Monster of the Week: Rabid bull kills Greek farmer, sets fire to crops

So we had another - unexpected opportunity to play some Monster of the Week yesterday. MOTW is one of those games you can reach for at relatively short notice when your usual RPG campaign - in this case Call of Cthulhu - experiences a short notice hiccup. MOTW has proven adept at filling the gaps when they occur. I happen to really like the Powered By The Apocalypse system, even though combat still seems a little bit flaky and free form. But we will fix that.

I'm working on a one-short Achtung Cthulhu adventure myself which is almost ready which I might run virtually at some stage, but there are a few small details that have to be coloured in before I do. But it is a far more sophisticated beast than MOTW.

In our session yesterday we had:

• Solar Black - The Divine - played by Manoj
• Xi Guan - The Chosen - played by Ben
• Grimshaw - The Monstrous - played by Ash
• Brian Hemmings - The Pararomantic - played by Kelvin

We had a brief discussion about where the team were located in London - i.e. what their base of operations was. We got as far as Solar and Xi sharing a flat in Brixton, Brian living on his own (because he is haunted by the ghost of his ex) and Grimshaw dwelling in an abandoned tube station.

The team had been following UFO vlogger and conspiracy theorist Paddington "Bear" Reynolds for some time, but his discovery of a new and sophisticated crop circle in the area of Winchester, at the very edge of the South Downs, had him quite excited. In his latest video post, he said he was planning to go spend the weekend in Hampshire investigating the circles and possibly looking for UFOs. Xi Guan had a hunch - possibly divinely inspired - that something was up with this one.

The team decided to drive down to Hampshire on a dry and sunny evening in September 2019, battling through the rush hour traffic on the M3, and made it to a small village near Winchester. Booking into the local inn, the Black Cat, they came across Reynolds himself having a pint of real ale at the bar. Solar and Xi tried to engage him in conversation but he looked quite startled, told them to stay out of his business and took off with a large rucksack.

Grimshaw decided to follow him as it was still light, turning into an eagle and shadowing Reynolds on his moped. Reynolds camped out on a ridge overlooking a large corn field. The sun started going down. Flying low over the field Grimshaw perceived a sophisticated series of crop circles which seemed to change pattern and eventually disappear as Grimshaw surveyed them. The eagle also spotted some bicycles by a stile on the edge of the huge field.

Back at the inn, the rest of the team was enjoying some pub food. A couple of police constables entered the establishment and started talking to the bar tender. Xi cast a spell to help her listen in on the conversation. It turned out the officers were looking for four teens who had gone missing on a cycle ride. The hunters decided to leave the pub and soon met the returning Grimshaw. They jumped in their van and headed to the corn field, stopping by the stile to find out that the bikes had gone.

Xi cast another spell to give her a vision of what had happened on the spot in the last 20 minutes and saw an old man arrive in a pick up truck and take the bikes. The vision did not give the Chosen One a clear glimpse of the number plate. The hunters decided to look around near the stile and then entered the corn field, seeking tracks. They found the kids' foot prints leading into the field. Some hoof prints looking like those of a cow were also found running alongside the field, but the hunters quickly detected that these belonged to a biped. A big biped.

While looking around Solar stepped into a bear trap in the dark and took some damage from it. He teleported out of it though. He then decided to teleport back to his house in London to pick up some cans of gasoline and then teleport back. The petrol was stowed covertly by the stile. Then the hunters entered the field.

This, for those living outside the UK, is a stile.

Into the rustling corn they went and soon picked up the trail of the kids in the maze. As they navigated it Brian came to the realisation that this was in fact a labyrinth, not crop circles. The hunters reached a large circular space in the centre of the field where they found what looked like the bones and some shredded clothing belonging to one of the teens - from the tracks it looked like the survivors had split in a variety of directions. There were sharp tooth marks on the bones. Large hoof prints were everywhere. Then Solar's flashlight went out (dead battery) and someone fired a shotgun at the hunters, hitting Xi.

Grimshaw turned back into an eagle and took off, trying to find the attacker in the dark, but with little success. The others decided to chase through the field on foot, and eventually made their way out through one end of the field, where they saw a gate in a hedge and what looked like farm buildings behind it. Stopping to listen they clearly heard two men arguing in a language which they understood to be Greek.

Xi decided to use her wu xia power to jump the hedge but mis-judged her landing, and skidded in some cow dung in the farmyard before two astonished men, one older, one younger, standing by the farm house. Solar teleported in and poor old Brian was left to climb the gate. Solar tried to grapple the man with the shotgun before he could use it - while they wrestled, the eagle that was Grimshaw came out of the sky and tackled the younger man, knocking him down. He quickly got back to his feet and started to transform.

Getting your wu xia jumps right can be tricky...

Brian tried to persuade the Greeks to stand down, while Xi cast a spell at the man who was obviously turning now into a big half man, half bull shape. The minotaur was quickly encircled by a mystic circle which he tried to break out from. Xi could see the circle would likely only hold for a few seconds.

Grimshaw now turned back into a girl and pulled out her pistol (.357 magnum - don't let the police find it)), shooting the old man, who fell to the floor, but got off his second shot, winging Grimshaw.

Solar cast a banishment spell on the minotaur before jumping at it with his divine trident, spearing it badly. But the creature was already fading as the Divine's banishment power took effect. It vanished in front of their eyes.

By this stage Grimshaw had pounced on the old man and torn his face off with her demonic mouth attack (think: Alien). This horrific execution was pretty much it for the fight. The hunters moved to search the house, finding three missing teens in a basement temple under the farm house. They were all tied up. With them was an altar to the Greek gods and a large wall painting of Theseus fighting the minotaur in Crete.

Two of the hunters went into the field to spread gasoline around, and set fire to it. Meanwhile Xi used magic to draw Grimshaw's bullet out of the dead man. The corpse was dragged into the field to be consumed by the conflagration. All that was left was for Xi and Grimshaw to head up onto the ridge where an astonished Paddington Reynolds was eagerly filming the burning corn. Xi cast a spell on him, making him forget he had seen it, and put him to sleep. They made sure the film was deleted before they left to drive the teens back to the Black Cat inn.