Call of Cthulhu: A Mother's Love - RPG Overview
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- čas přidán 11. 04. 2021
- A gang of bank robbers are hiding out in the decrepit town of Innsmouth and the Player Characters are tasked with finding them. Here are some tips and suggestions for running 'A Mother's Love,' my debut scenario published in the ENnie Award-winning collection 'The New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley.'
You can pick up the collection on DriveThruRPG: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
Here's the link to all the pregenerated characters and additional maps: drive.google.com/drive/folder...
My second published adventure, 'Mysteries of Arcturus Station' for Mongoose Traveller can be found here: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
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Guest starring Jack the NPC. - Hry
UPDATE: I've been informed of an error in the module (quite embarrassing). In the adventure I said the statue is at the intersection of Fall, Marsh, and South Streets (which was from the Escape From Innsmouth book and I carried it over). That is incorrect. The Statue start point should be at the intersection of Marsh, Main, and Babson (See the Keeper Map I shared).
Any update from the publisher on when the second print will be out? I'd love to get my hands on a physical copy!
@@TheeAugustCaesar Stygian Fox is doing a Indiegogo for second print run now
i have to keep that in mind... thanks for the heads up seth n.n
I love how all the Innsmouth resident's portraits are very fish-like.
@@bast4rdlyreaperThe famous innsmouth look
Call of Cthulhu: A Mother's Love. Otherwise known as the Roast of Seth Skorkowsky: Presented by Jack Malone (Official) NPC.
Congratulation to Jack being a published character
The downside being anything given stats by the storyteller/DM is doomed to be killed by the players
I was gonna say the same thing.
@@dwarvernbard9782 That's an upside.
Jack is our BOI!!
"And I'm Jack, the officially published NPC. I'm here to geek out over the fact that I'm now canon." ;~)
Congrats on the golden ENnie in the "best crude drawing" nomination!
My art skills aren't just terrible, they're award-winning terrible.
@@SSkorkowsky
fish person bad.....do you..do you have anything you want to disclose?
@@Tony-dh7mz "Can you show me on this doll, where the fish monster touched you?"
@@jdsull
.....here.....and, here....ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!
"Jack Malone, Senior BOI Agent..." and he is a very good boi indeed.
Yeah... he is very rarely drunk at the job, since he joined the feds...
@@robertnett9793 Rarely
Oh exciting
Jack being Cannon to Call of Cthulhu scenario now is my favourite thing
He's with Grendel now, in the pantheon of canonized (N)PC's.
It is cool LOL
bonafide official stats to Jack
In all honesty, that background between Tobias and his mother is actually touching. It almost sound like a fairy tale if you ask me. Its clear that she loves her son no matter what becomes of him or even whatever is his opinion is regarding his home-town. He is very much a prodigal son who came back from a life of misdemeanor and crime, only to be welcomed by the sole individual who loves him with all her heart.
Perfect ending that would make for a great come back later. Shootout in the grotto, he's headed for the bell and takes a round in the shoulder, grabs the bell, rings it, and falls into the water. The NPCs say he's dead as there are sharks or something in the area, and they will take care of him now, but truth is, momma grabs him, and saves him. Years later, the baby is kidnapped as the girlfriend is travelling down the shoreline, and she hires the players to get him back, knowing they were kind and let her live last time. And now, both mother and son are an issue.
It's nice to see that Jack has become a published character. He's earned it.
For what it's worth, I'd love to see a video on HOW to write a Call of Cthulhu scenario. The process would have to be a lot different from writing the adventure-style stories you'd see in a game like D&D or Traveller, and it's definitely outside the bounds of my experience. Presumably it would help other people wanting to get into Call of Cthulhu, as well.
One thing you don't have to worry about is making any homebrew creatures too difficult. They shouldn't be TPK machines, obviously. But you can estimate what the best stats would be a lot more easily. If they're a little too powerful... Well it is a horror game.
I agree, some insight from a Game Master who has run and critiqued many modules and written his own would be valuable.
This would be good.
There's a video (I believe it's available on the Chaosium CZcams profile) from a convention where Sandy Petersen creates a quick outline on how to create a scenario or adventure in CoC. It's an interesting watch and simplifies the process.
Man, kudos to these artists for really bringing out that Innsmouth look while still keeping these NPCs very human. And grats on another completed work!
Absolutely. I don't run CoC, but I am absolutely going to buy this just to make VTT tokens from these portraits!
Its a great scenario idea, what a mind !
There is a position for “Super Villain “ unfilled at the moment.
Jack at the end, saying thoughts that had occurred to me whilst watching the video.
Man, I need to convince my friends to play something other than DnD more than ever now. It’s driving me nuts
I feel less self confident about my own drawing and mapping skills now. Those “crude” drawings are about as good as I ever get!
They're definitely better than what I can do!
Seth skorkowski content two days in a row. It is truly a good time to be alive. 😜
Hey Seth, just ran this scenario for my group tonight and it was a blast. You would've been proud of my players, while they did blunder around a bit they survived due to some amazing skill rolls and good decisions to avoid an outright firefight with the townsfolk and managed to enlist Jack's help in covering things up before it went too far. Damn good bit of fun.
Awesome to hear! Glad you all had fun with it.
That one surviving PC makes for a delightfully Lovecraftian ending! Cool adventure, nice work on it!
Congrats to Seth on the Ennie and Jack becoming a published character! Huzzahs all around!
I see we have retconned Jack's stat block from the core rulebook videos.
i would love to see the actual amount of TPK's this adventure has from the Innsmouth police.
I’m so scared they’re gonna kill all my players next session lol
@@bobcatfish2796 so, how it gone?
@@bobcatfish2796 …did they wipe?
@@thebrokenhandle7691 I’ll tell you on Sunday ;))
@@bobcatfish2796 I know i'm like 5 months late but.. did they die?
BBC Radio 4 is going to be doing 'Shadow over Innesmouth' as a short form dramatisation fairly soon
they already did it, it's the final part of their Lovecraft Investigations Trilogy.
@@deecap71 Yeah, I found it last night (not sure if these are repeats though)
@@johnfairhurstReviews think they aired in december.
Months later, characters read the news of a pregnant woman found killed in a clandestine cesarea and his baby missing. - What's the woman's name? - asked one - oh! I know where that baby may be. #hook
First, congratulations are in order.
I can see how something like this could be reskinned to reflect lycanthropy as well as it spreads through a community rumoured for it's spread. I can also see how this can inform other settings and adventures like "Cult of the Reptile God". Now you've got me thinking...
It's refreshing to see a Call of Cthulhu adventure that actually discouranges you from learning about the Mythos, sure in other adventures that I've read you get bonked with the Insanity stick if you do, but you are still required to learn and delve deeper if you want to resolve the situation.
The Berlin: The witcked city book is particulary guilty of this with its first two scenerios, and even the third one but the first two are just on the nose town-saving adventures.
"And then the bad thing happened." was by far my favorite part lol as always great video and I look forward to running this for my group once we can start meeting in person again
Always exciting when a new scenario review is released by Seth! Whenever he says "Now I must warn you, spoilers ahead!" It's like the classic Hollywood lion roar at the start of a movie. That's when you know the show is about to begin! ps. I'll make sure to check out the release in support.
I just ran my group through this adventure, and it was their introduction to 7th edition Call of Cthulhu. We had a great time! Since my PCs were all tied to the mob in some way, I motivated the players by saying the Chicago mob was calling in a favor from the Arkham or Boston Italian mob, because the Frog gang had hit a mob bank. Because of the mob ties the PCs were reluctant to work with the Innsmouth Constabulary (one PC was a crooked Private Investigator), but were pretty trusting of Grace Deckert. I also added an event that pointed the PCs to the local pharmacy, only to find out the pharmacy was out of the anti-nausea medicine they were sent for, it was purchased by a young woman with a scar on her cheek (to deal with her morning sickness).
I tried to turn the Teddy Wynne fight into a chase, but due to some amazingly good and bad dice rolls (on my players part and my part respectively), Wynne was caught in one round and bashed over the head with a crowbar, then turned in for the bounty (and left in the tender care of Dr. Marsh... who will make sure he doesn't survive).
Also, since my group very smartly did not trigger the Deep One fight at the end and since Pearl survived the encounter, I kept the "mother" in "a Mother's Love" theme going by, in the denoument of the scenario stating that, a few months later, Dr. Marsh fills out a birth certificate--a baby boy who bears a strong resemblence to Toby Sisk, recorded as being born to Grace Deckert... Pearl Kammire has disappeared, never to be seen again.
I was dreading this week, now it might be ok.
I'm sure you killed it! :)
Its cool to see the payoff from that old video. Congrats on the award. Its a great thing to live in a time where the author of an adventure can readily give advice on it.
Anyone else reviewing their own adventure would seem trite, but in your case I’ll most definitely make an exception. Congratulations on all the much deserved success, I hope we see a lot more Seth scenarios in the near future 🦑👽
I’ve been wanting a copy of this book but I really want a physical copy so I’ve been patiently waiting for the second printing. Your adventure sounds awesome. And I agree with Jack about rules to play as a deep one hybrid.
There’s a kickstarter on now with Stygian Fox.
Almost first, darn! I got to thank this channel for getting me into non-d&d RPGs I'm starting my traveler campaign this week
Have fun storming the galaxy.
Please accept my heartiest congratulations, Seth! Bravo!!!
I LOVE the Richard Coyle version, listen to it several times a year.
Considering the description of Innsmouth in the story, I'd always thought there was great potential when it was describing the decaying mansions in the wide streets with the old trees so great that one of the mansions got referenced.
Congrats on the publication!
Oh it’s Seths own scenario. Cool, can’t wait to see.
Nice way to start off a Monday!
Pretty good for any day of the week, really. Here I thought I was just getting 2-1/2 hours of Seth from the livestream I missed yesterday. :)
Maybe I'll paint a hook horror to celebrate such an auspicious turn of events. :)
Congrats on getting your own canon contribution to the Call of Cthulhu archives. I ran this for my player's last week and they loved it.
Awesome to hear.
Concgratulations on your second Ennie Award!
(I remember you got one for "best online content" as well.)
No conflict of interest here just some healthy pride. Congratulations 🍾
Hell yeah! Gonna be a good day
The BBC have released 4 series of audio plays called "The Lovecraft Investigations".
S1 is CDW, S2 is Whisperer in Darkness, S3 is Shadow Over Innsmouth (brilliantly incorporating the Covid Lockdown as a means of trapping theinvestigator in the town... and several refernces to "The Innsmouth look") and S4 is Haunter of The Dark.
They take the form of modern, multi episode "True Crime" podcasts and are, pardon me for saying so... fucking BRILLIANT. When they start out investing Charles Dexter Ward its simple... a fairly standard "Locked Room Mystery" and as the investigators keep coming across strange shit they are constantly trying to find rational explanations, but over the years start to realise that "rational" is playing in a different garden to the one they are in.
The writing is just superb and the actors are great. The structure is almost like the Welles (as opposed to "Wells") War of the Worlds, as the show maintains the podcast format through each series, and doesn't even have credits until the very end of the final part of each story. So there's nothing at all to suggest to anyone listening to them cold that they ARE dramatic adaptations.
The writer really knows his stuff, and all sorts of real life mysteries, and "Googleable" events are also used throughout, and one bit with an "Audio Hallucination" that I GUARANTEE will make you skip back and listen to it over again and sit there in amazement when you realise that it is genuine. and that they didn't fiddle with the audio... they genuinely fucked with your head!
If you love Cthulhu, do yourself a favour and give this a listen if you can find it. I'm in the UK so its all on the BBC Sounds Website.
If you can find it... sit back and enjoy it.
Missed opportunity at the end to follow up on "Hit that subscribe button" with "and ring that bell." I mean, the bell was right there in the background!
Great video, as always.
But I don't want The Bad Thing to happen!
Monster mother loves her child? So sweet! 😍
Congratulations 🎉! Nothing I love more than when I see people’s hard work and dedication pay off! Good for you Sir!
I was looking for a scenario to be the finale follow-up to The Lightless Beacon, and the cult of Dagon tie in is perfect! Also, belated congratulations on the award. 🎉
Before I started to GM a friend and I used to play in an online group where we once played a heavily modified version of Escape from Innsmouth where my friends character actually was revealed to be a hybrid. Something he only discovered when we all clicked that for some reason deep one technology and magic worked for him but nobody else...
Well done Seth! Talk about a flex when you reviewed something you made.
*Please do more expansions for this scenario .*
*This scenario is the most true to lovecraftian philosophy possible .*
Oh wow! Congratulations! Sounds like something I'd like to give it a try with my group. Thankyou for the overview
Personally, that is the sort of story I like best in a game like Call of Cthulhu: you are not part of the world so much as glancing off it, so you get to experience the real creepy sensation of knowing something is not normal, but you don't ever know why. Too often, our curiosity is satisfied, and that means we never appreciate the mystery. This is why I like to litter games with things that look like they have a story you want to know, but you know you probably won't ever know, and so you just imagine a story to slake your curiosity for the moment, hoping you will forget about it soon enough.
Can't wait for you other overview of the Traveler scenario you wrote :D
Congratulations, Seth! Can't wait to see how you incorporate Jack into your inevitable Conan adventure. Jak Malicious-One, Warrior of Krom!!!
Hey Seth have you thought of doing a Dedicated video on your books and what they are about or at least a summary of the plot? I know you talk about them some times and they sound very interesting so I would like to know more. Also thanks for the great content!
I second this
Well done as always. Congrats on the golden ENnie!
Love your stuff, Seth.
Congratulations Seth! This adventure sounds great. But I must say that Your ideas for the Deep one centered adventures (the ones given to us by Jack) are pure gold! You should write them up.
A very helpful overview, Seth. You did some great work on Mysteries on Arcturus Station, i’ll likely look into picking up Tales from the Miskatonic Valley when I start a Call of Cthulhu game.
Love your videos seth!
Congrats on getting your adventure published! It looks awesome and interesting, and I can't wait to use it for my players.
You have always been an inspiration! Congratulations on this publication and rock on! I hope to run this someday with friends!
Re-watching everything in prep for our groups Halloween sessions and picking up the miscellaneous tips has been a blast, good job on the re-watchability of your videos Seth!!!
Good luck with the game.
thanks, just looking to borrow a little bit of that Keeper Magic for a month
Thanks for sharring this. Was stunned by your explaination about your motive to write the adventure as it is. Keep up the great work. You inspire me to DM a lot more COC
Congratulations on the publication! The story sounds amazing.
Congrats on the module, Skorkowsky. You deserve endless success. Looking forward to your next one.
Ooo... Been waiting for this video! Thank you sir!
Congratulations Seth your the man! Thanks for all the awesome videos aswell!
2:19 Sweet! I've immensely enjoyed this character's dialogue!
Best Monday ever
Congratulations Seth! I’m definitely checking out that adventure as soon as I’m able.
Damn ive been looking forward to this!
This is great, after all the hard work you are making your mark in gaming history. Good job Jack.
congrats seth you are a legend and i love your content!
Seth, I can honestly say that this is a great, brutal, and totally enjoyable adventure. And I am so glad you didn't make a video on it until now, because I watch all of your new videos as they come out and that would have totally spoiled the fun of playing the scenario when Matthew McCloud ran it for us. As for Jack's questions at the very end, I suggest he check out the Flotsam and Jetsom series Chaosium released for free last fall. ;-)
I'm 30 and am just now successfully convincing my friends to try an rpg style game. I'm torn between cthulhu pulp fiction for the horror aspect or maybe traveller because we also have fans of space on the group. Any suggestions on either format? Ease of comprehension would be a nice bonus.
Pulp Cthulhu is a bit more newbie-friendly. Rules are easier to grasp and characters are a bit more robust and capable of surviving more new player mistakes. But I'm also just more partial to Pulp Cthulhu.
Awesome. I was hoping you guys would lean more towards cthulhu anyways. Now I can buy this module:) thanks for the help
I'm personally partial to Trail of Cthulhu for investigative horror games, but it handles combat horribly. So if they like to kill things and solve problems with violence, go with Pulp Cthulhu.
Y'know, if you're struggling between horror and scifi, maybe compromise by doing both at once and either run the Alien RPG (which Seth reviewed a while back) or better yet Mothership, which has tons of reviews and playthrough vids on CZcams, including one by Questing Beast (who Seth did a vid with on Ben's channel a while back).
Honestly this adventure sounds like great fun to run for my friends. You deserve to be proud of this one Seth!
I can hardly wait for the day I can get together with my friends and play again.
Kudos to the published work and congrats on Jack being made into an official npc!
Congratulations, can't wait to give it a try. You rock Jack Malone.
Hey Seth! Been wanting to run this with my group for a while, because I’m personally very excited to run an adventure you made! I have a question regarding working this adventure into my current campaign. I’m not sure how to do it. The current group consists of player 1 with a private investigator from Arkham, player 2 with an occultist whose family was killed by some monster, player 3 with a gangster from Britain that protects the occultist, and player 4 with a surgeon that works with a local gang. Players 2 and 3 also have as side characters a big game Hunter interested in strange life forms and the younger sister of the gangster who protects the occultist.
For that, you might go the route of some item, possibly of occultish nature was stolen from the Ipswich bank. Client knows the occultist PC through common interests and hires the detective to get it back. Another twist is that the client/occultist is connected to the local mob (they stole it originally). That could be used to work in the gangster criminals a little easier. Anyway, the twice-stolen occult artifact needs to get recovered before the police can get it because the police would return it to the original owner instead of the gangster/occultist. So the PCs get sent in. This also gives the excuse for the nightly phone call as the gangster/occultist client is wanting regular updates. The hardest part will be working in the NPC guide. Maybe for that, if you don't want to have Constable Birch help out the detective PC, you can use a new one, like a Deep One Hybrid bootlegger that goes out in his boat to pick up whiskey. The client or one of the criminal PCs might know this person and they can offer assistance.
@@SSkorkowsky perfect. Thank you so much! Have a fantastic day!
So happy for you, Seth. What a cool accomplishment. You have a great day.
Congratulations, Seth! I'm looking forward to buying the physical, softback version to support your channel.
Niiiice!
Congrats and totally gonna run this!
Congrats Seth, you are solidifying yourself as one of my all-time favorite gaming contributers.
I'm definitely going to try and make it a point of getting is that book just for this adventure; congratulations on getting published Seth!
In regards to Jacks closing monologue, I ran briefly with a group in college with a player who went full hybrid on a trip overseas. The PCs had alot of trouble smuggling them home while being pursued by cultists.
Congratulations Seth ! That’s SO cool !
I recently purchased your Traveller adventure and as you said in your old review of the classic adventure - this is a treasure trove for DMs, an insanely modular adventure and now even better :D I just hope I'll eventually manage to convince somebody to play Traveller...
And I'll probably look to purchase the PDF of this as well as soon as I get the next paychek, keep up the amazing work :D
This was a fun video. I haven't gotten to run the adventure yet, but getting to see the author's own take and tips is incredibly insightful.
Yus! And congrats Seth.
The "terribly crude" map of the Sisk family house is perfect.
Was waiting for a 'ring that (notification) bell' gag with Jack at the end, there.
Sadly, as obviously perfect of a gag as that would be, and a perfect setup for it, it never occurred to me. I am ashamed.
@@SSkorkowsky Eh - you'll get it in the next one.
Congratulations man!
Also lost it at the RPG Illustrator resume bit.
i love these videos, nothing gets me more hyped to throw some dice.
Congratulations! Can’t wait to get my hands on a hard copy!
This sounds amazing!
Brilliant!!! Both adventure and video!
Awesome! I remember Seth mentioning working on this book a while back, looks like a must-buy! Beautiful art too.
Great video, glad to see Jack get the recognition he deserves.
Hell yeah! I would love to get the behind-the-scenes on mysteries of Arcturus station! I ran a game based on your how to run an mystery and murder on Arcturus Station videos. Your videos have been a valuable resource, and have helped me to be a better GM. Thank you, and stay awesome!
Great work Seth!