The Vase of Sands

The investigators are approached by an elderly Egyptian Gentleman who says that a very valuable vase containing the ashes of his father have been stolen from his home in Bristol. The man himself is a silk merchant and his shipping business uses Bristol as a port to import his wares. He will pay handsomely for the return of the vase. But he will warn them not to look into the vase, for that would allow evil spirits to pollute the sanctity of his ancestors ashes. To retrieve it, the investigators will have to do a bit of classic investigation to find the vase.

Image from Artflow.ai

Possibilities

1 The elderly man is none other than Nyarlathotep, and the vase contains the Key of Sands, the only way to unlock the secrets of the lost city of Leng. If Nyarlathotep recovers this key then he will be able to return to Leng, and bring the Earth on step closer to being under the thrall of the Great Old Ones. He himself cannot retrieve the vase since it is protected from his and the eyes of his servants. Only a good person may see the Vase of Sands.

2 Well it is a vase with ashes. Ok. But instead of holding the ashes of the mans ancestors, it holds the essential salts of the evil magical Kneph-Ra. If the elderly man, who is none other than the magicians Great-Great Grandson, gets the ashes he will attempt to bring Kneph-Ra back to life, but will require a blood sacrifice to do it.

3 The vase contains not ashes at all, but diamonds. The man is a diamond smuggler and will be perfectly capable of killing those who have looked into the vase.

© Rik Kershaw

The Unborn

Not long ago the Amaranth Abortion Clinic was shut down for health violations, and it turned out that the doctors were practising without a license. Somehow they avoided prosecution, and are now running an underground clinic out of a run-down warehouse. They practice for free, taking only the fetuses of their clients as payment.

Image by Artflow.ai

Possibilities

1 The doctors are members of a cult who are using stem cells from the aborted fetuses to rejuvenate their dead god.

2 The doctors are being manipulated by an alien intelligence (or simply crazy), and are using the undifferentiated embryonic tissue that they collect to build a horrific pulsing, psychic mass in the basement of the clinic.

3 The doctors are harvesting the massive reserves of mental energies contained within the fetuses to power a spell of apocalyptic proportions.

© Ben Kohanski

The Typewriter

“Every man is a book; if we’re opened... we’re red.”

Leonard Russell is a young man with a burning ambition to be a novelist. He recently left home and moved to a cheap apartment in the big city where he was sure he’d find inspiration to write. It might be a romantic notion, but it seems to have worked, because people who’ve read his stories agree that he’s improved remarkably in a surprisingly short time. It surely can’t be long before a publisher accepts a manuscript and Leonard earns the recognition he’s hungry for.

Image by Artflow.ai

However, recently Leonard’s health began to suffer. He became pale and shaky, and occasionally drifted off into a daze without warning.

People started to worry, and with good reason: just a couple of days ago he collapsed while walking down to the corner store. Fortunately, a concerned onlooker was able to drive him to the emergency room where doctors made a startling discovery -- there was so little blood in Leonard’s veins it was a surprise he’d been able to walk at all. Odder still, his fingers and palms were dotted with dozens of tiny scabs, some of them still bleeding.

Possibilities

1 Leonard picked up a bit of spare cash a few months ago translating an old French play, “Le Roi en Jaune” (The King in Yellow).

During the translation he was struck by an idea which at the time seemed so simple it made him gasp -- with just a few minor modifications he could rebuild his typewriter into an engine for cranking out brilliant prose. It worked, and Leonard now owns a typewriter which can make those words that sound so good in your head look equally good on paper.

Anyone could use this typewriter to pen a bestselling novel. But there’s a price to be paid -- each key has a tiny needle embedded in it which draws a drop of blood every time it’s pressed down, and transfers it to the ribbon. Leonard’s brilliant manuscript is quite literally written in blood, and producing it has taken its toll on him.

Leonard is now completely mad, and unless someone intervenes, he discharges himself from hospital and eagerly returns to his desk to die in the process of finishing what will be acknowledged as the decade’s greatest novel. His typewriter passes to a relative...

2 Leonard likes his fiction to be as realistic as possible and borrowed a few phrases in an obscure language for his characters to repeat at intervals in the novel’s progression. The speech came from an old book of occult lore he browsed through in a second-hand bookshop. Unfortunately, Leonard has a habit of muttering the words under his breath as he types them out on paper, and has been unknowingly summoning a star vampire every time he sits down to write.

The summoning spell includes a binding component, so the vampire hasn’t been able to kill him -- it just takes its payment in blood each time it’s summoned and waits patiently for orders from its master before finally returning to where it came from when the spell wears off. Mind focused on his work, Leonard hasn’t even noticed the slow, repeated drainings, but now he’s lost too much blood to ignore.

If Leonard returns to writing his novel, the vampire finally takes enough blood to kill him. The binding spell fails, and the vampire is free to do as it likes on Earth. Worse yet, the novel is published, putting a dangerous magical spell in the hands of the unsuspecting public.

3 Leonard has been spending time with recent immigrants to research his novel. During that time he picked up a new and undiagnosed disease which the foreigners have a resistance to, but which locals do not have antibodies for. The disease is spreading through his blood and soon other parts of his body will also show the tiny sores. It spreads by touch, so bloodstains in Leonard’s apartment and especially on the keys of his typewriter have become a vector for its continued dispersal. The disease isn’t fatal to young and strong people, so his life isn’t in danger, but infants and the elderly are at risk.

If the authorities don’t realise the situation in time to isolate Leonard and destroy his belongings, the city is gripped by an epidemic worse than a new strain of influenza in less than a month.

© Chris Kerr

The Missing Body

It’s been a big topic of conversation for three days now. Renowned anthropologist Marvin Reardon was found dead in his home with a knife in his chest. At the morgue, his body disappeared without a trace. However the investigators get involved, a few things come out. Reardon’s lover Cordelia Loomis was the last person to see him. Her story is she had an argument with him but left him alive. Loomis is a rich girl, and there are many rumors about her past and source of money, including criminal activities. She often vacations at seaside resorts.

The coroner Jackson Walters has been acting nervous since the body went missing. He took a week off and has rarely left his house. Friends are mystified at his odd behavior.

Possibilities

1 An alien worshipper of the Outer Gods is hiding in Jackson Walters’ attic. Walters has been feeding it dead animals, but it has demanding more so Walters stole a body from the morgue. As the thing tells him about the mythos Walters loses more of his sanity. It won’t be long before he steals another body or worse.

2 Cordelia Loomis is a deep one cultist. When Reardon was drunk she took him to a cult ceremony where he drank the blood of a deep one while the cultists chanted. The blood and the ritual turned him into a deep one hybrid. When Reardon found out he didn’t take it well and threatened to stop the cult forcing her to kill him. Later the body was stolen to keep the secret. Jackson Walters found evidence of Reardon’s transformation and was shaken up.

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3 Loomis was mad at Reardon and summoned a star vampire to kill him. When it was done she stuck a knife in him to make it look less suspicious. Jackson Walters found him drained of blood and received a threatening note in the mail to get rid of the body or be killed. He did what it said and this is the reason for his nervousness.

© Randi Drysdale

The Mythos Collector

It is a stormy night. In an attempt to find shelter, the investigators enter an antique shop by the name of Bradshaw’s Curios. Bradshaw’s Curios is owned by Marshal Bradshaw, a withered old man. (In reality, Bradshaw is only 36 but he has experienced things that have agee him.) Bradshaw is obviously kind but if asked about the weather, he says, “Nice, is it not?” His mind is obviously shattered, and this only a hint of it.

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The interior of Bradshaw’s Curios is filled with objects, artefacts and curios of the past and present. There is a flight of stairs at the far end of the shop leading up to a door.

Upon one wall there are five clay bas-reliefs. One is of a pulpy octopus head surmounting a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings (Great Cthulhu). Another shows a monstrous ever-shifting mass of protoplasm (a shoggoth).A third  is of a bloated, grotesque and headless human-like body, completely naked with orifices upon the palm of its hands (Y’Golanac).

One bas-relief is clearly different to the others, as it is more detailed and appears to be more recent. It shows a worm-like entity with tentacles upon its head that has been pierced by an odd crystal. The sides of the crystal are covered various symbols (among them the the Elder sign, the yellow sign, Y’Golonac’s symbols and others).

This bas-relief was carved by Bradshaw himself and shows a trapped and bound Cthonian - a scene Bradshaw saw in life. Due to the realistic like of said bas-relief the sanity loss is much more severe then any of the other statues.

One wall is covered with book shelves that are crammed with books and pamphlets. The collection includes a number of forbidden books: Necronomicon in Latin, Al-Azif in Arabic, the Book of Eibon in English, The Cthäat Aquadingen in German and more.

Possibilities

1 Using sorcery contained within one of the forbidden books, Bradshaw is able to create an illusion that brings the bas-reliefs to life.  Bradshaw does this to entertain himself - he doesn’t have a television or radio.

2 If Bradshaw perceives the investigators as a threat, he will excuse himself and retire upstairs. There he tries to summon a byhakee - but unfortunately the summoning goes wrong. The byahkee arrives, but is merely angered. It lashes out and kills Bradshaw before turning on the investigators.

3 The stairs are a powerful magical illusion. If anyone tries to climb them they fall through the seemingly solid “wall” and into caverns below the shop. The caverns are deep and almost endless - and somewhere down there is a Cthonian, trapped by a giant symbol-covered crystal... 

© Daniel Dunn

The Museum of Mannequins

The Museum of Mannequins an old place, located somewhere in the barren plains of Illinois. The Museum is deserted, and there are DANGER signs in everywhich direction.

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Possibilities

1 The Museum of Mannequins held old store mannequins rescued from garbage cans. One day a little girl’s body was mysteriously found in the back room. The owner of the place was arrested, and nobody came within even a mile’s radius of the place.

2 The museum was burgled a few years back. The people that lived closest to the museum moved away, fearful of being burgled themselves. With no customers, the owner went broke and closed the museum.

3 The museum existed in ancient times - although its theme changed from time to time. In its early days, a lady who had mastered voodoo, was a frequent customer. Once, she was charged with an outrageous member’s bill but the Museum’s owner would not listen. In anger the lady cursed the museum. When the towns folk heard about the curse they moved away. Nobody knows what became of the Museum’s owner.

© Sakuni Egodawatte

The Face of God

A religious revival has struck a small town that lies far away from the rest of human civilization. Many people there claim to have seen the true face of God. Unfortunately, seeing the true face of God seems to be a traumatic experience; everyone who has undergone this ecstatic experience has emerged blind, some with their faces terribly scarred.

The investigators may be led to the town by any of a number of forces. Perhaps strange omens point them in that direction. Townspeople may beg for their assistance, or an investigator’s relative may be one of the blinded victims of this harsh god. For proactive investigators, a simple newspaper clipping may be sufficient. By whatever means, the investigators will arrive, and soon see that something is distinctively wrong.

That old time religion has caught on in a big way in the town, but some of the rites that the people practice seem distinctly odd. After they have been in the town for a night, investigators will very quickly realize that this revival is supernatural in nature. They begin to have strange dreams of the past, imparting ancient knowledge upon them that Man should not know.

Unless they are very careful, investigators will find themselves mindless minions of the town’s new god, themselves seeking new followers to bring into the fold.

Possibilities

1 The Great Old One, Nyogtha, has come to be trapped beneath this town. It was accidently contacted by innocent townsfolk, who soon found themselves practicing its dark rituals in order to preserve their lives. The reluctant cultists are blinded by Nyogtha so that they may better understand The Thing That Should Not Be. At least once a month, they also bring Nyogtha a sacrifice, to sate its dark hunger.

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Although most of Nyogtha’s worshipers are reluctant, they are too fearful to make any move against the Great Old One. Some townsfolk, however, have grown to love the power that Nyogtha offers, and have thus joined into the Cult whole-heartedly. They know secret spells to control the living darkness, and will gleefully use them.

Investigators who enter Nyogtha’s town are likely to be inducted into the Cult by force, or offered up as a sacrifice.

2 A small band of cultists reside in the small town. They practice secret rites that allow them to look deep into the past, and have been using them for months to rediscover ancient sorcerous powers.

Sometimes, their dreams of the past cross into the consciousness of others. The cultists know when this happens, and they kidnap the unfortunate innocent, and force them to participate in a magical ritual. This ritual causes the victim to forget what they saw, leaving only vague impressions of a brush with divinity. The eyes of the victim must be put out during this ritual. When the investigators arrive in town, and begin dreaming of the past, they have accidently crossed paths with the cultist’s rituals, and are thus marked as the next victims.

These cultists have learned many spells from the past, and should be fearsome adverseries. They can manipulate time and space in many exotic fashions.

3 The people of the town have indeed seen the True Face of a God. It is Hypnos, an Elder God. Although certain legends say that the Elder Gods are benevolent, in truth, they do not care; men are less than fleas to them. Through cosmic accident, Hypnos’ true presence lies across this place on the earth. Those who see it have their eyes seared out, and are sometimes reduced to madness.

Still, due to the basic perversity of the human race, a great cult has sprung up around this god. If an investigator shows the least vestige of interest in the face of god, he will be preached to extensively. Many of Hypnos’ followers are great orators. Some have been changed by their nearness to their god, and have gained supernatural means to convince people of their rightness.

If the investigators do not fall prey to the beckoning of Hypnos, they must decide what to do with this situation. If they do not evacuate the town, and mark it forever uninhabitable, it is likely that a trip to the Dreamlands will be required, to somehow cause Hypnos to be moved from his current resting place.

© Shannon Appel

The Eve of Oov

The mentally unstable in town are claiming that a great disaster is forthcoming. Some of these reports involve references to “darkness” or “day becoming night” or “night everlasting”.

Then, one day the sunrise simply doesn’t come. No one can provide an explanation. The common threads amidst the inevitable chaos are the sightings of a menacing figure in black tattered robes, the presence of a variety of strange creatures attacking people in most despicable ways, and their general avoidance of children.

The figure in black robes calls himself Oov.

Possibilities

1 The “strange creatures” attacking people are in fact, the Dark Fae (evil faeries). Oov is their leader, a particularly powerful and wicked Dark Faerie who brought them here to change the local balance between good and evil. They avoid children because of their “innocence”, which causes them excruciating pain. Night goes on until they are stopped and they can only be stopped by a certain spell that exists in the recent dreams of the local children.

2 Oov and the strange creatures are fugitives from the Dreamlands who are trying to break into the waking world. Victims in the dream don’t wake up in the waking world and so become hosts for the fugitives to “wake up in”. They can only be stopped by realizing the dream state and waking up the entire town.

3 There was an eclipse and much like full moon “lunatics” Oov and these monsters are nothing more than crazy people gone wild.

© Jim Sliney Jr

The Elderly Man

Outraged and astounded witnesses have no idea why he didn’t report it to the local police, when an elderly man gets verbally humiliated by a band of local teenage punks.

But when some of the offending punks are found brutally murdered, the suspicion quickly falls upon the elderly man. That is, until it is verified, that the elderly man has watertight alibi.

Besides, how could a man of his age ever manage to assault and murder several young and strong teenage boys?

Possibilities

1 The elderly man dabbles in the occultic powers of the Mythos. After the humiliating incident, the elderly man swore a gruesome vengeance. He summoned a Byakhee and ordered it to track down and kill the offending punks. When the Byakhee takes off, hunting for the punks, the elderly man went to eat his supper at a restaurant nearby, comforted by the fact that the humiliation will be avenged.

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2 The elderly man is the head of a criminal syndicate. But he is hiding from the authorities, which have forced him to resume a fake identity. After the humiliation, the elderly man contacted some of his goons and ordered them to track down and teach the offending punks not to be so disrespectful. Knowing all too well about the power of a strong alibi, the elderly man chose to eat his supper at a local restaurant, comforted by the fact that the humiliation will be avenged.

3 The elderly man is just a normal elderly man, that dare not face the offending punks, knowing that he can’t stand up against them. The real killer is a local vigilante-wannabe, who witnessed the humiliating incident. Deciding that enough is enough, the vigilante armed himself, tracked down, fought and murdered the punks. All that happened while the elderly man ate his supper at a local restaurant.

© Tim Deer

Odontalgia

Searing pain aches through your body, you want to scream . . . but you manage to contain yourself, there are still other patients in the dentist’s waiting room. Finally, it’s your turn. The dentist examines your aching tooth, then comes to the result, that he must remove it with the root. His assistant prepares the anaesthesia, and soon you fall asleep. Just before you completely slip away, you have a really weird vision: the dentist’s head is replaced by a monstrous visage, with wrinkled skin, a bundle of tentacles instead of a mouth and a dozen eyes with pitch-black irises...

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Possibilities

1 You wake up and everything went well. The assistant gives you an appointment for the new implant. This dentist is really okay! Still, there are rumours of some deaths in his practice: one man reportedly died because his fear of the dentist gave him a cardiac infarction, and another one died of an unrecognized allergy to his new fillings. And then the assistant also vanishes without a trace. Strange...

2 You wake up and everything went well, it was just a dream. However, the dentist has one more surprise for you: the pulled tooth was hollow, and inside it contained a small electronic device. It’s a small transmitter with which somebody can determine the carrier’s location...

3 You don’t wake up. Instead, you’re trapped in a dreamworld – and you’ve already met the owner of this place...

© Philipp Mählmann

Pathogen

A microbiologist, a friend of the investigators, is found dead. Officials rule the death a suicide, but those who knew the scientist are baffled. He was respected in his field and had no family or financial troubles. Adding to the mystery and his loved ones’ grief, federal authorities are subjecting the scientist’s friends and family to intense interrogations, giving them stern warnings to keep their suspicions to themselves. Investigators find that at least a dozen other microbiologists across the globe have died, committed suicide, or disappeared under suspicious circumstances in the past month.

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Possibilities

1 The microbiologists were part of a project focused on finding a vaccine for black pox, a form of hemorrhagic smallpox, 100% fatal if contracted. An ecological-based cult stole a weaponized-strain developed by the Soviets during the Cold War. Believing the human population needs to be reduced from billions to just a few thousand to save the planet, the cult plans on releasing the virus. Anyone who may prove a threat to this plan, such as the microbiologists, is targeted for assassination. The federal authorities are trying to track down the cult before the virus is released, and covering-up the plot to stave off a panic.

2 An alien race known as the Colony, an intelligent virus, is invading the planet. While it can survive outside of a host-body for centuries, the Colony requires warm-blooded animals to reproduce, finding humanity to be an inviting host. While humans are capable of fighting off the disease, children, elderly, and the sick are highly susceptible to infection. Those infected develop flu-like symptoms for a week while their body tries to fight off the disease; those losing the fight are controlled mind, body, and soul by the Colony. Terrified of being discovered and losing its favorite new hosts, the Colony is assassinating microbiologists.

3 A group within the federal government is behind the assassinations. A cult known as the Elite, made up of leaders from the worlds of politics, business, religion, and the military, hired the microbiologists to develop a doomsday virus as well as the cure. The Elite plan on releasing the virus, reducing the human population to a controllable level, while they themselves are immune from infection. Knowing the Elite are above the law due to their positions of influence, the group within the federal government is waging a secret war against the cult in a desperate attempt to foil the plot. The investigators discover their friend planned on introducing them to the Elite and inoculating them against the doomsday virus; now the investigators may be targets of both the cult and the government group.

© Bruce Priddy

On the road to nowhere

You are making an urgent journey across the UK from west to east. It is an overcast autumn afternoon, with a slight drizzle falling from the sky at that annoying rate where windscreen wipers can’t keep the road ahead in sight when set on ‘intermittent’, and squeal against the dry screen when running constantly. The journey is tiring for the driver, and atmospherics are messing up the radio, leaving a single worn audio cassette to entertain you all. There’s a distinct feeling that you should have taken the train, no matter how erratic or costly the journey would have been.

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After dusk, beyond Coventry, the M6 motorway merges with the M1, heavy with London-bound traffic. Here you turn off, moving onto a relatively empty A14. As the gloom becomes night the odometer records the rising mileage as you head into the black, flat emptiness of East Anglia on the rumbling concrete road. After an hour the signs are proclaiming the approach of the dreamy spires of Cambridge as the next city. You sweep around a bend, to see amber lights flashing in a wall of cones. The A14 eastbound carriageway is closed, with Police Warning signs and temporary diversion signs pointing a route towards Bedford in the south. You turn and follow these, which soon lead into narrow country lanes with high hedges winding through the darkness of the damp, overcast night...

Possibilities

1 There has been a fatal accident on A14 and both carriageways have been blocked. This is a diversion thrown together quickly by the Police. After 50 miles of winding, poorly signposted roads ,the investigators will rejoin the A14 at Cambridge.

2 Once the investigators are diverted into the wilds of the Cambridgeshire fens, the diversion signs disappear. The road has been closed as an over-enthusiastic student fresher’s week prank using traffic cones and signs appropriated from the spires. The biggest risk the investigators are threatened with is getting lost.

3 The investigators are diverted off the road and, after a wrong turn or two, find themselves on a country estate on what looks like a minor road. The estate belongs to cultists, who invite the investigators in for a coffee and to show them where they are. If the investigators try to leave, the cultists ram the investigator’s car with a Land Rover. Once they are out of the car the, preparations for a ritual and summoning begin - the cultist making good use of this fine bounty that has fallen unexpectedly into their laps.

© Dominic Mooney

Music from the Stars

A group of radio astronomers working in a secluded desert observatory have died. Investigation suggests that they all killed each other in a kind of frenzied bloodlust. Detailed investigation reveals that the astronomers were picking up a strange signal from a distant star - a strange kind of music with high-pitched wails and deep groaning moans.

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Possibilities

1 The song is the Song of Shoggoth and is transmitted from a star in a far-distant galaxy. The song is a prayer that causes madness in weak-willed humans. Cults in certain areas of South America have duplicated the song in their own way over the years but none of them has ever brought the madness that the true Song of Shoggoth brings upon those who hear it.

2 The astronomers picked up a communication from another galaxy that is being sent by a highly advanced civilization as a message of peace. However, the message is too complex for human minds to comprehend, and those that try are stricken with madness.

3 The music is made by the mi-go as they travel across the vastness of space. It is filled with subliminal signals that are meant to convey an attitude of peace and solitude, but human minds cannot process the complexity of the music and they go insane from listening to it for too long.

© Paul Comeau

Mrs Whathernam

Mrs Wathernam is a nice old lady living down the street in a small but cozy home with a little garden. Mrs Whathernam adores children; many parents, who can’t afford a place in the kindergarden, send their children to her. There, they can play in her garden, Mrs Whaternam knows lots of games to play, never gets angry and bakes wonderful cakes.

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Possibilities

1 Mrs Whathernam is really just a nice lady - with a tragic past: her husband returned from the war, but body and spirit broken. One night, he couldn’t stand it any longer, took a gun and turned on his family before killing himself. Mrs Whathernam survived, but her husband murdered their child.

By day, some of the children claim to have played with an unknown young boy; by night, people tell of a dark figure in a uniform staring out of the windows.

2 Mrs Whathernam has a dark secret: she is a murderer. Years ago, she and her husband were members of a dark cult and sacrificed people in their occult rituals. The cult was infiltrated by the authorities, and the cultists were arrested. Some were hanged, some committed suicide. Mrs Whathernam (not her real name) escaped...

3 Mrs Whathernam really, REALLY likes children - especially served with honey orange marinade and added spice...

© Philipp Mählmann

Mr Sebastien

Mr Sebastien was a strange man. He was noted for holding conversations with himself, even going as far as answering. He professed to be a stage magician, a conjurer and a master of prestidigitation, but he wasn’t terribly good. Even small children went unimpressed.

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However, his latest trick proved to be his finest, if last. He was found dead in a dingy hotel room. The trick of it, however, was that the door was securely locked from the inside. Sebastien had the only key, and the windows, previously painted shut, were sealed tight. All that the room contained, other than its cheap furniture, were the corpse and a pack of ordinary playing cards scattered around the room in a haphazard manner.

Possibilities

1 Mr Sebastien believed himself capable of great things, so tried his hand at a little demonic conjuration. Taking a room in a hotel, he carefully locked the door. Then making sure the windows were sealed and using his only aid, a pack of ordinary playing cards, set about conjuring a demon.

Of course, Mr Sebastien was not very good at magic and forgot to take basic protective measures. The conjuration was a success, he managed to manifest a rather nasty demon. However, having no protection, its first victim was Mr Sebastien. It now lurks within the deck of cards.

2 Mr Sebastien, tired of all the jibes over his lack of talent, conceived a brilliant trick. A small hotel room was hired, he locked himself in, he took a rare slow-acting poison and while dying, cast his cards around the room. His final trick then was to leave a mystery.

3 An autopsy is conducted only to discover that the corpse is nothing more than an empty husk. Mr Sebastien, whoever or whatever he was, entered that hotel room that evening and did not emerge alive. At least not ‘alive’ in any sense that we might know it.

©Andrew Parfitt

Figure in Black

Whispers are circulating through a small town about sightings of a mysterious figure along the river dressed in black. The figure is reported to leave burnt black footprints on the ground wherever he walks, and anything liquid that he touches turns to steam.

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Possibilities

1 The mysterious figure on the river is the Devil, transported to earth in human form. He challenges all those who come near him to a battle of wits, a battle that he has rigged to win at the cost of the soul of any who challenge him.

2 The mystery man is an actor being paid by a developer to scare the people out of the area so that they can buy up the land to build a casino on the river. All of his scare tactics are a bag of harmless special effects meant to scare away the curious and the simple minded.

3 The figure is an alien from the planet Venus. His coat protects his skin from the sun’s radiation which would be deadly to him, and he sweats acid which burns the ground where he steps.

© Paul Comeau

Gloomy Sunday

‘Gloomy Sunday’ is a mournful song about a young man deciding to follow the woman he loves into death, written and recorded in Hungary in 1933. A composer named Reszo Seress wrote it shortly after breaking up with a long-time girlfriend, and it quickly became popular, but also began to develop an odd reputation as the ‘Hungarian Suicide Song’. A number of deaths were linked to Gloomy Sunday, with suicides following a playing of the song, or lyrics from it appearing in suicide notes. Shortly after he approached her seeking a reconciliation, the composer’s girlfriend killed herself, leaving a note reading only “Szomorú Vasárnap” -- ‘Gloomy Sunday’.

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An English language version was recorded, and Gloomy Sunday’s reputation as the suicide song spread across Europe and America, to a lesser degree than in Hungary, but still worrying authorities to the point of banning it from radio in several places.

(This is all true. There are websites that detail the song’s history or debunk the ‘suicide song’ legend, and various recordings available for download.)

Now, a dusty and rather scratchy original recording of the song being played by its composer has been restored and duplicated with a clarity never heard before, and the original Hungarian version of Gloomy Sunday is regaining popularity -- but this version of the song seems to have a power over its listeners that none of the previously mass-marketed recordings came close to matching. Listeners find themselves babbling snatches of Hungarian they don’t understand, experiencing terrible and sourceless fears, seeing strange visions they can’t explain, and killing themselves at a frightening rate.

Possibilities

1 Seress was a cultist, and quite mad. Along with the strange and troubling music he composed, there were rituals venerating forgotten gods. He forced his fiancee to join him, and at first she went along with it willingly, humouring a man she loved and believed could be brought back to sanity with patience and quiet surroundings. But soon the forbidden knowledge she was learning through their descent into the mythos began to horrify her. When she protested, Seress threatened to kill her if she backed out or if she told anyone of what they were doing.

His efforts were building towards a final rite he was reluctant to tell her about, but her own researches gave her an idea of what he was planning, and the sick fear of it became too much for her: she killed herself. Seress was furious at her betrayal, but continued his preparations for the rite as though he believed there would still be a second participant.

Now, the specially-prepared Gloomy Sunday recording acts as a kind of trap for the woman’s spirit, periodically forcing her to inhabit and possess a listener’s body against her will. It also calls to Seress, who immediately gives chase, armed with magical methods to force her to join him in the final ritual. The repeated suicides are the unfortunate ghost’s only way to free herself from the trap.

If nobody intervenes, the deaths continue until Seress finally captures his late fiancee and goes ahead with the ritual.

2 Seress wasn’t much of a composer, but he was a charming man with a wide range of acquaintances, and an accomplished plagiarist. One of his friends was a German-Hungarian scientist experimenting with brainwave transference using salvaged mi-go technology and money provided by Hitler’s Reichstag. He was exploring a promising method of transferring thoughts and memories from one mind to another encoded in repeating tones like the melody of a song. Seress liked the ‘music’ he heard in the scientist’s home one night, and left with the recording hidden under his coat, eventually publishing an adapted version of it with lyrics written by another acquaintance, as Gloomy Sunday.

Now listeners are experiencing some of the scientist’s recorded thoughts as they listen to his brainwave-duplicating sounds, including his growing doubt and guilt over accepting money from nazis, and increasingly paranoid fear of what can only be mi-go attempts at intimidation in order to reclaim their equipment.

If nobody intervenes, the Gloomy Sunday reputation continues to grow and the recording’s publisher quietly takes that version off the market. Isolated suicides continue, as private copies still exist.

3 Gloomy Sunday is simply a sad, regretful song with nothing supernatural about it. The wax the recording is pressed from is contaminated with toxic chemicals that fill the air with poisonous fumes when played. The hallucinations and deep depression listeners experience are symptoms of exposure.

In time, the recording company will switch to a safer material and try to hush up the deaths, leaving thousands of potentially deadly records in the hands of the public.

© Chris Kerr

Glossolalia

In a small town, located in the foothills of larger mountains, are more and more cases of people speaking in tongues (glossolalia). It started some weeks ago and it grows. Every day there are more people who are affected.

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Possibilities

1 The outbreak of glossolalia can be tracked to an itinerant preacher, who entered the town just a few days before the first cases were noticed. He has always a round slice with him, which is the source.

The slice is an alien artifact, containing a parasite that powers the preacher’s sermons (which are now highly addictive). The parasite drains energy from the listeners to fuel the slice. Once it has enough energy it will return to space. The tongue-speaking is a adverse reaction, but people stop after several days.

The parasite’s energy-drain is harmless, it just lets the people speak in tongues and gives them a little fatigue.

The preacher himself has no idea what is going on, but won’t let the slice be taken.

2 The town is built above a source of raw minerals that the Mi-Go want to mine. They have placed emitters around the town that are affecting human brains and causing them to become disturbed. This leads to the tongue-speaking and incapacitates the people. They won’t eat, drink or sleep until they leave the area (or the emitters are deactivated).

Some of the officials who have come to the town are Mi-Go henchmen and are here evacuate the town. They will also resist any attempt to interfere with the Mi-Go’s plans.

3 The glossolalia is caused by a Serpent Person. A few decades ago one of the ancient serpent-scientists awoke from his hibernation and started to explore a way to overthrow humanity and restore the ancient kingdom. He invented a disease which weakens the human mind sufficient to allow the scientists mental suggestion. The disease has three different stages:

First the victims loses consciousness for some hours, then it awakes.

In the second stage the victim has loses the ability to speak, and only speaks in tongues. This stage is very dangerous, because everybody who listens more than four hours to the victim’s glossolalia will be affected too.

Finally, after some days the victim regains the ability to speak, but is then a viral carrier, spreading the disease via sexual intercourse and obeying the Serpent’s mental instructions.

© Jochen Koltermann

Fiends on Film

The characters visit a video store containing obscure films on VHS and DVD. The VHS films are of particular interest because they are bootlegs of unreleased films, director’s cuts, work prints and documentaries. One film, called “Document of the Damned,” stands out.

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The film, which is the unreleased director’s cut of a film released in campus theaters and art houses during the 1970s’, contains footage shot in the mid 20s’ and late 60s’. It is a sensationalistic documentary about witchcraft and the occult containing lots of nudity and exaggeration.

One detailed scene depicts a ritual for summoning demons. It includes a bizarre and convincing monster.

Possibilities

1 The scene is an accurate simulation of the rituals required to summon and bind a dimensional shambler. Anyone studying the film carefully can learn the spells over time.

2 The scene is actual footage of the rituals required to summon and bind a dimensional shambler being performed, although the spells can’t be learned through viewing the film due to its editing.

3 The film contains no actual content related to the Cthulhu mythos. The film’s value to general occultists is also questionable.

© Brian Woodman

Fallen Grace

It’s been happening for three days now. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, or that I was short of sleep.

If only.

I see her in mirrors, in windows, in puddles of dirty rain-water. Sometimes she’s alone; sometimes, there are others, behind her. Waiting, watching.

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Her name is Grace. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.

I also know I’ll be seeing her soon.

Grace appears to be a young girl with long, straggly blonde hair and guarded blue eyes. She’s dressed in rags, and looks like she’s been surviving on her own for some time now. She can be seen in any reflective surface; at first she appears infrequently, but as time passes and her urgency increases, she begins to haunt her target.

Possibilities

1 Grace’s father, Professor Henry Avebury, worships something ancient and nameless. Centuries ago the creature’s body was destroyed, and now its mind roams free, seeking a way back to the world. A month ago, Professor Avebury performed a ritual on Grace to draw the beast’s essence into her body. Unfortunately for Henry, the ritual backfired; Grace was left with limited telepathic abilities, but was otherwise unharmed, and the beast was drawn into Henry’s mind instead.

The beast isn’t shy about calling forth servitors to do its dirty work. Grace is desperate for help, and is calling for it, although she doesn’t know it.

2 In life, Grace was a powerful witch. Six years ago her cottage burnt to the ground; she was trapped inside, and her body was reduced to ash. Her soul, however, survived, and now it’s looking for a way back.

Grace can manifest physically in a shape of her choosing for up to a minute at a time, but must rest between manifestations. She needs to persuade someone to carry out a ritual to bind her to a new body if she is to have any meaningful existence.

She tells the investigators about an invisible hunter which can shift in and out of reality; she claims that this beast is what killed her, and that the ritual she wants the investigators to perform will banish it. 

If necessary, Grace is prepared to kill to provide evidence of her claims.

3 A shape-shifting creature is hungry, and has found that victims are easiest to take when alone and desperate. Who can ignore a helpless child in terrible danger? And who’s going to tell people about someone they can only see in mirrors? The creature preys on the minds of its victims, hounding them until they no longer dare to look in a mirror, until they hide alone, afraid, in the darkness -- and then it strikes. 

© Matt Harvey

Division Hexe

After winning his position in early 1933, Hitler cemented both his own position and that of the Aryan master race through military conquest and genocide. But there are other, infinitely older forms of power that he also tried to tap...

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The interest in the occult held by Hitler, Himmler and many other leading Nazis is well documented, and during their reign of terror, expeditions were despatched to all corners of the globe, searching for lost and potentially war-winning lore. Several, in the 1930s, were sent by Hitler to Tibet in order to seek out Agharti-a secret underworld populated by enlightened immortals. Unfortunately for the Reich, Agharti was little more than a fairy tale, dreamt up in 1871 by English Occultist Edward Bulwar-Lytton. But these were not the only expeditions sent out by Hitler; some, in pursuit of more definite and real goals, may have been a lot more successful.

After the war, much of the knowledge was either lost or buried in infinite national archives (which is much the same thing). These days, no one knows for sure where these expeditions went, nor what they sought - nor whether they were successful or not. Only occasional, tantalising rumours loom out of the mists of time, perhaps best left hidden.

Recently, however, a series of documents have surfaced and are currently being posted around the internet by an anonymous source claiming to be in Moscow. The documents appear to be a series of intriguing typewritten sheets from towards the end of the war, detailing the activities of the ‘Division Hexe’; an elite development group made up of leading SS officers and occultists. It makes for interesting and dangerous reading.

Possibilities

1 The documents detail a range of biological experiments carried out upon unfortunate Jewish and Gypsy children in Auschwitz, on behalf of Dr Josef Mengele. It appears that they grafted the skin of a Deep One, retrieved by U-boat crews in the Pacific, onto a living human. Photographs and some convincing scientific details add an element of realism, and no evidence of tampering can be found. Unfortunately for the Auschwitz researchers of Division Hexe, the war ended before the results could be fully described or used-although their purpose still remains unknown (the final sections of this information, according to the anonymous source, were destroyed by disgusted Soviet officials – or so he claims). According to the unnamed source, the last sheet is stained with blood and even now smells suspiciously of fish.

2 According to these pages, Hitler called in the services of a team of top Gestapo spies to track down books and other sources of power and evil from across the world so that their secrets could save the Third Reich. Their research and discoveries from all corners of the globe are carefully listed, and include such titles as the ‘Necronomicon’ and ‘Unausprechlichen Kulten’. The pages describe the results of experiments using what was found in these texts, together with some interesting photographs showing the preparations and-occasionally-the results of various magical ‘experiments’.

3 In January 1945, a desperate Hitler sent a team of experimental researchers, ‘Division Hexe’, together with all their materials to a secret location, from where they would continue to develop further eldritch methods of defeating the Allies. According to the text, they departed Germany on a U-boat in late March 1945 and were never heard from again. The documents make it clear that they were well prepared, and that all were not expecting to regain contact with the Reich for many years. Strangely, it appears that no food rations were sent with them, and most of what they did take was in top secret, sealed boxes, some apparently marked with pentagrams and crosses. Where did they go? Why didn’t they need any food? What was in the sealed boxes? Are they still wherever they went? Most importantly, what have they been doing for the last 55 years?

© Rory Naismith

Drinks from Strangers

One of the characters is invited to a convention for occultists at a hotel. During the event, a character encounters a woman who invites him to have drinks with her and her husband. After some drinks, the couple invites the character to their three-story house in a nearby bedroom community.

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Possibilities

1 The couple has been enslaved by an undead sorcerer who thrives on draining psychic energy from unsuspecting victims. Victims are reduced to dust by the creature. The couple chose the convention because what little free will they possess is bent on getting free from their condition.

2 They are dangerous serial murderers seeking prey. The man, who is deranged, favors victims that have what he thinks are reservoirs of personal energy that he can harvest to prolong his life. The character is in for a bad evening unless help arrives.

3 They are harmless swingers. The husband wants to watch from the closet while the character has sexual intercourse with his wife. Unfortunately, burglars in the employ of a rival occultist who wants a rare occult manual owned by the couple choose to raid the house during the “festivities.”

© Brian Woodman

Eyes in the Mirror

Local night time drivers have been reporting seeing strange eyes following their vehicles when they look back in their rear-view mirrors. The eyes seem to all have appeared as they drove down a stretch of local road known for strange occurrences, accidents and mysterious crimes. So far none of the drivers has reported anything more than a simple presence of the eyes, but every person reporting them has been so frightened by the encounter that they have stopped using the road or at least only used it before nightfall.

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Local authorities have dismissed the stories as the stuff of rural folklore and urban legend. Many of the witnesses have reputations as crackpots and other local persons of “character”. Still, the locals all share a certain feeling of dread for the eerie phenomenon and the growing dread of the town can be felt.

Possibilities

1 The eyes are the result of a local witch bent on driving the township to madness out of revenge for some past event. Perhaps she or one of her ancestors was a victim of the township. Perhaps her vengeance is focused more toward a specific member of the community but indirectly through sewing unrest among the townsfolk.

2 The eyes are a manifestation of a malign spirit that has haunted this region for centuries. The spirit comes and goes, stirred by the actions of the community until it reaps its vengeance on one or more of the townsfolk.

3 The township is the stalking grounds of a legendary creature, such as a Moth Man or Owl Man, that has remerged in recent months to hunt and prey on the townsfolk. The creature is remarkably selective about its prey and the sightings in the rear-view mirrors have only been coincidental spotting of an otherwise stealthy and crafty beast. Nobody knows who the creature will choose as its prey but all live in dread as its presence in the community grows.

© Eli Arndt

Dark Road

The new road was a gift to the voters; straight, even, black, no potholes, and a solution to several unfortunate traffic impediments. And in the beginning, it was.

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Then, the accidents started. Without apparent outside interference, many cars swerved off the road, hit trees or just crashed. The police ruled out climatic reasons. A search of the slopes on the side of the road revealed no sign of pranksters. No other cars were ever involved, and witnesses are rare. The road acquired an ominous reputation, and its shining black surface seemed to hint of black ice and death. Even commuters take to the more cumbersome side-routes.

The new, black tar comes from a natural deposit of pitch at La Brea, Trinidad. It is well-known for its high quality and superior texture, more able to withstand extreme temperatures and humidity. This time, however, the pitch taken from La Brea was not pure. Pitch Lake is well-known for the underground currents and movements of the earth at work in the area. Objects are dragged into the deposit from as far away as 15 miles, and disgorged years later from the lake proper.

Possibilities

1 The load for the Dark Road contained a few fragments from the burial place of a Carib sorcerer. He died in the first clashes of Carib defenders and Spanish colonialists, and is now haunting the road, as he haunted the ship carrying the pitch. The sorcerer is beyond reasoning, full of blind hate, and attacks the life force of anybody of Spanish descent using the road.

Some survivors have vague recollections of seeing “a man wearing feathers”, others remember hearing wild ululations. The wraith can manifest anywhere on the road, and wherever else the city decides to use the leftover material from the La Brea-shipload.

The situation grows worse as a number of despondent ghosts start haunting the sites of their crashes.

2 The load is impurely refined. This causes slickness in certain sections of the road, which require extensive repairs. However, the refinery in Trinidad can be blamed for the poor quality of the tar, and the city will be spared the costs

3 Before people started taking things out of Pitch Lake, the Caribs were using it to get rid of things. A shoggoth was lured onto the lake and magically sunk around 1430; only modern industrial technology has enabled man to delve deep enough to uncover it. The shoggoth’s protoplasmic structure was able, over 500 years, to merge with the semi-organic pitch.

Thus, the city has just covered an important stretch of real estate with shoggoth-tar, and while this transformation has slowed the shoggoth, it has grown considerably stronger and bigger. Only a few spasms are enough to send any vehicle going faster than walking speed off the road, and after devouring its victims, the shoggoth always returns to its stable shape, straight, even, and black.

© Felix Girke

Dangerous Play

Wilfred Higgs is an author. A brilliant one. And he’s also a madman.

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He’s written a new play, “The Coming of the Master” and is currently rehearsing it with a troupe of actors. A relative of one of the investigators was part of the cast, until he was committed to an asylum a few days ago, totally insane. Now all he says is: “They’re there! I know that now, I saw them! They know, they wait, and they’re coming!”. If the investigators decide to ask around, they will find out that several actors went insane in the last few months. Surprisingly, no one seems to have noticed that. There’s no mention about them working for Wilfred Higgs, either. Contacting relatives of these actors may reveal that they were trying to get a role in Higgs new play.

Higgs is very cautious in the approach of his candidates, conducting private tests and lectures. All the candidates are interviewed on an individual basis. It’s not the usual procedure, but no one really pays much attention to that. Every director has their quirks, after all. All the actors currently on the cast are normal people, without any discernible mental problem.

An investigation about Higgs will turn up that he, himself, had been committed to a mental institution many years ago, but was considered cured a couple of years later.

Possibilities

1 Wilfred has made a deal with a powerful entity he contacted many years ago, just before he went mad from the sight of it. The creature spared him, because it knew Higgs could be useful in the future. Higgs incorporated the spell needed to bring it to our world in his play, and intends to sacrifice the entire cast to complete the spell, poisoning the wine they are supposed to drink during a toast in a certain scene.

2 Wilfred always wanted to present “The King in Yellow” to the public, but the general rejection of the book on the part of the producers proved that impossible. He doesn’t understand why; a book that opened his mind to the truth shouldn’t be repressed like that. So, he tried another approach. He cleverly disguised that play within his own creation. The story changed, but the awful truths he saw are still there, so this new play is as dangerous as the previous one. The sanity of the cast hasn’t been affected too much, as Higgs is presenting the story little by little. But as the work continues, they will probably become more and more disturbed. Higgs hopes that this gradual exposure will make them see the “truth” and join him in his quest.

3 Wilfred is only a madman, and considers his madness to be true freedom. He thrives in “freeing” other people too. To that end, during the interviews he chooses persons who are already unstable, and reproduces the accident that gave him his liberty (he was once trapped inside a mausoleum for several days); he traps the victim inside a cellar full of dead bodies, without food or water, until their sanity snaps. Sometimes the victims kill themselves, sometimes they survive, eating the bodies. Either way, they’re now free from their bonds.

© Mauro Reis

Curses for sale

It’s the strangest advertisement ever to have appeared in the local paper:

Curses for sale

Afflict your enemies

Sabotage your rivals

Take revenge for misdeeds

Send $50 cash (no cheques)

plus a photo of the one to be cursed

to

PO Box 55/141

Results guaranteed!

It seems like the work of a harmless crackpot, but it’s harder to laugh off a week later when the post office where the private box is located burns to the ground.  Firefighters investigating the blaze find the bodies of a young man and woman in the wreckage.

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The man is charred beyond recognition, the woman is identified as Regina Trett, a local who has often been seen in bad company and is known to have an interest in the supernatural.  She seems to have died of smoke inhalation, her body is unmarked except for an occult symbol burned into her neck.

Possibilities

1 Regina recently broke up with her lover, and helped herself to a few of his prized occult books when moving her things out of his house.  The spells she’s read don’t look too hard, and she’s always been inclined towards mysticism, so she decided to set up shop as a witch for hire.  She had some sporadic success with the curses, managing to summon the odd swarm of flies or force a car to swerve off the road.  This was enough to alarm Mitchell Firth, the ex-boyfriend.  He knew her haphazard approach and willingness to gloss over anything she didn’t understand was courting disaster.

She ignored his warnings, and an attempt to break in and reclaim the books was foiled by the tough women Regina has been rooming with.  Becoming more and more worried, for his own safety as well as hers, he waited at the post office and confronted her when she arrived to pick up the latest batch of answers to her advertisement.

Furious at the interference, Regina spoke a spell she’d memorised and summoned a mystical fire creature to scare him.  She flubbed it though, and while she got the creature she wanted, it wasn’t bound to obey her.  Mitchell was killed on the spot and Regina was burned as she attempted to call it to heel while it spread flames around the tiny post office, eventually succumbing to the smoke.

Regina’s adventure is over, but the danger isn’t -- somewhere along the way she managed to summon something much stronger and darker than she imagined, without making any of the customary offerings or taking any of the basic precautions against its malevolence.  It’s still making its way closer across the planes, but it won’t be long now.  Its approach can already be sensed by the psychically gifted.

2 The adverts were placed by a secretive order of modern-day alchemists.  They’re not serious about curses, their interest is in the people who answer, as test subjects for their research into the chemical processes of human hatred.

Regina was the first of their customers, and studying her advanced their understanding of the brain’s function tenfold.  Completely drained of anything resembling will or thought, she also made a useful living automaton, returning to the post office every day to collect a new batch of subjects presenting themselves for research.

Sick with worry after days of wondering where she’d been, Mitchell was alerted by a bystander who recognised Regina’s face from a flyer posted outside the post office.  The reunion was short-lived, though -- Regina had been programmed to immolate the letters and herself if recognised by anyone.  The pair of them lost their lives in the fire that destroyed the post office.

Even without the latest batch of customers, the conspirators have a list of dozens of potential victims and no fear of being uncovered.

3 The advert was placed by Terry McGivern, a university student studying psychology.  He didn’t believe in the supernatural, he just wanted subjects to write about for his thesis.  It was a pleasant surprise to the amoral young man that he could make some money from their credulity at the same time.

Regina wasn’t interested in buying a curse, but she was terrified that someone had paid to have one put on her.  She staked out the post office and latched onto Terry as he arrived to pick up the money from his next bunch of suckers, begging him to sell her protection.  Amused as well as hoping for a profit, he made a show of reluctantly agreeing to sell her a magic charm to protect her from bad spirits.

It’s Terry’s bad luck as well as Regina’s that a friend of hers was injured in a car accident the same afternoon.  Convinced she’d been outbid by whoever intended her harm, she confronted him again the next day, demanding that he honour their deal and provide her with stronger protection -- as well as healing the friend.

Nothing he could do would persuade her that black magic wasn’t the cause of the accident, or that he didn’t have the power to mend her friend’s wounds.  Pleading escalated to threats.  Regina splashed Terry with a bottle of gasoline and repeated her demands holding a lit match... which she subsequently lost control of, causing their deaths.

Terry is out of the curses business, but his landlady discovered his stash of research material and is embarking on a campaign of blackmail against his customers.

© Chris Kerr

The Ride Home

Following a near-fatal bus accident, which the characters survive unscathed, they begin to notice that they are being followed by gaunt cadaverous beings with ashen skin and eyes the color of frozen meat dressed in drab gray Victorian suits; their faces are locked in a deathlike grin associated with rigor mortis.

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When the characters are together, these beings stay their distance, watching the characters with their cold unblinking dead eyes. Once the characters break up or go their own way they attack that individual investigator working their way until they have killed everyone who survived the encounter.

Possibilities

1 The beings are apparitions of accident victims on that stretch of land. They are haunting the investigators to see if they can get released into the other side. However, after several days of being ignored, they no longer seek release but instead seek to make the investigators one of them.

2 The investigators escaped death - they should have died that night. The cadaverous beings are minions of the grim reaper, sent to kill the investigators and uphold the balance of nature.

3 The investigators did not escape the accident unhurt; they are all in Miskatonic Hospital in comas. The beings that they are seeing are the warped form of their visiting friends and loved ones.

© Timothy Goss

The Power Cut

During a storm a few nights ago there was a power cut affecting a wide area around a nearby town; when the lights came back on, Robert Wilkinson (a friend of the investigators) was found dead in his home. His body was strangely withered and aged.

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Possibilities

1 Wilkinson is actually the malignant agent of a local cult. In the cellar of his home he keeps a young Colour Out of Space that he uses to kill captured victims and unwary investigators. The Colour is trapped within an electromagnetic field that Wilkinson can switch on and off at will; however, with the house’s generator undergoing repairs the energy for this field is tapped directly from the local power lines. With the power cut, the Colour was released, and it quickly fed upon its captor. Now it has once again been drawn into its magnetic prison, and only the strange drain on the nearest power plant indicates its existence to the outside world.

2 Wilkinson was older than he appeared. A lot older. He had discovered an ancient scroll bearing a ritual that would allow him to regularly rejuvenate himself, effectively bestowing eternal life. However, a few nights ago he made a fatal error when choosing to perform the ceremony, and the sudden power cut – a possibility he had entirely overlooked – interrupted his reading of the all-important magic words. With the spell suddenly broken he reverted to his real age, and the scroll – a contract with the Outer Gods – crumbled into dust, its final conditions met. Only Wilkinson’s secret diary bears any clue as to the terrible pact he made, a pact he paid for with his soul.

3 The investigators have made some dangerous enemies, individuals who will stop at nothing to destroy them. This group travelled under cover of darkness to the home of Wilkinson, where they tortured and interrogated the player’s friend with the Shrivelling spell, before finally ending the interview – and the poor man’s life. Now this group is ready to strike, strengthened by the information they have acquired. They know as much about the players and the progress of their investigation as did their late friend.

© Callum Pearce

The Postman Always Rings Twice

The character has started receiving mail meant for someone else. The first item was a magazine, then some junk mail, but soon afterward bills start arriving, and then personal correspondence. 

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The letters and postcards are the most peculiar of the bunch, as the stamps and franking, which seem normal at first glance, are in fact not of this earth. The stamps are from no known nation, the franking refers to a government that doesn’t exist. The personal mail is all from someone calling himself Lt. JG Oscar Millett, of USF Bonaventure. Judging by the stamps, the Bonaventure is currently posted overseas, and somewhere tropical; some of them could easily be mistaken for Japanese or Philippine stamps. USF stands for United States Frigate, a designation that hasn’t been used since the 19th Century. Lt JG Millett always starts his letters and cards “Hey, bro!” and signs off, “Ozzie.”

Possibilities

1 The postman has gone out of his tiny mind. He believes that he is Lt JG Millett, that the year is 1943, that the United States didn’t gain its independence until 1848 and is part of the Commonwealth of England, and that the west is now engaged in a bitter military conflict with China. He’s latched on to the character as his ‘brother’ and is manufacturing all the personal mail, including the stamps and franking, himself. So far, he’s just about functional, but his activities have aroused his employer’s suspicions such that he’ll be fired before too long. When that happens he’ll snap, and since he happens to be physically fit and a good shot with a rifle, this will cause further problems. He’ll invade his ‘brother’s’ apartment looking for refuge, or possibly just a decent firing platform.

2 The mail is coming from an alternate universe. Lt. JG Millett is a naval officer in that universe, and his brother lives at the character’s address. The problem won’t stop with the mail. Soon the character’s furniture will be replaced by furniture from the other dimension, the clothes in his closet will be the other man’s clothes, the pictures on the wall will change, and the view out of the window will become subtly different. The character will either have to find some way of anchoring his home in his current universe, or one day the face in the mirror will not be the character’s own.

3 The mail is meant for the character’s neighbor, who is a member of a reenactment society. The postman seriously dislikes this neighbor, which is why the mail is being misdirected. The society isn’t particularly interested in historical accuracy, so some of the information in the personal mail doesn’t match known historical fact. (The stamps and franking are actually real - just from some very obscure equatorial countries.)

Unfortunately the character’s neighbor is slightly paranoid and believes that the character is in on the joke. One day he and six of his friends will turn up on the character’s doorstep – in full reenactment kit complete with replica swords – and demand an explanation.

© Adam Gauntlett

Trouble on the Tracks

It is sometime in the 1920s when, during one of the worst winters in memory, an overnight sleeper train meets with a terrible accident. Amid a fierce gale, the express jumps the tracks and plunges into the icy waters beside the railroad. A dozen bodies have been recovered from the wreckage, but 20 people are still missing, including the engine-driver and stoker. Survivors and bodies have been taken by road to the nearest town. The police and railroad company engineers are looking into the causes of the accident.

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Possibilities

1 Degenerate Serpent People from a decaying colony in caves near the railway have struck a blow against the hated humans who, with their noisy, polluting machines, have usurped the rightful position of the reptilians as masters of the Earth. The Serpent People have tunnelled beneath the rail-tracks to cause the accident. They are only interested in killing humans: the missing people are dead.

2 Deep Ones from an undersea colony off the coast are experiencing breeding problems. Fertility rates are dropping, and almost every child born to the colony for the last hundred years has been male, so the male/female ratio has become grossly unbalanced.

Desperate to find females to breed with, but aware that raiding another Deep One settlement or attacking a local community would cause more problems than they could deal with, the Deep Ones launched an assault on the overnight sleeper to steal human brides.

Of the people missing from the train, 16 are female. Of the bodies recovered, ten are male. Most of the missing females have been taken to the hybrid settlement.

3 One of the passengers on the train has interfered once too often in the affairs of a particular cult. Enraged by the investigator’s troublemaking, the cultists have summoned a hunting horror to wreak vengeance on the meddler. The Hunting Horror attacks while the investigator is travelling on the train, terrorising the engine crew and causing the driver to take a bend at an unsafe speed.

©  Tony Hickie

To the Future

Antiques are being stolen from houses throughout the area. Only items over a hundred years old are removed and any other valuables are left alone. The only clue left by the thieves is a slogan scrawled across a wall: “To the Future!”

Possibilities

1 There is a group, perhaps based around the artistic movements of Futurism and Vorticism, that is destroying old things as a matter of principle. They wish to rid the world of its past in order to hurry in a new, utopian society. The group could be worshippers of Yog-Sothoth and seek to open a gateway to the future.

2 The group is as above but they are really being manipulated by a group of art thieves. The furnace that the antiques are being sacrificed in is actually a complicated set of lights and mirrors concealing a conveyor belt that leads to a neighboring building. Here the antiques are evaluated and packaged before being distributed throughout the illegal art trade.

3 The thefts are all part of an elaborate insurance scam. The “victims” of the thefts are all close to bankruptcy or are in dire financial need. They have been approached by the thieves who are willing to remove and sell on the antiques for a large percentage of their value.

(Something like this could cause quite a stir among Nephilim as their stasis items would be ripe targets for the thieves.)

© Simon Hopper

Thrice-Blessed Mohammedan Steel

While shopping in an Arabic antiquities store, a curious item comes into view. It is a beautiful, but simple 8th-century dagger. The dagger, according to its supposed history was recovered from a tomb outside of Baghdad.

The owner of the store, Bazzeel Shimmir, drives a hard bargain and will not sell to investigators unless they show significant knowledge of Arabic history. “This is an important artefact, not a trinket or a letter opener,” he says. The investigators are allowed to examine the dagger, but without a detailed inspection, its true nature is not discernable. If the investigators want to find out the daggers true nature, they must buy it or steal it.

Possibilities

1 The dagger was owned by Abdul Al Hazred and was taken from his body after he was torn apart by an invisible monster in Damascus. The dagger was created from metal from a meteor, which fell from the sky. The extra-terrestrial nature of the metal makes it quite effective against mythos entities. The dagger has passed through the hands of many affluent Arabs before arriving here.

2 Al Hazred’s dagger was stolen from a Cthulhu-worshipping death cult from Iraq. They are hell-bent on retrieving it, and Mr Shimmir is not aware of this, nor is he involved in its theft. If the investigators procure the dagger, they can expect trouble from these fellows. Them and their shoggoth.

3 The dagger is a fake and Mr Shimmir has sold dozens like it. He specializes in forging supposedly ancient and rare esoteric artefacts and selling them to pseudo intellectuals and Middle Eastern aficionados. His reluctance to sell was a subterfuge to drive up the price. The Keeper should suggest the dagger glimmers with energy and power (which is actually the lighting and the high polish of the blade); Mr Shimmir steers the dagger’s supposed history to meet the investigators’ expectations.

© Kevin Kaier