Trail of Cthulhu: White Bokor

I ran this Trail of Cthulhu game as a test drive of Zoom as a utility for roleplaying games just as the UK coronavirus lockdown commenced. We could see it coming, but we wanted to make sure we had the technology to function as a gaming group. We'd never played online before, so this was a first. We have since also adopted Roll20 to support our more regular Eberron campaign.

In this adventure we had three characters:

• Marlowe Begard, an archaeologist (played by Ben)
• Professor Melvyn Hyde, a biology academic (played by Manoj)
• Annette, a Creole maid (played by Ash)

[Note - this was one of those games where a player turned up halfway through. In this case he was assigned the role of an NPC who had recently been introduced into the plot. It actually worked quite well.]

Our adventure opened with Begard and Hyde on a sailing holiday in the Caribbean in 1932, where they had chartered a small yacht. Caught in a storm, they were wrecked on the shore of an unknown tropical island, although they quickly came to realise they were on Haiti. The jungled shore they were cast upon with few supplies or equipment, quickly yielded to a small pathway into the interior. 

[Note: I allowed Preparedness checks to see if they had managed to salvage anything from the wreck - in this case a revolver, naturally, a knife and a compass.]

Further exploration led them to a clearing where they came across an abandoned campsite. A search of the camp revealed a diary belonging to a bank clerk called Neil Parker, who had been working locally. He had met and fallen in love with an American woman, Madeleine Short. They were to be married, but she had seemingly sickened and died on their wedding night. He had then discovered that she had in fact only been poisoned and turned into a zombie by a Creole bokor called Murder Legendre.

Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre

Advised by Bruner, a Swiss missionary, that Madeleine was in fact still alive, Parker had resolved to rescue her from Legendre's castle, a 17th century fortification nearby, built by French pirates.

Hyde and Begard proceeded in the direction of the castle, and soon sighted it over the tree tops, as it was built on a promontory overlooking the sea. They saw nobody as they approached stealthily, and realised that it had been converted into an affluent residence. They had read in Parker's diary that Legendre was the owner of a sugar mill on the island.

Checking out the terrace at the front of the castle, they noticed signs of a struggle, and that a number of individuals had seemingly fallen to their deaths from the edge of the ramparts to the sea-wracked rocks below. Several bodies could be seen in the surf. The duo advanced into the building which seemed to be deserted.

Further exploration revealed an inner courtyard in which stood a tower. Hyde and Begard managed to get access to this and found stairs leading both up and down. The upper floors contained bedrooms, which seemed to have been speedily ransacked. One looked to have been a woman's bedroom. It included a painting of a man in military uniform, dating back to the late 1600s.

As they were still checking out the room, a maid stumbled into it. She was obviously amazed to see them and Hyde suspected she was there for valuables. She admitted under interrogation that she was seeking jewellery that had belonged to the American woman, Madeleine Short, but that Madeleine herself was no longer in the castle.

[Note: it was at this point that Ash arrived in the game and took over the role of Annette. He was briefed on what Annette knew.]

The luckless Madeleine Short

Annette was able to tell the other two investigators that the owner of the castle, Murder Legendre, was dead, but that some of his zombie servants were on their way. Legendre himself had fallen off the ramparts into the sea following a struggle with Parker.

The investigators decided it was time to leave. Exiting the room with Annette - and the jewels - they saw three zombies climbing the stairs towards them. Hyde understood immediately that these men were not undead, per se, but under the hypnotic spell of the deceased Legendre. How could he still be controlling them? Still, they looked threatening, so Hyde and Begard man-handled a very heavy chest out of the bedroom and slid it down the stairs, where it crushed two of the zombies to death. A third tried to struggle towards them but was shot down by Begard, with some difficulty.

Fleeing down to the ground floor, the fugitives discovered the gardens outside to be full of more zombies - they counted at least 10 before they closed and frantically barricaded the door to the tower. Begard remembered that many of these French castles had tunnels underneath them for use in smuggling operations. They headed downstairs and soon found themselves lost in a system of tunnels that  the archaeologist fancied were older than the castle itself.

Another encounter with zombies followed under the tower. These seemed to be on a mission of their own and so were easily evaded. But it was not long before the investigators attracted the attention of yet more zombies, who began to pursue them. Begard shot one, but they were running out of bullets. Eventually, they fled into a large chamber which looked like a laboratory or workshop of some kind.

This was readily identifiable as the lair of the bokor Legendre. It contained a stone altar and was ringed by a line of what looked like reddish-black dirt. A geometric design on the wall behind the altar resembled a voodoo symbol of some kind. Hyde found a book belonging to Legendre, called Le Culte des Mortes, written by a magician named Hughes Caverne around 1680. Some jars of dust were also discovered, but the men were unsure what they were for, although they suspected they could be used to 'make' new zombies.

Eventually more zombies advanced into the room, but seemed unable to pass the line of red dirt. Still, there was only one exit and the undead barred the way out. A Geology spend came in handy here, as Begard realised the stone of the altar seemed quite different from the rest of the cave, and they were able to man-handle the altar aside, revealing another staircase leading down. From it came a strange green glow.

Haitian zombies...the 1932 film director's version, anyway.

The investigators hesitated, but at this point another zombie entered the lab with a pail of water, and splashed it across the line of red dirt. The zombies were free!

The trio fled down the stairs and found themselves in an egg-shaped cavern, dominated by a 10 foot high column of green flame spouting from a crack in the floor, a flame which gave off no heat and cast not shadow. Hyde chose this moment to fail his Stability check and stood rooted to the spot, fascinated by the flame. On the altar in front of it lay the sea-drenched body of a man, whom Annette identified as none other than Legendre.

At this point the body of Legendre came to life and he started to sit up. With more zombies coming down the stairs behind them, Begard seized the moment, and pushed Legendre backwards into the flame, which devoured him completely. As his screams echoed inside the cave, his zombies collapsed, dead, onto the stairs. Hyde shook himself out of his funk, and Annette spotted a crack in the wall, from which the smell of the sea issued.

Loath to stay in the cavern any longer, the investigators squeezed through the crack which led out to a ledge overlooking the Caribbean. From here they were able to escape from the castle...

[Note: The adventure, 'White Bokor', is from the Shadows Over Filmland scenario collection for Trail of Cthulhu, available from Pelgrane Press. It is written as a sequel to the 1932 film, White Zombie, starring Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre and directed by Victor Halperin. It is available on YouTube for those interested.]