Character Generation - Drives

Drives

“Our motivation after that is something I will leave to psychologists. We knew now that some terrible extension of the camp horrors must have crawled into this nighted burial place of the aeons, hence could not doubt any longer the existence of nameless conditions — present or at least recent just ahead. Yet in the end we did let sheer burning curiosity — or anxiety — or autohypnotism — or vague thoughts of responsibility toward Gedney — or what not — drive us on.”

— At the Mountains of Madness

What motivates an Investigator?

Why uncover blasted ruins, or delve into matters quite obviously best left alone? Because some people – perhaps not the fortunate, or even the brave – are Driven to do so. Every Investigator must have a Drive, a core desire that impels him to seek strange, far truths at the cost of everything he once held dear. It is quite literally something more important to you than your life or sanity. Although psychologically an Investigator may be driven by many different forces, and the player can roleplay her with such complexity, mechanically each character should only have one core Drive. Refusing to follow an Investigator’s Drive, therefore, costs Stability. Succumbing to your Drive can temporarily blind you to the dangers of doing so, adding a thin veneer of Stability as with open but unseeing eyes you descend into the crypt (see p. 72) . If your sanity is imperiled too much you lose even this dubious benefit (see p. 76). Any Drive might impel any sort of Investigator, but some Occupations seem more naturally suited to some Drives than others. Such pairings are noted below. Some Drives, likewise, are better suited to the Pulp or Purist games, although any Drive might motivate any character in any idiom.

Adventure

“In all this planning there was much that excited my interest. The fight itself promised to be unique and spectacular, while the thought of the scene on that hoary pile overlooking the antediluvian plateau of Gizeh …appealed to every fibre of imagination in me.”

— Under the Pyramids

Nothing gets you going like the promise of action, combat, and strange new experiences. You’re an adrenaline junkie and if ichor is the cure, then so be it! Turning down an adventure to “play it safe” is like admitting that your whole life was meaningless before. Especially appropriate for: Criminal, Military, Parapsychologist, Pilot Example: Harry Houdini in Under the Pyramids.

Antiquarianism

“With the years his devotion to ancient things increased; so that history, genealogy, and the study of colonial architecture, furniture, and craftsmanship at length crowded everything else from his sphere of interests. These tastes are important

to remember in considering his madness…”

— The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

The dead past is the only place you feel truly alive. Discovering some truth about it, or simply experiencing old and beautiful

houses or items, is the purpose for living at all. Neglecting the past merely because it seems unsavory is for brutish, mayfly

moderns. Especially appropriate for: Antiquarian, Archaeologist, Clergy, Professor Examples: Charles Dexter Ward, Elihu Whipple in The Shunned House, and the narrator of He.

Arrogance

“I tell you, I have struck depths that your little brain can’t picture! I have seen beyond the bounds of infinity and drawn down daemons from the stars…”

— From Beyond

Your ultimate success will be its own justification, and it is sure to come to you, since only you have the will to grasp it. The rules of petty people don’t apply to you, and neither do their shrinking, timorous fears. Especially appropriate for: Alienist, Scientist Examples: Herbert West, Crawford Tillinghast in From Beyond, Denys Barry in The Moon-Bog

Artistic Sensitivity

“For after all, the victim was a writer and painter wholly devoted to the field of myth, dream, terror, and superstition, and avid in his quest for scenes and effects of a bizarre, spectral sort.”

— The Haunter of the Dark

You are already aware of the numinous and supernatural quality of the world – it is what you seek to capture in your

art, of course. You must follow your Muse wherever she leads, clay in her hands for molding. Nothing, especially not mundane concerns, can stanch your need for inspiration. Especially appropriate for: Artist, Author, Dilettante

Examples: Robert Blake in The Haunter of the Dark, Richard Pickman in Pickman’s Model, the sculptor Henry Wilcox in The

Call of Cthulhu, and possibly Erich Zann. Walter Gilman in The Dreams in the Witch House also essentially fits this pattern,

treating higher mathematics as an art.

Bad Luck

It was generally stated that the affliction and shock were results of an unlucky slip whereby Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley

Cemetery…

— In The Vault

These things just seem to happen to you, although your luck might sour after you dig up a statuette, sleep in the wrong boarding house, or decide to rob a terrible old man. Bad Luck is essentially the same as being Cursed. (See p. 75 for how Bad Luck or Cursed works with the Drive rules.) Especially appropriate for: Criminal, Hobo

Examples: The sailor Gustaf Johansen in The Call of Cthulhu, the narrators of Cool Air, Dagon, The Music of Erich Zann, and

The Picture in the House. In a less starkly cosmic game, bad luck can be earned: in The Temple, Captain von Altberg-Ehrenstein brings doom upon himself and his men by torpedoing the freighter Victory.

Curiosity

“Any reference to a town not shewn on common maps or listed in recent guide-books would have interested me, and the agent’s odd manner of allusion roused something like real curiosity.”

— The Shadow Over Innsmouth

When confronted by a mystery, you can’t help but investigate. Damn the risks, there’s something going on here and you’re going

to figure it out! If you don’t, it will just drive you crazy worrying about it. Especially appropriate for: Journalist, Parapsychologist,

Police Detective, Private Investigator, Scientist Examples: Randolph Carter in Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and the narrators of

Beyond the Wall of Sleep, The Lurking Fear, The Colour Out of Space, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Duty

“Duty came first; and although there must have been nearly a hundred mongrel celebrants in the throng, the police relied on their firearms and plunged determinedly into the nauseous rout.”

— The Call of Cthulhu

You know it’s dangerous and ill-advised, but somebody’s got to go down those steps or bust up that cult. And you’re elected, because if you don’t take care of things now, they’re just going to get worse. If you don’t, who is? Some time-serving goldbrick just counting down the days until their pension? Don’t be ridiculous. Especially appropriate for: Clergy, Doctor, Military, Police Detective Examples: Inspector Legrasse in The Call of Cthulhu and Detective Malone in The Horror at Red Hook, the sailors and G-men who expunge The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the colonial-era posse that burns out Curwen in Charles Dexter Ward, Professor Armitage in The Dunwich Horror.

Ennui

“…finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.”

— The Hound

Perhaps you had one experience that you’ll never get again, or perhaps you’ve just read about such things in decadent yellowbacked

novels. You’ve tried everything else, and nothing else matters. So what if it might kill you? At least that would be different.

Especially appropriate for: Artist, Dilettante, Military Examples: St John and the narrator in The Hound, Randolph Carter in The Silver Key, Thomas Olney in The Strange High House in the Mist, and to an extent Jervas Dudley in The Tomb.
Follower

“…they were terrible studies, which I pursued more through reluctant fascination than through actual inclination. Warren dominated me, and sometimes I feared him.”

— The Statement of Randolph Carter

This wasn’t actually your idea, and you’d like that put in the report somewhere. But someone else – someone who’s important to

you for whatever reason — went down into that tunnel, and you’d better go after them to make sure they’re safe. Or to make sure they don’t pick someone else to hold the field telephone next time. In an ongoing Trail of Cthulhu campaign, you should pick a fellow Investigator (ideally a foolhardy one) to be the person you follow. When – er, if – they die, you may switch to a different “leader,” or switch Drives to Revenge. Especially appropriate for: Doctor, Military, Police Detective Examples: Randolph Carter in The Statement of Randolph Carter, Herbert West’s assistant, and the narrators of Pickman’s Model and Hypnos. Followers can also be friends or family members such as the narrator of From Beyond, Dr Willett in Charles Dexter Ward, Daniel Upton in The Thing on the Doorstep, Norrys in The Rats in the Walls, or Ammi Pierce in The Colour Out of Space.

In the Blood

“I thought the room and the books and the people very morbid and disquieting, but because an old tradition of my fathers had summoned me to strange feastings, I resolved to expect queer things.”

— The Festival

Quite frankly, you’re not sure why you keep coming back to the moldering graveyard, or poring over those antique texts. But queer behavior runs in the family, apparently. Outsiders wouldn’t understand. Especially appropriate for: Antiquarian, Dilettante Examples: Charles Dexter Ward, Arthur Jermyn, Delapore in The Rats in the Walls, and the narrator of The Festival. Thurston, the narrator of The Call of Cthulhu, inherits his uncle’s research. Olmstead, the narrator of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, turns out to be motivated by his ancestry, though he doesn’t know it. Such a secret — perhaps shameful — Drive is perfectly suitable for Trail of Cthulhu Investigators. A player can even request such a secret Drive without telling the Keeper which one he’s requesting, and without discovering what his Investigator’s Drive is until it emerges in play (see p. 75).

Revenge

“Ezra Weeden, though his periods of espionage were necessarily brief … had a vindictive persistence which the bulk of the practical townsfolk and farmers lacked…”

— The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

Something out there hurt you, or hurt someone you care about. Therefore, it must be destroyed, burned out, taken down, exposed

… whatever it takes, and whatever it costs. Any trail that might lead to your vengeance is a trail you have to follow to the

bitter end. Especially appropriate for: Criminal, Private Investigator Examples: Ezra Weeden in Charles Dexter Ward, and the

narrator of The Lurking Fear after the death of his friend Munroe. Followers like Dr Willett (in Charles Dexter Ward) may

change their Drive to Revenge if their associates are killed, sucked through a portal, or otherwise removed from play.

Scholarship “I felt sure that I was on the track of a very real, very secret, and very ancient religion whose discovery would make me an anthropologist of note.”

— The Call of Cthulhu

Uncovering the truth about the world is what true scholars do. It’s certainly why you spend all that time in those libraries; why

you track down sole survivors of isolated backwoods cults; why you learn languages not meant for human throats. Whether

you’re seeking tenure, the acclaim of your fellows, or just the satisfaction of expanding human knowledge, you Investigate in order to find the underlying pattern of things. Especially appropriate for: Archaeologist, Professor, Scientist Examples: Professor Angell and

his nephew Francis Thurston in The Call of Cthulhu, Professor Dyer and his party in At the Mountains of Madness.

Sudden Shock

“Had he, then, witnessed some appalling ancient rite, or stumbled upon some frightful and revealing symbol in the priory or its vicinity?”

— The Rats in the Walls

Something has ripped the scrim off the world, and you can’t go back to believing in Baby Jesus and FDR anymore. Whether it’s

your long-dead great-grandfather holding cannibal feasts in your basement, the things you saw on the Innsmouth Raid, or just

a chance encounter with the Outside, you might as well go further in, because you aren’t going back any time soon. The player should come up with the specifics of the Sudden Shock, unless she’d like her Investigator to have amnesia (hysterical, traumatic, or Yithian-induced) on the subject. This latter option allows all manner of cruelty on the part of the Keeper, and is Drives

highly recommended. Especially appropriate for: Parapsychologist, but any, really Examples: Walter de la Poer in The Rats in the Walls, Professor Nathaniel Peaslee in The Shadow Out of Time.

Thirst for Knowledge

“I don’t wish to put you in any peril, and suppose I ought to warn you that possession of the stone and record won’t be very safe; but I think you will find any risks worth running for the sake of knowledge.”

— “The Whisperer in Darkness”

You must – you must! — learn the secret lore of the cosmos. This is not footling, footnoted scholarship. It is the quest for truth. You don’t want to advance human knowledge – the herd don’t desire, or deserve, to know what lies behind the walls of the world. Only you (and perhaps a few fellow initiates) truly burn to possess such secrets, and only you are willing to do what it takes to get them.

Especially appropriate for: Archaeologist, Parapsychologist, Professor Examples: Both Henry Akeley and Albert Wilmarth in The

Whisperer in Darkness, Harley Warren in The Statement of Randolph Carter, the narrators of The Nameless City and The Lurking Fear.