Hagen

I've been on something of a tear when it comes to my book reading lately. Thanks to a local gaming con's swap table and a local used book sale, I've plowed my way through "The Continental Op" and "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett. Both books are recommended for being great stories and for being good guides for those looking to play private investigators in the 1920's and 1930's.

Some scenario seeds spawned from these readings:

1. The investigators are hired a local business man to keep track of his poet brother-in-law's doings. In the course of this, they discover that the poet has fallen in with some rather questionable company, who seem to be up to strange things in the woods near a local roadhouse.

2. A packet of papers with no stamps, is found the mailbox of one of the Investigators, the day after a dead man is found in the hallway of his building. Cursuory examination reveals they are rather innocuous accounting records for an unnamed business, but it soon appears that something terrible is encoded among those numbers. Then there comes a generous cash offer for them from an anonymous caller over the telephone. What's going on here? Why did the dead man leave these papers with the players?

I also got around to reading "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" by John le Carré. A very good, but dense read. I now have better understanding of how spycraft and tradecraft work (very useful for Delta Green and Laundry campaign) It also shows how one may handle intra-party intrigue if one (or more) of them has been compromised by the forces of the Mythos (or is suspected of such corruption).

1. The investigators have been quietly investigating a local group of suspected cultists, when suddenly the suspects all go underground. Some digging turns up evidence that there might be a traitor among them that tipped off the cultists. Has one of them gone 'bad'? Or are the forces of the Mythos playing games with the players?

2. The players are picking up the pieces after a failed raid on what supposed to be a small group of cultists. Instead, it was a near massacre as it was really the lair of a Mythos horror. Now interviewing the survivors, they discover that the whole thing might have been compromised from the start, that the cult has a mole among them. Can they find out who before they find themselves walking unexpectedly into the maw of a terrible beast?

Until next time, be seeing you.