Playing this first game in the live-action style was a revelation to many of the people involved. As a player, I will never forget actually searching the creepy abandoned shed and finding the map, especially the moments when Joe Bacon climbed up into the rafters of the structure. I will also never forget the discovery of the dead body in Fred Copper’s basement, because I physically felt what I judged to be about 10 CoC sanity points leave my body.

We were searching the basement which had formerly been Randolph Mortimer’s lair, and discovered a small square hole in one wall, about six feet off the floor, which had been closed with a piece of mattress foam rubber wedged into the opening. Removing the foam rubber and peering into the darkness inside, I believed I could make out some shapes in the space beyond, and saw a light bulb hanging from a wire from the ceiling of the space. Looking around the perimeter of the hole, I saw a light switch, and flipped it, but the light did not come on. We speculated that perhaps the bulb was burned out, and someone got a replacement bulb from Mr. Copper. Getting a boost from a chair, I crawled through the hole, then asked one of my companions, Mark Drudge, to hand me a flashlight. The floor of the space was dirt, at an irregular slope, and there were cobwebs falling into my face. I crawled my way over to the dangling light bulb and reached up to begin unscrewing it, so I could replace it. But the moment I touched it, it flickered on. Startled, I let go of the bulb, and it immediately went dark again. I realized that it was just not tightly screwed into the socket, and called out to my companions, "It’s just unscrewed," looking back at them over my shoulder. I turned again to look at the light bulb, and screwed it firmly into place. Just as I did so, and the light came on to stay, I turned and looked down. There, just a few feet in front of me, was the hideous, melted corpse of a man, suddenly revealed in the glow from the bulb that was still clutched in my fingers. It was so surprising, and its discovery so serindipitously staged, and its appearance so gruesome, that I was genuinely shocked. I physically felt the sanity drain out of me. Luckily it was a temporary loss, and within moments I was shouting to my companions to crawl through the hole and join me. We pulled the wallet out of the corpse’s pants pocket, and discovered numerous incriminating items in that tiny room which sent us to our next step in the investigation. —ARHL

Joe Baykun as Michael O'Grady
Paul Langfield as Assistant #1
Andrew Leman as Wally Forsythe
Kevin Moran as Jean Paul Brousseau
KQ as Mark Drudge

Sam Bacon as a cultist
Sean Branney as Dr. Boris Wheatley, Creepy Joe and Chuck the Goon
Anne Dillon as the Unhappy Camper
Liz Stanton as the Very Unhappy Camper
Darrell Tutchton as Fred Copper and Randolph Mortimer

Dr. Boris Wheatley meets with Mark Drudge, Michael O’Grady, and Wally Forsythe at the Castle Rising, a new-age tea and coffee shop. Wheatly hires them to pursue a wizard named Randolph Mortimer.

Following a map, investigators went to an abandoned shed, where they met Creepy Joe the gardener. There they found another map and a prayer to Ghatanothoa.

In handyman Fred Copper’s basement, where Mortimer once lived, they find a dead body, horribly melted, and strange books and idols in a small hidden room. The body is identified as that of police officer who was also pursuing Mortimer. The body had a map to a Castle Rock location where Mortimer was planning nefarious activities.

In Perry Park, on the night of Friday the 13th under a brilliant full moon, investigators saved a girl whom Mortimer was about to sacrifice to his dark god. The girl was tied to a tree next to a roaring fire. Another girl, confused and frightened, was found wandering in the woods nearby. Investigators then killed a goon of Mortimer’s, and finally rid the world of Randolph Mortimer himself after a lengthy chase through woods. They recovered the Crystal of Ghatanothoa at the site.