CREDITS WRITING JAMES M. THOMSON III COVER ART TITHI LUADTHONG INTERIOR ART TITHI LUADTHONG THE ARTIST KNOWN AS ALIENCAT THE ARTIST KNOWN AS PEUT THE ARTIST KNOWN AS KRSMANOVIC THE ARTIST KNOWN AS LIKOZOR THE ARTIST KNOWN AS LOCUSFOCUS THE ARTIST KNOWN AS PROMETEUS THE ARTIST KNOWN AS MAZARTEMKA THE ARTIST KNOWN AS OUTSIDERZONE THE ARTIST KNOWN AS SELLINGPIX ALL UNCREDITED ART IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN CARTOGRAPHY JAMES M. THOMSON III, INCORPORATING SOME ELEMENTS OF A PAINTING FROM FAT GOBLIN GAMES (USED WITH PERMISSION) Special thanks to our Elusive Muse, without whom this project could never have been possible. Brava! Brava! Call of Cthulhu is a Trademark of Chaosium Inc. and is used with their permission via the OBS Community Content program. SampleFor more information please visit Chaosium’s website: www.chaosium.comThe Miskatonic Repositoryfile Logo is used under license. Tales From Ye Dusty Olde Crap Shoppe ©2019 James M. Thomson III 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Getting the Investigators Involved .................................................................................................... 8 The Mad Professor................................................................................................................. 8 The Vanishing of Millicent Snook ..........................................................................................10 The Simple Opening .................................................................................................10 Uncle Phineas and the Book of Splendor ...................................................................11 The Sixth Beginning, aka The Lost and the Damned ...............................................................13 Finding the Dusty Olde Crap Shoppe .................................................................................................13 Description of the Shop ....................................................................................................................15 Into the Deep ...................................................................................................................................17 The Trail of Millicent Snook...................................................................................................18 The Monster .........................................................................................................................19 Things to Do When a Monster is Chasing You ............................................................19 Peek Through the Shelves ............................................................................19 Peek Over the Shelves ..................................................................................20 Burrow Through the Shelves .........................................................................20 Call Mom and Tell Her Ill be Late ..................................................................21 Knock the Shelves Down ..............................................................................21 Hide in the Ceiling ........................................................................................21 Call a Cop.....................................................................................................21 Confront the Beast .......................................................................................22 Run Like Hell ................................................................................................22 An Additional Option: The Man in the Chair ...........................................................................23 In Far Carcosa ..................................................................................................................................24 Escape From Carcosa ............................................................................................................24 My Plan Doesn’t Cover Aldebaran..........................................................................................26 No WiFi in Carcosa ...............................................................................................................26 Climbing the Shelves ............................................................................................................26 Knocking Over the Shelves ...................................................................................................27 Damaging the Shelves ..........................................................................................................27 Destroying the Books ...........................................................................................................27 Reading the Books ...............................................................................................................27 Taking Books out of the Library ............................................................................................27 The Plight of Professor Van Loopenkuecker ...........................................................................27 The Fate of Millicent Snook ...................................................................................................30 Rescuing Millicent: The Easy Way .............................................................................31 Rescuing Millicent: The Hard Way .............................................................................31 Optional Encounter: A Dedicated Reader ...............................................................................32 Optional Encounter: A Serpent in the Stacks .........................................................................33 Keepers Option: The Enemy of my Enemy is a Scaly Horror ........................................34 Keepers Option: How Not to Get Eaten by a Serpent ..................................................34 Rewards of Victory ...........................................................................................................................36 Postscript ........................................................................................................................................37 Appendix A: Dramatis Personae ........................................................................................................38 Horrors From Beyond ...........................................................................................................43 Four Volunteers From Ye Dusty Olde Crap Shoppe .................................................................46 SampleAppendix B: Pregenerated Investigators ........................................................................................... file49 Appendix C: Maps and Handouts .......................................................................................................51 4 INTRODUCTION The shabby environs of Ye Dusty Olde Crap Shoppe are as redolent of defeat and despair as any seven bus WHAT’S CARCOSA? stations—or perhaps even a rest home's day-room. This is where unloved books go to die. Newer Keepers and those less obsessed with the Technically its name is the "Friends of the Essex Cthulhu Mythos than the author may be asking County Library Store" but no one calls it that. It's Ye this question. Dusty Olde Crap Shoppe to the lonely book-hounds The answer is that Carcosa is a nightmare city, and impoverished single mothers who know that it dead and silent, which lies either on a planet exists. Even if they haven't heard its nickname, it feels orbiting the star Aldabaran, or in a foul baryonic like a dusty old crap shop to them. Under-Verse outside of time and space. Or both, The public library sells off its books here when they get worn out, or when the demand for newer volumes in some awful, incomprehensible way. pushes them off the shelves, or when everyone gets It is a place of limitless entropy, sorrow and sick of looking at them. All the world's great literature despair. It is where the dreams of young poets can be found here, buried somewhere in between go, when they die of cancer before they can write forgotten bestsellers from the seventies and copies of them down. It is where the decrepit demons of "Windows 95 for Morons." And it's all yours for fifty defunct and abolished Hells reside. It is a place cents each. of things lost and forgotten. The Great Old One known as the King in Yellow (or Hastur the Unspeakable, or That Which Should Not be Named) presides over this silent city, reigning in desolation over its nothingness, presiding at an endless and terrible masked ball. The Investigators won't encounter Him, thank goodness (at least not during this adventure) but they will find that a trip to Carcosa's public library is quite dangerous enough. Pretending to go to class? It's hard to say. But they're always here. And now you are here, too. We hope you leave alive, and that you've kept your receipt for tax purposes. As a nonprofit, purchases from Friends of the Library are wholly tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. KEEPER'S INFORMATION Things at Ye Dusty Olde Crap Shoppe are just slightly worse than they appear. At times, its air of desolation grows so strong that its deepest and most neglected corners connect with the libraries of dread Carcosa— the nightmare city beyond the stars. The investigators have the misfortune to arrive at just such a time. And they may have to rescue someone from the depths of The dying mall outside of town gives them a space those