Better Light a Candle

Campaign Overview

This is the campaign Wiki for the adventures of the Paladin Society, run on the Cthulhu Eternal Victorian SRD.

I've been a huge fan of the Cthulhu Eternal project since its inception. I've enjoyed Apocthulhu enormously, and I completely endorse the principle of a Cthulhu Mythos SRD based on the huge legacy of material developed since the first editions of Call of Cthulhu in the 1980s. That includes a great deal of off-the-shelf Gaslight material.

A Word on the Title

David Drake's "Than Curse the Darkness[1]" is one of the best Gaslight-era Cthulhu Mythos stories I know. It's also one of the best Cthulhu Mythos stories I know, period. As a tribute to it, and as a natural corollary to the title, I'm taking the other half of its title quote, "Better light a candle than curse the darkness," as the campaign title and premise.

Drake's take on the period he covers very much mirrors my take on the Victorian era. This campaign will be very dark. The darkest parts will often be entirely mundane, and historical artifacts of the Victorian age. That's the world we lived - and still live - in.

Helpful Resources

• In Character Thread
• Out of Character Thread
• Recruitment Thread
• Cthulhu Eternal Victorian Era SRD
• Apocthulhu SRD
• Wiki template for Cthulhu Eternal Jazz Age characters - easily adaptable to Victorian era

Characters

The player-characters on the Starkweather-Moore Expedition

Player	Character	HP	WP	SAN	BP	Resources
Some Clever Name	Margaret Hollingshead	11	14	70	56	13: 6/6/1, [][][]
Archer	Dan Morgan	10	11	55	44	6: 6/0/0, []
Roger	Doctor Reuben Bell	11	13	65	52	16: 6/6/4, [][][]
brahnamin	"Mama" Nguyen	10	17	85	68	4: 4/0/0, []
Regular Guy	Emilie Garilound	12	11	55	44	9: 6/3/0, [][]

Important Information and Materials

This is one of the best, broadest sources on the Victorian era:

http://victorian-era.org/

For those with Google Earth, this is Google Earth's interactive map of Victorian London:

https://www.victorianlondon.org/googleearth.htm

Important People

Below are a few of the key figures, as well as others who'll be added as they appear in the course of the campaign.

• Puck, the mysterious little mudlark acquaintance of Mama Nguyen who may or may not be an actual fairy.
• Katie Moppet, the little preteen girl who may or may not be the King of the Rattown Sewers

House Rules and Quirks

Spending Willpower to Make Rolls Succeed

You can spend your Willpower Points on a 1-to-5 basis to improve most skill rolls (but not SAN rolls or damage rolls, or POW tests, or to change normally successful rolls into crits etc.): 1 WP = up to 5%. This represents making that extra effort of will to achieve a success. But in doing so, you're running down your Willpower Points, which can be dangerous. Also, you have to take the full 1-to-5 conversion - no fractions. If your roll has failed by 6%, you have to spend 2 WP for the full 10%.

Remember that you can also spend Willpower to project SAN loss onto Bonds, or to repress insanity. This is different to the above use - and a reminder how important it is to hang on to your WP. Fumbles can cost you WP; resisting interrogation definitely does. WP are needed to fuel hypergeometrical rituals and objects, and are sometimes targeted by offensive rituals. They're also very important for survival in hostile environments - like the Antarctic.

Remember that you suffer an emotional breakdown when your WP hit 2 or below, and total collapse when you hit 0 WP. You regain 1d6 WP after a full, proper night's sleep. Exhaustion and sleeplessness cut into that.