Crash Dive

Details

Front Cover

Pages: 56-64

Author(s): Steve Hatherley

Artist(s): Chris Johnston, Gustaf Bjørksten, Martin Trengrove

Setting: 1920s

Appears in: Fearful Passages

Summary

Wherein the investigators learn a useful new skill, but find more peril on dry land than in the aqueous world beneath the surface.

A letter from a shady antique-dealing acquaintance tips off the Investigators that a valuable artefact is on the market, but they soon find that obtaining it will call for more than money. They'll need to get their hands dirty - or at least damp.

Spoilers - Keepers Eyes Only

Players should not read any further.

Synopsis

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
The Investigators receive a letter from an acqaintance, a dubious fence with an taste for occult artefacts. He puts them on the trail of an interesting find, but it turns out to have vanished into a frozen lake during a tragic plane crash.

The Investigators can easily get permission to search the site and retrieve the artefact for themselves. They must obtain diving equipment and learn to use it, though. The farmer nearby has a damaged suit discarded by the group who retrieved the pilot's body, but they would be wise to head off for proper training and hire decent equipment.

Once on the dive, they face the dangers of pressure, cold and accidents as they search for the artefact. A drunken boat pilot endangers the divers, and leaves the dive guide injured and unconscious.

References

Player Handouts:

1. A Letter of Enquiry
2. Report of the Cedar Lake Dive

Locations: Cider Lake, Oregon

Creatures: None

Tomes and Artifacts: The Dreamplate, a device for determining the Waking World location of individuals met within the Dreamlands ; a new spell, Find Dreamer

Campaigns / Scenarios: None

Comments

• Contains a brief overview of diving practices, science, equipment and dangers in the 1920s.
• Diving, a new skill
• Diving suit diagram
• Using other skills underwater - an overview and suggested modifiers
• Nitrogen narcosis, hypothermia and decompression sickness mechanics
• NPC portraits
• Image of divers examining a crashed plane
• Chart of random events for use when diving

Keeper Comments

This is an event, or a training session, rather than a full-blown scenario; there aren’t any opponents to overcome, monsters to escape or horrific events to survive. The Investigators learn to dive, deal with an emergency and retrieve the plate, and then move on to other adventures.

The scenario can be short-circuited by the simple expedient of hiring professionals to handle the dive, which players may perceive as the expected solution if their goal is simply to obtain the artefact.