A DBA Production
Visual Effects Provided by Chaosium
Screenplay by Matt Staroscik & John Wick
Editing D.J. Trindle and Intern Jen
Starring Your Hapless Players
Directed by You
DISCLAIMER: Crude Oil is an adventure to be used in the Call of Cthulhu RPG. It contains material that may not be suitable for all readers. (That means there's some gross and disillusioning stuff in here, people.) Those who think that good always overcomes evil and that heroes always succeed may be disappointed after playing Crude Oil. You have been warned.

Introduction

"Crude Oil" is an introductory adventure for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. The actual scenario is fairly short, and should be able to be played within a single evening. This is also part one of a two-part adventure. The second part picks up in the 1990s, nearly seventy years after the first part wraps up. Your players will be taking the roles of Agency Detectives and FBI agents in both eras, investigating the strange goings on in the small town of New Jerusalem. Their success or failure in the first part of the scenario will have a significant effect on the second part.

Background

The year is 1928. It's February and everything is covered in a fresh coat of snow. Thick flakes are still falling from the black winter sky. The small town of New Jerusalem (located just forty miles south of Boston) is about to encounter the horror of the Cthulhu Mythos. The town popped up around oil baron Scan O'Bannon. The Irishman was a petty gangster until he stumbled across his small oil field five years ago. Now he's a millionaire with a dead wife and a wild-eyed red-haired daughter. His oil field has three pumps and forty employees.

What he doesn't know about is that his drilling operation has tapped into a lost temple of Tsathoggua where hundreds of Formless Spawn are sleeping. The drilling has disturbed their rest. The foreman, Scott Ridley, happened across one particularly intelligent Spawn two weeks ago. The Spawn flowed its viscous form into Ridley's body and took over his mind. The Ridley-Spawn then began making preparations to release the rest of its brothers from captivity. When Ridley disappeared, O'Bannon became concerned, but quickly replaced Ridley with another worker, Arthur Whipple. That was a two weeks ago.

Three days ago, Arthur Whipple stumbled across Ridley on the site. Ridley and Whipple were competing for the affections of Kathy O'Bannon (Sean's lovely and rather randy daughter). Whipple had a bit too much to drink and the Ridley-Spawn didn't want its activities discovered. The Ridley,Spawn killed Whipple and dumped his body into the river. Three days later, the body was discovered down stream in Vermont. Since the body floated across state lines, the FBI was called in on the case. This is where our intrepid investigators come in....

Adventure Structure

Crude Oil is divided into Days. Each Day contains four parts: Events (which tells you the things that will happen each day, regardless of the Investigator's actions), Goals (the things your Investigators should have done by the end of each Day), Consequences (what happens if they do or don't get things done), and Details (which fills you in on little details you can include to make you look thorough to your players).

Adventure Overview

On the First Day, the Investigators will arrive, have breakfast with O'Bannon and look at Whipple's body. That night, the Ridley-Spawn will perform its first sacrifice at the well, the first step in freeing the other Spawn.

On the Second Day, the Investigators will find evidence of the sacrifice and will get contacted by a very flustered Kathy O'Bannon. She will let them in on a few secrets just before she wanders off to the beach to get killed by the Ridley-Spawn. The Investigators will want to wait for the Spawn to show up at Well #3, but they will get detoured by the angry Irishman when his daughter's body gets discovered.

The Third Day will give the Investigators Kathy O'Bannon's diary, along with the secret rendezvous point she used to share with her two lovers. The Investigators will check out the lair of the Ridley Spawn, and discover more than they wanted to know. Finally, at midnight, they will be forced to confront the Spawn on its own terms. Their success or failure will set up the circumstances for the Second Part of the adventure next month.

Power and Sanity In Cult of Cthulu

In CoC, a character's magic ability is represented by the Power star. Power (usually abbreviated POW) is also a measure of a person's intangible "life force" and can be sucked away by some creatures or magic spells.

The Sanity (SAN) star represents a character's mental resilience. Unfortunately for investigators, the eldritch horrors they face will often be so weird, so monstrous, that they will inflict terrible damage on the human psyche - hence the need for SAN rolls from time to time. Horrible mundane events, such as viewing a mangled corpse, can still have an impact on Sanity too.

If a character loses 5 or more points of SAN from one roll, they will go temporarily insane if they succeed in rolling under 5X their Intelligence on 1d100. (This is called an idea roll.) The duration and effects of temporary insanity are varied. The character may flee in panic, become catatonic, or lash out against friend and foe alike. Indefinite insanity results when a character loses 20% or more of the Sanity in one game hour. It lasts 1d6 game months. Characters who lose all their Sanity are driven barking mad, permanently.

Consult page 46 of the CoC rules for more details, but let's hope for your players' sake you won't need them...

Call of Cthulhu Crude Oil (Part 1)

Introduction
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Characters

Crude Oil Part 2