There is trouble in Bethlehem….
Thousands of crows have taken roost in the woods surrounding Bethlehem, NH, mercilessly attacking anyone who tries to enter the forest. The human population is outnumbered more than ten-to-one, and the birds are growing more bold every day. Can the investigators solve the mystery behind this unnatural infestation? Can they save the town of Bethlehem from a disaster of biblical proportions?
Murder of Crows contains everything a Call of Cthulhu group needs for an evening’s worth of Mythos-inspired fun, including pregenerated characters. It is the first in an innovative new series of Call of Cthulhu scenarios and supplements from Super Genius Games.
This scenario was recorded at ShaunCon, so it’s a bit noisy. Fortunately our Zoom H2 recorder managed to get most of the voices of the players fialry well.
Keeper: Jon Hook
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:12:40 — 144.6MB)
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Another awesome AP
This was a decent enough listen, but I got zero feelings of being creeped out, and there wasn’t much in the way of tension or suspense. The scenario was too corny to be scary, given that we were supposed to be scared by a reinactment of a Budweiser commercial and some birds that never do anything except tap on a window. The small town vibe added to the general corniness of the adventure, with the generic town drunk, town sherriff, and various crazy old people. I just didn’t get very involved in this story at all. It was interesting hearing how the encroaching time limitation was dealt with on a technical level, however.
Hey Daisy,
Yeah, the adventure actually has very little authentic “mythos” in it. In fact, I added the monster at the end. The published adventure is really meant to be an introductory adventure for players into the world of Cthulhu. I chose this adventure to run because the publishers felt that it could be fully run in a 4 to 6 hour time limit.
I would love to run and record a multi-part adventure that does a much better job of cranking up the spooky. 🙂
To respond to daisy Daisy: I can definitely agree with some of the points you made (the lack of real creepiness in particular). to be fare thought the stereotypical town inhabitants I think are made that way intentionally so that the players can integrate faster. My biggest complaint however is that it seems way to easy to guess the bad guy early on in the adventure, which is bad for both the mystery and the horror aspects of the scenario.
Finally got finished listening. I generally enjoyed the story. I think it would be very difficult to capture the unique sort of pathos that lovecraftian characters seem imbued with. As always, I enjoyed the table banter and overall I think it would have been an enjoyable game to play. Good job Jon.
Hi Jon and all,
First of all, kudos for running Call of Cthulhu in a crowded convention environment. That atmosphere would make it difficult to crank up the spookiness, no matter the scenario’s content. I finished listening to the play-through earlier today. It’s always interesting to learn how other gamers both Keeper and act as Investigators in CoC games. I own a copy of this scenario and had read it maybe a week or so before finding this podcast – it was a treat to hear the play-through of such a recent publication. As always, the players always take published adventures in directions you’d never expect.
Do you intend to play-through and record the follow-up adventure to “A Murder of Crows”…being “The Doom from Below?”
Again, kudos for taking Call of Cthulhu to a convention environment, and for recording the session so that folks like myself can enjoy later on, in a different time and place. Even if the spookiness factor was lacking, the players and Keeper sounded like everyone was having a good time, which is the overall goal of any roleplaying meet. Well done.
Cheers,
Brian C.