So, here's the situation: My current Call of Cthulhu game, Bookhounds of London

I need to give out in a smart and non - linear way (so rather not just a one roll of Library Use) a clue that Revelation of Glaaki contains the cure to the curse of Y'Gollonac that an NPC to whom the players sold an occult book. Looking for any ideas how to frame this one for the group, as I'll admit I am a bit...stumped how to frame this.

Commentary penned on the margins of another book? Maybe a non-Mythos one?

Quote from: The Butcher;826557Commentary penned on the margins of another book? Maybe a non-Mythos one?

It is my backup idea, yes, but I was looking more to complicate things...maybe research pointing to the biology/medicine lab? In this case, the particular manifestation of Y'Gollonac is an STD.

So the NPC is cursed, and the PCs sold that NPC that cursed book?

For others who are curious:

Both are creations of Ramsey Campbell and center around the Severn Valley of U.K.

Y'Golonac is a Great Old One of perversions and depravity, often attached to reading off his name from the Revelations of Gla'aki, and delights in seeking new servants who read perverse and forbidden literature. Locked behind a wall unknown, he manifests in his possessed avatars as a corpulent human without head or neck, and mouths within the palms of the hands.

Gla'aki is a Great Old One who fell to Earth and whose crater filled with water to form a lake. Looking like a large sea urchin it uses its spines to stab and inject fluid to make undead slaves. Has a cult around it which took down its revelations and published in into the extremely rare (11 or 9 volume work, depending on printing) book, Revelation of Gla'aki.

Both GOOs have cults deeply tied to a) obscurant literature & b) Severn Valley.

My opinion, make this a traveling adventure into the seedy side of book clubs -- matches wholly with your Bookhounds of London campaign name. Which is probably what you are doing already.

1) Have a Hellfire-esque poetry club that gets ever so close to the worshippers of Y'Golonac. Have whispers about knowing more about the "life of the author" through a rare biography of a 'hated contemporary'. Have it that the two literary clubs are social rivals. Play up the friction between fiction (poetry) & non-fiction (biography) fans. Have side-quests that spiral into deeper depravity, along with biography clues toward a tell-all book dampening the author's "delicious word-induced fever."

2) Have spiritualist seminars about longevity, with periphery whispers about "miraculous cures through the toxins of a rare sea urchin near the Sea of Man." Spiritualist seminar leads into other side-quests, but sea urchin leads into Revelations of Gla'aki, like an Edgar Cayce "Sleeping Prophet" spiritualist healer. Make the book extremely hard to find, but the known cures extant mysterious but remarkably legit. Then drop a hint about a cure to the malady suffered by the NPC, only within the very local publication of said rare volumes.

3) From either direction this leads to Severn Valley with a mix of deeply insular society reading clubs, both leading dangerously closer to either Y'Golonac or Gla'aki. Here, since Severn Valley is ludicrously dense with Mythos, you could run Chaosium's Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood and Less Pleasant Places as a sandbox. But then investigators will likely stumble and die every which way they turn. Keep them mostly running around society reading club circles, avoid wandering like it is death itself, and they should be mostly OK.

To elaborate - the party was originally hired by a rich businessman to procure a book for him, Blessings of Venus (a tome from Hellfire Club adventure in ToC). As soon as the businessman left, a young mudcracker approached the party as well, discussing the problematic nature of the man who left - his involvement in some sort of decadent, perverted secret society, dealing in breaking of the worst of human taboos. Understandably, the party took the muckracker's offer (I had a little experiment, where they found the diary that pointed to where the actual copy of Blessings of Venus was kept, and we played out the Hellfire Club adventure as the "reading of the diary" - it was overall a success I think, and ironically enough, the only character that survived - no rolls fudged - was the author of the diary).

Now, the muckracker cast the Blessing of Venus, and I've decided that every time it is used, there's a chance Y'Gollonac will contact the caster next night, and proclaim him/her his chosen (one of the characters from Hellfire adventure is such, and trying to actively hunt party's copy as well, leading a 150  years old conspiracy of prostitutes).

I liked your ideas Opa - I think I'll introduce a "XIII Tome" of Revelations of Glaaki, a rumoured craze on the market, which is actually a compilation of informations from tomes I, II and XII, recently published by a scholar the party already encountered...well, kind of - he's catatonic and screams at the sound of bells, and they already plan to try and find his missing tomes' collection. I bought the Campbell supplement, and having read through the proposed tomes, I think I'll want to save them for later, while being able to introduce my customary spells. Probably gonna use your Idea #2 to suggest to the players the source - one of them has raked up a rather high score of Cthulhu Mythos (20% or so I think) and read King in Yellow...perhaps it's time for the Yellow Sign to strike again.

Quote from: Rincewind1;826544So, here's the situation: My current Call of Cthulhu game, Bookhounds of London

I need to give out in a smart and non - linear way (so rather not just a one roll of Library Use) a clue that Revelation of Glaaki contains the cure to the curse of Y'Gollonac that an NPC to whom the players sold an occult book. Looking for any ideas how to frame this one for the group, as I'll admit I am a bit...stumped how to frame this.

What about at a public lecture by a physician, archaeologist, scientist or spiritualist that seems to address the symptoms of the illness. You could have it advertised in papers or about town.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;826586What about at a public lecture by a physician, archaeologist, scientist or spiritualist that seems to address the symptoms of the illness. You could have it advertised in papers or about town.

This is actually pretty ingenious, as I'm having a new player (and a new character) coming in. Two birds with one stone - he's the one giving the lecture. It might be a lecture on XVIII century plagues, or perhaps on odd cults and incidents in London (during the Hellfire Club adventure, the party did burn down the brothel - temple of Y'Gollonac as well as stopped the American Revolutionists/Cultists ship by dropping a cargo crane on it, so it is something that definitely made the papers in the period, especially with one of the members of Friars of Medmenham and a noble at the helm of this controversy).

Yes, I can see it all coming together - the new PC will mention a scholar (a different one after all) of the occult who has covered such topics in his works. The scholar turns out to be dead perhaps, or otherwise mutated/insane/lost in the Dreamlands, forcing the party to find out how to communicate with him. All while the young reporter's getting turned into a priest of Y'Gollonac, and the Daughters of Venus try to hunt down the party.

Quote from: Rincewind1;826588This is actually pretty ingenious, as I'm having a new player (and a new character) coming in. Two birds with one stone - he's the one giving the lecture.

That would be a pretty fun way to make an entrance as a PC.

Heck, I just had a bizarre notion: what about some underground perversion of the Royal Society, where cultists, Mythos scholars, and some outright lesser demons and other outre beings debate the truth and facts of various occult legendry and lore?

Can you imagine it?  A debate, with a couple dozen rapt spectators, between a plump middle-aged scholar in a velvet vest and a pince-nez, and a heavily robed figure with a raspy voice ... and bulges under the robes normally impossible to human anatomy:

"Don't be absurd, my good ... man!  You can't be unaware that von Falkenberg's 1922 translation of Unaussprechlichen Kulten very plainly proves that Miss de Pencier's version of the Revelations is flawed, and suggests what the proper approaches might be ..."

(long pause)  "Foolissssh mortal.  Well.  No doubt you are learned in lesser lore, Professsssor M'Domnhaill, but if you place much faith in that German dilettante'sssss ramblingsssss, then mayhap you ssssshould reduce the amount of opium you sssssmoke ..."

Opaopjir, that's some great info!

Quote from: Ravenswing;826606Can you imagine it?

Yes, but only because of my opium intake!

I like scattering cryptic verses around.

You find several verses in different places and then find a more complete version that contains some of the fragments. They lead to the actual work.

I also like a mixture of clues, a name here, a place there, different things in different books. Have learned academics give lectures about their archaeological discoveries and drop a picture of a symbol here, a statue there, a name somewhere else. Put them all together with a flash of inspiration and you have your clue trail.

Then, when the players fail to pick up on the clues, or fail their INTx20 rolls, or fail to see the blindingly obvious, then you can put in some fluorescent arrows pointing the way.

Knowing the party's strengths will help as well. If only a few are scholastically inclined it might leave a few feeling left out. However, more physically inclined PCs could stumble into:

a) bordellos with forbidden wings of truly perverse pleasures -- and lots of screaming. (Y'Golonac)

b) illegal pit fights where contestants recover remarkably fast to compete again -- inhumanly so. (Gla'aki)

c) dance hall whispers of a fabled speak-easy chanteuse -- singing unspeakably obscene songs with the voice of an angel. (Y'Golonac)

d) secretive port hospice caring for destitute dock workers and expendable sailors, with real cures that work -- and some disappearing. (Gla'aki)