Review of Adam Gauntlett’s Call of Cthulhu scenario Spilsbury #9485, written for Stygian Fox’s modern day scenario anthology, Fear’s Sharp Little Needles.

In-Short: A very brief set of intriguing guidelines, though the actual structure of the scenario is left entirely up to the Keeper.

Spoiler-lite for Players and Keepers:

All of the Fear’s Sharp Little Needles scenarios are short, and Spilsbury #9485 is among the shortest, taking up only three pages, along with one full page art piece. The book’s scenarios can also be generally separated into two types: plotted out scenarios, with the general progression beats laid out, and guideline or ‘seed’ scenarios, where the backstory and setting are listed, but the scenario progression is left entirely up to Keepers and players.

Spilsbury is firmly in the later group, for better or worse. Many Keepers, and myself on occasion, like to use prewritten scenarios more as inspiration or adventure seeds rather than fully thought out stories. This is especially common for sandbox scenarios or settings, which can still work just fine in small packages, for example in another Fear’s Sharp Little Needles scenario, Scott Dorward’s Unland. Spilsbury isn’t really a sandbox though. It is a single location survival/escape scenario. I would have preferred another page of pacing beats to give the session more structure, and from there the Keeper could of course fine tune or change things as need be.

What is given though is an intriguing mystery and concept and doesn’t require all that much work to make into a tightly paced and frantic two-to-three hour session. It isn’t particular complex, but it does a fine job of putting the players off balance and forcing them to quickly try to piece together what is going on, while events keep deteriorating around them. With a little bit of work, it could fit into an extremely tight one-hour time slot. If it had been given a bit more page space to give Keeper guidance, it could have been very different kind of introduction scenario in the vein of Gateways to Terror, but with more emphasis on weird problem solving than the more pulpy-action of the Gateways trio.

Spilsbury #9485 has the makings of a very good scenario, and can make, and for me indeed has made, for great sessions, but Keepers should know going in that it leans more towards being a ‘build-your-own’ scenario than something that can be run as-is. For a session tight on time, or as an introduction to the weirder and more disorienting side of Call of Cthulhu, Spilsbury #9485 can be worth the extra bit of work.

Spilsbury #9485 can be found in Fears Sharp Little Needles, available on DriveThruRPG.

Before you go, maybe you would be interested in some of the below reviews or replays?
MJRRPG scenarios, Chaosium-released scenarios, Miskatonic Repository scenarios, Japanese scenarios

The most complex and interesting part of Spilsbury #9485 is its backstory, which unfortunately is a bit difficult to communicate to the players in-session (and part of why I think Spilsbury would likely make for a better short story than an RPG session). Summing it up does it a bit of a disservice, but to sum it up anyways: two investigators in the past made use of a big travel case in their adventures, filling it with various occultic horrors, until their insanity lead to a rift and one murdering the other, stuffing them into the case and leaving it in a train station. Its accumulated Mythos energies and a Gate spell send it to the Beyond though, and it pops up repeatedly throughout history in various train stations, bringing disaster to those unfortunate enough to be caught in its presence.

The investigators are of course a group of those unfortunate few. Or at least that’s the most common and easiest hook. The players could be characters that just happen to be present when the case appears while they’re waiting for their train, and they have to figure out what the hell is going on as time warps around them and beings from the Beyond are drawn to them. The scenario offers other hooks, though they would require a bit more work. It doesn’t mention a way for pre-existing investigators to be roped in, but they could be looped into the ‘Spilsbury Group’ hook – an unofficial group searching for the case. Preexisting investigators could have a contact in the Spilsbury Group, and get a lead on where the case is somehow. In general though, the investigators as random unfortunate passengers is a more fluid and interesting hook, and works better for the short, one-shot nature of the scenario.

The text does not layout the order of events, or what events should really take place, but it gives some tools. The case has different contents depending on its time period. The most important of which is the first occurrence, when it contains notes needed to undo the Gate spell and free the investigators. As narrative tension dictates, this should probably be the last crate they find, otherwise they’ll learn how to escape too soon. The notes require a Hard Occult or Computer Use roll to decipher though, which I’m not a massive fan of. I’d throw an Idea roll in there if the players can’t figure out what to do, or have one of the other crates have a English translation available if they fail.

Threat wise, the only danger to the investigators are Extra-Planar Entities from the Beyond. They can show up early on, only in dark shadows and out of the corner of the eye, but progressively become more visible as the characters become attuned to the multi-dimensional funkiness. And as the players figure out more of what is going on, the entities can become bolder, starting shy or uninterested, then approaching more directly as their curiosity grows, and finally outright attacking when the players start trying to escape.

There aren’t NPCs front and centre in the text, but any number can appear over the phone or internet, and in various time periods. This is something that Keepers will need to prepare for in advance, or be comfortable with winging NPCs as the situation requires. The NPCs main use should be to give hints to the players about the wider backstory, with police, the Spilsbury Group, or MI5 agents cluing in the players to the known history of the box.

Overall, Spilsbury #9485 is as good as the Keeper. This obviously goes for any RPG session, but more so for this scenario than most others, as the there isn’t a framework for a Keeper to fall back on. I luckily played this scenario first and had a great time (thanks to Patrick on the Good Friends of Jacksin Elias Discord Server), giving me a better idea of how I’d like to run it. Going in blank would have been more difficult. But as long as your in the mood for making a scenario your own, Spilsbury can make for a frantic little session of time-bending weirdness.

Spilsbury #9485 can be found in Fears Sharp Little Needles, available on DriveThruRPG.

Before you go, maybe you would be interested in some of the below reviews or replays?
MJRRPG scenarios, Chaosium-released scenarios, Miskatonic Repository scenarios, Japanese scenarios