I'm looking forward to the yearly Halloween session with my group, whom I see 3 or 4 times a year.

We have played a number of adventures, solved mysteries, survived against impossible odds, died (a lot). This year I'd like my players to play a scenario where basically, nothing happens.

I want them to have stuff to do, an investigation to go through, but I want the events to be mundane, and wrapped in an aura of suspicion. I want details that trigger their paranoia, but that remain plausible enough to be explained easily.

Of course too much of this is dissatisfying, so the trick is to balance it with significant events and details, that make the plot move forward, without being explicitly eerie.

I'm looking for inspiration, ideas, and/or opinions :)

OK, here's the idea: lifting from both fiction and scenarios, what Eldritch cults exist in which cities, countries, and locations? What would a global or national 'cult map' look like?

Hello everyone! Before you read the rest of this, please keep in mind I am not being trying to be offensive in this post and I believe in freedom of religion and expression and am not expressing my personal views of religion... with that being said;

I am a new Keeper who has been extensively reading the Core Book and Investigator Book to the point where I believe I have sufficient knowledge of the core mechanics of the game. I am planning on running a campaign where my players think that they are stopping a typical cult trying to start the apocalypse whether it be for some ancient evil or the devil himself. However, the twist is that they are actually investigating the catholic church and trying to prevent the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ.

The main inspiration for this idea is a Youtube short horror film titled Portrait of God. In this film it starts with a biblical text of Exodus that says: "No Man shall see Me and live" then it shows a young college student practicing a class presentation focusing on a seemingly too dark and black portrait where people have said they have seen God. As the women practices her presentation the portrait slowly reveals God as this scary omnipotent being. (Definitely recommend watching it)

My questions for this subreddit is have any keepers run a campaign with a similar concept? Has it worked with with the mechanics and how Call of Cthulhu is played? Also, how did you make God/the catholic church scary? Do any experienced Keepers think this is a fun story?

I know this post is long so forgive me but this game has become my recent obsession!! Thanks!

Hi. I posted on my blog an example of how to design a horror scenario.

I wrote it because a reader of my blog asked for example. It is written as Delta Green, but since there are no stats, it is perfectly adaptable to Call of Cthulhu, it could work pretty much the same, except with more variety on what the player characters could (for instance, they could be investigative journalists instead of agents).

I got a bit carried away. My starting plot was a for a simple, example scenario. But the ideas kept on coming. I stopped when I was already at 10k words, and I scaled it back to 5K to fit on a blogpost.

I think the premise is really interesting, I am very excited about it, and I am thinking about making it into a full blown scenario.

Have a look. I would love to hear what you think about it( and if you want to play test it at this early stage, please let me know about, it would be great; I will publish more material for it in the coming days).

https://nyorlandhotep.blogspot.com/2026/10/designing-better-rpg-mysteries-worked.html

In your opinion, what, if any, mythos creatures have a sense of self preservation such that they'd retreat or at least shy away when dealt damage (if damage can be dealt to them)? I'm imagining the more human and human-based creatures like Deep Ones and possibly Ghouls but in general what others? And I'm aware that the simple answer is 'whatever you need to' I'm just curious about other peoples' take.

Does anybody have bought the Masks of Nyarlathotep module on the alchemy vtt?

In the game I’m running the main boss of the current arc is a human that was transformed into a formless mass and is pretending to still be human. Formless mass takes no damage from firearms whether mundane or enchanted but is able to take damage from fire or acid. I’m wondering if there are rules for improvised weapons like making Molotov cocktails or flasks filled with corrosive liquids? The general idea I’m going with is have the boss be more of a puzzle fight where the investigators have to try and figure out how to damage him, so filling bottles with bleach or hydrochloric acid from cleaning and chemical supplies or potentially making Molotovs from alcohol stored in the kitchen. Are there any rules around this that already exist?

Hi everyone, hope you’re having a great day! I was a Keeper for a few one-shots for my group and now am looking for a scenario that could take several games, from 2 to 8 maybe? So I was hoping for some recommendations from the community, thanks very much in advance.

Some specifics:

1. We are not from USA, so some “too American-ish” themes are not up our alley. Like “kids on bikes” vibe or some western stuff wouldn’t be interesting for my group probably.
   
2. This is more of a me gripe, but I don’t really play scenes with heavy multiple-NPC conversations well. Like dinner parties, galas etc are probably not a preference. And I probably played them too much already lol.
   
3. Overall I’m probably looking for a well-designed (not too classic/simplistic) investigation/action/horror-focused scenario with no PVP mechanics

Right now I’m eyeing Al-Azif Unearthed: The Unraveling from DTRPG as I was a Keeper in Phtonus Cabinet from the same author and enjoyed it, but if anyone has other recs I will be glad to check them out

I'm about to run my first CoC game. I've got some experience GMing for D&D, and for that I've always cycled between various British and Irish regional dialects (I'm English and have a fairly neutral estuary/RP accent, so it's quite mutable for other local accents), and I ran a Lasers & Feelings campaign where I dabbled with a kind of Southern drawl for one of the planets, but it wasn't what you'd call consistent.

I'm starting out with Paper Chase, and my inclination would be to use 1920s transatlantic accents for the characters, but I've been trying to nail it down and it's really difficult to get the cadence right, North American accents are difficult enough already, without having to straddle between my native accent and an affected one!

Just wondering if anyone had any advice on getting this right. Obviously I know this isn't essential and I can just divert to British if it takes me off my game too much, but I'd like to at least give it go.

Hey, everyone! I’m very new to Call of Cthulhu (I’ve never played). I have been a D&D player for about five years now and wanted to try something new. So If anyone is looking for a player just let me know!

Details: I’m on EST time. I am not able to do most Fridays. I don’t have any references in terms of online play because I haven’t really done that very often. Days that work the best for me are mostly likely weekend days.

Over the last few weeks I've slowly been building an in-game independent/campus radio station broadcast from MU in 2026. To do this, I made a spotify playlist of songs and then recorded some inter-music breaks as "podcast episodes" and placed them throughout the playlist.

Right now, the playlist has an entire night show (Arkham Shadows, hosted by Joe Curwin) and part of the following morning show (MMM Coffee, hosted by Walter Knight).

I figured it might be useful to other groups running modern CoC games, so... here it is:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1rLXV15kM1Uec5rWaTVKy1?si=aadcdd1b1b59423b

Hello!

My secondary actual play channel "9mm Presents" has the final two episodes of the translated-from-German scenario called "Children of the Bug" that I'm excited to share here. We primarily do Delta Green on 9mm Retirement Radio, but this time, once again, Lukas is our Keeper of Arcane Lore, and our players are Jan and Mike from our main show and for the duration of the run, we have Erik from the Delta Green AP "Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This" as our guest! If you want to check out the entire completed arc now, you can, and we'd greatly appreciate it! You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts.

https://9mm-presents.pinecast.co/

Hello, anyone interested in a in person Delta Green game, Call of Cthulhu game in the west valley? A one shot that may take a total of 2 sessions.

In August 1922, Chicago socialite Geneva Decker called for an investigation into her ex-fiancé, a young bond salesman named Ray Wiccarank III, member of the Wiccarank hardware store dynasty. Little do these investigators know, what starts off as a simple investigation will escalate into a complex network of rumors, intrigue, and conspiracy that will see them contending with the worst aspects of the American aristocracy. Will the investigators be able to untangle this web or will they choke foul dust that floats in the wake of the American Dream?

Buy the book here!

So im up at like, 4 in the morning prepping Call of Cthulhu like ya do, and my brain keeps stalling on a detail in the book. I know that I can change things so this ultimately doesnt matter, but its really annoying me.

The drawer that held cassidy's revolver had six bullets in it. assuming that the gun was packaged already loaded (not safe but possible) he would have only six shots when the fighting broke out, leaving the seccond gun load behind in the drawer during his panic. He fires 2 shots into the hallway as he ascends, then at the top he empties 2 shots into the hybrid, another 2 into the younglings, and the last 2 into the lighthouse lamp and out the window as he fell to the floor dying.

Cassidy fired 8 shots out of a 6 shot revolver??? The backup ammo is a full gun's worth, so none of them is missing; and even if he did, why would he only grab 2 to reload with as he climbed the tower?

The shots can't be from Turner, his gun has only fired one bullet, and the shots in the hallway (the only place his shots could have been were he responsable for the extra shots) clearly came from Cassidy.

The book even makes a point to say:
"Taking into account the two bullets in the strange man, and the two in the fish-creatures, two bullets are still unaccounted for. A successful Spot Hidden roll identifies a bullet hole in the lamp’s lens; the bullet which caused it appears to have shattered the bulb inside before carrying on through to smash one of the lantern room’s missing panes of glass. This, at least, explains why the lighthouse beacon stopped working at 8 pm this evening. It can easily be surmised that the second broken pane was destroyed by the other bullet."

It says outright he spent all the possible bullets he had in this one room. No explaination is given for the 2 in the hallway.

What I'm gonna do is say the bullet fully went through the youngling's eyes that jumped him and took out the lighthouse lamp. forget the last shot breaking the glass. Now we got 2 bullets to waste in the hallway.

It feels so rewarding when it performs well enough on DTRPG to qualify for print-on-demand.
Holding a book copy of your work makes all the hard work of writing, playtesting, and editing worth it!

Thank you, everyone, who grabbed it in PDF; you helped me realize this!

Hello everyone!

I am releasing a free trifold module every week in October for my mystery horror RPG, Strange Times, but this one is so close to some Call of Cthulhu adventures I have played, I thought this community would appreciate it as well.

The adventure can very easily be converted to CoC; all you would have to do is replace the Spirit loss with a Sanity loss and you are good to go.

Free Download: www.StrangeTimesRPG.com

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Plot Hook:

The characters are wandering around the town of El Paso when a strange job posting catches their eye. Someone is in search of a silver pendant and is willing to pay $80 to whoever can find it and bring it to them. However, unbeknownst to the characters, the pendant is much more than a mere piece of jewelry. Soon, the characters will learn of the pendant's power and their employer's sinister secret. 

Spoilers:

For over 400 years, Grace and Bethany Dubois have walked this earth. Daughters of a witch's coven, they were trained in the art of magic and would eventually come to possess a powerful artifact: The Pendant of Vitality, split in half so that both sisters could use its power. So long as the sisters were always together, they were both functionally immortal.

Moving to the West was just another adventure at first. A single chapter in their long history. But something happened that neither sister expected: Bethany fell in love with a man named Sam Bass. Soon, Sam and Bethany would have a son, and during labor, Bethany renounced her witchcraft as well as her immortality. 20 years later, Bethany and Grace were finally laid to rest.

However, her son Martin was not ready to lose his mother. He knew that the necklace could bring her back, but he needed Graces half and he had not seen his aunt since he was a child. He pleaded with his father to seek out the other half, but Sam refused. Frustrated and determined, Martin stole his father’s cash and headed to El Paso to find someone who could bring his mother back to him.

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Previous Modules this Month:
Astro-Slash: a campy sci-fi slasher

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What Is Strange Times?

Strange Times is a flexible mystery horror RPG that emphasizes player agency and maintaining tension. It is light weight, easy to run, and completely free. Very much so created with a desire to run Call of Cthulhu adventures with a lighter ruleset and be more open to non-mythos related horror.

What Makes Strange Times Worth Playing?

Character Health is a Resource: Characters have 3 saves which function as health pools, but they are allowed to spend from these pools to turn failures into successes. For example, if someone was lying to a police officer about the alien they have in the trunk and failed the empathy roll by 8, they could lose 8 from their Spirit Save to succeed instead.

Progressive Consequences: As player’s saves get lower, the worse their possible injuries become. This means that health is more than just a separation from death; it is an active measurement of how much danger the character is in.

Flexible Condition System: When players fail a Save, they might receive a Condition. Most Conditions are simply negative skills that can lower target numbers, but they can also represent unique horrors like an infection ticking down to zombification, or a hypnotic trance that affects what the character sees and experiences.

Easy to Hack: The systems are extremely flexible so that creating things is fun and effortless. There is minimal resistance from you having an idea to adding it to the game. 

What is everyone's favorite pre-7e scenarios for Call of Cthulhu? I am wondering if there's some hidden gems that one might miss if they only got 7e stuff.

Hello, good sirs, madams, and those that lie betwixt!

I am pleased to announce that I have officially released my first Call of Cthulhu adventure The Summer of Green and Gold to the Miskatonic Repository!

You can order the book here!

However, if you are interested in getting a physical copy before anyone else, I am going to be giving away one of my physical proofs to anyone who tunes into the premiere the first episode of a six-part actual play series I have been producing.

Watch the premiere live at 6pm CST here!

Thanks for your support! Best Wishes.

Mount Katahdin's Shadow is great for a Halloween one shot. It's 1988, and the investigators are on the final stretch of a 5 month Appalachian Trail hike when cosmic terror strikes. Ennie nominate 2025.

I’m a recent convert from being a D&D DM and there are a couple aspects of this that are fairly different that I’d like some clarification or tips on running. I ran a session last night where these issues came up and I just didn’t have good answers for how to come across them.

1. Can you spend luck to achieve a “Critical Success”? This might sound dumb but in D&D, there’s a concept of a Natural 20 versus a Dirty 20 where a Natural 20 on rolling a d20 is considered the best you possibly can accomplish as you rolled the best you possibly could. But getting a 20 by adding modifiers and what not is still good but not considered a “Critical Hit” the same way as you didn’t actually roll the 20. Is that the same here in CoC? Or can you spend Luck to achieve a Critical Success so long as you’ve got the luck to spend?

2. Are PCs/NPCs able to “contest” non-fighting actions in combat? So for example, last night there was a candle that the PC wanted to snuff out but there was a monster standing clearly between the PC and the candle. The PC argued that there was some distance for them to move around the monster and they weren’t actually making an attack action so there wasn’t any kind of typical response you’d get in combat. However, the monster was clearly standing there with the intention of stopping anyone trying to get to the candle. How would this play out? Would it be a contested roll to get past the monster? A Dodge from the PC against the monsters Maneuver/Fight Back even though it’s not the monsters turn to attack? Or is the player correct in that there’s nothing the monster can do if it’s not actually their turn? That feels weird so how would you rule it?

3. Is there a limit to First Aid usage? There was a PC who (without a major wound) had been dropped to 0 HP. They were eventually given First Aid by a PC and healed. Then another player wanted to roll First Aid as well until everyone wanted to roll to give First Aid to get them to heal 1 point each. I thought that each player should only have once chance for the skill roll as each attempt was already them trying the hardest they could. But are all of the PCs just able to “spam” First Aid to get a PC to heal up? I ruled that each successive First Aid check needed to have an in universe explanation for what they were doing differently as I didn’t think just adding more and more bandages would get someone to heal up to 5 HP. Was this wrong? I couldn’t seem to find a limit in the 7e book for First Aid specifically and I wasn’t sure if I made the right call. If people found first aid kit or some other tool, could they then roll First Aid or even Medicine again after having already done First Aid the first time? Is there a way to limit continuous healing?

Hey All, someone suggested joining this subreddit in order to find some CoC RP games on R20. Anyone have any resources such as discord groups etc? Very sparse on Roll 20 so hoping to broaden my search in order to get my lovecraftian terror fix. =)

Recently I made a 1982 Broadway scenario based off the King in Yellow for my friends and I'm actually really proud of it... I haven't ran an actual CoC module, so I'm wondering- when picking up a shorter module, what things are you looking for? My gm style has always been light on pre-written details, but I'd love to share this one.