The Lightless Beacon - Module Review for Call of Cthulhu
A Starting Place for New Players as They're Stranded Amidst the Storm and Deep Ones.
TL; DR: The Lightless Beacon is an excellent hour-long, free adventure for new Keepers and players, and a pleasure for those more experienced. However, The Lightless Beacon’s sand box elements make The Haunting or Paper Chase better choices for first-time game masters.
Full Review
The Lightless Beacon, written by Leigh Carr and Lynne Hardy, is a survival horror adventure with a layer of creeping dread added in. In it, the Investigators are shipwrecked on a light house island where the beacon has gone out. (Hence the name.) While in the background, eldritch creatures lurk.
This is a great set up for a one-shot, particularly for Keepers with no prior Call of Cthulhu experience and coming from D&D. The cadence is reminiscent of a D&D adventure, though common enough in other pulpier modules in Call of Cthulhu. Plus, the short run time (theoretically an hour long, likely two), excellent GM advice, and being free on Chaosium’s website, make it an appealing starting point.
Now this isn’t to say experienced Keepers and players won’t enjoy The Lightless Beacon. Quite the opposite. It’s quicker pace and flavorful pregens make it a great filler episode when a few players can’t make it. (It also works well with your player’s existing Investigators.)
The Lightless Beacon’s actual problem is Call of Cthulhu’s array of excellent introduction modules. For example, Paper Chase is a lighter introduction to the system while focusing on investigation mechanics. While The Haunting’s handouts give new Keepers a better structure to work off of. (The latter of which is also free.) And neither is as likely to overwhelm a new Keeper with running a split party.
If you think The Lightless Beacon might be for you, I suggest reading on. As I’m going to delve into how I run The Lightless Beacon with occassional design commentary.
The Hook: Stranded on the Lighthouse Island
As with any time conscious one-shots, The Lightless Beacon doesn't ask for the Investigators to get on board with the hook. It drags them out like the tide. And, in this case deposits them, shipwrecked, on an eerily empty lighthouse island off the coast of Massachusetts in the middle of the night.
In another adventure, I might have an issue with the lack of emotional stakes. But The Lightless Beacon is survival horror, where the question is “do you survive?” So, it works well, especially if you lay on the urgency think. Which you can do with narration to highlight how bad the storm is.
If you want to go further, you can add a series of checks to help guide narration. For example, the Investigators need to succeed on three checks before failing on three checks to avoid taking one point of damage. It’s much more dramatic, potentially impactful, and gives room for role play. However, if time is a consideration, The Lightless Beacon’s approach of getting the Investigators ashore as soon as possible is the correct one.
Keepers looking for extra potential for role play would do well to ask players to use the pregens. Each is given a specific motivation and connection to the lighthouse island. And it’s always a delight to watch players act out roles with each other, especially when their characters make them privy to otherwise hidden knowledge.
(Again, using the pregens remains far from mandatory.)
Investigation: Where the Beacon Doesn’t Shine
As an hour-long scenario, The Lightless Beacon doesn’t hide where the Investigators need to go. It doesn’t have time for a proper investigation and its climax. So, really, until the Investigators enter the lighthouse, enjoy moving things around just out of sight for added paranoia.
As an example, the noise of the generator pulls the Investigators towards. But the players also get a Spot Hidden roll to notice foot prints of a man chased by something with webbed feet. And the players can absolutely decide to follow them, which leads to a gun, a dead man, and poisonous spines. More evidence something is wrong, reinforceable with something moving in the buses.
Spicier Keepers, willing to kill players before the climax, can even show a Deep One Youngling (the monster) for a round or two as it attacks an Investigator. Just long enough to ambush a character and clearly communicate danger.
If you do this, create an additional pregen for the corpse. Then hand them to the dead Investigator’s player. That way, the player isn’t sidelined, and they can provide extra information for the other players.
However, I’ve glossed over the fact that players might split the party to follow the foot prints and generator. Cutting between groups is a learned skill, so try it if you’re comfortable or ready to push yourself. But it’s also okay to explain where you’re coming from and ask the players not to split up.
Any which way, the players will need to rejoin at the lighthouse or be kept out of the climax. Which brings me to the next part.
The Final Location: The Generator, The Lighthouse, and The Fish Folk.
As the Investigators get closer to the lighthouse, the generator makes it perfectly apparent someone should be around. Someone had to be fueling it. And you can add more small signs of people living here. Boot prints or marginalia written on the equipment, for example.
The lighthouse takes everything I just said up a notch. The players start finding the Deep One’s gold and putting together what’s happening. And I like to add blood falling down the lighthouse town, in case the Investigators aren’t already hunting for weapons. But it also marks a more obvious end goal.
(Note: if playing in person, do yourself a favor and write the weapon stats on index cards. Then hand them out.)
Once the players get to the end goal, they fill find the Deep Ones and the lighthouse keeper’s dead bodies. Along with the radio that’ll allow them to call for help once the storm clears. However, as the Investigators are sorting everything out, the Younglings attack.
I really appreciate how The Lightless Beacon goes over how new Keepers can modulate difficulty. And how the players might be bitten by inattention earlier in the module. Because it’s a great example. But it also allows observant players to avoid combat by handing over the gold.
Once the Younglings are gone, figuratively or literally, The Lightless Beacon ends. The players can fix the radio or take the dinghy back to land. However, it’s such a tidy ending it’s difficult to spawn a campaign from The Lightless Beacon.
Concluding Thoughts
The Lightless Beacon is an excellent adventure. While targeted toward those new to Call of Cthulhu or TTRPGs, there are enough here for veteran to enjoy. Its short nature also makes it easy to slip into a campaign when not everyone is there. However, it lacks a lack of hooks for future adventures, making it more of a standalone affair.
In short, I wholeheartedly recommend The Lightless Beacon to anyone interested in it. Especially coming in at the low price of free. (And I haven’t even mentioned the fantastic production values.)
Thank you for reading and have a great day. If you don’t want to miss next week’s article, Call of Cthulhu’s The Necropolis, I suggest subscribing below.