101: It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Transcript

Welcome to The Arkham Files, an actual-play Call of Cthulhu RPG podcast.

Starring:

Seth Morrison as Tallahassee Turner

“I think he's dying… but if he does, are you available?”

Peter Morrison as Dominic Druncard

“It was like I… you know… had a fair amount of spirits.”

Donovan Ballard as Dr. Simeon

“I’m not a psychologist tonight.”

Sam Morrison as Major Frederick Aloisius Bakersfield

“Still really into guns and ammo and… shit.”

Abel Morrison as Officer Billie McConnell

“We can’t do anything drastically illegal ... like blow up his business.”

And I’m your Game Master — the Keeper of Arcane Lore, Alex Morrison.

Now grab your dice… and your sanity.

Let’s roll.

There are dark places in this world. You can find them, if you look. Anywhere the light of civilization or enlightenment shines, it inevitably creates shadows — and in those shadows, evil hides. You can find these dark places if you look. Some travelers stumble into them while roaming the world, whether by accident or design. And when they do, it is usually to their lasting horror. Some of these places are so sinister and mysterious that they have become synonymous with darkness itself: the darkest jungles of Africa, the deep catacombs of Paris, the dark side of the moon, even a dark alley. You can find these places if you look. But what we often don’t realize — until it’s too late — is that darkness can be anywhere. Even the light of one person’s joy or triumph can cast a shadow of anger and resentment in an envious neighbor. The darkest evil might hide behind: the eyes of a friendly accountant, a smiling waitress, a quiet orderly. And sometimes… evil finds you. Sometimes darkness comes home.

3:34: It's a regular Sunday evening in June 1925. It's a nice day. It's been a warm summer. Nice and calm. You guys are off on your street. You're all neighbors that live together on this street where pretty much not much ever really happens. So, Dom and Dr. Simmy, you guys have all met over at Tallahassee Turner's house. You guys are all hanging out on the porch, you invited you over for an evening drink out on this porch of I'm sure some sort of non-alcoholic beverage seeing that it is a prohibition. Major Bakersfield, you're out working in your yard with your wife like you tend to be on a Sunday evening. And over at Tallahassee's house, you guys are out sitting on the porch, just kind of small talk. You have the radio turned up inside of the house so you can listen to the local jazz station.

04:43: "Oh, that's good right there."

04:47: "Yeah, pour me some."

04:51: "Appreciate you guys coming over."

04:54: "A couple drinks here."

04:56: "Water."

04:57: "Of course, my good man. Fresh water."

05:00: "Love me a good—"

05:03: "I'm gonna have to haul that water."

05:08: Major Bakersfield, you're over there mowing your lawn for what seems like the 800th time.

05:20: You look over with a little bit of jealousy as you see your fellow neighbors sitting on the porch enjoying the evening.

05:42: (laughter)

05:45: "I couldn't keep it together, I'm sorry."

05:48: "You're just looking at that delicious water."

05:52: "Water, just quenching your thirst."

05:54: "The water's always clearest on the other side."

05:56: "Oh, that's not the phrase."

05:59: As you guys are hanging out — enjoying the evening, or working in your yard and also enjoying that to a degree — you hear a car coming down the street with a distinctive squeaking sound. Maybe a loose fan belt or something.

06:13: Aloisius, you hear it and it gets on your nerves like always.

06:19: You can't believe that Mr. Corbitt, for being a pretty successful businessman, hasn't gotten that car fixed or bought a new one.

06:31: Suddenly, as you're enjoying the jazz music, it cuts out.

06:36: You hear: "Breaking news, Arkham. The Miskatonic Mangler has struck again."

06:42: "You might want to send the wife and kids out for this one, folks."

06:46: "Just last night the mutilated corpse of a young woman was found near the eastern end of the Miskatonic campus."

06:52: "Reports say the body was missing limbs and vital organs."

06:57: "Police are baffled at what maniacal miscreant could be responsible for such dark and bloody deeds."

07:03: "Will the Mangler ever be caught? Will the law-abiding citizens of Arkham ever be able to rest peacefully again?"

07:08: "Stay tuned for more updates as the news comes in on 950 KTLU — Arkham's only place for jazz."

07:13: The jazz fades back in after that.

07:26: You guys are all shocked by that — but maybe not too shocked. These murders have been going on for several months.

07:51: "What a crime. Shame it is."

07:55: "Let's make it British."

07:58: "From London, Germany."

08:02: "What?"

08:04: "It sounds like a German or something."

08:05: "My people are originally from Germany."

08:27: (laughter)

08:29: "When you're talking with that fake British accent, we all know you're German."

08:37: (laughter)

08:45: As you guys are hanging out and having some delicious waters, Mr. Corbitt pulls into his driveway.

08:51: He gets out of his car and goes back to the trunk and grabs a couple of canvas-wrapped packages.

09:00: One is long and thin — almost like a baseball bat.

09:05: The other is smaller and rounder, maybe about the size of a softball.

09:14: He walks up to his porch and starts fumbling with the lock.

09:19: As he's doing that, he drops one of the packages.

09:24: I want everybody to roll a Spot Hidden for me.

09:37: "I rolled a 49."

09:57: "45."

09:58: "65."

10:00: "I rolled an eight."

10:04: "My Spot Hidden is 75, so I'm under."

10:10: Okay, so who succeeded then?

10:13: Donovan and Seth open.

10:18: Also, those of you who succeeded — check the box next to that skill.

10:31: You notice something drop from the package.

10:42: Dr. Simeon and Tallahassee — while Dom is going back to the pitcher to fill up more water — you two are locked on Mr. Corbitt as he drops the package.

10:55: The wrapping opens slightly.

11:17: And it looks like what you swear is a human hand.

11:22: "I swear that looks like a human hand."

11:25: "That looks like a human hand to me."

11:27: Mr. Corbitt scrambles down, grabs the package, wraps it back up, gets his lock open, and quickly goes inside.

11:35: The door shuts.

11:38: "That's suspicious."

11:41: "This reminds me of the book that I wrote."

11:47: "What, a man carrying packages dropped one and a hand fell out?"

11:48: (laughter)

11:54: "It's called The Battle of Little Big Horn."

12:13: "So what do you guys do?"

12:30: "I want to go into the guy's house and investigate."

12:34: "You still want him to his own house?"

12:36: "We're gonna break in while he's going in there?"

12:42: "I thought we were like — hey Dom — maybe while you're in getting some water you can bake some cookies and we'll take them over."

12:52: "Well let's persuade him to talk to us then."

12:54: "Great persuasion."

13:02: "I'm gonna make some cookies."

13:14: "I'm gonna look in his cookbooks — library use."

13:26: Apparently Dom doesn't know how to bake.

13:30: Dom completely misunderstands the cookbook and ends up making some kind of blackened blobs.

13:49: "I made you some treats."

13:52: "It's delicious."

14:00: Over the next 15–20 minutes, while Dom is inside making cookies, what is everyone else doing?

14:32: "Why don't we just linger in the middle of the street and look through his windows?"

14:52: "How about we knock on his door first?"

15:07: "I would never just peek."

15:15: Major Bakersfield, can you stop mowing your lawn now?

15:19: Roll another Spot Hidden.

15:36: Major Bakersfield fails.

15:44: Roll Psychology or Listen.

15:56: Major Bakersfield succeeds on Psychology.

16:31: Looking over, you notice Tallahassee and Dr. Simeon staring at Mr. Corbitt's house and talking quietly.

16:54: They begin walking toward the house.

17:03: "What do you think you're doing?"

17:05: "We're going to introduce ourselves to Mr. Corbitt."

17:17: "I'm in. I'm coming with."

18:01: Meanwhile, Dom is still making cookies.

18:23: He brings out a tray of gooey dough that hasn't actually baked yet.

18:47: There's a carrot hanging out of one.

18:59: "Oh, these are cookies."

19:03: "They're crumpets."

19:26: "It is the national game of England."

19:30: (laughter)

19:35: You arrive at Mr. Corbitt's house.

19:46: It's a nice two-story white house with a few steps leading up to a small porch.

20:01: There's a decorative lattice awning above the front door.

20:03: You knock.

20:12: You hear footsteps inside.

20:21: The door opens slightly.

20:24: Bernard Corbitt peers out at you.

20:27: He's about in his 40s, looks like. 20:32: You know, he's a pleasant-looking guy. He's a little small. 20:36: He has dark brown hair that's always kind of combed very tight to his head. 20:42: It's slicked back a little bit. 20:46: He looks out at all of you and says, "Ah..."

21:12: "I want to work those types of skills like Charm or Persuade, or any of these. Basically, you tell me how you're going to charm him, or you talk to him in the way that you basically want to get your point across — like persuade him — and then we'll roll from there." 21:32: "Okay." 21:33: "So basically, how are you charming him?" 21:35: "He's very attractive." 21:37: "Are you saying that in your voice?" 21:40: "Is that in character?" 21:42: "Oh. Well, thank you."

21:47: "You're attractive, and you're attractive, and you're attractive..." 21:59: "Well, sure, that sounds nice."

22:09: "I would love to." 22:11: As he says that, he steps out and closes the door. 22:15: "Are you all at Tallahassee's house? Is that where we're going?" 22:18: "Well, we're already over here." 22:21: "Why don't we just go inside your house? I mean, we got the water, we got the... whatever those are..." 22:27: "Why don't we just go sit down in your house, you know, your living room or something?" 22:33: "Okay. Let's see, that sounds like a Persuade to me. Major Bakersfield, why don't you roll me a Persuade?"

22:39: "Okay." 22:42: "Wait..." 22:44: "10%? Oh, wait — my Persuade is 10%." 22:46: [laughter] 22:47: "You ready for this?" 22:48: "We do that." 22:49: "Okay." 22:50: "We do it." 22:51: "Yeah." 22:52: "We've got a 12." 22:54: "So close." 22:55: "That is close." 22:57: "You can spend two luck." 22:58: "Well, let's do it." 23:01: "Can I—" 23:02: "I'm going to spend two luck and succeed." 23:03: "Okay, mark that down." 23:05: "Okay, and remember: when you spend your luck, that luck is permanently gone."

23:10: "Okay, so Mr. Corbitt looks at you and says, 'Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were inviting me over.'" 23:18: "Well, yes — sure. I have some delightful non-alcoholic water. I just put some in the fridge." 23:30: "Sure. Why don't you come inside and bring those cookies?" 23:38: "Crumpets?" 23:39: "Crumpets, yes. I thought they were interesting." 23:43: "Oh, yes. I just — well — might... yeah, why don't you all come right in?"

23:51: So Mr. Corbitt opens the door and walks into the house, leaves the door open, and waves you guys to come in. 23:58: You see immediately it's just a little bit of an open entry room. 24:02: On the left, there's a little closet that is closed. 24:07: You see some stairs going up directly ahead of you. 24:11: It opens up to your left into a front living room. 24:15: The hallway goes back toward what looks like a dining room on your left, down at the end of the hallway. 24:24: There's also another door to your right that is currently closed. 24:31: He starts walking back toward the dining room area and waves you guys along, saying, "Oh, just this way. My kitchen's back here. That's where the water is." 24:46: "So do you guys follow him back?" 24:49: "Indeed." 24:50: "Yeah."

24:51: Okay, so you guys start walking back. 24:54: The dining room is fairly small. 24:56: The front room, as you pass it — one thing you notice about this house is it's pretty immaculate. 25:03: It doesn't really look like he does much entertaining here. 25:12: The front room has a couch and a coffee table. There's actually a lot of these glass curio cabinets with lots of little knickknacks and things.

25:20: "Let's see — who's been in the neighborhood the longest? How long have you guys lived here?" 25:24: "I've just been here a couple months." 25:27: "A month." 25:29: "That's right." 25:35: "This is just something you can decide." 25:41: "How long have you been in the neighborhood?" 25:45: [laughter] 25:48: "No, so basically, you can decide. It's up to you." 25:57: "Well, I'm Tallahassee, so I've been here about ten years." 26:00: "I've been here about ten years and two days." 26:03: [laughter] 26:07: "So yeah, I think you're the longest."

26:08: "Okay, so those of you that have been here for a little while are acquainted with Mr. Corbitt, as you are with most of your neighbors." 26:15: "Nobody really knows him super well. He's fairly quiet. He keeps to himself a lot." 26:21: "He's very friendly, though, if maybe a little quiet and not the most social guy." 26:26: "He actually has a very nice garden in the back of his house and a greenhouse, where he grows a lot of fruits and vegetables." 26:33: "He usually gives them out to people in the neighborhood." 26:40: "In fact, right now, Tallahassee and Dr. Simmy, you probably have a basket of his fruit and vegetables that he gave to the neighbors."

26:54: "In the front room, you see in these curio cabinets he's got all these little knickknacks and baubles and interesting little things, which he's probably gotten through his company, which he runs — an importing company." 27:09: "So he's got kind of a lot of strange exotic little things all over the place, and a bookshelf with quite a few books on it."

27:16: "I'd like to ask him about his awesome models collection." 27:23: "Is that what you'd like to ask?" 27:24: "Yeah — really exotic." 27:30: "Yeah, well, I'm a famous explorer, so, you know, we collect this stuff. Where did you find these things?"

27:37: He looks back a little bit as you start talking to him and says, "Oh, oh — these things. These are just little things I've picked up in my travels." 27:50: "I've gone around a few places overseas looking for new products to import through our company, and just some interesting things I've picked up along the way." 28:02: "Some little idols from India."

28:08: "Can I ask him where his most recent travels have been?" 28:13: "Most recently, I traveled down to some islands in the South Pacific, looking to open up a new tea trade down there." 28:22: "Very, very interesting. They grow some great tea plants down in that area." 28:28: "Also, to add to our inventory, I've been to Darjeeling in India to import tea from there." 28:38: "It was quite lovely. I did quite enjoy it."

28:42: "I'd like to look a little more closely at his cabinets — any of the items in there look a little suspicious, maybe cultish?" 28:53: "Why don't you roll me an Occult roll?" 28:57: "Roll." 28:58: "I'm trying to start picking at this paint that's kind of shaking." 29:02: [laughter] 29:04: "Hey, Mikey!" 29:06: "Alright, so my Occult is 60, so..." 29:11: "Okay." 29:12: "39." 29:13: "Nice."

29:16: Yeah, looking at some of the items, you see there's a dagger that is kind of ornamental, with the hilt carved into the shape of a woman with snakes wrapped around her. 29:33: "This is actually a ceremonial sacrificial dagger used in the Thuggee cult from India." 29:42: "There's also a couple little idols that you notice are some kind of minor deities in various Asian religions and pantheons, and maybe a couple from Africa." 29:55: "Has the dagger been used?" 29:57: "Well, if it's been cleaned, how would you know?"