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Old 08-15-2020, 08:51 AM   #41
L.J.Steele
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

The PCs are about to wrap up in Berlin and head into the Harz Mtns to stop a summoning of Shub-Niggurath on Brocken Peak a week before Walpurgisnacht.

I need a name and plausible location for a down-at-the-heels former mining town in the Harz, not far from Brocken, that will be the Innsmouth for the cultists. Slice-of-life details on that area would be most welcome. Also searching up legendary critters of the Harz that could be Mythos-ized.

As a side detail, I assume the German Air Force maintains alert fighters just in case something goes wrong. Anyone know where they'd be based out of if a Russian TU-95 over the Baltic were to suddenly make a bee-line for Brocken to try to blow up the cultists before they could finish the ritual.
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Old 08-15-2020, 04:19 PM   #42
Pomphis
 
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Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

Mägdesprung. In RL Kirsten, the owner of the Kitkat Club, has purchased property and is renovating/building there.

Northern Germany is covered by the Tactical Air Wing 71 in Wittmundhafen.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarmrotte

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taktis...hofen%E2%80%9C

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fliege..._Wittmundhafen
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Old 08-16-2020, 05:35 AM   #43
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Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele View Post
I need a name and plausible location for a down-at-the-heels former mining town in the Harz, not far from Brocken, that will be the Innsmouth for the cultists. Slice-of-life details on that area would be most welcome. Also searching up legendary critters of the Harz that could be Mythos-ized.
For the town - Harztor, about 50 km south of the Brocken, is not really run-down, but site of a former coal-mine.

As for the critters - the Brocken was always famous for its witches. The other famous monster is, of course, the Brocken spectre, that in a campaign could be something really sinister.

And we all know who the real killers are.
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Old 08-16-2020, 12:57 PM   #44
L.J.Steele
 
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Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

Thanks. I've been using some of the imagery from Immerath for what a dying/abandoned town looks like. I remain surprised that no one seems to have set the Mythos in the Harz Mts -- seems a natural fit.

You can't have an adventure on Brocken without someone being offered a Faustian Bargain. Nyarlathotep probably wouldn't like some other Great Old One ending the world. (I think of him in the Stross-ian Prime Minister mode.) Wondering what he might ask of the PCs to give them a solution to their world-ending problem.
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Old 08-16-2020, 06:45 PM   #45
Apollonian
 
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Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele View Post
You can't have an adventure on Brocken without someone being offered a Faustian Bargain. Nyarlathotep probably wouldn't like some other Great Old One ending the world. (I think of him in the Stross-ian Prime Minister mode.) Wondering what he might ask of the PCs to give them a solution to their world-ending problem.
Why make an offer? Just do them a solid for no apparent reason and watch them go crazy trying to figure out the hidden catch.
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Old 08-17-2020, 06:42 AM   #46
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Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

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Why make an offer?
Free will. The magic isn't binding unless it's an intentional choice. Certainly, the supernatural entity can hand out all the favors it likes -- but it can't compel any recompense without the prior agreement.

You can throw in an exaggerated code of honor if we're talking something more like Mab than Mephistopheles. But even that's still just the giver feeling like the recipient is obliged to do a return favor, rather than a element of a magically binding ritual.
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Old 08-18-2020, 10:03 AM   #47
L.J.Steele
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

If they're going to Brocken, site of Faust, a Faustian offer ought be made.

PCs are mostly wrapped in Berlin, headed to Brocken next session.

New question:
In the scenario set-up, a Miskatonic-based experiment gone sideways (is there any other kind), inadvertently created 3 safe zones from the apocalypse. The zones are about 400 km in diameter, centered around Miskatonic (just north of Boston, Mass); Ibadan, Nigeria; and New Castle, NSW, Australia. Those safe zones are slightly out of phase, so most mythos critters either won't enter or leave quickly. Problem is that none of the zones are particularly self-sufficient for the amount of refugees in them. Each are on coasts, so limited trade (using converted subs) is possible, but slow. (The Deep Ones don't seem to care about messing with the survivors.)

PCs have figured out a way to create 3 more zones. Where would you put them if you wanted to maximize the survivors numbers and chances of long-term viability. A port should be within the zone. Nigeria can provide some fuel and refining, but food and tech are limited. Military bases are nice, but the post-apocalypse mythos critters are mostly immune to normal weapons.
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Old 08-18-2020, 11:36 AM   #48
Apollonian
 
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Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

Quote:
Originally Posted by L.J.Steele View Post
If they're going to Brocken, site of Faust, a Faustian offer ought be made.

PCs are mostly wrapped in Berlin, headed to Brocken next session.

New question:
In the scenario set-up, a Miskatonic-based experiment gone sideways (is there any other kind), inadvertently created 3 safe zones from the apocalypse. The zones are about 400 km in diameter, centered around Miskatonic (just north of Boston, Mass); Ibadan, Nigeria; and New Castle, NSW, Australia. Those safe zones are slightly out of phase, so most mythos critters either won't enter or leave quickly. Problem is that none of the zones are particularly self-sufficient for the amount of refugees in them. Each are on coasts, so limited trade (using converted subs) is possible, but slow. (The Deep Ones don't seem to care about messing with the survivors.)

PCs have figured out a way to create 3 more zones. Where would you put them if you wanted to maximize the survivors numbers and chances of long-term viability. A port should be within the zone. Nigeria can provide some fuel and refining, but food and tech are limited. Military bases are nice, but the post-apocalypse mythos critters are mostly immune to normal weapons.
If you wanted to create a possibility of a supply chain between existing safe zones, I'd look at Sri Lanka, the Panama Canal, and Hawai'i; those would give safe harbors for cargo subs, and Hawai'i has the military base covered.

I'm not sure about maximizing survivors vs. food supply, though; the PCs might want to shoot for something with a basic port and a significant food-producing hinterland if they think they can relay on trade. Looking at what I know best, you could pick a spot on the Willamette Valley in Oregon and catch a large agricultural zone and either the port of Portland or the port of Coos Bay; neither is ideal, but they'd work. Further south, centering a zone north of San Francisco to catch part of the Golden Gate on its perimeter will get you a lot of agricultural space (i.e., most of Northern Californa) plus a port, and is more likely to be something PCs will think of. You could of course try to get the entire SF metro area in the zone, but that may be too many people for the food resources.

I feel like there ought to be some really good locations in France, Argentina, or India; those would have the advantage of creating spaces that aren't on the same continents as what you've already got, from a story-telling perspective. Alternately, they could try to double down on a particular spot and protect New England, or the Australian east coast, or the coast of the Gulf of Guinea.
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Old 09-01-2020, 04:52 PM   #49
L.J.Steele
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

The PCs spent the last session studying the intel they gathered from the cult leader's underground bunker before it blew up. (Turns out that warning sign about an unexploded bomb wasn't a bluff. -- old WWII blockbuster that was unstable before the PCs had a running fight thru the bunker with a couple of Dark Young.)

From there, two of them went off to meet the wounded leader of the Russian mercenaries who had tried to steal the Necronomicon at the Alexanderplatz in their 2nd adventure. Turns out, the enemy of the mythos is an ally. And they saved him from being eaten by a Hound of Tindalos by getting it to chase a PC on a motorbike thru the streets of Berlin, thru a subway station, into a subway tunnel, then narrowly avoided an oncoming train, enchanted it on the fly as a weapon and killed the Hound. (Who expected to just phase thru it's right angled front.)
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Old 09-04-2020, 01:33 PM   #50
L.J.Steele
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Details about Berlin spring/summer 2018 for Fate of Cthulhu game?

I know there is a Wild Hunt in Germanic folklore. Is there a mythological wild cat/mountain lion/catamount counterpart? The next session should take them out to Brocken, a fictional Innsmouth in the mountains home to a Shub Niggurath cult (a touch of Midsommer in tone I think), and being chased by a wild hunt of Hounds of Tindalos led by the former cult leader "resurrected" as a mythos satyr. I'm pondering something like the scene in Dreamquest when the cats rescue Carter from the moon beasts.
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