The Dice Pool

The Sutra Ends?

Not quite. We’re almost there, dear reader. This post is about the scenario that’s designed to be the culmination of the Sutra of Pale Leaves campaign for Call of Cthulhu. But it’s not the last scenario. There is one more to go. It’s called the Fixer and I’ll deal with that one next time. If you’re interested in the rest of the posts on this subject, check them out here.

The Bridge Maiden, Part 2 is, guess what, the continuation of the Bridge Maiden, Part 1. You come here to the dice pool for all the hottest insights, dear reader. The intro section tells you that you should run this as the last scenario in your campaign also. As I mentioned in these posts before, you’re informed early on that you can run the scenarios of this campaign in any order, but obviously, if you try running the Bridge Maiden Part 2 before Part 1, it’s not going to make a whole lot of sense. I would contend that the only two scenarios you really have to play to make an, admittedly very short, campaign are these two. None of the events of the other scenarios are central to the main plot of the Sutra of Pale Leaves. Honestly, even the events of the first part are basically surplus to requirements. More on that later.

Make way for SPOILERS below!

Who and What is the Bridge Maiden?

“Who” is a relatively easy question to answer, thankfully. In a very real sense, the Hashihime or Bridge Maiden, is embodied by Umezono Kaho, the NPC from Part 1 who probably employed the investigators to find her brother. Unfortunately, her brother had been transformed by the power of the Sutra, into a pale, subterranean, tentacular creature, but he was basically an asshole so whatever. However, after the events of that scenario, Kaho disappeared. No matter what the PCs did, there was no way to find her. During that time, she had become more and more assimilated into the Association of Pale Leaves (APL.) Not only that, but she has become the vessel for the entity known as Hashihime, as had her ancient ancestor, the great warrior-woman, Gozen Tomoe.

“What” is a bit more difficult. As the Hashihime, Kaho will be the one to guide the Prince of Pale Leaves from his home in Carcosa, across a magical bridge to Earth. This is achieved through the performance of a ritual. It’s not fully clear to me how this all works, though. We know that Gozen was an adherent of the Prince but I don’t know why only she, or her ancestors, have the ability to act as escort. We are told that it’s part of the ritual, but not why. We don’t have many other details about the ritual either, to be honest. But that’s because the PCs will not be able to stop it from beginning. So, let’s move on.

Beginnings

It’s at least a year since the events of Part 1. The investigators might have forgotten that Kaho ghosted them after they found/killed/escaped the clutches of her brother. But something comes up that leads them back to her. As usual, you can use the investigators’ confidants to get them involved, but there are no explicit hooks provided in this scenario as there are in the others we’ve looked at so far. Instead, we have a few bullet points describing ways to bring in the PCs without the intervention of the confidants. Honestly, I’m not sure why that is. After a year, I think it would be great to have a solid narrative hook to utilise to re-introduce them to this case. Especially as it’s not really even the same case! Part 1 revolved around the disappearance of Kaho’s brother, Minoru. Her relation to the Bridge Maiden and the APL is entirely tangential to it.

Except for one important detail. The Mandala of the Divine Eye was the artwork/sign/magic that allowed the APL to identify Kaho, through the thoughts and memories of her brother. Minoru had taken it to his lair beneath Tokyo in Part 1. It’s quite possible the investigators found it when they tracked him there. If they didn’t manage to do that, never fear! It has plot armour, so they will have been given it by one of their ever useful confidants who got their hands on it after it washed out of a storm drain. Either way, the PCs will, hopefully, want to examine it. Otherwise the beginning section of the scenario, “Interval: Examine the Mandala,” will be rendered useless and their progress through the rest of Part 2 will be drastically stymied. Yes, that’s correct, we’re starting with an interval. A bold move indeed. In this interval they will, with any luck, learn a great deal about the plans of the APL through regular old studying. But, if they’re really lucky, they’ll also experience a vision of the future, the coming of the Prince of Pale Leaves himself to our world as its new sovereign. They will also learn about the robbery in which the Sutra was stolen and a lot more about the Sutra itself. This is potentially weeks of Library Use rolls and social skills to investigate. Don’t get me wrong, I think this sort of thing is important to a Call of Cthulhu scenario. In fact, I think a lot of other scenarios in this campaign do not allow for enough Library Use. But it’s not exactly an in media res beginning, is it?

Actual Beginnings

So, 9 pages into the scenario, we get to the actual start, with a section call “Start: Pedestrian Paradise.” In this section the PCs finally hit the streets and get out of the dusty libraries and backrooms. This is where we get back to one of the themes of the previous part, the fashion industry in 1980s Tokyo. In fact, this part is far more linked to fashion than the first part. Kaho has been using her designs to influence the youth of the city and the country by integrating elements of the Sutra into her designs. It uses flower motifs and the brand is called Blume. Its set in the evocative neighbourhood of Harajuku, which was coming into its own in the ‘80s as a hub for youth and fashion, the likes of which, its fair to say, Japan had never seen before.

As the investigators try to question the groups of young people in the streets, they realise that there is something wrong here. The various groups, all wearing Kaho’s designs, tend to move as one, even going so far as to surround some poor girl menacingly, and acting like some sort of crazed flash-mob. All she had done was dropped her ice-cream on one of them! The mob are almost dancing at first, as though choreographed, but if the PCs intervene in anyway, the whole crowd will turn on them and attack.

This is more like it! This is the way I like to start a scenario. But, unfortunately, it comes only after weeks of in-game time while the PCs hit the books.

Leads

Following the flash-mob frenzy, the investigators are expected to follow some bread-crumbs. These lead to locations such as the design studio, Blume, where they might encounter one of Kaho’s employees with some answers for them, and a hypnotic motivational poster that’s forcing the staff to work absurdly long hours to fulfil the company’s goals. If only tearing a poster off the wall were enough to cure that particular illness in Japanese society. One of the disappointments in this scenario is that it doesn’t lean further into this particular theme. I think Part 1 does so quite well, though with other themes, as does Wonderland and Fanfic. But this scenario has a more urgent feeling to it (except during the ponderous starting interval.) It’s trying to wrap things up. So let’s move on.

The Association of Pale Leaves

They’ll eventually receive an invitation to the launch party of Kaho’s new brand. Her co-mastermind, according to the invitation, is a man named, simply, Prince. Nope, not the Purple One, the Pale one. And they’re having a big party in a warehouse on a wharf in the city. This is to be the location of the ritual during which they will summon a Bridge of Light linking our world to Carcosa, allowing the Prince to cross over. That, of course, is where the big finale will be.

But before then, they might just want to investigate the offices of their nemeses, the APL. Truly this could be an “into the belly of the beast” moment in this scenario. They might actually have been invited there by the leader of the APL, Ōhiro Kimitaka, who could have given them one of his business cards in an earlier and entirely optional encounter. In the text, this encounter is described as “dangerous.” In reality, it is nothing of the sort. The most dangerous thing that might come out of it is to push the plot forward. Which begs the question, “why make the encounter optional in the first place?” Of course, there’s always the possibility that the PCs might attack him. You never know what they might do, after all. But it’s unlikely and he is heavily guarded.

Speaking of Ōhiro, I am not convinced by this guy’s villainy at all. Only within the Keeper-facing backstory has he proven himself to be ruthless and single-minded in the pursuit of his goals, which include bringing the Pale Prince to Earth. He Is, if anything, a slightly tragic figure. He can never realise his other goal, which is to become one with the Prince like everyone else exposed to the Sutra. Due to some neurological damage he suffered in World War II, he is “unsuitable.” Obviously, what he wants is unfavourable to the rest of humanity, but we never get to see him do anything particularly heinous in the course of the campaign at all. However, in one potential ending for this scenario, he begs the Prince to take him with him back to Carcosa. In answer, the Prince picks him up, defying all logic and physics, folds him like origami and pops him in his pocket, while Ōhiro screams in either despair or ecstasy. And that’s good.

OK, back to the APL HQ. During their time in this location there is a chance they will not only encounter Kaho, finally, but also uncover a great many answers as to what the heck is going on. They might even be able to recover the original copy of the Sutra. All of this is great, but is also fraught with danger. Obviously there are many opportunities for the investigators to gain more Exposure Points, thus drawing them closer to being taken over by the Prince themselves. They could be discovered and detained until the ritual. They might even risk death if they go up against some of the Courtiers of the Pale Prince. Hopefully not though. If you had a TPK before getting to the finale, that would be a real shame.

Finale

“Spectacle” is the word I would use to describe the ending of this scenario and, I suppose, the whole campaign. This feels appropriate. Most of the scenarios have ended that way, Fanfic on top of Tokyo Tower, Dream Eater in a fight to the death in the dreamscape, The Pallid Masks of Tokyo in the otherworldly Château Carcosa/psychaitric hospital. Also, this one involves, for the first time, the incursion of the Prince of Pale Leaves himself into our world. It should be huge. He doesn’t strike me as an understated kind of bloke.

So this is what we have. After the investigators have milled around in the warehouse party for a short while, it’ll be time for the event/ritual. Everyone goes out to the wharf where construction has begun on the real-life Port of Tokyo Connector Bridge, aka the Rainbow Bridge. I like this intersection of the mundane and the mythical in the real-world, crossed with the events in this campaign. This is a really good example of it. Anyway, As everyone arrives, a great, winding bridge of solid light appears at the end of the unfinished, physical bridge as fireworks burst and fall above. Beyond, Tokyo disappears and Carcosa appears.

What a vision, what a reveal. This feels like a proper culmination to this long series of scenarios. The way is open and the Prince appears in a parade led by Kaho, now in her role as Hashihime, the Bridge Maiden. Carcosa threatens to overlay itself on Tokyo, and, eventually, the whole of the Earth. Only the investigators stand between their world and utter erasure. Big stakes! Surely they’ll throw everything they have at this threat!

There are several options to do this. They can take out Kaho in one way or another. Without her, the ritual will fail and the Prince will be forced back into Carcosa, closing the portal behind him. They could try ramming the Prince’s car off the bridge (there are lots of large construction vehicles handy), they could even do a suicide run on the bridge with a helicopter.

Endings

We have three potential endings this time. The worst is really the worst.

0. Symphony in Yellow (Failure) – If they don’t defeat the Prince, the Bridge Maiden or disrupt the ritual, the entire world will fall to the Prince and will merge with Carcosa.
1. Pre-emptive Strike (Best Defense Ending) – Its possible the PCs did some questionable, “the ends justify the means” type shit to disrupt the ritual. So, they might just end up in prison, safe in the knowledge that it was in a worthy cause.
2. The Once and Future King (Triumphant Ending) – The investigators come out completely on top, having disrupted the ritual and destroyed the Bridge of Light. The APL might rise again, but, for now, it has been defeated.

Conclusion

There are things I like about this scenario. I like the actual start with the Pedestrian Paradise. I like the thematic elements like the mandala making the workers work harder and longer. I love the finale. It’s over the top and you might even argue that it is less than fitting for a Cthulhu game, but it works for me, especially as the culmination of the entire campaign.

On the other hand, I am not a fan of the interval to begin the scenario. I also don’t like the lack of additional thematic elements or the lack of action from one of the main villains of the piece.

But, as with all of my reviews of these Sutra of Pale Leaves scenarios, I haven’t played them. I don’t know how they might work at the table. I make a lot of suppositions and assumptions. They are educated guesses really. So, please do bear that in mind when you read them.

As I mentioned at the start, there is actually one last scenario in Carcosa Manifest. It is somewhat different in flavour, format and content, but it is related, nonetheless. If you have been following along, dear reader, you probably have a good idea of my overall impression of these books, the scenarios and the campaign. But I will go into it in more depth at the end of the next post.

The Sutra Continues

This is the sixth in a series of posts on the Sutra of Pale Leaves, the Call of Cthulhu campaign set in 1980s Japan. Go check out my previous posts on the subject here.

Cyberspace, Sort Of

As usual, SPOILERS AHEAD! If you want to take part in Wonderland as a player, go read another post! I’ve got loads. If, however, you want to play as Keeper, stick around. You might find this useful.

Wonderland is probably the most old-fashioned horrific scenario presented as part of the Sutra of Pale Leaves so far. It’s got body horror, mutilation, mutation and teens in danger. And that’s just what happens in the real world. But this scenario centres around a computer game that is more addictive than World of Warcraft (just speaking from personal experience there.) Of course, that’s because it connects the real world to an aspect of the Pale Prince in the form of 不思議の国 or Wonderland, as in Alice in… The background section explains how Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, came in contact with the Sutra while out of his gourd on opium, causing him to pen the Alice books, which gained a fanatical following in Japan. So much so, that, decades later, a talented computer scientist, named Nishikado Kazunori came up with a new game, named Wonderland, a MUD in which players could reimagine themselves as whatever they wanted and interact with each-other and the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and all the other characters from Carroll’s novels. Of course, the longer they spent there, the more they would be consumed by the Prince himself, leaving nothing but a shell of a body behind in the real world for the Prince to inhabit and do with whatever he pleased.

There are a few other weirdnesses here. Like, if you have spent enough time in Wonderland by accessing it through the game, you don’t even need a computer to access it anymore. Instead, you just need to stare into a mirror and you will be transported. Also, if you’re juiced enough by Wonderland and the Prince, the physical persona you take on in the game can become real, in a most disturbing way. As well, the location of the studio where the game is being made is important, in a spiritual, and occult sense to the power behind the game, as it occupies the same spot where an old, blasphemous sect had their temple before it was burned down by some heroic monks.

Anyway, this is all just the setup to this lengthy scenario. Wonderland takes up about 43 pages and provides a plethora of new NPCs, locations, and rules. There’s a lot to take in, but if you understand the opening situation, you should be good. It’s worth noting that much like The Pallid Masks of Tokyo, this scenario would prefer if the investigators had a particular type of occupation. In Pallid Masks, it was cops, in Wonderland, its teachers. This makes sense when you consider the inciting incident.

Face-off

So, as I mentioned above, this one’s properly horrific. Just to prove it, author of Wonderland, Andrew Logan Montgomery, starts us off with a high school kid carving his own face off with a piece of broken mirror in the school toilets. If the PCs are teachers, they will be among the first on the scene when the screams ring out across the campus. Immediate sanity rolls. Now, that’s the way to start a Call of Cthulhu scenario! This is the first of the hooks provided. In fact, it’s a well thought out section to play, rather than just some read-aloud text to set the PCs on the case. We also get a couple of Lore Sheets here, one on Japanese Schools in general and one on this school in particular. The general one was clearly written by someone who has spent significant amounts of time in both the classroom and the teachers’ room in a Japanese high-school. It all rings true and jibes with my own experiences as an ALT on the JET programme. The one on the Kagaminuma High School is short but provides a good overview of the type of school it is and the students that attend it.

If the players are not playing teachers, they only find out about this bloody example of self-mutilation after the fact, probably from their confidant, such as the Fed, the Abbott, or the Heiress, all described in the Campaign Background chapter at the start of both this book and the previous one. Hook Four: “An Electronic Opium…” brings back Madam Inaba, the fortune teller from the first scenario in the campaign, Dream Eater, which is cool.

I can’t emphasise enough how much easier this scenario is if your PCs are teachers. The author, Mr Montgomery, even provides us with a number of well-drawn teacher NPCs that can double as PCs to get you started quickly and easily. But what I really mean is that in many instances, where other investigators would need to make some sort of social roll just to get past the door in many sections, a teacher need not roll at all. This checks out to me. The role of a teacher in Japanese students’ lives is much greater than in other countries. It is not unusual for them to make home visits to talk to parents, in fact, it’s part of the job. The homeroom teacher is very familiar with all of their students and is there to support them in all sorts of ways. There is also a level of automatic respect attributed in the culture to a teacher, which allows them a little more leeway than the average citizen, although I think that’s taken to extremes in some instances in this scenario.

Anyway, back to the plot. This kid is sent to hospital and this is where the mystery begins. It is assumed by everyone that this is Uchida Kenji, since he was wearing that boy’s uniform. However, it’s actually Hosoda Riki, his “friend.” Kenji convinced Riki to swap uniforms and then to mutilate himself, with a little help from the Pale Prince and the Wonderland game, which has turned his mind to Swiss cheese. With this cover, Kenji disappears fully into the game, himself, becoming his own avatar, a sort of big wolf. Meanwhile, his body is occupied by the Pale Prince, who hangs out in the offices of White King Studios, the makers of Wonderland.

White Rabbit

This is the investigators’ white rabbit. They’ll follow the trail from the incident in the school to the other missing boy, eventually figuring out that everybody has them mixed up. They are very likely to figure out that Kenji, quite apart from his current supernatural status, was a psychopath all along, and that he tricked his friends into playing the game until they were largely subsumed by the Prince. Not to mention the old face-carving shenanigans.

Another of Kenji’s friends, Yamauchi Kenichi, (I’m not sure why it was decided to give this kid a name that was so close to Kenji. It confused me while reading the scenario, constantly. You just know it’s going to get mixed up in players’ heads too) has become a shut-in, so addicted has he become to Wonderland. In fact, he no longer needs the computer to access it. Instead he can just stare into a mirror and lose himself for hours. We get another Lore Sheet here. This one’s about Hikikomori, the ever deepening phenomenon in Japanese society of people withdrawing entirely from it to occupy a single room and interact with no-one, often playing video games addictively. This lore sheet admits the slight anachronism here, as the term was not coined until the 1990s. Still, the phenomenon was present even in the ‘80s. Obviously, most instances of it were not caused by the encroaching influence of some elder god in the form of a memetic virus, however, as it was in Kenichi’s case. Kenichi is a very tragic case. The investigators are likely to learn that he feels he’s lost most of himself to the Prince. His story is likely to end with him taking his own life. It was something a of a shock for me to read that this is likely to happen, no matter what the investigators do. I don’t believe I would run it this way. To be fair, though, there is an optional section near the end of the scenario, “The White Wolf.” In it, a brave investigator can enter Wonderland to rescue Kenichi and, hopefully, bring him back to the real world.

Montgomery is really delving into some of the darkest social phenomena in Japan here. We also discover, as the investigators follow the trail, that Riki’s father has a crippling gambling addiction, which he satisfies by playing pachinko. I only ever entered a pachinko parlour once, out of curiosity. Sensory overload is the best way to describe the experience. All those tiny little metal balls being propelled around the insides of hundreds of machines makes an almighty clangour, the lights flash and the faux silver of the interiors gleam, the stink of tobacco smoke and old coffee. I couldn’t get out fast enough. But many people are hooked on it and they often go into debt with some unsavoury characters to feed their demon. That’s where Mr Goto, the local yakuza oyabun comes in in this scenario. He likes to consider himself a servant of the people in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward. If the PCs are teachers, he sees them as fellow public servants, and so treats them as colleagues. He’s one of my favourite characters in this scenario. He’s well-drawn and can be manipulated if the investigators recognise how to push his buttons.

Through the Looking Glass

Eventually, one of the investigators is likely to log into Wonderland. Obviously, this being the mid-eighties, this is easier said than done. You need a compatible computer with a modem and internet connection. Such things were few and far between back then. But eventually, they’ll probably find a way, maybe even in Kenji’s house where it’s all set up and ready to go. However, it is unlikely that more than one of the PCs will be able to do this at a time, unless they manage to find a number of internet-capable machines to log into at once. The scenario is written with the assumption that only one investigator is taking the delve. I think I would run it differently, however. This is a lengthy portion of the scenario and probably the most fascinating aspect of it, why not involve any and all players who want to get in on it? There are already several minor anachronisms in this scenario, so why not?

Although Wonderland is a text based game, they soon find themselves sucked into another world, which they can experience through their own senses. They will find themselves on the other side of the looking glass and interacting with the honest-to-goodness White Rabbit. When they realise they are using their own skills to make checks, even in the game-world, they will be confronted with a sanity-defying fact… They, themselves, are fully immersed in Wonderland. They will be able to conjure items and effect changes to their surroundings similar to the way they were able to in Dream Eater. But there are, of course, negative consequences to Wonderland exposure, on top of the effects of Exposure points, even. The game will begin to seep into their real lives and eventually they will be utterly consumed by it, leaving their body a shell in the real world. I’m honestly not sure that this campaign needed yet another set of exposure/infection/insanity rules for the Keeper to keep track of. I feel like all of this could be dealt with by the existing sanity rules, with a little creativity.

The trip through Wonderland will lead them inexorably to an audience with the White King himself. Little do they know it, at this point, but this is Nishikado Kazunori himself. After this, they get ejected from Wonderland.

I generally like this section of the scenario. It’s well described and I feel like it would be fun to see the players’ reactions to it. But I do have an issue. You are provided with a bare-bones “map” of the world that includes whimsical locations like the Cave of Woe, the Moaning Woods, etc. But you can only interact with a few of them. The experience is quite railroaded from the Chess Board Fields to the Court of the King allowing for no deviation. Those other areas are not even described in the text.

Of course, it’s always possible the PCs won’t play Wonderland, considering what they have discovered about the game so far. In that case, we are provided with a short section on what the Keeper should do… We’re given the option of simply going with it. The scenario will lose something if no-one decides to enter the game, but it can still be brought to a satisfying end. The other option is to kind of… force them in. This is supposed to work only if a PC has accrued a number of Exposure Points already, maybe in the course of other scenarios. In that case, simple proximity to a computer running the game will affect them, sucking them in in their dreams.

Checkmate

The finale comes down to a physical confrontation between the investigators and the White King/Pale Prince who has taken over Nishikado’s body. White King Studios is the venue for this showdown. In all likelihood, the PCs will be there to burn the place to the ground, in a fairly predictable mirroring of the events surrounding the temple that once stood on the same ground hundreds of years before. The White King begins as a diseased, but human looking man (although, he’s missing his genitals, according to the text. Not sure why we needed to know that, since it is a detail only the Keeper is likely to ever discover.) But during the final encounter, he will transform into a horrific, real-life chess-piece. He will speak like Lewis Carroll might write him, with lots of alliteration and self-satisfied word-play. Sounds difficult to play for the Keeper, if I’m honest. They’ll also find Kenji here, or, at least, his body, occupied by the Pale Prince, who acts as the mouthpiece for the White King.

Endings

Only three potential endings in this one:

0. Party Wipe
1. Just a Game (they solve the mystery but fail to destroy all copies of the game before its released)
2. Twisted Firestarter (they defeat the White King and burn the place to the ground with all the copies of Wonderland inside.)

Conclusion

This was a long write-up dear reader, but it is one of the longer scenarios in the Sutra of Pale Leaves campaign. It is a complex scenario with a lot of NPCs, a number of events and locations and even a trip to another dimension, sort of. I have some issues with it, which I enumerated throughout. My main problems are the introduction of yet more Exposure-based mechanics to what is already a slightly bloated system and a slightly rail-roady tendency in a few places. But, in general, I’d be excited to run Wonderland, with a few tweaks.

We are closing in on the end of this campaign, now, dear reader. Only two scenarios to go! Next time, we catch up again with Umezono Kaho for the Bridge Maiden, Part Two.

Carcosa Manifest

We have left Twin Suns Rising in the past, dear reader. Things can only get darker from here. Today, we move onto the second and final book in the Sutra of Pale Leaves campaign for Call of Cthulhu. We’re still in Japan in the ‘80s, but the plans of the Association of Pale Leaves are moving to the next level. For my thoughts on the previous book and its scenarios, click here.

This is the book that attracted me to this campaign in the first place. I’m not too proud to say that I saw the cover on the shelf in my local game store, Replay, and realised I had to have it. It was only later that I discovered how it formed the perfect intersection of some of my own interests, namely Japan, and nameless horrors.

The book starts with a campaign background chapter that is very similar to the one in the first book, but with less detail. I guess this is needed because you’re supposed to be able to run any of the scenarios in the campaign in any order or even to run them as independent adventures. So you need that info in both books. Anyway, if you want more on the contents of that, check this post out.

Then we move swiftly on to the first of four scenarios in the book. As usual: SPOILER WARNINGS! Don’t read past this point if you want to be a player in this scenario or campaign.

The Bridge Maiden, Part One

This is a short scenario compared to the others I’ve looked at in this campaign so far, only 26 pages long. However, it is only part one of a two-parter. Part Two is the third scenario in this book and, ostensibly takes place about a year after the events of this one.

The intro to Part One tells us this is a suitable place for inexperienced investigators to begin their adventures with the Sutra of Pale Leaves, which is interesting. I have repeatedly come back to the fact that you are encouraged to run these scenarios in any order, despite the chronology of events laid out in the campaign background chapters. You can also skip scenarios you don’t want to include. And all of that is fair enough. Any of them would work well stand-alone. But, I think you would be missing out if you skipped ahead to this point.

Beginnings

Once again, we’re given a number of hooks to get our investigators involved; no fewer than six hooks, in fact. All of them involve the PCs hearing about the disappearance of a man named Umezono Minoru. In some instances, this will come from one of their confidants and NPCs from other adventures such as Nagatsuki Kaede of Fanfic fame. In others, they will be approached directly by his sister, Umezono Kaho. She thinks he has gotten in trouble with the yakuza since he’s got bad habits and money troubles. Honestly, everything we learn about this guy during the course of the scenario would lead you to think he’s a bit of an asshole and deserves everything he gets. This is one of the reasons that there is a reward for finding him, I think. No one wants him found because they love him. Even his sister only does so out of some sort of obligation to their parents, it seems. The scenario even suggests one or more of the Investigators might have known the Umezonos when they were younger, just so they have some extra insight into the personalities of the two and more of a reason to help them out.

What’s interesting about the Umezono family is that they are proud to be related to one of Japan’s foremost historical warrior women, Tomoe Gozen. The APL is convinced that she was the Hashihime, or Bridge Maiden. She was integral to a ritual used in the past to summon the Prince of Pale Leaves to Kyoto during a time of war. Although the ritual failed due to the fighting, the APL knows that, if they could just find a likely candidate to fulfil the role, they could still make it work. Enter Kaho and Minoru. The APL used an artefact, the Mandala of the Divine Eye to search the minds and memories of passersby in Tokyo, searching for any sign of a suitable host. In this way, they discover the debt-ridden and beleaguered Minoru, and through him, his sister, Kaho. They determine that she would be perfect, but, in the meantime, due to his exposure to the Mandala, Minoru gives himself up to the Prince, only to be transformed into a subterranean monster of a man, a tentacled mockery of his former self. And, he, dear reader, is the subject of this scenario.

A Model Mystery

The whole scenario has a theme of fashion and modelling to it. Kaho is a small-scale fashion designer garnering some interest in Tokyo and her brother runs a modelling agency in his spare time. But Minoru is a dirtbag, as has been stated. His inappropriate behaviour has caused most of his models to take off and his receptionist to spend all her time looking for new jobs. There is a parallel to be drawn between the way the fashion industry used women for its own ends and the use of Tomoe Gozen and, in the future, Kaho herself, for nefarious purposes.

Some of the locations the investigation takes the PCs are related to the industry. The main one is Minoru’s model-dispatch office, where they will encounter the job-hunting receptionist. She will just confirm what they probably already know: that he is an asshole, a womaniser and is in debt to the yakuza.

Of course, this might lead them to talk to their local yakuza businessmen, and from there, we start to see a seedier side to “modelling” in Tokyo for young women. Its not overt, to be honest, but in the “Somewhere with Payphones” section, they will find the spot where the mandala had been placed by the APL, pasted to a wall by a line of phones, somewhere public and busy like Shinjuku Station. On the walls around that spot are pinned flyers and little cards for illegal brothels and entertainments. The mandala itself has been removed but it has left a hole, a spatial anomaly of sorts known as the Eye Socket, which makes the witness feel like they are being pulled into darkness where the Prince of Pale Leaves waits. This feels appropriate to the themes. It portrays the seedier, darker side of the industry and its discovery may eventually lead them to Minoru, formerly a monster of a man who abused women and now a true monster who attacks them.

The film industry gets a look in here too. A well-known documentary film-maker has become obsessed with filming the place where the mandala once spied on the city. He and his staff have all been exposed to the sutra in this way, though not to the extent that Minoru has. The staff, convinced the film they made is possessed of some unspeakable evil try to burn down their production offices. The investigators will need to prevent this if they want to see what they filmed. Of course, watching the film will endanger their sanity because this is Call of Cthulhu.

Seedy Underworld

Our investigators will follow some more leads until they find Minoru’s hiding place in an old culvert beneath the city, where once a canal flowed. He can’t stand the light anymore. His skin has gone pale and his eyes only work in the shadows now. He looks terrible and his arms are long and snaking tentacles. In their exploration of this place, they will discover his little shrine of objects taken from the various women he’s attacked since his monstrous transformation. That’s when he will attack them. There is not going to be a non-violent end to this one. The investigators can defend themselves, they can die or they can run. Those are the three potential endings we get here. Afterwards, if they don’t defeat Minoru, he and all his creepy mementoes will get washed out of the culvert and into the river after a big storm, putting an end to him. But he’s not the only one gone, when the investigators go looking for their reward or just to tell Kaho about her brother, she will be missing. And this is what leads to the Bridge Maiden Part 2.

Conclusion

Upon my first reading of this scenario, I was underwhelmed. I thought the monster was not particularly scary, the plot was thin and I thought we should be focusing more on the Bridge Maiden herself. It was only while writing this post that I began to see how well the themes are represented in this scenario and how satisfying it might prove to be to put an end to Minoru. If the investigation progresses in the way the scenario wants it to, it should feel like a spiral from the relatively normal world of fashion and modelling, down to the darker side, the street-level prostitution controlled by gangsters and the violence that’s part of that life for many women.

It makes me interested to see what they pull out of the bag for part 2. I should get to that in a couple of weeks, dear reader. Next time, though, we are entering the computerised world of Wonderland.