Eternal Lies for Trail of Cthulhu

“We lied. We Stole. We . . . we killed. We killed people, because we thought we could save the world if we did. But we failed. And with bloody hands, we slunk away. We back to our lives, and hid from those we had fought against. For the sake of our families, and our sanity, and, yes, even our own wounded pride and worthless lives.

Yet all these years can’t eclipse the truth.

It is out there, still. A perverse and lying alien god. You must find it, and fight it. For you have inherited this struggle and you are the world’s hope.

It falls to you.” --From Eternal Lies,written by Will Hindmarch, Jeff Tidball and Jeremy Keller.

This is the wiki page for the play by post campaign of Eternal Lies for the Trail of Cthulhu system, run by smarttman.

Characters

Dr. Daniel Weber (played by Estragon)

https://www.wsws.org/en/media/photos/legacy/2009mar/m30-upwa-480.jpg
"My work is on the cutting edge of psychiatric knowledge. This book will revolutionize our understanding of the brain's structure in the healthy and mentally deficient alike."

Occupation: Alienist
Drive:Arrogance
Pillars of Sanity:The power of the well-reasoned intellect, Humanity's place in the grand scheme, The ordered nature of the universe.
Sources of Stability: Beverly Campbell (Assistant), Dr Raymond Whitcomb (Friend from University), Dr Charles Lloyd (fellow Dr. at St. Catherine's Asylum)

Investigative Abilities (* denotes Occupational Ability)

 Anthropology: 2
 *Biology: 3
 Languages: 2 (*German, *Latin)
 *Library Use: 4
 *Medicine: 2
 *Assess Honesty: 4
 Bureaucracy: 2
 Credit Rating: 4
 *Interrogation: 3
 *Reassurance: 4
 *Pharmacy: 4

General Abilities (* denotes Occupational Ability)

 Conceal: 6
 Filch: 7
 First Aid: 8
 Fleeing: 6
 Health: 6
 *Psychoanalysis: 12
 Sanity: 11
 Stability: 11
 Sense Trouble: 7
 Stealth: 6

Health:6 Sanity:11 Stability:11

Dr. Ines Tasse (played by squidheadjax)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7rGeRLX99CqZGxwc1hZS3FlUlk/edit?usp=sharing
"You really should moderate your alcohol use. You show signs of severe cirrhosis of the liver and the most severe pleural effusion I've observed in vivo. Frankly, it's amazing you managed to walk in the hospital on your own power. Which is probably why you so discourteously died before I could treat you. Now let's see what else you're hiding in there..."

Occupation: Doctor
Drive:In the blood
Pillars of Sanity:Certainty of Science, Superiority of Human Intellect, Dignity of Family
Sources of Stability: Janelle Kramer (put-upon nurse), Marcus Tasse (dignified paterfamilias), Norma Ives (author and tennis partner)

Investigative Abilities (* denotes Occupational Ability)

 *Accounting 1
 *Biology 3
 *Languages 1 (*French)
 *Medicine 4
 *Assess Honesty 2
 Credit Rating 5
 Intimidation 2
 *Reassurance 3
 Chemistry 1
 Evidence Collection 1
 *Forensics 3
 *Pharmacy 3

General Abilities (* denotes Occupational Ability)

 Athletics 8
 Conceal 5
 Driving 5
 First Aid 10
 Health 8
 Preparedness 7
 Sanity 9
 Stability 10
 Sense Trouble 8
 Stealth 3
 Weapons 3

Health:8 Sanity:9 Stability:10

Ines Tasse, MD, is an internist by training, but often a medical examiner by assignment. Despite the strides made in women in medicine since the mid-nineteenth century, her career has been an uphill battle to gain employment at a well-known hospital, despite her own intellect and the Tasse family's wealth and status. Regarded as prickly by colleagues and patients alike, Ines often finds herself tasked to examine the dead instead of the living. While she does feel slighted by this, the blow to her ego is softened by how fascinating the dead can be - which also contributes to her spooky reputation.

A firm devotee of the principle that a sound mind requires a sound body, she swims and plays tennis regularly, and was a member of the Pennsylvania Women's Medical College tennis team while she attended. Ines stands 5'4" with a slight frame, usually mistaken for frail, and sharp features. Her blonde hair is so light as to appear prematurely silver, and her eyes are pale blue.

The Tasse family, currently headed by Ines' father Marcus hail originally from the French countryside and are Old Money in America, deriving their fortune initially from the leather and fur trade. Though socially respectable enough, the family has a few odd traditions, considered something like Masonic rituals, that Ines has always assumed derived from her ancestors spending too much time sitting around campfires with Indians and firewater.

Jacob Halcomb (played by ncc2010

Occupation: Author, Pilot during the Great War.
Motivation: In The Blood (He doesn't know why he's in pursuit of the unknown, only that...he must chase it to its conclusion, whatever that might be).
Pillars of Sanity: Power of the Printed Word, Eternal Beauty of the Wilderness
Sources of Stability: Charlie MacPherson (airplane mechanic in Lakehurst, NJ and war buddy), Greta Garbo (whenever he can make it to the movies)

Once upon a time, in a war far away and in a distant land, Jacob "Jake" Halcomb was a fighter pilot, and a damn good one. Despite the hell of war, he always found time to take down observations of the day, the weather, the stories told by those with whom he flew and fought. They say war changes a man, and sometimes, a man sees too much, and that's the case with Jake during The Great War. When that War ended, there was no place for a pilot, things he'd seen brought about a wanderlust to the Iowa farmboy, and so he began wandering and started writing, which made at least part of his living.

The money wasn't good, but good enough, so he bought himself a Curtis Jenny and began barnstorming here, there, writing as he went and sending in the human interest stories to The Saturday Evening Post and The New Yorker, supplementing an already meager living with a few more dollars here and there. It was a little strange, perhaps, but he always ended up in places where...things just seemed to have been just a little...queer, perhaps.

When the Depression hit, he was close enough to the edge that he really didn't notice the slip and slide down that slope until he had to sell the Jenny; since then, he's been living on the cheap, collecting an odd job here, writing there, occasionally selling his skill as a writer or a pilot as the needs be. He stays solvent, barely, spending what extra money he has examining those mysteries that present themselves here, there, wherever there might be something...odd.

General Abilities (* Denotes Occupational Skills, ! Denotes "Spare" Occupational Skills as per Author)

 Athletics / 2
 Driving / 1 (Automobile)
 Firearms / 2
 First Aid / 1
 Fleeing / 2
 Health / 8
 Mechanical Repair / 2
 !Piloting / 2 (Single-engine)
 Preparedness / 5
 Riding / 1
 Scuffling / 2
 Sense Trouble / 4
 Weapons / 1

Investigative Abilities (16 pts) (11)

 *Academic / 4
 Archaeology / 1
 !Cthulhu Mythos / 2
 !Cryptography / 2
 *History / 2
 *Languages / 2 (French / German)
 *Library use / 2
 *Assess Honesty / 2
 Credit Rating / 3
 *Oral History / 2
 Streetwise / 1
 *Art / 2 (Writing, painting/sketching)
 !Outdoorsman / 2

Health 8
Sanity 6
Stability 7

Rules Updates

The below are rules updates to reflect the hybrid Purist/Pulp nature of this campaign. • Occupation descriptions do not include Pulp-mode options.

• Alienists may not purchase the Hypnosis ability.

• Priests do not have Psychoanalysis as an occupational ability and cannot bless holy water, fend off vampires, or exorcise demons.

• Parapsychologists cannot purchase Hypnosis or have psychic powers.

• Private Investigators do not have the Chandler-inspired alternate list of occupational abilities.

• Adventure, Duty, Revenge, and Sudden Shock are suitable Drives.

• Purist-mode caps on Health, Stability, and Sanity are not in effect.

• Hypnosis is not available to Investigators.

• Investigators do have Sources of Stability, but must (as usual) spend time with them in order to recover Stability between Locales.

• Keepers do not reveal the Difficulty Numbers of tests.

• Pulp-style long-range and doublefisted uses of the Firearms ability are right out, and effective bulletproof clothing is not available to Investigators. The full-auto option for submachine guns is not used, and Investigators are not assumed to have unlimited ammunitions at their disposal.

• Explosives can be employed.

• The Stability loss of repeated encounters with similar minor Mythos creatures is reduced as described in Trail of Cthulhu, pg. 72.

• Players are allowed to faint in order to avoid extreme Sanity loss.

• The Anagnorisis rules are not used.

• Confidence-based Stability recovery is not allowed.

• The recovery of Sanity from “defeating the Mythos” is not possible.

• Investigators receive 1 build point (rather than 2) at the conclusion of each Locale to improve their abilities