7/25/2019 Purist Tips

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Purist Tips

In a Purist game, the Investigators are no diferent rom anyone else. All humans

lose Health mechanically in the same way.

First Aid can only ever bring you bac to one third o your ma!imum Health

points. All other increases must be gained using the medicine rules. This option

maes hurt Investigators very ragile.

In the Purist mode, "rearms are discouraged. The #eeper may either eep trac

o ammunition use to maintain tension $%three bullets let, and si! ghouls&' or

rule that any Firearms roll $not test result' o ( means the gun is empty $%the

hammer clics on an empty chamber&' and must be reloaded. $A roll o (,

thereore, is an automatic miss.' Ater all, reticent anti)uarians rarely practice

proper aim control or shooting discipline.

In a Purist game, there is no un*learning possible, and comort is ound only in

drugged or drunen stupor. +anity never returns.

The ey moment in any ovecrat story - or in any drama whatsoever - is when

the truth comes out and all hell breas loose. Aristotle called it the anagnorisis

with a nod to /aymond 0handler, we call it the %big reveal.& In the Purist idiom, it

is the moment that the main character pieces together the nature o the 1ythos

and goes to pieces - when 2ilmarth sees the ace

In a Purist Trail o 0thulhu game, the big reveal is one that maes plain the

essential olly or pointlessness o your 3rive, oten by means o some newly

discovered act about yoursel or your amily. Investigators seeing academic

credibility reali4e that publishing their studies will doom humanity those seeing

revenge reali4e that their dead loved ones were willing sacri"ces those seeing

power or its own sae reali4e that it can only come by surrendering your ree

will to monsters. 5nce the big reveal is uncovered, your Investigator no longer

has any 3rive whatsoever. He also sufers a +anity loss, i he already would that

loss is doubled. This is almost always the end o the Investigator6s story - he can

write it down as a cautionary narrative i he survives, and then be dragged

howling of to an institution or end it all with one last gunshot. 5r he can die

horribly $and inormatively', blasted by a convenient lightning bolt or torn to

pieces by his ghoul ancestors. I an Investigator somehow survives the big reveal

with his sanity and selhood remotely intact, he must retire immediately.

For a Purist ovecratian game, nothing you do can improve your Investigator. He

is lucy to still be able to hold his own ater his shattering e!periences. The

#eeper may still allow you to reassign points.

In a Purist game, all supernatural creatures have a 1ythos e!planation.

+ome ovecrat stories have no victory condition7 The 0olour 5ut o +pace, or

e!ample, implies that nothing has to happen, and the monster will leave o its

own accord, or not. 5thers, such as The 2hisperer in 3arness, imply that

nothing can be done at all, and the 1ythos will win in its own time regardless o

player action. This will not satisy most gamers, but it6s a great conclusion or a

hard*core Purist campaign, complete with anagnorisis