Wild West Call of Cthulhu Give me a story hook -- not for an

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>>49212389
The meddling firebrand preacher, weak of will with whisky in his gut. His passion for the sins of the civil war to be washed in the baptism of the heathens leads him West. He seeks their traditions, walks their paths, speaks with them to turn them to the fire of THE LORD.

Little does his drunken mind realise, he treads into ever darker stories, seeks tales of the forbidden, and in the darkness, The Wendingo waits...

>>49212389

Anything where you can inject Yig the snake god into it. A mining operatin uncovers a vast den of snakes. The local natives warn to leave the area alone least they stir the wrath of Yig, the Father of Serpents.

The camp then comes under attack as men are raised as zombies with snakes burrowing through their body and manipulating them to attack their fellows.

These are cool (love the pic) but I need HOOKS...i need a means to get a specific character interested in pursuing Things Best Left Secret

>>49212761
You got a reference for us, for the dude in question? Give us more than setting and theme.

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>>49212851
He's a Hexslinger -- a gentleman card shark from a wealthy family -- a little jaded by East Coast sensibilities, and he's headed West with his Hoyle's Book of Games, and occult notes scribbled in the margins.

Other group members are an Ozark wilderness man, and a Chinese-American (really) bounty hunter on the run from the ghost of his grandfather.

>>49212389

>Gold rush town!
>But while there's a steady flow of gold out of some of the earliest mines (whose owners have some strange habits and keep closely to themselves) no other miners are finding gold.
>worse, people have begun to go missing beneath the earth!
>upon closer investigation, ghouls are found, but wait!
>ghouls are themselves trying to fight a cult that is trying to bring a greater dhole, the earth destroying kind, deep within the mines!

>New Management in the Company Town!
>The company's Mayor dies under mysterious circumstance only to be replaced by a very strange seeming stranger from the company
>he come with a new gang of hired "pinkertons" with him who very carefully stay to themselves, and even the regular company hired guns are scared
>because the strange pinkertons are weilding things a bit heavier than their guns
>and they want something buried beneath the last non-company owned business in the town...

>>49213065
Hmm, not much to work with.
Does it need to be overtly or directly occult? Or is that gonna get worked in later?

If not, aim to just rip off Hell on Wheels; any of the origin stories from the cast works. Half of them are just plain avoiding local law (as there is little national enforcement whatsoever)

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>>49213141
covert, if we may. I like to keep the occult occulted as long as possible, which is a challenge using the Deadlands setting

I'll take a look at Hell on Wheels. Thanks.

>>49213130
some good elements here. thanks. I like the newspaper headlines as a hook.

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>>49212389
That is a cultist in the making.

He used to be a scholar in England. That's when his peers dabbled in some summoning and he got hooked. The others died or left the obscure hobby behind to become upstanding members of society, he didn't.

He kept experimenting in secret and looking for those rumored tomes of ancient lore. He found a few translations, but they failed to be helpful in his search. He needed the originals.

He learned Sanskrit and traveled to India, visiting remote temples and long forgotten ruins in Bengal. Maybe he got into some Kali worship. But the knowledge he found remained vague and discouraged the search for power.

Back in England he authored an academic treatise about his voyage and submitted it to the Royal Society but was rejected. Insulted deeply he abandoned scholarly research and rededicated his life to a quest for lore unhindered by empirical discipline.

After rumors of an Arabic original in New England reached his circles he booked passage on the first ship headed for New York. Fascinated by the bustling New World so envigored by the spirit of enterprise he had high hopes when he arrived at Miskatonic University only to discover the researcher he was looking for had last reported from an expedition to Indian burial grounds in the West months ago. The book was nowhere to be found.

After a few weeks of fruitless research in the university library he liquidates all his remaining assets and boards a train to [location] in search of the research fellow who was rumored to have discovered the Necronomicon, or at least parts of it.

There is no going back.

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>>49214494
I really, really appreciate your detailed reply. This is interesting, and reminds me that I need to motivate my players to (eventually) leave the Wild West and travel to other parts of the globe (and maybe Barsoom). I would like to use your outline as a background for the villain they're about to meet.

But in so many words, it's out of context for what I need. I have player characters who are starting out in the WW and have no real developed background. I need HOOKS.

So I'm thinking that my villain has the background you described, and during a drunken card game, his bruised or inflated ego may let slip that he is into the Dark Arts, and pursuing a mystery. In his room or via a damaged witness, the players may discover a journal, letters, old newspaper articles hinting at something he's "putting together" further West, and I can tie it into the PC's backgrounds somehow.

>>49215036
Either use Pulp Cthulhu (same rules, more heroic)
or make it less of an adventure and more of an investigation.

To turn the character into a hook as a card gamer, have him cheat with some not so well concealed magic. Maybe he astral projects to peek at the other players' hands, making him seem to fall asleep during the game for short moments.

Then he pays the price, there is always a price to pay. Some creature was alerted to his astral shape and is now after him, hurting bystanders inthe process - he knows how to protect himself while they don't. Maybe he has a warding or a talisman.

The players will be easily alerted to his weird cheating. Then they will see the trail of destruction. But how do they fit together? And how can it be stopped.

If confronted he could come clean (a little), maybe even offer some lore tidbits to get the players interested. He could help the investigators get rid of the creature, really they will be helping him though. Or he could appear like the master of the creature if the player fail to establish any rapport.

If they side with him he will of course betray them. But only do it when he has reason to doubt their loyalty, players always provide that much.

>>49215226
I'll look over Pulp Cthulhu. Thanks.

Thanks for the ideas. Do you play a lot of CoC or Pulp Cthulhu?

>>49215819
I wish. Once or twice a year is all we can manage. Out main campaign is Laundry.

>>49213065
They play poker with Nyarlathotep.