Blackwater creek is a decrepit backwater, festering quietly along the banks of the Miskatonic river in rural Massachusetts. The year is 1926, the prohibition is in full effect, and Blackwater Creek is supplying illegal whiskey to Boston’s network of underground speakeasies. But gangsters and the prohibition agents who hunt them will turn out to be the least of the players problems. Blackwater Creek is hiding a secret, something so dark and so powerful that it would leave a vicious killer like Al Capone quaking with fear and crying for his mother.
For the players, the action starts in one of two ways: either they play gangsters or academics. If gangsters, they are sent to Blackwater creek to ensure the whiskey it produces flows to their boss and nobody else. If academics, the players are hired to find and return an Arkham professor and his wife, who went to Blackwater Creek for an archaeological dig and haven’t been heard from in two months.
The two adventure paths allow for very different styles of play: gangsters can take a proactive, or even aggressive, approach, whereas academics are more likely to be careful and investigative. The scenario can accommodate both, but taking a careful approach is much less likely to end in a hail of bullets and a TPK. It is Call of Cthulhu, after all.
So, what’s in the scenario? The area of Blackwater Creek is a sandbox with 9 locations, all within a few square miles. There’s the township, the woods, two farms (one with bad guys making whiskey, and one with a nice elderly couple), and three minor locations with clues. The creek itself is another location, and a scary cave rounds out the list. The players are free to explore the region, and there are plenty of interesting NPCs and clues scattered about. No matter what they do, players will soon learn where everything is, and the locations themselves do the rest.
Blackwater Creek comes with 6 pre-generated characters, but they’re all gangsters. In my view, the academic storyline is much more interesting, so I always go to the Chaosium website to grab some pregens, and let the players decide what they want. One of them is connected to the missing people or the university, and the storyline is good to go.
Being one of the scenarios in the Keepers screen pack, Blackwater Creek is aimed at new Keepers, with plenty of advice and tips throughout, but experienced Keepers and players alike will find a ton of value inside the pages. For starters, the scenario itself serves as a tutorial on how to run psychological horror. There are creepy mental effects that don’t affect gameplay but provide a lot of atmosphere. NPCs tell players about strange events and phenomenon that cast a sinister light on the people and places they visit. The physical environment is not quite right, too. Animals have been getting sick, and the vegetation is weird in some places. The tips and tricks in the text give Keepers a toolbox for using all of this to create layers of dread that build as the scenario progresses. It works so well that I’ve never had a group who was willing to visit the whiskey farm because of how the NPCs talked about the brothers who live there (and the thangs I seen unnatrel things that shouldn’t be but they is I seen em an I wanna forgit but I just cain’t).
But I digress. The players soon learn that there is something very wrong in Blackwater Creek, and not just in the town itself. Sure, the locals are insular and hostile to newcomers, and the Sheriff, who’s also the town preacher, has started giving some weird sermons. But on top of that, the entire region is showing signs of corruption. People and animals are diseased. Crops grow too quickly, and rot while they’re doing it. The rats in the cornfields watch the players with uncanny intelligence. When a storm hits, farm animals go crazy and kill their owners. It’s more than odd, it’s scary. And don’t get me started on the trees. The trees are terrifying.
Players can investigate all of this, or just ignore it and focus on their characters goals. Either way, they’ll encounter the weird and the horrific. Perhaps they’ll argue with the locals and end up in a fight for their lives. But perhaps they’ll do some careful investigation and get to the heart of the mystery. And it’s a cracker. Scott Dorward is known for his high-end horror style, and the big reveal for Blackwater Creek does not disappoint. It goes beyond mere grotesquery to reach a place that is genuinely psychologically unsettling. And isn’t that why we play the game? Having said that, if your players are a bit sensitive you might want to tone it down for them.
What’s more, the final location is set up for a cinematic action scene, possibly involving a pitched battle with a horror beyond mortal ken, a desperate retreat, or an enormous explosion. Or all three. It really is a white-knuckle ride all the way to the finish.
Clocking in at 34 pages of text, Blackwater Creek is perhaps the best mid-length Call of Cthulhu scenario out there. Players have a lot of freedom, and Keepers receive plenty of helpful tips on running the scenario, as well as a mini-toolbox to pump up the level of fear if and when it’s required. It works for both action-oriented and investigative styles of play but, perhaps most importantly, it tells a good story. If they’re careful and smart, the player-characters just might discover the secret of Blackwater Creek and if they do, it will change them in ways they might not expect.
Blackwater Creek was written by Scott Dorward.
Scenario art by Chris Huth, Chris Lackey, and Pat Loboyko.
Get the Keepers Screen from the Chaosium website.
Keeper Resources
Keeper’s Cheat Sheet:
Handouts: The Call of Cthulhu Scenario Props blog has some awesome ones.
Audio Handouts, narrated by Scott Dorward:
Podcast: Listen to Scott Dorward GM Blackwater Creek on The Apocalypse Players
Youtube: Watch Seth Skorkowsky’s Blackwater Creek Youtube review
If you’re interested in Scott Dorward’s writing, you might like to check out my reviews for Fairyland and Nameless Horrors.
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