Some GUMSHOE scenarios give players the opportunity to pick up small temporary pools. In Trail, for example, reading the collected letters of a crazed physicist might give a 2-point temporary pool that can be spent on Occult, Physics or Astronomy. The players can use these points as they would regular points from their character sheets. […]
Tag Archives: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan
The Cult of the Devourer, as seen in Eyes of the Stone Thief, are the descendants of enemies of the Emperor. They were exiled from the Dragon Empire, and ended up riding along in a living dungeon that they intended to one day turn into a weapon against the ‘usurpers’. The cult’s original goal of […]
Ritual Magic permits a spell caster to turn one of their prepared spells into an improvised plot-bending miracle. All they need to do is have the Ritual Casting feat, sacrifice one of their available spells, and make a skill check. The rules and Difficulty Class are simple and largely in the purview of the Gamemaster […]
While personal hooks and drives ensure that your investigators are the ones to actually investigate the Mythos, what brings them together, as opposed to pursuing their own solitary mysteries? The Trail of Cthulhu rulebook offers several campaign frames; here are three more. Ghostly Sorcerers Against The Mythos Other ugly reports concerned my intimacy with leaders […]
by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan At Gencon 2023, we proudly announced the advent of Trail of Cthulhu 2nd edition. We also, perhaps foolishly, intimated it would be crowdfunding in November. This is, as you have doubtless discerned already, not the case. We’re currently planning a crowdfunding campaign for March of next year. As of this writing, we’ve […]
The upcoming Prophet of the Pyre campaign takes the player characters from 1st to 10th level, from fresh-faced young adventures to epic heroes. The first part of the campaign takes place in a remote valley, isolated from the rest of the Empire. Most of the characters have never left this valley and so do not (yet!) have […]
Uqbar Formerly military, currently militant History Uqbar’s lifeless – for the most part. Some of the planet’s spectacular ravines have been roofed over and pressurised, creating a few habitable zones. The planet’s atmosphere is thin and unbreathable – it’s mostly argon – and lights up with astounding flares and aurorae as radiation from the collapsed […]
Themis Prime Heavily Populated, Bitterly Divided History Many worlds can support life; few allow it to thrive. Themis Prime was one of the rare eden of the Bleed, a world with a biosphere requiring only minor tweaks compatible with most of the major Combine species. Humans, Balla and Tavak all settled on this world, united […]
Goliath Gas giant with many secrets Sullen, mighty Goliath dominates the outer reaches of the Themis System. The gas giant’s many moons are uninhabited apart from a few research, refuelling or prospecting outposts, although there are likely secret weapons dumps left by General Gatar’s forces hidden here too, concealed by the electromagnetic flux. Only Goliath-C […]
The Campaign The key to any Station Duty campaign: layers. Everything – every character, every faction, every location – should have a surface layer that’s immediately obvious, and hidden depths that must be uncovered. These don’t all have to be dark secrets or criminal schemes – it’s fine, say, to have the Lasers discover that […]