I like the look of the Antiquarian if that works?
Content warnings
I should have flagged this up earlier, sorry. The premise of the scenario is therapy to deal with past trauma that’s causing long-term sleep problems. Fairly common themes - no ‘adult themes’ like abuse, sex, gruesome violence etc. Content warnings for the following:
- Dreams/flashbacks of being trapped in deadly situations
** Rats
** Drowning
** Death by fire
** Gun violence
** Ghosts - Loss of loved ones
- Arachnaphobia and spiders
Most of that can be glossed over or even removed, but please give me a heads-up, and of course we can chat about the best way to handle things. If there’s anything in particular you’d like to be sure about that isn’t in the list, again, let me know.
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Doctor, constable, journalist all piqued my interest. I’ve got a journalist type in another game so maybe one of the other two preferable?
Sorry it took so long, still unsteady navigating this place
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Looks like we have:
@Naith Dilettante
@Asydic Antiquarian
@RogerBW and @EliScrubbs constable is up for grabs if it’s either of your first choice? Otherwise Author and Doctor it is.
Trying out a different (non-CoC) system for this, basically 3D6 roll under. I’ll send you basic charsheets.
*deliberately not naming the system, so if you recognise it, please keep mum.
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I’ll go for Author.
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Sign me up as Doctor then
I have shared character sheet links by private message (although you can all see each other’s, it just so the internet as a whole isn’t rummaging around in my spreadsheets).
Mostly this should be pretty straightforward: you tell me what you’re doing, I’ll ask for a 3D6 roll if necessary and let you know what happens. Your individual special notes are mostly for roleplaying and flavour but do have some relevance in game too so feel free to remind me of them if you think I’ve forgotten something.
If you somehow manage to start a fight, there’s a lot of options (you can try to spin-kick someone in the nadgers, you can uppercut, or you can just I Fight Them) so we’ll cross that bridge if that actually happens.
Being January, it is bitterly cold outside and a layer of snow covers the ground. The university hospital is on the outskirts of town, close to the university campus.
Once a manor house belonging to a former chancellor of the university, the building was left to the university in his will. A large set of iron gates opens through the eight-foot wall surrounding the grounds. The drive is long and wide, passing through a large garden decorated with immaculate topiary of geometric shapes.
just posting a bit of boxed text to get you in the mood 
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Each of you has struggled with sleeplessness, disturbed sleep and nightmares for a considerable time. For most of you, the problems began after a recent traumatic experience that seems to have influenced your dreams. For others, your insomnia is a long-term issue but has taken a more severe and disturbing turn after a recent traumatic event.
GM: you can choose which.
One way or another, you ran across the following advertisement for participants in a medical study of sleep disturbance, and contacted Dr. Thorne. You are all amongst those selected to participate, and are due to arrive at the university shortly.
You already know the basic outline of the study:
- A small group of patients will have medical readings taken before and after sleep.
- The contents and nature of any dreams will be explored in a group discussion, to help draw out memories and commonalities.
- Sedative drugs and hypnotism will be used to induce semi-consciousness and supervised lucid dreaming to directly address the underlying trauma.
- No contact with the outside world is allowed until the program had ended and the patient has left the hospital. Therapy is being conducted in a carefully controlled environment; external stimuli can disrupt this and affect the study’s results.
- Limited personal possessions are permitted into the ward; again, this is to avoid disrupting the therapy.
- No alcohol, opiates and other sleep-altering substances are permitted.
- Your participation in the study will consist of up to five sessions, each one month apart, lasting for seven nights.
(there are other groups of patients participating in the study at different times)
Please introduce your characters briefly (they’ll actually meet each other after they arrive)
How did you come across the advert and join the study?
Is there anything particular you would like to have done in the time leading up to the study?
Is there anything particular you’d like to bring with you, other than what is on your character sheet?
Vincent McQueen is a name you may know, a few steps above the dime magazines. He writes what Dorothy Parker dismissed as “horror for the little man”: a typical McQueen novel has the protagonist experiencing a small unexplained dislocation that somehow, with the logic of dreams, grows into the most important thing in the word.
The money means nothing to him, of course, but his editor’s been pressing him for more words, and he can’t get that recurrent dream about the tunnel and the rats out of his head. And you can really only use that in one story, maybe two if you use a pseudonym.
He’s packed a suitcase with good quality clothes, and a knapsack with cigarette-papers and tins of best Latakia. The night before he motors up to Albany, he goes out with friends, drinking and socialising and seeing how well he can do with no sleep at all (perhaps helped along by some of Scotty’s Bolivian marching powder) – can’t have that during the study! He’s apparently not taking it all terribly seriously, but he accepts that he has a problem and really does want to try to fix it.
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Stella Clairmont steps lightly off the bus from Bennington, a notebook in one hand and an overnight bag in the other. Beyond a few toiletries and change of clothes, her bag contains spare pencils and paper, the latest McQueen paperback, a hot water bottle and a flashlight. If there’s a ‘lights out’ policy at the hospital, her usual late night scribblings won’t be interrupted.
It took a lot of persuading from her husband before Stella answered Dr Thorne’s advertisement. Her husband has been getting increasingly alarmed by his wife waking up terrified in the middle of the night, trying to fend off someone (or something) that wasn’t there. And although she would never admit it, Stella is beginning to feel desperate herself.
Because Stella is a journalist through and through, she has already had a dig around for the low down on this Dr Thorne. Nothing headline grabbing yet but she intends to find out more during her stay at the hospital. She has justified her leave to her boss at the Bennington Post by promising to at least get a good story out of it.
roll me 3D6 to see how much you dig up in your investigations
I rolled 13 total (6,5,2). I hope it’s okay just rolling dice on my kitchen table!
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If you want the server to roll dice for you, {roll 3d6} only with [ square brackets ] rather than { braces }. But note that the server will grab the post ownership to stop you editing it afterwards.
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Table dice are fine! Rolling on here as Roger said is also fine 
13 is plenty, you’ve had a couple of weeks to read up on things in a leisurely way.
Thorne is an experienced doctor and psychologist, but not a public figure - he’s not turning up in interviews and gossip columns the way some do. What you find in the papers is basically more adverts seeking patients for various sleep, dream and trauma studies, going back about 10 years, but fairly sporadic.
You have the contacts and knowledge to dig around in professional publications and so on for less obvious leads.
Thorne graduated in 1901 and worked in medical practice for about 15 years, taking a particular interest in psychological disturbance as soldiers returned from the Great War.
He returned to academia in 1916 at the university hospital, training doctors and urging for greater attention to the mental trauma of patients, rather than purely physical injuries. He’s published on a range of medical and psychological topics, with a Jungian approach - so lots of archetypes, collective unconsciousness and so on, as well as use of mesmerism to expose subconscious traumas for treatment.
Since 1925 his work is almost exclusively on sleep disorders and dream research, to the point that a specialist sleep centre has been established at the University hospital. You find a brief article in the university newspaper about the opening of the centre last summer, and some of the remarks made. Thorne mentioned an outbreak of mania and disordered dreaming in early 1925 that had inspired this move, as it was obviously an under-studied area of medicine.
There’s nothing unusual about the doctor, the hospital or the university that you can see.
(you can do further research on any of those if you want, just let me know what - no more rolls needed for now)
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You would be able to bring a camera along, on the understanding that you won’t get in the way or photograph anything confidential. I mention this only because you’re quite a good photographer.
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Antonella de la Cavallería was one of the first passengers storming off the bus from Bennington, her mood soured at remaining convinced her younger brother was far too incompetent to run her antique shop “Tales Untold” in her absence. Nethertheless, she was very aware of how exhausted her insomnia had made her when she nearly forgot to haggle last week’s shipment, and Doctor Thorne seemed credible enough to help fix this problem.
Antonella considered packing light, confident that with Thorne’s help she would be sleeping normally again within a couple nights, (overconfidence check - 12 or less to resist: 1+3+6 = 10 success!) however on reflection she decided it would be prudent to pack spare clothes for more than a couple nights, as well as her pipe and tobacco, magnifying glass and matches. She also decided to bring along a trinket her mother had given to her during the immigration, hoping the good fortune it had brought them during that time of difficulty would similarly be bestowed here.
As Antonella nears the gate, her frustrated breaths slow as her curiosity calms her mood. she stops and quietly whistles, trying to date and analyse the grounds in front of her unsure of check: 6+4+1 = 11
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The clinging snow masks some of the finer detail, but the building is a good example of mid-Georgian architecture, and has clearly been kept in good condition. The original leaded windows are not known for their insulating properties - Antonella will be glad she packed a decent jersey. That being said, there are probably hulking cast-iron radiators inside. From the glimpses she can catch through the window, it doesn’t look like the manor was too badly desecrated in the conversion to medical use…
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Mr Duncan Howard stumbles off the bus in a fit of coughing, clutching a worn out duffel bag to his chest as he leans on the bus exterior to catch his breath. The tall, but haggard and slightly emaciated man, readjusts his tie and coat as he looks over the university building while stroking his chin, hoping for a chance to shave once inside.
The surgical oncologist trusts in his team to handle things in his absence, they have been since the incident, but his thoughts drift over all the things he wants to check once this is over and he is back in the hospital and able to walk the wards without heart palpitations.
One last check over his belongings, overnight clothes, grooming kit, a few emergency supplies, and the papers one of his fellows dug up for him. Duncan had asked for any papers Dr Thorne had published recently, but regrettably passed out exhausted at his desk before he could read them.
Taking a stern tone and straightening his back he mutters to himself, “Three days, Duncan. Maxwell has been fine so far, he can manage three days. Remember what he said; no going mad with boredom stuck in a hospital ward. Clean yourself up, get better, and then after the study get back on the tennis court, you’re getting fat.”
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Since the mainstream advice - a nice smooth tobacco to help soothe your troubled lungs - isn’t an option for you, you might well carry a tin or two of mints, pear drops or aniseed balls?
It’s been years since you saw Thorne in person, though you’ve exchanged letters now and again. You recall him as a considerate, determined fellow, a few years your senior. He was inclined to be flashy, and had a breezy confidence that could be off-putting; but unlike plenty of his contemporaries, he didn’t act like showing you the ropes and sharing his slightly greater experience was a magnanimous favour deserving of reverent gratitude.
Thorne always had an interest in the mind, and it was no great surprise when he started working with the veterans that trudged home from the trenches, broken in more ways than one. You’d read some of those monographs, and sometimes wished you hadn’t - fragmentary recollections of how monstrous Mankind is to its own children - they left you with renewed dedication to your healing vocation.
You know, vaguely, that in the last few years he’s been researching the interplay of memory, sleep, and trauma, and how the processes that turn a fleeting experience into enduring knots in the mind could be harnessed to unpick them. There’s never quite been time to look through those papers, but perhaps this is your chance. It’ll be good to see him again, even on rather different terms this time.
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also, just a heads-up to everyone as I didn’t spot this on the advert… three nights seems unrealistically short for the study described, so I’ve expanded it to seven nights. Just FYI. Feel free to treat it as an in-game thing that gets talked about; maybe there was a mistake on the advert?
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