Spaceman

There are strange lights in the hills near the investigators home, strange pulsing beams reflecting off the clouds and casting ghostly images on the sky above.

Strangers, hippies and other weirdos begin to appear in town, driving through in flower-painted Volkswagen buses to pick up groceries before setting off again. There are never many of them, no more than half-a-dozen at a time, but more seem to be coming every day.

In the hills is a cluttered campsite accommodating about fifty people. The inhabitants are friendly, but strangely reticent about what has brought them here, only saying that something of importance will be happening in a few days.

They all seem perfectly happy and mentally healthy. At night they set up a large strobe-light machine and gather around it wearing masks (these masks are large card constructions like the heads of the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Most of them partake of hallucinogens to “enhance” the feeling of standing around the strobe light.

Possibilities

1 Mi-Go, through their human slaves, have spread rumours among the “alternative” community that aliens are going to land nearby and are to be greeted by “Enlightened Ones.” The Mi-Go wish to acquire several brains from that part of human society, for strange and alien purposes.

The Mi-Go leave behind them fifty corpses; men, women and children. The tops of their skulls have been removed and their brains are missing. A few are untouched and one drug-crazed survivor remains to tell his tale to the world.

2 The hippies are destined to wait in vain, until complaints from local people about littering and strange noises at night cause the police to move in and make several arrests. The group, dispirited and more than a little disappointed, moves on. All except for Mad Eddy, a solitary dope smoker who claims to have seen “the Great Ones”. He becomes a hermit and lives in the hills for several years.

3 One night the hills are lit by a very bright light – the following morning the hippies have gone. All that remains are scorch marks and crop circles.

© Eamon Honan

Strategic Industries

Plattsmouth: A small rural town not too far from a city and military base. Plattsmouth has been growing lately because of its proximity to the “big city.” Because of this, some dark secrets are starting to come to light. Strange rumors, odd news articles, unusual happenings, and details of missing people have started to emerge. The unfriendly (if not downright hostile) townsfolk are silent and have done everything possible to keep newcomers out.

Enter Strategic Industries, a company founded by retired Army and Air Force personnel. Due to reductions in military spending, many people opted for retirement rather than moving. Some of the more enterprising retirees founded Strategic Industries and hired displaced civil servants and former military personnel. The company develops what it expects will be the “strategic” technologies of the future. It is a think-tank rather than an actual manufacturer. The company performs research and development, then sells the designs and plans to other companies.

Strategic Industries is looking to build a new office in Plattsmouth. The inhabitants are fighting it for the unwelcome attention it would bring to the town. The company views the development as bringing commerce to a town that has otherwise stagnated.

This initially appears to be a company versus town conflict, but there is something else going on underneath: missing people and strange unexplained events.

Possibilities

1 Plattsmouth is dominated by cultists performing blasphemous rituals in the hills and woods around town. They are the inbred descendants of Mi-Go experiments that have crossbred with human settlers. The investigators must pick apart the company-town conflict which hides Plattsmouth’s real secret.

Complicating matters are a number of people in Plattsmouth who know nothing about the cult but are against Strategic Industries’ expansion on principle.

2 The problem is actually Strategic Industries. They have created the incidences in Plattsmouth for a number of reasons: to draw attention from themselves, to drive property values down, to make themselves look like victims and strengthen their case to open a new office.

There is nothing supernatural happening at all, it is merely a clever sham perpetrated by faceless corporate suits.

3 Strategic Industries is actually controlled by cultists trying to reach the Great Old Ones and their minions at Hades. They have been researching the magical technology of the elder things in hope of bringing them back.

Cult-dominated Plattsmouth is located near several important sites - temples and the like. Strategic Industries want access to these sites to further their research. Unfortunately, the cult presently occupying Plattsmouth resents the intrusions and a cult war is developing.

© M J Aylor

Pussy's in the Well

Sasha Oldman is an attractive young woman, although she looks older and sadder than 15, her actual age. She has wild, dark hair and her left forearm, where it rests on the bed covers, bears many parallel scars.

“She did that with a drinking glass last time she got out of her room,” explains the nurse on seeing your eyes linger. “The doctor lost his eye. But don’t worry, she’s heavily sedated now.”

Sasha’s eyes are deep hazel in colour, but are dead, staring at the wall. Her face is immobile. You know she killed her family a year ago. She was found in the street with a kitchen knife in each hand, spattered with blood. There was more in the house, a lot more. Mother, father, and brother. All stabbed and slashed repeatedly.

You talk to her, she makes no response. If you discuss her family she hums Bohemian Rhapsody and avoids your eyes. The more insistent you are, the louder she hums, and jerks against her waist restraint. If you show a picture of her family she goes wild, screaming lots of gibberish, “They made me do it, bad fucking fuckers! Ding Dong Dell! Fuck fuck! Bad lights in the dark down below! Can’t run! Not me now. Jack and Jill all fall DOWN!”

By the last sentence her voice is inhuman. Spittle flies from her lips and her face becomes a mask of hatred.

Possibilities

1 Sasha and her family were cultists, who practiced foul rites and disposed of human remains in their basement well. Sasha was driven over the edge by what she witnessed and in a subconscious attempt to escape the cult and her memories, slaughtered her own family. She knows that the rest of the cult still exists and that someone will try to silence her. The investigators, in attempting to help Sasha or uncover the cult’s activities, themselves become the target of supernatural and mundane attacks.

2 Sasha’s home lies on top of an ancient well used by an old cult. Spirits infest the place and Sasha’s brother accidentally released their malevolence when he discovered the well. Sasha was possessed (and still is) when her brother showed her the “cool stuff” he found in the basement.

Exorcism is Sasha’s only hope, but to perform it the investigators must battle the institution authorities, cultists and the possessed Sasha herself.

3 Below Sasha’s home, below their basement well, lies some kind of subterranean cavern or extra-dimensional realm. Sasha’s brother inadvertently destroyed the elder sign sealing the entrance and whatever was trapped entered the house and quickly tore everything and everyone apart. Sasha defended herself and family as best she could, losing her mind in the process.

So what happened to whatever Sasha’s brother released? And where is it now?

© Jon Freeman

Pharos

Talon Rock – a small island barely a mile across, seemingly untouched by the defiling hand of humanity. The islet serves as an example of the purity of nature; birds wheel in the clear sky while the land is covered by a rampant growth of lush, tropical plant-life and a series of natural peaks. The island is also responsible for sending hundreds to their doom. Talon Rock is known to sailors as “Mariner’s Bane” on account of the many vessels that have been forcibly split apart by the keenly-pointed reefs that border its coastline.

Two months ago – in an attempt to prevent any further loss of life – a lighthouse was built atop one of the island’s peaks; a final warning of Talon Rock’s proximity. A crew of four men were selected to live in the lighthouse and be responsible for its maintenance and continued operation.

Recently, a vessel was sent to Talon Rock to replenish the lighthouse’s supplies. However, upon approaching the lighthouse the crew saw that some unknown force had wrought considerable damage to the exterior. Advancing to the interior, they found evidence of further devastation: papers had been torn to shreds; machinery disassembled; crockery smashed; and drawers thrown open, their contents strewn throughout the lighthouse. No trace could be found of the brave men who had chosen to live upon the rock in almost complete isolation from the rest of humanity.

A careful investigation yields no clue as to the crew’s eventual fate but one item of interest is discovered stuffed beneath a mattress - the senior keeper’s logbook. It contains only seven entries - the first week on Talon Rock. The last entry mentions a great storm approaching the Rock and the keeper’s feeling that they were being scrutinised by a nameless observer.

Possibilities

1 Legend has it that the dead walk on Talon Rock. This is not true; the bodies of the dead have been relentlessly broken upon the crag-like reefs by the unceasing tide. Their minds, however, live on. Talon Rock is now home to a gestalt entity - the amalgamation of all those who met violent ends beneath the islands savage waters.

The insubstantial entity is usually content to roam the island serenely, its presence unnoticed by the living creatures that also dwell there. Even the arrival of the lighthouse keepers went unregarded. Only one thing causes the pooled minds to act in unison - turbulent waters. During the storm the waters became incredibly violent, reminding many of the merged personalities of their own demise. The entity was envious of the lighthouse’s illuminating presence since such a beacon could have prevented the passing of so many previous victims. It struck at the lighthouse, tearing it apart with its wraith-like claws. The crew, believing their foe to be some form of poltergeist, fled the lighthouse and tried to leave the island in the emergency lifeboat. Like so many before them, they were claimed by the murky depths.

2 For countless generations, mariners have sought to steer clear of Talon Rock for fear of losing control of their vessels to the tempestuous waters and being mercilessly driven against the harshly-angled rocks. In reality, very few ships have been destroyed in this way. The actual cause lies far beneath the ever-shifting currents.

A small community of deep-ones inhabit the waters surrounding Talon Rock. They rarely frequent the world above except when performing rituals of devotion to Great Cthulhu or when raiding the ships that pass too close to the island for trinkets or victims for sacrifice.

The deep-ones initially assaulted the lighthouse simply to destroy the beacon which they believed would discourage shipping. However, while within the structure they plundered it for anything of the slightest interest. The four lighthouse keepers were dragged from their home and ritually sacrificed.

The deep-ones seek to keep Talon Rock free of human influence. Any attempt to repair the lighthouse will be met with aggression.

3 At the dawn of time, numerous wars occurred between varying interstellar races for the domination of the planet Earth. One such conflict was between the technologically superior, but less aggressive Yithians and the rapacious conquerors known simply as flying polyps. The Great Race forced their adversaries underground and built great cities atop all the exits - leaving their foes trapped within the Earth. Eventually the polypoids escaped and renewed their assault upon their conical foes. Their vengeance exacted, the polyps returned to their former prison and constructed vast underground cities.

An entrance to one of the polyps’ subterranean cities is located at the base of Talon Rock’s peaks. Even now that ageless elder-race still lurks deep within the Earth, far from the inquisitive eyes of humanity. The polyps viewed the lighthouse as an outpost of an enemy species. Such an outpost could not be permitted so close to their city’s entrance. Under the cover of the storm, the polyps annihilated their enemies.

The polyps also began to destroy the lighthouse until they ascertained its function. Human engineers from the supply vessel now marvel at the amendments made to the lighthouse’s internal components, the lamp now projects a narrow ray of light - more powerful than that of any Terran mechanism. However, the engineers are perplexed as to why the lamp no longer rotates but is instead mounted in a fixed direction. The impossibly dazzling ray now blazes through an aperture in the apex of the tower - and beyond into the uncharted tracts of space. What sinister powers could this beacon be signalling?

© Hadley Connor

Pest Trouble

An investigator visits an archaeologist of long acquaintance, Professor Andrew Dutton Long, at Long’s small but well-kept home. The yard is groomed, the house clean and neat, but every room is infested with vermin. Spiders and slugs crawl the walls, fleas infest the carpet, and houseflies swarm so thick the investigator can hardly breathe. No neighboring houses have the problem. Long is friendly and seems completely sane, yet oblivious to the vermin. He does not see them, and he casually deflects all comments. “This is a nice neighborhood,” he says as earwigs crawl over his forehead. “No problems here with bugs or the like.”

Possibilities

1 Long has procured or devised a talisman to summon Atlach-Nacha. The talisman does not work, but it has the side effect of attracting vermin. The necessary research into the talisman snapped Long’s sanity. A strongbox in his basement, covered thickly with ants and wasps, holds the talisman.

2 A serpent man, Haus-saris-sith, has killed Long and assumed his identity. The pests have been drawn by the serpent’s repellent heaps of carrion hidden around the house. As the investigator continues speaking with “Long,” Haus-saris-sith extends its illusion to conceal the vermin, then attempts Cloud Memory. If the investigator succumbs, the serpent plants a post-hypnotic suggestion that compels the investigator to learn Mythos spells and convey them to Haus-saris-sith

3 Dholes spread to new worlds from the Dreamlands by implanting larvae in the dream forms of victims. Eating a dreamer from within, the larvae gradually materialize in the dreamer’s waking world. Exploring the Dreamlands, Long was trapped by a dhole and received a single larva; it now grows in his material body. The manifestation attracts vermin as a side effect. Now mad, Long has blocked all memories of his ongoing nightmare, and refuses to perceive the pests. To stop the manifestation, investigators can kill Long and fight the emerging larva, or enter the Dreamlands, locate Long in the Vale of Pnath, and extract the larva before Long’s dream form dies.

© Allen Varney