Bubbles

In the back of a local exotic pet store there is a small, dusty, forgotten fishbowl. The water is perpetually murky but something definitely bobs and undulates within the fetid water.

Closer inspection of the water reveals that there is an odd, vaguely fish-like creature in the bowl. It has bulbous eyes that seem to orbit independently. A toothless sucker mouth is the only other feature on its “face”. It possesses fins sprouting in all angles as well as a cluster of tendrils and two small, almost lame-looking forelimbs ending and fragile digits.

The thing in the bowl seems quite aware of those looking in on it though it does little to interact with them. It will simply watch them, follow them, sometimes with an eerie intensity.

Asking the aged shopkeeper anything about will bring only the vaguest of answers. The thing was brought into the shop by his grandfather and has been there through three generations of his family. It rarely leaves the shop and always seems to be returned – usually in a hurry and often left on the doorstep.

The old man will also caution against feeding it. Though it seems to sustain itself well enough through consuming the filth in its bowl, the thing grows rapidly if it eats anything else. It was the size of a pea when his grandfather brought it to the shop and has grown, through various happenstance, to the size of a grapefruit over the years.

The creature has a name too. It is named “Bubbles”.

Possibilities

1 Bubbles is little more than a deformity. Possibly a fish or amphibian that has managed to survive. Any suggestion of it having something more than dull awareness of its surroundings is merely the projection of struck onlookers.

2 Bubbles is the embryonic phase of some greater creature. The shopkeepers grandfather found it while seeking exotic creatures bringing it home as a mere curiosity.

The creature has been sustaining itself through some unknown means, its growth kept in check by the lack of flesh in its diet.

3 The creature is a prisoner. The shopkeeper’s grandfather had found it and subdued it, weakening it from some greater beast and withering it in the process. Placing it in the bowl in his own shop and entrusting it to his family, he had hoped to keep it imprisoned.

Fate and time have blurred the origins of the creature and the reasons for its addition to the shop and it has slowly gained in power as it has been sold and let out into the world. Fortune and its buyers’ low tolerance for its oddity have been the only things to have kept it in check for all these years.

© Eli Arndt

Casual Meeting

It’s a mild, quiet evening - a perfect time for a little walk...

While walking and chatting, suddenly a man crosses the character’s way: he’s clothed in a dark robe, ornamented with strange symbols and soiled with blood. In one hand he holds a long bloody knife, in the other a long stick with a goat head on top. His voice constantly changes between insane laughing and loud cries, while constantly shouting: “Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath!”

Possibilities

1 The man is just a ‘normal’ guy who has just come from a Cthulhu-Con, where he won the first price for his costume. He’s so happy, drunk and probably on drugs, that he’s totally into his role now.

2 The man is a worshiper of Shub-Niggurath. During the cult’s current ritual something went wrong and a portal opened, transporting the worshipper from to this place. He’s still a bit disoriented, and it takes a few more minutes, before he clearly acknowledges, where he is. The portal is probably still open…

3 The man is not a cultist – but nearby is a sorcerer’s apprentice who is trying out hallucination and fear spells. The apprentice still has a lot of ideas of other hallucinations he can create...

© 2008 Philipp Mählmann

Headcutter Jack

In the bayou country there is a tale about a spirit of vengeance known as Headcutter Jack. They say that if you really want it bad enough and you are willing to let yourself be ridden, that Jack will come calling and grant you the vengeance you desire. However, those who take on Jack can never hope to return to their lives unchanged. Most go mad and still others find themselves drawn to the twisted deeds they carried out under Jack’s influence only to become the very thing they sought vengeance against.

But that’s if you believe in Headcutter Jack.

Most folks these days dismiss him like they do the Voodoo ways or the Old Religions – wives’ tales and hoodoo stories to keep little kids in line. That was until recently. That was until Sally Mercury...

Sally Mercury was found in her home in a near-catatonic state, her hands rubbed raw, supposedly trying to remove the blood that covered her otherwise. The home, a modest Victorian-style affair was a veritable charnel house strewn with the parts of what most figure were her family who had been reported missing for several days now - mother, father, two sisters, all gone with only bloody gobbets and unidentifiable tissues to mark their passing.

Possibilities

1 Sally has always been a bit of a troubled child. Discussions with her school councillors and a delving into the local juvenile police records will show a long history of petty crime and acting out. Several calls to Child Protective Services have all been found to be the machinations of a vindictive pre-teen who cares little for her family. However, nobody predicted that Sally would be pushed over the edge and murder her family, all in the name of Headcutter Jack.

2 Sally claims that her house was attacked by a strange woman in a patchwork outfit. The woman was hooded and cackled the whole time she mutilated Sally’s family, but Sally never saw her face. When the woman came after Sally, she hid in an old coal shoot until she was gone. The woman, Sally claims, called herself “Jack”.

3 The remains are not those of Sally’s family. Forensics will show that most of the tissue is not human though it defies classification as anything else in particular. Sally claims that she “they” took her parents and that Jack saved her from “them”. The girl insists that her family is still at her home if not in it. She claims that they, whoever, they are, took her family to where they live. Sally cannot say much more, not knowing who they are or exactly where they took her family.

© Eli Arndt

Ailurophobia

For the past week, cats have been showing up outside the investigator’s house. At first it was only one or two cats, but as time went on more and more began to arrive until they presented a bizarre and almost alarming spectacle which has caused much comment among the neighbours. Dozens of cats of all colours and sizes sit outside the house waiting… for something.

Possibilities

1 Many thousands of years ago in a previous incarnation, the investigator was a favoured priest of the cat goddess Bast. Now some new threat has arisen against all of cat-kind, and she needs his aid once again. The cats are her way of getting the investigator’s attention; she will also send dreams that gradually reveal details of his past life.

2 Shortly before the cats began to arrive, the investigator accidentally killed a small, black kitten by running it over with his car. Ordinarily this would be nothing to worry about, but due to an unusual collection of occult circumstances, the area where the investigator lives has begun to intersect with certain regions of the Dreamlands. Some of the Cats of Ulthar have crossed the divide and are preparing to enact the terrible vengeance which is the just due of any human who dares to kill a cat. The investigator may get a hint of his coming fate when he reads a newspaper article about some other cat-killers, whose skeletons had been found curiously gnawed and licked free of any trace of flesh.

3 The cats are not supernatural, just hungry. For some time now, the reclusive old lady across the street has been feeding dozens of stray cats in her back yard. A few days ago she fell and broke her hip, and in the absence of her handouts the cats have been searching for sustenance in the rest of the neighbourhood. The injured woman remains trapped on her floor, helpless and dehydrated but still alive (at least for the time being).

© Emily Johnsen