[MoN] Planning a Relaxing Savannah Safari

[Mr. Bill]

Hi all,

'S been awhile... My shiny new job steamrolled our weekly game night for about a month there, and talking about RPGs is only fun when I get to play them too.

We're back on track as of last Wednesday, and my players met up with Old Bundari and his buddy Okomu (that surly son of a bitch!), received the old man's gifts and instructions, and seem to be just about ready to take on a trip into the African wilderness. My question for you fine people is this: How did you handle the actual journey? I suppose the two extreme positions would be 1) handwaving the whole travel period, with a brief interlude for the dead area marking the massacre site; or 2) Doing the whole trek in semi-detail, describing each day of travel (however briefly) and inserting encounters along the way.

I imagine I'll fall somewhere between those poles; we've discovered how long this campaign is already, having been at it for a year, and we're loving every second but it really doesn't need more dragging out. But it would feel like a waste of valuable opportunities for both setting flavor and cool encounters to just skip the whole trip. So I'll probably do a few "...it continues like that for a couple of days.." between some encounters. Drawing inspiration from the Gaming Grunts' playthrough, I'll probably have the bearers/guides grow restless and/or mutiny as they realize where they're headed. I also had the group spot what they could have sworn was Edward Gavigan in Nairobi last session, so I'll probably pay that off by having him lead a Bloody Tongue attack (having faked his death in London, he's been sent by Shakti to aid the Brotherhood's sister cult).

Any other ideas/general pointers? Not to belabor the point, but I really want to strike a nice balance between flavor and time efficiency here, so anything you guys can offer to help would be huge.

Thanks!

[wombat1]

Not everything in Call of Cthulhu needs to be Mythos-related to give an air of adventure and danger to the story. A mad elephant in a village could provide an evening's diversion:

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/

One could play off of the mad elephant is danger angle, the imperialism angle or both.

Oh, and make sure the players don't forget to feed the chameleon.

[Zarozinia]

When my investigators were in Kenya (and Australia for that matter), I only went into detail for the set-piece scenes and described the rest of their journey fleetingly, focusing on the senses to try and set the mood (the heat, the sounds of insects, etc).

Were I do it again though, I'd be tempted to add a few more non-mythos vignettes to try and add a bit more depth to the journey.

FNH's excellent Cthulhu Podcast is serialising How I Found Livingstone by Stanley, and it includes all sorts of fascinating information about an expedition across Africa that may enrich your game.

[Insanity]

I agree that even just African wildlife would be dangerous enough; being attacked by an angry hippo while in a small boat, a crocodile snagging someone who hung too close to the river's edge too long, a bull elephant in musk charging the jeep just for the hell of it. I plan on having much of the same when my MoN group gets into Africa, as its one of the few continents with more then a few large dangerous animals and most have a decent armor number.

After a croc dragged someone to the bottom of the river as they are helpless to really do anything, noone would dare go near any river edge again.