Arkham: City of Secrets & Horrors | New Players Welcome! 🏳️🌈
Investigate the strangest small city: Arkham, Massachusetts! Uncover horror in short, sanity-blasting mysteries for new and veteran investigators!
$20.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Friday - 1:00 AM UTC
Mar 13 / Session 4
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
2 / 5 Seats Filled
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Schedule
Meet your party members
2/5
About the adventure
Investigate the strangest small city in America: Arkham, Massachusetts! These short scenarios are sure to test your wits and your mettle! Become immersed with evocative art and eerie ambient music! 👻 Explore the twice abandoned home on Elm St. 🎓 Discover dark secrets tied to Miskatonic University 🍻 Parlay with rumrunners and gangsters 💉 Deal with monstrous horrors in the hospital 🌙 Bump shoulders with occultists and witches Investigator player characters are set to uncover the dark secrets beneath gabled roofs and cobblestones in 1920s Arkham, Massachusetts. Players will have a choice of prepared scenarios or they can set their own goals in the sandbox setting. Jump in for a short investigation or delve deeper as a returning investigator! This setting takes cues from "IT: Welcome to Derry," the wider "IT" mythos, "Lovecraft Country," as well as a mature Kids on Bikes-style weird fiction like "Stranger Things." Of course, the fiction of HP Lovecraft is the primary inspiration for these investigations. Get a $5/session/person discount when you sign up with a group!
Game style
Puzzle / Mystery Focused
Roleplay Heavy
Theater of the Mind
Meet the Game Master
Less than a year on StartPlaying
12 games hosted
Highly rated for: Inclusive, Creativity, Teacher
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
About me
I go by the Gentle GM. Even in the midst of death-defying adventure or bone-chilling horror, I aim to be a warm and welcoming game master. I've run games for children and teens, seniors, and all ages in between. LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC players can expect respect at my tables. Safety tools such as the X Card are always part of my table, with longer campaigns using Lines & Veils and other tools. I suffuse hope, respect, and warmth into every session I run. I offer: 🏳️🌈 A welcoming, inclusive play style 🔥 Player-focused flair and action 🧭 Open-ended storytelling 🎭 Action, horror, awe, and comedy in-game ⚖️ Settings with themes of justice and transformation 📆 Over a decade of game mastering experience 🖋️ Know-how with dozens of systems At thirteen, two friends and I huddled around the Dungeons & Dragons 3e starter set, laughing at a natural 20 to breakdown a door with the fighter's head. In high school, I found the Call of Cthulhu rulebook and made investigators with friends, still clueless how to actually play. In 2014 with the launch of D&D 5e and Call of Cthulhu 7e, I committed to running these games and an old love sparked brilliantly to life! I've since taught dozens their first TTRPG! I'm an inveterate dabbler in TTRPGs. If you're curious if I run a particular game, just ask! If I have enthusiastic players, I'm also up to the challenge to try something new. I'm running games full-time, so you can expect preparation and dedication at my table. A local game cafe and local bars also host me for game events and game mastering workshops. My newsletter and itch page also share game design reflections and projects. Images are used with permission from James' RPG Art, https://jamesrpgart.com.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Pregenerated characters will be available. Players can also make their own characters as part of a zero session. Character creation will follow the standard Call of Cthulhu rules.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
Players will be invited to the Gentle GM Discord server and to the Foundry VTT game. Players will need a Discord profile. You can use the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart as an introduction to character creation in Call of Cthulhu: https://chaosium.itch.io/call-of-cthulhu-quickstart-rules.
What Caleb | The Gentle GM brings to the table
I have over five years of Call of Cthulhu GMing (or Keeper) experience, including running Horror on the Orient Express, a sprawling historical campaign. I love that this system gives time-tested rules for investigation, combat, and horror that maintains character vulnerability and emphasizes player creativity needed to confront the horrors of the setting. I am a lifelong fan of horror, especially with a weird or science-fiction angle. (*The Thing* is a personal favorite movie.) As a GM, I grant bonus dice for creativity and support that especially clever playing bypasses the need for dice rolls. The Basic Roleplaying System skill system (d100, roll under) is intuitive and a personal favorite mechanic of mine. Alchemy provides lush artwork, ambient scenes, integrated rules and character sheets, and dice rolling. In addition, ambient music will be available for players as well (currently through Monument Studios Fantasy Plus application). The combination of an adored horror campaign, the evocative art assets, and a well-loved game system gives me an opportunity to deliver a top notch campaign of horror, mystery, and adventure.
Homebrew rules
These sessions will include the optional Luck spend rules, recovering luck at the end of an investigation. Characters will also increase used skills by a minimum of one point, even on a failed skill improvement roll.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Headphones
Platforms used
Safety
How Caleb | The Gentle GM creates a safe table
This setting and source material can be used to explore and challenge stereotypes, or those biases can be waved away. As part of player onboarding, we will discuss how we want to handle this in game. For safety tools, you can expect: 1. The X Card hard pauses the session. No explanation needed. 2. Open Door: Step away or leave without penalty. 3. Content Warnings: These are in the listing. Any questions? 4. Rating: I'm expecting a PG or PG-13 game depending on player feedback. 5. Lines: What content do we want to exclude altogether? 6. Veils: What content do we want to fade to black? 7. Fast forward/Rewind: Jump ahead or revisit due to sensitive content.
Content warnings
Safety tools used