Downtime: Growing Teeth
In the aftermath of the showdown with the
This is my campaign in The Cthulhu Solo Adventure Generator.
The Cthulhu Solo Adventure Generator is a solo role-playing game. It’s set in a fictional universe where relentless cosmic horror simmers just below the surface of everyday life. It takes place in the 1920s and is based on the short stories, novels and novelettes of H.P. Lovecraft, whose Cthulhu Mythos have been contributed to and expanded on by multiple other authors over the years. The rules are compatible with most d100-based role-playing games that are Cthulhu-related.
The Cthulhu Solo Adventure Generator is available on Amazon, DriveThruRPG and on Itch.io.
The dice rolls
In The Cthulhu Solo Adventure Generator, the Protagonist goes back and forth between Adventures and Downtime. The Downtime events describe the ‘ordinary’ life of the Protagonist before a new adventure begins.
Roll 3D6 for Downtime Points: 6 + 1 + 3 = 10
Activity 1: Improve a Skill
Table: Improve a Skill (Cost: 4 Downtime Points), Improve Firearms (current skill: 20%), Roll: 65
While immersed in activities related to improving Firearms, Sophia Riley is befriended by a [Shady Character] (young woman with a playful demeanour). The shady character shows an unnerving interest in Sophia Riley who breaks off the friendship, suspecting hidden ulterior motives.
Shady character roll: 41
A young woman with a playful demeanour, yet her laughter seems forced.
Skill roll for Firearms: 67 (failure)
Skill improvement: 6 + 6 + 1 = 13
Activity 2: Improve a Skill
Table: Improve a Skill (Cost: 4 Downtime Points), Improve Firearms (current skill: 33%), Roll: 96
Sophia Riley almost has a mental breakdown trying to become more proficient at Firearms. Refraining from seeing friends and family and practically becoming a recluse. In the end, a worried Chloe pays a visit explaining their worry for the health of Sophia Riley.
Skill roll for Firearms: 88 (failure)
Skill improvement: 4 + 1 + 3 = 8
The remaining 2 Downtime Points are lost.
The Journal Entry
The majority of the Journal text below is generated by feeding the notes of the adventure to an AI. I’ve made some final editing, but on the whole, this is not written by me. For my part, I enjoy reading a story written by someone else (even if it’s an AI) based on my adventure. It’s just personal preference.
Also, the illustrations are AI generated using a Lora I’ve created based on about 60 images that I made for The Cthulhu Solo Adventure Generator. So, it’s my style of drawing, but I didn’t create them myself. The reason is lack of time, plain and simple.
Growing Teeth
The weeks following Chloe’s rescue had done strange things to Sophia’s sleep. She would drift off in her narrow bed at her mother’s apartment, only to wake hours later with her nightgown damp against her skin, her fingers clawing at the sheets as if reaching for something just beyond her grasp.
She never remembered the full scope of her nightmares. The dreams came in fragments, cold stone walls, the smell of incense so thick it coated her throat. Always those geometries. Circles within circles, spiraling inward toward nothing and everything at once. Geometries that hurt to look upon.
One morning, Sophia sat in her mother’s cramped apartment, the rhythmic snip-snip of her sewing shears acting as a jagged metronome. Her mother, Tiffany, was pacing the small living room. “You look thin, Sophia.” Tiffany murmured, “The Collier is a tomb,” she continued, pressing a hand to her own throat. “Why can’t you meet men who don’t smell of mothballs and greasepaint.”
“Mother, I’m building a wardrobe for The Duchess of Malfi,” Sophia replied, her voice steady, though her hands trembled. She kept her sleeves pulled tight to her wrists. Beneath the fabric, her skin was a map of madness. The scars, concentric circles and unnatural angles, had faded to silver threads, silvery ghosts of the plateau of Leng. She remembered nothing but a cold wind and the taste of ash, but the geometry of her own body told her she had been somewhere that human eyes were never meant to perceive.
“And for the record, I do meet men who don’t smell of mothballs and greasepaint. Sometimes.” She continued with a crooked smile of irony as she thought of Mr. Vale and his two accomplices who had helped rescue her friend Chloe from the clutches of the Society of the Night Sky. A lot of evil people had died that night. A job done right. “There are worse things than mothballs and greasepaint mom.” She finished.
Sophia didn’t want to be the girl in the wardrobe department, stitching hemlines while the monsters circled. She wanted teeth. She wanted to learn to defend herself. Not with prayers to distant gods, not with knowledge of ancient rituals, but with something tangible. Something she could hold in her two hands and point directly at the darkness.
Sophia found a shooting range that occupied a converted warehouse. Here, the clientele were working men and women, dockworkers, factory girls, and the occasional desperate soul. The proprietor, a one-armed veteran named Kowalski, charged fifty cents per hour and asked no questions. Sophia had to pay for the bullets but Kowalski borrowed her the gun. The recoil of the .38 pistol was a physical shock. She practiced until her palms were blistered and her ears rang.
It was there she met Elena. Elena was petite, with a bobbed haircut even sharper than Sophia’s and a laugh that sounded like glass breaking. “You hold that gun like you’re expecting a ghost.” Elena remarked brushing against Sophia’s shoulder. Sophia flinched Involuntarily at the touch. “I’m just learning,” Sophia said. “Learning,” Elena repeated, her smile not reaching her eyes. “Kowalski talks about you. The determined little actress from the Collier.” Sophia’s hand tightened on the pistol “I didn’t realize my practice was worthy of comment.”
“Oh, it is.” The woman stepped closer, “I’ve watched you. You’re trying to fight back.” She smiled, and there was something in that smile that made Sophia’s skin prickle. “I find that fascinating.” The following days Elena acted as if they knew each other well. She was charming and eager to help. She offered tips on stance, on breathing, on the mental discipline required to steady one’s hand in moments of crisis. She laughed at Sophia’s early misses, not mockingly but with a camaraderie that felt almost sisterly.
And yet there were moments when Elena’s gaze would linger on Sophia in ways that went beyond friendly interest. Moments when her playful demeanor would slip, and something cold and calculating would flicker across her features. By chance, Sophia caught her whispering under her breath. Silent words in a language that had none of the syllables of any tongue Sophia knew. The next day, Sophia stopped going to the range.
Instead she bought a gun. A scrappy looking pistol from a pawn shop, its walnut grip worn smooth by previous owners. She rose before dawn, practicing her grip in the dim light of her mother’s kitchen. She drilled in the evenings too. Not returning to the range, but practicing to draw, to aim and to clean the gun. She read books on ballistics, on combat. She neglected her duties at the Collier until one of the managers pulled her aside with a concerned look and asked if everything was alright.
Everything was fine. Everything was under control. She was preparing herself, arming herself against the darkness. She was not going to be helpless again. Chloe visited, only to be turned away with excuses about practice, about exhaustion, about needing time alone. Her mother tried to intervene, only to be met with doors closed and conversations cut short. Her dreams were full of eyes that watched from every shadow.
“You’re destroying yourself,” Chloe said during her final visit, her voice tight with barely contained tears. “This isn’t strength, Sophia. This is just another kind of breaking.” Sophia stared at her from across the kitchen table, her eyes hollow, her face thin. “You don’t understand.” Sophia opened her mouth to lie but the words died. The pistol sat on the kitchen counter. Sophia stared at it for a long moment. “Okay,” she said finally. “Okay.”
“Put the gun away. You’re not alone in this, Sophia. You never were.” Chloe’s voice was steady and certain. Then Chloe made her tea with honey. Sophia let herself be held, just for a moment, by a friend. That night, she locked the revolver in a drawer and did not take it out again.
The Downtime Sheet
The Character Sheet
Below is the Character Sheet after the downtime events.
