Spare Some Change?

He stands outside the bus station playing badly on a harmonica, it could be “Auld Lang Syne” perhaps. He is bundled in greasy overcoat belted with string and you shudder to think what may be in his pockets. The coat is covered with badges including one with a pyramid and eye, and one bearing the motto “Watch the Skies.” His greying beard is long and unkempt, with “things” in it. His hair is no different.

As he turns his watery eyes towards you an unpleasant, red-blotched bald patch (or is it shaved?) about the size of your hand is clearly visible above his left ear. Moving the harmonica from his mouth, he wheezes at you. “You’ve seen it too, eh? You’ve seen it. You can’t fool me nor them neither, heh heh heh, an’ that’s why their watching you too. They sees everything!”

He nods excitedly in the direction you have come from. Looking back you see two tall, clean-shaven men in dark suits and shades; they could be watching him, or they may be watching you.

Possibilities

1 Robert Beauchamp was a former rising star scientist in the government defence programme. He dropped out (ethical differences) and disappeared. The government has finally tracked him down and considers him a security risk. The men in black are government agents who intend to apprehend Robert, after ascertaining the extent and nature of his real or imagined contacts. They monitor everyone that Robert takes an unusual interest in. As far as the investigators are concerned, this might prove disastrous.

2 In hunting for pickings in the bins outside a corporate office late one night, Robert heard a strange and unearthly wailing. Peering through a window he witnessed corporate officials engaging in some kind of communion with an eldritch being. He fled in terror but was filmed by a security camera. As the players chance on him, corporate agents are moving to abduct and silence him. If he never gets a chance to speak about what he saw, the only clue to where he had been is some crumpled office stationary bearing the company logo in his filthy pockets.

3 Robert suffers from amnesia. The marks on his head are the results of experiments he has suffered at the hands of cultists who held him prisoner and tortured him for extended periods. He has no idea how he escaped – or even that he was ever tortured. Robert has been arrested several times, and his scars have piqued the curiosity of a secret government department responsible for investigating strange phenomena. The suited watchers are from that organisation but do everything to disguise their motives and employer. They are observing Robert to see whom he contacts and, perhaps more importantly, who contacts him.

The Broken Mirror

The Broken Mirror

Arnold Schintz is a reclusive man who has had several episodes of insanity in the past. He recently disappeared in a puzzling manner, from a locked room with no windows (perhaps even his cell in an asylum or prison), leaving only the shards of a large, broken mirror and strange symbols drawn with blood on the walls. The police would suspect murder or suicide, but no body has been found and the room would seem to have no possible means of entry.

Possibilities

1 Arnold Schintz was a wizard or cultist engaged in magical warfare with his enemies. One evening, a member of a rival cult used Schintz’s mirror as a portal to enter the room and murdered him. He took the body with him when he went back through the mirror, and drew his cult symbols on the walls with Schintz’s blood as a warning to others.

2 Arnold Schintz’s insanity was brought on by his obscure researches into occult practices and non-Euclidean geometry. At some point in his studies he found a ritual to open a gate through a mirror, by drawing special geometric symbols on it in one’s own blood. When his family and friends became worried about the odd directions his research was taking, he feared that he would be committed to an asylum and used the mirror gate to escape to another plane. He may now be literally anywhere in the universe, perhaps even in Limbo.

3 During Arnold Schintz’s previous episodes of insanity, he exhibited an intense fear of mirrors and refused to stay in any room where one was present. He became obsessed with the idea of his own dark side, which he believed he had awakened through some seemingly innocent ritual or party game involving a mirror. Lately he had begun to abandon these ideas as childish fantasies, but it turned out that he was right all along. Last night, Schintz’s shadow-self crept out of the mirror and killed him, then dragged his body back to the strange, twilight world which exists behind all mirrors. Anyone who closely examines the symbols written on the walls will soon receive a visit from their own mirror image, which may try to kill them or take them back to its own world and then replace them in this one.

© Emily Johnsen

The Bibliophile

He just loved books. He always had. They were his passion. His life.

He could remember the first book his parents had given him. A huge collection of Menchen (fairy tales). It was bound in a dark burgundy leather, with gold-embossed ridges of the spine. And the insides were full of wondrous illustrations. Fairies and goblins and fell monsters galore.

He still had that book of Menchen. He had all the books he had ever been given or had bought. Lovingly organized and shelved upon tall, dark wood bookcases scattered all over his house. He would never give up a book. Never. Not on his life.

His love for books grew and grew. It was natural that at university he study history & languages. All those tomes full of words & pictures. Those gorgeous books, bound in leather and cloth. He got to the point where he did not care what the books actually said, he just loved the look and feel of books. And the smell... But the best of all was the satisfaction of ownership when he added a book to his collection.

Some friends of his at university had become investigators of sorts. They had learned of a certain dark cult who prayed to dark gods inimical to mankind. In the course of their investigations, they stumbled across an ancient grimoire. They brought it to him to translate. When he saw that book, his soul became inflamed.

The book was bound in a leather he could not identify at first. It was human skin. He was seized with a lust for that book beyond any lust he had ever felt before. He had to wholly possess that book, but he knew his friends would demand the return of the book.

However, his friends never returned to claim the book. Misfortune took them in the night and left only pieces of them behind. He took this a sign that his passion was condoned by higher powers. He began to seek out more books like the grimoire.

He did not want the books for the secret lore or spells they contained. He never really read the books. He would carefully handle the books, but reading might damage the books, so he did not. He wanted the books, because he could then own them. Possess them. Caress them. And shelve them away.

He sought out other investigators of the unknown. He befriended them and wooed them with his knowledge and vast mundane library. They brought him these forbidden book for him to translate and comment on. He then engineered their demise, often by carefully sent messages to the very dark cults from which they had liberated the books.

His collection grew. His secret collection. His lovely books. Tomes not only bound in leather, but in skins: human, exotic animals and skins of unknown species. Tomes with jewels incrusted upon them, or covered in barnacles, or blackened from fires. Books printed upon paper, painted upon vellum, or etched in iridescent metals. Scrolls and papyrus leaves and wax tablets. He collected them all and lovingly placed them on shelves hidden from sight. His, all his.

But he is always looking to increase his collection...

Possibilities

1 You have heard of a reclusive scholar who has a collection of books with just the exact tome you need. You go and talk to him, but he will not even let you touch the book. To stop the evil cultists, you must have that book. So, you sneak back and steal the book. You remove a book from his collection. He pursues with a vengeance, possibly alerting the cultists about your plans.

2 In a small, hidden bookstore you purchase the first edition of a rare volume. The owner sells it to you, but mentions that another gentleman had called about the book. He did not have the funds but mentioned he would be back. The owner just wants to sell the book and you have cash in hand. You don’t give it any more thought until you hear about the bookseller’s murder. The bibliophile punished the book dealer and he is after you now. You took “his” book and he is coming to reclaim it.

3 During a raid on a cultists’ stronghold, you run across some disturbing letters. An anonymous source is telling the cult about activities, names & addresses of investigators. Investigators whom you knew and who have just been murdered. Someone is informing on your friends and getting them killed. There is an informant somewhere, you just need to identify who it is. You start questioning the murdered investigators’ associates for the culprit. Eventually you will come across the innocent-seeming bibliophile.

© Brent Heustess

The Poisoned Sailor

A doctor is awakened in the middle of a rainy night by furious banging at his front door. If opened, a desperate, haggard-looking sailor will storm in, pleading for help. He rolls up his shirt’s sleeve, offering his horridly bulging arm for examination. Swelled and blackened, it appears to be affected by necrosis. The man begs for help, claiming he was poisoned by a rival.

“Duh bastar’ hates me guts cos my business runs strong, an’ he’s a lazy, warty ol’drunkar’ who can’t keep ep. He’s poison’ me drinks! Help me please, ain’t wanna die, oh Gawd!”

The arm responds to no medical treatment the doctor can come up with. Hospitals have no more success. The necrosis worsens by the hour.

Possibilities

1 The sailor is telling a half truth. The ‘rival’ isn’t simply jealous because of business competition, he’s seeking something the sailor has: an old trophy from a shipwreck, looking like a copper bracelet with intricate designs. The rival, actually a follower of Dagon, knows that it’s a piece of deep one jewellery, and badly wants it. Since the sailor refuses to part with it, the cultist has cursed the sailor, and will later contact the sailor for a bargain.

2 The sailor has tainted deep one blood, but is also cursed. His now-dead (human) mother found the strength of will to break free of the bonds imposed by her monstrous consort.

Furious by such unprecedent behaviour, the deep one asked Dagon to curse both she and any offspring she might have in the future. Any descendant would come to the world doomed to end his life, transformed into a ravenous human-eating monster, one far more horrible than the most degenerate deep one hybrid. Unfortunately for the sailor, the onset time for the transformation is over... but perhaps there is a way to reverse it.

3 The sailor really is poisoned, but it is incredibly potent. A creation of a serpent man sorcerer that the sailor had wronged. But how?

© Ricardo Christe

Pygmalion

A sculptor has been found dead in his desolated atelier, right in front of his latest work. It appears to be a massive black marble statue of a body, though big parts are still unfinished. What irritates is that the body seems to have multiple legs, oversized arms and something that looks like wings extruding from the back.

The other works in the atelier are normal sculptures of people, animals etc., mostly done for commission. The sculptor was considered normal, perhaps a bit reclusive, but within the range of what people expect from an artist.

Possibilities

1 The sculptor was a gambler and in high debt. He got an offer from the leader of a circle worshipping an ancient entity to secretly create a sculpture of this being for a high sum of money. Unfortunately, the criminal elements he owed money wouldn’t wait any longer, it came to a fight in his atelier and he died. The circle leader, when becoming aware of the sculptor’s death, considers this an affront against his cult and has taken measures to punish the murderers while trying to get possession of the statue...

2 The sculptor created the statue after the image of a creature he repeatedly saw in his recurring nightmares. The sculpture became alive by night and started walking around in its unfinished form on its stumps. When the artist realized, he tried to destroy the sculpture, but the being killed him. It still becomes alive at night...

3 If inspected more closely, it becomes apparent that the artist did not try to create a sculpture of a strange creature - but rather there is a creature enclosed in the marble. When the artist started to work on his next sculpture for a rich noble, the creature awakened and, after a short mental struggle, took control of the sculptor’s mind to carefully free it from its prison. Unfortunately, longer mental contact with the creature proved to be deadly for the sculptor. The creature still longs for its freedom...

© Philipp Mählmann