I came upon the Call of Catthulhu booth at AwesomeConDC last week and met Joel Sparks.  I had seen bits about the game on and off, and my friend Mike had been a Kickstarter pledge.  I mentioned Mike’s name to Joel, we had an animated conversation about the the game, and he gave me some dog minis to go along with the Book of Dogs appendix in Book II:  Unaussprechlichen Katzen.  I was intrigued and bought the boxed set there at the con.

Last week we were down two players for our weekly Pathfinder game, so we decided to give Call of Catthulhu a try with me as the Cat Herder.  The possibility of us not having the Pathfinder quorum was not unexpected, so I had read the rules and skimmed one of the sample adventures for just such a contingency.

Our Heroes:

  • Artful Dodger – a barn cat who somehow found himself on an English country manor.  He was a short-haired, mixed breed, feral Catrobat Slippery Street Cat.
  • Bojangles – a long-haired, calico, Scrapper Alley Champ with bright yellow eyes.  Though a feral, mixed breed, she was living with the gardener.
  • The Gray Prince – the Tiger Dreamer Lazybones of the manor with a long, gray coat, a scar on his nose, and a penchant for napping in the kitchen.

The Dream

It all started one morning while The Gray Prince was napping in the morning sun in the kitchen.  He was dreaming of a fat, squashy toad. Then it swelled and burst, revealing a wet, bedraggled bird . Then there was a disagreeable buzzing noise.  And then the bird thing coughed out a green-striped larva.  It fell to the floor and wriggled obscenely, and the buzz grew intolerably loud.  Then the Gray Prince awoke with a sense of Something Wrong.

The Scream

Artful Dodger was in the garden “admiring” the goldfish in the pond.  Bojangles was also in the garden on patrol.  Nevertheless, all three cats heard a scream from the second floor of the manor house.  The Gray Prince was put out.  Of course he would have to investigate, which meant he would have to not only interrupt his nap, but he would also have to GO UP THE STAIRS!  Resigned to his task, he ponderously climbed the steps.

Artful Dodger found the most direct route and climbed up the ivy on the manor house in investigate.  In her more direct style, Bojangles ran from the garden through the yard and into the cat door to the kitchen, nearly toppling the Gray Prince.  Impulsive kittens, the Grey Prince thought, stopping momentarily to collect himself before heading up the steps.

The Grey Prince and Bojangles found Mistress lying on the floor in the room with the morning sunlight.  The Gray Prince rubbed himself against her, but she did not move.  He could see that she was breathing shallowly and her eyes were closed.  Bojangles found the spilled tray of butter-cucumber sandwiches, but before she helped herself, she spied a small, nasty- smelling insect half-crushed beneath the fallen human.  She pulled it out to examine it more closely.  It resembled a large, green- striped wasp.

Having seen all this through the window, Artful Dodger thought it prudent to find a twofoot.  Looking about, he saw Gardener directly beneath him, so he batted some dirt from the window box.  Gardener did not notice, so he pitched a plant and hit him on the back of the head.  That got Gardener’s attention.  The human made some unintelligible sounds as twofoots do, and then left and came back with a ladder.  He set the ladder and climbed up to Artful Dodger’s position, where he saw Mistress lying on the floor.

In the mean time, Bojangles and the Gray Prince set out to find Butler and Maid.  Bojangles was faster, but at the bottom of the steps, he heard a buzzing sound and was distracted by a large green-striped wasp flying about near the ceiling of the foyer.  Artful Dodger arrived at this time and proceeded to climb the furniture after the insect.

The Gray Prince was put out. Now he had to GO DOWN THE STAIRS.  Nevertheless, while the kittens were playing witht the insect, the elder cat found Maid.  After much cajoling, Maid was still clueless.  However, the noise had attracted the attention of Butler, who ran into Gardener, and then the two of them ran up the stairs. Butler then ran out.

By this time, Artful Dodger had the wasp pinned under one of his paws.  Bojangles pulled off its wings.  After a moment, the insect stopped moving.  Then they heard new buzzing coming from down the hall.  They followed the sound and saw another wasp emerge from a hole in a door.  Bojangles swatted the bug and squashed it.  

A moment  later, she heard the buzzing again from beyond the door.  She tried to push open the door, but it did not move.  Then another wasp appeared in the hole.  Bojangles swatted the bug, and it broke in half, with the back end stuck in the hole.

Again they heard buzzing beyond the door, and then the wasp remains were pushed out of the hole and another wasp appeared.  Artful Dodgler swatted that one from the air.  This continued several times, before Butler opened the front door and Doctor entered.  The twofoots hurried up the stairs and Gardener ran out and returned with a can with a hose attached.

The Gray Prince recalled the insect from his dream and suggested attracting the twofoots.  They called out but no one noticed.  Bojangles then bit Butler, who was not fond of cats, on the ankle.  Butler kicked her and then chased her down the stairs, where he noticed the collection of dead wasps.  He made an unitelligible sound, and then he and Gardener came to the door.  Butler put a shiny stick into the hole.  The door opened, and Gardener entered, spraying from the hose near the windows.

The cats followed and immedately focused on a spherical, hanging cage containing a large, black, cruel-beaked bird on a perch, staring at them with shining black eyes.   The Gray Prince had not previosuly seen the cage when he had been in this room.  Then Gray Prince sensed a disturbance from the bird, followed by the buzzing sound.  A moment later, another wasp appeared from beneath the bird’s feathers.  It flew around inside the cage, found an opening big enough to fit through, flew out, and immediately stung Gardener.  The twofoot gasped and fell to the floor.

When the buzzing started again, the cats assaulted the cage.  Bojangles tried to knock it over, but could not.  Artful Dodger climbed the book cases leapt onto it.  The cage toppled with a crash but was otherwise intact.  The bird had fallen from the perch and lay immobile against the bars on the floor.  

Gray Prince noticed a strange pattern to the bars.  Then he felt another distrubance, there was a pop, and another wasp appeared in the center of the cage.  Bojangles quickly dispatched the wasp.  At Artful Dodger suggestion, she pushed the cage next to the bookase below Artful Dodger, and then the Catrobat dropped a rain of heavy books on the cage while Bojangles killed wasps, until one side of the cage flattened and the buzzing stopped.

The Gray Prince went back to the kitchen window for a nap.