The Plague of Scratches by Maude Cort is a role playing game supplement published by Chaosium Inc. through the Miskatonic Repository Community Content Programme for use with Call of Cthulhu, the horror role playing game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
The supplement is available as a two page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG and is intended to be printable on a single piece of paper.
Dangers has details on the Gaherog, which will attack villagers in their dreams, leaving the titular scratches, and the cult of splinters, who work to ensure the Gaherog attacks only their chosen targets and communicate with it. Conor can harness the Gaherog’s magic.
Solutions has two ways of defeating the Gaherog.
Set up explains that Conor is a psychic who used intoxicants to travel mentally to other worlds where he discovered the Gaherog, which manifests in the realm of dreams to feed on the sleeping. The Gaherog gives Conor insight into the minds of others as long as it is being fed; the police, after years of unexplained deaths, suspect Conor had something to do with them. He fled to a remote village and set up a cult.
Locations covers six locations in the village.
Tunnels gives a description of these.
Hooks has three adventure hooks to get the characters involved.
Plot points has three plot points that could also involve the investigators.
Clues has two chains of four clues for the investigators to follow.
NPCs has a list of important characters.
The Plague of Scratches in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and at this length doesn’t need them. Navigation is fine. The text follows various different formats and some miner errors were noticed. There are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.
The layout of the supplement doesn’t appear to make any sense. As-is, it appears to be intended to be printed out on a single sheet of paper and perhaps folded in two. In no logical way that the page could be presented, folded or unfolded, does the order of things make any sense; Set up, which explains what the adventure involves, is never at the beginning, nor does the order of the rest seem logical. Apart from the layout issues, this is a simple, small adventure that could be dropped into various settings and even time periods. The Plague of Scratches can be found by clicking here.
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