[Camp Capybara] Cthulhu Dark: The Darkening of Macquarie Harbour [One-Shot]
This is a practice event for Camp Capybara. However, I will probably run this game at a later date through Gauntlet Calendars or at an upcoming Gauntlet Community Open Gaming weekend. If you are interested in playing, feel free to drop me a line and we’ll see about reserving a spot or two!
The year is 1829; the location: the western highlands of Van Diemen’s land (present-day Tasmania). For the convicts imprisoned at the penal station at Macquarie Harbour, life is a bleak and endless quagmire marked by maltreatment, hard labor, and disease, representing the worst of the British convict system. So when you are given the opportunity to escape inland, you make your move without hesitation–or consideration for what you might find. Now you find yourself alone and stranded alongside the titanic Gordon River, your memories of London’s urban squalor fading in the face of dark and impenetrable rainforests. Even those convicts native to the region, now freed from imprisonment, find the area utterly changed in ways both subtle and indescribable. Of one thing you are certain: There are forces primeval at work in the highlands, and you are not welcome.
The Darkening of Macquarie Harbour is a Cthulhu Dark scenario inspired by the short stories of Algernon Blackwood, most notably The Willows (1907) and The Wendigo (1910).
Cthulhu Dark’s designer, Graham Walmsley, describes the game thusly: Cthulhu Dark is a tabletop roleplaying game of cosmic horror, in the style of H.P. Lovecraft. It’s about the things we fear, amplified until they are unbearable. It’s about stories that genuinely creep you out, not well-worn tropes and creatures you’ve seen hundreds of times before. And it’s about bleak horror, in which humans are powerless when confronted by hyperintelligent alien horrors. You can’t beat them. You can’t fight them. You can only watch, run, hide and fear. If you love Cthulhu games already, then this is Lovecraftian horror at its most intense. If you’re new to them, then Cthulhu Dark is a great place to start. You’ll enter a world of stories that are both terrifying and terribly human.
CW: Colonialism, violence/death, imprisonment/subjugation, poverty, starvation, cannibalism. Safety tools will be used throughout the game and this content can be modified as needed!
System : Cthulhu Dark by Graham Walmsley
Duration : One 3-hour session
Breaks : 2 breaks at the top of each hour (5-10 minutes)
Venue : Zoom
Recording : Optional, with permission from all participants before and after the session
Attendance : One-shot
Safety : Lines & Veils, Script Change, X-card, Open Door Policy. Tools can be modified throughout the game to suit player needs.
This game will follow the Gauntlet Community Code of Conduct.
One-Shot on Saturday, November 14 at 9:00 PM EST - https://gauntlet-hangouts.firebaseapp.com/event-detail/-MLqBkokKLC4peo1LcGt