After a long break, the investigators encounter Hybrid Deep Ones for the first time! They returned to Grey Dragon Island with one goal, seal the Nyarlathotep portal and stop the cult’s rocket plan. However, the caldera offered no easy win. Instead, it delivered strange tech, a living slime pool, brutal shrines, and captives in cages. Consequently, the group rushed room to room, set charges under pressure, and fought off Deep Ones before the rocket crashed into magma.
Hybrid Deep Ones
“Hybrid Deep Ones” in Call of Cthulhu (CoC) and Lovecraft lore are offspring of humans and the amphibious, fish-frog-like Deep Ones, born seemingly human but gradually transforming with bulging eyes and fishy skin as they age, eventually joining their kin underwater.
Key Characters Introduced
- Shoggoth (slime pool horror): A fast, brutal lake creature that mauled Bessie, then died and sank under the black scum after a perfect shot.
- Hybrid Deep Ones (fish raiders): Amphibious attackers that surged from the pool during the jailbreak and forced a running gunfight, as a fast and brutal strike from them mauled Bessie, then died and sank under the black scum after a perfect shot from Percy.
- Edward (letter writer): A “loyal servant” who documented prototype issues and hinted at precision work behind the rocket parts.
- Sir Audrey (letter recipient): A named figure tied to the prototypes and the tolerance requirements, therefore tied to the build.
- Frightened captives: Starved, traumatized prisoners whose release raised the stakes as the explosives clock ticked.
Key Events
- Keeper recap and mission clarity: The group re-centered on the portal problem and Virginia’s role in casting the sealing spell.
- Advanced “welding gun” assembly: The team identified strange tank-fed tools that behaved like high-end welding gear, which confirmed the cult’s tech edge.
- Slime pool investigation: The caldera pool looked calm, yet it smelled foul and moved with its own current, which signaled danger.
- Workshop discovery, warhead confirmed: The team found rocket components, a lead container, and a trigger concept, which reframed the rocket as a weapon.
- GMT clock clue: The wall clock ran eight hours off local time, which pointed to deliberate scheduling and coordination.
- Sabotage by lava: They threw the rocket’s nose cone into lava to help stop the launch and derail the cult’s plans.
- Shrine of severed arms and sacrificial altar: The group took a sanity hit when the idol’s true horror revealed itself.
- Prison pen discovery and jailbreak: They found 20 captives in filth, picked the lock, and tried to get them to escape, but they were too crazed and would not move.
- Hybrid Deep Ones attack: The creatures burst out of the slime pool as the party moved to escape, carved Bessie, and forced immediate combat decisions.
- Major wound crisis: Bessie stabilized just enough to stay conscious; the group carried her and kept moving.
- Detonation and rocket crash: Percy triggered the planted charges during the retreat, and the rocket tipped into magma, ending the session on a blast, killing all the prisoners along with it, as Emerson and Percy convince the party that they made it out, ending their suffering and insanity.
Standout Moments
- Omar: Slept through danger, then “dodged” an attack when the Keeper ran his character.
- Emerson: Spotted the GMT offset and helped decode the workshop’s rocket components, therefore sharpening the sabotage plan.
- Virginia: Helped haul the nose cone to the lava and landed point-blank shots in the running fight, even after early lock trouble.
- Ezekiel: Picked the prison lock under pressure and pushed the group to stop sightseeing and start escaping.
- Bessie: Took a brutal wound from a Hybrid Deep One, then calmed the captives anyway, which kept the jailbreak from collapsing into a stampede.
- Percy: One-tapped a few Hybrid Deep One’s, then finished the mission by setting and triggering the charges that crashed the rocket into magma.
Session 30 pushed the campaign into endgame speed. The caldera did not reward caution, so the party had to choose action, then live with the consequences. Moreover, every room reinforced the same truth, the cult planned something far bigger than a local ritual.
Next time, the group has to survive the aftermath of the volcano and regroup quickly. After all, the portal problem still looms, and the island still has teeth.
If you want to get Masks of Nyarlathotep, please click the links below. It helps the channel out if you buy from these links!
Investigators Handbook: https://amzn.to/4fHaRdi
Keeper Rulebook: https://amzn.to/4dilnpG
I use Fantasy Grounds for the automation and Virtual Table Top; please check them out here: http://affiliates.fantasygrounds.com/361781/15958
Please find more details of this game under the Masks of Nyarlathotep!!
Leave a Reply