MoN 001: One More Push

On October 2nd 1918, the exhausted American 77th infantry division was ordered to push into the Argonne Forest in northern France. The attack quickly bogged down after facing stiff German resistance. By the end of the day, the 1st and 2nd battalions were cut off and surrounded deep in the forest.

As dusk fell, Major Whittlesey sent out two platoons to find Company B and D, which had gotten lost or separated from the main body during the advance. Among the platoon were Ikil Lit, a rifleman, Hank “Big” Mac, a rifleman, Dr Dudley Franklin, the squad medic, and Leopold Eddie Butts, the squad scout and Jake Winter, the squad’s machine gunner.

Crossing the stream at the bottom of the valley, Dudley slipped on a black stone and fell into the stream. The stone bore some curious markings and, intrigued, Dudley slipped it into his pack.

After climbing out of the valley, the two platoons quickly also got lost amid the dark, mist-filled forest. When one squad stopped to ascertain their position, their sergeant was shot after he struck a match to better see his compass. This shot was the start of a frenzied skirmish. A small group of Germans dug in at the top of a nearby ridge, poured rifle and machinegun fire and hurled grenades down on the hapless Americans.

Things seemed grim until the rest of the two platoons arrived. With a shout of, “Charge! Let’s smother ‘em boys!” Lt. Wilhelm led the Americans up the hill into a hail of German fire…

About this Session Summary

This post is a prelude to my 7th edition Call of Cthulhu Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. We decided to run some “origin” sessions for some of the main characters, and this is one of them. Session summaries are posted in (game world) date order, so it will be some time before we get to the main campaign.

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This post is a session summary for my weekly 7th edition Call of Cthulhu Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign.

About No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land is a Call of Cthulhu adventure from Chaosium set in the last months of World War I.

THE DATE IS OCTOBER 2, 1918. In France, soldiers huddle in hastily-dug trenches, faith their only protection against the never-ending artillery barrage. It is the time of World War I — the Great War — when mankind proves itself capable of atrocities never before conceived. As above, so below. Beneath the cracked and shattered soil of the Argonne Forest lives something that waits, lurking and feeding upon misery—something inhuman. Very soon the members of the doomed Lost Battalion will stumble upon this mystery older than Mu, and then the fate of the world will lie in their hands.