The Keeper began the adventure by placing an actual ad in the personals column of the actual Denver newspaper The Rocky Mountain News. He strongly advises everyone to avoid this in the future. He got dozens of calls at work and at home from people completely unrelated to the game who wondered what the ad was about, much to the annoyance of his employers, co-workers and family.

Jennifer Littlefield's performance as a corpse in this game was so eerily convincing that a special memorial award in her honor was established. She had lain motionless underneath a mattress for so long that her limbs had actually gone stiff and cold, and when lifted she seemed to be truly dead.

The mysterious disappearance of all the dead cultists in the "alternate" ending was effected by the use of a crawlspace hidden behind a wall. While the Investigators were busy killing Harbison, the NPCs all quickly scrambled into the crawlspace and pulled the secret door closed behind them, so that when the Investigators entered the room it was as if the bodies had all vanished.

This game originally ended with the brutal killing of all of the investigators. They were each shot in the head, execution style, in the basement of a Denver house. The Keeper found this extremely upsetting, especially since he was the one pulling the trigger. He had never intended, and never imagined, that all the investigators would die, and to him the ending seemed like a complete disaster. And the playing of it all out in live action was quite disturbingly vivid, since the Investigators made no attempt to save themselves or each other. The Keeper was so upset, in fact, that he said he’d never play Cthulhu Lives! again. Luckily, the Investigators themselves persuaded him to change his mind, and the final scenario was played a second time, with a more satisfactory outcome. Had the original ending been permitted to stand, Cthulhu Lives! would have lost some of its most well-established and interesting characters, including Dr. Charlie Twobears and Professor Nate Ward.

Gabbye Birchak as Roxy Ross
Sean Branney as Charlie Twobears
Anne Dillon as Victoria Chesfleur
KQ as Mark Drudge
Darrell Tutchton as Nathaniel Ward

Joe Baykun as Jake
Sam Bacon as a cultist
Carlo Dalla as a cultist
Chris Dalla as Dr. Menghin and a cultist
Ray Jones as a cultist
Paul Langfield as Tony
Andrew Leman as Hank and Monty Harbison
Jennifer Littlefield as Mary Jean Roshmeyer
Anthony Perkins as a cultist
Liz Stanton as Cynthia Coutreau

The investigators notice the following ad in the morning paper:

"WANTED: Daring, experienced person or people to investigate difficult problem. May be dangerous. Call Hank at 420-4272 days or 421-1032 nights."

After responding to the ad, investigators meet with farmers Hank, Jake, Tony, Cynthia and Mary Jean regarding the death of their friend Johnny O’Dell. They suspect the involvement of someone called Dr. Menghin, who they claim is affiliated with some kind of cult. They say that Johnny’s body was found next to a horrible jack-in-the-box toy, which they believe was meant as some kind of warning.

After an appointment with Menghin, the investigators search his office and discover incriminating evidence pointing to cult activity surrounding the Sumerian god Marduk, along with diagrams of a high-technology device created by Dr. Menghin for contacting the entity. The next day they learn that Dr. Menghin has been arrested for theft of plutonium.

Following an urgent phone call from Mary Jean Roshmeyer, one of the group of farmers, the investigators drive to her Arvada farm. After a long time searching, the investigators discover Mary Jean’s dead body underneath a mattress, along with a child’s jack-in-the-box with a hideous, bloody doll inside. Clues suggest that the "farmers" who hired them in the first place are themselves cultists, opposed to Menghin’s group.

At a local amusement park, Elitch Gardens, the investigators find Menghin’s high-tech transmitter, which is using the park’s Ferris Wheel as an antenna. They disarm it, and remove the crucial part, a magical object called the Eye of R’as Al Ghethi. Later, they find another of the unpleasant jack-in-the-box toys on the hood of their car, which they take to be a warning to discontinue their investigation or risk death.

In a final showdown in the basement of a Denver home, the investigators confront the farmers, and are themselves confronted by Monty Harbison, Menghin’s scientific assistant and leader of Menghin’s cult. It becomes clear that the farmers are in fact members of a cult which is opposed to Menghin’s, and that the death threats were coming from them all along. They were using the investigators in an attempt to infiltrate Menghin’s group and recover the Eye of R’as Al Ghethi, which had originally belonged to them. All of the farmers are killed by supernatural forces, and the investigators can see their bodies covering the floor of an adjacent room. Harbison demands the return of the Eye of R’as Al Ghethi, but the investigators pull a clever switcheroo using an object of identical size and shape, sealed in an envelope. Harbison discovers the trick, however, and kills all of the investigators.

Alternate Ending

Just as he’s about to shoot the investigators, Harbison is distracted by some creepy noise from the room where the dead bodies of the farmers are located, and the investigators seize the opportunity to disarm, and then to kill him. When they enter the room where they saw dead bodies just moments previously, they find that all the bodies have mysteriously vanished: the room has no other exits.