Messages from Beyond the Grave

First I would like to give credit to Sans-Detour who handles the French translation of Call of Cthulhu content. The 7th edition is coming out at the end of September and looks absolutely gorgeous. I love the design and cannot wait for my pre-orders.

The free download section includes a few pages introducing a new feature “Messages from Beyond the Grave” that I think is really neat. Since it is free I take the liberty to give you a rough translation. Full credit is of course due to M. Tristan Lhomme. (Author of several french CoC scenarios and, interestingly, he was in charge of the French localization of WoW.)

Many Lovecraft stories involve the transmission of knowledge from one investigator to another dooming the later to follow the unfortunate path of the former. The “Messages from Beyond the Grave” rule tries to formalize that with a set of rules.

 

Every seasoned investigator possess a number of Writing Points (WP) :

WP = (Mythos Points + (Occult/2) + Number of adventures) / 10

The keeper can adjust this formula if needed :

• By using another skill instead of Occult, like Theology for a priest, Science for a scientist or even EDU/4 for a really down to earth guy.
• Divide by 5 instead of 10 to make it less challenging.

 

The investigator can then spend those point in the writing of a book to leave to posterity. The keeper is involved in the writing process and should guide the player depending on what the future of the book is (No point in putting contacts in a book that is going to be locked up for 70 years). The following can be included into a book :

• Cthulhu Mythos knowledge : 1 WP per Cthulhu Mythos Point. An investigator cannot transmit more points than he himself possesses.

• Spells : 2 WP per spell that the investigator knows. The book cannot contain more spells than the number of its Cthulhu Mythos points. The keeper can adjust the cost : 1/2/3 WP depending on the spell potency.

• Story hooks : 1 WP per valid hook. A valid hook can start a scenario. This can be a lead that wasn’t exploited at the time, an escaped cultist, a place that the investigator never had the time to inspect, etc. The writer can include invalid hooks (dead ends) for no points.

• Contacts : 1 WP per still-useful contacts (someone that can be of some help in a future scenario). Dead or missing contacts cost no points.

• Enemies : 1 WP per enemy. An enemy is a character that will try to fight the readers (once he is aware of them).

• Valuables goods : 1 WP per the equivalent of 100 £ / 1000 $ / 10 000$ depending on the time period. The book describe the mean to access the goods.

• Skills : 1 WP per skill. Reading about a skill provides a “tick” in that skill checkbox.

 

Once that the content is decided, the writer should make a skill roll of Art & Craft (Writer) or any other skill that means “organizing written information” (Journalism?). The roll difficulty is Normal and cannot be pushed. In any case, the book is written but the time taken to comprehend it will change.

The author of the book ‘relives’ his adventure through the writing. Therefore the act of writing costs him SAN which will be equal to the SAN cost to the future readers of the book.

 

The book is now created and classic Mythos Tomes rules applies. It has the following characteristics :

SAN costs depends on total Mythos gain (Initial reading + Full study) :

For 0-4 Mythos gain   : 1D3  SAN loss
For 5-8 Mythos gain   : 1D6  SAN loss
For 9-12 Mythos gain  : 1D10 SAN loss
For 13-18 Mythos gain : 2D6  SAN loss
For 19+ Mythos gain   : 2D10 SAN loss

Cthulhu Mythos Initial (CMI) : Half the Mythos points invested in the book.

Cthulhu Mythos Full (CMF) : All the Mythos points invested in the book.

Mythos Rating (MR) : (CMI + CMF) x 2

The rationale behind the Mythos rating formula is that the investigator is probably less aware of the nature of the cosmos than a mad Arab astronomer. Feel free to use the “official” formula for a really experienced investigator (10+ adventures): (CMI + CMF) x 3.

Weeks required for full study : (CMI + CMF) x 3 and then adjust according to the writer Art & Craft (Writer) roll :

• A hard success removes 2 weeks
• A critical divides the number of weeks by 2
• A failure adds two weeks
• A fumble adds 1d6 + 2 weeks.

Optionally you can also add one week per number of insanity phases that the writer had during his lifetime.

Spells : Those included in book.

 

TLDR : Investigators write Mythos Tomes.