Logomancy: A System-Neutral Scenario for Horror RPGs

This is an existential horror scenario for tabletop role playing games like Call of Cthulhu, Cthulhu Dark, Delta Green, or generic systems like Savage Worlds or Genesys. I originally ran it in Delta Green, but it’s designed to be system neutral. If you want a simple, free system to run this with, I recommend the free version of Cthulhu Dark.

Content Warnings

Suicide, spree shooting, mental illness.

Handout

In addition to the scenario laid out below, you’ll need a PDF of the Logomancers handout.

This version is designed to be printed out double-sided (flip on short edge) and folded in half, zine-style.

This version is designed to be printed out without any folding. It can be printed single or double-sided. Best for reading on screen.

The Hook

Three teenagers met up one night for some role playing. The next morning they were all dead. Mossdale high school students Curtis Robbins, Rick Walker, and Steve Kent went to Curtis’s house to play a new game. Early the next morning, Steve shot up a supermarket with one of his dad’s guns. He wounded three people and then killed himself before police arrived. Curtis and Rick’s bodies were found at Curtis’s house soon after. Curtis had apparently killed Rick, then himself.

The police believe the three boys, all juniors in high school, must have had a fight, possibly over a girl. The game they were playing is not a focus of the investigation.

What’s Really Going On

The game the three boys played, Logomancy, contains fragments of a magical language that enables the speaker to manipulate reality. The first time someone hears or speaks the language, they tend to become “unstuck” in time: able to perceive the past and future at the same time. When Curtis, Rick, and Steve uttered the words printed in their copy of Logomancy, they saw a future ravaged by climate change. Worse, they understood that what they saw already happened. There was no way to change what was coming. They even saw the awful things that they were about to do. Everything, from the discovery of the game to its awful impact on them, was always inevitable.

The game was created by a man named Luis Medina, a well known game developer from the Seattle area. He discovered the language and was compelled to include it in a game. He is secretly living in an apartment in Mossdale.

Involving the PCs

• Loretta Henry, Jesse Anderson, and/or the parents of one or more of the kids could contact the PCs and ask them to investigate.
• For a new campaign or one-shot, the PCs could be fellow students at Mossdale High, perhaps covering the deaths for the school newspaper.
• You could find ways to connect the scenario to previous scenarios you’ve run. For example, I ran it, I had Curtis leave a suicide note that included ominous phrases the PCs had heard uttered in a previous scenario. Media reports included passages from the note, which tipped off the investigators that something strange was going on in Mossdale.

Mossdale High

• Assistant Principal Trevor Menne will be the official point of contact police, media, etc. He will point investigators towards the dead boys’ teacher English teacher Loretta Henry and their good friend Jesse Anderson.
• Social studies teacher Carolina Miller will approach the investigators when she hears of their presence.

Jesse Anderson

• Jesse is a young transwoman who transitioned only a few months ago. She was close friends with the dead boys, and often played Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games with the three, but was absent the night they played Logomancy.
• If asked what, specifically, they were playing the night before the boys died, Jesse will tell the investigators that she can’t remember the name of the game, but that it was something new she’d never heard of before. She can confirm that it was called Logomancy if asked. Steve got the game, some sort of free preview version, from someone at a party at Jake Brown’s house the night before. Jesse doesn’t know who Steve got it from, only that the person was wearing an incredibly realistic zombie costume.
• See the entries for each boy for additional information Jesse can share about them.

Loretta Henry

Loretta Henry is a middle-aged English teacher and debate coach. She had a very high opinion of the three boys and of Jesse. She’s completely surprised by what happened. She doesn’t believe a lover’s quarrel could be the answer, because none of the students had a violent history at all. The only thing she can think of that would bring about such a rapid change in personality is drugs, but she never pegged them for drug users.

Carolina Miller

Carolina Miller is the social studies teacher and a hardcore evangelical Christian with far-right political beliefs. She always hated the boys. If given an opportunity, she’ll tell the investigators that they were godless, liberal know-it-alls and that she always knew they were trouble. She’ll call them satanists, and quietly thank God that they didn’t end up hurting more people than they did. If she gets worked up enough, she’ll even say the school is better off without them.

Rick Walker

• Jesse knows that Rick Walker was gay and will divulge that information if asked why she doesn’t believe that Curtis killed Rick because of a fight over a girl. She will also tell investigators that Curtis knew Rick was gay, and that Rick wasn’t attracted to Curtis.
• Rick was the quietest of the group, and was bullied more than any of the group other than Jesse. Even Carolina Miller will admit that Rick had good grades and was well behaved.
• Rick’s parents did not know that he was gay.

Curtis Robbins

• Curtis was a big environmentalist and wanted to run for office one day. He was one of the top debaters in the debate club. He was the most privileged and arrogant of the group, but always stood up for his friends.
• His parents are devastated and won’t think much of letting investigators into his room if they think they can provide some answers about what happened.

Steve Lee

• Steve grew up as the poorest of the four. Steve was anti-gun and had organized walkouts and protests. His father’s gun ownership was always a point of contention between Steve and his father.
• His parents have already left town to avoid media scrutiny.

Jake Brown

• Doesn’t know who was in the zombie costume. The party was big and there were a lot of people there he didn’t know.
• His parents don’t know about the party, so he’ll be pretty cooperative with any investigator in exchange for them keeping mum.

Logomancy

• The game was created by a man named Luis Medina, who was previously a game designer for a major game publishing company in Seattle. He was the victim of an online harassment campaign after publishing a pacifist role playing game. He is currently missing. Most people believe he is trying to avoid paying child support to his ex-wife.
• Investigators who look into it can learn that Medina’s ex-wife lives in Mossdale.
• His ex-wife is more concerned: she doesn’t believe that he’s trying to avoid paying child support.
• She didn’t talk with him often, but says he has been acting more and more erratic and irrational.
• Medina is currently living in an apartment near his ex-wife’s house. He wore the realistic zombie costume. It really was just a costume.
• The Logomancy game was briefly available on DriveThruRPG, but all downloads were corrupted. Some people even complained that it messed up their computers.
• Medina won’t come quietly. He’s able to use the magical language offensively, but his control over the magic he wields is spotty at best.

Playing or Reading the Game

If any investigator reads any of the magical language aloud from the handout anyone within earshot will become unstuck in time, able to see perceive their pasts and future simultaneously. Foretell each PC’s death, playing on the characters’ worst fears. Have everyone roll your system’s equivalent of a sanity or fear check.

If any PC spends time studying the glyphs included in the handout, they will similarly become unstuck in time but it won’t affect bystanders.

Unanswered Questions

You can leave the following questions unanswered, or devise answers yourself to build out the scenario or expand it into a campaign framework.

• How did Medina discover the language?
• Are the Disciples of Logos and the Silencers real?
• Are there more copies of Logomancers in circulation?
• Does the magic system described in Logomancers actually work outside of the game or does it merely hint at how Medina and others use the magical language to manipulate reality?