Ghostbusters the RPG

tsiolkovsky@cix.co.uk

Rik Kershaw-Moore

Copyright Stuff

Ghostbusters^TM & Ghostbusters Busters International^TM Game ©1986 West End Games Inc. New York, NY

This document may be freely distributed within the public domain, but remains the property of the author.

This is a short adventure written for the marvellously OTT RPG Ghostbusters. I prefer the first edition, but if you don't have it, you could always use the second edition rules or even just make some up. This adventure is designed to be silly, and is very loosely based upon an episode from the cartoon series the Real Ghostbusters^TM called the Collect Call of Cathulhu (I guess they had problems with copyright).

The Ghostbusters are called to investigate a burglary at the New York Public Library. The Library was staging an exhibition of some of the world's rarest books, including the Buggre All Thyse Bible and the mythical first edition of Alice's Adventures in Cleveland. However last night, someone broke in, attacked the security guard and stole one of the books. This book was the exceedingly rare 1577 John Dee edition of the Necronomicon . . .

The Ghostbusters' services are called upon by the Owner, a Mr Ted Klein. He knows through bitter experience what damage the book can cause. You should see his pet dog. Oh I forgot, you can't. After fluffing the "Contact Pizza-Dude of the Outer Gods" spell, his dog Fifi now exists in the angles of time. - yes that's right. It’s a poodle of Tindalos.

Anyway, Ted Klein has read the book, and he knows why it was stolen. In his house in R'Leyh, Dread Cthulhu is stirring. The time of his waking is close at hand, the stars are nearly in the right place, and if a certain spell from page 576 is read at midnight then the world as we know it will come to an end. Ted is of course mad.

The curator of ancient books, Clark Ashton is not too impressed with all this, and has only called the Ghostbusters in to keep Klein happy. The last thing he wants is a scandal, coming so soon as it does after the fiasco of the Scratch 'n' Sniff Picasso. Ashton is highly sceptical but is willing to pay standard rates as long as the book is recovered intact and that nothing is said about it in the press.

The room from which the Necronomicon was stolen is in a real mess. All the glass cabinets have been smashed open and there are books scattered across the floor. One of the cabinets has actually been demolished; this is where Potter ended up, and the window has been literally torn from its frame. The wood of the frame is covered in strange round marks that have distorted the wood. PKE valences in the room and around the wooden frame are high, and in fact there appears to be a PKE trail that can be followed. Along with trail is another one, for about every 15 metres or so the Ghostbusters can find shreds of seaweed. This seaweed is from a bottom dwelling species that exists below 2000 metres, and is extremely rare indeed.

The Ghostbusters can if they wish visit the security guard. He is recovering in Mercy Hospital, Queens. His injuries are fairly severe but not life threatening. He has had his right arm and leg broken, and he is covered in strange round bruises which look suspiciously like sucker marks, which of course is exactly what they are.

The guard, whose name is Potter has absolutely no idea what happened. He heard this strange rustling and gurgling noise coming from within the Rare Book Exhibition room and thinking that there could be a water leak he opened the door. Next thing he knew, he was in hospital with no memory of what happened.

If Potter is hypnotised, he will recollect that upon opening the door, he saw a figure standing by one of the glass cabinets. Potter drew his gun and ordered the shape to turn round. Slowly the figure turned around, and Potter could see that it was a human being wearing a large foam rubber squid suit. The figure spoke two words, then turned and dived through the window. Those two words were "get him". Then, something like three giant tentacles lifted him off the ground and threw him across the room. By the end of the session, Potter will be practically incoherent with fear, raving over and over again; "The tentacles. The tentacles."

Spates Catalogue of Nameless Horrors has this to say about Cthulhu:

The star spawn will chase the poor saps down to the end of the sewers and out into the Manhattan bay before stopping. They are not overly fond of sunlight and really only come out to hunt at night. They find themselves outside a large and deserted dock. There is a very old and rusty looking boat tied up to the quay. The boat is called the Lady Hydra and is registered in somewhere called Ponape.

The boat is small fishing vessel which has a small open wheel house, and a locked fore cabin. There is a banging noise coming from inside the cabin. Standing by the wheel is an elderly man who is wearing a red and blue dressing gown, and Garfield fluffy slippers. He is holding an ornate looking wooden box, at arm length. He seems to be extremely glassy eyed and is chanting over and over again the same doggerel phrase. When first met, he will be chanting a strange little doggerel:

Which freely translates to "In his house in deep R'Leyh. Great Cthulhu is playing Nintendo."

This poor man is the Curator of Ancient Horrors at the Miskatonic University. He was rudely ripped from his bed and transported here. This method did not drive him out of his mind, something far worse did.

Ghostbusters who investigate the nature of the noise from the front cabin will discover that the Professors niece Augusta is locked in here. She too was brought from the Professors home, but she seems strangely unaffected by the thing that brought her.

Augusta, who is a seriously drop dead gorgeous woman with shoulder length red hair, explains that she was locked in there by a bunch of cultists who need her to take part in the ceremony to bring back great Cthulhu.

Augusta is sure of one thing. She is not to be put to death. When the cultists told her Uncle what they intend to do to her, it drove the good Professor clean out of him out of his mind. The details are horrific and possibly illegal in several states. What? You want to know? Are you sure? It could drive you out of your mind you know. Oh I see you are willing to take that risk.

Well to put it mildly, it involves rolling round in a large tank full of squid whilst wearing nothing more than a pair of rubber gloves and a herring. It actually has nothing to do with the spell, but it meant to be nothing more than light entertainment for a bunch of sad deviants and perverted Games masters.

All she knows is that the stars will be right at 9pm tonight, and that the spell was to be carried out on a beach somewhere. With luck, passers by would think it was street theatre and the cultists are hoping to collect enough money for pepper and anchovy pizza.

The Professor will not stop chanting unless someone either speaks to him or touches him. If they do interrupt him, he will turn to the Ghostbusters who interrupted him and speak in a soft low voice, something along the lines of . . ."He comes, I tell you. He comes. The dark Lord, the lord of chaos and the destroyer of the Kalamari eaters. Soon he will be here, and all eaters of squid will suffer for their sins."

He will then give the Ghostbusters the box. It is a really bad idea to open it. Oh too late, oh well never mind . . .The boat now has a mad man, and a very angry Shoggoth with a bad case of cramped pseudopodia. Oh, and here is a thing, a Shoggoth is also incredibly fast, it can be hurt by a Proton stream, but alas it can move out of the way of one with depressing ease. So what is a Shoggoth? Shame on you. Go and look at the section entitled Nasty Monsters Who Want To Rip Your Face Off and then have a good laugh.

Those Ghostbusters who have time to consult Spates Catalogue will realise what they are up against, and possibly begin to convert their proton packs accordingly.

If the Ghostbusters let out Augusta before the Shoggoth, then they will be surprised when she steps forward and begins to chant:

The Shoggoth will stand this for about a second before leaping over the side of the boat and into the water of the bay. Augusta knows a great deal about these things, since as she is a woman she isn't covered by the phrase "things man was not meant to know".

Well since they know when the ceremony is going to take place, they could try to stop it by getting there first. That is, if the five heavily armed cultists now running up the gangplank don't stop them first. This should be another of those wonderfully fun and frenetic fights that Ghostbusters are so good at. However, I am hoping that the Ghostbusters get captured in the process because otherwise they won't meet the leader of the cult until after Great Cthulhu has stepped on him.

Well the title says it all. The Ghostbusters could have triumphed over the evil Cthulhu cultists, or the cultists might simply have run away. So now what? Well obviously they need to stop great Cthulhu, but how?

There is one thing that may help, and that is cultists' favourite food is Pepper and Anchovy pizza. In fact, the cultists are the only ones who actually eat anchovies inside the tri-state borough so tracking them down should not take too long, about 6 hours at the most, and since it is now 3pm, that means they need to hustle. The information they need is this. A huge order for Pepper and Anchovy pizza was made by a Mr Darcy. Agon, and it is to be delivered to the Connie Island Amusement arcade before 9pm.

There are a number of ways in which they could be captured. They could simply be over powered by the cultists, or Augusta could be take prisoner by a cultist who will threaten to kill her unless the Ghostbusters surrender.

Once they surrender, they will taken prisoner by the less than mentally agile Goons who will only tie their hands with rope, and not disarm them. After that they will be brought to Connie Island beach, into the presence of the head of the Cult. This man is really quite impressive, in his green and purple robe. He stands all of 5 feet tall and speaks with a dreadful lisp.

He will explain in his own inimitable fashion exactly what is to occur. It should be pointed out, that there is a good chance that they could be drowned.

. . .Tho, you theek to thwart the gweat Cthulhu from wising. Oh cower you mortal thools. She how you fail to stop uth. Thoon the thtars will be wight, and the dark Lord will wise from his tomb and onthce more thalk the earth. You thall live to thee the lord, but then we thall feed you to him. Iä Ya Iä Ya. . .

After that they will be thrown into a tent that has been erected on the beach. The hut is guarded by three of these rather dim cultists, so escape should be possible. You should try to prevent the Ghostbusters from escaping before Great Cthulhu puts in an appearance, otherwise the adventure could go a bit flat.

Ok, its night. There are lots of cultists dressed as squid, and they are in front of the Connie Island amusement park. They are a number of people who are standing around watching. These will of course become nothing more than mindless incoherently scared crowds when Great Cthulhu pops up.

The cultists are stood in a circle, chanting over and over the self same doggerel as the Professor, whilst the leader of the Cult, Clark Ashton chants the name of Cthulhu over and over again. The idea of the spell is simple; you chant Cthulhu 100 times and up he comes.

As the 100^th name is called, the world seems to catch its breath for a second then the clouds begin to swirl overhead, before a huge bolt of purple lightning lances from the sky and hits the black waters of the bay. Through the steam the waters churn and foam as slowly something begins to rise upwards until there in the Manhattan bay stands the form of Great Cthulhu. The crowd panics and runs, and Cthulhu let out a roar that sets car alarms off as far away as Boston.

Ok, so there he is. He's standing knee deep in water and boy does he look happy. Over 150 meters high, he makes the trip from the coast to the shore in one huge ground shaking stride. The only thing is, he isn't to clever where he puts his feet, and squashes the entire Cthulhu cultists as he touches the shore.

Augusta can use her spells to try to stop him, but Cthulhu is just too big. Some other solution is necessary. What that is I will leave it up to the Ghostbusters to think up. However, in the cartoon they nailed Great Cthulhu by electrifying the bad guy and getting lightning to smite him to all the way back to R’Leyh.

Ok, Great Cthulhu lies decomposing, his body is turning into a nasty black ooze that smells dreadful, but his spirit rises from the wasting corpse and returns once more to the depths of R'Leyh. Augusta will say to them:

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,

Yet even after strange aeons it may get sick of playing Tetris,

Cthulhu will return, mark my words."

And that's that, well apart from the clean up operation. The EPA have taken the view of ‘if you spilt it, you clean it up’ and so the Ghostbusters must scoop up every noisome scrap of ooze that remains. . . Sad but there you go.

Oh well, civilisation as we know it is wiped out, and that is about it really. Time to get down that old copy of Dungeons and Dragons and start again in some other fantasy world.

The End for now. . .

A star Spawn is a humanoid creature about 8 feet high with a squid like face and tentacles for arms. The thick legs are supported by large taloned feet, and they have an extremely mean disposition. The star matter from which they are made is not resistant to Proton streams, but is capable of extremes of regeneration. In other words, a Ghostbusters frags this thing with a Proton stream, within 15 seconds whatever damage has been caused has healed. That is unless the idiot gets a ghost. In which case, he cleaves the thing in twain, and then seconds latter there are two where once there was but one.

Goal: Rip People to bits and then stomp on the remains

According to spates Catalogue, a Shoggoth is a large amorphous black blob of evil protoplasmic goo. They were created to be servants of the Great old Ones but they rebelled and tore the tentacles off their masters. Shoggoths are immensely strong, and highly flexible. They are pretty intelligent but their career prospects are fairly limited. This makes them just a little tetchy. They really do need to work on their inter-personal skills. They do have a weakness for certain types of music, especially the bagpipes (what? Oh shut up; it's my adventure I can do what I like.). They also can be slowed to a halt by dipping them in liquid nitrogen, but whatever you do, don't allow the frozen Shoggoth to shatter, this will only give you lots of little babies, and we don't want that do we?

Gaol: To act like silly putty

"Makes Gozer look little Mary Sunshine"

A 150 metre tall green humanoid like creature, who body moves in a strange plastic kind of a way, always forming dread tentacles that reach down and grab the unwary up towards that cavernous maw that will swallow the whole, whilst two huge cyclopean eyes glitter with a foul alien intelligence. Great Cthulhu’s favourite things are squashing humans, driving them mad and knitting. He is not a friendly beast and will only roar his anger at the humans in fluent R’Leyhain, a language guaranteed to send men insane. Iä Iä Cthulhu F’Tagn. The tentacles, the tentacles. . . . arghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Goal: Rule the World, and finish Super Mario Cart^TM

Ok, here are the stats for the human elements of this farce:

Ted is a prime example of a Grade A nutcase. He has delved a little too deeply into the secrets of the Cthulhu Mythos. He is 67 years old, and there is something about the Yoda about him, right down to the way he speaks. He has a dog that is invisible.

Goal: To Lead a quiet normal life.

Angus is a man in his late fifties. He has had a long and distinguished career as the Curator of Ancient Horrors at the Miskatonic University. He therefore does not deserve to be driven mad by the things that are to be done to his niece.

Goal: To go back to bed.

So drop dead gorgeous that she should carry a health warning. However, she is also smart and intelligent. She will try to wrap men around her little fingers, whilst stopping the incursion of ancient cosmic evil.

Goal: Sex

Strange man with a definite lisp. He wears a purple robe, and a tall green hood in the shape of a squid. He is self righteous, stupid, and incredibly narrow minded. For at no time, did he think that perhaps Great Cthulhu would not be pleased to be irritated before he had finished playing Super Mario Cart^TM

Goal: Open the portal for Great Cthulhu

Identical goons in green and purple robes. These are the guys who will turn up and attack the Ghostbusters on the Lady Hydra, and also take part in the ceremony to awaken Great Cthulhu. These guys aren’t too bright, actually their IQ is so low you have to drill for it. Just treat these guys as cannon fodder and all will be fine.

Goal: To have an independent thought.