ADVENTURE: "Wilmartha's Ghost" or "Smoked-Meat Dreams"
OK, having d/l'ed and printed out my copy of Pokethulhu, I felt compelled to make up a cultist, a new thulhu, and an adventure to use them all in. I was also inspired by the recent "Charles Schultz Brown" post, which was a hoot to read.
Contents
Backstory[edit]
Housing is scarce in college towns, and Narkham (where Muskratonic U. is located) is no exception. The students attending Muskratonic U. pretty much have the cheap real estate locked up in rentals, leases, and year-to-year Unspeakable Oaths. So the only place where an orphan could afford to set up a thulhu gym would logically be a spooky old smokehouse in Narkham's decaying meat-packing district. No one in Narkham will say for sure if they mean the district or the meat is decaying... but the smart money says both.
The orphan is question is Wally Gilman, who is (to put it kindly) a total nerd. The only thing he likes more than thulhu training is (gasp)... math. Yuck. So Wally has been "unofficially auditing" lots of graduate-level math classes at Muskratonic University. By "unofficially auditing" Wally mean "hiding in heat vents or large piles of discarded school newspapers during the lectures." He has used the sanity-blasting power of higher education to augment his thulhu summoning skills, specializing in Non-Euclidean thulhu like his favorite, Beef Jerkin. Wally was given his Beef Jerkin by the kindly dead old witch who once ran the smokehouse, 17th century cultist, fishmonger, and do-it-yourself pamphleteer Wilmartha Stewart.
Action[edit]
However, as Wally will tell any trainers who come to fight (i.e. the PC's), he hasn't seen Wilmartha's ghost for a few months. He's getting worried about her, but he can't enter the swirling eldritch maelstrom that haunts the dreams of anyone spending a night in the smokehouse/gym, because Professor Garden Peaslee is leading up to something really great in his Introductory Advanced Reality-Warping Boolean Algebra (II) class. Wally wants the cultists to take his Beef Jerkin, who can track its old owner through the dreamworld. If the PC cultists will find out what's going on and rescue Wilmartha, Wally will agree to duel with them for a Smokehouse Gym Ham-Hax Glyph, which will be stenciled on a disk of cured pork and can be used to flavor a pot of green beans. Also, if Wally either really likes or really dislikes a particular cultist, he might let them keep an iteration of Beef Jerkin as well... but only after they find Wilmartha!
Assuming the players agree, they fall asleep in the Smokehouse's relatively smoked-meat-free utility closet and enter the swirling eldritch maelstrom in their dreams. At this point the Owner should feel obligated to plunge them into a nightmarish world where nothing is as it seems and reality itself is subject to the slightest whim of the Owner... nothing they shouldn't already be used to. After whatever amount of slogging around in the cultists' dreamscapes as seems necessary and amusing, they will come across an entire coven of grown-up Wizards and Witches, holding court in a memory of Narkham's courthouse circa 1680. The coven has captured Wilmartha, who is being indicted for improperly divulging Witch secrets to Wally! The instigator of this proceeding is the coven leader, Jackeziah Mason, who is a withered old crone with a thick Borscht Belt accent who constantly smokes a huge cigar. The cultists can try to reason with the coven, but after suffering enough of Jackeziah's Non-Euclidean insult humor and old Ulthar Catskills jokes, the cultists will probably be ready for a big fight. Have one Witch or Wizard oppose each cultist, with Mason as their leader. The opposing forces will primarily use Non-Euclidean and Decomposing thulhu (Jackeziah, for instance, uses a Tan Jenkin). If the cultists win, they can grab Wilmartha and skedaddle back to the waking world. If they fail, the indictment will proceed, and Wilmartha will be punished. She will have to pay a small fine and promise not to do it again.
Of course, the cultists will be banished to a deserted section of the Dreamlands, where they will have to put up with the bearded and finny Gnorriega (a Panamanian amphibian former military strongman) and the flabby Beings from Gibb, who sing old disco standards in really high-pitched voices. This can go on as long as the Owner wants (or as long as the players look like they'll put up with it) before they find their way back to their bodies, which by this time will be hanging by their collars and getting lightly smoked with a lovely apple/mesquite/Xiclotl wood chip blend. The cultists will be unhurt, but they will smell really delicious for the next few weeks (which means they're even more likely to be pestered or attacked by hungry wild thulhu). Wally will apologize, but point out that when you leave meat in a haunted smokehouse long enough you have to expect things like that to happen...
New Pokenomicon Entry[edit]
Beef Jerkin[edit]
Power: 3 Speed: 12 Hit Points: 5
Aspects: Non-Euclidean, Decomposing
Weakness: Luminous
Habitat: Holes in walls or space-time
Smell: Moldy Teriyaki Jerky
Favorite Showtune: "One Night in Bangkok" from _Chess_
Injure: 1 die (Aklo Ankle-bite, Decomposing)
Dodge: 3 dice (Rat in the Walls, Non-Euclidean)
Trap: 2 dice (Beefy Nightmare, Decomposing)
Frighten: 3 dice (Partial Differential Equation, Non-Euclidean)
Pokenomicon Excerpt[edit]
Beef Jerkin is a tiny, rat-like creature with disturbingly human features and hands. The fact that he is apparently made out of partially chewed jerky somehow isn't great either. In episode #458, /There's Something Mild About Beefy/, we discover that Beef Jerkin (there seems to only be one of this 'thulhu, although he is so fragmented in space and time that lots of cultists have one) and Tan Jenkins are mortal enemies, not devolved versions of each other as Team Eibon claimed in episode #375, /Bartender, I'll Have a Blackened Tan/. Beef Jerkin is very fast, although not too strong or tough. He is also a PhD candidate in Advanced Mathematics, and while stopping in the middle of a battle to work on abstruse math problems isn't great strategy, the equations he writes on his portable blackboard are formidable enough to confuse many opposing 'thulhu (many of whom were Drama majors). And if the math doesn't frighten opponents, Beef Jerkin isn't too proud to screech his fingernails down the blackboard really loudly...
Wally Gilman, geek cultist[edit]
Age: 12
Home Village: Narkham (he's a Muskratonic U. "Townie")
Aspect: Non-Euclidean
Grade Level (Lucky): 8
Phys Ed: 2
Pokethulhu Lore: 7
Sanity: 3
Shoplifting: 6
Talking Trash:4
Notes: Smokehouse Gym Owner in Narkham, just off Muskratonic U.'s campus. He is pale and sickly, and on the verge of insanity. His hands are always covered in chalk dust and he smells like smoked meats. Other than his Beef Jerkin and other thulhus, his two most prized possessions are his Formless Slide Rule (great for those intractable math problems!) and the rusty old Civil War saber he inherited from his ancestor, Confederate General T. Kelly Lee. Wally mostly uses the saber to carve snacks off the various hams and sausages hanging from the rafters of his gym.
Hope you like it! --Ken Coble
