Observations from Penny Dreadful Cthulhu Character Generation



As a reminder, Penny Dreadful Cthulhu = Pulp Cthulhu By Gaslight. Given that the Penny Dreadfuls were the forerunners to the later Pulps, it's not a particularly large leap.

This week we kicked off character generation. Here's who we have so far:

  • A noble whose older brother has the seat in the House of Lords and whose parents were killed about ten years ago by criminals. 
  • The noble's valet. He served the noble's father. Dad was a diplomat and the valet was actually a spy in the Great Game. Valet now secretly seeks vengeance on the criminal element for killing his friend.
  • A muckraking journalist who has made a bit of a name for himself covering the valet's vigilante activities.
This weekend we'll be making the final character, an Irish-American Catholic priest who after an unpleasant encounter in the United States (where he ran into the noble on an American tour), is traveling to London in search of answers. Though the player in question is unfamiliar with 'Salem's Lot, it sounded a bit like poor Father Callahan of the Lot. 

I did a little bit of modifying the standard Call of Cthulhu 7th edition Roll20 character sheets, most importantly having an option to double hit points (I've submitted a pull request to have that specific change incorporated into the main sheet). After some discussion we decided to go the full pulp route which includes double hit points and a pair of possibly (though minorly) supernatural talents. 

Looking over the characters generated thus far they don't seem quite as tough as I'd have anticipated. They're certainly not pushovers, what with having better stats, higher hit points, and more skills than your typical Call of Cthulhu characters. Yet while tough, none of them seems immortal. Most have hit point ranges in the 20s. However, with firearms doing around 1d8 or 1d10 of damage per non-critical hit, a few shots will really mess up a character's day. However, I suspect it is in the area of Luck, with more options to spend Luck to stay alive and sane as well was an easier time refreshing, that will be the most noticeably different from a "typical" Call of Cthulhu game. In addition to prepping for the first adventure, I'll be doing some study of the new Luck rules from Pulp Cthulhu. 


Image from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 

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