*** Session 17 - Scene 6 (of ***

A short time later, Eberhardt catches up to Nibbons' car at the light. He sees Callahan is a passenger in the car. Callahan sees Eberhardt and the strange man, and rolls down the passenger window. He calls out to ask Eberhardt what happened to his car door (not noticing the car isn't Eberhardt's car).

Eberhardt tells Callahan the man with him is looking for him and needs to talk to him. Since Eberhardt called Callahan by name, Thylo immediately changes into his werewolf form.

Callahan takes the transformation in stride but uses his hand to push Nibbons' leg on the accelerator. The car speeds into the intersection against the light, causing it to get T-boned by another car on Callahan's side.

Thylo bursts through the front windshield to jump over to Nibbons' car. Callahan, badly injured by the car crash, can only watch as the werewolf comes at him. He tells the "demon" to stay back.

Grabbing Callahan by the throat as he climbs over the wrecked cars, Thylo asks him where he daughter is. Callahan croaks out a warning for the demon to back off.

Seeing that the werewolf looks ready to rip off Callahan's throat, Nibbons gets out of the car and climbs on the hood. He moves over to try and separate the two but his attempt is completely ineffective.

Eberhardt rushes across the street, pushing against the crowds of people running and screaming in terror. He tells Thylo that they need Callahan to save Jerboa. Thylo is confused, saying he told him the man was one of the ones who captured his daughter. Eberhardt clarifies he only meant Callahan knew where she was and how to treat her.

Continuing on, Eberhardt explains she was taken by a demon. Thylo asks where she is then. Callahan, trying to talk with his hoarse throat and crushed ribs, says he'll tell him in the car but they need to get out of there.

Everyone piles into the stolen car. Callahan tells Eberhardt to get out of there quickly, as police cars are starting to approach. Eberhardt puts the pedal to the metal and they are off.

*** Session 17 - Scene 7 (of ***

Once they are out of the immediate area, Callahan tells Eberhardt they need to ditch a car. They decide to head to the bad part of town and ditch the car near the Maple Leaf Room.

Callahan, taking a guess, asks Thylo if he is Jerboa’s father. When he confirms he is, Callahan explains she was taken by a demonic cult then recaptured by a different cult who then exposed her to demonic possession so they could use her as a weapon.

Thylo responds that story is dumber than the ones in Donny’s magazines. Callahan says he doesn’t know who Donny is, but assures him Jerboa has been possessed by a demon named Allatou. Eberhardt confirms it is true.

Callahan can’t tell Thylo where Jerboa is now as he’s been in the hospital the last couple of weeks (and notes he’s probably headed back there now). Eberhardt quickly notes the demon is fixated on them so she will come to them, and they need Callahan to get the demon out of her.

Frank more or less confirms Eberhardt’s statement, but notes when the demon comes to them it will wipe them all from the face of the Earth and wreak havoc on humanity. Eberhardt says the ex-priest is just being modest and promises they can get the demon out.

Thylo asks Callahan if he can truly do that. Callahan says he can, but only with the spell the cult used, which they don’t have. Eberhardt pipes in that he does have the spell and grabbed it from the attic before they left the school.

Callahan tells Thylo this is very good news. The mood is quickly tempered as Eberhardt explains there is one slight little hiccup, the papers were taken by the police along with his other possessions when he was arrested and are now in an evidence locker somewhere.

Frank asks Eberhardt if he can use his favors on the force to get the papers. Eberhardt, thinking about it a moment, realizes he has no favors to call in; he has committed multiple crimes since he left and most of the police believe him to be insane. He tells the others that may not work.

Callahan says they have to get the spell; otherwise the best he can do is attempt an exorcism but that is almost certain to fail as the demon will rip out his insides and feast on his entrails far before he could complete the rite.

Eberhardt suggests they could use Thylo to get the papers. Thylo tells Eberhardt he needs to do it as this whole mess is his fault.

Callahan suggests they need to quickly get what they need as he’s sure the demon is watching them. He asks Nibbons if he saw the demon after they left the church, but the detective says he’s been busy in jail.

Eberhardt’s next thought is to have Bart Maurice get the spell by hiring him as his lawyer and asking to review the evidence. Everyone thinks that could work, but Nibbons notes they still need to pay him for the last trials.

Since everyone lost most of their possessions lately, Eberhardt suggests Hawk may home some money or goods stashed away. Unfortunately, only Le Doux knew where Hawk lived or would likely to have stashed something. They decide the next step is to head over to Le Doux’s old office to see if they can find information on Hawk.

Before they head out, Callahan asks Thylo if he has any natural healing supplements. Thylo makes up an awful-smelling poultice that Frank applies to his bruised ribs.

*** Session 17 - Scene 8 (of ***

After grabbing some supplies at The Mustard Seed, they head over to Le Doux's office. They find it is still boarded up by the police, and still has the yellow Cathar cross marked by The Society on it.

Eberhardt looks around to make sure no one is watching. It looks like they are alone. He pries the board off of the front door and heads inside while the others stand watch.

Inside the office, Eberhardt sees a large number of severed heads sitting around the lobby area, rotting. The sight is very unsettling and he avoids looking at the symbols made in blood on the walls.

Bruno heads over to the desk, quickly finding the rolodex with Hawk's information. As he pulls out the index card with the information, he fails to hear Le Doux sneaking up behind him.

Suddenly, Eberhardt screams out in pain as Le Doux hacks into his back with a meat cleaver. Hearing the noise, Callahan and Nibbons head inside.

Nibbons spots the heads first, turning his blood cold. Callahan manages not to notice any of the crazy things in the office as he is focused on the insane man hacking at Eberhardt with a cleaver.

Callahan looks around for a weapon, finding the severed heads. Despite their unnerving visage, he grabs one to use as a weapon. He hurls one at Le Doux, but misses.

Le Doux begins chanting as he hacks into Eberhardt's arm. The blow chops off several fingers. Between the injury and the strange chanting, Eberhardt feels his sanity further slip away.

Callahan rushes at Le Doux with another head, attempting to use it as a bludgeon. Le Doux manages to avoid it.

Eberhardt, bleeding badly, crawls away on the ground whimpering. Nibbons tries to halt Le Doux's attack by calling out for him to stop.

Continuing his chants, Le Doux hacks into Eberhardt again, hitting him in the neck. Blood sprays everywhere as his lifeless body slumps to the ground.

Callahan continues to look for an opening, but can't seem to hit Le Doux with the head. Nibbons rushes in and grabs Le Doux in a bear hug, still pleading with his old boss to stop.

But Le Doux doesn't stop. He continues to chant to the dark god Nyarlathotep. Callahan tries to hit him again, but even while help the insane man manages to move his head to the side, causing Callahan to smack Nibbons in the face with the severed head instead.

The winds outside the building begin to pick up as the sky darkens. Suddenly, the roof is ripped off of the office and pulled into a dark vortex in the sky.

The floating horror begins to materialize. Callahan manages to look away in time, but Nibbons catches sight of the entity. The effect immediately tears his mind apart.

With Nibbons wetting himself and gibbering in a fetal position on the ground, Callahan realizes he has very little time left.

As Le Doux completes the spell, time runs out for the world. The floating horror reaches down with its tentacles to eat Callahan. Callahan's last thoughts are, "This is how the world ends..."

*** Session 17 - Session Notes ***

Well, it finally happened - the horrors from beyond won. Don't despair, all is not completely done with my "Cthulhubustersverse". We're planning to follow it up later with a "World War C" campaign where the resistance fights back against the various factions of terrors beyond space who have taken root (I was calling it "World War Cthulhu" until I remembered the existing product of the same name). More on that (along with my epilogue) after this post.

So why did I let the bad guys win? Well, this session really was an epic mess of bad decisions and bad die rolls. The ending felt like the logical conclusion of all that. Basically, the PCs took so long to resolve anything and left so many loose threads out there that the chickens finally came home to roost (for more on all those loose threads, you'll have to tune in when we do the next campaign; though I'm toying with the idea of having a single session using Cthulhu For President to explain some of what all is going on as a prologue for the next campaign).

In the meantime, here are the final tidbits for this campaign:
* Jerboa blows up the school attic and flies out because otherwise the PCs would be immediately slaughtered. I was trying to give them a way to escape the situation to regroup later. A couple of bad rolls later and Callahan ended up on his way to the hospital.

* During the game, the joke was Nibbons used mouth-to-mouth style CPR, leading to the obvious OOC-related jokes. Since that wasn't actually used until the 1960's, I left it out of the write-up.

* Hawk being arrested as the "obvious" arsonist is probably historically accurate, but yes I'm also satirizing current politics around police and Black suspects. We also just needed a way to keep the character out of the way, as the player couldn't make the session.

* I joked when Eberhardt drops Callahan while taking him down the stairs that he caused further brain damage. But in aid of keeping the game going, I didn't actually give Callahan any permanent injuries.

* Allatou didn't attack the PCs because there was a whole plot about how she was going to hook back up with her followers, The Committee. The session never got to that point (but the survivors of the cult will certainly show up in the sequel).

* I have no idea why Eberhardt and Nibbons couldn't come up with a remotely plausible lie to get to Callahan in the hospital. Both the Callahan player and I were stunned at how bad of a story Nibbons told (while trying not to laugh too hard).

* Similarly, I didn't get why Eberhardt felt the need to escalate what would have been getting thrown out of the hospital into a shootout by going berserk on the security guard.

* Judge Luther Chabbonet is named after the Larry Hagman character in short-lived TV drama Orleans (circa 1997). I actually had some subplots written about him that never came up.

* Bart Maurice I've mentioned before. Until I recently took a vacation to Louisiana I had no idea how prevalent the ads by the lawyer I based him on (Morris Bart) were.

* Nibbons' community service sentence is an homage to The Mighty Ducks (which sadly we didn't get to explore in game). And once again, Hawk getting the harsher sentence is half expediency for the game, half satire. Still, Bart Maurice is obviously a hell of a lawyer since not only was arson involved but many murders (of priests no less). Realistically, all four characters should have ended up in jail for life.

* Callahan mentioning Allatou keeping an eye on them was that player mocking Nibbons for failing his notice roll earlier.

* The Mustard Seed is a real, local Catholic store. During the game (which I didn't include in the write-up) I had a joke about how the store had a sale on those St. Joseph statues you bury in the yard (because the old lady that runs the store gets really mad when people come into the store looking for those). I also mentioned their new product, the dashboard Jesus.

* I imagined Thylo's breakout of Eberhardt along the lines of a mad Wolverine type scenario. I needed a way to get Eberhardt to safety and follow up on the Thylo plot. Of course, I wasn't expecting Eberhardt to send him after Callahan.

* Little Jimmy on the crutches was invented as the bad thing that happened when Eberhardt failed a drive check while trying to race through the parking lot. It was meant as straight-forward dark humor.

* Callahan nearly ending up back in the hospital right after he just got out was pretty funny so we played that up a bit with the Callahan player barely being able to talk.

* Thylo commenting on how ridiculous the whole story is was my funny lampshading moment as I recognize my plot by this point in the campaign has gotten far too convoluted.

* I thought they came up with a really great series of plans to get back the spell and stop Allatou. Shame about the execution.

* The heads and symbols in the office were meant to be a warning, not just a SAN sink. Sadly, Eberhardt did not take that warning.

* Having NPC Le Doux kill a PC because of the decisions made while Le Doux was still a PC (around having him want to commit blood sacrifices to bring back the floating horror) was a moment of delicious irony.

* Callahan trying to use the heads as weapons was a little too cartoonish for my tastes, but the player has that sort of sense of humor.

* Nibbons lost 49 SAN at once by seeing the floating horror.

* Callahan rolled about 10 dramatic failures in a row, leading to the final resolution where Nyarlathotep materializes and (presumably) eats him.

*** Epilogue ***

Washington, DC
The Early 21st Century

The president looked out from the oval office for one last look at the rose garden. He thought of the war against the spawn of Cthulhu and how soon they could be overwhelmed.

His Secret Service escort, Lorenzo, excuses himself for interrupting but tells the president it is time to go. He and the rest of the team escort the president to the secret elevator leading to the sub-basement tunnels.

It takes some time before they reach the laboratory. Teams of scientists rush around, carefully reading the equipment. The electric hum of the chronosphere fills the room with ambient sound.

General Thompson explains they will need to hurry, as there is a large force of Cthulhoids getting ready to descend on Washington. His head of research, Colonel Kendrick, explains they've narrowed down the incident that led to the initial invasion to somewhere in Crescent City in the year 1925.

Dr. Schlotkin, head of engineering, tells the president it is ready. The chief of staff briefly asks the president to reconsider. The president tells him no, saying the mission is too important to leave to anyone else; for the survival of the planet, he must do this himself.

The president takes the file and the advanced weaponry given to him by Thompson. He tells them all not to worry as he steps inside the chronosphere.

When the machine starts to activate, everyone is truly in awe at the man's brilliance, determination, and sacrifice. One of the computer technicians, a man named Joe, thinks of how much he admires the president who will save the lives of everyone (including his son Brendan) from the horrors of Cthulhu as a tear rolls down his cheek. Too quiet for anyone else to hear, he says, "God bless you Mr. Trump!"

*** Epilogue Notes ***

The epilogue was my original April Fool's Day post to the players. But with the evolution of the campaigns (both mine and the U.S. presidential) it seems more fitting than ever.

It's a joke, not a political statement (I'm not commenting on who I'm voting for or why), but now I really want to run an alt-history time-traveling war-based campaign about Donald Trump leading the fight against Cthulhu so that's what we'll do at some point in the future. Given some of the elements I've already introduced, I'll keep the rules the same but I will use elements of Cthulhutech.

The epilogue story itself was more of an in-joke to tease a player who really doesn't like Trump, combined with a healthy dose of inspiration from Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

I almost forgot - what am I doing next? Well, I'm taking a break from Cthulhu to run some Boot Hill adventures. I'll set up a thread for that in time (we're probably a couple of weeks away from starting that up).

Boot Hill will be a far simpler game with single-threaded story lines. Granted, it will likely end up more Deadwood than old Gary Cooper films, but I want to keep the game simple as a palate cleanser.

FYI - The thread for my Boot Hill game is now up. You can find it here.