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