Man's Best Friend

A dog can be a loyal companion in trying times. One of the investigators has a dog – as a faithful guardian, a reliable tracker, and someone he can always trust. Today, however, there appears to be something wrong - as the investigator comes downstairs, it stands in the hall, growling up at him. It doesn’t seem to want to come upstairs, but won’t let him go down.

Possibilities

1 The dog was scratching around in nearby woods a few days ago when it unearthed a Traveller larva, swallowed it and was possessed. The alien’s ship fell to Earth in an asteroid shower a centuries ago and this entity has only recently been disturbed by the dog’s digging.

The Traveller now seeks a more suitable host and wants to trap the human upstairs until it can attack more effectively - though it has control of the dog and could reanimate it if killed, it cannot yet make the special filament attacks typical of mature Travellers.

Meanwhile, the investigator might recall that the dog has been acting peculiar since going for a run in the woods a few days ago.

2 A sadistic serial-killer attacked the investigator last night and died, but the shans that controlled him simply flew into the investigator’s brain. It made him dump the body and then blanked his memory of the event. The dog can detect the creature, but does not wish to hurt its master.

By day, when the alien sleeps, the investigator notices gaps in his memory (such as not recalling anything in the papers about a serial-killer before, though it has been a lead story for weeks) and small clues that the shans has not yet had time to twist. By night, the alien is active, editing memories and making him kill sadistically, starting with the dog. It even adds memories from previous homicidal hosts, although the investigator’s friends have ready alibis for him in most of those cases.

3 The dog is trying to warn its master to stay upstairs – the centre of the kitchen floor is starting to subside, and the faint scrapings and slippages have distressed the animal all night. A little weight or a little more decay reveals that this part of the house was built over an old well. After many years, dampness in the shaft has decayed the capstone, resulting in subsidence.

On examination this shaft is found to be quite dry – the capstone has been chipped away from beneath until it collapsed. At the bottom of the well are piles of bones. Most are those of children, but those at the top of the pile belong to an adult. Research discovers that the local landowner was thrown into this well after it was discovered that he cast children into it as sacrifices to his dark god. By night, the sorcerer’s skeleton scales the walls to chip away at the stone used to seal him in.

© Pete Wright

High Fashion

It’s been happening for several months now. Mannequins in stores are a little less thin and aristocratic, their feature’s rougher, their mouths wider. In advertising the same thing is happening: shorter, wider, coarser. The tall, thin look that has been the western ideal for years is finally going out of fashion.

Of course, there are opponents to the style, remaining faithful to the old concept of beauty. However, most work in the business is going to those models, actresses and actors that have the “new look.”

Possibilities

1 The change is due to deep one agents infiltrating the fashion and beauty industry with human-looking hybrids. These agents are attempting to change perception of what is beautiful, thus making it easier for human-deep one hybrids to infiltrate human society.

2 A lone, once beautiful, deep one hybrid is beginning to change. Terrified by her warping body, she frantically tries to change the human idea of beauty to fit her own image. To do this she is promoting her own look and through the strategic use of magic is winning industry over to her side.

Tragically she takes her own life before the change is complete. Without her driving force behind the movement, the style dies out and the old concept of beauty is reinstated.

3 It is just another fad, which will be forgotten within the year. In later days people look back on the “short ‘n’ pug-ugly” period with some amazement. Any resemblance that the models have to deep ones is entirely coincidental.

© Eamon Honan

Grave Tidings

The investigators are begged to come to a small, isolated, backwater town by a native of the area, who relates an intriguing tale of dark forces.

He explains that for the last year a ghostly gravedigger has haunted his town. The gravedigger’s presence is mainly known by the freshly dug graves which are discovered in the town graveyard every few months. However, on two occasions, residents of the town have seen some manner of ghostly apparition working through the night in the graveyard. Neither resident stayed long enough to take a close look.

Whenever a new grave appears in the graveyard, someone dies in the town within a week. Thus, the ominous appearance of a new grave terrifies the townsfolk. One person at a time, the town is being destroyed.

The investigators won’t be told the townspeople’s unfortunate reaction to these occult events. At first, they remained within their houses whenever a new grave appeared, each hoping to hide from fate. However, recently, things have taken a more violent turn. The last few times a new grave appeared, the townsfolk began to murder each other, in order to ensure that the grave has an occupant.

The night that the investigators arrive in town, a new grave appears, forcing the investigators to deal with murderous townspeople as well as the force at the centre of the mystery.

Possibilities

1 The ghostly gravedigger is truly a restless spirit. In life, he was Robert Took, who was the mortician for the town half-a-century ago. However, he did not respect his job, or the clients that he cared for, and thus he frequently buried several people in the same grave, to save time, and often omitted gravestones and coffins because it seemed financially sound to do so. After he died, Took’s wrongdoing gnawed away at him, and so he has returned to do a proper job, digging a new grave whenever someone is destined to die.

Took is not malicious, but his presence has affected the town itself. He only digs a grave when he senses that a death is to occur, but recently his digging graves has become the impetus for those deaths.

If Robert Took’s wrongs can be undone, he will finally be able to rest. This will require finding out about Took, perhaps by consulting records or speaking with the ghost itself, and then repairing them. This will likely result in the grisly task of digging up most of the graveyard, and reburying the corpses properly.

2 The ghostly gravedigger is a spirit, but it has been purposefully raised by a group of malicious cultists. A group naming itself the Black Circle operates out of an abandoned house near to the graveyard. When they began to worship the Black Man, they found a need for sacrifices. They raised the spirit of a dead mortician, and whenever they needed a sacrifice for the Black Man, they would dig a fresh grave, and then make sure that someone died before week’s end.

So far, the cultist’s plan has gone perfectly. Several people have seen the ghostly gravedigger, and thus added credence to the existence of a genuine supernatural phenomena. The recent, murderous actions of the townspeople have pleased the cultists immensely, for the townspeople are now doing half their work for them.

If the cultists are dealt with, the ghostly gravedigger returns to his just rest, for it is only their necromantic rituals which tie him to this world.

3 The ghostly gravedigger is a holographic projection placed by the mi-go. Last year, the unearthly insects discovered an immensely valuable vein of minerals beneath the town. Unfortunately, its location made it impossible for the mi-go to mine it in secret. They were afraid to destroy the town because they knew that such an action would not go unnoticed, and that they would be driven away before they could mine more than the smallest fraction of the minerals.

So, the mi-go began a campaign of terror to force the humans to abandon the town. Every few months, they would dig a grave, and then ensure that there was a body to fill it within the next week. Twice, they used alien holographic techniques to allow townspeople to see the ghostly gravedigger. They understood the superstitious mindset of the townspeople well, and very soon, the legends of the ghostly gravedigger had taken on a life of their own.

If the mi-go can be driven away, the appearances of the apparition will end, and, perhaps, the town will return to normal.

© Shannon Appel

Fear and Amnesia

You think you are being haunted. Small objects are not where you left them, and you feel like you are being watched. You even dread stepping around corners and looking in mirrors. This is disturbing enough, but there is more.

You think you are suffering from amnesia. You cannot remember conversations that your friends say took place. You have been seen doing things that you have no memory of and would certainly not ordinarily do. Handwritten notes turn up, which you are certain you never wrote.

Are you haunted or are you losing your mind?

Possibilities

1 The peculiar events all have mythos links. Case notes are tampered with, artefacts moved. Sometimes clues appear, sometimes evidence vanishes. It does not make sense.

You are haunted by the ghost of a recently deceased investigator. This ghost does not possess any consciousness; it is merely “psychic residue” trying to fight the never-ending fight. In order to continue the battle against the mythos it occasionally
possesses your body to manipulate events, thus causing your periods of amnesia.

The ghost is occasionally helpful in an investigation, sometimes providing an important clue. However, it is equally likely to draw wrong conclusions and chase red herrings.

2 Meddling in strange magics, unknowable entities and alien intelligences can have unpredictable effects. You are being gradually displaced from reality by a doppelganger, or double. Two copies of you are trying to exist at the same place and time.

As time has passed, the doppelganger has grown strong, and has created a material body. This materialises from time to time - and when it does, you cease to exist. Eventually the double tires and its body dissipates (so you and your double are never seen together).

You obviously have no memory of the doppelganger’s deeds, because you didn’t do them. Unless you get help the doppelganger will eventually replace you completely. Oddly the doppelganger is equally confused and believes itself to be haunted . . .

3 You really are mad. Pushed to the limit one time too many, your mental defences have collapsed, releasing your evil thoughts and desires. Worse, due to the unearthly energies you have been exposed to, these have been given an independent existence, creating a mental entity composed of malice.

While you continue with your life, this “shadow” tries to destroy those people and things that you care the most about. Although unable to exert much physical strength (moving a small object such as a pen is about its limit), the shadow influences people’s memories, thus manipulating others to further your destruction.

© Matthew Grossman