The printed word is more dangerous than guns.
Bookshops of Arkham is a web video series created by Roll20 with Chaosium that follows a group of players during a game of Call of Cthulhu with Mark Meer as the Keeper. It is shown on both Twitch and Youtube.
The premise is a group of bibliophile Investigators attend a book auction in a Unitarian church in Arkham, Massachusetts where the Salem Bequest is up for auction. After introductions are made, the player characters find themselves subjected to a horrifying speech by a visiting guest lecturer that ends in his murder by an Eldritch Abomination.
Now it's up to them to find the books that are now out in the wild, wrecking havoc.
The player characters consist of:
- Hazel Berkovitch, played by Saige Ryan: A parapsychologist and aunt of Neil Black. She is arrogant and confrontational but also witty.
- Neil Black, played by Carlos Luna: A diminutive fan of weird fiction. While a grown man, he looks like a thirteen year old boy.
- Judith Van Horne, played by Lucia Versprille: A medium and vegetarian occultist. She is either incredibly tuned in to the supernatural or stark raving mad.
- Mickey Sykes, played by Patrick Logan: A mob enforcer who has encountered the supernatural and seeks to protect the world from it.
It is available here on Youtube's Chaosium channel
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Bookshops of Arkham contains the following tropes:
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Series
- Artifact of Doom: The Salem Bequest is not like normal books in the Call of Cthulhu series where the revelation inside the most dangerous thing about them. Instead, they are full-on Reality Warper artifacts.
- Antihero: Mickey Sykes is one of these, being a mob enforcer. As of Episode Three, Hazel and Judith have joined him in murdering an innocent woman to resurrect Neil.
- The Atoner: Mickey Sykes is willing to die to stop the Mythos and his gangster past means little compared to that.
- Auction: A charity auction of rare books hosted by the local book store at a Unitarian Church is the setting for the first episode.
- Brown Note: The Salem Bequest seems to drive its readers totally insane or summons Eldritch Abomination types.
- Cool Old Lady: Gladys Pinching is non-perturbed by the murder of two people by a monster in front of her and keeps a gun in her car.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Virtually the entire cast as they're a collection of oddballs and Deadpan Snarker types in the typically stuffy academic-filled Call of Cthulhu setting.
- Denser and Wackier: The characters are fairly goofy misfits who are not above pranks or deliberately surreal behavior to entertain.
- Friendly Neighborhood Gangster: Mickey Sykes is a gangster's Elite Mook but he is solely interested in preventing more people from being destroyed by supernatural forces.
- Historical Domain Character: Harry Houdini was a good friend of Judith Van Horne despite her being a medium (finding her too weird naive to be a charlatan).
- I See Dead People: Lucia believes she sees twelve ghosts in the auction house and may possibly be so.
- Lighter and Softer: While still a Call of Cthulhu game, the characters are a lot goofier and the players more prone to acting up than is tradition in Let's Plays.
- Looks Like Cesare: Hazel is a rare female example of this and is part of her Perky Goth theme.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Hazel definitely has this look going for her.
- Statuesque Stunner: Hazel is 5'10 and it is notable that Gladys is even taller.
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: A running theme of the game is whether or not it is better to be ignorant of horrific knowledge or informed to be able to fight it. Hazel believes strongly in the latter while everyone else is more ambivalent.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore:
- The Salem Bequest is a bunch of books leftover from the Salem Witch Trials that would have been burned by the authorities if they'd been found.
- A Modern Woman's Guide to Mythology contains a large amount of Sumerian Mythos secrets despite its quirky author.
- Dumpings and Deities contains a cannibalistic rite to become a god despite being a cook book by a Cool Old Lady.
Episode One
- Bad "Bad Acting": Judith pretending to have gone insane because she's discovered science.
- Bedlam House: Averted with Arkham Asylum as it is a modern (for the 1920s) psychiatric hospital. Then the doctors turn on them and attempt to imprison them.
- Eldritch Abomination: The unnamed monster that kills Lucas Chambers and Angus Johnson. It is a Humanoid Abomination that smells foul and moves like a spider.
- Epic Fail: The guard at the Arkham Asylum is utterly unfooled by their many attempts to use social skills against him, so they end up having to knock him out as well as stuff him in a trunk.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: The monster causes the temperature to go down wherever it goes.
- Evil Smells Bad: The monster is accompanied by a horrific smell.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Lucas Chambers throws himself at the monster in order to try to save Angus Jackson.
- It Will Never Catch On: Roleplaying as a way to treat psychologically damaged individuals.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Gladys suggests this after encountering the monster.
- Sanity Slippage:
- Angus Jackson arrives disheveled and confused before delivering a mad incoherent rant to the book auction.
- Encountering the monster results in everyone losing a point of SAN.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Lucas Chambers' attack on the monster is as heroic as it is pointless.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Professor Chumley's letter in Episode 1 is an elaborate text of five dollar words talking about comparative mythology.
Episode Two
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: After escaping from Arkham Asylum, the player characters gather around to talk at Mickey Syke's safehouse.
- Body Horror:
- The orderlies are covered in cancerous, horrific growths across their faces.
- The surgeons are eyeless and featureless with blank faces.
- Norris has something growing out of his body due to eating a page of the Salem Bequest.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Neil manages to do this by breaking the spell that kept them trapped inside the forest of books.
- Disposing of a Body: Mickey chops up the body of the disabled security guard and tosses it in the ocean.
- Dr. Psych Patient: Doctor White and Doctor Gray have killed or imprisoned the hospital staff to take over the hospital.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Book Forest Tree is something that rests at the center of the evil pocket dimension they found themselves in. It is a living thing that holds a large number of impaled prisoners in its branches.
- Eldritch Location: The book store slowly shifts into one of these, becoming a living forest of books and mossy growths.
- Electroconvulsive Therapy Is Torture: Hazel is subjected to this as part of the torture of the doctors. The others are Forced to Watch.
- Great Escape: The player characters have to escape from the Bedlam House they have been imprisoned in.
- Human Sacrifice: One of the rites the player characters discover is a cannibalistic one to become a god.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The player characters find a article by Gladys about a cannibalistic rite to become gods by eating a sacrifice victim.
- Mad Doctor: A zig-zagged example as Doctor Gray and Doctor White aren't actually doctors.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Doctor Gray and Doctor White are not actually doctors. We don't know if the surgeons are.
- Playing with Syringes: The surgeons are playing with rusty syringes while performing their sick surgeries.
- Sanity Slippage: Hazel suffers a breakdown in the face of the two-dimensional monsters and living tree.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: The heroes are disarmed and imprisoned by the orderlies.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The player characters knocked out and stuffed a guard in their car trunk last episode. When the players arrive at their hideout, they find out that he's suffocated in the trunk.
Episode 2. 5
- Alien Landmass: The player characters are transported to Carcosa by the Lullabies of Carcosa.
- Alien Sky: Carcosa has two suns among other elements that mark it as an alien world.
- Audio Adaptation: Due to technical issues resulting in the episode being lost, they narrate the events for the audience.
- Bears Are Bad News: A group of three skinless bears attack the heroes before they barely manage to escape.
- Cool Old Lady: Penelope Monarch seems to be this before it's proven to be a lie and she's a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
- Bury Your Gays: Elizabeth and Hazel are a lesbian couple in the 1920s when one of them is driven insane by forces unknown. Tragically, Hazel gives up her memory of Elizabeth to the witch in order to gain her aid.
- Deal with the Devil: The old witch agrees to help them in exchange for ears, eyes, a tongue, or teeth. The PCs refuse and instead trade stories, which proves to be even worse.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: The player characters find out that dealing with the supernatural cannot be done safely, even in controlled conditions.
- Grimmification: The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, Jack and the Bean Stalk, and Snow White are all there. All of them are trying to kill our heroes.
- The Hecate Sisters: The Marthas have become a little girl, mother, and crone that work together in the realm of Carcosa.
- The Hero Dies: Neil gives his life to protect the others against The Hecate Sisters.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Every story the player characters tell has the subject removed from their minds.
- Mysterious Waif: Martha Monarch was reduced to catatonia due to the deals she made in the pocket dimension. She's now become part of The Hecate Sisters.
- Wicked Witch: The old woman is very clearly based on this archetype. She is a powerful sorceress living in a hut.
Episode Three
- Apocalypse How: What the Salem Bequest will do if they are brought together. It is implied the books are the key to summoning Yog-Sothoth into the physical world, which will end reality as we know it.
- Back from the Dead:
- Angus Jackson in the most horrifying way possible.
- Neil using a Human Sacrifice.
- Came Back Wrong: The third book in the Salem Bequest can apparently resurrect someone with Blood Magic but there are more moral ways to do it that will have lesser and lesser results. The player characters, being Genre Savvy go for a Human Sacrifice instead.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
- The player characters successfully destroy their second monster by destroying Tristan Gottard.
- Mickey destroys the mysterious Blood Magic monster by stabbing it with the knife they recovered from the tree in Episode Two.
- Eldritch Abomination: The player characters don't know what the massive blood monster is or what its relationship to the Salem Bequest is.
- The End of the World as We Know It: What will happen if the Salem Bequest falls into the wrong hands. Well, wronger hands than it already has.
- Fate Worse than Death: Angus Jackson's severed head is brought back to life with necromancy and mad scientist.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Hazel attempts this on the church librarian and misses her, resulting in Mickey punching the librarian in the face.
- Mad Scientist: Tristam Gottard was resurrected by the third book of the Salem Bequest and is now conducting necromantic experiments.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: A fusion of science and sorcery has been set up in the church's center.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Tristam Gottard is a Mad Scientist articulate revenant who needs to be shot a massive amount of time to put him down.
- Shoot the Dog: The player characters kill Lottie Potts, a complete innocent, to resurrect Neil.
- Shout-Out: The episode is one extended one to Herbert West–Reanimator.
- Wham Episode: The discovery the Salem Bequest must be either buried away or destroyed lest the world end.
- Wham Line: "The Key and the Gate." note
- Would Hit a Girl: Mickey punches out the church librarian in an attempt to calm her down. Everyone else thinks he's gone way too far after inflicting four damage.
Episode Four
- 11th-Hour Superpower: The four protagonists are infused with the power of Yog-Sothoth that they use to slay the Dimensional Shambler. However, it is the end of the campaign..
- A God Am I: Lucas Chambers planned this but ends up the sacrifice instead.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: What the Salem Bequest can do. It makes you part of Yog-Sothoth, however.
- Big Bad: Lucas Chambers is revealed to be the Big Bad and behind the Dimensional Shambler.
- Bittersweet Ending: After being empowered with the power of the gods, Mickey and Judith stay to fight the supernatural. Hazel and Neil ascend to become part of Yog-Sothoth, though. They manage to kill the Dimensional Shambler, though, and prevent the end of the world.
- Breaking the Fellowship: Hazel and Neil become part of Yog-Sothoth while Mickey and Judith stay on Earth to fight evil.
- Came Back Wrong: Neil has 10 points of SAN removed by his resurrection as well as learned the secrets of Hastur's sorcery. He also has a phobia of the color yellow as well as hooks or pointed objects.
- Death of Personality: Hazel and Neil choose to become part of Yog-Sothoth and are just another part of his infinite persona.
- Grand Finale: The campaign ends decisively with a confrontation with Yog-Sothoth
- Human Sacrifice: Lucas is killed by the PCs to make the others gods.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The player characters all, reluctantly, agree to take part in the Black Magic ritual to drink of the blood of Lucas Chambers.
- The Man Behind the Man: Yog-Sothoth is the being that is behind the gods and ancient Sumeria and the threat to the Earth.
- Physical God: The player characters are turned into this by the ritual.
- The Reveal: The monster from Episode One is a Dimensional Shambler.
- Undying Loyalty: Hazel shows this to Neil, willing to leave behind Elizabeth to be with him forever.
