A Cthulhu-themed GURPS Bunnies & Burrows game
with Randy Milholland

The Lurking Burrow 
Who doesn't love cute, fuzzy bunnies?  Someone at Miskatonic University, that's who.
Rabbits have been vanishing from the warren and it's up to a few brave souls to find out why.
This is a table-top role-playing game for 3-7 players using GURPS Bunnies & Burrows rules.
Characters will be provided.

That was the description printed in the Katsucon 2012 (just outside of Washington DC) schedule for a late-night event on Friday February 17. For those who don't recognize the name, Bunnies & Burrows (the GURPS product) is exactly what it sounds like: a role-playing game in which your character is an intelligent rabbit. There is another (and much darker) RPG called Call of Cthulhu, which features very powerful evil monsters and unspeakable horrors, commonly resulting in characters going hopelessly insane (the lucky few) and dead (the sizeable majority), if handled correctly. Randy, in a stroke of diabolical genius, created a one-session module by combining the two, and has run it many times at various conventions since at least 2007. Since anything involving the Necronomicon should be extremely difficult for human characters to deal with and survive, we expected this to be a no-win scenario at best for our bunny characters.

Here's the list of Randy's victims players for the night, which he says might also be his last:

player bunny         remarks                                
Alex Oakroot athletic; sturdy
Barb Cornfeed herbalist
Ben Stripe fighter
David Roughage fast; overconfident
Jhim Sprig seer
Nick Chamomile psychic
Tora! Raspberry daredevil; storyteller; linguist

Almost all of us who made it to the table were drawn to the event because we enjoy Randy's excellent and long-running webcomic Something Positive and had signed up on his "B&B" list at the table he was sharing as usual with Danielle Corsetto (author of the wonderful webcomic Girls With Slingshots) in Artists' Alley. Another dozen or so people also showed up; sadly there was no room for them. A few stayed to watch for a while, but eventually left. [A sincere thank-you to the anonymous gentleman who was kind enough to take some photos of the game in progress.]

At this point, I'll shift to present tense to describe what happened during the session — in first-person as a player, in third-person as my character.

10:30 PM
This is Randy. He defies analysis.

Randy explains the basics of GURPS, mostly about dice rolls always being 3d6 with low=good and high=bad (a natural 3 always means you succeed perfectly and 18 means you fail horribly). Throughout the night, he gave several examples of each from previous games.

We spend half an hour getting our characters assigned (Randy ended up handing them out randomly) and getting the basic information about our environment: a large warren, headed by a king, on the grounds of a New England college in the winter of 1929. The human construction consists of

The inhabitants of the area are:

The story begins with the characters formed into an adventuring party by direct order of their king, who is very concerned about the recent disappearance of several rabbits, the latest being everyone's friend Briarthorn, the warren's scribe. No bodies have been found, and in fact it was some time before it was even realized that individuals were missing. The king wants to know if this is still a safe place for the warren; if he doesn't get satisfactory reassurance in two days, he will lead a migration back to the forest, as not even the bountiful greenhouse is worth the dangers currently faced.

11:00 PM
Must … stay … alive!

Raspberry interviews Briarthorn's best friend Springleaf, who, although agitated that he had not been picked for this adventuring party, manages to calm down long enough to tell us that Briarthorn had found a new tunnel into the kitchen in the main human building. This confirms the result of Cornfeed's investigation of Briarthorn's journal. Sprig uses his mental abilities to divine the exact location and method she had used to enter the building: a brick at ground level on the south side of the Lodge which can be worked loose.

Everyone successfully stealths-up by covering themselves in snow and head west. As we skirt the fountain, two crows up above us make loud comments to each other about how tasty our corpses will be. Raspberry leads an exchange of remarks for insults in an attempt to gain information, but nothing useful comes of it.

As we turn back towards the Lodge, one of the cocky birds makes the mistake of taunting us by flying too low . . . low enough for Oakroot to suddenly jump up and slap the avian silly. His bravado is short-lived, as the noise wakes the dogs! We dash frantically past the fountain and around the corner. Sprig quickly finds the brick we need, and Oakroot redeems himself by ripping it from its entrenched position with a mighty heave; we scurry inside and pull the brick after us. We've made it into the cellar.

11:30 PM
Randy had us laughing throughout the night

Randy informs us that we are the first group ever to have made it this far into the module without splitting up. We decide that this reflects well upon our vastly superior gaming skills, pat ourselves on the back, and move on.

We immediately regret our entrance, though; the stench in here chokes us, thick with the scent of death. A huge cask reeking of fermented berries dominates the room, and we can see trails of blood leading up (or down?) the wall. Only a few moments of searching are necessary to find Briarthorn's body. She appears to have died horribly, and Sprig confirms it to have been so via his mental abilities: her head was literally ripped from her body by what she saw to be an extremely small human.

Rats! Fortunately Raspberry is able to initiate communication with them. They are slightly mistrustful at first, but their attitude softens thanks to her diplomatic skill, and an entire carrot (tossed to them by Roughage) dazzles them to heights of uncharacteristic generosity (for rats, anyway). They tell us of a hole under the cask which leads to the mole tunnels (they don't go there), of the cat which lives upstairs (whom they avoid), and of the small human which killed Briarthorn. They even point out the location of the key for the door leading to the house proper. However, when the mice are mentioned, their emotions instantly turn cold and angry; the mice have "gone bad". This puzzles us, since rats are normally quite capable of overpowering the smaller, weaker mice. The rats are so shaken by the mere mention of the mice that they leave.

After discussing the three possible routes, we rule out the hole under the cask (since the moles almost certainly have nothing to do with our mission) and the hole/door high up on the wall (too dangerous). Since this leaves us only one option, Oakroot manages to dexterously retrive the key from on top of a beam, Sprig confirms via Telescan that there's no one waiting on the other side, and we manage to unlock and open the door out of the cellar. At this point we learn the rats are indeed cunning instead of generous: a gleeful "Thanks, suckers!" is heard as they scurry past us and out of sight, presumably to the kitchen.

12:00 AM
But we were also caught up in the game as well

We hop out of the cellar, and unanimously decide that anything we'll consider interesting won't be on the ground floor, so we head upstairs. As we head down the hallway, Chamomile becomes entranced by a trophy case full of the most beautiful shinies ever seen, and he reaches up to touch (read: knock over) them. Raspberry and Cornfeed try to talk him out of this dangerous course, to no avail; Roughage solves the problem by leaping and body slamming him to the ground. Roughage warns everyone of a strange scent he's never smelled before, coming from the walls — it's not human, it's not cat, it's not rat or mice or dog or snake or mole or anything. The others begin to sense it also, but we notice the cat approaching, so we head up to the next floor.

We reach the library at this point. The door opens as we approach, revealing several mice who think it would be wonderful for us to come inside. We don't agree, so they tell us a little bit about a human who reads a magnificent book in the room, and Chamomile decides that we need to learn more about it. We physically drag him back, at which point the mice (I mentioned there are dozens, if not hundreds, of them, right?) line up in rows and being marching, which is pretty damned unnerving. That is not what mice do! We just barely manage to get everyone in the party back in the hallway before the door slams shut.

We move upstairs yet again. Roughage wonders why the stupid humans felt so compelled to make such a tall building. Cornfeed feels a powerful inspirational speech coming on, maybe something along the lines of "Briarthorn did not die in vain!", but doesn't quite stir up enough motivation. We hear a voice from the next room — almost human, but not quite. We get close enough to make out words and hear
THEY FEED ME, THINGS COULD BE WORSE
and
THIS IS MY HOME, WHY WOULD I LEAVE?
which turns out to be a myna bird, who introduces himself with a grandiose flap of his wings as Gaston the Magnificent. Raspberry suggests that we could open his cage to free him, but he is remarkably uninterested in the idea. She and Cornfeed persist, until he shrugs (quite an achievement for a creature with no shoulders) and says, "Naw, I'm good." He demonstrates his lack of concern on the point by easily slipping between the bars, exclaiming, "You see, I can go whenever I want."

12:30 AM
Ben, Nick, Alex

Randy informs us that we are the only group to converse with Gaston, and in fact a character once actually killed "that damned noisy bird". We pity the groups who have gone before us, as clearly the myna is extremely awesome and an enjoyable part of the module. Truly, we must be the finest players to have ever graced Randy's game. There being no mirrors available in the conference room and thus no further way for us to admire ourselves, we resume our characters' rush to insanity and/or death.

We hop up another flight of stairs towards the room which Gaston called an "office". Everyone manages to make their Stealth roll, so we reach the door hopefully unnoticed. Chamomile uses a recently found paper clip to unlock it, Sprig uses his Telescan to verify that the room is clear, and we enter. We slowly realize that the place is full of dead creatures. As Roughage is examining one dead rabbit, it suddenly turns to him and croaks out in great pain, "kill me". He immediately snaps the poor creature's neck. We look around but don't see anything recognizably valuable for completing our mission, so someone [Stripe or Chamomile or Oakroot?] decides that the best course of action is to burn it. Not all of us agree, but he hops onto the desk and successfully starts a fire . . . and an Evil Undead Zombie Monkey appears! [Technically he is an orangutan, but you can't beat how "Evil Undead Zombie Monkey" rolls off the tongue so we'll stick with that. Plus of course we're rabbits, what the hell do we know about primate taxonomy?]

Oakroot immediately tries Bun-Fu™ on the EUZM but the creature is too quick, too experienced at hand-to-hand paw combat, and much too strong — he easily grabs Oakroot's entire body and begins pulling. Stripe leaps towards the monster and bites it, judging that he'll do more damage that way than by clawing. Unfortunately, there's a heavy price for that type of attack: he suffers a sudden wave of intense nausea and vomits. Roughage launches himself at the monkey and claws, but the EUZM is far too tough for us to damage easily. Chamomile jumps onto some shelves above the battle and begins maneuvering bottles and jars around. Some of us notice that other creatures are stirring, quite possibly to join the fight against us. Cornfeed intelligently stays out of the monster's reach and throws stinging nettles at it, successfully wounding it more than our claws but still not enough to significantly hurt it. Roughage yells for everyone to attack simultaneously, as it's the only way to defeat it.

1:00 AM
Barb, Tora!, Jhim

The others respond to Roughage's rallying cry to battle by dashing out of the room, led by Oakroot (in the sense that the EUZM throws him at the wall in that direction, thankfully he's a tough S.O.B. and walks off the bruises like a Real Rabbit) and Cornfeed. Stripe bravely faces down the monster face-to-face and Chamomile knocks over a bottle of poison (which misses) while Raspberry and Sprig hop out into the hallway doubletime. Roughage realizes that battle is not the way to go now, so he also heads out but stops at the doorway, waiting to see if Stripe or Chamomile will need covering attacks to retreat. Stripe not only manages to escape the monster's clutches but taunts him while doing so, aided by Raspberry's use of Ventriloquism (somehow making the sound of a female monkey come from the far opposite corner of the office). As for the last party member remaining in the room?

Chamomile throws/knocks a jar full of a clear liquid at the EUZM. He was probably hoping for some acid to burn it or something gunky to blind it, but we'll never know since bunnies don't get Speak With Dead. It contains nitroglycerin and the entire office * D E T O N A T E S * in a furious explosion which annihilates the orangutan, destroys the desk, obliterates every book and piece of paper, blows out the entire outside wall, and kills every creature within — including himself. A true Blaze Of Glory moment indeed! R.I.P. Chamomile, ya gutsy bastard!

Lights come on in the dorms (of which we now have a splendid, uninterrupted view) and humans begin calling out to each other, so we're now operating under a much tighter clock. Gaston zooms up from the floor below and flies full speed out the no-longer-existing wall into the night, screaming
WE'VE GOT TROUUUUUUUBLLLLLLE!
He's not kidding, either, as another Evil Undead Zombie Monkey (this one a chimpanzee, for those keeping score) leaps upstairs! [Damn, the DM doesn't give us any time to feel good about killing the Boss before throwing more challenges at us.] This EUZM is tussling with the cat, but not for long; it simply wrings the feline's neck, which apparently uses up all nine of its lives. Knowing when we're outclassed, we turn back to where Gaston flew out; looking down, we realize the explosion extends down into the level under us, so we carefully hop down amidst the brick, glass, and mortar to enter a new room. At this point we can all increase our skill level in "Chimpanzee, Physical Abilities, Knowledge of" as we watch the second EUZM easily descend after us. Curses! Who knew that the bloody creatures are built to jump around like that?

Just as the monster is about to attack us, Gaston, bless his heart, comes swooping back in to blindside it, knocking it over and giving us time to escape downstairs.

1:30 AM
Ben (Stripe), Jhim (Sprig), Nick (Chamomile), Randy, David (Roughage)
Tora! (Raspberry), Barb (Cornfeed), Alex (Oakroot)

Roughage, somehow sensing that this is what Chamomile would have wanted, insists on heading back to the library to make one last attempt to destroy the book. Raspberry, being emotionally incapable of abandoning a fellow rabbit to certain stupid suicidal death, volunteers to help him; the others, possessing the Minimum Daily Requirement of self-preservation, promptly head downstairs. Yes, the party finally split, and so close to the end, too . . .

The larger group makes it down one flight and encounters Duke, who, recognizing that something extraordinary must be happening, urges them into a room before the humans see them. They quickly relate the high points, and he bounds upstairs to attack the evil undead chimpanzee. Sadly, the only sounds they hear next are Duke's anguished cries.

Raspberry convinces the mice to let the two of them in, Roughage promising to be polite. It's pitch black inside the library, and they're both surrounded by dozens (at least) of mice, but soon a side door opens to reveal a large book on a stand with many lit candles on either side. The mice urge them — especially Roughage — to read the book, as it will absolutely give him power over the snakes, over the moles, even over the humans! Roughage plays along and willingly walks toward the book, while Raspberry hangs back and begins trying to figure a way out. As soon as he gets close enough, Roughage attempts to knock both book and candles over, initiating a fire . . . and succeeds brilliantly! [I rolled a natural 3. Go me.] Chaos reigns, several mice are burned, all the rest are panicking, and flames are springing up all around — except for the book, which remains pristinely untouched. DAMN DAMN DAMN. Ah, if only Roughage's poor lagomorphic brain was capable of understanding that there are some things in this world that fire just can't destroy, and this unholy manuscript is one of them. [Of course I knew that you never read a book in CoC, and such books cannot be eradicated by normal means — but my character did not.] The mice recover their freakish zombieness and are putting out the fires, but at least in the confusion Raspberry is able to knock a hole in a window facing the hallway to create an escape route.

Fortunately for Duke, the groundskeeper is only a few moments behind him; the next sounds the other bunnies hear are heavy boots stomping on steps, followed by several gunshots almost directly above them. Like most rabbits, they suffer from a fear of loud noises and begin to freak out.

Roughage tries desperately to make the flames catch on the pages of the book, but nothing happens. He begins trying to chew the pages, a decision the book seems happy with, as it easily gain's control of his mind [i.e,. I tanked my INT save]. The mice, on the other hand, definitely resent his course of action . . .

Raspberry deduces what has happened to Roughage, realizes he cannot be saved, and hightails it out of there before the mice can focus their attention on her. She is able to reunite with the other four bunnies in the room below the library; the circumstances are such that they quickly recover their mental equilibrium from the loud gunshots. They peek out their door and are just able to see the groundskeeper headed back to the ground floor carrying a headless monkey, accompanied by a wounded yet still living Duke. In the confusion, the five are able to slip down the staircase and out of the Lodge.

Out of ideas for destroying the book, Roughage is trapped by a thousand mice, who have apparently given up their "Convert the Bunny" campaign and are ready to substitute the more traditional "Non-Believers Must Die" plan. It looks like a Butch & Sundance moment for sure, and Roughage prepares to go out fighting, taking as many mice with him as he can. But then he hears a voice, and he realizes it's the book in his grasp, whispering "Point me at them and open me." Having nothing to lose, he does so . . . the voice says "Now close me", which he does . . . and all of the mice, hundreds of them, are simply gone. He gets the faint impression that they are inside the book, but he cannot comprehend that, so he ignores it and listens to the voice . . .

At this point (1:45 AM) Randy called the game. Five out of seven made it back to the warren to report to the king, so the adventure was deemed a relative success . . . not bad for an unwinnable scenario.

None of us ever went near the kitchen, which was unusual; most parties went straight there upon emerging from the cellar and encountered the chimpanzee then, but we missed him completely until he came upstairs after us.

Everyone had a great time, both in and out of the context of the game. Randy handed out pieces of paper and asked each of us to write down the name of the player/character who made the evening "the most fun". That was very difficult, as everyone had contributed and several had done some excellent role-playing. I was honestly surprised to learn Roughage was the popular choice. Any thought of humility or modesty fled when Randy handed me the prize: a pink Choo-Choo Bear plushie! I had lusted after it from the moment he pulled it from his backpack when setting up to start the game, and I had already resolved to buy one if any were available, so I was intensely happy with it (which you can see on the table in the photo above). Thank you very much, Mr. Milholland; that gift will be greatly appreciated for many years, in addition to providing yet another memory of the fun we had. I also thank the other participants, as we all played well together. 



Randy is an excellent DM.  A+++, would game again!