The Vanishing Conjurer, podręczniki RPG
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Pulled Out of a Hat by Mike Lewis
& Simon Price,
authors
Sawn
in Half
by
Marc Gascoigne,
developer and editor
Stage Presentation by Charles Elliott,
designer
Cover Illusion by Lee Gibbons,
artist
Set Decoration by Ian Cooke,
interior
artist,
and from
`Tricks & Il-
lusions'
by Will Goldston,
published 1909 by A.WGamage Ltd. of
Holborn, London
Magic Squares by David Oliver & Ian
Varley,
maps
Show Produced by
the Games Workshop Design Studio :
Bryan
Ansell,
Managing
Director. Richard Ellard,
Production
Manager.Alan
Merrett,
Publications Manager
.Jervis
Johnson,
Development
Manager.John
Blanche,
Studio Manager.
Charles
Elliott,
Graphic
Design .Paul
Cockburn,
Commissioning
Editor.Marc Gascoigne, Editor.Jim Bambra, Graeme
Davis, Rick
Priestley, Authors.Tony Ackland, Dave
Superstar Andrews, Col-
in Dixon, Artists.Julie Weaving, Gail
Morgan,
7ypesettinge
Mark
Craven,
Visualising.
Oliver Campbell, Ruth Capon, Susan
McLoughlin, David
Oliver, Joanne Podowski, Ian Varley,
Finish-
ed
Art
This product is published
with the approval of and under license
from
Chaosium, Inc.
By Permission of Arkham House
The Statue of the Sorcerer is © 1986
Games Workshop Ltd.
Call of Cthulhu is ©
1981, 1983,
1986
The Chaosium, Inc.
All Rights
Reserved
.
Printed in the U.K.
No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form or by any
means without prior
permission from the publishers.
All characters are fictitious; any resemblance to
persons living or
dead is purely coincidental. Honestly.
Any new rules presented in this
adventure should not be regard-
ed as official additions to the Call
of Cthulhu rules.
Any questions or comments on this
product should be directed to:
Statue of
the
Sorcerer
Questions,
Games Workshop Design
Studio,
Enfield Chambers, 16-18 Low Pavement, Not-
tingham,
NGI 7DL.
If you require an answer to your queries
please enclose an SAE
or 2 IRCs. Try and phrase your
questions so they can be answered
with a simple
Yes or
No,
as our time is limited. If your
letter is
uninteresting or dumb you can guarantee you
won't get a reply!
ISBN-0-933635-30-3
Published by
Chewton Street, Hill Top, Eastwood,
Nottingham, NG16 3HY.
INTRODUCTION
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5
PLAYERS'
INTRODUCTION
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KEEPERS'
INTRODUCTION
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5
The
Charity
Show
*
Joining
The
Brotherhood
THE
BROTHERHOOD'S
HOUSE. .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .
The
Ground
Floor *
The First
Floor 0
The
Attic
FURTHER
INVESTIGATIONS
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13
Will
Crowther 0
Rumours Within
The
Brotherhood
CHING
LUNG SOO
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...
14
THE
CULT
OF
LAN-SHI
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14
History
0 The
Cult
Today *
Information
on The
Cult
THE
CHARITY SHOW
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1G
The
Evening
The
Ground
Floor *
Below
The Stage
0
TheFirstFloor
Timeline For
The
Show *
Stopping
The
Summoning
NOTES
ON
RUNNING
THE
VANISHING
CONJURER. .
.21
CAST
OF
CHARACTERS
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21
Howard Horne
0
Philip
Leclair *
Ching
Lung Soo
Karl
Weiss
0 Will
Crowther s
Cultist
Servants
APPENDIX
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2
2
Threes Company
s
Packet
Prediction
*
Colour
Count
Royal
Weddings
Preparations
Howard Horne
0 The
Vanished
Conjurer
The
Society
PHILIP
LECLAIR. .
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.7
THE
AMAZING
KARL
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7
THE
INNER
BROTHERHOOD
OF
MAGICIANS . ..... . .
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9
THE
MERMAID
THEATRE
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16
The
Vanishing Conjurer
The
Vanishing Conjurer
INTRODUCTION
The investigation
is divided up into a number of small sec-
tions,
in
each of which there are sub-headings covering fur-
ther
research, extra clues, background information and asides.
You
should be
flexible
enough to allow your investigators to
continue some of their research while the plot advances -
especially if
they are being slow in solving the mystery.
The Vanishing
Conjurer is an introductory level investigation
set
in
London in the early 1920s. The investigators are called
upon
to investigate the puzzling disappearance ofayoung stage
magician, only
to find themselves drawn ever tighter into a
web of intrigue
surrounding a mysterious conjurer's club!
And now
you
should be ready to play. Have fun!
If you are
intending to play both ofthe adventures in this book
with the
same characters, we recommend that you run The
Vanishing
Conjurer first. It is a lighter adventure than The
Statue
OfTheSorcerer, andinexperienced players will be bet-
ter equipped
to cope with it.
PLAYER'S INTRODUCTION
Investigators
tackling this adventure will not require any
special skills,
though the usual complement of Spot Hiddens
and Library Uses will come in as handy as always. Please also
note the new skill, Conjuring, which will be useful too. This
adventure
may be run with the greenest, most inexperienced
group of investigators, though a group with a few minor in-
vestigations under their belts may need less prodding. With
careful
refereeing and the boosting in strength of a few of the
villains, The Vanishing Conjurer can also be run with a far
more experienced group, if you so desire.
It is
a
pleasant weekday in the latter half of the monthofJune,
192-. In London, one of the investigators is contacted by an
old friend, Howard Horne, who is atheatrical agent working
in London's West End. Horne sends the investigator four
tickets for aconjuring show taking place that evening at a small
theatre off Drury Lane. A small note scribbled on Horne's
business card attached
to
the
tickets gives no more details
about
what
the
investigators might expect, but Home appears
to require their help in
a matter of some urgency.
Campaign
Play
The Vanishing Conjurer is ideally suited for insertion into a
British-based game, or for an intermission in the English sec-
tion of a world-spanning campaign (such as Masks Of
Nyarlatbotep). It requires no precursors in the form of clues,
and need only
have after-effects ifyouwish it, so it could prove
to be a very 'pleasant' interlude for your players.
KEEPER'S INFORMATION
Howard Horne
You should give
the
players Handouts A and B at this point.
The first
is a sample of the ticket for the show; the second
is
Home's note. Home is a small-time agent dealing with a wide
range ofartistes. Like many similar agents he tends to discover
youngtalent and
nurture it into maturity, until it is stolen away
from him by one of the new
management agencies. Horne
himself, though, believes all the acts he handles to be the best
in
London. He is in many ways a stereotypical theatrical agent,
his
speech being peppered with talk ofdeals andfees, percen-
tages and packages. He operates out of a tiny, untidy office
off Long
Acre, close to Covent Garden andDruryLane, though
it
is very unlikely that his investigator friend will ever have
visited him there.
Ifyour
campaign is set in the United States you will find that
few problems
arise
in
converting the adventure to aNew York
or Californian location. Alternatively, you could bring your
investigators
over to London for a time; they may enjoy the
change of scenery,
and it will allow you a chance to try out
all
those other British-based scenarios that are around. In this
instance
youshould perhaps make Howard Home an American
citizen
too - andkeep him as an old acquaintance of one or
more of the team.
You
will
also
find
that The Vanishing Conjurer can convert
to a different time-frame with a minimumoffuss. Cthulhu By
Gaslightplayers will find little difficulty in moving the adven-
ture
back thirty years; if anything, stage musicians and the
popular theatre were even more popular than they were dur-
ing the Twenties. Bringing the adventure
up to date
will
also
prove very
easy for a keeper with a modicum of common
sense, though the initials of the Inner Brotherhood of Magi-
cians may have to be changed because of their close
resemblance to those of a certain computer company!
Howard Horne
is
a thin,
nervy sort of chap, with a narrow
face and
eyes that appear positively shifty. He has a tendency
to pump peoples' hands
with an enthusiastic handshake
whenever he can, and
to
smoke
cheap cigarettes. His daydress
is
usually
slovenly andstained with sweat and coffee, though
when he makes
the rounds of the theatres to see his artistes
he always makes the effort
to look like what some would call
,a
proper dapper
gent'
. Howwell he succeeds in thig depends
upon how one would define the term
`good taste'.
New Skill
Conjuring:
Base skill 15%. This is ameasure of the character's
ability
toperform conjuring tricks, card magic and sleight-of-
hand illusions. The
base chance allows only simple card tricks
and the like.
How the investigator knows Horne is very much
up to you
andyour campaign. If one of your players is a
journalist it is
possible that he or she would have run into
Horne, who is
always knocking on editor's doors in
search of more free
publicity for his acts. Alternatively, one of the investigators
couldbe apatron ofthe theatre, or even an artiste
themselves.
However youhandle this, though,
Horne's note should be suf-
ficient to attract their curiosity and
to persuade them to visit
the Chancellor's Theatre on the night in
question
.
Preparations
Before you ran this scenario there are a number of tasks you
should perform. Firstly, read the entire scenario (not The
Statue OfThe Sorcerer too, unless you fancy agood read), and
make sure you understand the gist of what is happening, - or
will happen. Remove the various hand-outs from the centre
of this book, and keep them close at
hand for use during play.
Read
the scenario again, this time visualising how things might
turn out, andhow youwill play the roles of the major
NPCs
during play.
"The Greatest Magic Show In The West Endi"
The show starts at
7.30,
andlasts for around twohours
.
There
are maybe two hundred people in the audience, half-filling
the theatre. Outside the theatre abill-board declared the show
to be "The Greatest Magic Show In The [Vest End!", but it
Sr
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