Cthulu in the Valley of the Kings

 This was a Call of Cthulu game with nine players at Lincombe Barn Wargames Society.

We arrived at a town near the Valley of the Kings by train but without our luggage, carrying only small items. Except for one aristocratic adventurer who had his own extensive luggage and servants.

 

We spent the night in a hotel and in the morning there was a commotion at the river where a hot air balloon was crash landing. This turned out to be another member of our party arriving. Venturing into the water we were attacked by a giant crocodile and one of the characters, a nurse, was eaten.

With some shooting and without any help from the local guards, posted nearby for that very purpose we scared it away, or perhaps it wanted to digest. 

 We spent a day at the American Archeological Society outpost doing research. It seemed there was a local cult was planning to summon some otherworldly creature and rumour had it the time was due. There was another cult with the opposite cause but it was believed to be extinct. We discovered that this cult had a spell book that had been broken up for security and we found the first part of it there and sanity was tested to read it.

 With a new character replacing the nurse, we hired some vehicles and some locals and set off towards the cult's area of activity. Caught in a sandstorm we were attacked by a bizarre creature confidently identified as a dinosaur (apparently museums would throw any old bones together to make a dubious skeleton).

One of the hireling ran away, one died, and another player needed medical attention after being jabbed with a poison barb. We moved on once the storm lifted and since it was late we prepared to make camp by a ruined building near a pyramid.

 

This turned out to be cultist HQ and we had a fight with them, losing more hired staff, after killing half of the cultists the rest ran away.

 

0Meanwhile one of our party had gone to investigate an oasis at the far end of the table on his motorbike, where he found more cultists, dressed in robes this time.

They chased him back to camp and as he arrived, falling of the motorcycle  a horrific creature was summoned.

Dynamite was used to destroy it with another causualty taken. 

The party now split with some of us guarding the camp. Searching the building we found a hidden basement. Entering the second room Carol's character triggered a magic spell, a monster appeared next to her which she shot to death. Mysteriously it disappeared and the body of her assistant lay there.Another page of the spellbook was found. Next they entered the pyramid by a hidden entrance and went in. Meanwhile another group of cultists attacked those of us above ground.

 

In the pyramid a monster that only Carol could see attacked the group who were alarmed by her shooting and shouting warnings.

Another piece of spell book was retrieved from a mummy's sarcophagus. Was the mummy real or a vision?

Becoming concerned we visited the pyramid to see if they needed help and could not find the opening, until it appeared as they were making their exit. We examined a Sphynx but only found a hidden chamber that had already been looted. We then followed the clues that led us to the Valley of the Kings.

 

We split into groups, with all our hired help we were still a large group.

I discovered a cultist who surrendered when I failed to shoot him by the narrowest margin. He said they were about to open a portal to allow their god to arrive. Securing the prisoner we entered a temple.

 

My group found a monster which made short work of someone. I asked the prisoner if this is what they were summoning or if there was something worse. We fired at it through the gaps between the columns.

The other group managed to open a huge door and released a creature so horrifying the camera couldn't bear to look at it clearly. It attacked them and threw them around like rag dolls. Still under the influence of a spell Carol's character couldn't see it. One player darted into the open door seizing a book from the throne within which was writhing with scorpions, the final part of the spell book.

 

A large group of cultists appeared in anther temple alarming the party members with the vehicles. We presumed they were about to start the summoning.

And now Cthulu himself appeared on the table (the model is from the Horrorclix game).

Everyone had to make a Sanity roll. Those who failed lost D100 Sanity points. I failed my sanity roll and lost 49 sanity points, from my balance of 23, and went mad. My character jumped to the ground and started eating the dirt. Craig's character went mad too and ran away.

The cultists in the temple were performing a ritual led by a mad looking priest. The party by the vehicles attacked them, throwing dynamite into the temple.

My deranged character, being a hardened mercenary hired to protect the group, decided he was quite capable of taking on a 50 foot tall elder god and began stalking Cthulu, moving from cover to cover to find the right spot.

As Cthulu advanced towards the party and the temple it occurred to them, or perhaps the GM suggested, that the cultists might be trying to oppose Cthulu, since their ritual only began after he arrived.

Gathering the spell book together the party read the spell that reversed the portal. At the same moment my mercenary character took his shot and Cthulu was gone.

The fighting with the cultists stopped as the misunderstanding became clear. My now insane character was  convinced that he had killed the creature with a single well aimed shot.

 We got all this done in one afternoon. The GM, John, kept things moving at a fast pace and we all had an excellent time.