j Credits j

The APOCTHULHU Quickstart is published by Cthulhu Reborn. Original writing and illustration
included in this book is copyright © 2020 by the individually contributing authors and artists. The
book in its assembled entireity is copyright © 2020 Cthulhu Reborn Publishing. APOCTHULHU
and the distinctive APOCTHULHU logo are trademarks of Cthulhu Reborn.

This Quickstart represents a streamlined and abbreviated version of the full game system, which
can be found in the APOCTHULHU core book, also published by Cthulhu Reborn.

www . cthulhureborn . com

Original Writing: Dean Engelhardt, Chad Bowser, and Jo Kreil.

Additional Writing: Michelle Bernay-Rogers.
Illustrations: Original artwork by Reuben Dodd (of Sorrowking Studios) and Anna
Helena Szymborska. Cartography and character sheet design by Dean Engelhardt. Other
art sourced from stock and public domain sources.
Developmental Editor, Art Direction & Book Design: Dean Engelhardt.
Copy Editing & Proof Reading: Jo Kreil and Adam Alexander
Additional help and sagely advice: Bret Kramer, Kevin Ross, Scott David Aniolowski,
Matt Puccio, Badger McInnes, Adam Alexander, Tyler Hudak, Brian Murphy, and the Weird
Works collective of tabletop horror game developers.
These rules make use of material sourced from previous publications created under the (original) Wizards of the Coast Open
Game License. For credits acknowledging these sources see the OGL statement on page 70, which also clearly describes
which elements of this title constitute Product Identity and which are Open Content.
This book makes reference to elements of the grand “shared universe” of the Cthulhu Mythos, but only incorporates mythological
elements created by H.P. Lovecraft and for which the originating stories are no longer in copyright. These mythological elements
are considered to be now part of the public domain.
Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Playing APOCTHULHU . . . . . . . . . . 3
What You Need. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Rolling the Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Percentile Dice (“1D100”) . . . . . . . . 4
Survivors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Character Sheet. . . . . . . . . . . 4
Character Sheet Front . . . . . . . . . 9
Character Sheet Back. . . . . . . . . 10
Creating a Survivor. . . . . . . . . . . 11
Sample Survivors . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Game System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Willpower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Finding Things in the Global
Scrapyard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Combat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Damage and Death . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Sanity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Insanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Preserving Sanity. . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Bonds Forged Through Shared
Adversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Downtime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
This Fecund Planet: A Sample
Post-Apocalyptic Setting. . . . . . 42
Amber Waves (SAMPLE Scenario) .45
Scenario Introduction . . . . . . . . . 45
Setting Up The Scenario . . . . . . . 46
Before Play Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Game Moderator’s Introduction.48
Wrong Place, Wrong Time . . . . . 48
Starting the Scenario. . . . . . . . . . 49
Almost There . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Colden, KS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Locations Around Town . . . . . . . 51
Where to From Here?. . . . . . . . . . 57
Finding Gregory’s Car. . . . . . . . . 57
Rising ‘Smoke’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
The Clement Home. . . . . . . . . . . . 58
At The Hanes Farmstead. . . . . . . . 59
The Blessed Rain Compound. . . . . 61
The Ungler Farmhouse. . . . . . . . . 62
The Barrel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Gregory Crump, Suspended . . . 66
Wrapping Things Up. . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Rewards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Further Adventures on the
Fecund Planet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Statistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Introduction
APOCTHULHU is a tabletop roleplaying game
about harsh, gritty life in a Lovecraftian Post-
Apocalypse. Our familiar world is a memory,
swept away by the ravages of the terrifying
powers of the Cthulhu Mythos. Small pockets
of plucky men and women live on in this dark
and dangerous time — survivors of the end of
the world. You and your friends will take on the
roles of a group of such survivors as they search
the scarred land. For clues to the mysterious
afflictions that now blight the land. For a way to
rebuild a hint of mankind’s former civilizations.
Or maybe just for the bare essentials that will
allow them to survive another day.
If you have never played a tabletop
roleplaying game before, or have no idea who
H.P. Lovecraft was or what his Cthulhu Mythos
is like, see the nearby boxes which give some
starting resources that will clue you in.
What sets APOCTHULHU apart from most
roleplaying games with Post-Apocalyptic themes
is the nature of the cataclysms that have caused
society to collapse, and the ways in which they
have shaped the world that has emerged. While
most games consider end-of-the-world scenarios
such as nuclear annihilation, global pandemics,
A.I.s gone wild, or alien invasion, APOCTHULHU
is explicitly optimized for Apocalypses created
by Lovecraftian forces of cosmic horror.
What does this mean? It means that the
game is mostly concerned with threats from
powerful, perhaps cosmic, entities that might
have lurked behind the scenes on our planet
for aeons or might have been summoned to our
world by insane cultists. Perhaps grand cosmic
cycles have allowed the horrors into our world,
or maybe it was humanity’s folly or hubris. But
somehow the uncaring forces have blindly
swept humanity’s centuries of culture and
civilization to the scrap heap, perhaps without
even noticing, making light of our former sense
of invulnerability. They rule now, where once
mankind ruled.
But there is still some hope. People like the
Survivors who you will play in the game live on,
and while they live there is always some chance
humanity can limp onwards and perhaps even
one day win back its place.
APOCTHULHU differs from most roleplaying
games in that it does not aim to present a single
Post-Apocalyptic setting for you to play in.
Rather it provides you and your friends with a
set of rules and resources that can be used for
any number of different Lovecraftian “end of
the world” settings. The game provides some
example settings — like “This Fecund Planet”
outlined on page 42 — but your group can
just as easily build your own. The core rulebook
has a range of resources to help with this.
What is a Tabletop
Roleplaying Game?
There is a mountain of excellent material out there on
the Internet which explains the principles of tabletop
roleplaying a lot better than we could here. So, if the
whole format is new to you, we’d suggest perhaps
checking out some of these websites:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabletop_role-
playing_game
• http://wheelhouseworkshop.com/2016/04/27/
what-exactly-is-a-tabletop-role-playing-
game-anyway/
• http://unpossiblejourneys.com/
• https://wiki.roll20.net/Introduction_To_
Tabletop_RPGs
An even better way to get the hang of what tabletop
roleplaying is all about is to see it in action. A few
targeted searches on YouTube will discover a wealth of
videos, e.g.:
• “actual play cthulhu”
• “lovecraft tapes”
Recordings of Lovecraftian game sessions are also
available as podcasts; an excellent site to explore is
Skype of Cthulhu (www.cthulhu.me) which has over 600
recordings available for free download.
The absolute best way of learning what tabletop
roleplaying is about is by playing in a game yourself. If
you have friends who are gamers, or if you are a member
of a game club which sometimes plays roleplaying
games, asking to get included in a game — whatever
genre or rule system — will very quickly give you an
appreciation of what the hobby is all about.
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 Who was H.P. Lovecraft, and what is the
Cthulhu Mythos?
H.P. Lovecraft was a horror author who lived in the early part of the 20th Century. Although somewhat
obscure during his lifetime (and for many decades afterward), his unique style of horror fiction has
become remarkably popular and influential in recent decades.

Lovecraft and his small circle of 1920s and 1930s weird fiction writers sought to create an entirely new set
of horrific “creatures,” entirely divorced from the traditional terrors of real-world folklore (like vampires
and werewolves). They did this because, even in their time, they believed that traditional horrors had
become hackneyed and ho-hum. The collection of new monstrosities they invented during the massive
game of “collective mythology invention” came eventually to be called the Cthulhu Mythos.

Much has been written about H.P. Lovecraft and his creations. The curious reader is directed to the
following sources:

• https://www.hippocampuspress.com/h.p-lovecraft/about-hp-lovecraft/the-rise-fall-and-rise-
of-the-cthulhu-mythos
• https://www.biography.com/people/hp-lovecraft-40102
• https://arkhambazaar.com/who-is-h-p-lovecraft/
H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction has fallen into the public domain – it is easy to find copies of his fine tales available
for free online, e.g.:

• http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/
For the purposes of APOCTHULHU, there are three important aspects of H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction and world-
view that shape the types of stories which feature in the game:

1. Nihilistic Cosmic Horror: Lovecraft liked to highlight exactly how insignificant humanity is in the
bigger cosmos.
2. Humanity’s Time is Over: In many of Lovecraft’s short stories the (somewhat disturbing)
revelation is made that other intelligent creatures dominated Earth before humanity arose, and
other non-human beings are destined ultimately to take — or retake — humanity’s top place.
3. Humble, Everyday Protagonists: The main characters in Lovecraft’s fictions aren’t super-human
heroic types, but average people. Physical strength or firepower doesn’t help much when one is
facing unstoppable forces from places beyond our understanding.

2
Playing APOCTHULHU
As with most tabletop roleplaying games,
when playing APOCTHULHU one player takes
on the responsibility of setting the scene
and narrating the events which make up an
APOCTHULHU adventure. That individual is
termed the Game Moderator. This term is
often abbreviated GM.
All other players take on the roles of
individual people who have somehow
survived the downfall of humanity. These
characters are called Survivors (with the
term capitalized for clarity). Survivors
undertake adventures and investigate
horrors that are described by the GM.
Players who control Survivors describe
how their Survivor will act and react, and
the GM will describe what happens next.
During an adventure, Survivors
will encounter a multitude of other
characters whose roles are not being
played by other players — those
characters are called Non‑Player
Characters (or NPCs) and their
actions are controlled by the GM.
The core APOCTHULHU rulebook
contains two fully fleshed-out adventures that
a GM can pick up and run without much effort. What
There’s also a smaller introductory adventure,
“Amber Waves” at the end of this book. The
GM needs to read an adventure thoroughly
You Need
before running it; other players should avoid With this book you have everything you need
reading the adventure since it will spoil their to play APOCTHULHU. In this book you’ll find
enjoyment of playing it. Many GMs enjoy making rules for creating Survivors and a full set of rules
their own adventures from scratch: the core for running adventures in a Post-Apocalypse
APOCTHULHU book has resources to help world of your group’s choosing or devising.
make that easy. In addition to this book, you also need
The ultimate goal of any APOCTHULHU pencils to record changes to your character
game is to have fun while creating a shared sheet, scratch paper to draw sketches and take
imaginary world in which dark forces threaten notes, and dice.
the very survival of the human race. There’s no APOCTHULHU uses polyhedral dice
one formula for what makes for a fun game. common to tabletop role-playing games: four-
Games which engross all players with perilous sided, six-sided, eight-sided, ten-sided, twelve-
adventures, intriguing mysteries, and terrifying sided, and twenty-sided. The game plays best
secrets are definitely a great place to start. And when you have a few of each on the table. Or
that — in a nutshell — is what you should aim you can find automated dice rollers on the Web
for in APOCTHULHU. and as mobile apps.

3
 Rolling the Dice
When the rules need you to roll dice, they use a
particular nomenclature to save time and space:
“#D#,” as in “1D8” or “4D6.” The first number is the
number of dice. The “D” stands for “dice with the
following number of sides.” The second number
is the number of faces on the die. “1D8” means
roll one eight-sided die. “4D6” means roll four
six-sided dice and add the numbers together.
Sometimes you add or subtract a number from
the roll. If it says “1D6+2,” that means roll one six-
sided die and add two to the result.
Percentile Dice (“1D100”)
Actions in APOCTHULHU are resolved using
percentile dice. That means you roll two ten-
sided dice to get a number from 1 to 100. To do
this, you don’t add the individual die values
together but instead treat each number as a
digit (0—9). Before you make the roll, designate
one die as the tens digit and the other as the
ones digit. A zero (0) on the tens die counts as
zero except when the ones die is also 0; then the
0 on the tens die counts as 10. For example:
• The tens die comes up “0” and the ones
die comes up “3”: 03, or 3.
• The tens die comes up “3” and the ones
die comes up “0”: 30.
• Both dice come up “0”: 100.
• The tens die comes up “6” and the ones
die comes up “2”: 62.
Survivors
APOCTHULHU revolves around player
character Survivors — usually just called
Survivors. The rules define Survivors in great
detail to help you bring them to life.
The Character Sheet
Take a look at the Survivor character sheet
on page 9 and page 10. All the ingredients
of a Survivor are there.
4
Name
What’s your Survivor’s name? The types of
names that would be realistic in your group’s
Post-Apocalyptic setting will depend on when
and where the game is set, and how long ago
the world suffered its cataclysm. Work with
your GM and the other players to develop
names that sound like they might all be part of
the same place and time.
Setting
Your Survivor has been shaped by the
specific conditions of the Post-Apocalyptic
world he or she inhabits. Keep a note of which
setting the Survivor has been designed for.
Archetype
Not everybody in the Post-Apocalyptic
world fills a similar role or purpose. Some
people survive off their brawn, others rely on
their wits or their ability to lead other people.
And other people get by thanks to their ability to
scrounge and procure rare items or resources.
To represent the differences between these
types of Survivors, APOCTHULHU caters to
several different character archetypes.
Picking an archetype for your Survivor is
perhaps the most important decision you’ll
make. Archetype determines your Survivor’s
skills, his or her connectedness to others, and the
resources available for scrounging up unusual
gear. For games set shortly after the Apocalypse,
common archetypes are: Former Law Enforcer,
Former Scientist/Technician, Former Student,
Former Priest, and Former White-Collar Worker.
Many other archetypes are described in the
APOCTHULHU core rulebook, including some
which particularly cater to Survivors born long
after the time of the Apocalypse.
Gender and Age
Your Survivor can have any gender or age
that you like. Depending on the setting, there
may be social implications to either or both, but
neither has any impact on game mechanics.
Birthplace and Current Home
Where was your Survivor born? Where did he
or she grow up? And what place is currently home?
Statistics
Six statistics (stats) define what your
Survivor is good or bad at in very broad terms:
Strength (STR), Constitution (CON), Dexterity
(DEX), Intelligence (INT), Power (POW), and
Charisma (CHA). They indicate overall qualities,
not specific training. Each has a score from 3
to 18. Most human adults have 10 or 11 in each.
Stats lower than 6 or higher than 15 are rare.
Each stat has space for its “×5” rating.
Multiply the stat by 5 and fill in that number.
That’s the percent chance that your Survivor
can use the stat successfully in a crisis.
Each stat has a space for “Distinguishing
Features.” If the stat is below 9 or above 12, it
stands out in some way. Write an adjective or a
short description to illustrate it. If INT is 15 you
might write “Very clever,” for example.
Other Attributes
Your Survivor’s Willpower Points (WP)
indicate his or her mental fortitude and drive.
The maximum value is derived from his or her
statistics, but WP may go down during play.
Other situations may also cause your Survivor
to become exhausted.
If your Survivor has a STR that is either lower
or higher than the human norm, he or she may
have a Damage Bonus which modifies the harm
caused by hand-to-hand and melee weapons.
Wearing protective equipment
may give your
Survivor a rating in Body Armor. There is room for
detail in the Gear section on the reverse side of the
sheet, but you can copy details for your Survivor’s
most commonly-worn protective gear here.
Hit Points and Permanent Injuries
Hit Points (HP) indicate physical health. The
starting/maximum value is derived from your
Survivor’s statistics, but HP may go down during
play. A meter is provided on the character sheet
for you to track the current value. Your Survivor
may become stunned due to events that occur
in or out of combat — when this happens circle
the “Stunned” box inside the meter.
The Permanent Injuries box below the meter
is a place where you can make note of any
permanent repercussions your Survivor suffers
as a consequence of being injured.
Sanity Points and Mental Disorders
Sanity Points (SAN) indicate a connection
with humanity and reality as most people
perceive it. The starting value is derived from
your Survivor’s statistics, but SAN may go down
(and sometimes up) during play. A meter is
provided on the character sheet for you to track
the current value.
There is a maximum theoretical value which
your Survivor’s SAN can ever reach. There is
also a Recovery SAN value which represents
the highest score reachable through mundane
recuperation.
The Breaking Point is the exact point of SAN
at which your Survivor has been worn down
enough by trauma to develop a new, long-term
mental disorder. If SAN reaches that point or
below, subtract your Survivor’s POW from the
new SAN. That’s your Survivor’s new
Breaking Point.
Also below the Sanity Point meter
are two sets of three check boxes — one
for Violence, another for Helplessness.
They track how close your Survivor is to
becoming psychologically adapted to that
kind of trauma. If your Survivor loses 1 or
more SAN due to Violence or Helplessness
5
 but doesn’t go insane, mark the appropriate
check box. If your Survivor goes insane due to
that type of trauma, erase all the marks. See
ADAPTING TO SANITY LOSS on page 40 for
details.
Your Survivor starts with five motivations:
personal beliefs, drives, or obsessions.
Motivations aren’t as powerful as Bonds, so they
don’t have scores. Bring them up in play to show
what motivates and supports your Survivor and
makes life worth living. Each time SAN hits the
Breaking Point, replace a motivation with your
Survivor’s new mental disorder.
Skills
A skill is a body of specialized knowledge
that takes months or years to learn and decades
to master. Each skill has a percentile rating, from
zero to 99. That’s your Survivor’s percent chance
of using the skill in a crisis.
To the left of each skill name is a check box.
Check a skill when you attempt to use a skill
and fail. Between adventures your Survivor can
learn from his or her failures and increase the
skill rating.
The skills are defined in detail in the
APOCTHULHU core rulebook. They’re self-
explanatory with a few exceptions:
• Craft is the mastery of some difficult
trade such as mechanics, locksmith,
farming. Jury-Rigging is a common craft
in the Post-Apocalyptic world, allowing
temporary lash-ups of gear to perform
some task.
• Insight is the study and deciphering of
behavior and motivations.
• Post-Apocalypse Lore is knowledge of some
aspect of the world as it exists now, after
the Apocalypse.
• Scavenge is the ability to scrounge up
useful gear, buried in amongst the
ubiquitous rubble and junk.
• Technology Use is knowledge of how to
use the technological items that existed
before the Apocalypse.
6
• The Unnatural skill indicates knowledge
of Things Man Was Not Meant to Know,
the most awful secrets of reality.
What Skill Ratings Represent
Every skill has a base value in square
brackets, like “Athletics [30%]”. Every Survivor
starts with at least that much of the skill. Having
a skill above the base value reflects additional
training and experience.
Rating What the Rating Represents
01% to 19% Dabbler.
20% to 29% A dedicated hobbyist; with a foreign
language you can have rudimentary
conversations.
30% to 39% Equivalent of a pre-Apocalypse
College minor or basic training.
40% to 59% Equivalent of a pre-Apocalypse
College major or years of experience;
with 50% in a foreign language you
have native fluency.
60% to 79% Decades of experience, or equivalent
of a pre-Apocalypse graduate or
doctoral degree.
80% to 99% A lifetime’s pursuit or equivalent
of multiple related pre-Apocalypse
doctorates.
Resources
As described in FINDING THINGS IN THE
GLOBAL SCRAPYARD on page 33, one of the
constant challenges facing everyone in the Post-
Apocalyptic world is obtaining the things needed
to survive, and finding pieces of technology to fix
or repurpose to make life bearable.
Each Survivor has a personal collection of
resources over which he or she can claim sole
ownership. The size of this pool is represented in
an abstract form by your Survivor’s Permanent
Resources score. This is a number between 0
(bereft and close to starvation) and 20 (access
to an enviable amount of high-quality stuff). In
the Post-Apocalypse this number is the closest
thing to a measure of “wealth.”
 The
abstract pool
of resources is in addition
to the named items of gear found
elsewhere on the character sheet. It can be used
to pull out unforeseen but useful items when
they become useful during the game.
Your Survivor’s Resources rating can go
up or down during play, for example if he or
she stumbles upon a brand new stockpile of
unclaimed equipment, or if someone robs a
significant proportion of stored or carried items.
If your Survivor’s Permanent Resources
score is 6 or less, he or she can carry everything
around everywhere (in a pack or similar). Any
more than that, and some proportion of your
Survivor’s pool of goodies will need to remain
in a vehicle (“stowed”) or left at a permanent
location (“in storage”). There is a place on the
character sheet to show how your Permanent
Resources total is split between carried (“at
hand”) items and these other two.
For example, if your Survivor has a Permanent
Resources score of 8, he or she can keep 6 points
of resources “at hand” but will need to spread
the
remaining
2 points either stowed
in a vehicle or in storage at a
fixed location. This breakdown might become
important if your Survivor needs to rummage
through the carried resource-pile somewhere
remote — he or she might only be able to call
on the 6 points being carried rather than the full
score of 8
Bonds
Your Survivor is not an island in this Post-
Apocalyptic world. He or she has relationships
with other people who represent significant
figures in daily life. Your Survivor is likely
also a member of one or more communities
of like-minded, or just socially co-dependent
individuals.
Both types of relationships are represented
in the game by Bonds.
7
 An Individual Bond is an important
interpersonal relationship in your Survivor’s life.
It’s a close enough relationship that your actions
have a significant emotional or tangible impact
on the other person, and vice versa. It might be
a romantic relationship, a bond formed through
shared adversity, a mentor relationship, a parental
relationship, or anything else. Each Individual
Bond is given a numerical rating on a scale from
1 to 20; each starts equal to your Survivor’s CHA.
The higher the number, the closer and more stable
your relationship with the person.
A Community Bond is a relationship
between the Survivor and a broader community
of individuals; it reflects the Survivor’s status
within that community, and the likelihood of
other people following his or her instructions.
A community might be a group who shares
a common geography, or one which shares a
common philosophy, religion, or hobby. Each
Community Bond is given a numerical rating on
a scale from 1 to 20; each starts equal to half your
Survivor’s Permanent Resources. The higher the
number, the higher your status and importance
within the community.
The value associated with each Individual
or Community Bond can go up or down during
play, depending on how events impact on your
relationships and community standing. Bonds
can also be broken; such events are traumatic
for your Survivor.
Your Survivor’s Story So Far
Every person in the Post-Apocalypse world
has been through a lot. Record your Survivor’s
story here and update it as key events happen in
his or her life.
Terrible Tomes & Arcane Rituals
During an APOCTHULHU adventure, it
is possible that your Survivor will stumble
upon terrifying (and possibly accurate) secret
information about the true nature of reality in
8
this crazy world. The term “terrible tome” is a
catch-all to refer to all such accounts, even if
they’re not in book form – it might equally be
a cursed 16mm film or hauntingly weird sound
recording. If your Survivor acquires such an
account and begins to study it, record details on
the character sheet for later reference. Similarly,
if your Survivor learns arcane rituals from such
study, write them on the sheet.
Gear
Major items that your Survivor carries. This
is distinct from the abstract collation of food
and scavenged equipment that is represented
by the Resources score.
Weapons
“Skill %” is your Survivor’s skill with that
kind of weapon. Copy it from the front of the
sheet: Firearms, Heavy Weapons, Ranged
Weapons, Melee Weapons, Unarmed Combat,
or whatever applies.
Get the other entries from the APOCTHULHU
core rulebook. “Base Range” is the distance at
which your Survivor can use it without a penalty
that reduces your Survivor’s skill. “Damage” is
the amount it reduces the target’s Hit Points.
If your Survivor is eligible for a Damage Bonus
write that in the “(db)” column. If the weapon
has “Armor Piercing” write the amount in the
“(ap)” column — this represents the amount
the weapon reduces the target’s Armor Points.
“Lethality” is the chance for a heavy weapon
to kill a target outright. “Kill Radius” is how far
Lethality reaches.
Post-Apocalypse World & Fellow
Survivors
Record any important details your Survivor
learns about his or her world or fellow Survivors
in the group.
Character Sheet Front
Character Sheet Back
Creating a Survivor
A new APOCTHULHU Survivor takes only a
few minutes to create.
Ask GM for the Setting-Specific Tweaks
APOCTHULHU lets you play games in a wide
variety of Lovecraft-inspired Post-Apocalypse
settings. For some settings there are small
tweaks to the character generation process
to give your Survivor a slight boost (since the
environment is harsher than usual to survive in).
Before going any further, ask your GM
whether any such tweaks apply in the setting in
which your character grew up.
The example setting described on page 42,
and used as the basis for the introductory
scenario at the back of this book, has four
tweaks — they are summarised in boxes
spread through the next few sections (look for
the U symbol).
Choose an Archetype
What kind of character do you want to
play? The answer might depend on whether
the Apocalypse happened just a few years back
(and your character lived it), or whether your
character was born into the Post-Apocalyptic
world. The core APOCTHULHU book defines
separate sets of character archetypes to cover
each type of setting, but here we only show the
“recent Apocalypse” archetypes.
Even with that list, however, you have a fair
amount of flexibility when it comes to defining
your character. If you’d like to be someone who
had a pre-Apocalypse job which equipped
them for conflict, play a Former Law Enforcer
or Former Military character. If you’re more
interested in playing someone whose hands-
on skills might be essential to making the new
Stat 1 Stat 2 Stat 3
13 13 12
15 14 12
17 14 13
world work better, play a Former Tradesperson
or Former Doctor. If you’d like to play someone
with specialist knowledge, a Former Scientist/
Technician might be your thing, or (for a broader
but less accomplished character) perhaps a
Former Student.
If you think it would be fun to be a doomsday
prepper whose absurd notions turned out to
be prescient, play a Former Survivalist. If you’d
like to see what it would be like to someone
who was on the seedy side of the old (now-
gone) civilization, consider a Former Criminal.
Alternatively, if you’d like your character to
be someone who can lead or inspire those in
the Post-Apocalypse world through spiritual
guidance (whether as a priest, guru, or whatever)
the Spiritual Guide archetype is for you.
Finally, if you picture your character as
an average white-collar worker who had no
particular hands-on skills (but needed to
develop some fast after the Apocalypse), go with
the Former White-Collar Worker archetype.
Choose Statistics
Create your Survivor’s stats to suit the
archetype. If you’re playing a Former Doctor,
you probably want a high INT; a Former Military
character needs high STR and CON, and so
on. (You could, of course, go against the grain
and create a doctor with a low INT or a former
marine with low STR, assuming some event in
their backstory explains how their abilities were
reduced through trauma).
Pick one of the following sets of numbers
and assign each score to one stat.
Some APOCTHULHU settings have
character tweaks which give bonuses to one or
more statistic score to reflect growing up in a
harsher-than-normal environment. Apply these
bonuses after you’ve assigned the stats.
Stat 4 Stat 5 Stat 6
12 11 11
11 10 10
10 10 6
11
 For “This Fecund Planet”, the example setting
U
described in this book and its scenario, the
tweak is:
g orAllCON
Survivors receive a +1 bonus to STR
(player’s choice)
Calculate Derived Attributes
The derived attributes are based on stats, so
they’re easy to figure out.
• Hit Points (HP): The average of STR and
CON (round up).
• Willpower Points (WP): Equal to POW.
The formula for the starting number of
Sanity Points (SAN) depends on the setting
in which your character has spent most time,
and is included in the list of character tweaks
provided by your GM.
For “This Fecund Planet”, the example setting
you go”). If the Permanent Resources score is
higher — or becomes higher during play — some
decisions will need to be made about where the
points above 6 should be allocated.
Your Survivor’s Permanent Resources score
also determines his or her number of Resource
Checks — how many times the personal resource
pool can be used in a single adventure.
• Resource Checks: Permanent Resources
divided by 6 (round up).
Black out the check boxes that have numbers
higher than this calculated number of checks.
(For example, if your Survivor has a Permanent
Resources score of 6, he or she has 1 Resource
Check — color-in boxes 2 and 3 with solid fill to
show that they cannot be used.)
Permanent Resources Score
• Former Criminal: 6
• Former Doctor: 5

U
described in this book and its scenario, the
• Former Law Enforcer: 4
tweak is:
• Former Military: 4
g The formula for Starting Sanity Points
is POW×4
• Former Scientist/Technician: 7
• Former Student: 2
• Breaking Point: Equal to SAN minus POW. • Former Survivalist: 5
• Recovery SAN: Equal to POW × 5. • Former Tradesperson: 5
• Damage Bonus: See table below. • Former White-Collar Worker: 5
• Spiritual Guide: 3
Damage Bonus from STR Score
1–4 5–8 9–12 13–16 17–18
-2 -1 0 +1 +2

Establish Resources
Your choice of archetype determines
your Survivor’s starting score in Permanent
Resources. Copy the number into the box on the
character sheet. Then split that number across
the three boxes below — “at hand”, “stowed”, and
“in storage”. The numbers in each must add up to
the Permanent Resources rating. If your Survivor
has 6 or fewer points of Permanent Resources
he or she will typically want to place all into “at
hand” (i.e., carry around all your junk wherever

12
Pick Individual and Community Bonds Examples of Community Bonds
• Members of a survivor community
Your choice of archetype determines how
many Bonds your Survivor gets. This number • Club or society
can be split among Individual Bonds and • Church congregation
Community Bonds however you like. Describe • Research network
each bond. For Individual Bonds all you need at • Guild or Fraternal/Sisterly Organization
this stage is a name and few words describing
why they are important to your character. For
Define Motivations
Community Bonds you should specify the name
of the community and what kind of affiliation it Other than Bonds, what makes your Survivor
describes. tick? Intellectual curiosity? The love of a devoted
For Individual Bonds, each begins with a pet? A passionate hobby? Something else? Write
score equal to your Survivor’s CHA. If your down motivations as your Survivor’s personality
Survivor’s CHA goes down, each Individual emerges during the game. A Survivor can
Bond drops the same amount. have up to five. Each time your Survivor hits
the Breaking Point, remove a motivation as a
Community Bonds each begin with a
symptom of the trauma.
score equal to half your Survivor’s Permanent
Resources score, rounded up.
Determine Archetypal Skills
Number of Bonds Each archetype comes with a set of skills.
• Former Criminal: 4 Write down their values on the character sheet.
These scores replace the base ratings.
• Former Doctor: 3
• Former Law Enforcer: 3 Former Criminal
• Former Military: 3 • Alertness 40%
• Appraise 40%
• Former Scientist/Technician: 2
• Craft (Locksmith) 40%
• Former Student: 5
• Law (choose one) 30%
• Former Survivalist: 2
• Persuade 40%
• Former Tradesperson: 3 • Stealth 50%
• Former White-Collar Worker: 3 • Search 40%
• Spiritual Guide: 4 (including one Commu- • Unarmed Combat 60%
nity Bond with a starting score of 12)
Choose any 2 of these that you don’t already
have:
Examples of Individual Bonds
• Athletics 70%
• Spouse or ex-spouse
• Demolitions 40%
• Son or daughter
• Disguise 50%
• Best friend • Dodge 70%
• Colleagues in an intense, difficult job or • Firearms 50%
calling • Insight 50%
• Person you rescued from certain death • Melee Weapons 70%
• Fellow survivors of a shared trauma • Technology Use 40%

13
 Former Doctor
• First Aid 60%
• Medicine 60%
• Pharmacy 50%
• Scavenge 50%
• Search 50%
• Surgery 50%
• Survival (choose one) 30%
• Technology Use 30%

Choose any 2 of these that you don’t

already have:
• Foreign Language (choose one)
40%
• Reassure 50%
• Research 50%
• Science (Biology) 40%

Former Law Enforcer Former Military

• Alertness 50% • Athletics 50%
• Athletics 60% • Drive 40%
• Dodge 50% • Firearms 60%
• Drive 50% • First Aid 40%

• Firearms 60% • Heavy Weapons 40%

• Insight 50% • Law (choose one) 30%

• Military Science 60%
• Law (choose one) 40%
• Survival (choose one) 40%
• Melee Weapons 60%
• Technology Use 40%
• Persuade 50%
• Search 60% Choose any 3 of these that you don’t already
have:
Choose any 3 of these that you don’t already
have: • Artillery 40%

• Disguise 50% • Craft (choose one) 40%

• First Aid 50% • Demolitions 40%
• Forensics 40% • Medicine 40%
• Reassure 50% • Navigate 50%
• Stealth 50% • Pilot (choose one) 40%
• Technology Use 40% • Scavenge 50%
• Unarmed Combat 80% • Stealth 50%

14
 Former Student
• Art or Craft (choose one) 50%
• History 50%
• Persuade 60%
• Research 50%
• Scavenge 50%
• Technology Use 60%

Choose any 6 of these that you don’t already

have:
• Anthropology 40%
• Archaeology 40%
• Art or Craft (choose another one) 40%
• Athletics 70%
• Foreign Language (choose one) 40%
• Insight 50%
• Law (choose one) 40%
• Medicine 40%
• Military Science 40%
Former Scientist/Technician • Occult 40%
• Craft (choose one) 40% • Pharmacy 40%
• Dodge 50% • Reassure 50%
• Research 50% • Science (choose one) 40%
• Search 60% • Science (choose another one) 40%
• Science (choose one) 60% • Surgery 40%
• Science (choose another one) 40%
• Technology Use 60% Former Survivalist
Choose any 2 of these that you don’t already • Craft (Farming) 50%
have: • Firearms 50%
• Anthropology 40% • First Aid 40%
• Archaeology 40% • Heavy Machinery 30%
• Craft (choose another one) 40% • Insight 50%
• Foreign Language (choose one) 40% • Navigate 40%
• Forensics 40% • Scavenge 50%
• Heavy Machinery 50% • Survival (choose one) 60%
• Melee Weapons 70% • Survival (choose another one) 40%
• Pharmacy 40% Choose any 3 of these that you don’t already
• Post-Apocalypse Lore (choose one) 40% have:
• Scavenge 50% • Artillery 40%
• Unarmed Combat 50% • Craft (choose one) 40%

15
 • Drive 60% Former White-Collar Worker
• Heavy Weapons 40% • Art or Science (choose one) 50%
• Military Science 40% • Art or Science (choose another one) 30%
• Pharmacy 40% • Dodge 50%
• Ride 50% • Insight 50%
• Unarmed Combat 80% • Law (choose one), or Research (pick one)
60%
Former Tradesperson • Search 50%
• Appraise 40% • Technology Use 60%
• Craft (choose one) 60% Choose any 3 of these that you don’t already
• Craft (choose another one) 40% have:
• First Aid 40% • Anthropology 40%
• Heavy Machinery 40% • Craft (choose one) 40%
• Insight 40% • Firearms 60%
• Persuade 50% • Foreign Language (choose one) 40%
• Technology Use 40% • Forensics 40%
• Unarmed Combat 70% • History 50%
Choose any 3 of these that you don’t already • Occult 50%
have: • Post-Apocalypse Lore (choose one) 40%
• Alertness 60% • Reassure 50%
• Archeology 40%
• Athletics 70% Spiritual Guide
• Craft (choose yet another one) 40% • Anthropology 50%
• Demolitions 40% • History 50%
• Dodge 70% • Insight 60%
• Melee Weapons 70% • Persuade 60%
• Science (choose one) 40% • Post-Apocalypse Lore (choose one
religion) 50%
• Reassure 70%

Choose any 4 of these that you don’t already

have:
• Archeology 40%
• Art (choose one) 40%
• Craft (choose one) 40%
• Law (choose one) 40%
• Occult 50%
• Post-Apocalypse Lore (choose one other) 40%
• Stealth 50%
• Survival (choose one) 50%

16
Pick Adversity Skills (if any)
For some Post-Apocalyptic settings, your
Survivor may begin the game with a few extra
skill points learned through exposure to horrors
of the shattered world. These will be described
in the setting tweaks that the GM provided at the
start of the character generation process. Skill
points must be spent in blocks of 20 and only on
boosting skills in the list of available skills.
For “This Fecund Planet”, the example setting
described in this book and its scenario, the
U g Hard Wisdom: add +20 to any one
tweak is:
skill from the following list — Post-
Apocalypse Lore, Scavenge, Survival,
or Unnatural.
Once you have finished picking Adversity
skills, you can also calculate your character’s
Maximum SAN:
• Max SAN: Equal to 99 minus the Unnatural
skill rating.
Pick Bonus Skills
Pick any ten skills and add 20% to each of
them. The only skill you can’t pick is Unnatural.
You can increase a skill more than once, but
none can be higher than 80% to start. Put excess
points on another skill.
Final Touches
For some Post-Apocalyptic settings, your
Survivor may begin the game with some forms
of mental trauma due to the horrors he or she
has witnessed. These will be described in the
setting tweaks that the GM provided at the start
of the character generation process.
For “This Fecund Planet”, the example setting
described in this book and its scenario, the
U g
tweak is:
Cold Heart: if the Survivor’s CHA or
POW is less than 7, he or she starts
having already lost 1D4 points from
two Bonds (player’s choice; can be
Individual or Community bonds).
17
 Sample Survivors
Six sample Survivors follow, created
specifically for the “This Fecund Planet” setting.
They are ready to play but can also be customized
to meet your preferences.
Sigismund “Ziggy” Kowalski
Age 39, Botanist.
Mocked by his friends for wanting to study
botany in college, Ziggy didn’t realize how
important his choice of academic study would
be. At least for a few years before everything
went downhill fast and the plants won. Bonus &
Adversity Skills: Alertness, Firearms, First Aid,
Insight, Post-Apocalypse Lore (Floss/Plants),
Unnatural
Amelia “Ames” Deiowa
Age 34, Gear-head.
A driver who also loves fixing vehicles and
anything else that breaks. Haunted by the death
of her entire family, but particularly her brother.
Bonus & Adversity Skills: Drive, Firearms,
Scavenge, Search, Stealth, Survival (Plains)
Francis “Phranque” Judson
Age 38, Former field medic.
Phranque spent time in the military as a
medic, learning how to patch up wounds. After
discharging and the coming of the Apocalypse,
they were called up to serve in the reserves,
seeing death and destruction on a scale they
never imagined. Bonus & Adversity Skills:
Alertness, Dodge, Drive, Firearms, Insight,
Persuade, Stealth, Unnatural.
Mariano “The Mako” Lara
Age 31, Once a cop, always a cop.
A former gymnast and NYC cop, who found
himself leading a convey of refugee survivors
after the coming of the Apocalypse. He watched
with growing sadness as one by one, then five
18
by five, most of his refugees lost their struggle to
the horrible plant-matter growing inside them.
Bonus & Adversity Skills: Scavenge, Survival
(City), Unarmed Combat.
Peter “Prepper” Tran
Age 42, Survivalist.
A man who always knew the end of the
world – in some fashion or other – would come,
so he prepared. He was ready for nukes, ready
for foreign invasion, even the possibility of a
zombie outbreak, but even he could not have
predicted a plant invasion. Bonus & Adversity
Skills: Alertness, Demolitions, Dodge, Melee
Weapons, Post-Apocalypse Lore (New American
South) 60%, Search, Stealth.
Christine “Kriss” Cross
Age 42, Scholar.
A perpetual college student, who spent a
decade or more soaking up whatever knowledge
she could. When the Apocalypse came suddenly
her her jack-of-all trades knowledge came in
handy. She’s devoted to studying this new world
too, just to figure out how it (and the horrors
it contains) tick. Bonus & Adversity Skills:
Alertness, Dodge, Firearms, Post-Apocalypse
Lore (Church of Blessed Rain), Search, Stealth,
Unarmed Combat.
Sigismund “Ziggy” Kowalski 12 60
12
This Fecund Planet 16 80 Healthy
Former Scientist (Botanist) 15 75 Nimble
39 Male 18 90 Sharp Mind
Dr. Tan’s Compound 12 60
0
Warsaw, Poland
none
13 65 Likeable
14 79 60

Ziggy Sheet Front

36

40
Dr Kira Tan (mentor) 13

Floss/Plants 80
Brewing 40
Dr Tan’s Research Compound 4

50
50
30
40 Botany 80
50 Chemistry 60
Fight the Plants
60
Find a Cure
Help Dr. Tan
Work to Build the Compound
Acquire Knowledge

30 60
50
7
20
6 1 0
Mocked by his friends for wanting to study botany in college, Ziggy didn’t realize how important his choice of academic study
would be. At least for a few years before everything went downhill fast and the plants won. When Ziggy heard Dr. Tan was
looking for researchers to combat what he considers a plague, he jumped at the chance.

Bespectacled and with a rapidly receding hairline, Ziggy is Dr. Tan’s right-hand man. Despite his knowledge and experience, Ziggy
always accedes if questioned by Dr. Tan.

First Aid kit (pristine but only 1D4 uses left),

Battered plant encyclopedia,
Sample-collection bottles

Pistol 40 15 yards 1D10 - - X N/A N/A 7

Unarmed 50 - 1D4-1 - - N/A N/A N/A

The Floss & Food: “The miracle ‘floss’ that
was discovered as a super fertilizer grows
inside people after consumed. It is believed
to be in most produce grown during the past
couple of years. Eat canned food and bottled
water from before that time.”
Dr Tan:“A brilliant researcher investigating
ways to battle the plant menace.”
Ames:”Talented female auto mechanic.”
Phranque:”Ex-Army medic (they/them).”
Mako:”Former NYC cop.”
Prepper:”Intense survivalist guy.”
Kriss:”Super-educated, well-read.”
Amelia “Ames” Deiowa 15 75 Muscular
12
This Fecund Planet 15 75 Healthy
Former Tradesperson 17 85 Good with hands
34 Female 14 70 Quick Learner
Dr. Tan’s Compound 12 60
+1
Des Moines, Iowa
none
13 65 Likeable
15 99 60

36

60
Peter Tran (traveling companion) 13
40 Jerome Brass (boyfriend back at
50 the compound) 13

70

Auto Repair 80
Dr Tan’s Research Compound 3
Jury-Rigging 40

70
80 50
40

Drive Like a Demon

40
Be Useful to Dr Tan
30
Keep Compound Vehicles in Great Condition
Collect Useful Parts
40 Plains 50
Never Forget My Brother

40 40
70
5

5 0 0
Somebody needs to drive and luckily Ames loves doing it. She also loves fixing the doctor’s vehicles and anything else that breaks.
She’d been working in her brother’s garage when the apocalypse hit. Her entire family died while Ames stood helplessly, seeming
unaffected. She drove west that night, eventually finding Dr. Tan’s clinic and signing on.

Ames keeps her hair tied back to keep it out of moving parts. Her hands and arms are covered in scars from welding mishaps
and reaching for misaligned parts before they’ve fully stopped moving. Her black leather jacket was her brother’s and she keeps it
pristine.

Travel tool kit (pristine),

Grease gun (pristine),
Mirrorshades, Leather jacket

Pistol 40 15 yards 1D10 - - X N/A N/A 7

Unarmed 70 - 1D4-1 +1 - N/A N/A N/A

Dr Tan:“A brilliant researcher investigating

ways to battle the plant menace.”
Ziggy:“A biologist, helping Dr Tan.”
Phranque:”Ex-Army medic (they/them).”
Mako:”Former NYC cop.”
Prepper:”Intense survivalist guy.”
Kriss:”Super-educated, well-read.”
Francis “Phranque” Judson 14 70 Well-Built
16
This Fecund Planet 13 65 Hale & Hearty
Former Doctor (Field Medic) 17 85 Quick Footed
38 Non-Binary 17 85 Misses Nothing
Dr. Tan’s Compound 16 80 Strong-Willed
+1
Lincoln, Nebraska
none
17 85 Very Charming
14 79 79

48

40
The Penitential Him (charismatic
and enigmatic medic) 17
40
50

Dr Tan’s Research Compound 3

Church of the Holy Artery (Post-
50
Apocalypse Religion) 3

50
40 50
60
80
Cure the Good Guys
Akkadian 40 50
Kill Those Who Threaten
Respect Order and Authority
70
Keep Busy to Forget
Plains 30
Protect Dr Tan With Your Life.

30 30
5
20
60 5 0 0
Phranque spent time in the military as a medic, learning how to patch up wounds. After discharging, they hoped to use their GI Bill
to further study medicine, but the apocalypse came. When called up to serve in the reserves, Phranque saw death and destruction
on a scale they never imagined.

When the government collapsed and the few remaining officers disbanded the units, Phranque searched for a place their skills
would be useful. They found Dr. Tan through a friend of a friend of friend and offered their services.

Phranque keeps up an exercise regime to stay in shape, but has let their red hair grow long. They can be prone to bouts of
depression whenever the totality of the world’s destruction sets in.

Travel medicine kit (pristine but only 1D4 uses left),

Field surgery kit (pristine but only 1D4 uses left),
Akkadian dictionary

Pistol 60 15 yards 1D10 - - X N/A N/A 7

Unarmed 40 - 1D4-1 +1 - N/A N/A N/A

Dr Tan:“A brilliant researcher investigating

ways to battle the plant menace.”
Ziggy:“A biologist, helping Dr Tan.”
Ames:”Talented female auto mechanic.”
Mako:”Former NYC cop.”
Prepper:”Intense survivalist guy.”
Kriss:”Super-educated, well-read.”
Mariano “The Mako” Lara 17 85 Muscle Man
12
This Fecund Planet 15 75 Healthy
Former Law Enforcer 17 85 Gymnast
31 Male 15 75 Perceptive
Dr. Tan’s Compound 12 60
+2
New York City
none
15 75 Popular
16 99 60

36

50
Christine Cross (travelling
companion) 15
50 Jimmy Ormond (6-year-old
orphan from caravan) 15

60

Dr Tan’s Research Compound 2

70

70
50 50
80
50
Don’t Trust Anyone Until They Earn It
60
Be A Role Model
50
Keep The Peace
40
Enforce Dr Tan’s Rules
City 50
Keep Alive The Memory Of Those I
Couldn’t Save.

70
40 60
4
Region of Dr Tan’s

4 0 0
60
A former gymnast, Mariano got his nickname because he never stops moving. Even when his hands and feet aren’t moving, his
mouth is. After high school, he entered NYC’s police academy. After graduation, he found himself patrolling Bedford Stuyvesant,
doing his best to make a difference.

After a year on the job, the apocalypse struck and he found himself leading a caravan of refugees west from Brooklyn. He
watched with growing sadness as one by one, then five by five, most of his refugees lost their struggle with whatever was
growing inside them. Each death was personal to the Mako and he resolved to do what he could to avenge them.

Battered and tarnished badge,

Photo of deceased wife and children,
Lucky shark-tooth charm

Pistol 80 15 yards 1D10 - - X N/A N/A 7

Knife 60 - 1D6 +2 - X N/A N/A N/A
Unarmed 50 - 1D4-1 +2 - N/A N/A N/A

Laws of Dr Tan’s Region: “To keep a degree
of law and order in and around the compound,
Dr Tan has created a set of rules that are
enforced like ‘laws.’”
Dr Tan:“A brilliant researcher investigating
ways to battle the plant menace.”
Ziggy:“A biologist, helping Dr Tan.”
Ames:”Talented female auto mechanic.”
Phranque:”Ex-Army medic (they/them).”
Prepper:”Intense survivalist guy.”
Kriss:”Super-educated, well-read.”
Peter “Prepper” Tran
This Fecund Planet
Former Survivalist
42 Male
Dr. Tan’s Compound
Kansas City, Missouri
16
15 75 Muscular
15
16 80 Healthy
15 75 Slippery
14 70 Knowledgeable
15 75 Motivated
+1
Kevlar (3pt)
15 75 Likeable
99 75

45

40
60 Amelia Deiowa (travelling
companion) 15

New Am. South 60

Farming 50
Dr Tan’s Research Compound 2

20

50 50
60 70
50
40
Look After Own Safety
40
Keep Control of Own Gear
30
Destroy the Crazies
Blow Up Plants
30 Plains 60
Always Repay A Favor
City 40

50
80
5

5 0 0
50
Peter “Prepper” Tran always knew the end would come, so he prepared. He was ready for nuclear war, foreign invasion, civil unrest,
he even got in on the zombie bandwagon for a while – who knew what they were cooking up down in ATL. What he wasn’t ready
for was plants. Sure, he had a machete. And gasoline. But these plants were killing people from the inside! Eat your veggies? Not
anymore! Prepper’s risk averse nature has made him a welcome addition to Dr. Tan’s crew.

Peter has chiseled features, something he works very hard to maintain. His mind will frequently race to the worst possible
outcome, but he’s dependable when things get bad.

Military-style greatcoat,
Junked CB radio (junk),
Jerry can of gasoline,
3 sticks dynamite (pristine).

Kevlar Vest (pristine) [3pt Armor]

Pistol 50 15 yards 1D10 - - X N/A N/A 7

Machete 50 - 1D8 +1 - X N/A N/A N/A
Unarmed 80 - 1D4-1 +1 - N/A N/A N/A

The New American South: “Rural parts
of the American South were hit hard by the
Apocalypse: many towns choked to death by
greenery. New religions sprung up, like the
Church of the Blessed Rain. They seem more
like weird cults. Some say that worshippers are
unaffected by the plants. Others think they
are preying on the desperate and vulnerable.“
Dr Tan:“A brilliant researcher investigating
ways to battle the plant menace.”
Ziggy:“A biologist, helping Dr Tan.”
Ames:”Talented female auto mechanic.”
Phranque:”Ex-Army medic (they/them).”
Mako:”Former NYC cop.”
Kriss:”Super-educated, well-read.”
Christine “Kriss” Cross 12 60
18
This Fecund Planet 13 65 Good Health
Former Student 15 75 Nimble
42 Female 18 90 Eidetic Memory
Dr. Tan’s Compound 18 90 Indomitable
0
San Diego, California
none
16 80 Very Charming
13 99 90

54

40
Mariano Lara (traveling companion) 16
Corey Hawthorne (de-programmed
60 ex-Blessed Rain) 16
Poetry 50 40 Geoffrey Cross (wheelchair-bound
husband) 16

Ch. Blesed Rain 40

Dr Tan’s Research Compound 1

Live Poets Society (club at the
50
compound) 1
50
50
50
40 Biology 40

Never Ever Give Up

40
Document Everything
30
Always Look for Ways to Prove Usefulness
Report Everything Back to Dr Tan
Acquire Knowledge at Any Costs

70
60
60 60
2
Old American

40 2 0 0
Kriss was a perpetual college student. She’d sign up for every class and change majors often enough to never earn a degree. Then,
the apocalypse came and her jack-of-all trades knowledge came in handy. She could be useful to anyone. And, she devoted herself
to studying the new world with as much fervor as she avoided graduating in the old world. She’s proven a boon to Dr. Tan, able to
help research topics outside of Dr. Tan’s experience or interest.

Kriss is earnest to a fault. When she has a task, she’ll follow through to the bitter end.

Kriss Sheet Back

Diary / poetry / sketch book,

Portafile with witness statements on loose paper,
Reel-to-reel tape recorder (pristine) for recording notes and
interviews (batteries are heavily worn)

Pistol 40 15 yards 1D10 - - X N/A N/A 7

Unarmed 60 - 1D4-1 - - N/A N/A N/A

Church of Blessed Rain: “A cult-like new Dr Tan: “A brilliant researcher investigating

religion rapidly gaining followers. Their members
supposedly don’t get sick from eating plants.”
“New Beginnings” Safe Haven: “Non-
existent facility advertised widely, perhaps as
a way of luring the gullible for some nefarious
purpose. Or just wishful thinking.”
ways to battle the plant menace.”
Ziggy:“A biologist, helping Dr Tan.”
Ames:”Talented female auto mechanic.”
Phranque:”Ex-Army medic (they/them).”
Mako:”Former NYC cop.”
Prepper:”Intense survivalist guy.”
Game System
The rules for APOCTHULHU are simple.
The Game Moderator describes the situation;
you say what your Survivor is doing about it; the
GM describes the outcome, as what happens
next. The core rules of the game revolve around
that last step. Do you succeed or not?
Does It Require a Skill or a Stat?
If the GM thinks anyone could pull it off, it
doesn’t require a skill or a stat, just effort.
A SKILL: If your Survivor is trying to do
something that only someone with a great deal
of training could achieve, that requires a skill.
The GM decides which skills apply.
A STAT: If anyone might be able to do it
without training, that may require not a skill but
instead a certain score in a stat: Strength if it
needs physical power, Intelligence if it needs
clear reasoning, Power if it requires inner
fortitude, and so on.
Does It Require a Roll?
If the situation is calm and your Survivor
has time to think, ask questions, plan, and
prepare, the randomness of a die-roll probably
isn’t appropriate. The GM decides how much of
the skill or stat you need — see WHAT SKILL
RATINGS REPRESENT on page 6. If your
Survivor doesn’t have enough, the GM may tell
you that someone with deeper expertise or
talent could figure it out.
If it’s a crisis and things are rapidly spinning
out of control, roll the dice.
If You Must Roll the Dice
Roll percentile dice to get a result from 01 to
100. If you roll your skill or lower (or your stat × 5
or lower), your Survivor succeeds. If not, your
Survivor suffers the consequences.
If you roll a success and the dice match each
other, or if you roll 01, that’s a critical success.
Your Survivor succeeds as perfectly as possible.
If you roll a failure and the dice match each
other, or if you roll 00 (meaning 100), that’s a
critical failure, also called a fumble. The action
fails and your Survivor suffers some other
detriment, too.
Opposed Rolls
What if two characters are using skills in
direct opposition to each other? Maybe you
want to oppose an enemy’s attack roll with
your Survivor’s Dodge skill, or you want to
defeat someone’s Alertness with your Survivor’s
Stealth skill. Both sides roll, as usual. A critical
success beats a success; otherwise the highest
succeeding die-roll wins. If both fail, the result
is up to the GM. Maybe they keep trying, or
maybe circumstances change and the contest
ends inconclusively.
Pursuit
When one character (or something worse)
wants to catch another, that’s one or more
opposed tests: Driving vs. Driving, Athletics vs.
Athletics, Swim vs. Swim, whatever makes sense.
One opposed test makes for a short chase.
In a more substantial pursuit, one side needs
two successes. Wins cancel each other out. If
31
 the quarry wins, that lengthens the lead. The
pursuer needs to win once to reduce the lead
and again to gain ground.
A chase should require three successes to
win only if it’s exceptionally long and drawn-
out. In a pursuit, a critical success counts as
two “successes” and a critical failure counts as
two failures.
The Luck Roll
Sometimes the GM calls for a Luck roll. If
you have to make a Luck roll, it doesn’t depend
on skill, talent, or willpower. Just roll percentile
dice. You have a 50% chance of success.
Bonuses and Penalties
In most cases, roll your Survivor’s basic skill
or stat rating. If the GM thinks circumstances
are exceptionally dire, modify the chance by
−20% (subtract 20 from the rating). If things are
exceptionally in your Survivor’s favor, modify the
chance by +20%. In rare, truly extraordinary cases
the bonus or penalty may be +40% or −40%.
Skills
Willpower
Survivors need Willpower Points (WP) to
withstand exhaustion and mental trauma, to
resist interrogation and persuasion, and to
enact unnatural rituals.
Low Willpower
At 1 or 2 WP your Survivor has an emotional
breakdown, suffering a –20% penalty to all
actions until WP rises above 2. At 0 WP your
Survivor collapses, incapacitated and perhaps
unconscious, and cannot succeed at any tests —
including SAN rolls.
Regaining Willpower
Fulfilling a personal motivation in a way that
the GM finds compelling restores 1 WP. A full
night’s sleep restores 1D6 WP.
Exhaustion
The first time your Survivor tries to sleep
after suffering temporary insanity or reaching
the Breaking Point, you must make a Sanity test
for the Survivor to get any rest. After failing
to get a good night’s sleep, or working CON in

Skills and Base Ratings

Alertness 20% Forensics 0% Ranged Weapons 20%
Anthropology 0% Heavy Machinery 10% Reassure 10%
Appraise 10% Heavy Weapons 0% Research 10%
Archeology 0% History 10% Ride 10%
Art (Type) 0% Insight 10% Scavenge 10%
Artillery 0% Law (Type) 0% Science (Type) 0%
Athletics 30% Medicine 0% Search 20%
Craft (Type) 0% Melee Weapons 30% Stealth 10%
Demolitions 0% Military Science 0% Surgery 0%
Disguise 10% Navigate 10% Survival (Type) 10%
Dodge 30% Occult 10% Swim 20%
Drive 20% Persuade 20% Technology Use 0%
Firearms 20% Pharmacy 0% Unarmed Combat 40%
First Aid 10% Pilot (Type) 0% Unnatural 0%
Foreign Language (Type) 0% Post-Apocalypse Lore (Type) 0%
Check a skill when you attempt to use a skill and fail. After the session, add 1 to each checked skill and erase all checks.

32
hours without a break, a Survivor loses 1D6 WP Worn Out Items, and Junk
and become exhausted. An exhausted Survivor
suffers a –20% penalty to all skills, stat tests, and Sometimes your Survivor will be lucky
SAN rolls. A full night’s rest removes that penalty. enough to own or find a piece of equipment
• Using sedatives: Liquor or sleeping pills that’s in its new or “pristine” condition. Such
give your Survivor a +20% bonus to the items function exactly as they were designed to
SAN test to get to sleep. If the test still do, although if you thrash them the GM might
fails, the Survivor is exhausted the next decide that they’re starting to wear thin.
day after all. Items that have become Heavily Worn still
• Using stimulants: Stimulants offsets the work perfectly well but are perpetually on the
exhaustion penalty by 10% for 2D6 hours, verge of breaking. If the GM tells you an item is
or 20% for hard drugs. Heavily Worn then each time your Survivor uses
• Addiction: Frequent use of sedatives it, he or she must make a Luck roll. If the roll
or stimulants makes addiction a likely fails, it’s gone beyond just being worn-out … it’s
result the next time your Survivor gains a now considered Junk.
disorder. Heavily Worn versions of consumables (like
food or fuel) are generally safe to use but smell
Finding Things in the Global or taste awful. On a failed Luck test they create
Scrapyard minor negative side-effects (e.g., food poisoning,
or vehicle backfires).
One of the staples of Post-Apocalyptic stories Junk versions of items can still be used but
is that resources — in the form of traditional suffer a –20% penalty all the time. They are also
modern equipment and supplies — are scarce. more likely to cause a fumbled roll — in addition
This stands to reason: if human society has to normal chances for a test to fumble (rolling
broken down in the wake of some terrible a failure with matching digits), such items
event, nobody is manufacturing any brand-
automatically fumble on any roll 95 or higher. The
new gadgets, gizmos, medicines, or processed
GM might decide that any such fumble means
foods. At the same time, the few humans that
the Junk item is now permanently useless.
have survived the Apocalypse have a reason to
stockpile as many of these things as possible. Junk versions of consumable resources (like
food or fuel) are potentially dangerous — in the
All of this makes the locating of equipment,
worst case, using spoiled drugs may have the
vehicles, and even staples the Survivors need
to live, uncertain. This represents a significant potential to kill the patient.
difference to the settings for most tabletop
roleplaying settings — even in a medieval or
fantasy setting, some kind of “economy” exists
and player characters can use “money” they
own to exchange for items in towns or markets.
In the Post-Apocalypse there is no money. There
are likely to be few markets, and there might not
even be any functioning townships or large-
scale settlements.
So, how are the Survivors supposed to get
supplies and new equipment? The short answer
is that they must either scavenge it, make it, or
already have it in the stash of junk they carry
around with them.

33
 Scarcity
In any setting, some resources will be
scarcer than others. For convenience the
following categories of scarceness are defined:
Abundant, Uncommon, Hard to Get, Very
Hard to Get, and Impossible to Get. Each
imposes modifiers on the chances of finding the
resource in pristine, worn, or junk conditions.
The description of “This Fecund Planet”, the
example Post-Apocalypse setting, includes a
table (on page 44) showing the scarcity of
different types of consumables and equipment.
Scavenging Items
Any attempt to find resources by searching
the environment (e.g., going through the
abandoned supermarket shelves or raiding an
army base) is covered by tests of the Scavenge
skill. The test will be modified according to the
scarcity of the resource and whether you’re
looking in a likely or unlikely location.
In general:
• For Abundant Resources: no test
required, you can automatically find the
resource in any logical place.
• For Uncommon Resources: unmodified
Scavenge test will find a pristine version.
• For Hard to Get Resources: make
Scavenge test modified by –20%;
successful rolls that are low (10 or less)
find a junk version, otherwise a pristine
version is found.
• For Very Hard to Get Resources:
make Scavenge test modified by –40%;
successful rolls that are low (10 or less)
find a junk version; otherwise a heavily
worn version is found. Only critical
successes find a pristine version.
• For Impossible to Get Resources:
no test required, you cannot find such
resources.
34
Drawing on Personal Resources
Each Survivor carries around a personal
collection of miscellaneous “stuff”. These are
not the items specifically named on the back
of the character sheet, but an abstract pool
of unnamed gear. The size and usefulness of
a Survivor’s collection is determined by the
Permanent Resources score (see page 6).
During an adventure you can draw upon this
pool to find useful things without ever needing
to have previously stated your Survivor was
carrying that item or resource. You can do this
by succeeding in a test against Resources × 5,
modified by scarcity of the item.
There are a couple of limits, however. First,
your Survivor can only draw upon his or her
resource pool a certain number of times in a
single scenario (the number of unblacked check
boxes). Secondly, the effective Resources rating
used for test may depend on how much of your
personal pool is available at the time. The “At
Hand” score will always be included in the total,
but the “Stowed” score is only added if you have
access to the vehicle and the “In Storage” score
is only added if you’re back at your home base.
Scarcity affects the Resources test:
• For Abundant Resources: no modifier;
will always find a pristine version of the
resource.

• For Uncommon Resources: no modifier,
but a low roll (20 or less) will find a Heavily
Worn item or half a unit of a consumable
resource.
• For Hard to Get Resources: tests are
made at HALF chance; a low roll success
(20 or less) will find a Junk version,
otherwise a Heavily Worn item is found
or half a unit of a consumable. Only a
critical success finds (a full unit of) the
pristine version.
• For Very Hard to Get Resources: tests
are made a QUARTER chance; a low
roll success (20 or less) will find a Junk
version, otherwise a Heavily Worn item is
found or half a unit of a consumable. Only
a roll of 01 finds (a full unit of) the pristine
version.
• For Impossible to Get Resources:
tests are made a QUARTER chance and
must be a critical success to locate the
resource in any fashion. Even critical
success finds a Junk version unless the
roll was 01, in which case a further Luck
roll is made: failure = heavily worn item
(or half a unit of consumable); success =
pristine version.
If the Resources test is successful, place a
check in one of the free checkboxes on your
Survivor’s sheet. If they are all full, he or she can’t
use Personal Resources again this adventure
(but all check marks are erased before the next
adventure starts).
If your Survivor is seeking to find a highly
specialized item in his or her personal resource
pool the GM might decide that success would
permanently reduce the Survivor’s Personal
Resources score by a point or two. You will
always be told this cost before making the
decision about whether to roll or not.
Jury-Rigging Items
Survivors may often find themselves faced
with the inability to track down the equipment
or devices that they need to get something
done. Their only realistic option may be to hunt
down a collection of less-scarce component
items and cobble together some kind of hodge-
podge out of the parts. This is the fine art of
jury-rigging.
All such attempts are resolved through
tests against the Craft (Jury-Rigging) skill,
or other similar skills at the GM’s discretion.
At best, a lash-up created in this way qualities
as a “heavily worn” version of the real item or
device. If any components are themselves sub-
par, the GM might decide that the jury-rigged
assembly is Junk.
Combat
Combat can take your Survivor out of the
game quickly and permanently. Don’t engage in
it lightly.
One Action per Turn
Combat is resolved in turns. Each typically
lasts a few seconds, but a given turn might
represent a split second of violence.
Each character acts once in a turn. The
character with the highest DEX goes first. Then
the next-highest DEX, then the next, and so on
until all have acted.
35
 When it’s your turn, choose one action:
• Aim: Add +20% to your next attack roll.
• Attack: Inflict damage. One attack and
damage roll usually represents a series
of blows, firing off an archaic ranged
weapon, or two or three shots with a
gun. In hand-to-hand combat, attacking
also includes self-defense; see DEFENSE
ROLLS for details.
• Called Shot: An attack that ignores cover
or armor but at a –20% penalty, or –40%
for an especially hard shot.
• Disarm: Roll Unarmed Combat to force
the target to drop a weapon or object.
Includes self-defense; see DEFENSE
ROLLS for details.
• Dodge: Roll Dodge to oppose an attack,
disarm, or pin. See DEFENSE ROLLS for
details.
• Escape: Get out of being pinned. Roll either
STR×5 or Unarmed Combat, whichever is
better. This acts as a defense roll against
the character pinning your Survivor
(see DEFENSE ROLLS for details). If the
pinning character is not attacking, the
escape is opposed by his or her Unarmed
Combat or STR×5 (whichever is better). If
the escape roll succeeds, your Survivor
is no longer pinned — and the escape
roll defends against other attacks until
your Survivor’s next action. If it fails, your
Survivor remains pinned and cannot
defend against attacks.
• Fight Back: Roll Melee Weapons or
Unarmed Combat to oppose an attack.
See DEFENSE ROLLS for details.
• Move: Jog 10 yards, run 20 yards, or sprint
30 yards. (Usually, your Survivor can go
about 3 yards as part of another action.)
• Pin: Hold someone down. Includes self-
defense; see DEFENSE ROLLS for
details. Your Survivor can attack the
36
pinned target in later turns. Unarmed
Combat and Melee Weapons attacks on
a pinned target are at +20%. A pinned
character can take no actions except
attempting to escape. While pinning a
target, you decide whether and when the
target can speak.
• Wait: Act after someone else’s action this
turn.
• Anything Else: Anything that takes a
moment’s concentration.
Defense Rolls
Dodging and hand-to-hand combat (using
either Melee Weapons or Unarmed Combat) are
tests that can protect your Survivor by opposing
attack rolls.
Your Survivor can Dodge or fight back
against an incoming attack even before your
Survivor’s DEX order in a turn. If you do this, it
becomes your Survivor’s single action for that
turn. A Survivor who has already taken another
action that turn can’t Dodge or fight back until
the next turn.
In order to Dodge or fight back, your Survivor
must know an attack is coming and be physically
capable of blocking or evading it. A Survivor who
is pinned or unaware can’t Dodge or fight back.
DODGING: Opposes all hand-to-hand attacks
that turn, and lets your Survivor duck behind
cover to evade all ranged attacks that turn. (The
cover must be within about three yards — close
enough to duck behind it.) Dodging protects
against each attack that your roll beats. Dodging
never inflicts damage.
ATTACKING OR FIGHTING BACK: Opposes each
hand-to-hand attack that turn. This cannot
protect against ranged attacks unless your
Survivor physically interferes with the weapon.
When fighting back, choose an offensive action:
attack, called shot, disarm, or pin. If your roll beats
the attack, the attacker’s action has no effect
and your Survivor’s action affects the attacker.
While the roll defends against all attackers, the
offensive action affects only a single target.
Damage and Death
A successful attack inflicts damage, which
reduces the victim’s Hit Points. Damage depends
on the weapon.
At 2 HP or below, your Survivor falls
unconscious for an hour or until healed to at least
3 HP. A Survivor injured that seriously must roll a
CON test. If it fails, look at the lowest die in the
percentile roll as a single D10. The Survivor loses
that many points from a single stat of the GM’s
choice, permanently, to a minimum score of 3.
At 0 Hit Points, your Survivor dies — unless
the GM says otherwise. The GM has a lot of
discretion. Sometimes common sense says a
character can be kept alive with prompt medical
care such as Surgery or First Aid. Other times
it’s clear that there’s no hope. Hit Points never
go below 0.
A First Aid roll restores 1D4 HP. It can be
attempted only once each time a Survivor is
injured. A Survivor resting safely gets a CON
test once a day to recover 1 HP. A Medicine or
Surgery roll, whichever is appropriate, restores
1D4 HP once a week.
Lethality Rating
Sometimes a threat is so dire that an
ordinary damage roll isn’t enough. A machine
gun, explosive, poison, or heavy weapon has a
Lethality rating. That’s the percent chance that
the threat immediately reduces the target to
zero Hit Points. If that fails, the target still takes
damage equal to the two percentile dice added
together as individual ten-sided dice.
Kill Radius
A Lethality weapon that can affect many
targets at once has a Kill Radius. If it’s an
explosive, that adds +20% to the chance to hit.
Choose the center of the radius before attacking.
The effect depends on the attack roll.
• Hit: Roll Lethality for everyone inside the
radius. (The GM decides if some targets
are exempted.) Everyone who survives is
suppressed.
• Miss: Everyone who would have been in
the Kill Radius is suppressed
• Suppression: If your Survivor is
suppressed, your Survivor must either
hide behind cover or go prone. If your
Survivor refuses to hide or go prone, he
or she loses 1 SAN, but can act normally.
Armor and Cover
If something sturdy stands between your
Survivor and harm, it acts as armor and has an
Armor value. The effect depends on the kind of
protection and the kind of attack.
• Body armor: No effect on a successful
Lethality roll. Reduces the damage of an
ordinary attack (unless it’s a called shot).
• Cover: Causes a Lethality roll to
automatically fail; but remember, a
failed Lethality roll still inflicts Hit Point
damage. Cover reduces the damage from
any attack except a called shot.
• Armor-piercing weapons: If a weapon has
an Armor Piercing rating, it reduces your
Survivor’s protection’s Armor rating by
that much for that attack.
37
 Sample Damage Rolls Here are sample SAN losses. In each case, the lower
loss (succesful SAN test) is left of the slash, the higher
• Unarmed: 1D4−1 loss (failed SAN test) is to the right.
• Small club or knife: 1D4 Suffering Violence Loss
• Large club or knife: 1D6 Ambushed or hit by gunfire 0/1
• Pistol: 1D10 Surprised by a corpse 0/1
• Rifle: 1D12 — The corpse of someone you love 0/1D4
• Shotgun: 2D10 at close range; 2D6 or 1D6 Unexpectedly stabbed, strangled or shot 0/1D4
farther out Reduced to 2 HP or less 0/1D6
• Submachine gun, burst: Lethality 10%, Tortured 0/1D10
Kill Radius 1 yard.
• Hand grenade: Lethality 15%, Kill Radius
10 yards. Inflicting Violence Loss
Incapacitate or cripple an innocent 0/1D4
Strength and Damage Destroy a teammate’s body to thwart 0/1D4
discovery*
High or low STR modifies Unarmed Combat
and Melee Weapons damage rolls, to a Kill in defense of oneself or another* 0/1D4
minimum of 0: Kill a murderous enemy in cold blood* 0/1D6
• −2 for STR 3–4 Torture a victim 0/1D8
• −1 for STR 5–8 Accidentally kill an innocent* 0/1D8
• +1 for STR 13–16 — even for a very good reason* 1/1D10
• +2 for STR 17–18 * For a failed roll, add 1 per victim up to the
maximum possible die-roll: 4 for 1D4, 6 for 1D6, etc.

Sanity
Survivors are as vulnerable to mental trauma
as to physical threats. We track that vulnerability
in Sanity Points (SAN). When SAN drops sharply,
the Survivor loses self-control — and the player
loses control of the Survivor.

Threats to Sanity
The three types of SAN loss are Violence
(both suffering it and inflicting it), Helplessness,
and the Unnatural.
Each threat comes with two possible SAN
losses, one more severe than the other. Whenever
your Survivor faces one of those threats, make
a SAN test. That means rolling your Survivor’s
current SAN or lower on percentile dice. If you
succeed, your Survivor suffers the lower loss;
with a critical success, your Survivor suffers the
minimum loss possible. If you fail, your Survivor
suffers the higher loss; with a critical failure,
your Survivor loses the maximum possible.

38
 Helplessness
Being suddenly fired from one’s role
A friend suffers permanent harm or gains a
disorder
A Bond’s score is reduced to zero
Imprisoned or held against will 0/1D4
Wake up paralyzed or blind
An Individual Bond suffers permanent
harm or gains a disorder
Shunned by all members of a
Community Bonded organization
See or hear a friend being gruesomely
killed
Learn an Individual Bond has been
killed
See or hear an Individual Bond
gruesomely killed
Learn that a Community Bonded
organization has been destroyed
Act in a way that directly leads to
collapse of a Community Bonded
organization the kind of trauma that pushed the Survivor to
The Unnatural
Attempting Reassure on a character who
lost SAN to the Unnatural
Witnessing a supernatural effect that’s
apparently benign
Witnessing a violent supernatural effect
Seeing a corpse walk
Subjected to an overtly supernatural effect
Suffering a violent supernatural assault
Loss Insanity
0/1 Insanity is what happens when you lose too
0/1 many Sanity Points. There are three kinds of
insanity in APOCTHULHU: temporary insanity
0/1D4 from short, overwhelming shocks; indefinite
insanity from accumulated stresses; and
permanent insanity when your Survivor has
0/1D4 been driven completely beyond reason.
1/1D4
Temporary Insanity
1/1D4 If your Survivor loses 5 or more SAN from
a single event, your Survivor goes temporarily
0/1D6 insane. This means the “fight or flight” response
takes over: your Survivor either runs away,
1/1D6 lashes out mindlessly, or curls up in a helpless
ball. It lasts until the GM says the Survivor snaps
out of it; usually that’s a few minutes after the
1/1D8 source of the SAN loss goes away.
1/1D6 Disorder
A Survivor whose SAN score reaches the
1/1D8 Breaking Point gains a long-term mental
disorder. Its nature and symptoms depend on
the Breaking Point.
The symptoms usually don’t manifest right
Loss away. When your Survivor reaches the Breaking
0/1 Point, make a note on the character sheet that you
have gained a new disorder and whether it came
0/1 from Violence, Helplessness, or the Unnatural.
Now change the Breaking Point to its new value:
your Survivor’s current SAN minus POW. The GM
0/1D6
will determine the details of your Survivor’s new
0/1D6 disorder later in the adventure or perhaps in
0/1D6 between this adventure and the next.
1/1D8 ACUTE EPISODES: Once a Survivor has gained
or more a disorder, further stresses may bring it to
the fore. Any time your Survivor loses SAN
or confronts some traumatic trigger directly
related to the disorder you must make a SAN
roll. If it fails, your Survivor suffers an acute
episode. The disorder cannot be controlled until
the source of stress goes away. The GM always
decides the exact repercussions, and whether it
happens immediately or builds gradually, in the
aftermath of the trauma.
39
 Sample Disorders
Here are sample disorders. They are defined
in the APOCTHULHU core rulebook, but many
are self-explanatory.
• Addiction
• Amnesia
• Depression
• Hysterical Blindness / Deafness / Paralysis
• Mania
• Megalomania / Narcissistic
• Multiple Personalities
• Obsession
• Paranoia
• Phobia
• Psychogenic Fugue
• Schizoid
• PTSD or “Shell Shock”
Permanent Insanity
If your Survivor’s SAN reaches 0, your
Survivor goes irretrievably insane. The Survivor
becomes a GM character and it’s time to make
up a new one.
Preserving Sanity
It’s possible to resist SAN loss and insanity
through adaptation and by placing stress on
Individual and Community Bonds. But suffering
a trauma always comes with a cost.
Adapting to Sanity Loss
A Survivor who loses SAN from a threat three
times without going insane becomes adapted. If
your Survivor loses SAN due to Helplessness or
Violence, check one of the three boxes for that
threat on the character sheet under INCIDENTS
OF SAN LOSS WITHOUT GOING INSANE. If your Survivor
goes insane or reaches the Breaking Point due
to that threat, erase all its checks.
If you check all three boxes for a threat, your
Survivor becomes adapted to that threat. When
adapted to a threat, a Survivor’s SAN tests for
40
it always succeed — but adapting to a threat
changes your Survivor, and not for the better.
No Survivor can adapt to the Unnatural.
• Adapting to Violence: Permanently lose
1D6 CHA and the same amount from each
Bond.A character who is adapted to Violence
loses no SAN for ignoring suppression (see
KILL RADIUS on page 37).
• Adapting to Helplessness: Permanently
lose 1D6 POW.
Projecting Onto A Bond
When there is a SAN loss, your Survivor
can attempt to reduce it by projecting it onto a
crucial personal relationship or connection to
a group, damaging an Individual or Community
Bond. Spend 1D4 WP. If your Survivor still has at
least 1 WP, reduce the SAN loss by the amount
of WP spent (to a minimum of zero). Now reduce
one of your Survivor’s Bond scores by the same
amount. It could be an Individual Bond or a
Community Bond.
The next time your Survivor interacts with
the subject of the Bond, decide what shape
the projection takes. Does the Survivor grow
hostile and angry, irrationally blaming his or
her loved one for imagined wrongs? Does the
Survivor abandon his community one in favor
of relationships with less importance and
meaning? The stresses faced by Survivors often
wreck the families and friendships that give
them strength.
Using Bonds to Repress Insanity
When suffering temporary insanity or an
acute episode of a disorder, your Survivor can
try to repress it by focusing on the people or
communities who depend on him or her. Spend
1D4 WP, and reduce one Individual or Community
Bond by the same amount. Now you may attempt
a SAN test. If it succeeds, your Survivor stifles
the symptoms of insanity, and you retain control
of your character after all. The next time your
Survivor interacts with that Bond, describe how
the relationship has worsened.
Regaining Sanity Points
Survivors gain SAN by seeking calming or
reassuring help between operations (which can
raise SAN no higher than the Survivor’s POW×5),
by destroying accounts of Cthulhu Mythos lore,
and by overcoming unnatural threats (both of
which can raise SAN as high as 99 minus the
Survivor’s Unnatural skill rating). These options
are detailed in the core rulebook.
Bonds Forged Through
Shared Adversity
Survivors often band together into small
tight-knit groups, to enhance their chances. If
those tight-knit groups go through terrifying
ordeals together, there is a strong chance
that they will become psychologically bound
together by that shared experience.
Whenever your Survivor is part of a team
that completes a harrowing adventure, there’s
a chance of such trauma-generated bonds
forming or deepening.
In the downtime after the adventure (see
below), roll for a SAN test. Success has no effect.
But if it fails, emotional attachments form; follow
this process for each teammate, up to five:
IF THERE’S NOT AN EXISTING BOND: If your Survivor
doesn’t already have a Bond with the teammate,
gain a new Bond equal to half your Survivor’s
CHA. Your Survivor immediately loses 1D4 points
from one other (Individual or Community). This
loss can’t relate to someone who was on the
same adventure.
IF THERE’S AN EXISTING INDIVIDUAL BOND: If your
Survivor already has an Individual Bond with
the teammate, add 1D4 to it (up to your Survivor’s
CHA). Subtract 1 from one other (Individual or
Community) Bond. This loss occurs even if the
bond value was already at its maximum value,
and can’t relate to someone who was on the
same adventure.
Downtime
APOCTHULHU features occasional scenes
that focus on Survivors’ everyday lives. Use
them to explore the things that are important
to your Survivor and the ways in which those
things deteriorate thanks to experience of
secret horrors.
Choose one personal pursuit. Describe
how your Survivor is pursuing it and roll
the appropriate test to resolve it. Some
pursuits damage Bonds (but not those from
recent traumas) as your Survivor lets older
relationships lapse. Here are a few examples.
• Fulfill Responsibilities: Choose one Bond
and roll a SAN test. Success: +1D6 to the
Bond. Fumble: –1D4 from the Bond and
–1 SAN.
• Seek Favor with a Community: Make both a
SAN test and a test against Community
Bond strength × 5. If Bond roll isn’t
successful, nothing happens, otherwise:
if SAN roll success +1 to the Bond value;
SAN roll critical success +2 to the Bond
value; SAN roll fumble -1D3 to the Bond
value (and an additional -1 SAN).
• Seek Solitude in a Calming Natural Setting:
Make SAN test; success +1D4 SAN; critical
success +4 SAN. Either way, reduce a
Bond by 1
• Establish a New Bond (Individual or
Community): Pick an individual or
community to target. Make CHA×5 test.
Success: a new bond is established
(at half CHA for Individual Bonds or
half Resources for Community Bonds).
Regardless, reduce either an Individual
Bond by 1D4 or a Community Bond by 1.
41
 • Seek Help With Mental Illness, But Lie
About Your Unnatural Traumas: Make a
Luck roll. Success: +1D4 SAN. Fumble: –1
SAN. Either way, reduce a Bond by 1.
• Seek Help With Mental Illness, and Tell
the Awful Truth: Make a Luck roll. If
the reassuring counsellor thinks your
encounters with the unnatural are
delusions, the roll is at at –20%. If the
counsellor believes you, he or she may
lose SAN. Success: +1D6 SAN. Fumble:
–1 SAN. Either way, reduce a Bond by 1.
• Improve a Stat or Skill: Test a stat or skill. If
test fails, add +1D10 to the skill or +1 to the
stat. Either way, reduce a Bond by 1.
• Follow a Personal Motivation: Roll a SAN
test: success +1 SAN; critical success
+1D4 SAN; fumble –1 SAN. In any event,
reduce a Bond by 1.
• Reading a Mythos Tome or Studying an
Arcane Ritual: Devote time and ask the
GM what happens.
• Study the Post-Apocalyptic World: Reduce
a Bond by 1D4. Ask the GM what else
happens.
This Fecund Planet:
A Sample Post-Apocalyptic Setting
Most Post-Apocalyptic worlds are defined
by the scarcity of life — a consequence to some
horrific extinction event. This particular world
is not like that — it is a horror brought about
through an excess of life. A terrifying fertility.
Cults devoted to Shub-Niggurath have
existed since the dawn of human thought, most
seeking to invoke their awful god’s powers of
corrupted fertility. But in the 1970s one cult
achieved what no other had been able to do —
bring about a global manifestation of Shub-
42
Niggurath’s ‘blessing’. Masquerading as a New
Age movement dedicated to the protection of
“Mother Earth”, the cult duped hundreds of
innocent Britons to participate in ‘fertility rituals’
held in an isolated Scottish castle owned by a
popular musician. The weeks of gyrating dances
and liturgical chanting seemed like harmless
fun to most of the participants. None noticed the
subtle changes brought into existence through
Shub-Niggurath’s ‘blessing’.
In the weeks that followed the ceremonies,
many accounts were reported world-wide of odd
floss-like matter blowing on the wind. Wherever
this white fibrous material fell to earth, common
plants grew rapidly — even in the most unlikely of
places. Scientists took samples of the miraculous
floss but could not explain its origins nor its
amazing powers as a fertilizer. Then the day
came when the floss-streams got higher into the
atmosphere and seeded themselves into clouds.
Wherever rain fell, it contained tiny dissolved
particles of the floss. And in every square foot of
earth touched by this rain, things grew faster and
bigger than normal.
At first the scientific community and the
world-at-large embraced this miracle, even if
nobody knew from where it had come. Parts
of the world where food is perpetually scarce
suddenly found themselves with bumper crops.
Normally lush-and-green places found their
harvests topping all-time records, so much so
that business was soon booming and there was
enough food that overabundance became more
of a problem than scarcity. The cost of feeding
the planet halved overnight.
However, what nobody knew — except
perhaps for the shadowy Shub-Niggurath cult
that had set events in motion with their orgiastic
rites — was that food grown by such fertilizer
is infused with something otherworldly.
Something that is part of Shub-Niggurath. This
enigmatic element causes the plants, fruit, and
vegetables to grow rapidly … but they do not
stop growing when they are harvested, nor does
the miracle ingredient stop growing even after
it is eaten. Instead, the mysterious substance
accumulates inside those who consume it … and
when it accumulates to the right level, it sends
forth its “shoots” to find the soil, right through
flesh and bone if needed. And once those steel-
hard shoots are in fertile ground, they are almost
impossible to remove.
After just four years, the normal order of
civilization had crumbled. Vast numbers of
people were torn apart by thick verdant tendrils
bursting from their chests or stomachs; just as
many were pinned to the ground to die a slow
death of starvation. Too late the message went
out to abandon eating produce grown in the
soil, but by then the element was already in
the flesh of livestock — and so an all-meat diet
offered no protection.
Survivor Generation Tweaks:
g orAllCON
Survivors receive a +1 bonus to STR
(player’s choice)
g isThePOW×4.
formula for Starting Sanity Points
U g Cold Heart: if the Survivor’s CHA or
POW is less than 7, he or she starts
having already lost 1D4 points from
two Bonds (player’s choice; can be
Individual or Community bonds).
g Hard Wisdom: add +20 to any one
skill from the following list — Post-
Apocalypse Lore, Scavenge, Survival,
or Unnatural.
• When Did the Apocalypse Occur? The events
unfolded in the late 1970s.
• What Event was the Trigger? The ceremony
at the Scottish castle.
• What Changed? The creation of a super-
fertilizing floss, which is carried on the
wind, spread right around the globe. It
eventually also dissolved into clouds.
Everything it touches — directly or
indirectly — grows fecund and tainted
with Shub-Niggurath’s element.
• How Long Afterwards? The game setting
takes place four or five years after the
monstrous fertility caused the fall of
civilization (i.e., the early 1980s).
• What is the World Like? The world is
greener and lusher than ever before, with
abundance of foliage covering even the
most densely-populated cities. Scattered
amid the foliage are the corpses of people
torn apart or pinned down by greenery
bursting forth from their internal organs.
• What Communities Exist? Some people have
sought out those places around the globe
which are most inimical to life – rocky
islets with no topsoil, harsh deserts,
and the like. These people survive off
stockpiles of tinned food from before
the coming of the floss. But such scarce
resources are rapidly running out.
• What Mythos Entities? As regions of the
planet have become depopulated to
humanity, creatures of the Cthulhu
Mythos have slithered from hiding to
take up residence. Also, Shub-Niggurath’s
many and diverse ‘children’ have been
drawn to the bountiful harvest infected
with her seed.
• Is There Any Hope? It may be possible to
find a way of neutralizing the effects of
Shub-Niggurath’s fecund floss but doing
so will mostly stabilize the situation
rather than reverse it.
43
 Resource Scarcity in “This Fecund Planet”
Human Consumables Technological Items (cont’d)
Food H and Water H — Abundant Cameras / Recording Equipment Uncommon
Contaminated by floss Information Technology Uncommon
Food H and Water H — Very Hard Construction & Demolitions — Uncommon
Uncontaminated by floss (e.g., cans) to Get
tools
Medicine H — first aid supplies Hard to Get Construction & Demolitions — Very Hard
Medicine H — others Impossible Explosives to Get
to Get Subterfuge Equipment Hard to Get
Technological Items Spare Parts for Technical Items H Uncommon
Mechanized Transport — all Uncommon — non-weapon
(non-combat) ground and Spare Parts for Technical Items H Hard to Get
water vehicles — weapon
Mechanized Transport — Very Hard Navigation Aids
combat vehicles (ground, air) to Get
Reliable maps and charts Uncommon
Mechanized Transport — Hard to Get
Compass, Sextant, Other Hard to Get
transportation aircraft
Navigation Tools
Fuel H — non-aviation Uncommon
Fuel H — aviation Hard to Get Books and Other Recorded
Information
Low-Tech Transport — ground Hard to Get
Low-Tech Transport — water, air Uncommon Books/Recordings created pre- Uncommon
Apocalypse
Weapons — modern, non- Hard to Get
military & ammo H
Books/Recordings created during Hard to Get
or post-Apocalypse
Weapons — military Very Hard
to Get Livestock
Weapons — archaic ranged & Hard to Get Domesticated Animals — Hard to Get
manufactured hand-to-hand Contaminated by floss
Protective Equipment Very Hard Domesticated Animals — Very Hard
to Get Uncontaminated by floss to Get
Communication Equipment Uncommon Animal-Based Transport Hard to Get

Note: Resources which are consumable are denoted by the symbol H

44
Amber Waves
A scenario for the "This Fecund Planet" setting, by Chad Bowser.
Introduction
“Amber Waves” is an apocalyptically
introductory scenario for APOCTHULHU,
taking place in the “This Fecund Planet” setting
described on page 42. The world has become
a wild and untamed place, with vegetation
slowly overwhelming everything, including the
human body. What was once thought to be a
boon is now a curse.
A bio-geneticist, Gregory Crump, thinks he’s
found a cure. But he’s gone missing on his way to
demonstrate the process. The player character
Survivors – as members of another community of
researchers also working on a solution to the plant
plague – must find Crump. After all, the knowledge
that he has discovered might be the secret that
lets humanity wrest back control of the world ...
This scenario is designed to introduce
the Game Moderator and players to the
APOCTHULHU game, as well as to the “This
Fecund Planet” setting.
If this is the first time you and your friends
are playing APOCTHULHU, make sure you
familiarize yourselves with the Quickstart Rules
which make up the first half of this booklet. They
will tell you everything you need to run the game.
For convenience, this scenario uses a shorthand
notation to describe how Survivors can uncover
clues in different locations by applying their
skills (or, where no skill applies, their statistics).
This may be through simple skill thresholds (e.g.,
if the Survivor has an Occult skill of 40%+ he or
she will automatically learn the clue) or through
rolling D100 dice as part of skill/statistic tests to
learn the clue. The mechanics for rolling different
types of tests in described on page 31.
45
 The Game Moderator should view the skill
and statistic tests mentioned in the text as
suggestions only. If players devise a clever
way to utilize a different skill or statistic, or a
combination thereof, encourage it.
The shorthand notation is:
Inspecting … Using Skill / Stat … Reveals …
Thing Skill threshold, or Clue discovered if the
test to roll threshold is met, or the
test succeeds
Setting Up The Scenario
To help get your game of APOCTHULHU
up and running as quickly as possible, six pre-
generated Survivor characters are provided —
those described earlier between page 19
and page 30. These characters have been
specifically created with the “This Fecund
Planet” setting in mind. You don’t need to use
these Survivors to play the scenario: if you
and your players would prefer to create brand
new characters, simply use the rules in the
Quickstart, or the core APOCTHULHU rules. If
using the latter, this particular Post-Apocalyptic
setting is rated “Harsh” — while the Apocalypse
hasn’t been raging for long, the rapid collapse of
society and tendency for people to be ripped to
shreds has taken its toll on humanity’s sanity.
In this scenario, the group of Survivors —
whether pre-generated or original — are
already established as a group that is (somewhat)
familiar with one another. They all live in the
same compound, located somewhere in the
American South or Midwest. Their home facility
has formed around Dr Kira Tan — a brilliant
biologist and researcher. She is one of the few
people left in the world who is still actively
looking for a way to undo the terrible damage
that has made a green wreck of the planet.
Others are drawn by her inspiring example and
benevolent leadership.
Before Play Begins
Before starting, give your players Handout 1.
This describes the state of the world and the
Survivors’ experience of the Apocalypse and
everything that came after.
46
If you think your players would enjoy filling
in a few of the setting details, allow them to
undertake a bit of “world building”, describing
where Dr Tan’s compound is located and what
life is like there. The scenario is written assuming
the Survivors’ home base is about a full-day’s car
journey east of Colden, which is central Kansas.
That gives a wide range of potential places for
Dr Tan’s research base — it could be anywhere
from Indiana to Wisconsin to Minnesota to
Louisiana. Alternatively, if your players want it
to be somewhere completely different, it’s not
difficult to rewrite a few sentences to adapt the
scenario to accommodate. The exact location of
the Survivors’ home won’t have any direct bearing
on the scenario but knowing this information will
help players better contextualize the desperate
road trip they are taking.
Before the scenario starts the Survivors
share a long journey together, giving them
ample opportunity to share their own personal
stories of life before Dr Tan’s compound.
Naturally players are under no obligation
to reveal everything about their character’s
background — just what he, she, or they want
others to know about them.
The Game Moderator can also use this time
to improvise a summary of what has occurred
on the long journey. The trip is likely to have
been eye-opening — with lots of shocking
sights of the world as it is being reclaimed and
strangled by the fast-growing fecund greenery.
Nothing along the road should have seriously
threatened the safety or sanity of the Survivors,
but the trip should have nonetheless proved
tense and uncertain.
 Handout 1: How The World Ended (in Green)
It’s hard to believe just how thoroughly the world
has been re-made since the days when there was a
functioning human “civilization” and the everyday
life was safe. It’s been a handful of years — maybe five
or six, you’ve lost track — since the so-called “green
invasion” swept the globe. You can still remember life
before that time, but the memories are starting to fade.
Once you used to wake each morning thinking maybe
the whole thing was a dream; now you wake sometimes
fearing that maybe your memories of an ordered world
are actually the true phantasm.
The shocking change that swallowed up the world
began innocently enough. The year was, you think, 1976 or
1977. News stories began cropping up in newspapers about
unexplained changes in the fertility of different parts of the
planet. Places that had always struggled to grow enough
food suddenly found themselves with record-breaking
crop yields. More and more areas which were normally
green and lush mysteriously reported a phenomenal
overabundance of plant growth of all kinds. Each of these
miraculous stories were correlated with observations of a
weird floss-like substance that was borne on the wind.
Overall the abundance of food crops was seen as
a very welcome — if somewhat inexplicable — natural
development. After all, it was only a few years since
black-and-white photographs of famines in Ethiopia
and Bangladesh shocked the world. But it wasn’t long
before the scientifically mystifying phenomenon proved
to be anything but a boon. Reports started to emerge
about peculiar and messy deaths suffered by individuals
who had eaten food grown under the influence of the
super-fertilizing floss. Pictures began circulating of men
and women who had been found dead with thick, ropy
tendrils or roots bursting from their abdomen or chest.
Scientists investigated, and despite the government’s
efforts to suppress the story people began to hear their
theory. They believed that the same unknown element that
caused the superabundant growth actually continued to
thrive even after food was picked, and even after it was
consumed. Under some circumstances enough could
accumulate in the body and germinate, sending out
powerful roots pushing outwards from within the body.
A panic ensued during which people began to fear
any type of food grown in soil touched by the floss. The
only problem was that by then, the stuff was everywhere.
And not just that, but the mysterious element had made
its way into livestock that had eaten it, thus making all
animal-derived food sources just as risky.
Meanwhile, the spread of the verdant green and
strangling plant cover continued across the globe,
crushing buildings and even cities in its path.
It didn’t take very long before the trappings of
society broke down; the infrastructure that supported
modern civilization soon followed. After all, who wanted
to go to work if it meant risking a terrifying ‘plant
infection’? Far better to go into isolation and stockpile
as much canned food.
Nations soon became cut off from one another.
Then states, and finally even regional communities lost
the ability to coordinate or even communicate with one
another. Life became a constant struggle to scavenge
what little safe food survives and fend off people who
would steal it. That’s what existence is now.
Scattered oases exist amid the terrifying green Post-
Apocalyptic world. You were lucky enough to stumble
upon one of them, a research compound run by Dr Kira
Tan. She is a very smart biologist, who is working hard
to find a way to fight back against the plant scourge …
or at least make it safe to eat fresh food again. She’s
not the only one working toward that end. A year ago,
Dr Tan’s people got an old C.B. Radio working and made
contact with three or four other scientific groups around
America who were also working on finding a cure, each
using their own expertise and knowledge.
A week or so ago, Dr Tan received a message from one
of those groups — its chief botanist, a man called Gregory
Crump — had reported a discovery of some significance.
Crump wants to share his notes with Dr Tan, hoping that
by combining their knowledge a breakthrough (or, dare
they hope, a cure) might be found. Crump’s group live
on the West Coast, far from your home base. In order to
propagate the knowledge, the botanist has offered to meet
Dr Tan in a location half-way between the two locations.
That is a small farming town called Colden, Kansas.
Making the road trip is a dangerous proposition; to
protect herself and the precious notes, Dr Tan has asked
you to accompany her as both company and protection.
You and a small crew have loaded up an old fiberglass
sided camper with enough food to last a week, attached
it to a Sedan de Ville and hit the road, bound for Colden.
47
 Game Moderator’s
Introduction
The world’s in a bad state.
As described in the summary of “This Fecund
Planet” on page 42, the woes that have
afflicted all corners of the globe are caused by
the ‘blessings’ of Shub-Niggurath. These were
summoned to earth by an insane but organized
cult in Scotland that was (and perhaps still is)
dedicated to the Great and Monstrous Mother.
The Scottish group, however, are not the only
cult of Shub-Niggurath worshippers who are
reveling in this new “green age.” Four years ago,
the Church of the Blessed Rain — a cult active
in the American South — learned the truth
behind the miracle of their goddess’ blessing.
In the early days, when it became clear that the
fecundity wasn’t a boon, US authorities tried
to question members of the group, but their
investigations ended in tragedy. The cultists
they could find had become the first American
victims of the plant eruptions, rooted where
they stood as shoots and tendrils sprouted from
every orifice. Every other member of the Church
who wasn’t afflicted had already fled, seeking a
place to worship.
They initially dispersed far and wide,
reveling in the new world they’d wrought. Soon
they began to coalesce into clans of anywhere
from 5 to 100 cultists. They now realize those
members of the Church who fell victim to the
largesse of their goddess weren’t True Believers.
They paid their price for their perfidy, just as all
of mankind ultimately will.
One such small group of 10 Blessed Rain
cultists has set up camp near the abandoned
town of Colden, KS along state route 24.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Into this comes Gregory Crump, the brilliant
researcher who believes he’s found a way to halt
the growth of the floss. A week ago, he made
contact with Dr Kira Tan — another researcher
and friend of the Survivors — and proposed a
meeting to offer up a copy of his notes. The meet-
48
Joby the Dog
An optional member of Kira Tan’s travelling party is Joby,
a bedraggled mutt who showed up at Dr. Tan’s one day.
He’s proven his weight in gold over the years by guarding,
calming, and helping the survivors find what they need.
Joby is honest and forthright in his dealings. He knows
who he likes and who he doesn’t and doesn’t hide his
feelings. He loves belly rubs.
If your players would like to have a faithful canine
companion, then feel free to let one of the Survivors be
Joby’s best friend and handler. He may prove himself
a valuable member of the team … and if one of the
player characters is sidelined or eliminated during the
scenario, the player can always take on the role of Joby
for the duration.
STR 08 CON 11 DEX 09 INT 11 POW 12 CHA 19
HP 10 WP 12
Armor: None
Skills: Alertness 75%, Athletics 70%, Dodge 55%,
Insight 50%, Reassure 75%, Scavenge  70%,
Search 70%, Stealth 45%, Unarmed Combat 60%,
Unnatural 02%.
Combat: Unarmed (Bite) 60%, damage 1D6.
up is to occur where State Route 24 crosses the
main street of Colden township.
Kira has brought the Survivors along on her
road trip, mostly for backup. But when she is
injured in a car crash before arriving in Colden,
she needs to rely on them to find Gregory and,
hopefully, a cure to the fecundity.
Meanwhile, Gregory’s car sits broken down
just on the other side of Colden. Unlike Tan,
he had decided to travel solo, and it has not
proven a wise choice. While trying to repair his
immobilized vehicle, he was found by members
of the Church of the Blessed Rain. Gregory
wrongly assumed these people were sent by Kira
and began to explain his discovery. The Church-
goers kidnapped Gregory (a “heretic”) and took
him to their compound north of Colden for
sacrifice. There he still is, trussed up on a pole.
Starting the Scenario
The scenario begins when the Survivors —in
their car and trailing camper — approach the
outskirts of Colden, travelling west along State
Route 24. Tall crop fields stretch as far as the eye
can see on both sides of the road. Buried amid
them are occasional small pink-boarded houses,
strangled in weeds and creepers.
Almost There
When the Survivors are a half-mile east of
Colden, they are startled by a sudden event. A
figure stumbles out of the fields, right in the
path of the car. Ask the players which Survivor
is driving at the time. That character will need to
make a Drive skill test to avoid hitting the figure.
The trailer makes maneuvering considerably
more difficult (giving a –40% penalty to the
Drive test). If the test is successful, the car
avoids hitting the man, but in doing so the driver
swerves off into the field. If the driver fails, they
hit the man before jack knifing.
Each Survivor is jostled and thrown about
and must make an Athletics test to avoid taking
1 Hit Point of damage.
In the accident, Dr. Tan is thrown into a wall,
breaking several ribs, one of which punctures
her left lung. She has a difficult time catching
her breath and has sharp, stabbing pains. (This
can be diagnosed with a First Aid test or with a
Medicine test made at +20%). There is concern
that her spleen might have been nicked as well.
Dr Tan’s injuries can be stabilized in the field
via a First Aid test. But it’s obvious that she’ll
likely need more serious treatment — probably
back at the compound. In the meantime, anyone
with medical training (First Aid, Medicine, or
Surgery above 30%) will know that she should
not be moving around. The group should really
turn around and get her to safety as quickly as
possible. However, Kira refuses to leave until
the group can meet with Dr. Crump. She’ll agree
to stay in the camper with a shotgun until the
Survivors return with him.
Dr Tan will appoint one Survivor to be her
“appointed representative” in the event that
the dealings with Crump go in an unexpected
direction — her choice of delegate will be dictated
by whoever has the highest Community Bond
score for the compound community. If there’s a tie,
she will pick the individual with the highest CHA.
The Running Man
The man who ran in front of the Survivor’s car
is Jasper Miller of El Segundo, California. If the
car hit him, he is dead (but the Survivors can learn
his name from the driver’s license in his wallet). If
Miller is alive, he’s ranting and screaming. Careful
observation, with an Alertness test, reveals his
skin is very slightly pulsing and undulating. This
is true even if he’s dead.
To learn anything from the crazed man, he
first needs to be calmed down with a successful
Reassure test. If this succeeds, he can relay the
following information:
• His name and home.
• He and about 50 others were traveling to
a safe haven on the East Coast called New
Beginnings.
• They were ambushed by men with guns
and taken “that way” where they were
imprisoned. (“that way” is generally
North, away from Colden township).
• He managed to escape and run.
Any Survivor who has skill in a relevant Law
or Post Apocalypse Lore skill has heard stories
of the “New Beginnings safe haven” and knows
that no such place exists. It is just a scam tale that
is spread around by unscrupulous parties who
want to attract people to their area, perhaps to
be robbed, perhaps worse.
If Jasper is cut open, either alive or dead, his
body is filled with a writhing mass of vines. Once
exposed to the air, these lash out and search for
fresh ground to burrow into (seeing this costs
1D4/1D6 SAN).
49
 Map of Colden Region, Game Moderator Version

50
Colden, KS
State Route 24 runs straight through the
center of Colden. The intersection of State
Route 24 and Center St. is the only stop light in
the town. This is where Kira Tan had arranged to
meet Gregory Crump, so it’s likely to be the spot
the Survivors head for first.
Prior to the Apocalypse, Colden was a
small community of businesses and shops that
primarily served the outlying farmers. Only 20
families lived within Colden proper. Another 80
families owned and worked the large farms that
stretched for miles in all directions.
Colden was hard hit by the Apocalypse, many
of the farm families dying quickly and violently.
Those in town didn’t fare much better. A few
decided to flee to larger cities in the hopes of
finding help, but no one knows their fate.
One family, the Haneses, stayed in their
farmstead. Two teenage children, Margaret
and Adam Hanes, are still alive to this day. The
two very paranoid young adults forage for food
in the town and take care of their father, long
since deceased.
Locations Around Town
Most of the buildings in Colden are
overgrown and collapsing from the weight of
plants that are weakening mortar and popping
nails. Large mounding plants hide mailboxes,
cars, and trucks.
Colden is a (very green and verdant) ghost
town. The Survivors will see nobody in its streets
or buildings, although they may spot indications
of recent human activity.
Several important buildings as well as what
could be found in them are outlined below.
Game Moderators are encouraged to add more
buildings if the Survivors go exploring, using the
nearby map as a guide to the layout of the town.
All the places mentioned below have
telephone books which give addresses for locals.
All except the doctor’s office have county maps.
Chuck’s Gas-n-Grub
Chuck’s will likely be the first structure the
Survivor’s encounter, located as it is a quarter-
mile down the highway towards Colden.
Even before they reach it, they might (with a
successful Alertness test) hear the sounds of
the cawing birds which cluster around the site.
These unpleasant calls can be faintly heard up
to a mile away.
Bad Food Will Kill You
The real risk to Survivors in this Post-Apocalypse isn’t
crazed cultists with sickles and machetes or the Goat
With A Thousand Young traipsing across the landscape.
It’s a hearty lunch.
Infection by the supernatural fertilizing element isn’t
guaranteed. There are those like the members of the
Church of the Blessed Rain that never become infected.
No one can explain why. That’s just how it is. As a
consequence, they are receiving converts by the droves.
The human sacrifices turn off a lot of recruits, however.
Everyone else in the world can become infected — for
some it happens after just a single meal; others can go
for years before they finally succumb. Nobody knows
why. Maybe it’s hardened immune systems, a cast-iron
stomach, or the luck of the genetic lottery.
Canned goods and other prepared foods made before the
floss fell are the safest means of eating. Unfortunately,
supplies are running out. Food made after the floss fell is
corrupted. No one has found a way to strip the floss from
ingredients. Even highly processed foods like soft drinks and
candy are made with water that’s been exposed to the floss.
If a Survivor eats infected food there’s the risk that
they’ll become infected. Each time the character ingests
tainted food, willingly or not, they must attempt a
CON×5 test. If they fail, they become infected. If they
succeed, they stave off the floss.
An infected character loses 1D4 Hit Points a week as
the fibrous tendrils of the floss auger through flesh
and bone, drawing lifeblood from the Survivor. These
Hit Points do not recover through normal healing or
First Aid. Once a Survivor reaches 0 Hit Points, they are
rooted in place, a cautionary tale.
51
 Chuck’s is a small, two-pump gas station at
the east end of town on State Route 24. A metal
roof over the pumps is listing under the weight
Scavenging for Cans
of thriving plants and the bright orange and Although canned food is growing scarce, it’s not
yellow sign is on its side. gone yet. The availability of food depends on what
Six disgusting and unnatural carrion birds — the population level was like before the Apocalypse,
presented as scarcity levels per the table in the core
Gore Crows (see end of scenario for statistics) —
APOCTHULHU rulebook (if you’re playing with just the
feast on a fresh human corpse that rests against
Quickstart rules, use the scarcity descriptor as a general
the building’s east wall. Witnessing this messy
guideline to setting modifiers to Scavenge skill tests).
feast costs Survivors 0/1D4 SAN. The Gore Crows
won’t give up their prize without a fight, and any Each entry, presented from least populated to most,
attempt to dissuade them from their meal will includes one or more examples of where the food might
result in them also attacking the Survivors. The be found. Use this as a jumping off point, not a definitive
dead man’s ID identifies him as Jerry Kincaid of list. The locations in the less populated areas are also
Minneapolis. His clothes are dirty, his hair and available in the more populated areas.
beard are long and matted and his left shoe is • Uninhabited (broken down vehicle, corpse,
worn through. He has no supplies on him. hermit’s bolt hole): Hard To Get (-20)
• Rural (home, storm cellar, survivalists’
Inside the Gas Station compound): Uncommon (+0)
The building itself is a concrete block painted
• Town (church, mom & pop store, gas station):
white with yellow, orange, and brown stripes
Uncommon (+0)
visible sporadically between the overgrowth.
The entryway is clear of plants. • Military Base (P/X, emergency caches): Hard To
Get (-20)
Inside, there are piles of canned goods near
the door. The cash register is open, the racks of • City (warehouse, supermarket, office park):
cigarettes empty, and there are human bones Hard To Get (-20)
behind the counter. The shelves are bare, and Lower population density areas are more likely to be
the coolers have been pulled clean of alcohol depopulated faster as people either succumb to the
and soft drinks. Apocalypse or flee for greener grass (a bad idea), so the
Useful information to discover here: likelihood of finding foodstuffs in a smaller region is
Inspecting … Using Skill / Stat … Reveals … slightly higher.
Entryway Alertness skill of Plants have been
40%+ deliberately cleared from
the shop’s entryway
Shop No test required All the shelf stable goods
Interior have been lined up and
organized by type. There
are about 60 cans and
boxes of soups and other
items [see note 1].
Pump area Search test There’s a garden hose
hidden behind an air pump.
It smells of gasoline [see
note 2].
Parking lot Search test The mud in the parking
lot has several narrow tire
tracks. There are both old,
cracked tracks and newer
fresh tracks [see note 3].

52
 Inspecting …
Gasoline
Using Skill / Stat …
Craft (Auto
Reveals …
The gas in the storage
Using Stale Gasoline
tanks Repair), Heavy tanks is stale [see nearby
box]
Stale gas can cause a combustion engine to misfire and
Machinery, or
perform sub-optimally (as anyone with 30% or more
Scavenge test
in Craft (Auto Repair), Heavy Machinery, or Scavenge
[Note 1]: The organization of goods on store shelves has would know). Under normal circumstances that’s no
been done by the Hanes children. Margaret
big deal. The Game Moderator can request a Luck check
and Adam are slowly gathering resources
any time the driver of a vehicle with stale gas attempts
as they need them, but leaving others for
something that strains the vehicle, such as accelerating
potential travelers. They don’t do this out of an
more rapidly than normal or dangerous maneuvers.
abundance of kindness but because they hope
If the Luck roll is successful the vehicle performs as
expected. If the Luck roll fails, the vehicle stalls out and
if people find food there, they won’t look deeper
a Drive test and 1D4 minutes is needed to restart it.
into town and possibly find their farmhouse.

[Note 2]: The hose by the air pumps is used by the The rubber mat pressure sensors for the
Hanes children to siphon fuel from the automatic doors are peeling and cracking, and the
underground tanks for their home generator. doors themselves are hanging from their hinges.

[Note 3]: The tire tracks are from the Hanes teenagers Inside the Grocery Store
riding their bikes. Inside Jericho’s, the shelves are bare of all
non-perishable goods. Anything perishable that
was of no use in the immediate aftermath of the
The Meeting Place Apocalypse was left to rot on the shelves.
The major road intersection in Colden is There is no usable food in the store, but a
where State Route 24 (also called Magnolia St successful Scavenge test will locate first aid
here) crosses Center St. This is where the town’s supplies like gauze pads and tape.
one stop-light can be found. The light hasn’t A community message board has yellowed
worked in years, the electricity having died a long and torn listings for lost dogs, furniture for
time ago. Just to the north of the intersection, a sale, and tattered fliers for churches and tent
bus can be seen immobile by the side of the road revivals. One flier, for the Church of the Blessed
sitting at a tilt (see following section). Rain is on crisper paper than all the rest.
This intersection is where Gregory Crump Useful information to discover here:
was supposed to meet the Survivors and Dr Inspecting … Using Skill / Stat … Reveals …
Tan — there is no sign of him when they arrive.
Store Alertness test There are adult work
Interior boot prints in the dust
in the aisles [see Note 1].
Jericho’s Grocery
Store No test required There’s a rank smell in
Also on the intersection of SR24 and Center Interior cooler section where a
St. is Colden’s largest grocery story, Jericho’s. cardboard quart of milk
The south wall of this building is partially is laying on the floor,
collapsed, a massive tree leaning against it. open and its contents
spilled [see Note 1].
The north and east sides were once covered in
plate glass, but that’s now broken and vegetable Church Flier Search test The Church of the
Blessed Rain flier was
matter has grown inside the building. put up quite recently,
A concrete statue of a smiling pig with a certainly long after
“Jericho” name tag on its side stands in front of Colden was abandoned
the broken doors, it’s left ear and tail broken off. [See Note 2].

53
 [Note 1]: The cultists from the Church of the Blessed
Rain come here from time to time searching
for more resources. On their most recent trip,
one of them opened the milk carton and left it.
[Note 2]: The flier for the Church of the Blessed Rain
was put up when the group came to town
a few years after the Apocalypse. They were
trying to recruit any survivors, or at least
lure in sacrifices.
The Bus
There is a light blue school bus on the curb
about fifty yards (metres) north of Jericho’s
Grocery. Its front end sits on-top of a fire
hydrant. The Bus’s front window and hood are
riddled with buckshot holes. The side of the bus
is painted with a jaunty 1970s-style logo which
reads “New Beginnings.”
The side door and back door are open. No
one is inside. The driver, Horace Mayweather,
is still seat-belted in, his body ripped apart by
shotgun blasts. Next to him is a manifest listing
46 passengers.
Pamphlets about “New Beginnings” are scattered
about the floor and seats. It describes a paradise
free of both the floss and monstrous plants. It is
located on the East Coast outside of Wilmington,
NC. According to the brochure, anyone willing to
sign on for 10 years of labor will be transported free
of charge to the New Beginnings estate.
Trunks of food and water can be found
behind the back seats of the bus.
What Happened Here?
The bus was stopped a couple of days ago
by members of the Church of the Blessed
Rain. The driver was shot when he refused to
open the doors for the gun-wielding maniacs.
All the passengers were then taken prisoner
and marched to the Church’s compound to be
sacrificed. When the Survivors ultimately visit
the cult at its headquarters, they will see first-
hand the fate of the people taken from the bus.
Any Survivor who has skill in a relevant Law
or Post-Apocalypse Lore skill has heard stories
of the “New Beginnings safe haven” and knows
that no such paradise estate exists. It is a scam;
one of many perpetrated by the unscrupulous in
this desperate world.
54
The Main Street of Colden
Standing at the stop-light intersection, it is
clear that the majority of the civic buildings in
Colden lie directly south along Center St. Signs
point to the local police station and town hall.
While most buildings look choked with vines, a
couple of the structures look as though they may
have been cleared of overgrowth by someone.
Town Hall
Two blocks south of the stop-light
intersection is the Colden Town Hall, the largest
building in town. Out front there is a small
park with a bronze statue of town founder
Colden Hawfield. This area is an impressive
(if foreboding) tangle of woody roots and red-
veined creeper vines. The latter has entirely
covered the statue, choking it to the point where
the figure’s head and left arm have bent to the
point of snapping off.
The town hall building itself is also completely
overgrown. Anyone who hacks their way through
the overgrowth finds two large wooden doors.
The plants have ripped apart and are growing
through the roof, so years of rain and snow have
damaged the interior. File cabinets have rusted
away, leaving moldering piles of paper that’s
turned to pulp.
Any useful papers or records have rotted away.
A World Choked In Green
The rapid plant growth caused by the floss can play
havoc on vehicles, structures, and pretty much anything
that’s in contact with the ground. The rapidly growing
plants worm through every crack and crevice, weakening
mortar in buildings, clogging up cylinders in cars, and
even twining around people on the ground. Anything left
on the ground for an 8-hour period becomes choked with
the plants, requiring an hour to clear it. If the object is
non-organic, a Luck roll determines whether or not it was
damaged by the plants and needs an appropriate skill to
repair such as Heavy Machinery or Technology Use.
Equipment stored on an unbroken surface such as a
concrete slab or metal is safe. Even small cracks allow
the plants to grow, proving that life will out.
Colden Police Station The last entry is “Order given to evacuate town
and farmsteads. Remaining officers dispatched
Across the road from the Town Hall on to spread word … Leopold Hanes and Kirkwood
Center St is the town’s police station. Vines have Clement refuse.”
crushed the Victorian style gaslight that once The weapons locker in the back is unlocked
stood out front, leaving it to lay in the street. and open; each of its twelve rifle/shotgun bays
The door and window are thickly covered in is empty. A handful (2D10) of 12-gauge shells is
plants. A spruce is growing in the center of the scattered across the floor.
doorway, wrenching the double-doors off their
hinges, but not completely blocking the path — Clues in the Police Station
Survivors making a successful Athletics test
Useful information to discover here:
can just squeeze through without snagging.
Inside, plants are covering most surfaces. Inspecting … Using Skill / Stat … Reveals …
The tattered remnants of two police uniforms Police Forensics or The chief’s skull was
cover a pair of skeletons in the reception area. Chief’s Body Medicine test fractured by a single
The single holding cell’s door is open, keys bullet wound, probably
from the gun in his hand.
still dangling from the lock. One skeleton is
recumbent on the bench, its rib cage blown apart. Duty Log No test required The duty log makes it
and Phone clear that only a handful
The bullpen behind reception has eight Book of people refused the
desks. Two of the desks still have revolvers and order to evacuate town.
1D10 rounds in their drawers, although both The most vocal were the
are locked. The keys are long lost. To open the Hanes family and the
drawers, a Survivor can either succeed in a Clement family.
Craft (Locksmith) test to pick the lock, or brute Telephone Research or INT×5 The Hanes family lived
force it by making an opposed test of Survivor’s Book test at 10983 County-Line
Road. The Clement
STR versus the desk’s STR of 10.
family lived at 650
In the chief’s office is a skeleton slumped over Meadowood Ave. Both
a desk. A nameplate for Chief Haywood Carlton addresses can be easily
is face down on the floor. A service revolver is located on the Hawfield
still in the skeleton’s right hand, containing 1D4 County Map on the wall
rounds. Under the chief’s skeleton is a duty log. (both are south of town)

GM's Note: Opposed Tests

To make the opposed test mentioned nearby for opening the locked desk drawers, the Survivor makes a roll against his or
her STR×5, and the GM makes a roll against the desk’s STR×5 (i.e., 10×5 = 50). The table below shows the possible outcomes:

Survivor’s STR test

Normal Success (roll under STR×5, but Critical Success (as per Normal success
Fail or Fumble
dice digits don't match or show 01) and digits on dice match or show 01)
Fail or Fumble Lock unmoved Lock forced open Lock forced open
Normal Success Lock unmoved If the Survivor’s dice roll was higher Lock forced open
GM’s roll

(roll under 50, but than the GM’s the lock is forced
not 01 or a match) open.
Critical Success Lock unmoved Lock unmoved If the Survivor’s dice roll was higher
(roll is 01, 11, 22, than the GM’s the lock is forced open.
33, or 44)

55
 Inspecting … Using Skill / Stat … Reveals … Survivors checking the door itself find
Weapons Search skill of There are signs the that it easily swings open, thanks to damage
Locker 30%+ lockers were forced, done to a section of frame close to the lock.
probably with a crowbar Inside the office is a shambles. The skeleton
[See Note 1]. of a receptionist is sprawled across her desk.
Medicine cabinets have been pried open and
[Note 1]: The lockers were raided by the Haneses, after pill bottles are strewn across the floor.
the town was evacuated.
Gauze, bandages, and medical tape are also
strewn about.
Doctor’s Office of Dr. Phyllis Randstrom Dust is disturbed on the floor with smallish
The modest surgery offices of the town’s main bare footprints going from the door to the drug
General Practitioner are in the same building as cabinets and handprints on the walls the and
the police station, upstairs from it. There is a set surfaces.
of stairs leading directly up to the offices from The two exam rooms are covered in dust
Birch Street. At the base of these steps a tin of with plants auguring through the walls.
bandages lies on the ground.
The stairs up to the doctor’s offices and Clues in the Doctor’s Office
the doorway at the top have obviously both Useful information to discover here:
been cleared of vines, probably quite recently.
Survivors climbing the steps quickly see the Inspecting Using Skill / Reveals …

window in the surgery door has been smashed … Stat …

inwards. Sap oozes from the bases of the plants Office Science Anyone can see the damage to
where they were cut during this violence. Door (Botany) the vines covering the door is
or Science recent, but with a successful
On the landing outside, several bottles of
(Biology) test skill test that can be narrowed
pain killers lie discarded. down to damage inflicted in
the last 12 hours [see Note 1].
Footprints Alertness, The prints in the dust are
Military fresh, made within the past
Science, or few days [see Note 1].
Navigate test
Discarded INT×5 test The pain killers and bandages
Medicines strewn around inside and
outside the surgery point to
someone pilfering medicines
in a hurry [See Note 1].
Stocks of Pharmacy, All the medicines are far past
Medicines First Aid, or their expiration date. Depending
Medicine test on which pills are used, they
could do nothing, work as
intended, or cause much greater
harm. Using them is a lottery.

[Note 1]: The damage to the door, the footprints, and the
strewn medicines are all from Margaret Hanes
hacking her way into the surgery yesterday. She
came here because Adam injured himself and
needs medical attention. Margaret grabbed
everything she could, rifling quickly through
the stock. She dropped some on her way out.

56
Where to From Here?
If the Survivors have spent some time
exploring Colden, they will probably have
learned some interesting things about what’s
going on in the local area. None of this, however,
helps with their main mission of finding Gregory
Crump. No matter how long they wait at the
appointed rendezvous location, he steadfastly
refuses to appear.
Survivors may remember that Crump is coming
to Colden from the West Coast (see Handout 1). If
the players don’t think of it themselves, an INT×5
roll reminds the characters of this fact. This might
suggest scouring the section of State Route 24
west of Colden — since that’s how Crump would
likely have driven into town.
Finding Gregory’s Car
West of Colden fields of overgrown crops
spread for miles, forming an unbroken amber
wave to the horizon.
A mile west of town on SR 24 is a recently
broken-down Chrysler Cordoba. There’s no
one in it. The driver’s side window is smashed
inward. Several smears of blood are on the hood.
A Note on Communications
Long distance communication is tough in this
Post-Apocalypse. The plants have overgrown
telephone poles and cellular towers as well as sent
roots burrowing through buried cables. Satellite
communications and shortwave radio are the
most common means of getting a message out,
but with no one to maintain the satellites and
their infrastructures, they’re slowly fading into
decrepitude. Short wave radios are a better solution,
as long as generators and fuel are available.
belt. While it’s unlikely anyone thought to bring
such an item, it’s something that could be part of
one of the Survivors’ personal Resources pool.
If anybody cares to go rummaging through their
backpacks, allow a test against Resources × 5.
Success yields a workable replacement.
Clues from Crump’s Car
Useful information to discover here:
Inspecting … Using Skill / Stat … Reveals …

Survivors who inspect the scene also find (with Blood First Aid or The smears on the hood
a Search test) scuff marks all over the road near Smears Medicine test are barely dry; they
the car. The same roll also reveals bicycle tire are 4–5 hours old at
most. These suggest
marks in the dirt on the south side of the road.
Crump may have been
These either came from or go deeper into the ambushed or assaulted
southern fields. quite recently.
Looking inside the car, Survivors find several Marks on Search test There are a number of
empty cans of tinned meat are in the passenger road and scuff marks and bicycle
seat. In the back seat is a brown leather ground tire marks (see above,
briefcase, ripped open. Papers inside make it and Note 1). The scuff
clear it is the property of Dr. Gregory Crump. A marks look as though a
couple of random pages of Gregory’s research fight took place. Perhaps
Crump attempted to
are still tucked into the briefcase, labeled pages
fend off attackers?
6 and 38 of 194.
Mechanics Test of Drive, or The breakdown was
If Survivors try to start the car, the find that it of Car any relevant Craft accidental; just a fan
steadfastly refuses. Opening the hood, anybody skill belt snapping.
with even a limited degree of mechanical
knowledge (a relevant Craft skill or Drive skill [Note 1]: The bicycle tire tracks are from Margaret
over 30%) can see what’s wrong — the fan belt Hanes who saw the struggle between Crump
has snapped. Fixing the breakdown would be and the Blessed Rain weirdos. She fled for
trivially easy if the Survivor’s had a replacement home when the cultists saw her.

57
 The “Lost Dog”
While the Survivors are at Gregory’s car,
they hear yelling coming from the south, getting
louder. A man’s voice is screaming, “Get back
here you bitch!” “I’m gonna find you!” A man
with three-day stubble and three-week stink
will eventually emerge from the fields wearing
tattered coveralls and a plaid shirt. His right eye
has a fresh shiner and dried blood from a split
lip. He’s carrying a rusty axe over his shoulder.
He’s a cultist named Kevin Highsmith who set
off after Margaret but couldn’t find her; now he is
returning back to the compound bitter at having
failed in his mission. He will quickly take stock of
the Survivors and play his cards depending on
how many there are. If it’s just a solo Survivor,
he’ll try to take them by surprise with a quick
strike from his axe and drag them back to the
compound to become another sacrifice.
Alternatively if he’s outnumbered, he’ll
introduce himself as “Henry Olson” and spin a
tale that he was just out looking for his dog. She
ran away this morning and he’s been looking for
her ever since, but it’s time he headed home. The
dog, he says, will come back eventually when
she gets hungry.
If asked, he’ll play ignorant about what
happened to Crump’s car. Things like that happen
every so often. There’s some bandits around here,
that’s why he carries the axe. Highsmith is not a very
good liar, and any Survivor who makes an Insight
test to judge the truthfulness of his statements
gets a +20% to determine their falsehood.
If the cultist thinks he’s been rumbled, he will
quickly try to get the Survivors to leave. If that
happens, he’ll meander around for a while before
heading north in the fields toward his compound.
If the Survivors refuse to leave, he strikes out
down State Route 24 westward, away from town.
Once he thinks he’s out of line of sight, he heads
north and doubles back to the east. Anybody
watching him from a distance can attempt
an opposed test of Alertness vs the cultist’s
Stealth (30%) to spot this feeble obfuscation.
If Survivors think to look in a telephone
directory for the man’s fake name, they will find
there are no Olsens living in the Colden area.
58
Rising ‘Smoke’
At some point of the GM’s choosing, the
Survivors will become aware of a remarkable
and unnatural sight — a huge flock of Gore
Crows that perpetually circles above the Blessed
Rain compound. From a distance it doesn’t so
much as look like a bird flock, more an ever-
shifting billow of black smoke.
Survivors can potentially catch sight of the
‘smoke’ any time they are outside (although it’s
suggested that GMs keep this as a revelation to be
learned after a few of the Colden town locations
have been searched). Looking towards the north,
any Survivor who succeeds in an Alertness test
can notice the unnatural plume of smoke. They
can easily point it out to their fellow Survivors.
If any Survivor can succeed in a Navigation test,
they can determine that the ‘smoke plume’ must
be about 3 or 4 miles north of town.
The Clement Home
Based on the notes found in the police station
about the Clement family being one of a handful
who refused the evacuation order, Survivors may
decide to check out the house at 650 Meadowood
Ave. This location is a couple of miles south of
town. This is where the Clements — Kirkwood
and Melody — once lived.
The powder blue Ford Futura owned by the
Clements still sits half in the driveway, covered
over by vines. Their skeletons, also with vines
growing through them, are in the driver and
passenger seats. Their hands are intertwined.
The couple thought better of their choice not to
evacuate but didn’t make it very far.
Their entire ranch home was flattened by a
massive poplar and then covered over with vines.
At The Hanes
Farmstead
After discovering information at the police
station suggesting the Hanes family did not
leave during the town evacuation, Survivors
may visit their home at 10983 County-Line road.
Unlike the Clement home above, this dwelling is
still inhabited by its original family … although
the stresses of surviving in this bizarre and
hazardous place has taken its toll upon their
health and especially their sanity.
The Hanes farmstead building is notably
free of overgrowth by the ubiquitous creepers
and vines. This sets it apart from most other
buildings. Approaching it, the faint hum of a
generator can be heard. A single flickering
electric light can also be seen in one of the
downstairs rooms.
Upon closer inspection the Survivors will
see that the building is run-down. The paint has
chipped away, and several upstairs windows
have broken. There are two doors, one in the
front and one at the rear eastern corner. There
are two bicycles on the front porch.
Looking around the back reveals a double
cellar door at the back of the farmhouse, secured
with a padlock. A rusted tractor can be seen
parked against the west side of the house. There’s
also a well in the back yard. An overgrown barn
stands about 100 yards behind the house.
Defending the Farmstead
The Hanes farmstead is occupied by
teenagers Margaret and Adam Hanes.
Over the years, the Hanes have become more
and more paranoid, booby trapping their home
and property. Here are a few traps they’ve
implemented.
g Yard Trip Wire: This runs across the entire
front yard. It’s difficult to spot, requiring
any approaching Survivor make a Search
test. After spotting the wire, a character
can bypass it with either an Athletics or
DEX×2 test. If a Survivor trips the wire,
not only do they risk falling to the ground
(make a DEX×3 test or fall prone), but the
wire rings a loud bell.
g Second Trip Wire: A second trip wire is at
the base of the steps leading up to the
porch. It also is attached to a bell (same
rolls required as above).
g Punji Trap: Leading up to the cellar doors is
a five-feet by five-feet by three-feet-deep
pit with spikes in the bottom. It’s covered
over by branches that are in turn covered
over by leaves and sod. It’s difficult to spot,
requiring a Search test at -20%. Getting
around the pit is only possible with an
Athletics test. Anyone who falls in takes
1D6 damage and must make an Athletics
or DEX×3 test to climb out.
g Shotgun traps: The classic string tied to
a shotgun mounted on a chair behind the
door. Two such traps have been set, one
pointing at the front door and another
at the rear. If a door is opened without
first disengaging the string, the 12-gauge
filled with buckshot goes off. It deals
2D10 damage. Someone looking in a front
window can spot the shotgun at the front
door. There’s no window to look through the
spot the shotgun at the rear eastern door.
Setting off any of these traps will instantly alert
the Hanes teenagers to the Survivors’ presence.
However, even approaching the homestead in
a noisy or non-stealthy manner (e.g., driving
up to the building) will make them aware of a
possible incursion. This will send both teenagers
scrambling for their guns.
59
 Survivors who deliberately attempt to employ
stealth in approaching the farmstead will need
to make a series of opposed tests comparing
their Stealth against the teenagers’ Alertness
(both have 50%). Two or three successes will be
required to get into the building undetected —
although triggering any of the traps will instantly
nullify any stealth.
The Tractor
The tractor is an old Ingersoll Rand. A lot of
rust is pooled on the ground beneath it and all
plants cleared away. Also on the ground is a fresh
human finger. There’s a lot of blood on the fan
and belt. A trail of blood leads behind the house
to the eastern rear door. Based on the amount
of blood and its state, any Survivor with medical
training (First Aid or Medicine of 30%+) can
determine the blood is from a moderately severe
wound inflicted in the last 24 hours.
Adam Hanes was trying to get the tractor
working and succeeded in severing the index
finger on his right hand.
The Well
There’s a well pump in the back yard.
An extension cord runs from it to a nearby
generator. Eight 5-gallon jerry cans of gasoline
are next to the generator.
The Barn
The barn is barely standing. Trees, vines,
and other plants have destroyed its structural
integrity. There’s nothing interesting inside.
Approaching the House
Unless the Survivors approach the house
unnoticed (see above), they’ll be greeted by
warning shots from Margaret as they near the
building. Excessively paranoid, she’ll think they’re
more cultists come to grab her and her brother.
The house is well-stocked with canned goods,
so promising her food won’t work. Promises of
medical aid will work far better, but will need
to be accompanied by an appropriate skill roll
to sound convincing (Reassure, Persuade,
or Medicine could all work). Success gets one
person through the door, under heavy guard.
60
Inside the House
Inside, the house is a shambles. Broken
furniture is piled everywhere. The house reeks
of mold, stale sweat, human waste, and spoiled
food. The wallpaper is peeling and there are
water-stains everywhere. The floorboards creak
and several are missing.
The Sitting Room
The front room with the light on is the sitting
room. Someone looking in from the yard outside
sees, nearest the window, the back of a wingback
chair with the top of head just visible. Across the
room is another chair with Adam in it, clutching
his hand, covered in blood and looking pale.
Margaret is trying to inexpertly apply bandages
to a wound on his hand. A crumple of bed linens
can be seen in the far back corner near the
fireplace. Shot guns are lined up against the
fireplace brick.
From the inside of the sitting room, it’s possible
to see that the man in the wingback chair is
actually a desiccated corpse, a plate of fresh food
sitting on his lap. (0/1D4 SAN to see this macabre
scene). This is Leopold Hanes, who died several
years ago of old age. The children still address him
as “papa” and seek his advice on matters, even
though he never answers. They just act as though
their decisions were provided by him.
The best way of permanently overcoming the
Haneses’ extreme suspicion is to medically treat
Adam — who is not doing well after his hand
injury. Margaret will keep a shotgun trained
on the Survivor the entire time and Adam will
continually protest that he doesn’t trust the
outsider, and doesn’t need any help. A good
outcome to any First Aid or Surgery test will fully
earn the trust of both teens. They’ll be positively
relieved to not have to be entirely on their own.
They’ll say that “papa thinks you’re good people.”
What the Haneses Know
If the Survivors get the teenagers to lower
their guard, the two will warm up and be willing
to offer what they know about the Church of the
Blessed Rain. The Haneses have kept the group
under observation since they arrived, so they
have a pretty good idea of what they do, and
 Handout 2: Margaret on the Church of the Blessed Rain
“We don’t know much about the Apocalypse or how it
came to Colden, just that me and Adam were young when
it happened and that a lot of people died. The police tried
to evacuate everyone from town, but papa said we should
stay, so we did.
“We learned from watching other people that it isn’t
safe to eat food that has been grown in the ground. So, we
have been living off of canned food from the Gas-n-Grub
and drinking water from our own well.
“The Church came to town about three years ago and
moved into the old Ungler farmhouse on Groom Road,
about five miles north of here. The Ungler farmstead is
easily found by the flock of bird-monsters which you’ve
probably seen.
“The church-goers put up some fliers in town, but there
was nobody to read them.
“Right now there are about ten people living at the
Ungler farmhouse, both men and women. They seem
unaffected by whatever’s in the food, eating fresh produce
all the time without suffering ill effects. They are armed
with hunting rifles and pistols. One box they brought with
them was labeled ‘grenades’.
“The church people are bad people. On the hillside
around the farmstead they have been putting people up
on crosses. Like in the Bible. The crosses circle right the way
round the hill. The people they tie to the crosses get made
where their compound is located. Throughout
the conversation, they will glance periodically
to papa for guidance.
Margaret does most of the talking. The main
points she conveys are included as Handout 2,
nearby. The “bird-monsters” that she mentions
are the Haneses interpretation of the Gore
Crows. If the Survivors mention the rising
‘smoke’ they’ve seen north of the town, the teens
will confirm this isn’t smoke but the flock of
bird-monsters — there are a lot of them.
Margaret is grateful for what the Survivors
did to help Adam and will give them food and
ammunition, but she doesn’t want to join them
on any proposed raid of the Church compound.
She’d rather stay home. It’s safe here.
to eat gruel made from fresh food, until the plants burst
out of them and they die. A couple days back they marched
a whole line of out-of-town folks up to the hill. We think
they were from that bus that crashed outside Jericho’s. All
of those people got fed the gruel and put up on crosses. By
my count they put up over forty in that one day.
“Then there was also that man from the broken-down
car on the state highway — they got him too. I know
because I was watching hidden in the field. They dragged
him off towards their place. They seemed real angry with
him for some reason.
“Adam and me steer clear of the bad people. We don’t
want to end up on one of them crosses, that’s for sure.
But if you did want to try to get into the place there’s one
trick that might help you. Back before the Apocalypse, the
Ungler family were real paranoid about a Soviet attack,
so they built a bomb shelter about 400’ north of their
farmhouse. Adam and me used to play over at the Ungler’s
sometimes so we got to see it coupla times. The entrance
to their shelter is cut into the side of the hill hidden behind
an old, gnarled oak. They also built a tunnel between the
bomb shelter and the farmhouse cellar to make escaping
easy. The door in the cellar is hidden behind the back wall
of the potato bin.
“If I were to try getting into where the church people
are, that’s what I would try. But there’s no way I am going
anywhere near that place anymore. Those people are crazy.”
The Blessed Rain
Compound
Eventually, either through hearing the
story of Margaret Hanes, by following the
cultist Highsmith, or simply investigating the
weird ‘smoke’, Survivors will find the Church
compound. As they approach the location, the
swarm of Gore Crows becomes more and more
distinct. Survivors who succeed in Alertness
tests can see that these are not ordinary crows,
but something grotesque and unnatural.
The Church of the Blessed Rain occupy the
Ungler farmhouse on Groom Road, some three
61
 miles north of Colden. The location is atop a large
hill, backed by a sprawling forest. The cult has
transformed the hillside — on all sides — into
a veritable Golgotha of scarecrow-like crosses.
Although Survivors are unlikely to make a count,
there are 97 in all. Each bears a human figure. About
half of them are people taken from the crashed bus
outside Jericho’s; the others are people who the
cult has captured as they passed through Colden,
or who they have picked up on raids around the
district. The new arrivals have only been strung
up for a day or two and many are still alive. The
others, however, are not only clearly dead, but have
ropy tendrils and roots jutting out of their bodies
and into the ground. The two groups — older and
newer — are mixed in with one another, meaning
there are dead and sprouting victims on each side
of the house. These are the most dangerous to
62
approach, since their many non-rooted tendrils
begin hungrily waving about in search of nutrients.
They would happily attach themselves to any
Survivors who get too close.
The Gore Crows constantly swarm and swirl
in the air about the field of crosses, landing
sometimes to feast on both the living (writhing
and screaming) victims and the dead bodies.
Viewing this scene results in a 1D4/1D10
SAN loss.
The Ungler Farmhouse
Beyond the concentric circles of ‘scarecrows’,
the farmhouse itself is a two-story clapboard house.
It is covered in vines, with only the doorway cleared.
A flickering light can be seen through one of the
downstairs windows. One cultist sits on a rocking
chair on the porch, a hunting rifle across her lap.
Another
cultist leans
against the open doorway.
In the front yard there is a 55-gallon
metal drum with smoke rising from it, suggesting
a fire burning inside.
To one side of the farmhouse stands a large
barn, also choking in creeper vines and ivy.
The most notable thing about this structure is
the human figure hogtied and suspended from
a horizontal beam jutting out above the barn’s
main entrance.
Two rusted out pickup trucks are in the
driveway along with a pickup truck with a
camper cover on the bed that looks functional.
Approaching the Farmhouse Directly
Making a direct approach is a big mistake.
Not only is there a living perimeter of searching
plant tendrils from the dead ‘scarecrows’ but the
living victims will quickly ruin any attempt at a
stealthy advance. As soon as a living victim spots
someone walking through the field of crosses who
isn’t a member of the Blessed Rain cult, they start
screaming out for help. Others soon pick up this call,
and before the Survivors can do anything there is a
cacophony
o f t h i r t y vo i c e s
all across the hillside. The
cultists will quickly be alerted.
Pushing through the perimeter of writhing
plant tendrils is also perilous. Survivors will
need to make three successful Dodge tests to
avoid becoming entangled in the wall of violently
animated greenery. Each failure means that a vine
or tendril has grabbed on tight enough around
one of their limbs that further progress without
removing it is impossible. Being grabbed in this
way costs 1D3-1 Hit Points of damage. Freeing
oneself (or someone else) requires success on an
opposed test pitting STR vs the tendril’s STR of
16. Alternatively, inflicting 4 Hit Points of damage
to a tendril will sever it. Cultists will typically not
fire at Survivors who are battling with the plants
but will be ready to attack as soon as any make it
past the inner-most ring of crosses.
Attacking the plants with fire is an effective
but incredibly dangerous strategy — the field of
63
 crosses is dense enough that setting one alight
will very likely cause the fire to spread to a
neighboring cross, which might contain a living
or deceased victim. A careless Survivor might
easily find that he or she has created a blaze
that rips through the entire field of ‘scarecrows’
faster than anybody can put it out. The screams
of the living victims being consumed by flame
is horrific (1/1D6 SAN for a small conflagration,
1/1D4+4 for a huge blaze).
The Bomb Shelter
The Unglers’ bomb shelter is exactly where
Margaret described, in a wooded area about
400’ behind the house. This is outside the
perimeter of crosses.
The cultists have never found the entrance to
the shelter, but they do use this area of the forest
as a makeshift latrine (they have no problems
passing through the vines, which ignore them).
As the Survivors approach the spot, one cultist
is leaning up against the tree urinating.
Finding the rusty metal door to the shelter,
now coated in loamy soil, requires a Search test.
If the Survivors have heard Margaret’s story,
this test is at +20%; if they are simply wandering
through the area it is at –40%. The shelter door
is not locked in any way but has not been opened
for a long time. A STR×5 test is needed to pull the
door open; this makes considerable noise and
might (with a failed Luck test) alert any cultists
in the area of their presence. The effectiveness of
any attempted stealth should be judged based on
the specific methods proposed by the players.
Inside, the concrete shelter is stocked
with canned goods and bottled water. A large
reinforced door in the south wall leads to a
cramped earthen tunnel that connects to the
house. Roots periodically jut through the roof of
the tunnel, which may give Survivor’s pause (but
they are completely inert).
The cellar of the farmhouse is only 6 feet
(2 metres) high and filled with crates, old metal
drums, and broken farm equipment. There are
no cultists here. A set of double root-cellar
doors leads from the cellar to the outside of
the east wall of the farmhouse. There is also a
64
3 foot (1 metre) wide hole in the roof of the cellar
that opens directly into the kitchen above. The
cultists have placed a pair of 2×4s over the hole.
Survivors can easily move these, but to jump
and climb through the gap needs a successful
Athletics test (although there is a ladder
stowed in the kitchen that can be used to help
subsequent Survivors avoid such exertions).
The Kitchen
The cultists only use the kitchen at mealtimes
and when one of them must cook up batches of
the plant-based gruel to feed sacrifices.
In addition to mundane items (including
several sharp knives and cleavers, any of which
could be used as 1D6 damage weapons), the
kitchen table is also the place where the cult
stores its most powerful supernatural curative.
This is a weird gummy substance which is
kept in six vials. Any Survivor succeeding in
an Unnatural test will recognize that this
not a natural substance, but something with
otherworldly properties somehow tied to
healing injuries. In fact, these six vials each
carry a dose of the elixir created by the Blood
on the Plow ritual (see page 69). Each dose
can cure 1D6 Hit Points of damage but at the
cost of 1D4 SAN due to horrifying visions. The
cult keeps these as an insurance policy: if a fight
breaks out, they will try to use them.
The Cultists in the Farmhouse
The interior of the Farmhouse is run-down
and shabby, but free of any damage from
rampaging plant-life. Downstairs there are
four main rooms: the kitchen, a front room, and
two bedrooms. Upstairs there are three more
bedrooms and a larger room set up as a kind of
shrine (see below).
At any time, there are six to twelve cultists
in the house, and a few more working in the
adjacent barn. The cultists have no set routines.
They wander around, take naps, and occasionally
serve on watch.
Only those on watch are armed. Axes, shovels,
and firearms are all readily available should a
fight break out.
The Cult Leader
The leader of the cultists, Raymond Waite, can
be found in the front room hovering over a radio
receiver waiting for commands from the other
churches. So far, he’s heard nothing. While he is
waiting, Waite tinkers trying to get an old reel-
to-reel tape recorder working (see nearby boxes).
When running any encounter with Waite,
don’t forget that he knows the Mother’s Caress
ritual and can spend Willpower Points to create
a supernatural manifestation (see the game
statistics at the end of the scenario).
The Shrine and the Mirror
The upstairs shrine is filled with hundreds
of potted plants, as many different varieties
and plant species as the Church members could
locate. It is a sea of green encompassing all
shades of that color. On one side of the room
is a large window that looks out onto the field
of ‘scarecrows’ stretching down the hill, and to
Colden in the distance. On the opposite wall is
a large mirror with a line of carved letters at
the top and bottom. The mirror flickers with a
strange, unnatural light. The top inscription
reads “Blessed Be Shub-Niggurath” while the
bottom says “Mother-of-All-Consuming-Plants”.
One of the cultists is always present in the
shrine, tending to the plants and picking fruits
and seed pods to grind up into the gruel they feed
to sacrificial victims. If he survived the earlier
encounter (see THE LOST DOG, page 58), Kevin
Highsmith is performing this sacred duty when
the Survivors arrive. If he was eliminated, invent
a new NPC Cultist to fill the role. The individual
carries a pair of secateurs (1D6+1 damage).
When running any encounter with Highsmith,
don’t forget that he also knows the Mother’s
Caress ritual (see the game statistics at the end
of the scenario).
Don’t Look Now
If the cultist tending the shrine is eliminated,
the Survivors can take a good look at the weird
mirror. On closer inspection it is a hazy, static-
filled portal. Anyone concentrating on the
hypnotic glow for more than a few seconds
will see it begin to resolve into a picture. It’s a
The Radio
The radio has steadfastly refused to supply Waite with
anything but static for weeks, but at an appropriately
dramatic moment (as determined by the GM), it
suddenly squawks into life. Cries of “Iä! Iä! The Mother
Wakes! Iä! Iä!” is repeated. Any cultist in earshot begins
to cheer. This rallying cry will, if anything, inspire them
into even more frenzied self-sacrifice against any
aggressors (giving them +20% to all actions for the next
few minutes).
view into another cult’s location. Lumbering in
the background is a massive mobile tree-like
behemoth — one of Shub-Niggurath’s Dark
Arboreal Children — destroying a small town
(SAN Loss 1/1D6).
As the beast rages, the Survivors recognize
certain landmarks … could that be the town
where Dr Tan’s compound is located? The longer
the Survivors watch, the more familiar buildings
and signs come into view. In moments the whole
township — along with Dr Tan’s laboratory
buildings — is utterly destroyed. If they continue
to watch, the creature stops what it’s doing
and lunges toward the portal. The mirror bows
and bubbles as the creature pushes against
it before shattering and propelling shards of
glass throughout the entire room. Everyone in
the shrine suffers 1D8/1D12 SAN loss and loses
1D4 Hit Points of damage as they are hit by the
shards of glass. A successful Dodge test will
halve the Hit Point damage (but nothing will
reduce the SAN loss).
The Barrel
The 55-gallon drum in the front yard of the
farmhouse serves as a burn barrel for disposing
of trash. When the Survivors reach the yard,
they’ll find two cultists tossing in papers torn
from Crump’s research journal.
As they throw in pages, they call up to the
nearby figure hog-tied and suspended from the
barn, openly mocking the man and his research.
65
 Gregory Crump, Suspended
The trussed-up person hanging above the
barn doorway is the missing scientist, Gregory
Crump. His pride of place position is presumably
a testament to how much his work offends the
Church. Crump is in rough shape, covered in
visible cuts and bruises.
If the Survivors manage to get him down, it
becomes apparent that he has been force fed
a massive dose of the cultists’ gruel. His mouth
is covered in it. He is conscious but his body
periodically convulses in an unnatural way
(1/1D4 SAN to see).
but he’s already infected and will die violently
within hours. Messily. Most of his research has
been burned by the cultists in front of him.
If the Survivors act fast, they can save 100
pages of Crump’s research, which Tan can use
as a starting point.
Rewards
Survivors who fulfil the mission to locate
Crump each earn +1D3 SAN. Kira will be
dismayed by the outcome, but she’s learned to
live with disappointment.
If the Survivors managed to save the full
100 pages of Crump’s notes, they earn another

Wrapping Things Up
The world is a grim place, and there’s no
happy ending. Gregory Crump can be rescued,
+1 SAN.
Survivors who decide to put the living
‘scarecrows’ out their misery somehow won’t
earn any SAN gain but may feel that they have
done a good deed anyway.

The Reel-To-Reel Tape

When the Church was first set up here in Colden, its leader brought with him a sacred reel-to-reel recording of the original Scottish
ceremony where the blessings of Shub-Niggurath were manifested into existence on Earth. This 45-minute monologue describes
everything that has formed the foundations of the Church of the Blessed Rain, and is their principal holy ‘book’. For some time, the
recording was played weekly as part of services of worship. But then the reel-to-reel tape recorder broke down. Ever since then, Waite as
current leader of the local chapter has tried and tried to repair the device, to no avail.
The tape itself has a label, hand-written on masking tape, that identifies it as “A Blessed Rain’s Gonna Fall.” Waite will give his life before
allowing Survivors to remove the recording, but if they manage to do so they will find it is entirely undamaged and can be played in any
other compatible recorder. Similarly, if a Survivor makes a successful Technology Use test it’s easy to determine that the device isn’t
working because of a shorted-out motor. If someone can locate a replacement (e.g., via a successful Resources × 5 test, or via Scavenge),
the cult’s recorder can be repaired.
Playing the tape, Survivors can hear a scratchy sixth-generation recording of a man giving a droning lecture in a deep Scottish brogue.
He speaks about the coming of the “Mother’s Blessing” in very cryptic terms filled with odd allusions. A few sections seem to be spoken
in a non-human language (but could just be speech played backwards).
For game purposes, the tape constitutes a Tome of Terror. If a Survivor decides to devote time to deciphering it, the GM should refer to the
rules in the core APOCTHULHU rules for researching tomes and learning rituals. The “tome’s” game statistics are shown below.
In English. Study Time weeks. +3 Unnatural, +30 Post-Apocalypse Lore (Shub-Niggurath), +30 Post-Apocalypse Lore
(Church of Blessed Rain). SAN loss 1D4/1D6.
Contains Rituals: Blood on the Plow, Mother’s Caress (see page 69).
If playing with just the Quickstart rules, simply assume that any research requires the Survivor to already have at least 5% skill in
Unnatural, and it will take several weeks of careful study to properly understand. At the end of this time the Survivor gains the skill
bonuses mentioned above and suffers the noted SAN loss as they gain a deeper understanding of what’s implied by the tape. They’ll
know that some of the more cryptic sections of the recording describe a pair of supernatural rituals — the GM will need to decide what
the cost (in terms of time and SAN) required for those to be learned and memorized.

66
 If the Survivors offer for Adam and Margaret
Hanes to join their community, the pair will be
reluctant at first, but success on Reassure or
Persuade tests might change their mind. If that
happens, a reward of +1D3 SAN is warranted for
rescuing the pair from a lonely existence.
Further Adventures
on the Fecund Planet
The experience at Colden has probably raised
several questions which could be explored in
future scenarios:
g Perhaps most pressingly, Survivors
will want to know whether the vision
of Dr Tan’s facility being destroyed by
a behemoth was true or some kind of
dream or premonition? Is there another
chapter of the foul Church active near
their home base?
g How far has the Blessed Rain religion
spread? Has any other group carried out
the same kind of mass sacrifices seen in
Colden? Who created the Church’s reel-
to-reel “holy scripture”, and whose is the
somnolent Scottish voice on the tape?
g Did Crump keep a copy of his research
notes back at his home base on the West
Coast? Is it worth making an even longer
journey to locate his group?
g Who was responsible for sending the
radio transmission that seemed to be a
call to the faithful of Shub-Niggurath?
Is someone using radio to coordinate all
these groups of crazies?
Statistics
Listed below are representative game
statistics for threats the Survivors will encounter
during the scenario. Re-use these stats as needed.
Adam Hanes, age 17, wounded survivor
Adam is tow-headed and wiry. His lonely
existence with his sister Margaret has made him
very paranoid. He immediately thinks the worst
of any stranger.
Skilled with machinery, Adam keeps the
equipment running on the farm the best he
can. He’s prone to bouts of melancholy — the
Apocalypse has taken its toll on him.
STR 17 CON 15 DEX 17 INT 18 POW 16 CHA 13
HP 11 (normally 16) WP 16
Armor: None
Skills: Alertness 50%, Athletics 40%, Firearms 40%, Heavy
Machinery 45%, Persuade 30%, Ride (Bicycle) 65%,
Scavenge  60%, Stealth 65%, Survival (Plains) 55%,
Unarmed Combat 45%, Unnatural 10%.
Combat:
Shotgun 40%, damage: 2D10 at close range; 2D6 or 1D6
farther out.
Unarmed 45%, damage 1D4-1 + Damage Bonus.
Margaret Hanes, age 14, survivalist
Margaret has a tough time remembering
life before the Apocalypse. Life has been this
way for most of her life. A skilled shooter and
forager, she’s responsible for feeding the family.
Even though she’s younger, and looks up to her
brother Adam, she views herself as his caretaker
because of his frequent bouts of melancholy.
She keeps her sandy hair tied back and has
the hardened physique of someone used to
hard work.
STR 12 CON 15 DEX 17 INT 18 POW 16 CHA 14
HP 14 WP 16
Armor: None
Skills: Alertness 50%, Athletics 50%, Firearms 55%, Heavy
Machinery 25%, Persuade 40%, Ride (Bicycle) 75%,
Scavenge 50%, Stealth 65%, Survival (Plains) 45%,
Combat:
Unarmed Combat 45%, Unnatural 10%.
Shotgun 60%, damage: 2D10 at close range; 2D6 or 1D6
farther out.
Unarmed 45%, damage 1D4-1 + Damage Bonus.
67
 Map of Colden Region, Player Version

68
 New Rituals
Blood on the Plow
Elaborate ritual. Study time: weeks; +1 Unnatural, 1D10 SAN.
Activation: 10 days; 9 WP and 1 SAN per day.
To use this ritual the caster must collect 10 lbs. of farm produce,
50% plant-based and 50% animal-based. Neither the plants
nor animals need be alive when the material is collected. The
ingredients most be ground together slowly over the course of
10 days into a slurry, until a viscous fluid not unlike molasses
is produced. The necessary chanting and tonal singing each
day make this an all-day process. This will produce 2D6 usable
doses. If the process is interrupted, the batch is ruined.
Once the slurry is complete it can be used to provide the
consumer with 1D6 Hit Points at the cost of 1D4 SAN.
Mother’s Caress
Simple Ritual. Study Time: days; SAN 1D4.
Activation: a few minutes; 4 WP and 1D4 SAN
This caster of this ritual causes four tendrils of vines up to 12’
long to grow forth from a surface and entwine a single target.
No focus is required to control the vines. They’re autonomous. If
a victim escapes, the vines will attempt to find another target.
Anyone who witnesses this happen loses 1/1D4 SAN.
The target can attempt to Dodge to get out of the way of the
tendrils. If the roll fails, he or she is entwined — afterwards, a
STR×3 test is needed to escape the hold. The vines each have 4
Hit Points and each maintains grip on a target until it has been
reduced to 0 Hit Points.
Gore Crows
In this fecund world, everything eats and
with unwilling scarecrows all over the place,
there has to be something to roost on them.
Gore crows appear as normal crows with their
flesh and feathers hanging off their muscular-
skeletal system in rough patches.
A gore crow likes nothing better than to
roost on a newly transfixed victim and slowly
pick at the flesh. Connoisseurs, gore crows will
only eat the flesh of the living. Once the creature
has died, the flesh loses its tastiness.
STR 04 CON 10 DEX 24 INT 16 POW 12 Rifle 50%, damage 1D12.
HP 7 WP 12
Armor: None
Skills: Alertness 70%, Athletics 60%, Dodge on Ground 20%,
Dodge in Flight 50%, Fly 50%.
Combat: Bite and Claw 55%, damage 1D4, Armor Piercing 1.
SAN Loss: 0/1 to see a Gore Crow.
Blessed Rain Cultists
The members of the Blessed Rain cult are
all die-hard followers of Shub-Niggurath. They
consider themselves some of her young, their
immunity to her fecund gift destining them to
lead the world.
The leader, Raymond White (#1 in the table
below), knows two rituals: Blood on the Plow
and Mother’s Caress (see nearby box).
Kevin Highsmith (encountered in the “lost
dog” encounter and in the shrine) is #6 and
knows the ritual Mother’s Caress.
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10
STR 16 13 09 12 11 15 04 06 09 10
CON 15 13 11 13 09 12 07 13 15 11
DEX 13 07 06 14 07 12 10 14 13 10
INT 12 06 13 11 11 13 11 15 11 10
POW 10 09 14 14 13 08 09 11 09 14
CHA 10 09 08 06 11 05 12 16 08 07
HP 16 13 10 13 10 14 06 10 12 11
WP 10 09 14 14 13 08 09 11 09 14
DB +1 +1 – – – +1 -2 -1 – –
Skills: Alertness 50%, Athletics 40%, Firearms 50%, Melee
Weapons 45%, Persuade 30%, Post Apocalypse Lore (Shub-
Niggurath) 60%, Scavenge 50%, Stealth 35%, Survival
(Plains) 45%, Unarmed Combat 45%, Unnatural 15%.
Combat: (each cultist has 1 weapon from the list below and
can also make Unarmed attacks). The group has six grenades –
these can be distributed however the Game Moderator wishes.
See page 37 of the Quickstart rules for the mechanics of
Lethal Damage and Kill Radius.
Shotgun 50%, damage: 2D10 at close range; 2D6 or 1D6
farther out.
Hand Grenade 40%, base range 20 yards/metres; damage
Lethal 20%, Kill Radius 10 yards/metres.
Pistol 50%, damage 1D10.
Axe 45%, damage 1D8 + Damage Bonus.
Unarmed 45%, damage 1D4-1 + Damage Bonus.
69
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70