Achtung Cthulhu 1939 - the Final Analysis

Last time we left our team of German sailors and naval intelligence signals experts having just shot dead their de facto commanding officer, although it has to be admitted that he seemed to be in the process of re-energising an ancient stone circle in the Hebrides islands. But why? And who was he working with? What has happened to the mysterious British spy Doctor Boskell?

A quick summary of our player characters:

• Stabsgefreiter Helmut Hagedorn - a dockworker and radio operator, volunteered for the submarine service, has just killed a senior German officer
• Bootsmann Horst Scholz - spare player character in case anyone was killed, has been largely assigned to keeping tabs on enemy radio traffic
• Midshipman Rudiger Seehofer - a shore-based naval intelligence signals specialist, has set up the radio direction finding equipment on the island
• Oberleutenant Michael van der Leyen - son of a decorated WW1 submarine commander who was lost at sea in 1917, comes from an aristocratic Prussian family

The sailors were left with the prospect of a still-glowing stone circle, coupled with the body of their recently slain CO, Captain Steinmeier. They were also immediately aware that the British spy, Boskell, whom Steinmeier had been working with, was still on the island, and potentially looking for a human sacrifice.

The mysterious Doctor Boskell

Seehofer had been sent to retrieve some dynamite from the ruined castle. This had been included in the team's equipment in case they needed to destroy their radios at short notice, but it was decided that it could be used to destroy the stone circle.

There had been some discussion of using the group's cyanide pills to poison Steinmeier and Boskell, a plan which would actually have worked very well, although might not have been good for the sailors' SAN scores. In the end Hagedorn had unilaterally decided to shoot Steinmeier.

Seehofer was left with the task of wiring up the stones with TNT. Von der Leyen and Hagedorn decided to head up to the crofter's hut to see if they could find Boskell. Here they found the crofter dead, shot through the head, and the two younger children tied to a chair. The children were released by the Germans who IIRC took them with them back towards the stone circle.

Back at the megaliths, they found Boskell with one child staring into the circle and trying to communicate with the shadowy figures he could see there. Seehofer had not returned yet. As the Germans approached, Boskell turned around. A stand off quickly turned into an exchange of gunfire. Boskell began chanting as he sought to activate a spell, but von der Leyen shot him in the head with his Luger.

A quick note here on cultists and spells. The opposition in this scenario had access to magic, but it was not powerful magic, other than the ability to reactivate the circle, which WAS dangerous. The sailors perceived this threat and by killing both Steinmeier and Boskell, managed to neutralise it. I could have made Boskell a little more dangerous than he was, but I didn't want to prolong the game unnecessarily, and this was a one-shot, not a campaign.

Boskell's body was searched, and the Germans recovered his journal. This revealed that he was part of a team of four investigators from Oxford University who traveled to the Scottish highlands in 1938, because they suspected a pagan cult of some kind was operating there. In the end, one of their number was sacrificed by the cult (which was based in the village of Morr) before a confrontation while the cultists were conducting a ritual in the stone circle on the winter solstice. During that confrontation, two of the investigators were trapped in the circle when Boskell detonated charges attached to one of the stones, along with the rest of the cult.

Abandoned cottages on Greater Morr...

Boskell had been seeking a way to release his colleagues from the circle, and had corresponded with an occultist in Germany. He had stayed in touch after the war began, and had been told that someone would be sent to help him. He traveled back to the island to meet with Steinmeier. Boskell was a fairly amoral character, and more in it for the power and the intellectual challenge, hence agreed to use a child as a sacrifice - on Steinmeier's instructions.

The Germans now began planning for their veil out. The stones stopped glowing once the winter solstice passed, but they still decided to wire them up with TNT. However, they sensibly decided not to destroy them as the explosion would attract attention from Greater Morr. In this they were correct, and there is scope in the scenario for further scrutiny from the other island, and not only from the police.

The team also discussed signalling the U56 for an early pick up. In the end, they decided to stay put, keep the children in their custody, and complete the testing of their equipment, which would require a further 12 days on the island. On the night of their extraction by submarine, they sent the children across the straits to Greater Morr in Boskell's boat (the eldest, aged 11, could row), blew up the stones, and met up with sailors from U56 on the western beach of the island. By the time anyone from the village of Morr came to investigate the explosion, they were already on board the U56.

I think I was a little bit kind here - the scenario has scope to be prolonged, again because of suspicions raised by the people of Greater Morr. I allowed that one of the children was sufficiently competent with a row boat to get himself and his siblings across the two kilometres of sea to Morr village.

After that, it was a simple matter of returning to Kiel once the U56 completed its patrol. I can't remember the story invented about the demise of Steinmeier - it might have been something to do with an accident involving a cyanide pill. Whatever it was, I remember it being plausible.

After action notes

I promised I would include some further thoughts on the scenario. Achtung Cthulhu is a WW2 variant of Call of Cthulhu. It includes a lot more technical skills for WW2 personnel than vanilla Call of Cthulhu. It is possible to build a wide range of characters using these skills, including those with more of an espionage background or a more regular military background.

Opening the circle would not have been good...

This adventure was written as a military survival horror game, but even so, there are a lot of skills to be covered. I always envisaged the player characters as a mix of regular sailors from U51 and signals specialists with more technical training. I'd advise using more than the recommended points budget when generating characters for Achtung Cthulhu, as otherwise characters simply don't have the required expertise in their operational specialties.

Overall, I'm largely pleased with the scenario. The key to the whole thing is whether the sailors decided to stop Steinmeier completing his ritual, or whether they allowed him and Boskell to get on with it. The dynamic is potentially that of balancing his role as commander of the operation versus the need to keep some kind of supernatural threat contained. At what point do the sailors turn on him? I could potentially have made Steinmeier a little more forceful as a commander earlier in the scenario, but in reality he was not a navy man and largely left the sailor boys to get on with their mission while he focused on contacting Boskell.

Here are some elements I think could have been done better:

• Made the past events and current situation more obvious, partly through the clues discovered in the castle, and the communications from the cultists trapped in the time pocket in the circle. I'm not sure the players had a clear enough idea of what was happening.
• Make the opposition more potent - unless the circle is opened, which releases not only the cultists, but the things hunting them, the human opposition is not that dangerous, especially if they are surprised by an armed mutiny, as they were in this situation. Having said that, gunfire and explosions on the island can bring further intervention, something I had planned for. 
• The flying boat which overshot the island could also have been more dangerous as again, if the flyers had seen anything odd, further investigation from the authorities would have followed. But they did roll poorly on their Spot Hidden, so like a good GM, I gave the sailors the benefit of the doubt.

At some point next year I'd like to run this game at a con. It would be interesting to see how a group of players who are not friends would react under these circumstances.

My next Achtung Cthulhu adventure is intended to be quite different. It involves a team of British agents sent to Istanbul in 1940. It is still at the brain storming stage but hopefully progress will be made in the course of January.

Gone, but not forgotten...