Correspondents in Trail of Cthulhu
Over at the Pelgrane Press Blog, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan writes about adapting an ability from one of Pelgrane Press's other GUMSHOE games, Night's Black Agents, into Trail of Cthulhu.
We're preparing to launch into Eternal Lies very shortly. I wonder if I can get one of my players to try this ability out.
At any point, you may allocate a point of Correspondence to create a new NPC Correspondent. Each point you spend gives that NPC two points to spend on any Investigative abilities. Note the NPCs’ name and abilities down on your character sheet. Points used to create an NPC stay allocated to that NPC forever – they don’t refresh at the end of the adventure. If you want to keep your Correspondence pool topped up, you’ll need to spend experience points on it.
The NPCs you create are, by default, in some distant city. They’re not around to help you directly, but you can write to them and ask them for their advice (in other words, you can spend their Investigative Abilities to get benefits, but you’ll need to wait some time for their reply to come back).
For example, Willoughby Boothroyd just discovered a curious idol in a cellar, but lacks the Anthropology needed to understand its significance. His player permanently spends two points of Correspondents and declares that Boothroyd’s cousin Cecil is a noted archaeologist and ethnographer. Those two points of Correspondents translate to four investigative ability points for Cecil; he’s now got Anthropology 3 and Archaeology 1. Boothroyd’s player notes ‘Cousin Cecil: Anthropology 3, Archaeology 1’ down as a contact. Boothroyd stuffs the idol into a packing crate and sends it off to Cecil. A few days later, he receives Cecil’s report on the idol, which contain the clues obtainable with a 2-point Anthropology spend.