Call of Cthulhu, The Wild West, and a Zombie Apocalypse

[Requilac]

Hello fellow playgrounders! I have come here today to ask all your help in designing a one-shot adventure for Call of Cthulhu. Ideas for basic plotlines, specific scenes, monsters to use, tips for presentation, and anything else that could help me create this project are all valuable.

My table group has asked me to create a one-shot for them that takes place in a Wild Western setting. The only two systems I am familiar with are D&D 5e and CoC, and I thought that Call of Cthulhu would be much better at depicting that setting than D&D would. And I also just altogether prefer the simplicity of the CoC system. This will likely be done through roll20 or a similar system than at an actual physical table. Although the table hasn't precisely asked for this, the atmosphere of the Quarantine occurring has inspired me to want to make this one-shot revolve around a sort of mini zombie apocalypse. I thought that Call of Cthulhu, The Wild West, and a Zombie Apocalypse where all elements that could work well together to create an interesting story.

So basically my mission is all in the title: I want help designing a Call of Cthulhu one-shot set in the Wild West where a Zombie Apocalypse is occurring. All ideas are welcome!

[Brother Oni]

Your setting sounds a lot like the Deadlands RPG, which was a horror game set in the Wild West with steampunk elements.

From reading around for a one-shot, your typical 'pressure cooker' situation looks good.

Paraphrasing one setup I read: your players are a posse of marshals and they're approached by a rich rancher.

One of the rancher's neighbours has been arrested for a series of local murders, but it just 'doesn't feel in character' for the man and the rancher wants to make sure they have all the facts before they hang a potentially innocent man.

The players mount up and head out to the neighbours now abandoned farmstead, but get the feeling that something's watching them all the time while they investigate the buildings. A heavy rainstorm sets in and the players decide to hole up in the farmstead until the storm blows over - they catch glimpses of movement outside and they're soon under siege from a horde of zombies. They manage to survive the night and clues from the zombies suggest they came from a nearby cemetery, so they players can decide whether to strike now while there's daylight or head back to town and try and convince the townsfolk to get a posse together and investigate.

Investigate and they end up finding a farmhand of the neighbour who's found this book and is starting to experiment - there's a couple zombies about and depending on what the players do, they can kill him and put down the zombie uprising, or they can mess up the ritual, sending it out of control and they flee for their lives as the whole cemetery starts erupting out of the ground.

If they head back to town instead, the townsfolk bicker and argue so much that night falls... at which point the town is then besieged by the walking dead. If they survive that, then by the time they head back to the cemetery, the farmhand is long gone and the cemetery has been emptied, so they've saved the town, but let the bad guy get away.