A new campaign began today. The genre is horror (Call of Cthulhu), and I am using the Powered by the Apocalypse system. The setting is 1930 Tunis, the capital of French Tunisia (as Tunisia was called then).
The party :
- Cooper Chapman, Ian, Rogue from England.
- Miriam Little, Jeff, Journalist from France.
- Bernard Lapin, Jamie, Journalist from Tunis.
- Wonton Noodle, Darryl, Antiquarian from China.
- Jacob Palowski, Chris, Jewish Medic from Poland.
Kevin (Journalist), Richard (Explorer) and Shane (Mystic) were absent.
French Tunisia had a population of 2.1 million in 1930, and 400,000 lived in Tunis.
Tunis has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate with hot dry prolonged summers and mild winters. Winter is the wettest season of the year, when more than a third of the annual 470mm rainfall falls. Winter temperatures vary 7 C to 16 C. Frosts are rare. In spring, rainfall declines by half. In summer, rain is almost completely absent and the sunlight is at a maximum, with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s. June, July August temperatures have peaked at 47 C.
The population is mainly Berber Arab, but, in 1930, the French ruled it as the aristocracy and held all governmental, police and army positions. Languages are Arabic, Tunisian Arabic, Berber and French.
The paper's staff numbered 22.
On the ground floor were the heavy printing presses. On the first floor were the main offices. Down in the basement were the two bathroom facilities: Ladies' and Gents'. They had "starting-block" foot-rests next to a trench that is squatted over, and sluiced out with a bucket of water. This Chekov* trench ran down to the main sewer tunnel beneath Avenue de Londres.
Cooper was a mechanic, from England, who worked in the printery and maintained the roof-top generator (mains power in Tunis in 1930 was not very reliable).
Miriam and Bernard were reporters for the paper. Miriam from France and Bernard Tunis born. Doctor Palowski was the staff medic for the paper. Wonton Noodle was a researcher from China.
The Sacrifice
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| Citroen Type A |
When they arrived at the three storey narrow apartment, a shroud-covered body on a stretcher was being carried outside to a waiting ambulance cart. They introduced themselves to Inspector Heroux as Calomnie reporters, and then managed to wheedle their way inside to get a closer look. The victim was an Arab gentleman named Safar el-Rahmani. When they pulled back the shroud, they saw that his face had been skinned; all that was left was fascia, muscle and tendons. But he'd been killed by a stab to the heart. The weapon had not been found.
Miriam flirted with one of the gendarmes and he admitted that there were candles and a pentagram involved. With this, the group were able to "sell their experience" in the mystic and arcane arts to Heroux and got invited to examine the scene of the crime "strictly unofficial of course - and no cameras."
Upstairs on the top storey, the murder room, the floor had been cleared and a pentagram had been drawn in black chalk on the floor. There were five fat black candles, one at each corner of the star.
Miriam's eagle eyes spotted what the gendarmes had missed: a bone knife in an niche in the wall. It had blood on it, and matched the corpse's chest hole. Heroux was impressed.
They found the mother of Safar (it was her apartment), and she, amid broken sobs, said that her son worked at docks for Abdul's Phosphate. His boss was Kameel al-Ayoub. Also, Safar's friend Umar al-Ghaffari visited him last night. She thought he was shifty.
While they were talking, they all heard a shout in the street. They looked out through the window. The corpse was now standing up, unaided, still covered by the shroud. Cooper rushed down the stairs closely followed by Heroux and a gendarme, then Bernard and Jacob. Miriam stayed at the window. Wonton ran upstairs. The room up there was already smoky, and the five candles on the floor had relit...
The two gendarmes and ambulance staff had backed away, in terror, from the standing corpse. Cooper approached it as the shroud slipped off. It moved and Cooper tried to grab it. It punched him and he fought back. Inspector Heroux had a revolver. He shot at the corpse's head and blew a hole in it, but it hardly reacted, and kept fighting Cooper, landing some good solid blows.
Upstairs, Wonton tried to put out the candles but the wicks kept relighting. But when he shifted a candle off the pentagram star point, it went out. He quickly did this to all five, and at that very moment, the corpse in the street just collapsed. Heroux emptied the rest of his revolver into its head.
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| Speed Graphics camera |
"If you do not keep your word," Heroux threatened. "I will come visit you."
They went back to the Calomnie base and developed the photos. Bernard had some spectacular ones of the face-peeled corpse fighting Cooper. But he also had enough photographs to write a glowing "Hero Cop" story, as he had promised. Simmons, the shouty editor, was delighted: "We will run with this on the front page tomorrow."
It was late, so they retired to their flat. The noisy Chekov* generator ran during the night, but they were used to this, so hardly noticed.
Cooper healed some of his injuries. [ You recover 1 hp per night. ]
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Jacob awoke with a headache and was spitting marmalade.
The group (sans Jacob) then headed to the docks to visit Abdul's Phosphate (Tunis is a major exporter of phosphate). Out in the harbour was moored the French navy battleship Bretagne and destroyer Le Terrible (Chekov* class).
In Abdul's Phosphate, they located Kameel, Safar's boss. He was very helpful and was genuinely shocked to hear of the grisly murder. Safar's "shifty" friend Umar al-Ghaffari worked at the phosphate loading plant too, so they spoke to him. He said there was a suspicious French fellow called Henri who Safar recently became acquainted with.
Umar gave them the name of a coffee house where Safar frequented after work: Ahmed's Coffee House. The plan was to return there later in the day.
In the mean time, they explored the Medina, and its tight alleyways and little souks (shop or bazaar). Wonton's Antiquarian intuition found him an interesting candle souk. Inside, were the stumpy black candles like he had seen in Safar's room. This place was run by a French lady Marie-Pierre Pelletier. It had other occult paraphernalia and accoutrements
Miriam spotted a bone dagger, just like the murder weapon, on one of the shelves, but kept quiet about that. She discussed the candle business, and the occult with Mademoiselle Pelletier, and bought some nice scented candles as recommended.
Next stop was Ahmed's Coffee House.
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* = Chekov's Gun is a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary. "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."
Throw the generator off the roof and get a new one!
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