Church of Chiropteran Wisdom by Sal North is a role playing game supplement published by Chaosium Inc through their Miskatonic Repository Community Content Program for use with Call of Cthulhu, the horror role playing game system based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft. This is a short scenario for the 1920s.
This is a seven page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG as a Pay What You Want supplement. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one page is blank and one page is the Contents.
The Introduction states that this location is intended to just be dropped into a campaign or game, perhaps as a side quest, distraction or red herring. There is a place for cultists to worship and in front of this is a curiosity/pawn shop, a legitimate business. The default time period is the 1920s and it’s stated that it could be easily adapted to other periods – it looks like this shouldn’t be a problem; there really isn’t anything specific to the era – and it’s based in Tamworth, Surrey in England. Moving the place to another location may require some more tweaking – American cultists will probably have firearms. There are a few hooks to get the characters involved in the adventure, connected to people going missing.
The Cult of Chiropteran Wisdom explains how the owner of the curiosity shop, an aspiring Egyptologist who sells items he finds, discovered a tomb on a trip to Egypt a few months ago. There was a crystal in the tomb to a being who might be an avatar of Nyarlathotep which invaded his mind and caused him to setup the church.
Investigation has some areas where the investigators could gain more information. Approaching the Church describes the shop and that at night cultists are hanging around outside. Inside the shop, the assistant is the cultists’ gatekeeper, who gives one half of a passphrase. The Ceremony Room leads down from the shop; the investigators may or may not arrive when a meeting is in progress. During a meeting, the leader will summon his god if he feels threatened; otherwise the investigators may alert a bat demon. The Sacristy is off the Ceremony Room and contains the leader’s known spells in a notebook. The Keeper can also put clues in this notebook or an explanation that reveals this is a red herring, depending on the use.
Finally, the Bestiary has stats for a Bat Demon and the avatar of the bat god.
Church of Chiropteran Wisdom in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks but, with only three pages of content, doesn’t need them. The Contents is hyperlinked, although one of the entries has an error for an undefined bookmark. Navigation is good. Bar the cover illustration, there are no images; presentation is acceptable for a supplement of this type.
This can make for a good side quest or diversion from a main quest, or a way of getting a necessary clue to players. The Keeper should note that if the avatar is summoned, things may go very badly for the characters. Avatars can be dangerous, even if there are many more powerful than this. Adapting the scenario to other times and settings should not be too difficult either. Church of Chiropteran Wisdom is a nice little side quest and it can be found by clicking here.
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