The Mummy of Pemberley Grange Review: Call of Cthulhu (Seeds of Terror)

This is a review for the Call of Cthulhu scenario The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, written by Alan Carrey, produced by Type40, and the first entry in the 12-part Seeds of Terror series.

The Mummy of Pemberley Grange – Call of Cthulhu Scenario Review (Seeds of Terror)
This is a review of the Call of Cthulhu scenario The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, by Type 40, the first scenario in their Seeds of Terror series. You can find the written review on mjrrpg.com, as well as a written replay of this scenario.

In short

A fun and tense one or two hour bite-sized scenario for any group, though it likely needs some tweaking rather than being a complete zero-prep scenario.

Spoilers-lite for players and keepers:

The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, like all the Seeds of Terror scenarios, is a very short scenario (only 6 pages sans handouts!) meant to be run with minimal prep and in a short evening play time. In a way they are comparable to the official Gateways to Terror scenarios by Chaosium, but I find them to denser despite having much less text, and require more a little more buy-in from the players, and more ability to think on the fly from the Keeper. It is also dependent on its pregen investigators and would require significant tuning to fit into a campaign with preexisting investigators, though I don’t see that as a negative. It is very much a one shot, and its packaged investigators are varied and fun.

Pemberley Grange is very straight to the point. There is a problem front and centre, and the players must solve it quickly. The scenario has built in timer that can be emphasised or ignored to tighten or loosed the play time. I ran the scenario loosely, and it clocked in at two and half hours, but a focused group or harsher GMing could easily bull through it in an hour.

For groups looking for a tight and semi-stressful investigation-focused session, The Mummy of Pemberley Grange will fit the bill. It’s pregen player characters are also colourful and varied, and give players plenty of ammo for fun roleplaying and bouncing off each other. I do think the scenario requires a little extra work on the part of the Keeper, and the handouts leave something to be desired, but overall I would happily recommend the scenario to any group looking for a quick evening involving a mummy (it’s in the title, so not a spoiler!) with a Cthulhu twist.

If this sounds like something you’d like to run or play (and you should, it was great fun), you can buy it for yourself or your keeper, along with the other Seeds of Terror scenarios, on DriveThruRPG individually or as part of a bundle, or on Type40’s Patreon.

If you are a player, stop here! Below be spoilers, along with keeper suggestions. You have been warned.

Before you go, though, maybe you would be interested in reading some other scenario reviews?

MJRRG: Branches of Bone – Cthulhu Dark Ages, A Chill in Abashiri – A 1920s Taisho-Era Japan

Seeds of Terror: Series Overview, The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, Endless Light, One Less Grave, Hand of Glory, Tickets Please , Fish in a Barrel

Miskatonic Repository: Dossier 1 – The Maw

Chaosium: Amidst the Ancient Trees, Gateways to Terror Overview, The Necropolis, What’s in the Cellar?, The Dead Boarder

Japonism: Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs?

Bibliothek 13: A Cup of Horror, Erich!

Keeper review:

You can read or listen to a narrative replay here to get a feel for how run of the scenario could play out.

Pemberley Mansion is a mystery, with little social or combat skills being necessary or involved in ‘solving’ the problem. The characters are cursed by the mummy, sucking their POW until it resurrects and starts hunting them. To break the curse, the investigators must cook and consume the mummy’s organs while chanting a prayer. There are only three real ‘clues,’ though only two of them are necessary (the prayer and the ‘recipe’), but with both written in Arabic they require one investigator in particular to use. If that player notices both clues quickly enough, the scenario could be concluded well within an hour. And with only three detailed locations (the library with the prayer clue, the reception room with the mummy and the recipe clue, and the kitchen), this is very possible. As with any TTRPG, this can of course go completely off the rails in any manner of ways.

While the scenario is certainly less preparation-intensive that other short scenarios, it is not zero-prep/ run-out-of-the-box ready, and I had two worries before starting that I felt needed to be prepared for. 1) The building’s second floor and 2) contingency cases for quick investigator deaths or a TPK.

Issue 1) stems from the scenario’s handouts. There are three, two of which are props without much practical usage, and the last being a very nicely drawn map of the building. Unfortunately, the map has the glaring omission of only being for the first story of the building, despite having multiple staircases. Inquisitive players will note the stairs, and the scenario text doesn’t mention anything about the upper floors. I didn’t see any bedrooms in the map, so I inferred the upper floor(s) would mostly be used for the hostess’ private rooms and guestrooms. Luckily for me, my group didn’t have time to poke around upstairs.

Issues 2) is highly variable depending on the group and desired length of the session. If you are aiming for only an hour or so of gaming, there’s no particular problem with giving the players complete freedom. If you are planning for two to three hours though, some blinders may need to be put up, otherwise the scenario is surprisingly deadly and risks a player or two being taken out early on or even the whole party being wiped out. The causes of this are 1) ‘solving’ the mystery heavily rests on one investigator and their Arabic language skill, 2) leaving the reception room, and 3) not fleeing the location. If the particular investigator does not read the necessary clues (to be fair, they are very easy to find) and quickly pass them on, there is a chance they’ll die, in which case its impossible to ‘win’ the scenario.

This came close to occurring in my play-through, as the investigator in question remained in the reception room. For the scenario to progress, the mummy must awaken and leave the reception room, ideally when no one is present. If an investigator is present though, the mummy will eventually awaken and attack. With its skills, not to mention invulnerability, it is likely to slaughter any investigators in its path.

The option to flee is acknowledged in the ‘Conclusions’ section, but only by suggesting all the characters die a slow painful death if they leave. Almost any single location scenario that doesn’t physically lock players up will require some extra buy-in from the players so they don’t just leave. As written, fleeing the scene in this scenario does seem to be an acceptable strategy once the mummy awakens. The simplest way to give the players a hint that this won’t work is, rather than simply killing them in an epilogue, to continue draining their POW until they turn back.

To counter these issues, and to slightly expand the scenario as we had a three hour window, I added two servant characters. One as a secret cultist to either draw the investigators away from the reception room or to keep them from fleeing to early, depending on their actions, and the other servant as additional body-count if necessary.

While this addition made for some good fun and complications, I’m not sure if this worked as desired, and if I run the scenario again I may just leave it as is, even if it means a very short game.

In our run, the players quickly split up, with most staying in the reception room with the still dormant mummy. Some fortunate SAN loss and insanity led to one investigator eventually fleeing to a different room, and I saw this as a chance to get the others out of the reception room, hopefully allowing the mummy to wake up without slaughtering too many investigators. The cultist servant sprang a gun on the insane investigator, leading him away to the library and drawing away two more investigators in pursuit.

One player remained behind though, and of course it was the character with the crucial Arabic skill. Nearing the hour-fifteen mark the mummy awoke at the same time as a near-shoot-out erupted with the cultist-servant. The investigator broke away from the mummy by the skin of his teeth with a great Brawl roll and some Luck spending, while the others disarmed the cultist.

But with the mummy on the prowl and obviously impervious to violence, the investigators rationally decided to flee. This occurred a little after the second hour, and with one investigator insane and nearly POW-less, the others also suffering from POW loss, I saw little chance of the game ending on time without heavy handed direction. And so they fled, and one by one succumbed to the POW draining curse.

I found it actually a rather satisfying ending, and I didn’t notice any players being particularly upset by it. It became something of an achievement, actually, as none of us had experienced a TPK via POW loss before. Ultimately, it worked due to timing, and had it come to the same conclusion an hour early we may have been disappointed. And who doesn’t like a downer ending with an ancient Egyptian cultist priestess once again walking the Earth to do her dark deeds?