three, a man in his early-mid twenties who saw action on the Western Front during the Great War. Beth is playing Isabel, a journalist with something of a checkered (i.e. criminal) past. Cate is playing Morris van Laaden, who is based on a patron NPC from a published scenario. She wanted to try something really different this time, and Morris is a bit rubbish. The characters all come from Grand Rapids in Michigan.

The premise is that Morris is the last of his family, his parents having died recently in a boating accident; Scott had been employed as a sort of bodyguard to the younger dilettante by his parents in a vain hope to keep the little waste of space alive or something. Isabel tags along because she likes a good story, and I suppose it's fair to say she has become rather attached to the mismatched pair. 

I won't say too much about what is happening in case anyone reading this is worried about spoilers. Suffice it to say that so far they have made a deal with a (friendly?) druid who is at least 1,000 years old and encountered something like three different kinds of animated dead. They usually deal with those by liberal use of molotov cocktails. The most recent (last night) was from Dead Man's Stomp, a scenario included with the 5th edition rules. Conversational highlights:

Morris (to Isabel): "If we piss this guy off the worst that can happen is we become known as the trumpet thieves. Because whatever we can do to that trumpet is less morally reprehensible that letting little kiddies see uncle Jimmie's corpse jump out of its coffin."

Slightly later (same conversation), Morris to Isabel: "Let me see. You're against me stealing the trumpet, but you're happy to break into a funeral home and stab a corpse!?"

Later comment by Scott: "He's gonna start sleep-tootin'."

And, lastly, here's a photo of a birthday card and some items Cate made from wire for me:

From the top left: a little Cthulhu; a Yellow Sign; and an Elder Sign. Maybe she has been touched by Hastur!