House on Red-Rock Hill - Paper Model

Here’s a picture of the “House on Red-Rock Hill” as a paper-house model for use in the upcoming – Assuming I get any players – scenario.

For figuring out the layout of Re-Rock Hill (Corona Heights) in 1921 I used a marvelous map of San Francisco circa 1911 (but reflecting the location of the 1915 PPIE) -The "Chevalier" Commercial, Pictorial and Tourist Map of San Francisco  + a staggeringly good set of aerial photos of the city from 1937.

Both resources are freely available at http://www.davidrumsey.com/, which I heartily recommend.

HOUSE RULES - Character Sheet

  I use a version of BRP which is pretty much indistinguishable from the 2nd Edition... Aside from a few minor tweaks. I added a couple of skills and clarified (for my own campaign) a couple of others. I also modified the Character Sheet. -  Most notable here is the addition of Social Milieu.

·         Social Milieu: This is a new Skill category for which every character is provided 45 Freebie points which must be used for this Skill category only.

Social Milieu Skills

High Society and Low Society are automatically included for all characters. One of these two will have a Base Chance of 15% and the other 5%. Which Skill begins at 15% is your choice.

High Society represents an understanding of the manners and mores of the upper crust. It also represents the character’s chance to have contacts in “society”.

Low Society is a measure of how streetwise the character is as well as the chance to have contacts “on the street”.

All other Social Milieu Skills have a Base Chance of 01%.

Other Social Milieu Skills include, but are not restricted to:

Academia

Law Enforcement

Military

Religious Sect

Foreign Culture

I find that this is a very useful part of defining character background, both for players who are loath to write detailed character history, and for the GM to easily understand character background at a glance.

Paper (and foamcore) Model for the First Scenario

  There it is...Lukas Sanderson - Fine Furnishings (Side View - It faces on Mason St.) - and environs.
The building actually has a detailed interior.
  This is a primary location in the "Horror in North Beach" scenario.

The House on Red-Rock Hill

After a short scenario, which I will call "The Horror in North Beach" (It actually has a good title but I can't use it as it would be spoilerish), the campaign will proceed to "The House on Red-Rock Hill" which is a massive re-write and expansion of a classic Call of Cthulhu scenario. For that one I have photo-composited a house onto the foot of what is now Corona Heights. I also have maps, floorplans and a figure-scale paper house and diorama of the house and environs. The above photo is of the house on which I based my fitional one. It's really on Dolores Street and, I recently discovered, it was used in an episode of "The Streets of San Francisco" called "Chapel of the Damned"... Which actually sounds rather fitting.

I'm Starting a New Campaign

My campaign is set in SF starting in 1921 and would have the benefit of lots of scenarios worked out with previous groups. This will be a mystery/horror campaign with relatively little violence... Or, at least, very little chance for the player characters to go "monster hunting".

Interest in H.P. Lovecraft is kinda assumed but tabletop RPG novices are welcome.

I use lots of props, dioramas and other "chrome" to enhance play and I've gotten pretty good at it.

The previous  - OLD - posts were related to a previous campaign where things had advanced to the point where the player characters were pursuing leads which took them to Egypt. I was always too lazy to update the blog as well as e-mail updates and prep the next scenario. Maybe this time round...

In the past I mostly ran on Saturdays from as early as people could agree on till about 10 PM but I might be shifting to Thursday or Friday late afternoon till 10 PM.

My place is in Bernal Heights... Skullhouse.

Interested?