I recently got into TTRPGs in a major way, in particular, Call of Cthulhu. After a few great practice sessions using the scenarios in the 7th edition starter set and the Keeper’s rulebook, my wife suggested I run a home game of Horror on the Orient Express (HotOE) for just the two of us. In retrospect, I did not know what I was getting myself into. Even now I can tell this will be a massive undertaking, probably taking at least a couple years of weekly 2-3 hour sessions.

I started by reading an excellent guide/overhaul on Reddit. I initially left my thoughts and results as comments on that guide, but I figured this blog is a better place to keep them. So over the next couple years I will be posting here to hopefully help out the next person who tries to run this beast.

Campaign Prep

As recommended on Reddit, you should read the entire campaign before starting. The most annoying issue with this campaign is that several setup/payoff story beats are not mentioned in the book before they become relevant in play. If you simply read the chapters as you run them, you will end up with several awkward moments where you have to retcon and say, “Oh yeah, you would have noticed this a while ago…” I will try to cover these in my posts, but even I may miss some.

I ran the campaign with four player characters. Initially these were all controlled by one player (my wife), but we soon brought in a friend who shared the load. I went with this because this campaign is quite challenging and deadly at times; having only one or two player characters threatens frequent total party kills, breaking the narrative continuity. Two players controlling two characters each worked quite well for us, so I do recommend it if you’re having a hard time finding 3-4 players willing to commit to such an endeavor.

Strongly encourage your players to create investigators with nuanced backstories, character flaws, and personal hangups. This is a good idea in general when role playing, but it will also pay off later in the Dreamlands chapter.

With that out of the way, here are my chapter reports!

Completed Chapters