Playing Arkham Horror: Cthugha

The ancient one Cthugha stirs in his slumber, and gates to other worlds pop up all over Arkham, while Cthugha’s fiery presence heats up the city until even moving about is a pain.

Rita Young, an athletic student with cultists on her tail, and Joe Diamond, a PI, meet at the Police Station and decide to get to the bottom of the strange happenings. Joe is armed to his teeth with a .45 automatic, a rifle and a Tommy gun, and gives the latter to Rita. A gal’s got to defend herself! In return, she hands Joe an old tome she got her hands on—maybe he’ll have some use for it.

Off they go to find and seal the rifts in time and space, Rita heading to the unstable unvisited isle, while Joe eventually decides to check out the graveyard, and a gate to the lost city of R’lyeh.

If he can just figure out this tome, Joe can get a friendly ally to help him get to the bottom of all this. Alas, poor Joe just isn’t that good with the arcane, and has to read the darn book eight times before he gets it. Out of the woodwork springs… Duke, the trusty dog. Together, they head for the hospital, since the heat and a wall (yes a wall) in R’lyeh have sapped Joe of strength. At least he sealed one of the gates.

Meanwhile, Rita’s sealed a gate of her own and closed another–she just didn’t know enough to seal it, and now it might open again at any time. Let’s hope not! She’s also teamed up with two allies, and even found the cultists that were following her around. More determined than ever, she dispatches a zombie lurking about Independence Square. Aha, another gate! Off she goes to another dimension.

Joe really is a private eye—he’s finding clues everywhere! Too bad it seems to be Rita finding all the gates. But, he and Duke sneak past a maniac on the streets to enter a gate to the city of the Great Race, where they run into a strange old man. Fortunately, Joe hoodwinks him into thinking he’s a learned guy by using one of his clues to great effect, and soon returns to Arkham, blessed.

With three gates sealed, our heroes head for the last two open ones, at the witch’s house and over in the woods where the Sheldon gang lurks. While monsters surge into Arkham in waves, the seals seem to be holding, though a gate appears at the university in the middle of the science building.

Rita feels at home in other dimensions by now, but struggles to close the gate at the university and has to kill off a vampire before she finally manages. Joe, meanwhile, gets delayed in the great library of Celeano, and loses his weird blessing to boot, just when it would have been most useful as a massive amoeba-like Shoggoth appears among the books. Thankfully, that information he found earlier at the university is enough to let him sneak past it. As Rita finally succeeds in closing her gate, he returns to Arkham and seals his.

All gates have been closed, five of them sealed, and Arkham is at peace once again—and cooler.

Time for dinner. 🙂