As the first real chill of the season settles over Missouri Crossing, Bjorn throws himself into work and watchfulness—trying to balance providing for Johan with quietly gauging just how lawless this new town might become. Gregory, meanwhile, is finally back in his element at the forge, trading tools for furs and finding a small rhythm of normalcy in the constant clang of metal and flow of customers. That fragile routine shatters when distant screams pull both men to the river, where the washerwomen have found something that turns the settlement’s gossip into a full-blown disturbance.

Sister Margaret, shaken from a rare moment of comfort, joins them at the water’s edge to help examine the strange, unidentified body that’s drifted ashore. There are no obvious signs of violence—just a pair of unnerving wounds that don’t fit any animal she knows, and a growing sense that she’s seen those marks once before on someone very much alive. As the body is covered and the camp tries to return to normal, Margaret quietly arranges a secret meeting after dark, ready to share what she’s learned—and what she fears these marks might mean for Missouri Crossing.

About the Chronicle

Call of Cthulhu – Down Darker Trails: Missouri Crossing is a Western horror campaign set in 1867, using the Down Darker Trails supplement for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition. The story follows the founding generations of Missouri Crossing, a rough camp town in what will one day become Bismarck, North Dakota—decades before the events of The Ultimate Evil. As immigrants, veterans, and drifters stake their claim on a cold, contested landscape, they must navigate community, lawlessness, prejudice, and the brutal realities of frontier life. Against this backdrop of manifest destiny, “northern horror” takes shape: long distances, bitter weather, scarce resources, and the creeping realization that some things lurking beyond the firelight are far worse than bandits or hunger.

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