Stale Beer in the Sacred Chalice : Using More Realistic Themes of Spycraft and the Occult In Your Game

"Since They [the supernatural "Secret Chiefs" who provide the basic teachings of occult philosophies] are "invisible" and "inaccessible," may They not merely be figments invented by a selfstyled "Master," not quite sure of himself, to prop his tottering Authority?

Well, the "invisible" and "inaccessible" criticism may equally be levelled at Captain A. and Admiral B. of the Naval Intelligence Department. These "Secret Chiefs" keep in the dark for precisely the same reasons; and these qualities disappear instantaneously the moment They want to get hold of you." - Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears. 

I've written in previous posts about using the post-Great-War British Secret Intelligence Service as a meta-narrative plot device for 1920s-era Call of Cthulhu. In the game I'm currently running, I'm using it to help with world-building, and to provide a convenient source of fresh meat as the "Horror on the Orient Express" campaign ramps up in lethality and insanity.

By asking the Investigators to link themselves to the worlds of both real-world Intelligence and the Occult, I thought I was merely engaging in a clever bit of stagecraft, setting things up so I could easily deal with sudden character deaths and incurable madness down the line. I don't think I quite expected how thematically deep this rabbit-hole goes.

Spycraft Stories and Occult Fiction Share a Lot of Tropes

Without crafting an entire essay on the topic - for that, see some of the articles linked below! - it's worth exploring the ways in which Intelligence Agents and pursuers of the Occult both lend themselves to some of the same story tropes. My intention is to identify what they have in common, and talk about ways you can use that in your own games via NPCs, Investigators, and adding some flourishes to your scenarios.

By the way: I am thinking here of the "trench coat and stale beer" version of spy fiction as opposed to the "tuxedo and martini" kind. In the more grounded and "grittier" version of spycraft, the work is sometimes more dangerous and often more tedious than the action-movie version. For sure it's less glamorous and cartoonish, more John Le Carre' than latter-day James Bond movies.

Here are some traits and experiences that are common to both spy fiction and occult fiction characters.

• Pursuit of secret, dangerous knowledge
• Willingness to spend long, tedious hours on work that may not provide clear results
• Constant paranoia; many in the community exhibit signs of trauma and other emotional scarring
• Feelings of isolation from "regular" people, and difficulty forming close relationships outside the intel/occult communities
• Constant need to keep secrets, even when it harms their wider goals
• Habitual use of secret codes and euphemistic language
• Fatalistic outlook (though some Occult communities are much more upbeat and positive about the future state of humanity, even if they think current humanity is a mess)
• A tendency to live in the now, for immediate pleasures - food, drink, sex, drugs, expensive clothes.
• Belief that coincidences are meaningful, and sensitivity to patterns or "secret messages" that others may not perceive (or may not be real!)
• Belief (sometimes correct!) that the world is controlled by powerful, hidden forces

The two kinds of fictional characters and genres have so much in common that you might not know, at first, whether you're looking at a spy or an adept of the occult. When I was prepping the Zone Rouge version of "Edge of Darkness," I saw an opportunity to bring these themes out in the person of Rupert Merriweather.

Instead of the kindly old friend of the Investigators that he was written to be, I set him up to be a pathetic character, a warning to the Investigators not to expect glamour or success out of their lives. Washed up, desperate, and cut loose by his former masters in SIS, Merriweather is wrestling with the knowledge that he has failed at basically everything he set out to do. He is the last survivor of his circle of his friends, he's sick, he's alienated the British government, and managed to get his wife and son stranded in France as well. He was led deeper and deeper into desperation and mistakes, and all he did at the beginning was try to serve his country in the Army. It was, perhaps, a sobering moment for the Investigators - they reacted with exactly the mix of sympathy and contempt I was hoping to elicit.

So let's lean into these themes and see how they can be used in games like Call of Cthulhu, where the player characters are much more grounded and realistic than in some other games.

One Option: Investigators as Intelligence Agents Looking into Occult Activities

First, you can go the route that I've chosen in the "Zone Rouge" mini-campaign, and explicitly use Intelligence agencies as your organizing principle. In this case, the Investigators all have some connection to the pre-MI6 British Secret Intelligence Service. Since the second-in-command of SIS at that time had an interest in the occult, he naturally feels free to send his field teams haring after occult actors who may pose some threat to Britannia's goals.

There are a lot of ways to go with this, and I'll use some characters from my own table as illustrations:

• An experienced "Double-0" agent, former Sergeant in the Royal Marines, a "wetwork" specialist who uses discreet and tactical violence to remove roadblocks on the orders of his bosses in SIS. As a result of experiences in war and past brushes with the mythos, his paranoia is ramped up, and he seems perpetually on the edge of self-destructive behavior. This is, in some sense, James Bond without the glamour.
• An explorer and adventurer, and semi-retired Army officer, born into a high-social-class family. His connections to SIS leadership are as much social and class-based as anything else, but he did do some "jobs" on behalf of SIS brass during the war. Has a more sanguine view of what's out there, but on the other hand he's experienced less trauma.
• An Egyptologist, brought in to work with this specific team (the Vienna Club) because of his subject matter expertise and proximity to the same social circles that their target (political agitator and occultist Rudolf von Sebottendorf) moves in.
• A street magician who was basically swept up into the group because his sleight-of-hand and a few other skills might be useful. This is his first direct exposure to the dual worlds of intelligence and the occult.

When your players see their characters as spies or other members of the demi-monde, they will tend to incorporate that into their approach. We had a particularly great example of that during the play through of "Edge of Darkness," where the experienced assassin asked if he could check out Rupert Merriweather's hospital the night before their official meeting. 

I said yes (like a champ!) and we parlayed it into a tense, creepy scene, where he wandered alone through a dark and depressing hospital, contemplating the idea of simply snuffing Merriweather out right now, and held back only by his mission directive which required letting the man talk and reveal his secrets. I'll write more about that in the After-Action report, which will be posted next.

Another Option: Make the Occult Investigation Feel Like Spy Work

If you don't want to use Intelligence directly in your game, you can still accentuate the parts of a typical Call of Cthulhu investigation that align with that genre.

• NPCs should seem unreliable or like they have a hidden agenda, even if they're only there to give information. 
• Work in creepy coincidences that may or may not have any bearing on the mystery. Don't drown your players in red herrings, but a judicious use of misleading synchronicity may be warranted.
• Imply the existence of a "bigger bad". Cult leaders always seem to be reporting to someone else. A key contact mysteriously turns up dead just after talking to the Investigators. Call for "Spot Hidden" checks to notice someone in the crowd, who may or may not be watching the party. 
• Encourage the players to watch how their Investigators talk in public. If they're throwing occult or Mythos terms around  in casual conversation, have it catch the attention of a nearby NPC. Why is that NPC suddenly paying attention them...?
• Encourage the players to make a "conspiracy" board or try to draw a Night's Black Agents-style "conspyramid." Over the course of a few sessions, get them in the mindset that everything is connected, and everyone is hostile to them.
• Note: This can tend to slow down play and make the players overly cautious, so you should also use some GM tricks (like giving bland details, or letting the players name or describe an NPC or object) to signal when something is truly not worth worrying about.
• In conversations with "normal" NPCs, heighten the ways that the Investigators' experience is different. Point out a variety of details that set off the Investigator's paranoia, but point out that the NPC is totally calm and oblivious. As things get bleaker and more out of control for the Investigators, NPCs they talk to are increasingly cheerful, going about their daily lives unconcerned.
• If the Investigators have a dramatic sit-down with a cultist or other enemy, try to highlight the growing similarities in personality and worldview. Help the players understand how much more similar their Investigators are to other residents of this twilight world, compared to those who live in the sunshine.

I hope this is useful and interesting to you! Do you have any spies at your table? Have you introduced any of these themes to the occult side of your game? Let's talk about it in the comments!

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Further reading: (some of these are from a slightly disreputable source, so a grain of salt is warranted!)

• The Magus Was A Spy: Aleister Crowley and the Curious Connections Between Intelligence and the Occult
• The British Occult Secret Service, The Untold Story
• Everard Fielding
• Helen Duncan (especially regarding her leaking of then-classified Naval intelligence during a seance)

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Next Post: An After-Action report on the first half of Edge of Darkness (we're scheduled to play it this Wednesday!)

Want more of what I do? I have a number of best-selling Adventures and GM guides for the 7th Sea system available via DriveThruRPG! They are reasonably popular and shockingly inexpensive, so check them out!

I'll soon be working on writing my first-ever CoC scenario for publication, giving it the same "behind-the-scenes development" treatment you've seen so far - so watch this space for future posts on that topic!