The Long Shadow of Innsmouth

[Dan Stack]

Icarus players, you know the drill... Read no further. Do not meddle in the affairs of brainstorming narrators, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
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Working on an adventure for my TOS game. Offer it here for whomever wants to borrow and also in the hopes that someone makes one of those way cool inspirational comments that I so often get...

This is strongly based (i.e. ripped off) from H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow over Innsmouth my all-time favorite Lovecraft work by far.

Picture the planet Miskaton located far away from Earth, colonized nearly a century ago. Quite similar to Earth but with a bit more water - about 85% covered by water, with some horrific tropical storms. No native sentient life, though there are ruins of a civilization which worshipped weird sea gods.

Two main colonies on the world. The first is Arkham and is by far the larger. Population of about 250,000 or so. The second is Innsmouth (may need to change the name for the adventure), located on the other side of the planet. They are mainly archeologists, examining the ancient ruins of the lost civilization. Unknown to Arkham, the natives of Innsmouth have been interbreeding with the alien Deep Ones, an evil undersea species, who were responsible for the destruction of the original civilization of Miskaton. Not native to Miskaton...

The natives of Innsmouth were nearly wiped out be a three-month long storm 80 years ago. It was with the aid of the Deep Ones they survived. But Innsmouth fell upon poor times, shunned contact with Arkham. Now they have a population of just a few thousand.

The natives of Arkham have found ruins of a Deep One City near them. Finding similarity to the ruins found by Innsmouth, they sent a team to meet with experts there. Those experts have not been seen since. Secretly, the Deep Ones and their interbred Innsmouth allies are planning to wipe out the Arkham colony. A plague to soften them up, followed by an undersea bomb to wipe them out. (The plague is to distract their undersea research until the bomb can be put in place.)

Enter the Icarus. She arrives to deliver a cure to the plague. And the governor asks them to investigate their lost researchers, taking them to Innsmouth. I'm still working out the details, but the visit to Innsmouth should be creepy, with their ship in orbit over the other side of the planet - no magic transporter to escape. They will learn of the Deep Ones and learn of the bomb which is nearly ready to detonate. A race to escape Innsmouth and make it back in time to disarm the bomb.

Obviously I'm still working out the details, but so far I like. A few random notes:

• The Deep Ones are not native to the planet, but transplants themselves who have been in hibernation for decades
• It is vital that the characters visit Innsmouth. The plague is present to prevent Icarus from leaving her position above Innsmouth, but I need to make certain the PCs go to Innsmouth themselves. Suggestsions here appreciated. Whole adventure is too dependent on that course of action, always a danger.

[ghosty]

Origins of the Deep Ones

Refugees from a planet whose ecosystem was breaking down. They left in a generation ship which malfunctioned and crashed landed on Miskaton. (Love the names...very Lovecraftian )

Getting them to Innsmouth

Simple really. The plague breaks out in Innsmouth which means patient zero is there so the away team are forced to visit Innsmouth only to find the index patient who started the plague. I know its a bit heavy handed and forced but hey...plot devices work so why not use 'em when they are needed.

[Captain Zymmer]

Interesting stuff.

Okay so the ship is over Inssmouth and the players have to go there?

Or did you mean the ship is over Arkham and the players have to go to Innsmouth?

Just wish to be clear on this one.

[Dan Stack]

I'm planning it so the ship is over Arkham for medical purposes but something forces the characters to pay Innsmouth a visit - need the isolation for a good Lovecraftian feel.

[Diamond]

The obvious answer for a Lovecraft feel: The crew discovers a journal (Ok Ok, a log entry) of one of the Arkham citizens. The log entry describes how twisted friend in Innsmouth is. The Arkham journal describes how the Arkham journalist quietly investegates, gaining just a scary glimming of the Truth - the player's fist clue, as it were. The end of the journal is the journalist's description of his plan to go to Innsmouth to investegate further.

For increased Lovecraftian ambiance, have the tone of the journal become increasingly obsessed and twisted as the journalist gets more and more scared about what is going on.

[Dan Stack]

Diamond,

I like.

[Captain Zymmer]

Of course, but it should be an electronic journal, and you should record the entries in the sme fashion as the "Doctor's tape" from Session 9 or Evil Dead 1 and 2.

That way they have to sit there and lsiten to it, preferrably with low lights.

This would help to increase the fear factor of it all.

[Dan Stack]

Next time on the biweekly Bridgetown saga, the Innsmouth adventure retooled for Bridgetown.

(So if you're in the game, you still shouldn't read).

So here's the deal. The planet Miskaton is near the center of the galaxy. There is an Iconian Platform on Miskaton that the Iconian Portal on Bridgetown can reach. But... It is not the only way to reach the planet.

There is a transwarp highway connecting this near-core area to an area of space real close to Nimbus III. In the 2280s the starship Enterprise was hijacked by the rogue Vulcan Sybok and was persued by a Klingon ship. Given the powerful entity at the core, this hard to find conduit was kept secret.

However, two hundred years ago, a Bajoran Solar Sailship, carrying joint Bajoran/Cardassian colonists, was swept off course and wound up in a transwarp highway connecting Bajor and Nimbus III. They found Nimbus III incredibly inhospitable. Unable to steer the tachyon eddies of the highway back home they took their chances and travelled coreward. They avoided the god-planet of Star Trek V and instead settled on the oceanic planet of Miskaton.

The coreward region of space was back then (and still is) rather wild - think Traveller: The New Era or Asimov's Foundation series without the Foundation. Whatever government that used to be there was wiped out by experimenting with ancient Iconian artifacts, summoning Cthulhu-like aliens to fight in wars, etc. There is space travel and the natives of Miskaton did engage in some trade, but they were reclusive and avoided it wherever possible. Besides they were poor and could afford little.

It was the Cardassians in this version of the Lovecraft tale who formed an alliance with the Deep Ones, natives of Miskaton. They interbred with the Deep Ones, their descendents looking rather fish-like (I always thought Cardassians had a fishy look to them). They sacrificed the Bajorans to the Deep Ones (and told visiting merchants it was a plague that wiped them out). In return they had all the wealth they needed for trade - but they were so ashamed of what they had done they become even more reclusive...

Miskaton was recently discovered by a Cardassian scout who stumbled on the transwarp highway from Bajor to Nimbus III to the core. A civilian scout, not a bad guy really, old friend of one of the PCs.

A lot of the Cardassians on Miskaton don't like the disgusting interbreeding with the Deep Ones and worship of the Deep One gods Dagon and mother Hydra. He was arranging to get them off planet when he was captured and is now being readied for sacrifice.

His ship is in orbit around the planet - in Lovecraftian fashion they will find his log.

The actual Iconian platorm is located about 50 meters under water or so, on a sunken island. (Which should make for an amusing probe retrieval - the Bridgetown crew always sends a probe first - it'll come back along with tons of water ) They'll probably need to plop a small shuttle on the Gateway so they don't drown - which will give them an opportunity to check out the orbitting scout ship...

As for why be at the galaxy core, the medical officer from the Wells campaign has returned, telling tales of horrors of the galactic core. Eventually the characters will wind up with a starship to explore this region - with all of the Iconian artifacts and creatures and also serving as a sequel to Star Trek V (of all things... )

[Azar Kel]

I had a game with Azathoth in it once...didn't run it but played it....big scary mass of tentacles with no brain....scary

[Anarchy Bob]

Just be sure to change all the names. Miskaton and Arkham?
My players would be scanning for underwater colonies in about one second.

[Dan Stack]

Ahhhh. But that assumes that my players have read HP Lovecraft. Which they haven't.

Though hopefully they will - this is the second Mythos-inspired adventure in a row.

What next? At the Asteroids of Madness?

[Anarchy Bob]

The Klingon in Yellow?

[tonyg]

How about-"What are little Mi-go made of?"


Why can't the Old Ones be Iconians? You could even throw in a Star Vampire (ops-I mean blood-sucking cloud creature).

[Dan Stack]

Just played this adventure. Went very well. The Cardassians made a great candidate for being Deep One hybrids and I managed to describe the pervasive fish smell. I used Chaoisum's "Escape from Innsmouth" adventure to for parts of it - a nice rescue from Devil's Reef at the climax, with the characters discovering multiple Iconian Gateways, as described in the adventure from Chaosium! (Well, they didn't describe them as Iconian, but it fit some darn well).

Writeup will be coming to my website in the next week or so but had a blast. For some reasons my descriptive abilities were on the mark - I may have Mr. Lovecraft to thank for that, for creating such a wonderful story in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".