Each one of these I do is going to cover mostly supplements that are traditional publications. That means no 'zine scenarios like Fear of Flying, nothing that is from the Miskatonic Repository, and nothing that isn't otherwise put out by a well-known publisher, new or otherwise. If the publisher's defunct or not prominent, they're also not getting reviewed due to scenario rarity. So that means stuff like the Games Workshop or Stygian Fox are game, but stuff like scenarios from The Unspeakable Oath or those published by T.O.M.E are generally not allowed. Only if it came out as a book or PDF is it viable, otherwise we'd be here all eternity. The only exception here is if the scenario itself really is worth some decent merit to warrant its own review. If I have a strong opinion about a scenario, it's gonna be heard regardless of the publishing format, so for all I know a MULA supplement may be reviewed here. It just depends what I'm feeling.
To kick this off, here's a review of Mister Corbitt, one of the first scenarios I actually got the chance to play, a well known and beloved scenario by many from Chaosium's Mansions of Madness publication. I've already reviewed a scenario, The Plantation, in that supplement once before, however this is the first time I've gotten to review a scenario from the other side of the Keeper screen. So, here's what I thought about Mister Corbitt and its take on a Hitchcock classic. Does it hold up today? Read on to find out more.
Seriously, regardless of who's Keeping this one, it's just a nasty and creepy piece of work. The story follows the neighbors of one Mr. Corbitt, an eccentric old gardener who lives across the street and generally keeps to himself. One night, as the Investigators are at the neighbors' dinner party, one of them notices that the old eccentric is carrying a bag of something - that something, gruesomely enough, including a child's arm! From there, the plot rapidly slides into a trail of intrigue, paranoia, and good old fashioned breaking and entering in order to uncover the truth. The kindly old man whom these neighbors have known all their lives, it turns out, is a man unhinged by having seen Yog-Sothoth manifest on a trip to the Himalayas with his now deceased father. In his madness, he has begun serving the Gate and Key, including pulling a Lavirna Whateley on his wife and making her birth the god's child, doing terrible experiments on body pieces, and sewing body pieces to the child to make it "more complete". The creature's ultimate goal involves, just like with The Dunwich Horror, it becoming the bridge for Yog, and thus ushering in a potential new age of madness and horror. It's the Investigators' task to stop this, and that includes a lot of questionable actions against someone who is, for all intents and purposes, a harmless old man. In other words, it's Rear Window, Cthulhu style, and I fucking love the concept.
If you've read this blog long enough, you know my feelings on putting the Mythos close to home, sowing paranoia and doubt in players and making them feel very much unsafe. You see, when you put the bizarre juxtaposed with a reasonable scenario - an eccentric but seemingly harmless neighbor - then paranoia ramps up like crazy. I can't tell you how much suspicion I had, even before Corbitt's plot was uncovered, that something was wrong. We found dead children in a dump he frequented. We met a madman named Randolph who we thought died after he attacked us, only to come back later with a broken, bloody nose to attack us during a rainstorm. We uncovered the horrible remnants of... something disturbing in the greenhouse Corbitt kept, and found out he'd been trying to drug us with something in the veggies he shared with his neighbors. And hey, why are his tomatoes so plump, big, and delicious anyway? What fertilizer is he using to make them grow so well? It can't have anything to do with those dead kids... right? Right?!
Mister Corbitt in fact does this subtle, creeping dread so well, it even caught a horror aficionado like me off guard. One of my favorite moments while playing this scenario was definitely a scene where my character is picking through a compost heap in Corbitt's backyard for clues, and stumbles upon something hard with the stick she's using. "Uh, what did I just find?" I asked the Keeper, nervous and half suspecting something very bad. He merely smiled and asked me what I wanted to do, so I told him I was gonna try to dig it out and see.
"You uncover a long, white object," He replied, his face a mask of stone. Oh no, I thought. Oh no, this isn't. This can't be...
"I dig it out a little bit more..." I'm wincing now, bracing for the horrific reveal, knowing it had to be a bone - probably that of a dead child. I didn't want to find a dead child. My character didn't want to find a dead child... And the worst part was, the Keeper wasn't saying a word. Not a word. Then finally, he breaks the silence.
"Congratulations," he said, smirking. "You found the bone from a t-bone steak."
Many strong words intended as compliments followed, but inwardly I was incredibly relieved that my worst fears were mitigated. Now that's how you do horror, and Mister Corbitt offers so many of these perfect places to put a scare or two in that it's practically built for it. Lovecraft would certainly be proud.
Now for the less than stellar parts of the scenario, and they mainly center around two things - unused potential with some of the dangers, and how the Investigators are intended to find everything in Corbitt's house without causing themselves trouble. The first of those issues is more or less that it feels as though Corbitt's greenhouse and lab could have been applied more helpfully. What was up with his acid-spitting flowers? Why not have more wayward failed experiments jump out and try to cause minor damage to the Investigators? Couldn't you have the plants cause some hallucinogenic terror related to Yog-Sothoth the way the drugged veggies making monsters visible to the Investigators is supposed to? Maybe this is something that the Keeper is intended to elaborate on, but to me it feels a little haphazard. Alternately, does everything in Corbitt's house need to be dangerous or deadly? No, not at all. Hell, Bloody Botany manages a similar idea - human fertilizer used in a dangerous greenhouse - without making the plants themselves that extraordinary (although they certainly are deadly). Sometimes a creepy thing should just be a creepy thing, not a trap or pulpy plot contrivance, and this scenario itself just isn't pulp enough to warrant going that route.
As for the way the Investigators have to break in to uncover Corbitt's secret, I feel that "breaking and entering to uncover the truth" is a bit of a CoC cliche. Yes, Tropes Are Not Bad, but couldn't the Keeper think of a more interesting or unique way to do it? Much is made in the scenario write-up of Corbitt's apparent connection to some sort of avatar of Yog-Sothoth, perhaps even possession by it. Why not use that, and have the Investigators get nabbed by a Corbitt out of his right mind? Hell, maybe the plant in the greenhouse knocks them out, or some other complication occurs, like Corbitt locking them in with the child. On that note, I think the child-thing could be made more active, it seems like the players have to go out of their way to find it once they're in the lab. Why not have it burst out of its containment and come after the Investigators? Make them engage, don't just expect their curiosity to always carry them forward, because when the chips are down, most Investigators have no problems running the fuck away like cowards. At least, in my experience they don't. There's also not a ton of props for this scenario, making it a quick experience that can last maybe two sessions if you stretch it. Maybe.
Now, the above is of course just me nitpicking. Really, this scenario is very well done, if a bit jankily written due to its age, and it's worth a look if you need something subtly creepy or something to crank the paranoia dial. Borrowing elements from Lovecraft's tales is a dime a dozen in CoC, it's honestly just expected as part of the setting. But borrowing elements from Lovecraft and Hitchcock, all with perhaps a dash of The Twilight Zone for good measure? That's a level of horror mishmashing cleverness that is guaranteed to pique my interest. And so what if the Mythos elements are downplayed here? Yog-Sothoth has never been an overly active Mythos entity, by his nature he can't be. That makes him a perfect looming, overarching danger, and this scenario a very good fit for any campaign featuring His Iridescent Sphericalness. Bringing that sort of malign horror into the peace and quiet of suburbia is the kind of left field curve that most players won't think of if they read a lot of Lovecraft. You expect the terrible cults of the Crawling Chaos or the Black Goat With a Thousand Young to be out in the unkempt and untamed wilds, in other countries, or haunting the streets of a city with more than a bit of history, especially one fallen into ruin such as Innsmouth or Dunwich. You don't expect the horror on your doorstep, across the street, breathing down your neck without you ever realizing it, and that's what makes Mister Corbitt shine in my opinion as a gem of a scenario. It brings the horror home, and that really is something not enough scenarios do in my opinion - hell, not enough horror in general does.
So for all that, does the scenario hold up? Yeah, absolutely, I had a blast playing it. Mister Corbitt does what it does well, and hits all the elements for a good Investigative experience, so I'll give it 8.5 out of 10 severed child arms. If you need something short and sweet, and like psychological horror mixed with your Cthulhu Mythos, you'll find a lot to like here. I certainly enjoyed it. Now go forth, terrorize, and may the dice fall ever in your favor. Lord knows you'll need it when dealing with Mr. Corbitt...