H.P. Lovecraft Academy: Field Trip to the Fitzgerald!

Yesterday we were supposed to play Chill, but as we're still in a pandemic despite most of the country's insistence on sticking their fingers in their ears and going "LA LA LA", sometimes plans change. So we played another session of H.P. Lovecraft Academy instead! 

It's a bare month after the Night of the Festive Gourds, and five of our intrepid first-years - Alice Quinn, Trudy Dell (and her weird little servitor Glimmer), Ethan Grayson, Cassie Peterson, and Luna Lavender - have been chosen to take a field trip to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. (Please note: science leaves the building about now and doesn't show up again.) They fly out to Sault Ste Marie, and on the plane ride over, Alice regales everyone about all the fact she's learned about the shipwreck, and about the many occult conspiracies about what might have sunk the boat and whether the "witch of November" was a real witch. 

The professor that's brought them on this trip, one Keziah Jenkins, is the chaperone, along with her husband and three seniors - Walter, Frank, and Mason - who are all very muscular and not overtly interested in history (Walter is strangely fuzzy all over, Frank just started classes this month despite school having been in session since August, and everyone says Mason has a servitor but is just really terrible at communicating with it). It occurs to the students that normally Prof Jenkins brings seniors on this trip, not first years, but they aren't sure why the change.

The students get driven from the airport to the docks and board a boat to take them out into Lake Superior. Cassie asks if they can go to the museum first, and Alice agrees enthusiastically, but Prof Jenkins tells them that their time to go out on the lake is limited - they'll have to hit the museum on the way out of town. Everyone gets on board and puts on a life vest. Ethan feels a little queasy, but keeps it under control. Cassie stands on the bow and sings "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" loudly, and then transitions to reciting "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" ("it's the only boat-poem I know!"). She also holds her pet rock, Felicity, up to let "her" see the water. 

They arrive over the site of the wreck, and Prof Jenkins has her "assistants" pull tarps off a big conveyance hanging on the side of the boat. The students all stare. "What the heck is that?"

"It's a bathyscaphe," she says. "Hop in."

There is, um, a moment of consternation from the students, as a couple of them seem to remember a similar craft imploding in the deep ocean somewhat recently, but Prof Jenkins reassures them. First, that guy was an idiot. Second, I'm a witch. This convinces the students (well, mostly Alice; Cassie was the other one who was concerned but she needs the grade because social studies is her worst subject). They climb aboard, Prof Jenkins pulls a lever, and the bathyscaphe crashes down into the lake.

Prof Jenkins starts steering it downwards, everyone's ears pop, and then she levels it out and throws a level. Viewing windows open in the floor, and the students can look down at the wreck, the boat broken in half on the lake bed. Cassie, Luna, and Alice also see...light? Angles and circles and weird geometrical designs connected by the pieces of wreckage, forming shapes that have no business existing here. (Trudy tries to look, but Glimmer keeps getting in her way, almost like she doesn't want her to see.)

Alice looks up and sees Prof Jenkins looking at the students and holding a pendulum over her palm, clearing casting some kind of spell. Alice calls attention to it, but by now she's been talking so non-stop that no one really pays attention. The bathyscaphe continues into the dark, and pulls up next to the stern section of the Edmund Fitzgerald. 

Prof Jenkins throws yet another lever and a back section of the craft opens, revealing rows of suits and big glass bubbles helmets. There's a collective "WHAT" from the students, but the older kids start suiting up, and, shrugging, Luna and Ethan follow suit ("are these gonna fit us?" "Yes, they'll be fine, suit up"). Cassie and Trudy grudgingly go along with it (Cassie needs this grade, after all). Alice digs her heels in - this is a terrible idea and she doesn't want to drown - but finally Prof Jenkins opens a locket and blows something into Alice's face, and suddenly the suit doesn't seem like a bad idea, everything will be fine.

Ethan asks after oxygen tanks, but Mr. Jenkins affixes his helmet and writes some runes on the side with grease pencil, and suddenly Ethan feels a rush of air. He smudges off the runes just to see what will happen, and the runes reform themselves. Mr. Jenkins glares at him. "Don't do that." 

Everyone crams into the back section of the bathyscaphe, and Prof Jenkins shuts them in and opens the airlock. They file out onto the bottom of Lake Superior, and following Jenkins' lead, tap a small box on their shoulders to turn lights on. Only Cassie and Alice have working lights, however. Cassie notices that Mr. Jenkins and the three upperclassmen head off in the other direction, and mentions it, but Prof Jenkins says they'll catch up with them later.

They enter the stern section of the boat, and Prof Jenkins tells them to look around, see what they see, find interesting stuff. Alice doesn't want to get any further into this than she has to, and hangs around back by Jenkins. The others go exploring, though, and Cassie goes to pick up a weird-looking rock. She quickly realizes, however, that it's a skull! She pulls up and discovers the body of a man dressed in a cook's apron, and yells "Body! We've got a body! A cook!"

Everyone looks over, but the cook suddenly moves! It bangs its ladle on the rubble and yells "Fellas, it's finally time to feed ya!" And more corpses start squirming out of the rubble.

The zombies converge on the students and try to grab them. A couple manage to grapple with Ethan and Luna, but Ethan wriggles free and Luna kicks one of them in half! Some of them head toward Alice and Jenkins, but Jenkins steps in front of Alice and unleashes a blast of light at the cook. It glances off without hurting it, and Jenkins curses under her breath. 

Cassie calls on her power of oneiromancy to put zombies to sleep, figuring they were in a kind of sleep down here anyway, and manages to make a couple of them collapses. Trudy sends Glimmer to frighten them away, and Glimmer pulses with all of the weird, otherworldly "color" she can manage, and a bunch of the zombies flee. Trudy also realizes that a powerful enough spell could probably put these zombies down, and yells out to Alice.

Alice, initially, is too focused on her immediate issue to listen - she casts magical blasts at some zombies but doesn't manage to slow them. Luna dismembers another one ("Did you join the Karate Club or something?"), and Cassie clunks the cook-zombie on the head with Felicity. Prof Jenkins, now being grabbed by said cook, casts a spell and a speargun appears in Cassie's hands. 

Jenkins and Alice finally manage to get on the same page and cast a banishing spell together, destroying a bunch of the zombies. Cassie fires a spear at one, but misses and nearly hits Luna ("Watch it!"). Finally, though, the cook falls inert, and with it, the rest of the zombies.

The students pull themselves together and confirm there are not rips in their suits. Someone asks Prof Jenkins if this happens every year; she says that it's a first. She conjures up some light in the room so they can poke around more, if they want, but mostly they're looking to get out (after all, there were 29 men on the Fitzgerald and that was only 11). Cassie spots something - an eyeglass case, much too new to belong to one of these men. It has the letters "CQ" written on it.

Alice sees it, and realizes it might belong to her brother, Charlie Quinn. He disappeared when he was a senior at HPL Academy, and while he never mentioned this field trip, he was taking history that year! Cassie doesn't want to give up her find, initially ("I need this grade!"), but then it's suggested that Alice might be able to use magic to "read" the object, and Cassie relents.

Alice casts the spell, and sees Charlie, Prof Jenkins, and some other seniors down here in the stern. They find the bodies, but the zombies don't stir. Charlie opens a pouch on the side of his suit to retrieve something, and his eyeglass case falls out, unnoticed. In the memory, Jenkins starts ushering them toward the bow of the boat, walking across the riverbed, and Alice follows, focused and entranced. In the present, Jenkins bids the other students to follow, and they all walk toward the bow section.

In the memory, Alice hears what she thinks is a scream, but it's memory through the weird communication of the helmet, so she can't be sure. She arrives at the bow and finds that there's a barrier, beyond which there's...no water. She steps through it and drops a few inches to the ground (no longer buoyant) and looks around.

She sees three big stone slabs with manacles attached. The three upperclassmen and Mr. Jenkins are fiddling with them, preparing...some sort of ritual? Everything here is lit by bio-luminescent fungus and plants, and Alice can see the connections of the weird, eldritch angles and curves that all of this produces. 

The other students and Prof Jenkins enter, and Jenkins takes off her helmet and suit, and motions of the students to do the same (some of them take off the helmet, but no one is quite brave enough to remove the suit). Cassie looks around and, drawing on her Eldritch Lore, quickly realizes that stone slabs with manacles typically mean someone's getting chained to said slabs, and nothing good happens after that. 

And indeed, Prof Jenkins very matter-of-factly tells Luna, Alice, and Cassie to get on the slabs (Ethan and Trudy can go back to the bathyscaphe and wait, if they want, she says dismissively). When they ask why, she replies that she needs their "insight" to open "the gateway to the City of the Elder Gods." Alice asks if she needed Charlie's insight, and she looks confused for a moment, and then smiles. "Oh, yes. He was very insightful." 

"I think this is more about our insides than our insight!" says Cassie, pointing to the shackles. As if to prove the point, Frank and Walter grab Alice and yank her towards a slab to chain her down! Ethan, now able to make best use of his mutation, stretches over and grabs all of the suits (the ones belonging to the Jenkins and their henchmen), figuring to hold them hostage. Alice tries to blind her captors with magic, but doesn't manage to get free in the process. Mr. Jenkins leaps up on the slab and pulls Alice further along, and Mason charges for Cassie, but Cassie calls on her powers of Oneiromancy and puts Mason into a deep sleep. 

Trudy reaches out to Mason's erstwhile servitor and finds it - a great, big, squishy, conical creature with lots of flat limbs. It's very enthusiastic to have someone to talk to, and apparently not very bright, as Trudy cannot get it to do anything useful. Ethan stretches out and tries to leech life out of Mr. Jenkins, but upon touching him realizes that his body is dead. "He's a zombie!" yells Ethan. "Focus on the prof!"

Luna, figuring it worked on zombies, kicks Prof Jenkins in stomach. Alice angrily centers a blast on herself, but only damages her own body more than her captors. Cassie pushes her Sandman power on Prof Jenkins to make her sleepier, and Ethan grabs the Prof and sucks the life out of her. She collapses, weak and nearly dead, and Mr. Jenkins leaps on Ethan's back and starts trying to chew into his suit.

Ethan shoves him off and pulls Jenkins to a slab to chain her down. Mr. Jenkins leaps on the chain and tries to chew through it, but his teeth crack and break. Alice manages to get a hand free and blasts Walter and Frank into unconsciousness, and joins the others. 

The students discuss what to do. Alice demands to know what happened to Charlie, but Jenkins isn't talking and Prof Jenkins is unconscious. Trudy sends Glimmer to use her weird, eldritch glowing powers to intimidate Jenkins, and Jenkins' mouth opens wide and a huge rat-creature with a human face pulls itself out of him. It sits on the slab and demands that they don't harm his wife, and Cassie says that she's amenable to an agreement.

But Alice isn't. She uses her object reading spell again and sees what happened to Charlie. In the vision, he is chained down and Prof Jenkins touches his temples. Light streams out of his nose and mouth, and for just a moment the angles and curves are illuminated...but then they fade. Prof Jenkins cries out in disgust. "Damn! Next year, then."

The vision fades, and in a fury, Alice blasts Prof Jenkins with a magical bolt. Her body bursts into flame, and the Jenkins-rat leaps on her body, screaming "NOOOO!" They both burn together, and everyone turns and glares at Alice. 

"Now who's going to give us a grade!?" demands Trudy. "Also, how are we getting out of here?" 

"Yeah," says Cassie. "You know how to drive a bathy-thingie?" 

Ethan glances over and sees that the barrier that keeps all of Lake Superior out is starting to waver. "Um, guys?" They quickly stuff Frank and Walter into suits, and wake Mason so that he can put his own on. Ethan wraps up the two unconscious ones in his floppy arms and they all get their helmets situation just as the water rushes in.

They swim against the sudden current back to the bathyscaphe, and are faced with another problem: there are a bunch of levers and they don't know which one closes the door and opens the airlock. Ethan tries one, and the whole thing starts to ascend. (Trudy: "WHY WOULD YOU PUT A LEVER THAT DOES THIS ON THE EXTERIOR?!") Ethan, Cassie, and Alice hold on tight, but Luna and Trudy lose their grip. Alice tries to cast a spell to save them, but she's tired and out of components (and Bennies). Trudy just holds on to Glimmer, who can float if she wants, but Luna starts to get left behind in the dark waters.

Trudy, desperate, reaches out to Mason's weird servitor and asks for help. A few moments later, the bathyscaphe surfaces and the students flag down the boat they were on. They're hauled up, and as they're pulling off their helmets, a flower-like spout of gelatinous water erupts and the servitor spits Luna out onto the deck ("pleah"). 

"Weren't there more of you?" asks the captain. 

"Yeah, we lost a few," says Ethan. 

"Ugh, you damn people from Lovecraft Academy," he mutters. "Every year this happens." He throws the boat into gear, and starts heading back to port.

H.P. Lovecraft Prep Academy: Night of the Festive Gourds!

Castle thunder.

So, instead of Chill this month, we decided to play a little spoopy one-shot. To wit, H.P. Lovecraft Preparatory Academy, specifically the Savage Worlds version because it's the system I know the best. Meet the characters!

• Cassie Peterson, the Dreamer. Cassie's family has been sending their kids to HPLPA for a long time, and Oneiromancy runs in the family. Cassie is sweet and chatty and a little clueless, and collects pet rocks. She doesn't think they talk, but she does give them names.
• Alice Quinn, the Witch. Alice doesn't care about this place one way or another, but her brother Charlie vanished some years back and she's obsessed with finding out what happened to him. Alice is stubborn and impatient with anything that's not studying-related, but she's a talented witch.
• Trudy Dell, the Summoner. Trudy's family breeds Servitors, and Trudy has one called Glimmer. Glimmer is a little ball of color (out of space) that tends to give people headaches when they look at her too long, but Trudy loves the little weirdo. She's also into herbalism. 
• Ethan Grayson, the Hybrid. Ethan is...mostly human. He can stretch his limbs and suck the life right out of people, and his hands constantly display the worst case of ringworm anyone's ever seen (he wears gloves). Ethan did a little time in juvie for helping a group of bad kids break into houses. 
• Dakota "Kota" Fisher, the Mad Scientist. Kota does not have time for any of this nonsense. They don't believe in magic and they don't believe in ghosts, but they do believe in virtually every conspiracy theory out there. Their parents insist they go here and they're just trying to get through.
• Luna Lavender, the Monday. Luna is just a normal kid. She's into photography and she's an avid reader, but her family displays more...disturbing skills. They sent her here hoping she'd pick some up. (She's a squib, basically.)

The students are all adjusting to life at the Academy with varying degrees of success, but one thing they're all having a hard time with is the new biology professor, Professor Barley. Professor Barley is arrogant, mean, and just kind of an all-around jerk, and everyone hates him. He's busted Ethan for climbing trees, Luna for sleeping in class, and Cassie for coming late. As for Alice, Trudy, and Kota, well, they've all made the mistake of arguing with him on occasion. Any of these things are a surefire way to pick up Demerits. 

On this particular Friday night, our heroes have all accumulated enough Demerits from Barley to get detention. Barley has them join him at the entrance to the hedge maze, and they're surprised to find a gaggle of their fellow First Years. These students all live in Barker Hall, a dorm with a reputation of just being...weird. But Barker does a haunted house every year, and Barley instructs the students to go into the maze, following this map (he tears out of a page from his notebook) and harvest some of the festive gourds they'll find there. 

The characters note that the students from Barker seem...off. Distant, unresponsive, maybe? Alice notes that they also smell like mold, and says as much, but they don't really react. Trudy mentally contacts Glimmer (whom she was instructed not to bring, but y'know, screw that) and asks if she can see anything odd about them. Glimmer doesn't quite understand, and Trudy decides to wait until they get into the maze.

And into the maze they go! As soon as they're out of sight, Trudy tells Glimmer to go check out the kids from Barker, but something gets lost in translation and Glimmer flies away. The students follow the map, which confuses Kota and Trudy. See, you can't map the hedge maze. The kids in the Survivalist Club (of which Kota, Trudy, and Ethan are all members) say that the maze changes, and maps just don't stay accurate. So what's going on here?

Well, in any case, this map does seem to be accurate. They emerge into a courtyard kind of thing with a pumpkin patch (gourds, actually, since as Cassie points out, pumpkins are edible and gourds aren't). Alice casts a spell to light up the area (which prompts Kota to ask how she managed to get the bioluminesence to be that accurate, and Alice just rolls her eyes and says "Phosphoromancy"). The students note that there's a big pile of compost over in the corner, and Cassie can hear voices coming from it.

Trudy goes looking for gourds and finds about half a dozen that are huge, almost person sized! And...they're pulsating. She has time to say that this is weird before the gourds attack!

They pull themselves out of the earth and walk on viney legs. One of them sweeps Alice's legs out from under her while another tangles her in vines. Kota is similarly bound, and one of them makes for Ethan but can't quite get purchase. Luna, who had been taking pictures, beats one of the gourds to death with her camera. Cassie manages to avoid their notice and checks the compost heap, and to her shock and horror, finds a bunch of people in the dirt! They're alive, apparently asleep, but weirdest of all, they're the kids from Barker Hall that the characters just saw!

But there are more pressing issues. Kota digs into her pocket and activates her Hypno-Chaos Transmitter, a little device with a big effect. It blasts out music and light and stuns three of the gourds. Ethan grapples one of the other ones, freeing Alice, and Alice, still lying on the ground, throws a blast of light and fries three more of the gourds. Luna helps make short work of the other two, and now the characters are well and truly confused, and also surrounded by gourd pieces. 

Cassie calls their attention to the bodies, and they all drag the sleeping students out of the dirt. They all seem alive and healthy, but asleep - clearly this is Cassie's gig. She tells them she can take them all into one of the sleeping student's dreams, and while Kota is skeptical, they want to see what happens. Alice, likewise, doesn't have much use for this, but she does note (to herself) that Charlie was a resident of Barker, so maybe these people know something.

Glimmer comes back about now and Trudy impresses upon her to stand guard and wake them up if anything bad happens. Cassie puts them all to sleep, and they come to standing waist-deep in warm marmalade. 

Cassie has taken them into the dream of Vivian, one of their classmates. Alice is super nonplussed (and sticky), while Trudy is just thrilled and fascinated. As they're wading, they hear a voice ask "Who goes there? What are you doing in the lands of the Queen of Marmalade?" And there's Vivian, floating on a throne made of scone. 

Cassie talks to her and has everyone bow, but Alice tells her right out that this is a dream. Vivian twitches a little and everything shakes, and Alice decide maybe she'll just let Cassie take lead on this. Vivian takes them out of her moat and into her castle (also made of scone), where they are attended by fried-egg guards with staves of toast. Cassie keeps her talking by conjuring an emissary from Baconland, and the group dips through a door and takes a staircase to the dungeon. The floor here is loamy, loose earth - this is what they're looking for. Cassie explains that because something is keeping all of these people asleep, their dreams are probably here in the earth, so they just need to dig. She summons up pans to sift through the earth, and after a bit of digging, they find little glowing orbs - Dreamlights, as Cassie calls them - which vanish when uncovered. And then the dream fades, and they're back in the gourd patch with eight very confused First Years. 

Vivian tells the characters that they were sent here to get gourds, too, but the gourds attacked and ate them and that's the last thing they remember. The characters tell them that there are duplicates of them out there, but Cassie theorizes that waking them up might have disrupted that effect. Either way, they need to investigate. They start trying to solve the maze and wander around a bit, arguing, until Trudy explains to Glimmer what they need and they follow her out. They emerge near their dorm, -Gust Hall, and head to Barker to see if any of the duplicates are there.

They aren't, but they drop in on Ashton's roommate, who tells them that Ashton was just here and said something about going to help Professor Barley. The whole group decides to go investigate this, and they troop on over to the main building. They creep down the hall and hear something coming from Barley's classroom - not voices, but just a weird hum. Trudy peeks in, but utterly blows the attempt at stealth, and all hell breaks loose.

The duplicates are all sitting there at their desks, but when Barley sees the characters he points and emits a horrible scream. The Barker students rush in and start a big brawl with their duplicates, while the characters take a more...intelligent approach. 

Alice stands at the back of the room and flings spells at Barley, but they don't seem to affect him. Trudy and Cassie start trying to mix up something to fight the fungus, but initially they mix the wrong chemicals and it explodes all over them. Kota activates their device and stuns one of the duplicates, but not Barley. Barley responds by pointing at a planter at the back of the room and raising one of those damn festive gourd monsters, but Luna beats it to death with a fire extinguisher. 

Ethan waits until everyone is past him in the hall and then stretches up into the air vents. He pops down right next to Barley and tries to leech his life away, but discovers that Barley doesn't even have blood - he's all spores. 

Trudy and Cassie, meanwhile, get their mixture right. They hand off a bottle to Luna, who hurls it into the melee. Two of the duplicates melt, and they realize they've got this right. Kota grabs the other bottle and runs across the hall to the engineering classroom, and puts together a quick gizmo that will spread this stuff over the whole room.

Back in the battle, the students and their duplicates fight, but neither side has a true advantage. Kota pops back in and fires the gun, spraying the room with the anti-fungal. The remaining duplicate students melt horribly. Ethan holds his ground against Barley, but then Barley calls up chaos - a swirl of spores and otherworldly havoc - and flings him against a wall. Alice casts a spell to stun him and he shakes it off, but Luna flings the last bottle of anti-fungal right at his head! 

The bottle shatters and he melts, shrieking, into a puddle of moist spores. Everyone takes a breath - the threat is over. They quickly clean up the room and head back to their dorms. Come Monday, they sit in class without a teacher for a while before someone pops in to ask where Professor Barley is. 

"Haven't seen him," they reply. Cassie did make sure to leave a festive gourd on his desk, though.

Character Creation: HPL Academy (SW)

Last character of February!

The Game: H. P. Lovecraft Preparatory Academy (Savage Worlds)
The Publisher: Third Eye Games
Degree of Familiarity: Haven't played this particular game, but I've run quite a few SW games
Books Required: HPL Prep and some version of the Savage Worlds core rules

As I mentioned here, when I did a character for the PDQ version of this game, I like the setting and I like the tone. If I were gonna run it, which system would I use? Probably either Pip or Savage Worlds, but I dunno. Anyway! 

First up, I'd choose race, but all HPLPA characters are considered human. That means I get an extra edge, and I think in contrast to my PDQ character for this setting, I'll make a character who's a bit more outwardly monstrous, but is still a fairly nice kid, all things considered. Gonna wind up taking the Hybrid edge, I believe.

Attributes! Standard dealie for Savage Worlds. I'll pump Strength up to d8, jack Spirit, Agility, and Strength to d6, and leave Smarts at d4 (but I'm probably gonna spend points later and raise my Strength). 

Skills! I get 4 points to spend on Hobbies and a d4 in Eldritch Lore, in addition to the usual 15. Let's see. I want to be able to squelch around quietly, so d6 in Stealth. Definitely a d6 in Fighting. I'm squamous, so d6 in Swimming. Need a d6 in Intimidation. Tracking makes sense, so I'll put a d4 there. Notice is always a good idea, so there's another d4. Actually I think I'll save the other 5 and see if my Hybrid needs any other Skills. 

So now we're into Edges (and I realize as I was reading this that this game is built on the Adventure Edition of SW, which has these "core skills" rules that I don't like, so I'm kinda eliding that and going by SWED rules, FIGHT ME). I'll use my free Edge to buy Hybrid, which gives me a d6 in Mutation and bumps my Eldritch Lore to d6. It also gives me a free bump in an Attribute, so I'll knock Strength up to d8.

I also get a Trait, which is an inhuman power kind of thing, but also gives me a Tell. I think I Stretching, giving me the ability to do a Plastic Man. It also makes my character's flesh moist, squishy, and smell faintly of asphalt. 

So, Hindrances! I get Ugly as part of being a Hybrid. I'll take Clueless, and I'll take Quirk (he constantly inflates his cheeks and makes weird frog noises). And I'll take a minor Phobia of birds (THEY KNOW SOMETHING). 

That gives me four "points" to throw around. I'll spend two and buy Smarts up to d6 (with the Clueless Hindrance, I feel like that covers his lack of smart-ness without having a low Smarts). Another Edge, perhaps? Ooh, how about Fast Healer.

And then I still have 5 Skill points, so I'll put a d6 into Boating, spend 2 points to boost Eldritch Lore to d8, and the last one to boost Mutation to d8. Oh, wait, I get 4 points in Hobby Skills, too. Um. D6 in Fishing and a d6 in Swamp Stomp.

Derived Traits! Toughness is 6, Parry is 5, Pace is 6, Sanity is 6 (4 + half my Spirit die -1 because my Eldritch Lore is a d8), Charisma is 0.

Just need a name and stuff, then! (Skipping gear, yawn.) His name is Macadam Beaufort, but folks call him "Beau." He's a little less visible than some Hybrids, but he still has to cover up and continually mop his brow (and his pits, and his...well, everything) because he's always a little damp. He's got dirty blonde hair that closely resembles a mop and bright, green eyes that are too big for his face - some teachers say he's got the "Innsmouth Look," but he doesn't know what that means. 

That'll do 'er!

Character Creation: H. P. Lovecraft Preparatory Academy (PDQ)

Weird game situation, this. 

The Game: H. P. Lovecraft Preparatory Academy
The Publisher: Third Eye Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one...this time!

So, the weird bit is that this game is published in three different systems: PDQ, Savage Worlds, and Pip. I got one in hard copy through the Kickstarter (I chose the PDQ version, for reasons I don't remember), and I have the other two in PDF. My usual rule is that different editions or versions of a game all merit their own character, because system changes a game, but before I started reading the game I was kinda waffling. I dunno, game about prep school kids going to a school inspired by the Mythos? Like, sure, but I have Candycreeps and so on, and Lovecraft-stuff is done to death. 

But the book is actually really good and fun to read. I have some niggles, but they're mostly the self-referential tone that the introduction takes. A pretty good example is that the opening fiction is titled "Obligatory Opening Fiction," and I skipped right by that, because if it's just the obligatory stuff why bother? (Speaking as someone who's written plenty of such fiction.) But then I wound up reading the interstitial chapter-header fiction and it was actually fun, and a really good depiction of the game and what might happen. 

Anyway, the game looks fun, so I'm gonna make characters for all three versions (but not today, one at a time), starting with the PDQ version. 

Step one is a concept. I want to make a character inspired by one of my favorite Futurama episodes, "Fry Am the Egg Man." The basic idea here is that the character is wholly in love with his extremely dangerous, kinda corrosive pet. I'm gonna call his concept "blinded by puppy love."

Step two is to choose a class, and I already know I want to be a Summoner since that'll give me access to a horrific pet creature. That means the Summoning Skill is an Ability for me, but all other Disturbing Skills (witchcraft, mutation, and so on) are just lore. That is, I can learn about them, but I can't do them. 

Speaking of skills, moving briskly along to step three! Skills get letter grades in this game, and I get one A, four Bs, two Ds (one of which has to be starred and is the thing I really suck at and can't ever get better), and everything else gets a C. My Disturbing Skill doesn't count here, this is just Mundane Skills. 

Well, right away I know I want my D with the star to go in Trash Talk. My character doesn't have a mean thing to say about anyone and never will. I think his other D can go in Delinquent, for similar reasons, but he could in theory learn to sneak a little better. 

Clearly Empathy needs to get a higher grade, and I'm thinking Family might get a B (which would give the character more resources). I think Phys Ed, too, just because I don't want him to be a little scrawny nerd - he's actually pretty sporty. He just loves his "dog." I'll put a B in Phys. Ed, a B in Scouts, and a B in Family. Only question is whether to put the A in Empathy or something else. I think I will, actually. His other B I'll put in First Aid. He seems like the sort of kid who might have taken a CPR class. I also get a B in Hobby. 

Next up, Specializations! Some Skills required Specializations, and if I have a B, I get two (an A would give me four, but Empathy is not such a skill). Actually, Hobby is the only such Skill I have, so I need two there. I'll take Animal Husbandry (his family raises chickens and...I dunno, maybe goats) and Nature Photography. 

(Occurs to me that the last character I made was into weird animals, too. Guess I'm spending a lot of my time with my dogs. They're pretty weird.)

I get a C in Eldritch Lore and Summoning, and now I get to design my Servitor. Fortunately there's a sheet for that, too! I'll say that my character found his little buddy as an egg in one of the chicken coops. It clearly wasn't a chicken egg (those don't tend to be green and kinda scaly), so he hatched it and discovered it was...a thing. Who knows! But he loves it and it loves him. 

Appearance: It moves like a quadruped, and is about the size of a dog, but it skitters up walls like a lizard. Scaly, paws with too many toes, dripping, mildly corrosive, whip-like tail, circular mouth like a lamprey. 

There's a chart with personality traits, but I kinda want "affectionate." I'll roll for another. "Shy." AW! Perfect! 

Another chart with syllables to give it a Lovecrafty-sounding name. Its name is M'ellurdy'orra. My character just calls it "Mel" or "Melly."

And now I need to build Mel's traits. Oh, wait, it can't be bigger than a cat since I've only got a C in Summoning. Well, Mel's young yet. He gets three Skills at B and then one Minor Power. For his Skills, I'll give him Lurk and Scuttle, and then I think I gotta give him Rend to give the acid some teeth (and possibly his teeth some acid). 

For the Minor Power...oh, man, there are a few. I think I gotta go with Wall-Crawler, though, so Mel can actually do the skitter-up-walls thing. 

Cool, that's it for Mel, now back to his "owner!" Next step is Motivation, and I think my guy really wants to Learn What Mel Really Is (that seems like a fact worth knowing...). That's actually probably why he's at this school, instead of at a vocational school or something. 

Sanity starts at 9, cool, cool. Movement is 7 (5 + Phys Ed mod, which is +2). Initiative mod is 0. 3 Merit points to start, $300 in starting allowance, and I'm a First Year (7th Grade). Dorm...hmm. If I were running this I'd probably let the group choose, but since it's just me I'll roll it. Barker Hall! Yeah, I'm slowly going nuts. 

Next two steps are for Bunkie and Mentor, and I'm gonna skip those because they're optional. Name...He feels like a Buckley to me. Chester Buckley, his parents call him Chet. He hates his first name and prefers it when folks call him Buck. 

Last thing is figuring what he packed (no weapons, not that Buck would do that). I think he's brought his camera, a flashlight (what do you mean you're not allowed to go into the woods after dark?), binoculars, and field notebooks (he gets them in packs of 12 because he fills them up, he loses them, Mel eats them, etc.). 

Buck is 13. He's on the tall side of average, he's got dirty blond hair that gets all fluffy after he washes it. He had a zillion freckles as a kid, but they're fading. He's got brown eyes, he's very enthusiastic about everything and everyone, and he's completely convinced that Mel will warm up to people if they just give him a chance (Mel has "warmed up" to Buck, and frequently curls up on his tummy, with the result that all of his shirts have a discolored, threadbare circle on the front). 

That's it!