Under new management

A local asylum has appointed a new head of staff after dismissing the last one as quietly as possible. The new Doctor has an interesting manner of treating the ill, paying particular attention to each patient, and he has ushered in an atmosphere of respect and dignity. Other members of staff have commented on the doctor’s success with the schizophrenic and paranoid patients who, previously thought incurable, now speak coherently.

The doctor has also shown an interest in events about town, attending those related to the strange or supernatural with noted passion. The investigators, if they have not met him before at the asylum, might encounter him at one such occasion, a dinner party.

The doctor and the investigators attend a dinner party given by a local spiritualist, who heads some local society for the feeble exploitation of the mundanely odd. The investigators enjoy a pleasant evening of food, conversation, and wine with the doctor and the host.

The Doctor is the first to leave, about twenty minutes ahead of everyone else.

On their way home, the investigators suffer from peculiar emotions of disease and apprehension. They feel light-headed from the wine, and the starless night turns their feelings into paranoia. Once they get home they feel safe. For a time.

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Later that night, they discover an odd doll-like figure in their room. The dolls wear small-scale normal clothes of the period, either male or female, but lack any defining features--their faces are white, blank globes. If handled, the doll squirms, and attempts to scramble up the investigator's arm towards her/his face. The dolls are amorphous and gooey, and all but impervious in their single-minded attempt to reach the investigator’s face.

Possibilities

1 The dolls are a hallucination, a nightmare. Mentioning the phenomena to anyone results in a visit from the new doctor, and a declaration of insanity may be quick to follow. If this happens, the new patient finds her/himself interned in a clean, orderly mental hospital, where the doctor and staff patiently try to cure them.

2 Asking around after the nightmare reveals that everyone who intended the party had some sort of nervous experience, though some decline to share its nature. Investigation reveals that the curious society led by last night’s host is much more adept than it seems at the arts of the supernatural. Investigation leads to a plot to replace officials and people in power in the town, with members loyal to this group. The dolls are part of a dark magic meant to rob someone of their sanity by implanting dementia-causing toxins into the victim’s bodies.

The doctor may at first be thought an ally, but has already been replaced.

3 The dolls are a hallucination suffered by everyone attending the dinner. The hallucinations were caused by the new doctor who poisoned the wine with a powerful hallucinogen on his way back from the restroom. The nightmarish visions persist, and eventually, the victims feel persecuted everywhere, seeing life-sized, faceless horrors shuffling towards them, obscenely sucking air through their white, viscous flesh.

These delusions will eventually turn a sane man mad, without treatment. Unfortunately, the cure offered at the asylum is worse - the doctor is creating from the minds of the mad, a perfect mirror for the mindless horror that is Azathoth. Individuals are locked alone in a dark room, with only a small white doll for company. The hallucinations return, with the creature refusing to rest until it has slid its way bloodily into the investigator’s brain. There it prepares the victim’s mind for the glory and the terror of an eternity of Azathoth.