The City in the Skull

It is a most peculiar object. A human skull, beautifully engraved in a curiously ragged script and with its eye sockets filled with emeralds. A perfectly circular hole has been drilled in its top.

If the skull is placed over a candle, the light shining through the jewelled eyes throws a strange vista of a fantastic cyclopean city across nearby walls. As the candle flickers, it almost seems as if there is movement.

Possibilities

1 The city glimpsed in the flickering candlelight is the ruined city of Sarkomand in the Dreamlands. The skull helps dreamers find their way to the city and from there to the rest of the dreamlands. Careful research eventually reveals that the engraved script is a simple incantation. Washing the skull and reciting the incantation activates the skull. Upon falling asleep, the character's dream self is safely transported to the dreamlands.

Unfortunately, Sarkomand is close to the Plateau of Leng, whose inhabitants are known to be hostile to casual intruders. Worse, the skull is cursed, and upon activation summons the vengeful spirit of the person who was killed to make it.

2 The image of the city is an optical illusion caused by flaws in the jewels. There is nothing magical about the skull at all; it is merely priceless.

Investigators researching the history of the skull will find that it was stolen from an Aztec treasury by unknown conquistadors. It was stolen again upon its arrival in Spain, and next appeared in 1612 in the treasury of a monastery in Alsace. The monastery was destroyed in 1650 and the skull vanished.

The skull later appears in France, among the treasures of Louis XV. During the French Revolution, it disappeared, and was believed to have been destroyed by the revolutionaries.

Unfortunately, the skull brings bad luck and disaster - as well as attracting thieves from afar. If the investigators hang on to the skull, something bad will happen - soon.

3 The city is Mu. It really does exist, and it is actually inside the skull. When mad Zhoras, the immortal God-King of Mu, realised his land was doomed, he placed it within his skull using his powerful magic. Because of its magical nature, Zhoras' skull is virtually indestructible, and Mu has survived for untold millenia.

The writing on the skull is in the language of the serpent people, added at a much later date. Once translated, it proves to be a gate-spell to the city. However, getting from the city back to the real world is much harder. Furthermore, Zhoras still rules within the skull, and exacts a fearsome toll on trespassers.

© Matthew Grossman

The Mirror of Blood

The Mirror of Blood is a spell; the basic ingredients are an ounce of benzoin (an aromatic gum), coriander seeds, and some fresh human blood. It requires two people to cast it. The viewer cups his hand, upon which the caster cuts a glyph, enough to draw blood, and the hollow then fills with blood. As the viewer looks at his reflection, the benzoin and seeds are burnt and the reflection turns into a scrying window. The viewer can nominate whatever he wishes to see, which he need not have direct experience of. To maintain the image requires more blood.

The mirror shows broad vistas rather than details, and it becomes blurred
if the focus is too narrow.

If the mirror is used too often, the viewer suddenly sees ‘the Man with the Mask’. He may previously have been half-glimpsed in the background, and although his dress changes according to locality, he is always masked. This time, he is at the front of the scene, staring straight at the viewer.

The masked man is Hastur, summoned by the use of the spell; as he takes off his mask, the effect on the viewer is horrific: skin bubbles and festers, as do internal organs, until the body swells up and bursts. So die all who presume upon the King.

Possibilities

1 The players find quite detailed instructions on how to cast the spell in a modern, quasi-mystical, book. While the rest of the book is obscure rubbish, this dangerous spell obviously works.

2 The Stars are Right, and the time of Hastur’s permanent release from Carcosa draws near. Over the coming months his worshippers will become more active, and portents of Hastur will multiply; the effect of this spell, though terrifying and strange, is merely an indication of things to come.

3 If the spell is used at night and Aldebaran is over the horizon, then after the horrific death of the viewer, something more horrific yet happens; the corpse rapidly begins to distend and become scaly, while the limbs become tentacular, and the face distorts into pseudopods; Hastur has come to occupy his avatar. In his own way, he is grateful to the caster of the spell for allowing his return to Earth; grateful enough, if the caster is still present, to take him back to the Lake of Hali. Eventually.

Inspired by The Mirror of Ink by Jorge Luis Borges.

© Charles Ross

The Last Carriage

During an overnight rail journey the train unexpectedly slows and stops at a small station shortly after midnight. Passengers who are still awake are politely informed that supplies are being collected. Although it is dark, the station looks to be old and in a state of disrepair. A damaged sign reveals only part of the station’s name. Nobody is seen outside the train, but passengers in the penultimate carriage hear clanking noises towards the end of the train, followed by a slight jolt. After about 15 minutes the train resumes its journey.

The next day when the train reaches its destination, observant passengers note that nobody leaves the last carriage.

Possibilities

1 The railway staff are part of a cult serving a small tribe of ghouls using the disused station as a base. The train stops at night and the final carriage is replaced with an empty one. The guards are brutally efficient in silencing non-sleeping passengers in the final carriage. Most passengers are destined for the ghouls’ dinner table, but a few are to become ghouls themselves.

2 The occupants of the last carriage were taken over by the Great Race of Yith who, when fleeing the Flying Polyps, chose to spend time in the present. Rather than move directly among mankind, they have chosen to hide themselves away for a short time and learn about the world. They are currently living in the abandoned station, aided by human allies.

3 The unfortunate occupants of the last carriage have become the victims of a cult obsessed with youth and beauty. Gas rendered them unconscious and they are now prisoners at the station. During the next full moon, the cult sacrifices the prisoners, using Steal Life to regain their lost youth.

© Robin Low

Jenny Beckett’s Ghost

Whilst travelling late one night by car, the investigators spot a shadowy figure by the side of the road as it enters a wood. A young woman paces backwards and forwards and looking in their direction. She seems to be wearing inappropriate clothing for the weather. Should the investigators stop to help, the young woman vanishes before their eyes.

If the investigators are in such a rush that they drive right past, at the last moment the woman steps in front of the car, seemingly unaware. There is no impact, no crash, no body bouncing across the windscreen. When the investigators’ skid to a halt they find no body, nor any evidence of one.

Instead, all they find is a small stone dedicated to the memory of Jenny Beckett sitting in the verge.

Further investigation reveals that Jenny Beckett was murdered at the roadside on the night of June 21st, 1826. The killer, Arthur Langton, was caught and hung, but reports of Jenny’s ghost soon became common. A local gypsy pronounced that unless a special inscribed stone was set to remember her death, then Jenny would continue to haunt that stretch of road.

Once the stone was put in place, the ghost vanished. The stone was blessed by the gypsy and inscribed thus: “To the memory of Jenny Backett, that her soul may rest in peace and she need wander no more”.

Now, however, it seems that Jenny Beckett is haunting the road once more, and it is not long before she causes a fatal accident.

Possibilities

1 Recently, road repairs have been carried out, and the road widened. The stone was taken up during the repairs and then replaced. Unfortunately, to be truly effective it needs to be blessed by a gypsy again.

2 Jenny’s ghost is waiting still for the man she was meant to meet at that spot – Thomas Longstock, her sweetheart. Jenny’s ghost appears sporadically in the area of her death and always around the time of the murder.

The gypsy was only partly right about the stone, which in itself is not enough to lay the ghost to rest. That can only be done by placing something that belonged to Thomas Longstock beneath the stone, no easy task considering he’s been dead for many years.

3 Michael L. Withers is the great-grandson of the man hanged for Jenny’s murder. His family has always maintained that Arthur did not commit the crime, but the Langton family were forced to leave the area after the hanging. Michael was always an impressionable boy and his grandmother’s stories have sent him to the scene of the crime.

© Lynne Wilson

Images of Doom

An investigator is in an unfamiliar shopping district. The usual hubbub of shoppers seems slightly more restrained than one would expect. It is then that the investigator sees an old woman approach a young lady with a pram. The old woman coos delightedly at the baby in the pram. The mothers proprietary grin changes to a look of shock, then horror as the old woman reaches inside the pram, grabs the baby by its foot and swings it out of the pram dashing its brains open on a lamppost.

Stunned silence is followed by havoc as people rush to restrain the old lady. The mother is crouched on the floor with the remains of her baby cradled in her arms, humming a lullaby to herself as she rocks to and fro. The crowd loses all restraint as it rips the old woman apart, literally limb from limb. After this the crowd dissipates leaving the young mother swathed in blood and still singing quietly to her dead child. Of the mutilated old woman there is no sign except for masses of blood.

Possibilities

1 The investigator is experiencing horrific nightmares. It’s all a dream. As the week continues the investigator dreams of the old woman time and time again. Every time he sees her, she is committing an atrocity: mutilating animals, setting fire to people, torturing children, sexual perversions, and so on.

There seems to be no way out of this ever-deepening spiral of depravity – Is this the first sign of madness?

2 A worshipper of Nyarlathotep, Jackson Richards, has been having problems with a local woman with great experience of fighting cultists. Aware of the investigator’s previous experiences with cults, he has inflicted him with horrific images of this woman’s “activities”.

None of the events are real – they are all in the investigator’s mind. That doesn’t make them any less disturbing. When the investigator bumps into the old woman he “saw” earlier, his fear and repulsion should propel him into precipitous action against her.

To push him further along that path, Richards sends further images: the mint she pops into her mouth is a human eyeball; the sly looks she throws the investigator’s way; the strangely shaped, almost cloven, foot she hides beneath her dress. All these images should convince the investigator that action is required against this woman immediately.

If the woman is dealt with, Richards puts the second phase of his plan into action . . .

3 A nerve toxin has been released into the air by followers of Y’golonac. This toxin removes peoples’ inhibitions against violence. It takes some time to take effect and was released over a week ago in the town. The investigator, having only just arrived, is so far unaffected. The toxic effects get stronger and stronger until the town becomes a war zone.

Even if the investigator leaves town he will feel the effects of the toxin pretty soon.

© Simon Taylor

Ghost in the Machine

From: laura@karr.aol.com
To: john@soda.berkeley.edu
CC:
Subj: Help!

Received: From laura@karr.aol.com by soda.berkeley.edu
 Sun, 8 Oct 1995 20:36:26 PST
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 1995 18:34:15 MST

John? It’s Laura! You gotta help me, I’m in deep trouble. I’m at the institute, I feel so strange. They’ve got me hooked up to this machine, and I’m cold, I can’t feel a thing. I’m afraid they’ll pull the plug on me, joh;owqihefp8y2er99@@oweh934yrhflknflkjsndfk

*****************************************************************

Then the message breaks off and continues for a while with several kilobytes of ASCII-trash. Attempts to mail back are futile, as the Internet connection is now offline.

The message is from Laura Sinclair, with whom the recipient (John) has extensive email communication. Six weeks ago, Laura, a psychology student with a background in computer science, left college to participate in some kind of cutting-edge research program with the Karr Research Institute located about 35 miles outside Golden, Colerado. Laura never told the investigator what kind of research she was to do there, but she was very excited about it. The investigator hasn’t heard from Laura since.

However, there is something weird going on. The email is dated around 6:30 p.m. and was sent from the Karr institute. However, according to Golden, Colorado authorities, Laura died in a climbing accident near the Institute. She was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. on the day the email was sent – a full three hours before she sent the message!

Possibilities

1 The Karr Institute, high up and isolated in the Rocky Mountains, has recently been taken over by the mi-go, who run a mining operation nearby. The Fungi from Yuggoth killed the scientists and placed their brains in control cylinders. They attached Laura’s brain to the institute’s powerful mainframe computer in order to examine this human technology. The mi-go dumped the bodies in a crevice, but accidently dropped Laura’s, which was found.

In a clear moment, Laura’s brain sent the email to John. After noticing this, the Fungi disabled all the computer’s connections to the outside world and have since left.

The dimensional shambler attacks!

Laura’s body, with its surgically removed brain, has caused a stir in some parts of the FBI. News of the body’s odd mutilation has been quietly suppressed as the authorities mount their own investigation.

2 It is a trap. An old enemy of the investigators infiltrated the harmless Karr Institute and murdered Laura. He staged a climbing accident and then wrote the mysterious email to get the investigators attention. If they take the bait, the villain will blow up the only bridge to the institute, trapping them. Then he, she, or it, summons a dimensional shambler to drag his enemies to screaming hell.

3 The Karr Institute is headed by Dr Lawrence Karr, a brilliant but unscrupulous psychologist. Karr, funded by a secret government agency, runs a research project in human-computer communications combining virtual reality technology, neuronal networks, hypnosis and certain drugs. Karr’s real goal is to establish mind control with virtual-reality enhanced hypnotic messages. He has met with success.

But something went wrong. Laura, a latent psychic, somehow merged her mind with the institute’s computer during an experiment, leaving her body dead. Karr panicked and had his brainwashed assistants stage a climbing accident in order to avoid investigation.

Laura’s mind, trapped in the computer, managed to access the email program and write a message to the investigator at 6:30 p.m. Karr noticed and turned the computer off, garbling part of the message.

Any investigation runs into a dead end - and the cover-up operation of a government project turned sour.



© Markus Huenemoerder

Period Pains

The investigator is used to occasional period pains, but never this bad. She is in absolute agony, feeling as though her insides are on fire. It started yesterday and the pain is just increasing and increasing. Intense bursts of pain alternate with incessant sharp, stabbing sensations. Unable to concentrate for any length of time and, at its worst, even unable to walk, she is finding it increasingly difficult to work. Sleep is possible (but only for short periods of time) but reading or anything that requires concentration is almost impossible. Her doctor has dismissed her complaints of higher levels of pain than usual as “Just a bit more severe than usual” and has prescribed painkillers that have no effect whatsoever.

Possibilities

1 The investigator is the victim of a devious cultist. Utilising ancient spells, she has created a non-physical manifestation of pain in the investigator which she is then tapping for her own means. She uses the psychic waves of agony to drive her attempts to summon Y’Golonac. The cessation of pain that precedes Y’Golonac’s arrival probably give the investigator great relief – until she realises what it portends.

2 The investigator has been impregnated by Shub Niggurath in its guise as the Ram of the Thousand Ewes. Nightmares soon begin, letting the investigator relive the moment of impregnation. If this doesn’t drive her to suicide, then she will soon give birth to a chitinous creature consisting of claws and fangs and little else. This creature burrows its way through the investigator’s abdomen, bursting out into the world in a spray of blood. After eviscerating the investigator, it flees to dank woodland where it grows to become a form of Dark Young.

3 During the few snatched moments of sleep the investigator’s dreams are filled with horrific images of blood and pain and unborn creatures mewling. Always waking in a cold sweat the feverous heat of her pain soon takes over. This constant swing of delirium takes its toll and the investigator finally collapses.

Rushed to hospital, she is diagnosed as suffering from a rare tropical disease extant only in certain jungles in South America. How on earth did she catch the disease?

Everything seems fine now that her malady is cured, but four weeks later the disease resurfaces and continues to do so every month. Her dreams are now tormented not only by the cries of unborns but also by a pox-marked figure dressed in a tattered robe and bearing a tattooed symbol on his forehead. Who is it and what further horror does it presage?

© Simon Taylor

Sylvia

The investigator finds a little girl on his doorstep quite late one evening, lost. She is very pretty with long curly blonde hair and dressed in an expensive dress.

Circumstances are such that the Investigator should have little choice but to allow her in and put her to bed for the night, in anticipation of sorting the problem out in the morning.

An hour after she is put to bed, the girl gets up and strips herself naked. She then proceeds to mutilate and torture herself, scattering blood around the Investigator’s home. Examples include: pulling her fingernails out, setting fire to her hair and burning herself, smashing her teeth and bones, tearing her face and ears off, putting fish-hooks into her flesh, and blinding herself or putting out an eye.

During the procedure, which is undertaken in complete silence, she is careful about the forensic evidence, trying to ensure that this is as incriminating as possible: for example, she may cut and slash (especially around the genitals), and eviscerate, herself using the Investigator’s kitchen knives, but being careful about fingerprints; similarly, she may hang herself by the heels, or even crucify herself (if she can do this without waking the Investigator) but being careful about the blood patterns.

Early the following morning, she leaves the Investigator’s house and staggers to a neighbour. She gasps out a story of torture at the Investigator’s hands and dies. The police soon arrive . . .

Possibilities

1 The little girl is a zombie, programmed and sent by an enemy of the Investigator. When she first arrives, she appears slightly cold and pale and, of course, has no pulse, although none of this is readily apparent (especially in poor light). The girl has swallowed two pints of blood which she later vomits out to provide a more horrific scene on discovery. This may not be the little girl’s blood group. (Note that there would be nothing logically wrong with the autopsy finding blood in the stomach if the girl tore or cut her tongue out.)

Inconsistencies would include a greater amount of blood than would be expected, anomalous blood-splatter patterns, and the fact that she appears actually to have been dead for four days prior to her ‘death’. However, with such an open-and -shut and disgusting case, the police are unlikely to pursue other leads unduly.

The Investigator’s previous career is suddenly under intense police scrutiny, which may well bring up previous offences and implicate other Investigators.

2 The girl really was lost and was everything she appeared to be. As she
slept, she was the victim of a spell directed at the Investigator.

Unfortunately, the Investigator is still a target.

3 The girl is a dreamer, and blundered into the dreamlands. There she attracted the attention of a minor dreamlands deity, Priebe (a god of suffering and pain), who followed her back to the waking world and, while she was still asleep, forced her to mutilate and kill herself. Her sacrifice provided enough psychic energy for the god to remain 24 hours - unless he can force someone else to do the same thing.

Following the Investigator to the police station, the god enters one of the officer’s dreams and kills him. (He may make the jailer unlock the Investigator’s cell - remember that this will be at night - and the Investigator, if he is awake, may or may not attempt to intervene or escape.)

On the third night, another officer is chosen. After five deaths, the god is strong enough to enter a conscious mind. At this stage, with complete control of a human, the killings increase rapidly as Priebe grows careless of his activities.

© Charles Ross

The Princess Claire

Something is wrong on board the Princess Claire, a luxury cruise ship. For the past eight months, three or four passengers have vanished on nearly every trip. Naturally, this cannot go on unnoticed or be allowed to continue. Enter the investigators...

The owner of the ship, Gerald Whitmore is onboard, along with his daughter Irene. Other people of note include Marcus Carlton, an acquaintance of Whitmore’s rumoured to have ties to organized crime; Sean Lyons, a wealthy young man just out of med school; and Dr. Muraki, a famed Japanese surgeon and private personal physician of Irene Whitmore. (Irene was born with a heart condition, and credits Dr. Muraki with saving her life.)

A rumour circulating among the ship’s crew is that the disappearances are the work of the ghost of the first passenger to vanish, a young woman named Iris. But if it is, then she’s been very quiet for most of this particular voyage; no one has disappeared yet. Despite this, Whitmore seems very stressed and worried.

Eventually, someone lets slip that Whitmore and his daughter were on every trip where passengers vanished.

Before this connection can be investigated, bigger problems arise. Marcus Carlton is found dead in the VIP lounge; his heart literally cut out of his chest, and taken away. Dr. Muraki performs an autopsy, and discovers that Carlton was actually strangled to death. A note is found next to the body, addressed to Irene Whitmore: “I did this for you. I am the one that truly loves you.”

Upon reading it, Irene faints, and is immediately taken to her cabin and tended to by a concerned Muraki.

Suspicion falls equally on Whitmore and Muraki; a crewman witnessed Carlton having an arguement with Whitmore, and there is a possibility of blackmail.

But Dr. Muraki obviously knows something about it, and hints that Carlton was only the first. But the doctor is quickly cleared of suspicion: he is found dead in his bed the next day. There is another note just like the first, and Irene becomes confined to bed. Sean Lyons volunteers to perform the autopsy and finds that Muraki was poisoned.

Two days after the doctor is killed, any suspicions that Whitmore is the killer seem confirmed when he is discovered in his own cabin, apparently a suicide. A final note is found, and is identical to the other two.

Possibilities

1 The disappearances had nothing to do with the murders. Sean Lyons has been quietly stalking Irene for months, and has decided to make his move.

Carlton made an unwanted pass at Irene, so Lyons strangled him in a rage and cut his heart out. He poisoned Dr. Muraki at dinner from jealousy at his spending so much time with Irene. Then he faked Whitmore’s suicide, both to take suspicion off himself, and because he felt that Whitmore was keeping him from his beloved. Lyons will be very sympathetic and comforting, but if Irene does not return his affections, he may become violent.

2 The disappearances are the victims of an organ theft ring based in a concealed operating room onboard. The idea was suggested when Irene had a heart attack during a voyage, and Dr. Muraki felt that the only way to save her was to perform an emergency transplant. He found a passenger who would be a likely donor: Iris, the young woman who vanished first. He murdered the girl and transplanted her heart into Irene. Unfortunately, Whitmore cooperated with that, and Muraki used that leverage to set up the operation. Carlton found out about it and tried to blackmail Whitmore.

Unfortunately, Whitmore was tottering on the edge of madness, tormented by guilt (and ghostly voices that only he heard). He finally snapped, and strangled Carlton. Muraki cut his heart out because it was a perfect opportunity. Whitmore then killed Muraki, knowing that the doctor would never let him stop otherwise. Then he committed suicide in order to spare his daughter from finding out about it.

3 Dr. Muraki is not dead. He was running the organ theft ring, but not for the money. Muraki is a sorcerer, and it was merely to cover up his own nefarious researches. He has finally completed his project, therefore saw no reason to maintain the charade. Carlton tried to force him to keep doing it, so Muraki hypnotised Irene into killing him and cutting out his heart. He then faked his own death, and hypnotised Sean Lyons to provide a feasible autopsy. After he had the run of the ship, he had Irene kill her father.

The notes served a dual purpose: they confused matters and amused his perverse sense of humour. If discovered before the ship docks, Muraki tries to have Irene kill the investigators. He is also very powerful and has access to very powerful spells. If Irene is somehow freed from his control, he tries to murder the girl and anyone who knows his secret, by magic if possible, but he has no objections to more physical methods.

(Inspired by Yami no Matsuei: The King of Swords.)

© Megan McKnight

The Fatted Calf

Hilary Eastfield notices that over a period of several weeks she is gaining weight. No matter how much exercise she does or how little she eats she keeps piling on the fat. There is no end to her ever-increasing girth and calculations reveal she is steadily gaining a pound a day. Doctors shed no light on the phenomenon and give the impression that they think she is hiding psychological problems that manifest themselves as a compulsive eating disorder.

Maybe they are right. However, if Hilary asks a close friend to keep watch on her at all times she discovers that the weight gain has nothing to do with excess eating and actually occurs at midnight every night.

Possibilities

1 Hilary has been selected as the next carrier of the Bloated Woman avatar. Upon reaching about 400 pounds she is visited by a tall, strongly-built man with jet-black skin who rapes her. As he does so, Hilary’s soul and consciousness are driven out of her body and the chaos of Nyarlathotep takes over.

2 Hoping to derive power from Ghatanathoa, a witch, cultist and sorceress has identified Hilary as a prime sacrifice. As sacrifices need fattening, she is using her powers to bring this about. If Hilary is unable to track down the witch, she will eventually be visited by a manifestation of Ghatanathoa who feasts upon her living flesh.

3 Craig Hampson is the grotesquely fat leader of a local cult. His voracious eating habits mean that he has had to find a way to rid himself of the excess weight. Whilst trawling through ancient Sumerian texts he found a spell that may help him.

He selected Hilary at random; his trial victim. His spell is a success and weight transfers from his frame to Hilary’s. Once she dies (from obesity) he chooses another victim.

© Simon Taylor

End of the World

Every psychiatrist that has interviewed Henry Joseph Rodgers agrees that he is insane. He claims to have witnessed the end of the world. Not in dreams or visions, but that he was actually present when the Great Old Ones came through.

The police arrested Henry when he was found wielding a gun on the steps of a local church. He claimed the pastor was ‘The Black Man’ and would open ‘The Way’ for the return of ‘The Great Old Ones.’ The pastor, Reverend Douglas, declined to press charges, but the local police held Henry on: Disturbing the Peace; Reckless Endangerment; Illegal Possession of a Firearm; and Discharging a Firearm within City Limits.

Henry claims that he and three friends were drawn into the opening of ‘The Way’ as the Great Old Ones were entering. Henry and his friends apparently spent some time in ‘The Void’ before returning to either an alternate dimension, or an earlier point in time of a now slightly altered world.

Henry killed his three friends when it became obvious that they were possessed by ‘Things from Out There.’ As a result of his first interview with the police psychologist, the police found the bodies, and charged Henry with the murders.

Other than well documented psychiatric interviews, there are no records of Henry J. Rodgers . . . He was not born, he did not marry, he never drove a car, he never voted . . . He is a non-entity as far as the government is concerned. And like Henry, the dead friends are similarly non-existent.

Possibilities

1 Henry really is insane. In his paranoid state he falsified his identity: Henry Rodgers is not his real name and does not exist.

‘Henry Rodgers’ may be of use to the investigators: he once was an investigator and may hold information useful for them. Unfortunately, he is quite mad, and quite dangerous.

2 Henry is insane, but he is also for real. Everything happened (or will happen) as he said it did. If the investigators are familiar with his extensive ramblings they may notice similarities - such as a blood moon on the first of the month, a nil-nil superbowl result, and so on.

But when you know the end of the world is nigh, what do you do?

3 Henry is a cult lure, designed by slightly-rational cultists to see who their enemies are. They will wait to see who checks out Henry Rodgers’ story beyond the usual detectives and shrinks. Then, they will kill any investigators they identify.

Of course, this is not all bad news. The investigators may encounter other investigators looking into Rodgers’ story, and perhaps together they may survive the cult’s onslaught.

© M. J. Aylor

The Phennor Fragments

The Phennor Fragments are a set of 53 stone triangles discovered by Professor John Phennor during an archaeological dig in Iraq. The equilateral triangles are about a half inch thick, their sides measuring about three inches. They have etched marking extending to the centre of each edge. Phennor guessed that if the triangles can be assembled correctly, it will be possible to translate the symbols. Other scholars suggest the markings are a map, or even a game. Since the symbols appear to be unknown, translation is an impossible task.

Possibilities

1 The fragments cannot be translated. They are the divination tools of a long-dead Persian sorcerer, and worked much like a set of Tarot cards. Individuals with an aptitude for magic may realise what their purpose is, and how to use them. Intensive study of the triangles results in odd dreams with worrying predictions.

2 47 triangles are missing from the set. When complete they can be arranged into a single large triangle – which shows a map to the Well of Eternal Life. Some of the missing triangles are still at the dig site, others are in the hands of murderous collectors who know what the triangles really represent: immortality.

3 If soaked in a mild acid, the triangles take on a marbled appearance which quickly aids their assembly. Once the 53 triangles are assembled, they emit a bright light, and fuse together in the correct configuration. Then, they start gently throbbing. What is going on?

© Robin Low

The Scarecrow

A small village has recently been the target of a series of murders, all sharing the same modus operandi. The victims are found impaled by a large pitchfork against a convenient wall. The murders have occurred on a weekly basis, always on the same evening; the killer has already struck six times – once during each of the preceding six weeks.

Small patches of straw have been found littered around the dead individual’s room, while witnesses report seeing a scrawny, humanoid figure flee the scene. One witness, Mr Addey, claims that its eyes blazed with a hellish, unearthly light. A few residents believe that Mr Addey was drunk at the time, but the majority accept his tale as the truth. Superstitious residents now speak (in hushed tones) of the “Scarecrow”, a malign entity that, as legend has it, committed similar acts two hundred years ago.

Possibilities

1 The murders are actually being committed by Mr Addey. His victims were all farmers, each possessing a sizable tract of land. With the farmers dead he plans to buy the land from the grieving family (for a fraction of its actual value) and put it to profitable use.

Addey has heard of the “Scarecrow” legend and makes his murders look like the work of the foul creature, knowing that the locals will not pursue their enquires too enthusiastically. Once each week, Mr Addey dons the scarecrow disguise and follows his victim home.

2 Two hundred years ago a sorcerer called Krakenartos lived in a tower located a mile outside of the village. His sleeping chambers and living quarters were within the tower, while his laboratory, study and library were situated beneath it.

Krakenartos, although a kindly individual, became concerned when a mob of townsfolk attempted to enter his abode. From that fateful day, he began to appreciate his own mortality and created a guardian for his tower. Krakenartos animated a scarecrow, since its function was also to deter pests. The “scarecrow” was a powerful construct; its strength many times that of a man. The creature was capable of fending off the primitive attempts of the townsfolk to breach Krakenartos’ home. Any who crossed the threshold were ruthlessly hunted - even beyond the confines of the tower - and killed.

The townsfolk shunned the tower, and Krakenartos continued his studies undisturbed. Two hundred years passed and the tower fell into ruin, sealing the subterranean complex. Krakenartos is long dead, but his creature lives on.

Recently several townsfolk uncovered the entrance and explored Krakenartos’ sanctuary. They kept their discovery to themselves. After such a long period of inactivity the creature was slow to respond and by the time it had fully awakened its prey had left.

Since then it has eliminated six of the trespassers. After each attack it withdraws to regain sufficient energy for its next assault.

3 Two months ago one of the villagers, Paul Townsend, inherited a substantial sum of money and the diary of a distant relative – a seventeenth century sorcerer. The tome, as well as being an account of his life, details various blasphemous rituals.

Mr Townsend gathered together a group of his seven closest friends and randomly selected a ritual to try. It was the Call Azathoth spell. Fortunately (for them) they failed to summon the deity, but a link was established to the court of Azathoth. A single Lesser Other God was wrenched from its master’s side and deposited upon the Earth. Unable to return to Azathoth’s court; it possessed the nearest unresisting humanoid form – a scarecrow. It knows that it is bound to the planet for only as long as its summoners live. After the ceremony it killed the first of the group but had insufficient energy to attack another.

When the group heard of their comrade’s death, they assumed Azathoth (whom they believe to be a demon) was responsible. The following week they attempted to Dismiss Azathoth. This failed as Azathoth was not around to be dismissed, but the released energies were absorbed by the Lesser Other God who then killed another.

So the cycle continues: each week the group try to dismiss Azathoth but instead rejuvenate it.

© Hadley Connor

Drinking in the Blues

A black musician arrives in town with a guitar and a suitcase done up with string. His name is Simon Turner and he plays sweet music for anyone who asks him to, be it for a couple of dollars in a smoke-filled speakeasy, or for a meal and a bed for the night, or even for nothing but a few kids loitering on a streetcorner. The gentle guitar notes trickle like gold into the ears of Simon’s audience, and his mellow bass voice soothes all troubles.

An investigator encounters Simon accidentally, bumping into him in the street or hearing him playing in a rented room in a flophouse, where the music drifts down to the listener as he walks home at night. The investigator is enchanted, longing to hear it again. However, no matter how much she tries to meet Simon, she misses him every time, by only a few minutes.

After staying for a few days, Simon moves on, but in the weeks that follow, the town’s attitudes start to mellow. Racists and bigots become less ardent, and life becomes just that little bit easier for blacks in the town. While not a complete turn around, things have improved, and Simon Turner has left his mark.

Possibilities

1 Simon Turner is an ordinary, if incredibly gifted, man. His music is beautiful, but not Mythos inspired. Not all strange events relate to madness and tentacled monstrosities.

2 Simon is one of the less malevolent avatars of Nyarlathotep. His music is the music of gods and demons, an ambrosia for the ears, a melody divine. And, like his music, his favour is heaven sent. Anyone actively antagonising the black community without fair reason disappears with a slither of tentacles and a strange piping at night.

3 Simon is an Outer God named Yd’gh’tjetye, the same who lured Erich Zann to music and to madness. This inhuman musician seeks an audience. The mellowing is a side effect of listening to such unearthly music.

P.S. Please use this Tale of Terror as an excuse to play some really fine music.

© Eamon Honan

The Weeping Madonna

The statue of the Madonna has started weeping blood at the Church of St Mary. The church is a local landmark, brooding on the hill as it does. Made of a dark stone turned darker by pollution it has a strangely intimidating quality about it. Inside, the beautiful stained-glass images provide a stark contrast to the grey stone and dull brown woodwork. The Madonna itself is a vibrantly coloured statue with rich gilt detail rumoured to have been smuggled in from Hungary in the last century.

Possibilities

1 Local occultists have magically placed a body inside the statue as a kind of sick joke. The spell keeps the body fresh, but the wounds inflicted upon it during the ritual killing continue to leak blood into the remains of the cavity inside the statue. The blood level has reached the only apertures in the statue and so the statue cries blood.

2 The statue is a medieval artefact, originally made in the shape of a tall man with the face of a squid, created by heretical wizard Jan Zykar from the town of Stregoicavar. Just before the Muslim destruction of the town in 1526 Zykar left the town and took his statue with him. Zykar remodelled the exterior of the statue prior to reaching Budapest. There he died in 1576 in unknown circumstances. The Madonna was transferred to The Church of Our Lady in Budapest where it remained until 1856 when it was sold to the present church owners by an unscrupulous and thoroughly scared priest whose research into the history of the church had revealed his imminent doom.

Every 70 years it requires a sacrifice. Its method of obtaining the sacrifice is to magically drain blood from its owner; the priest of the church. The priest gets weaker and weaker until he dies. However, Zykar’s remodelling resulted in a deficiency in the statue’s ability to drain blood and some appears around the Madonna’s eyes. Any detailed examination of the statue reveals the remodelling work that hides the original horror beneath the mask.

3 The statue itself is not weeping blood. The blood that appears on the face of the statue has been dripping from a dead body up in the rafters of the church. If investigations do not reveal this to be the case then after a couple more days the blood stops. The next ‘miracle’ is a smell of rotting that permeates the church.

Eventually somebody realises the true cause and the corpse is discovered. The body is that of a local dignitary thought to have been on business abroad. His wrists are cut.

© Ric Norton

Cop Killers

Four police officers died one night in the small, rural town of Cadillac, Michigan. According to the police department, two officers on patrol drove out to check on a disturbance call. The disturbance turned out to be a group of rowdy teenagers who shot and killed both police officers. The second car arrived soon after, but they too were killed by the teenagers. A third car was unable to locate the murderers.

The bodies of the four dead police officers were immediately examined by the coroner, who declared the cause of death as gunshot wounds. The officers were cremated, the funeral taking place two days later. The group of teenagers has yet to be found, and they have not struck again. No one witnessed the shootings, and the police do not know who phoned in the original disturbance report.

One of the four widows, Jake Dean’s wife, Heather, doesn’t believe the official story. She has hired the investigators to discover what the police are hiding. The only information that Heather can provide is that she was given a call about midnight and told that her husband was dead. Then, she was pressured into cremating him.

Possibilities

1 That night, Spencer Monson’s dog woke him up. The dog was barking quite loudly at a figure in the darkness. Spencer, a 70-year old senile widower, called the police, went back to sleep, and forgot all about the incident.

The first patrol car arrived and quickly found the figure – it was a werewolf! The policemen opened fire, but it killed them both. It killed the next two officers as well. The policemen in the third car were finally able to kill the weakened creature. To prevent hysteria, the deaths were blamed on a group of rowdy teenagers with guns and the werewolf’s body cremated.

Currently, the police are searching for the origin of the werewolf. Within the next week they will find out that four werewolves have been living in the woods around the city for the past several years. Only recently, since construction has begun invading their sacred lands, have they become hostile.

2 The police chief belongs to an in-the-closet cult consisting of several high-ranking city officials. Recently, one of the cult members was arrested on murder charges. The chief caused these charges to be immediately dropped. Since then, the chief has ended a number of other investigations. Jake Dean and three other officers had become suspicious of the chief and started snooping around.

Soon after the snooping had begun the police chief figured out what was going on and killed the officers by summoning a gug. He then invented the story of the armed teenagers to cover up the truth. The coroner, also a cult member, backed up the story by saying the officers died of gunshot wounds.

Fortunately, one of the officers kept a journal. This journal includes the officers suspicions as well as a list of the investigations the chief ended. Unfortunately, the journal appears to be missing.

3 The four murders were committed by a gang of nine teenagers. The police department has leads which leads to the murderers’ arrest within a few days. What the officers don’t know is that the gang leader was being controlled by a malicious member of the Great Race of Yith, which constructed a deadly weapon.

The weapon stopped the heartbeats of the officers, but the gang leader then shot them so the police department would have a murder weapon. Afterwards, the Great Race member returned to his native body. When the police arrest the gang leader he will have no idea what happened. The other members of the gang describe the alien weapon, which no one can locate.

© Vince Vatter

City Fear

The papers are full of horrific stories. Children’s bodies, mutilated then burnt alive, have been found across the city. The police are baffled and the public is restless. The media outcry is vociferous, and the police department chief’s job is on the line. In an attempt to show some activity the police have taken to arresting the criminal community at random. But still the murders go on . . .

Possibilities

1 The murderer is a frenzied cultist, one of the Cult of the Flaming Brand. The children are components for a great spell: a spell to summon Fthaggua. One more death and Fthaggua appears. As the city burns the remaining members of the Cult of the Flaming Brand greet the Great Old One and are swallowed by the fiery inferno, never to be seen again.

2 The murderer, Frank Potter, is mad. As a former member he also has valuable information on the activities of a dangerous cult, information that the investigators need to destroy it. Unfortunately, the city’s criminal community, sick of police harassment, have done some investigating of their own and have captured Potter. They intend to carry out their own form of justice, and yes, they do have a death penalty.

3 The murders are being carried out by a religious fundamentalist group who believe they are destroying the anti-Christ and his minions. If they are not stopped the murders become more and more outlandish as their ambitions and bloodthirst rises.

© Simon Taylor

A Turn of Fate

A dreidel is a four-sided top. It’s a harmless toy played with by children at Hanukkah, a Jewish festival celebrating the rededicating of the Temple at Jerusalem. This one, however, is different.

It is always cold to the touch, though a thermometer gives normal readings. Animals, especially cats, seem wary of it or its bearer. Cats will scratch anyone carrying it who tries to pet them. Even the baby who tries to put everything he can in his mouth won’t touch it, and tries to crawl away.

The top itself is solid lead, and weighs about 150 grams, as it should. The four square faces are about 2 cm on a side. The first four Hebrew letters, aleph, beth, gimel, and dan, protrude slightly from each face on the top’s body, one letter to a face. When spun, this dreidel makes an eerie whistling sound, not at all like a normal dreidel. The whistling is due to air rushing through small holes where the raised letters attach to the top’s body, If the investigator pries off these letters, he finds odd carvings underneath.

Possibilities

1 The carvings are Aklo letters representing magic, death, power, and knowledge. The top was once owned by the serpent man Ynarak, who used it to locate strong necromantic regions, such as burial mounds, murder sites, or terrible accidents. The range of this device is about four miles. If there are no places within range, then repeated uses of the dreidel creates one. (Astute investigators may notice an increase in killings coinciding with increased use of the top.) If an appropriate spot is located, the letters glow, and the top acts as a gyroscope with the stem always pointing toward the centre of the region.

2 The top is one of four, and the carvings are mystic symbols which spell the last syllable of Azathoth’s secret name. Investigators knowing the spell Curse of Azathoth will know this. The other three tops spell the rest of the name. If the tops are used in ceremonies praising Azathoth, there is a chance He or one of his servitors will ‘reward’ the celebrants.

Unfortunately, spinning the top becomes addictive and eventually the poor owner is dragged away by Azathoth. At first the owner hears strange piping sounds all the time. Doctors consider this hysteria. Then he begins dreaming about the Outer God. Finally, the owner (and possibly a chunk of the surrounding countryside) disappears.

3 Even with the outer faces removed the top still whistles. It was a gift from Nyarlathotep to the now dead sorcerer Karlon Angor, which increases the chance to summon and control a flying polyp. Unfortunately, each time the top is spun there is a cumulative chance of summoning an uncontrolled polyp. Eibon writes of such devices, though this one is not mentioned specifically. Some experimentation may be necessary to discover the top’s secret.

© Joe Louderback

Fluke

James Simpson has been infected by a parasite, currently living in his gut. The parasite is meta-dimensional, winking in and out of this plane; as it feeds and grows stronger, it becomes more anchored in this plane. Simpson conversely becomes weaker as the parasite grows stronger.

Conventional medical procedures (purges, emetics, even surgery) have no effect, as the parasite flicks between dimensions until the danger to it passes. Ultimately, the parasite becomes strong enough to be permanently anchored in this plane. When this happens, Simpson is dying and the parasite (about two feet long and an inch in diameter) can be felt under his abdomen.

The parasite possesses one other unusual feature – It can compress its circumference until it is able to pass through the smallest of holes (although it is later able to tear its way through bone, plaster, and light brickwork). This means that it can exit Simpson at any time through his ears, tear ducts, nose, mouth, penis, or anus, should it be provoked.

Possibilities

1 Simpson, formerly an explorer and anthropologist, was captured and tortured by the Tcho-Tcho people in south-east Asia who tattooed on his belly summoning and binding rituals. Rapid research might reveal a dismissal spell but unless the investigators can remove the tattoos the worm will be summoned back into its host.

2 Simpson is the victim of a summoning spell cast by a hostile sorcerer. An Elder Sign pressed against his abdomen causes the parasite to erupt violently from Simpson, killing him. The worm is ‘anchored’ in front of the Elder Sign and can then be dealt with relatively easily.

3 The parasite is a servitor of Crom Cruach, the great worm god. It consumes Simpson entirely, before moving on. Once Simpson is consumed, the worm is larger and can enter and internally consume one more human-sized body, after which it reaches anaconda-sized proportions. Any further attempts to enter a human body results in the host’s immediate and messy destruction, unable to accommodate the creature’s increased size.

© Charles Ross

Birthday Presence

Hugh Walby will be 43 this Friday, but a surprise birthday party has been suggested and everyone has duly ‘forgotten’ the celebration. Friends intend to descend on his house armed with food, drink and birthday goodies at around seven o’clock. Hugh should be home from work by then and they know he has nothing else planned.

However, when they arrive there is no answer at the door even though the lights are on. Hugh’s automobile is parked outside, and the front door is unlocked. Inside, a few presents have been opened on the dining table. He received only three gifts – socks from his sister, a new pipe from a colleague, and something in a small wooden crate with a hinged lid.

Possibilities

1 Inside the box was a garden ornament – an ugly little gnome labelled ‘Made In Goatswood’. There was no indication as to who had sent it, but Hugh thought he may as well put it out straight away. As soon as he stepped out into the moonlight, the horrible little creature wriggled in his grip and shoved its miniature gardening fork into his throat.

It now stands on the lawn, fork in hand, thirty feet away. It appears as solid as stone and will not let go of the fork but will get revenge for any rough handling. Later, in the dead of night, it intends making more mischief.

2 The inside of the crate is polished wood, carved with intricate patterns. The most peculiar thing about it, however, is one of Hugh’s slippers inside it.

Attempts to feel the sides of the box risk overbalancing and toppling in. Anyone of medium build could squeeze into the box, though it doesn’t look possible from the outside. If they do, the lid slams shut and they are transported elsewhere . . .

3 Hugh is in the garden, cowering behind a tree. Set up on the lawn is his most interesting present, a small but powerful telescope from an astronomer friend. With it is a torch and a set of notes describing the unusual lenses in the instrument, and how to align it to confirm his friend’s discovery. Since Hugh fled from the telescope, the Earth’s rotation has changed its field of view, but reference to the notes will allow those with some understanding of astronomy to quickly locate the hell-star known as Ghroth.

Hugh has forgotten everything except for the fact that he is scared, even of the people who say they are his friends.

© Pete Wright

Buzzing

All day long images have been flashing into the investigators brain: electricity pylons, bee hives, neon lights, electric trains, and air conditioning vents. These images don’t have any bearing on what has been going on around her, but still the images are there.

That night, the investigator’s dreams are filled with the same images but this time a unifying theme is sensed: buzzing. All of the items are buzzing, a constant humming sound fills the dreams. Next morning the investigator wakes with an intense headache and still the buzzing fills her head. In fact, now she thinks about it, the sound has been there for the last couple of days, just too quiet for her to detect consciously.

Possibilities

1 The investigator is psychically sensitive but is ignorant of that fact. Some miles below her house a cthonian has laid an egg, an egg due to hatch in the next couple of days. The buzzing in her head is actually the telepathic communications between mother and young. As the hatching gets nearer the telepathic traffic gets heavier and heavier. When the egg hatches the telepathic blast might push her over the edge.

The parent and young then move on, possibly causing seismic disturbances in the process. The effect stops if the investigator leaves the area.

2 The investigator is carrying the eggs of a genetically engineered creature in her head. The creature has been created by the Mi-Go and planted in the investigator as an experiment. The next stage in the creature’s life cycle is a maggot type larva which stops buzzing but instead consumes the frontal lobe of the investigator’s brain causing her to lose all reasoning faculties in the process. Then it eats its way out of the investigator’s head via her ear. Finally, the creature pupates into a large fly-type creature which will search for more humans to deposit eggs into.

The investigator may feel grateful when the buzzing stops but if she realised what was going to happen next perhaps she wouldn’t feel so relieved.

3 Thinking back a few days, the investigator remembers a strange encounter in the street. A small man in a black suit approached her and asked for directions. He had a strongly oriental accent and appearance. After his brief, and dull, conversation with the investigator he touched her left hand very briefly whilst saying “Thank you.” The investigator had felt a slight itching sensation in her hand for the rest of the day but could not identify anything else wrong.

The oriental was in fact a cult assassin trained in the art of the Quivering Palm. The assassin has set up deadly vibrations in the body of the investigator, vibrations that in a few more days will cause the investigator’s head to messily explode.

© Simon Taylor

A Discarded Parcel

An employee of the local post office, a young man by the name of Michael Stavros, has been found by his colleagues slumped over his workbench – dead! Scattered over and around him was a thin layer of grey dust. A small broken package lies discarded on the floor. The grey dust comes from here, from a smashed jar inside.

The package is addressed to Iain Coussell – a man currently under house-arrest pending trial for multiple cases of ritual murder and witchcraft. His house is surrounded both day and night and he is permitted no visitors. Twice a day an officer visits to confirm his presence. If he leaves his house he is followed by both uniformed and plain-clothed policemen. This escort is more for Iain’s protection than the general publics’, many of whom feel that he should not be permitted a mockery of a trial since the outcome is so obvious.

Possibilities

1 Iain is innocent. He has a passing interest in the occult and was once seen unloading a large number of old-looking books from his car. The claim of his involvement with witchcraft came from an anonymous tip-off, from a genuine cult member.

The real coven leader wants Iain dead so that the authorities will believe the cult is leaderless and therefore less of a threat. He realises that Iain will be cleared of all charges if the case ever comes to trial. Therefore his actions are an attempt to eliminate the risk; he was responsible for sending the dust which should have killed Iain.

The dust is the residue of a compound poison that needs to be inhaled. It breaks down quickly and is now harmless. Unfortunately, the jar accidently broke open while being handled by Michael.

2 Iain is an evil cult leader, he knows that should his case ever come to trial he would be found guilty. After several failed attempts to covertly leave his home or organise rescue from his outside sympathisers he has adopted a new scheme. A number of loyal cultists have been reduced to “essential saltes” and posted to the mansion. They will then be reformed upon arrival by Iain. The plan is to wait until Iain commands a substantial force before launching an assault, both from within and without, on the unsuspecting police.

Unfortunately, one of the jars accidently broke open and the “essential saltes” fell upon Michael Stavros. The cultist was exceptionally strong-willed, even in his inert dust form, and tried to possess Michael. Michael resisted, and the two minds destroyed one another.

3 Iain is a nefarious cult-leader and proficient sorcerer. Michael Stavros, however, was a police investigator and was ordered to find out as much as possible about Iain’s activities.

After pursuing conventional avenues of investigation, he eventually managed (by “pulling a few strings”) to be employed as a mail clerk. This gave him access to Iain’s personal communications. After Iain was placed under house-arrest he used scrying magic to discover the means by which the police had determined his guilt. Iain, realising Michael’s involvement, sent the package to himself knowing it would be intercepted. Michael opened the package, examined the contents of the jar and succumbed to the effects of its contents: poison.

© Hadley Connor

Loving Spoonful

A friend has just got married to his childhood sweetheart. One of the wedding gifts is a beautiful Welsh love spoon, but it has no label to indicate who may have sent it. Carved from a dark wood it is about a foot long with a delicate bowl and elaborate carving all along the shaft.

Unlike traditional Welsh love spoons (which have carvings of ivy, hearts or other romantic, entwining images), this spoon is carved with strange random shapes. Looking at the shapes for any length of time is quite disturbing as they seem to shift slightly. Despite being nearly-imperceptible and attributable to an overactive imagination, there are occasional changes in the shapes. Some weeks later the shapes have definitely transformed…

Possibilities

1 The shapes have resolved into figures engaged in an energetic dance. Studied for long enough it is obvious that the figures are genuinely dancing, that is they are changing in form and pattern over time. The figures cavort and dance in all kinds of strange and frightening forms with many sexual encounters occurring between the figures as well as more traditional folk-dance type movements. The figures represent an ancient cult dance used to summon Dark Young of Shub Niggurath. Sure enough, and unless something is done soon, the Dark Young will appear to cause havoc and devastation at the newly-weds home. The sender remains unknown.

2 The shapes have resolved into a representation of the body of a humanoid figure. This body is largely human in appearance but is covered in ivy and other vegetative growths. The face is made up of interlocked leaves and has a very pagan feel to it. The image is that of the Green Man, one of the many forms of Nyarlathotep.

The Green Man was imprisoned in ancient times by certain druids. The owner of the spoon feels drawn towards the Green Man’s burial place: Stonehenge. Once there he feels compelled to destroy the stones that keep Nyarlathotep’s form incarcerated. If he succeeds in destroying the circle, the Green Man will be free once more to reoccupy the woods of Great Britain and from there to toy with the human inhabitants of the island as he did before his imprisonment.

3 The shapes have transformed into a depiction of a tree with markings on its bark. The marking is a simple vertical line crossed at right angles by five more lines. Further research reveals the tree to be a yew and the markings to be the Ogham letter, Idho. Yew trees and Idho were evil omens in Celtic times, often symbolising death.

The newly-wed’s luck changes for the worse: everything goes wrong. Relatives die, close friends develop illnesses, pipes spring a leak, accidents happen and life becomes a misery. The spoon’s owners must pass the spoon on, otherwise they remain cursed forever. Once passed on their life returns to normal and the spoon is once again carved with nothing more than random shapes. But not for long . . .

© Ric Norton

Little Death

Prayers are said, vigilance kept, but still it is not enough. Still they die. Some body is mutilating children. Naked, nails through both feet and one hand, heavily mutilated and wildly contorted, at least one tiny corpse is discovered per week. It is a terrible way to die, and the police are doing their utmost to catch the perpetrator. So far they have had no luck.

Possibilities

1 The children are murdered by a gaunt, white haired man. They are found in cheap hotels and derelict buildings, and enough eye-witnesses have appeared to give the police an accurate picture of the killer. However, they have yet to apprehend him, he seems to be able to stay one step ahead of them.

The man is a fortune-teller, selling his services to the highest bidder - often the underworld. He kidnaps the children, drugs and nails them to the floor. The child then dances a self-mutilating dance, and in it the man can see the future. His clients pay well for the service, which is unerringly accurate, and are able to line up further clients. Within the dance, the man can see his adversaries (including the police), and where they are due to strike next. Thus forewarned, he is able to flee.

2 The children were Dreamers, sacrificed in their sleep by a cult in Dylath-Leen. They are found dead in their bedrooms with no sign of a break-in, having mutilated themselves. The police have no leads at all, and there is nothing obvious to link the children.

The investigating authorities will soon discover that the killings are worldwide. The cult is making sacrifices at a rate estimated at one a night.

The sacrifices continue until the cult is somehow disbanded.

3 The police know the killings are ritual, but have yet to identify it. All the children have been dark haired and brown skinned, and the police have narrowed their search to the cults of ancient Polynesia.

The killings are the work of one man, the sole survivor of an expedition to an unchartered Polynesian island - home to a blasphemous temple, an ancient cult, and unimaginable horror. He stayed far too long, the experience emptying his mind of any lasting reason and sanity. In their place insatiable red demons took up residence.

He returned to civilization some months ago, barely able to function in society. He kills regularly in a vain effort to satisfy the bottomless hunger within his skull.

© Steve Hatherley

Dirty Curtain

Sat at home doing nothing much, the investigator hears a light tapping at the window. Upon drawing back the curtains to see what is causing the noise the investigator is greeted with . . . nothing. No sign of what caused the tapping is visible. Perhaps it was the wind?

When he closes the curtains however, the investigator sees an image ‘burnt’ into the material. The image of a face. The face is human, non-descript and not completely clear but is definitely there. The image is reminiscent of the Turin Shroud. The face appears to be that of a human male, clean-shaven, hawk nosed and bald. There is no discernible expression except possibly an air of expectation.

Possibilities

1 The image is impossible to remove. The night after its appearance footprints start appearing on the carpet. Footprints very similar in style to the image in the curtain; bare feet, definitely human and nothing more than a dark stain on the carpet: a stain impossible to remove. Night by night the footprints disappear and reappear a little bit closer to the investigators most prized possession, be it a picture, a tome, a pet or a child. If no action is taken this most prized possession goes missing along with the footprints, but not the face, never to be seen again.

2 Recent investigations have left the investigator more than a little paranoid. This severe paranoia combined with a windy night and a few condensation and smoke stains have driven him to believe that the face is real. Nobody else sees it as clearly; “Yes, there’s something there,” they say. “A faint stain but nothing to be worried about. It’s just your paranoia, relax, stop worrying, it can’t do you any harm.” Can it?

3 No matter what the investigator tries the face cannot be removed. It can’t be washed out and stain removers don’t work: it’s there permanently. If the investigator replaces the curtains, the image reappears in the new curtains. Even if he removes the curtains completely the image just comes back, but this time in the glass. Worse, the investigators work against the Mythos starts to go downhill. Every move he makes the cultists seem to be expecting, they always know what the investigator is going to do next. It is almost as though the investigator is being watched…

© Ric Norton

The Odin Disc

The Odin Disc is a monohedron; it has only one side. It can be felt, and if moved glistens slightly – but is otherwise invisible (although the Powder of Ibn-Ghazi will make it apparent).

Compounding the problem of actually finding the disc is its size – typically no greater than a large coin. A sorcerer can spend Magic Points to enlarge the disc, which has a maximum size (for humans, anyway) of about 10 feet.

The disc is actually a portable Gate spell. Anyone standing on the disc (which needs to be of a suitable size) will be transported to whatever location they have in mind (with the usual penalties). The disc follows the (last) traveller, ready for the return trip. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to find once through the gate, as it invariably returns to its natural size.

As well as mere travel, the Odin Disc has another effect. Each time the disc is used,
Yog-Sothoth is summoned to the location that the traveller just left. Yog-Sothoth’s mood on arrival seems to be directly related to the distance travelled through the disc; the further afield the traveller journeys, the greater the number of sacrifices Yog-Sothoth helps itself to. (It should be said that a rigorous, scientific study has not been made, given the obvious limitations.)

Worse, as there is a time-lag before Yog-Sothoth appears, travellers may not realise that it is their operation of the disc that causes the Outer God’s appearance.

Possibilities

1 A cryptic reference to the disc can be found in the handwritten marginalia of a section in a mythos tome dealing with ‘The Opener of the Way’. It ambiguously states that not only the traveller can use the disc, and that the disc is ‘at hand’. The disc is bound into the cover of the book (one side is raised, the other has no apparent rise or depression), and the cover of the book must be destroyed to retrieve it. Pulling the cover to pieces activates a fire-warding spell which destroys the book and may burn the house down. Of course, the disc will be very hard to find in the cinders.

2 The investigators find a brief description of the Odin Disc and details of how to create one. The spell requires a 3” gold disc, about ten pints of fresh blood, and the sacrifice of a baby. While the investigators may not create a disc, if the spell falls into the hands of cultists they will not be so squeamish.

The spell description forgets to mention that this spell also acts to summon Yog-Sothoth.

3 The investigators return home one night to find a sorcerer (one they have encountered before) stealing their mythos-related bits-and-pieces. Realising he has been spotted, the sorcerer activates the disc and escapes; quick investigators may be able to follow him.

Meanwhile, Yog-Sothoth will be paying a visit.

© Charles Ross

Safely Behind Bars

Mr David Bradley – a violent murderer currently serving his final year of an eighteen-year sentence – was found late yesterday evening swinging gently from the ceiling of his cell. He had hung himself using a thick leather belt.

The penitentiary is renowned for its high suicide rate, but the recent increase is unprecedented. Mr Bradley is the fourth inmate to take his own life in the last month. The prison governor, Mr Torben Stones, is investigating the deaths but refuses to comment on the possibility of corruption amongst the prison staff.

A brief visit sufficiently demonstrates why anyone incarcerated there might wish to take their own life: the drably-painted, crumbling brickwork; the dour-faced guards; the loud and abusive inmates; and the poor recreational facilities; all help to contribute to the general atmosphere of gloom and oppression.

Possibilities

1 For thousands of years the area beneath the penitentiary has housed an immaterial lloigor consciousness. It lay inert for most of this time, only recently - with the construction of the prison - did it recover from its torpor. The lloigor, named K’huterrinlis, seeks to escape by channelling a telekinetic field up to the surface through which it can escape, unfortunately a field of that length requires considerable energy. K’huterrinlis leeches this energy from the unresisting minds of the humans above.

K’huterrinlis’ mere presence is enough to create a noticeable pall of depression and despondency over the prison. This (along with draining the prisoners’ will-power) is the reason for the increased rate of suicides. However, the prisoners are not the only ones to feel the lloigor’s insidious presence. Even senior staff (like Mr Stones) are losing their motivation and the will to continue. More deaths are inevitable.

2 Mr Torben Stones, the prison governor, is a devout servitor of Eihort. Beneath the penitentiary, Mr Stones has created a network of twisting and interconnecting tunnels - a labyrinth. It is in these that he summons his master, the Dark Bargainer. Each week a prisoner is taken into the labyrinth and is questioned by Eihort. Given the alternative, most of the frightened convicts agree to Eihort’s demands. After he has been impregnated, Eihort uses the Cloud Memory spell to make the subject suppress all knowledge of their terrible ordeal.

Occasionally the spell is not fully effective, and the unfortunate victim understands the changes they are experiencing. These individuals would rather die at their own hand than the squirming proboscides of Eihort’s grubs.

Mr Stones plans to spread Eihort’s brood by only impregnating those who are nearing the end of their sentence. The convicts then leave and several months – or even years – later, the brood emerges.

3 Torben Stones is no longer completely human. While his body is of Terran origin, the mind belongs to something greater – a Yithian. Similar minds are housed within almost all the prison staff.

The Great Race uses the prisoners as subjects for temporal mental transference. In this way, the prisoners can escape incarceration by travelling 450 million years into the past. Meanwhile, the convict’s body is inhabited by a Yithian’s consciousness enabling it to study the current period, these individuals are usually smuggled from the prison so they can interact with the world outside.

This is an equitable arrangement; the Great Race can continue their research without the difficulty of having to fool the subject’s friends and family, while the human minds were allowed comparatively more freedom. There is just one small problem; many of the prisoners’ minds are brutal and violent. They caused considerable damage when they inhabited the powerful, conical bodies. While many minds were pacified; terminal force was the only solution for extreme cases. When this became necessary it meant that the minds were returned to their original forms leaving the human body devoid of consciousness. The suicides are faked, in order to disguise the prisoners’ true cause of death.

© Hadley Connor

Ghost Train

The investigators are travelling by train, scheduled to arrive at midnight. The witching hour comes and goes, but still they do not arrive at their destination. The conductor and other staff on the train are reticent and surly about the delay. The conductor eventually makes an announcement: “Everybody remain seated. The train is behind schedule.”

“But we passed my stop,” complains a woman.

“There will be no more stops tonight,” says the conductor. He then retires to his office and refuses to answer questions and complaints.

Possibilities

1 If the investigators speak with the train staff they begin noticing anachronisms, such as dates and references to popular people or events. The staff are all ghosts from a decade ago. The conductor is a man called Josiah Brand, a ruthless and evil railroad man. Brand hated people of colour and threw hobos from the train if they were black or Mexican. White hobos were merely subjected to beatings and extortion.

Josiah Brand and his fellow trainmen were killed ten years previously (as the investigators discover after interviewing the other, equally dead, passengers) on a similarly rainy night when the train crashed over a bridge and into a raging river.

As the investigators learn this there is a horrific screech, the mournful wail of the engine’s whistle and a violent lurch as the train derails. Then--

--the train slows as it arrives, finally at its destination. Everything is as normal again.

2 The investigators are dead. They actually died a short while ago and are now on the legendary hell-bound train. The other passengers are all damned souls as well. The conductor is an evil spirit, entrusted with the task of ensuring that his charges reach the gates of hell.

3 The train has been hijacked by cultists (of which the conductor is one) of the Valusian Order of Valka. The Order is using the train to summon Ithaqua as their ritual requires that the participants are moving faster than 60 miles per hour. The cultists also need a large number of sacrifices to appease Ithaqua - which is the role they have planned for the passengers. Any attempt to leave the train will be dealt with harshly, although nobody will be killed: Ithaqua likes his sacrifices properly served.

And as the train gains speed, the cultists make their move…

© G W Thomas

Cats

Over the last few days, cats have been vanishing. Then, a (human) corpse is found, apparently having been clawed to death, followed by several more deaths all carried out in the same grisly way. The papers quickly seize on a sensationalist piece of news - that bodies of skinned cats were sent to the victims shortly before their untimely demise.

Possibilities

1 Marty Cartwright believes that taking on an animal’s skin allows him to shape-shift into the form of that animal. Cartwright, an intense young man with an interest in black magic, lost his family in a fire. The fire was no accident and Cartwright has traced the arsonists, a group of thugs calling themselves “The Panthers.”

Cartwright researched a ritual to allow him to exact revenge in a most appropriate form, by becoming a black panther. Now he is slowly killing the gang members one by one, sending each a warning in the form of the body of a skinned cat.

2 All the victims were at some time patrons of an occult book shop and have all authored monographs for the book shop on the subject of myth and magic. They have unfortunately become the victims of a deranged killer who recently escaped from an asylum.

The woman, Catherine (known as Cat), believes she is tormented by a huge feline demon. The authors of the monographs mock the great cat-spirit and it is making her kill them all. To give them an opportunity to repent, the demon makes Cat send skinned cats to the victims. None of them have yet repented. In Cat’s lair the skins are fastened to a wall, with a picture of each victim underneath them.

Several of the authors are still alive and very scared. Should they all die, then Cat finds new victims, with no rhyme or reason this time.

3 The victims are all Dreamers, killed by moonbeasts. Several days ago, three moonbeasts crept into the Waking World, causing the cats to flee and vanish. The first few victims were deliberately chosen, but the moonbeasts have continued because it is so much fun.

Whenever they catch a cat they skin it and send the body to their next victim, shortly before attacking en masse. This continues until the moonbeasts become bored with this sport and leave.

© Lynne Wilson

Empty Streets

Ever since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the coastal town of Safehaven, New Jersey has had a sizeable number of homeless people. This situation became especially aggravated in the Reagan years, to the point where the traditionally liberal populace of Safehaven showed signs of animosity towards the homeless. A few beatings were reported, and local aid was drastically reduced. Despite all this, the homeless remained.

Now, they are gone.

Overnight, every last hobo, drifter, and bag-lady vanished without a trace. At first, no one seemed to notice. Then a social worker voiced concern. The mayor conjectured the homeless had moved to Pennsylvania with its higher welfare benefits. The police chief argued they had probably moved to warmer climates. Most people were relieved; the streets were so much cleaner, nicer, and safer now. The streets were empty.

Possibilities

1 After the disaster in Innsmouth, the Deep Ones of the Atlantic seaboard scattered. They found fertile new breeding grounds in those impoverished by the Great Depression. They did not have to worry about another government attack: nobody cared. They have been replenishing their numbers for 60 years.

But now, they have called all their kin to a reef off the coast of New Jersey, for the stars are right, and Dagon awaits.

2 Zaka’rn, a man of Leng and a sorcerer, has opened a physical gate between the Dreamlands and the waking world. He has given a special potion (via the soup kitchens) to the homeless of Safehaven, and has led them sleepwalking to the gate, which is located in the side of a cliff on Safehaven beach. In the Dreamlands, he intends to sell the homeless to his masters, the Moonbeasts, who savour the taste of living flesh. His reward will be great.

3 A secret government weapons and pharmaceuticals research laboratory is at work near Safehaven. With the help of the mayor and the police chief, they have captured the homeless to conduct terrible experiments on them. Everybody is happy: the scientists can progress, the police chief’s work is now much easier, and the mayor’s chances for re-election are excellent.

© Markus Huenemoerder

The Puzzle Boxes

In a left luggage locker at a local mainline station there is a large carpet bag containing 19 intricately carved and extremely devious puzzle boxes...

The key to the locker is found on the body of Dr Allen McNair. Dr McNair is found dead at his desk in his surgery, with the twentieth puzzle box open in his hands.  McNair’s body is in a state of some discomposure and the expression on his rotting face can only be described as one of surprise and fear.

There is considerable debate as to how long McNair has been dead; the state of his body suggests some considerable time, but many patients swear they were treated by him during surgery only yesterday.

Possibilities

1 McNair has been killed by a violent and extremely virulent fungal infection, the spores of the fungus were released directly into his face as he successfully opened the ancient puzzle box. He purchased the boxes whilst on vacation in India from a lone street trader, believing they would make good presents for friends and colleagues.

Unfortunately, the street trader was a servant of darkness and has laced the puzzle boxes with a toxic fungus. The fungus is now starting to spread, infecting all who have come into contact with McNair’s body.

2 McNair was the unwitting victim of a bacterial agent released from within the puzzle box. The boxes were being used by an old friend of McNair’s, Alaistair Mickleson who was using the boxes to smuggle the bacterial agent (a weapon developed by an unscrupulous bio technology company).

Mickleson had asked McNair to place the bag in the luggage locker for him fearing he was being followed, he never dreamed that McNair would open a box.

3 The puzzle boxes were purchased by McNair on a recent trip to New Orleans. The seller had no idea what they contained and had never managed to open one, but knew they were connected to the local Voodoo culture.

McNair is dead, but the powerful magics in the puzzle boxes mean that in two days time he will rise from the dead, a zombie hungry for sustenance!

© Derek Mayne

The Grainger Street Plates

A carved doorway on Grainger Street is quite unlike any other. It has a carved column on one side while the other door frame is now part of next-door. Above the door are two mirrors, too high to be of any use. The door is held firmly shut by a large brass latch and padlock; the original door lock is exposed where someone has forced off the wood covering it.

On the door frame are four brass plaques. Two are for companies: a shipping company and an accountancy firm. The third and fourth are strange indeed. On the third plaque is the inscription: Bonny looked at the box on top of the refrigerator. Inside it was a ham. As Bonny’s hand touched it, they began to fuse to form a whole new organ.

The fourth plaque states: Bonny’s hand, Bonny’s organ, Bonny’s dead. Who cares?

Possibilities

1 Behind the doorway, a set of steps leads up to another door. It is carved like the outer one and also has mirrors at the top, but these show the reflection of something. If inspected closely, different faces can be seen in the mirrors, but no reflections.

This door is unlocked. Behind it is a long corridor, stretching much farther than should be possible. The corridor is lined with statues of men and women, all missing one hand. Each is faceless. At the end of the corridor there are empty plinths and a large refrigerator. On top of it is a box and inside there is a ham.

The statues are people who have been lured inside. Their images are trapped in the mirrors and they become statues if the touch the ham.

2 On maps of the Grainger Market, the doorway does not exist. Should they break in, a staircase behind the door leads up into darkness and ends in a blank wall.

The original owner of the market, Anthony Philips, had the rooms sealed off and erased from the plans. A little digging will reveal that there were strange stories about the mysterious disappearance of Anthony’s secretary and eldest daughter.

Anthony Philips was a dabbler in the occult and had learned much whilst in India as a tea merchant. Once home having made his fortune, he continued to search out bizarre books and happenings. His daughter became interested, as did his secretary (his wife was a devout catholic and became alienated from her husband over the matter). The two women agreed to be part of a ritual, but things went wrong. Both daughter and secretary became possessed by some fiendish power and ripped each other to pieces. Philips barely escaped with his life, and sealed everything up himself to hide the awful truth.

Whatever possessed the two women is still trapped behind the brick wall. It cannot escape because the brass plaques are inscribed with powerful wards. The responsibility for maintaining the wards is passed down through the family, generation by generation.

If the investigators check the two plates carefully, they see that one is newer than the other. The first plate was stolen a few years ago, and had to be replaced. The current guardian is another Anthony Philips and he added the reference to a refrigerator (the original mentioned a chest) to include himself in the family legend.

Should the plaques be removed, then the creature will be able to escape its prison and will look for the man who summoned it into the world – Anthony Philips. It does not care that the original Anthony is dead.

3 A local poet is currently having very strange dreams. He is inspired to write bizarre pieces, have them inscribed on brass plaques and put up at various sites around the town. After a week he takes them down and puts them in a new location.

The muse strikes erratically and new plaques appear now and again. The poet is technically insane, but thinks of himself as a tortured genius and of these poems as his greatest work, guaranteeing his immortality.

© Lynne Wilson