Otherwise known as Serpents by Gaslight
DIRE CONSEQUENCES or ‘Serpents by Gaslight’ is a 7th Edition Pulp Cthulhu adventure set in the Gaslight era (England in the 1890s). Written for a party of as many as six Investigators it provides a landscape in which the players can take on the roles of true anti-heroes (or at least not such nice people) and within these bounds explore their character’s motivations and darkest desires.
In Dire Consequences, the players take the roles of Investigators who have all fallen victim to Roland Hibenabe – a moneylender, blackmailer and mean-spirited old man of unknown origin, but dark reputation – who treats the characters as little more than puppets at his beck and call. This is no life for a respectable gentleman or lady of good standing, but such is the life of one who has – deliberately nor not – steps outside the bounds of respectability. All is not lost, however, for as the adventure opens, their ‘patron’ has invited them to his luxurious manor with the seemingly unlikely promise to free them from their bonds.
As suspected, this offer is too good to be true, with the truth of the matter is that Hibenabe requires the characters’ presence for other nefarious purposes. As will be discovered as the scenario unfolds, the results of this experiment will be anything but successful, and instead the group will find themselves transported back in time, to an age where Serpent Men rule the Earth. Lost in this ‘prehistory of man’, the Investigators will discover that they are not alone and that within an ancient city the Serpent Men look to the future, attempting to open a portal to our time, in a hope to retake what they are losing in their own.
In this story, old friends will be rediscovered, and new challenges faced, but in the end, it is up to the players to decide just how dire the consequences will be…
Status of this Project
Draft of 22,000 words in place covering the first section of the story.