Call of Cthulhu/True Detective Campaign

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>>49712013
The campaign would probably be a good deal more mundane than some of the more out-there ideas. Don't necessarily want Great Old Ones showing up. But I'd like to take True Detective and punch it up with more of the supernatural. For those who never saw the first season, a quick summary:

Detectives Marty Hart and Rust Cohle are put on the case of the rape and ritual murder of a prostitute, Dora Langue.

This leads them to uncover a mystery which involves dozens of murders and disappearances going back at least to 1985 (until 2005), which is connected to a cult of pedophile murderers who worship the Yellow King who lives in Carcosa, members of whom include the Governor of Louisiana and one of the wealthy reverends funding private church schools across the state.

Ultimately, our detectives publish their information and hunt down one of the main killers in his Temple-Carcosa, the old Fort Macomb near New Orleans.

>>49712013

It would be possible but you'd have to disregard all the shit parts of that show (i.e. every single reveal and basically the whole second half of the season) and replace them with something creepy. Do a bit of research on the actual references behind the Yellow King and Carcosa (which are sprinkled like cake toppings on top of the show with 0 respect or understanding). There's the kernel of a good campaign there.

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>>49712013
TD is not a game plot.

It's 2 protagonists, told in flashbacks, covers a decade, and remains anticlimactic. It's be a shitty game.

And the consensus seems to be that DELTA GREEN is the TD game.

That said, you can totally run a modern detective horror game with a slow (non action) pace and a macabre trail of clues that centers around tension in CoC. Pretty well actually.

You can play investigators struggling against mundane and possibly supernatural obstacles without backup while their health, luck, and sanity slowly decay away until all that is left is a mission.

Download the free quick start. It's 1920s, but the modern sheet with modern skills is on the same website.

>>49712104
However, for this to be a CoC campaign, it's going to need to open up a little more than just for Police Detectives. And it may be better to place it further back in time as opposed to in the 90s/00s, but I don't think that necessarily kills it.

The principle antagonists would be the Cult of the Yellow King, a group of Louisana good ol' boys which includes people from all strata of society (Reverends, Senators, Meth Cooks, Groundskeepers) many of whom are related. The religion has inspirations from Voudon, Santeria, and older, weirder versions of Mardi Gras (like Courir de Mardi Gras) which cleaves closer to Saturnalia than Fat Tuesday. At the time of the campaign, the cult's been operating in Louisiana for decades -- kidnapping, raping, and ritually murdering children in the Bayou. Some of them are also inbred.

The main figures of the cult are the Tuttle Clan, the Childress Clan (a deputy branch of the Tuttles) and the LeDeux (who may be related to the Tuttles through marriage).

As a way of expanding the original True Detective source material, I was thinking it could be connected to the Natchez people of pre-colonial Louisiana. They worshipped the Sun and all of their chiefs were called 'Suns.' The high chief was the 'Great Sun.' At the death of a Sun, they would sacrifice humans.

Going in line with Lovecraft's tendency to say the ancient, non-European religions were closer to the truth and to the mythos, could say that some of the original French settlers of the region came across the Natchez -- which was a cult to some Great Old One. This, plus the influence of Voudon and Santeria brought by slaves, developed into the King in Yellow cult of Louisiana.

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>>49712202
>>49712170
I understand the challenges. I am trying to adapt it into a game plot. And I am willing to make some changes to the underlying story to make that happen (for example, changing the time period and allowing for the interference of more P.I.'s, professors, explorers, etc.)

I will be playing "The Haunting" as a one-shot soon (please no spoilers).

>>49712236
Corbitt did it!

>>49712236
Worldbuilding and horror are polar opposites.
And a detective story that has already been told... I mean...

Why don't you focus on the inspiration, maybe the flavor, and do your own thing. Don't reference True Detective. Don't reference Lovecraft or Chambers. Just be spooky.

>>49712266
Dude. Fucking why.

>>49712013
>Was wondering if a Call of Cthulhu campaign based on the first season of True Detective would be possible.
very easily. the most important ingredient is players with the right mindset. and a good mystery, of course.

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>>49712318
I'm doing it for friends who never saw the show and don't seem likely to. Essentially, I'd like to come up with a campaign none of them are likely to have played before. And because they'd be able to kill Edwin Tuttle as opposed to letting him get away with it.

And you need world-building if you're gonna be a Keeper and respond to player decisions.

>>49712013
>>49712202
>>49712236

The main figures of the Cult (in recent memory) are as follows:

>Sam Tuttle, Patriarch of the Tuttle Clan
Sam Tuttle is dead by the time the campaign begins, but he appears to have served as leader of the cult while he was alive. He is the father of Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle and uncle to Edwin Tuttle (governor and then Senator of Louisiana). Throughout the campaign, Billy Lee and Edwin will use their power, wealth, and influence to hamper the investigators through legal and illegal means.

>Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle, Founder of Light of the Way
Billy Lee Tuttle, with the help of his cousin Edwin, founded a program to fund private Christian schools throughout coastal Louisiana, ostensibly as an alternative for children who would otherwise be bused hours away to the nearest public schools. It was from these schools that the cult could cull its sacrificial lambs and rape victims. He also funds various other Christian initiatives, including theological schools. He owns three large mansion homes -- one in Florida. He keeps tapes and photographs of the ritual murders in a safe in his home.

>Edwin Tuttle
Governor when the campaign begins. Depending on the length of the campaign and the player's actions, he may be Senator by the time it ends. Edwin Tuttle is the stick while Billy Lee is the carrot. He establishes an anti-Christian Crimes task force to 'handle' the ritual murders (but which, in reality, is meant to monopolize the investigation and squeeze out our player-investigators).

(more coming)

>>49712383
Relax. It's not a murder mystery.

>>49712429
A ritual murder of a young woman. More investigation reveal similar symbols all across southern Louisiana, as well as a disturbing number of missing persons for children and women.... which all turn out to be connected to a serial murder/rape cult that goes as high as Governor's Mansion. Sound good?

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>>49712013
If you liked true detective theres another IP that i think you'd love.

Its the game The Secret World. Theres even a CoC level set on the coast of Mane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXsp9bEFX2k

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>>49712450
More Cult Figures:

>Billy Childress, Bastard son of Sam Tuttle
He is the connection to the Childress clan. Bill Childress was a member (and likely victim) of the cult, raised in the household of Sam Tuttle (with the help of their Santeria/Voudon-worshiping nanny, Dolores). He put his son, Erroll Childress, through similar tortures. Presumed dead when the campaign starts.

>Erroll Childress, the Hierophant
Son of Billy Childress. He is a huge, balding man. The bottom half of his face is subject to burn-scars from a cult ritual in his youth. While working as a groundskeeper for the Light of the Way schools and various parish grounds, he kidnaps, rapes, and murders children. He is also a polymath and genius, but puts on the affect of a dumb good-ol'-boy. He tends to the Carcosa Temple in Fort Macomb and lives in an old, decrepit, and forgotten Southern Mansion near Fort Macomb, off the Creole Nature Trail. At the time of the campaign, he is the high priest of the King in Yellow Cult and responsible for most of its recent murders.

>Ted Childress, Ex-Sheriff of Vermillion County
Retired sheriff of Vermillion County who helped cover up many of the murders and kidnappings by destroying missing persons reports.

>Officer [Blank] Childress
Son of Ted. He monitors the investigators (and will convince a witness to kill himself in prison rather than provide testimony)

>Betty Childress, Feeble-Minded Flower-Maker
Erroll's half-sister and lover. She is mentally retarded (or simply had her development stunted by abuse, unlike her sociopathic half-brother). She 'keeps up' the mansion in which he lives (that is to say, she cooks for him and the mansion rots around her).

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The most relevant theme in TD is the psychosphere, a vague shared subconscious that is eroded by brutality and secrecy. On the show it is expressed mostly visually, by the characters reacting. It will be hard to put that into game terms.

DG does a really good job at something like it with bonds which link sanity to each character's social network.

Nemesis doesn't do that, but it expresses a detailed readout of a characters reaction to stress in different dimensions as mechanics. Unlike CoC or DG, sanity does not necessarily mean decay but change.

All have free versions to download. CoC calls it quick start, DELTA GREEN Need to Know, and Nemesis is completely free.

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>>49712541
Kingsmouth/Innsmouth. Lol.

>>49712631
>Reggie LeDeux, Madman and Meth Cook
Ex-con and one of Erroll's partners-in-crime. He is utterly unstable and prone to ramblings about the Yellow King and Carcosa. As such, he's been exiled to a redneck fortress in the Bayou, surrounded by mines and grenade-traps. He participates in Cult activites, by drugging their victims with LSD and Meth of his own recipe, but he also keeps child sex-slaves for himself. He is heavily armed as a result of a side-gig selling meth to the Iron Crusaders bike gang.

(If this is changed to a 1920s setting, he can be a Moonshiner)

>Dewall LeDeux, Reggie's Cousin
Reggie's connection to the outside world is his obese and unfriendly cousin. He's the one who makes contact with the bike gang and brings supplies to Reggie in his bayou hideout. As a result, he's paranoid of pretty much everybody.

>Dolores, Tuttle Nanny
Dolores is an elderly black woman who is in the throes of dementia and now in the care of her family (having left the Tuttles some years past). What her family dismisses as Dementia-addled Santeria ramblings are actually her recollections of the Carcosa cult, of which she was a devote follower and educator of the young Tuttle children in her care (teaching them how to create the Devil Traps which are one of the King in Yellow's signs, or as she still worships, "Him Who Eats Time").

>>49712013
OP's pic makes me wonder how interesting a CoC campaign based on an American presidential election would be?

>>49712667
I recognize it will be difficult to reflect the gradual decay of the characters, along with Lousiana, especially as the campaign is likely to be shorter than the 20+ timeline of TD.

However, I was thinking this could be represented by taking moments in the quiet time between the exciting set pieces by forcing players to take tests based on their Sanity/Skills to keep from attacking each other with fists, or drinking heavily, or falling into other vices as the campaign goes on. These vices could have minor effects like making them lose some research time, or they could result in wounds or addictions, etc.

>>49712730
Y'all reckon this is enough members of the cult that I don't need to worry about the players not interacting with enough people, or should I make up some more?

And thoughts on whether it should remain in modern times or be de-aged to the 1920s/30s?

>>49712667
Don't know much about Delta Green other than it's supposed to be the Modern Cthulhu setting, and also feature X-Files/FBI types as opposed to allowing 'ordinary' folks.

>>49712762
Manchurian Candidate but with Old Ones cults instead of Communists.

It's the kid from The Omen all grown up.

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>>49712784
The DG setting, yes, that's all secret agents.

But the DG mechanics are solid CoC 6 with a dash of UA. Might have to adapt a few skills, although with a veteran PC demolition might actually come in handy. You can even houserule in some CoC7 with luck spending and pushing rolls.

The adventure hook:

1990s: Delta Green. A ritual murder has hit the papers after someone in CID leaked it to the press. The symbols and the posing alert the attentions of Delta Green, who go in to investigate.

1920/30s: CoC. A prostitute has been found murdered and posed. The players are recruited to help an understaffed police force where many of its men died in the War and because they don't have much experience with cult sacrifice. Many of them are superstitious and wary of approaching the scene at all.

Examples:

-A P.I. known for dealing with weird cases is contacted by the grandmother of the prostitute because the police seem useless. Or else he's contacted by the police because nobody wants to touch the case.

>Police Detectives, officers, etc. fit naturally.

>A professor of history or the occult is contacted to explain the symbols daubed on the victim's body and the site of the killing

>A Conman sent by one of the local moonshining gangs under the guise of helping the police because the added attention is making their work in the Bayou difficult

>>49712631

I still can't get over the fact that it is the same actor who was cast as Errol Childress in True Detective also starred in Boardwalk Empire as George Remus no less!

>>49714982
True Detective CoC campaign set during Boardwalk Empire.

"Hey, Remus. Aynone ever tell you that you look like that kiddie-fiddling rapist-muderer psycho from New Orleans?"

Having never designed a campaign before, I know there are challenges. But that's why I'm trying to use a template like True Detective season 1.

Not everyone will have biker gang connections like Rust Cohle, so I feel like I need an alternative method for finding the LeDeux clan