The Mystery Manual

Check below for an overview of every adventure I’ve written so far. Plus game rules and treasure tables and stuff like that. It’ll all be a book eventually.

Trying to write OSR-style adventures in the Weird Tales / Call of Cthulhu setting. This means - open-ended gameplay, high degree of player freedom, amoral profit-motivated PCS, lateral-thinking problems that test player skill.

Mystery games tend to become railroads. There aren’t really “multiple ways” to solve a mystery. The PCs will find themselves channelled towards a particular solution. But I do want gameplay to involve a lot of talking to people, unravelling conspiracies and finding out more about the world.

How do we resolve this?

The Mystery Manual. A set of mysteries that “map out” a given part of the world. Situations rather than pre-determined plots. Ideally multiple factions, none of whom are “the good guys”. PCs can investigate these freely and in any order.

You’re motivated by financial gain - successfully resolving mysteries to the satisfaction of your client builds your reputation and lets you make more money. If you get stuck on one you can go back to your home base and head off in a different direction.

wots in ere then

Here is where I will put a master list of all my mysteries. The plan is for these to come in sets of eight, each structured around a particular host city, which the PCs can return to between adventures. More prompts than complete stories - enough of a plot structure that you can fill in details to suit your own game.

Some organisation in the host city to essentially “give quests” but in a way that makes sense in the fiction. The list of mysteries for each city is not definitive. You can and should put a bunch of other adventures in the gaps between them. Plenty of Call of Cthulhu scenarios out there to steal content from.

Game Rules + More Rules + Investigation + Setting Overview (draft)

Treasure + More Treasure + Treasures 3 + Treasures 4

Spells + More Spells + Books 3 + Books 4 (for becoming a wizard with)

SHANGHAI

Patron - Uncle Ho + Sample PCs

CALCUTTA

Patron - Detective Chatterjee - Sample PCs

• Calcutta - The Bloody Tongue

• Orissa - The Juggernaut’s Heart

• Benares - The Elephant’s Kiss

• Darjeeling - Parasite Peak

• Assam - The Seven Unknown Men

• Rangoon - The Centipede’s Claw

• Andamans - The Poison Pearl

• Singapore - Bitter Orchids

ISTANBUL

Patron - The Manzikert Hotel + Sample PCs

• Istanbul - The Black Bazaar

• Odessa - The Golden Army

• Transylvania - The School Of Night

• Patmos - The Crawling Hand

• Cappadocia - The Dragon Hunters

• Damascus - The City Beyond Time

• Jerusalem - The Name Of Death

• Cairo - The Crocodile King

NEW ORLEANS

Patron - Belasco’s Rare Books + Sample PCs

• New Orleans - The Feast Of Fools

• Galveston - The Brass Oracle

• Greenville - Deep River Blues

• Talladega - Servants Of The Worm

• Everglades - The Deathless Ape

• Havana - Fangs Of Columbus

• Yucatan - The Skull Of Doom

• Mexico City - Obsidian Dawn

LONDON

Patron - The Phantasmological Society + Sample PCs

• London - Labyrinths Of London

• Lydney - Devils In The Green

• Blackpool - The Great What-Is-It

• Cambridge - The Star Of Goliath

• Polperro - The Eddystone Brides

• Birmingham - Into The Locust Pit

• Hebrides - The Painted Pirates

• Paris - The Emperor Of Crime

Will update these as I go. Last one will be Shanghai.

Recurring information design question of how to write these in a way that scans easily and lets you get the whole structure of the story in one go. Not sure Call of Cthulhu ever totally cracked this one.