Masks of Nyarlathotep - Session 1 (2025)

I got invited to join a campaign of Masks of Nyarlathotep, one of the mostwell-known Call of Cthulhu campaigns.I’ll be keeping a campaign journal in this series of posts.

1. The Campaign

I’ve never played Call of Cthulhu before but I’ve known tons of really dedicatedgamers over the years who have raved about it, so I’ve always wanted to try it.According to wikipediathe campaign was originally published for Call of Cthulhu 2nd edition, but weare playing the new version remade for CoC 7th Edition. We’re playing usingDiscord and Roll20, which I’ve had experience with and it’s certainly goodenough to have plenty of fun with. We’re going to try to play weekly with shortsessions so we should be able to keep the pacing fast and interest levels high.The group is drawn from the Mutant Crawl Classics table I’m playing in (which Iguess I should write about at some point) so it’s a cool change of pace.

2. The Investigators

In Call of Cthulhu the PC’s are typically ‘investigators’ rather than‘adventurers’ or heroes or what-have-you. Instead of being career soldiers orknights or whatever you are much more likely to be a graduate student or areporter. This of course follows from Lovecraft’s work¹, in whichmany of the main characters are academics or journalists who have stumbled uponsome evidence of the greater world we don’t know about and have decided toinvestigate.

This campaign comes with a number of pre-generated characters. Since this is thefirst experience most of us have had with Call of Cthulhu we decided to justpick from among them and get into it quickly.² I have always wanted toplay the role of the curious professor in a cosmic horror story so I chose toplay Johan Braun. Here is the complete party:³

The Doctor

Arthur Dibden served in the British Royal Army for over twenty years. After thewar he took up traveling, and wound up in Colombia fighting the Spanish Flu.

The Historian

Eleanor Butler grew up on a farm in the Midwest before running away to New Yorkto study history. She signed on to the expedition to try and finally make hermark in academia.

The Dilettante

Jennifer Smallwood inherited a small fortune along with her older sister whenher parents were lost at sea in the late 1800s. While her sister has stayed athome, Jennifer has traveled around the world before becoming bored. She signedon to the expedition in search of adventure.

The Professor

Johan Braun was the child of a librarian and a language teacher, and inheritedtheir love of books and learning. The Great War broke out while he was teachingat the University of Wurzburg, and he was called to serve in the trenches on theWestern Front. When the war ended he left Europe behind in order to escape thehorror he had seen. He took a position at UC Berkeley, but was not able to fitin with the American way of life. He hopes to find a way to put his expertise togood use on the expedition.

The Adventurer

Perry Astor was raised on a Canadian ranch, and his love of the outdoors hasstayed with him throughout his life. At 17 he left home and began travelingaround the world in search of excitement. He’s joined the expedition because hethinks it’s just the thing he’s looking for.

3. Rendezvous in Lima

Each of the investigators had independently learned of a rich American explorerassembling an expedition to explore an ancient pyramid in southern Peru, and(mostly for curiousity) we had each decided to sign on. We met Mr. Larkin at theBar Cardenas in Lima, Peru in the evening of March 18th, 1921 to discuss theexpedition and make plans for the journey.

Wearing a fine linen suit and bearing an upbeat, confident manner, Larkin toldus a tall tale of an ancient pyramid structure in the Peruvian highlands to thesoutheast. Accompanying Larkin were two other men who had signed on to thejourney. Luis de Mendoza was clearly Larkin’s body man, and he seemed to beangry about it. Scowling at anything and everything, he did not say a wordduring the meeting. The other man was a Black American archaeologist who seemedonly too pleased to have this kind of opportunity.

Larkin told us of fabulous riches which could be recovered at this ruinedtemple. According to him, he would have done it already if he had had a properteam with him. He said it would take about a week all told to travel there,first by truck to Puno, then by mule to the ruin itself. When asked somequestions about the site, Larkin showed the group two archaeological piecesfound previously at the site, both made from gold. The first was a sort ofpendant depicting a man-shaped figure holding two rods. The second, a goldencup, had turqoise inlay in strange non-repeating shapes.

After satisfying our curiousity regarding his previous attempts Larkin andMendoza bade us good night with plans to prepare to leave for the journey in twodays time. Hughes and the rest of us stayed for another drink.

4. What’s Really Going On?

No sooner had Larkin and de Mendoza left than Hughes told us that he wasn’t anarchaeologist and his name wasn’t Hughes, but that in fact he was aninvestigative reporter named Jackson Elias.

Thinking back on it, several members of our group had actually read some Elias'work, which was predominantly focused on investigating occult death cults. Hewent on to tell us that he was investigating Larkin and his strange storyregarding the pyramid. He pointed out that the two items Larkin had producedcouldn’t possibly be from the same site, as one (the cup) was Incan and from the15th century, while the pendant was from around the 5th century.

Elias told us that he’d been looking into Larkin for a while at this point, andthat he’d found traces of a centuries-old death cult near Lake Titicaca (whichis quite near Puno and the site of the ruins). Apparently, on his previousexpedition Larkin had attempted to hire locals from Puno to venture into thetemple, however they refused because of stories of a local creature called akharisiri, which evidently is some kind of fat-sucking devil.

Discussing the ramifications of all this, we decided that we couldn’t possiblytake Larkin at his word at this point. We decided that it would be best toperform some of our own research by heading to the archaeological museum in themorning. We made plans to meet Elias there and went to bed.

5. A Trip to the Museum

Fortunately for us, just down the road a ways from our hotel was the Museo deArqueologia y Antropologia, so following breakfast we reconvened there at theoffice of Prof. Sanchez, a friend and contact of Elias.

Sanchez told us a curious story: evidently he had, upon reading the story ofLarkin’s planned expedition, reached out to try and lend his expertise to theproject. Rather than hire on one of the leading experts (someone I would surelylike to have along, were I planning an archaeological excavation) Larkin hadrebuffed Sanchez’s efforts regarding the pyramid. We spent some time discussingthe ruins and querying Sanchez about them, and he told us about recovering ajournal written by a conquistador which speaks of something very similar and mayreveal its location. Sanchez’s assistant, Trinidad Rizo, had just went down tothe storeroom to locate the journal, but had been gone for some time, so Arthurand I decided to go check on her.

Downstairs, we found the door to the storeroom ajar, and upon investigating wediscovered the emaciated body of a young woman, missing a palm-sized disk offlesh from her abdomen. She had fallen in the storeroom and been covered by amoderate amount of clutter, and in her fall had broken open a wooden cratepacked with straw. We couldn’t help but notice (as we moved Rizo’s body whileinvestigating) the large piece of worked gold inlaid with geometric patternsthat was poking out of the box, so naturally we collected it.

Looking around, Arthur located a trail of bloody footprints and we followed themout to the street, where suddenly we heard a loud bang and the screams ofpassersby trying to get away from a vehicle which had suddenly caught fire.Continuing onward we followed the trail out the back exit to the street, andthen around the building to the window from Sanchez’s office where it ended.

Not knowing anywhere else to go, we went back inside to discuss events with ourcompanions. We showed them the 2ft rod of gold, and then began decipheringRizo’s notebook.

The notebook told the harrowing tale of a conquistador named Gaspar de Figueroa,who had come to Peru in the company of Pizarro and also joined by four others:Hernando Ruiz, Diego Garrida, Luis de Mendoza, and Pedro de Velasco. Everyone inthe room sat up with a strange look when we read the third name - surely thiscould not be the same man we had met the night before?

6. The Obligatory Trip to the Library

Not able to determine anything further at the museum but simultaneously feelingthat we did not know enough yet, we decided to go to the local library to seewhat we could turn up. While I searched in vain for a text about the history ofthe local area, the others in the group found a document tying Figueroa to aPadre de los Gusanos, and Sanchez managed to piece together the location to thepyramid, south of Puno.

We decided as a group to prepare as rapidly as we could and depart Lima ahead ofLarkin. If we could get to the ruins ahead of him, we could perhaps head offwhatever strange plot he had concocted. That settled, we divided up tasks andset about gathering supplies for the journey.

7. Turns out he talks after all

Towards the end of the day we met up once again for dinner. On the way back tothe hotel, I noticed that we were being followed in the street. Perry, who seemedall too accustomed to this sort of thing, organized us so that we quickly movedout of sight and were able to observe de Mendoza as he followed in our path.Confronting him, he made vaguely threatening statements to us, in particularsaying that he “always looks in on anyone working with the master”, whateverthat means.

Unnerved but undeterred, we returned to the hotel and each went retired to ourrooms. If things went according to plan we would be well on our way to Puno thistime tomorrow.

8. Final Thoughts

This session comprised roughly half of the prologue chapter of the campaign. Wespent most of it getting to know each other, figuring out our character sheetsand the inevitable technical problems with Discord, and working to establish thefamiliar rhythm you get into when you have been playing with the same group forlong enough. While we haven’t really done much yet I can say with some certaintythat this is a very cool game, and I’m really excited to have a chance to playMasks.