The Matlock Fire

Dateline Matlock Derbyshire. The Charred body of a man, Mr John Wilson, is discovered at their home by his wife. By the location, state of the body and surrounding furniture, it appears that Mr John Wilson was a victim of spontaneous human combustion. Eg.: His entire upper torso, left arm and right leg have been reduced to ash. His left leg and right arm are still intact. As is the chair he was sitting in. A smoking pipe lies smouldering on the floor. Police conclude that the man died from dropping his pipe onto himself. The British Society for the Investigation of Anomalous Activities is looking for a party of investigators to ascertain whether this was SHC or not.

Possibilities

1 John Wilson was the planning clerk for Matlock Municipal Council and was violently opposed to the destruction of a local landmark, The Five Towers. These towers were built in 1798 by Sir Walter Townsend, to stop the biannual earthquakes that rocked Matlock. The towers have recently been sold to Dr Phillip Greening, who is the leader of a small band of Shudde M’ell worshippers. He has taken over the mind of Mr Wilson’s deputy and is hoping to get the authority to demolish one of the towers and thereby release the great Cthonian who lies pinned beneath the pentacle.

2 John Wilson was attacked and killed by a fire vampire, as a sacrifice to Cthugha by a local cult, of which his wife is the high priestess. She required this rather extreme sacrifice as the first step towards bringing Cthugha into this world. She will not be best pleased at the investigators’ attempts to look into the circumstances of her husband’s death.

3 This is a real case of spontaneous human combustion. And the investigators can get themselves mired deep into the lore and mystery that surrounds cases of spontaneous human combustion.

© Rik Kershaw

The Miracle

A weird character in the news has come to the attention of an investigator. It will most likely be a sceptical and cynic investigator, or one compelled to believe that kind of news.

The news, it turns out, deals with a person that seems to have stigmata that match those suffered by Jesus Christ on the cross, according to Catholic Mythology. The man, one Jacobo Lewis from Haiti, seems to have injuries on his hands, feet and side that match those famous wounds. These wounds keep bleeding, but apparently never get infected. People are told to have healed after he touches them, especially those with blood diseases, although none have been documented. Also weird is the fact that Jacobo is 30 years old, the same age Jesus was when he started preaching.

What has the religious community in an uproar is that Jacobo is black, and definitely not a Christian but a practicer of voodoo. He says the wounds were inflicted on him by the Loa of his tribe, as a reminder of his human frailty, and so he could spread the word.

Possibilities

1 Jacobo is, of course, a fake. The people he has been said to heal are healed by their own faith, just as a lot of people get sick when they believe they are. Most likely, those people weren’t even sick.

2 The man from Nazareth was an avatar of the Crawling Chaos. The reason why we don’t know anything about his life from his early years until his 30, is because at that point, he hadn’t been contacted by the Nyarlathotep, and therefore wasn’t important. The Black Man tried to recruit him when he is said to have been tempted in the desert, but he went mad and believed he was the Messiah. Given his newly found powers, that wasn’t hard to do. Now, more than 1900 years after that, Nyarlathotep is willing to try again with the son of a mortal woman. Jacobo might dream about “past lives”, which are previous avatars, and by those means, the players can find out the truth.

3 The Loa did contact Jacobo and inflicted the wounds. Unfortunately for him, the alleged Loa is a vampire, too weak to fully return from his resting place. He was in life a sorcerer and is trying to attract a cult to the place. Then he will control Jacobo to slaughter them all, so with the strength given by their blood he may return.

© Ricardo J. Mendez

The Hellfire Club

The Hellfire Club dominates the summit of Montpelier Hill ten miles south of Dublin city. This substantial ruin was originally built in 1720 as a hunting lodge by William Conolly, the speaker of the Irish parliament. After his death, it passed into the hands of the eponymous “Hellfire Club”. The club, based on a suppressed English antecedent, was founded in Athy, Co. Kildare, in the 1730s by Richard Parsons (a.k.a. Jack St Leger), the first Earl of Rosse, and a humorous painter called Worsdale. The members of the Hellfire Club were rakes and rowdy fops. They met in the Eagle Tavern on Dames Street in the city centre. As their name suggests they were rumoured to practice black magic. Reputable historians acknowledge that these stories have a basis in fact.

Possibilities

1 The Hellfire Club did indeed carry out black masses and orgies on Montpelier Hill. However they had no mythos knowledge and merely used satanic regalia to spice up their bawdy drinking sessions.

2 The Hellfire Club worshipped ancient Cthugha. When Conolly built the lodge a ‘fairy cairn’ was broken. It was actually a huge Elder Sign placed there thousands of years before to trap a swarm of Fire Vampires. When the Hellfire Club (which was at that time a bunch of drunken fakers) encountered these horrific beings they were seduced to the worship of Cthugha.

On one famous visit to Montpelier Hill the clubsmen set fire to the lodge whilst carousing within! Tradition claims that this was a wager to see who could survive the flames of Hell longest. This is incorrect. The fire occured when the cult summoned their master inside the stone-vaulted lodge.

Though the club disappeared in the 1740s the Fire Vampires are still alive, and hungry.

3 The club was a branch of a suppressed English Nyarlathotep cult. Several times, locals gained small hints of the club’s dark deeds. On one occasion, a wandering priest stumbled upon the Club during a macabre Bacchanalia and was forced to look on. The centre of attention was a huge black cat. Breaking free from his captors the cleric grabbed the cat and uttered an exorcism which tore the beast apart. A demon shot up from its corpse. Hurtling through the roof it brought down the ceiling and scattered the assembly. On another occasion, Tom Conolly of Castletown is said to have met the devil in the form of a ‘black man’ in the lodge’s dinning room.

After the death of its founder in 1741 the club became inactive but the cult continued, with the 2nd Earl of Rosse as its leader. It was with Nyarlathotep’s help that William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse built ‘the Parsonstown Leviathan’ in 1845. This huge telescope (which was dismantled in 1908) was the largest of its kind until 1917. Though the Irish climate is completely unsuitable for serious astronomy Rosse discovered the spiral nature of other galaxies, the Crab Nebula and the greater nebula in Orion with this miraculous instrument. It’s unknown whether his sons: Laurence, the 4th Earl (an astronomer) and Charles (a British inventor who died in 1931) were involved in the cult, which has today spread throughout the English speaking world.

© Andrew Behan

The House with Two Sides

The investigators discover an old house in the woods. It has no roads leading to it, and there is no obvious reason why it is built where it is. When they walk around the house they discover it is completely a mirror of itself. Both the front and the back look like they are the front of a nice building.

Possibilities

1 The house was built by an old man who loved making bizarre jokes on his family. He made the house to leave in his will to his family, but it was never discovered in the family papers.

2 The house is under a spell. Both entrances look like an ordinary house, but when the investigators find a door that leads them to the “mirror”-side, bad things starts to happen. In the mirror side, they find duplicates of themselves lying dead, having been brutally murdered - and there’s no way to the outside. The only way to leave the mirror site is via the door they entered, and when they do, they find that they can’t get out. And then killings start . . . exactly as described in the mirror side.

3 One side of the house seems more “dead” than the other - it appears to older and more weathered. Entrance can be gained into the house from either side, and if the house is left via one of the other doors the investigators find themselves 100 years in the future or the past (depending on which door they left).

© Truls Osmundsen

The Man of Her Dreams

The Ashthorns, a wealthy family of noble origins, are desperate, as their daughter Melissa seems to have succumbed to a mental illness:

She refuses to sleep, trying everything to stay awake, from coffee over cold baths to physically hurting herself, with needles, blunt objects etc. If she finally falls asleep, she’s tossing and turning around for a while, before she seems to wake up, acting in a very different manner to her usually gentle personality, which she later denies.

Ask upon these events, the frightened Melissa explains, that sometime before, she encountered a man in her dreams, who claims to be from the dreamlands. The man has become aware of the real world and wants to break through to it, a goal, which in exchange would probably kill Melissa.

Possibilities

1 Melissa is suffering from a severe case of schizophrenia, which derives from being abused by her father and her older brother in younger years. Her ‘other Self’, who is confirming ‘her’ version, has the personality of a lewd, uncaring man, who insults and hits other people, smokes cigarettes and drinks whiskey and shows a deep hatred against the Ashthorne family, even trying to kill the other family members. So far, the personality switch has only lasted a few minutes, but is steadily becoming longer.

2 Melissas story is true, the man from the Dreamlands exists. He is slowly overpowering Melissa, and has now reached the point, where parts of him can physically manifest, resulting in the scene, where an entire forearm comes out of the unconscious, twisting girls mouth! Physical damage to the arm will make him retreat for now, but if nothing is done, he will sooner or later burst out of the poor girls body.

3 Things aren’t quite, what they seems to be: the man from Melissa’s ‘dreams’ is in fact a magician, and he’s not from the Dreamlands, but from the waking world, trying to save the investigators, who themselves are trapped in the Dreamlands. He uses the dream figure of Melissa as a portal to make contact with them, but unfortunately his words turn into gibberish and written contact is not possible. If the magician loses contact, the investigators might be forever trapped in the Dreamlands.

© Philipp Mählmann

The Heist

A violent robbery has occurred at the local bank. After killing 4 staff and 1 policeman, the robbers evaded the police and seemingly disappeared. They escaped with £950,000 in cash and also emptied several safe deposit boxes. Among the objects stolen was a small bluish crystal, said to have occult significance. It was owned by Harold Darlington, the wealthy head of a local Masonic order, who is offering a reward for its return.

n interesting fact is that the robbers were reported not to have faces! The police have not been able to trace the robbers’ identities, but are organising a huge search to find the criminals. Due to the robbery’s violence, it is nationwide news, and is a popular point of gossip.

Possibilities

1 The robbery was carried out by a group of hardened gangsters. The robbery was the result of weeks of careful planning, but came apart when one of the staff attempted to wrestle a gun off one of the robbers. The bank clerk was shot in the head and killed instantly, and the robber freaked out and started killing people at random. The robbers fled, and have likely already left the country. However, the robber who started shooting has escaped and is hiding in the sewers, and has been left paranoid and violently insane after his group abandoned him.

The theft of the crystal is coincidental. It has no magic properties. The reports of the men having no faces are the results of the robbers wearing masks over their faces, to hide their identity.

2 The robbery was planned by a cabal of sorcerers, who heard about the crystal, and believed it to have magical powers. To carry out the robbery, they summoned a group of demons to act as muscle while they took the crystal. They also decided to take the money for the sheer hell of it. However, the policeman started firing at the demons and the demons began massacring the people in the bank. Realising what happened, the sorcerers teleported out of the bank and banished the demons.

The police are saying the victims were shot, to hide the fact they were all torn apart and bitten to pieces. The description of the men as faceless is the attempt of the only surviving clerk to mentally block out the image of the demons.

3 The robbery was carried out by the Faceless Men, the modern day cult of the Great Old One Yegg-Ha, the faceless one. In Roman times, Yegg-Ha threatened ancient Britain until he was destroyed by a band of Roman Legionaries. They broke him into pieces and scattered him across the countryside. The bluish crystal is a fragment of Yegg-Ha, and his cult hope to use it to revive their god.

Harold Darlington is a descendant of the Roman soldiers who fought Yegg-Ha, and is charged with protecting the crystal. The Faceless Ones specialise in violent crime to fund their activities, and took the money to invest in various criminal enterprises. They are violent by nature, and executed people out of habit. The faceless appearance is the result of a spell called “Mask of Yegg-Ha” that makes the face featureless, and both obscures their identity and acts as a form of worship to Yegg-Ha.

© Paul Hebron

The Gift

An investigator quite unexpectedly gains super-human abilities: his muscles grow, thicken and strengthen, he becomes a speed-reader, he finds all his five senses enhanced, and he can perform incredible feats of skill. If he has a chance to find out, he is also very difficult to injure, as his body seems to easily absorb many types of kinetic energy.

Possibilities

1 Nyarlathotep is meddling again. Instead of sending one of his many forms to spread mayhem, he decided to literally play god by enhancing several individuals’ abilities beyond human ken. He means serious fun though - he has also bestowed upon several religious cults the divine message that his saints walk the Earth once again. If the character shows off in public any of his amazing skills, he will be sought out by one of these groups, who will appropriate him as their Divine Messenger. At the same time, more Divine Messengers will appear, and inevitably some will go public. A clash of cults is imminent.

2 It is a gift - of sorts. Some stars are right, and a race of beings from a distant star has opened a gate to Earth - their seasonal hunting ground. As they find that human beings are generally frail and not that challenging to hunt, each hunter picks one target to be enhanced. These beings are normally invisible - but the enhanced character will now be able to see them. The alien appears after a few days and then gives chase.

3 It is a delusion. The character is not stronger, not smarter, and cannot suddenly read Braille or distinguish five brands of Root Beer by taste. His sudden overconfidence is entirely misplaced, and if he persists in this belief, he will get into major trouble. This might be an effect of lasting sanity loss, or a curse by a fiendish sorcerer. This condition, when noticed, is very disturbing to everybody else. “Look at me fly!”

© Felix Girke

The Ghost of Easter Past

The town is awash with breathless reports: Jesus Christ has returned. The faithful flock to town in the hope of catching a glimpse of their saviour, and all who have seen him preach agree that this man, bearing all the signs of recent crucifixion, cannot be other than the genuine Son of God.

Possibilities

1 Jesus Vasquez, a carpenter from Silver Springs, Fl., has been imbued with an otherworldly spirit, giving him supernatural endurance and magnetism, at the cost of his sanity. He now believes himself to be the manifestation of Jesus Christ. He preaches based on his recollections from Sunday School and his personal prejudices, and his words are given weight by the spirit which is bound to him. The stigmata were self-inflicted with a nail gun. Analysis of recordings of his teachings shows them to be simplistic and contradictory, but it is almost impossible to remain unconvinced when hearing them from Vasquez himself.

2 Although thousands claim convincingly to have seen Jesus in person, he proves remarkably difficult for the sceptical to track down. It emerges that the faithful have met Jesus, not on this plane, but in waking dreams. A creature of the Dreamlands is seeking to open a way through to the waking world. By calling upon the Christian faithful, who willingly synchronise their dreams and mobilise their mental energies for the promised second coming, it is building considerable power.

3 What we know as “God” is actually the shattered remnants of a Great Old One, forced by its enemies to take on a fragile human form, which was crucified and its essence all but destroyed. Over two millennia, it has regained sufficient psychic energy to manifest again as Jesus. While, to some ways of thinking, it is the second coming, this Jesus represents only the death throes of his “father”. The activity of the shade of an Old One will summon others to feed on it. The world will likely not survive such an occurrence.

© Barbara Robson and Stuart Barrow

The Dinner Party

Kenneth Marsh is an eccentric traveller, writer, critic and dilettante whose frequent dinner parties are the talk of the town. Avaricious socialites shamelessly pursue invitations to these cosmopolitan events. Guests come from all social backgrounds and are chosen by Marsh for their idiosyncrasies and entertainment potential. Madonna Scarlatti, a stage actress, and Samuel Waldeberg, a would-be movie star, are among the guests this evening.

After a starter of superb herb and garlic pate, the main course appears, an ‘unusual fish dish’. The guests joke nervously, hoping that it is not calamari; a previous guest had an attack upon learning that she had eaten sauteed baby octopus. “One simply couldn’t live with the thought of eating tentacles!”

Marsh tucks in and everyone slowly follows his example. The main course is excellent. A rich chocolate and coffee pudding is the sweet, to be followed by coffee, brandy and cigars. Marsh, a radical, does not expect the ladies to retire whilst the men smoke.

Conversation turns to the host’s recent travels. Marsh returned recently from the Orient with, amongst other curios, a number of live specimens of a rare genus of venomous catfish. Marsh maintains extensive salt and freshwater aquaria. These catfish have bred extensively in the last few months; the guests have just eaten a few of them.

The Lung-Hung catfish are found only in the precincts of a Cantonese temple to a many-armed female ‘Bhudda’, referred to as The Bloated Woman. The fish are considered sacred as, reputedly, they can heal dermatitis sufferers who bathe in their pool. Marsh does not elaborate on how he obtained live specimens although there was a Reuters article on a riot in Shanghai a few months ago.

Suddenly, Marsh begins to choke. His eyes bulge, he turns purple, and he slumps face-down into his coffee.

Possibilities

1   The cook, Jules Severin, didn’t know how to prepare the fish. He sought the advice of a kindly yellow-robed Chinese herbalist monk who was collecting donations door-to-door. The monk’s recipe deliberately didn’t account for the poison sacs within the fish. Marsh sampled the dish yesterday and ate it again tonight. He has died first. Within 24 hours, all the guests will be dead.

Marsh has an extensive collection of journals in which he relates the tales of the Lung-Hung Catfish as learned from a ‘flower girl’ in Shanghai. There is a small temple in Chinatown, guarded closely by the Order of The Bloated Woman. The monks know of the antidote. It only remains for someone to fetch it in time.

2 Shelby the butler checks Marsh and declares him alive. Then Waldeberg collapses theatrically to the floor with severe cramps; he daringly had two helpings of the main course.

In normal humans the catfish venom causes cramps and fever which may kill those with a weak constitution. On Deep One hybrids the venom speeds the transformation process dramatically. The catfish can feed on dead flesh of humans, and are kept specifically for useon the moulting flesh of such hybrids. This is the background to the tales concerning their healing properties.

Marsh, unknowingly, can trace his family history to Innsmouth. He is in a coma from which he will awake in a few days, a good way through the transformation to a Deep One. Grinning Orientals hide in the bushes outside the window. They await the incapacitation of the guests. They will take Marsh to his true people and kidnap then sacrifice the defilers of the sacred fish.

3 Marsh was poisoned by Madonna Scarlatti, who sits to his left. She used an antique Italian poison ring to slip a lethal dose of cyanide into his dessert.

Marsh and Scarlatti are ex-lovers. He savaged her recent appearance as Lady Macbeth but invited her as a way of apologising for being too harsh. Hell hath no fury...

© Peter Devlin

The Delivery

Home shopping, customer credit and home delivery have been with us for many years now. Harrods of London and J C Penney have both had such a facility for many years.

Early one morning, there is a ring at the doorbell (or possibly thetradesman’s entrance). Once answered it proves to be James Sheridan, the regular delivery driver for Harrods. He has a large wicker basket full of goodies as ordered earlier that week. However, the wrong items seem to have been delivered.

Possibilities

1 The basket contains the expected groceries and a severed human finger (lleft-handring finger, female, with engagement ring included). It is neatly wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, in a manner similar to a small parcel of butcher meat. It has only recently been separated from its owner, not with surgical precision but with skill nonetheless.

There is a letter inside a sealed envelope. Composed of letters cut from the Times, it says Bring the 1000 to the train station in time for the 19.45 express train to Dover.

The hallmark and inscription inside the ring allow it to be traced via Herzberg Jewellers to its purchaser Basil Milton, a minor aristocrat living in Belgravia. Basils intended, Miss Mary Sheldon, was kidnapped two days ago during a walk on Hampstead Heath.

The identity of the kidappers is a mystery. They have an unwitting accomplice who works for Harrods and it is he who accidentally put the kidnappers’ demand in the wrong basket. If apprehende,d he did not even know the contents of the parcel or about the kidnapping, he was simply bribed to add a package to a delivery.

2 The wrong basket has been delivered. It contains a picnic meal for two (including a fine bottle of claret) and the first sealed clue for a forthcoming weekend treasure hunt. The intended recipient is Clytemnestra Poppelwell, a scatty heiress-to-be. If the baskets are swapped back, Clytemnestra will be keen to have her rescuers join the treasure hunt with her.

The treasure hunt has been arranged by Bertrand Fortescue, a simply charming London socialite. He is the bastard son of Arglye Poppelwell, Clytemnestra's father. He plans to bump off Clytemnestra during the treasure hunt, faking an accident. Then, when old man Poppelwell finally dies of terminal gout, he will inherit the family estates and fortune. He sees little trouble in doing so as all of Clytemnestras friends are airheads just like she is.

3 The basket contains a polished mahogany presentation box 4 x 4 x 4. The inside is green velvet lined and contains an odd grey/blue spherical rock formation just slightly larger than a billiards ball. A handwritten card describes it as An unusually hard opaque silicate formation, highly decorative and resistant to accidental damage. The ideal paperweight.

The rock is a Cthonian egg, discovered by Ms. Erma Smits, a moderately well-known sculptor. She has been supplying small original sculptures to the more exclusive stores for sale as gifts and curios. Erma lives in Yorkshire, where she finds natural rock formations to be the ideal starting point for her pieces. She unwittingly found the egg in the effluvium of a flash flood which caused her local river to burst its banks. Some distance upriver from her home is a tributary fed by The Spout, a fast-flowing stream that emerges from the base of a large cliff face.

Someone has chosen the paperweight as a birthday gift for the scholarly recluse in their life. It now represents a good financial investment as the morning papers all contain the tragic news that Ms. Erma Smitts, a respected sculptor, was killed just

yesterday when her ramshackle cottage collapsed during a minor earthquake. Other articles tell of small aftershocks which have been occurring in the last 24 hours.

© Peter Devlin

The Cuban Connection

The local tobacconist has just got a new batch of very special cigars. Each of these hand-rolled Havana cigars is extremely expensive, but they are proving popular. Perhaps a little too popular.

Possibilities

1 The cigars are manufactured by clever but ruthless Cuban gangsters. They contain a number of highly addictive narcotics designed to hook not only the smoker, but those in the vicinity too.

2 The cigars are manufactured by Cuban cultists. They contain ceremonial incense that summons strange spirits when burned. The spirits induce a feeling of euphoria, but also feed on the life energy of those in close proximity. A portion of this energy is transferred to the cultists for use in their nefarious activities.

3 The cigars are manufactured by the Slaves of the Atchai. Each cigar contains one Atchai, a creature resembling a tiny trilobite. When the cigar is lit and put to the lips, the Atchai crawls into the smoker's mouth. Once inside the body, it attaches itself to the nervous system and begins to take control of the brain.

© Rob Illing

The Convention

The annual International Mystical and Paranormal Society Convention is to be held soon. This year the special guest is Dr Janos Voerlocke, a well-known and often-maligned occult scholar, who has not failed to please convention audiences in the past. Dr Voerlocke claims that he has discovered something that will change the world and intends to reveal his secret at the convention. 

Possibilities

1 Dr Voerlocke reveals a strange black polygonal-shaped object about the size of a human head. He explains that he found the object sealed in a block of lead covered with dire warnings in hieroglyphs while in Egypt. After he melted the lead, he discovered the block contained the artifact in question. The artifact is not just a piece of carved black rock, but a prison for a demon. At this point, Voerlocke pushes the polygon open and a Hound of Tindalos screams forth. The Hound is in a foul temper and eager to take revenge on those who imprisoned it.

2 Voerlocke has captured a deep one, whom he summoned with a spell from the Ponape Scripture. The deep one is covered and croaking loudly as the cage is wheeled onto the stage. Voelocke makes a short speech and pulls the sheet off. Moments later, five men rush the stage, brandishing guns. The men are deep ones who haven't fully changed and are here to rescue their kin.

3 Dr Voerlocke has run up large debts to some shady characters - and they have persuaded him to act as a decoy to pay off some of the debt. After a long speech, Voerlocke reveals what he claims to be a unicorn skull. The skull is merely a doctored horse skull - a fact obvious to anyone studying it for more than a moment. While the long speech was going on, Voerlocke's shady compatriots were robbing the guests' rooms, holding up the hotel manager and clearing out the safe.

© Kevin Kaier

The Competition

Mr. Henry Paget Lowe has been arrested on a charge of sequestration of person and, maybe, of murder. The victim is Roger Curtney and, the last time that someone saw him, he was entering Mr. Lowe’s office.

Roger Curtney answered an advertisement published in national newspapers in which, the society led by Mr. Lowe, invited “American dreamers to write a short fantastic story”. The prize of the competition was a trip to a fantastic “Dream Land”. Entry was free.

Roger Curtney, among 6000 candidates, was elected “the best American dreamer.” The newspapers reported a lot about him and about the competition, until they discovered Mr. Curtney didn’t return from his trip. “The trip hasn’t finished, he will be back when he wants to be back.” said Mr. Lowe when he was arrested.

Possibilities

1 Mr. Lowe knows the way to go to the Dreamlands and he has led Mr. Curtney to the Cavern of Flame.

2 Mr. Lowe is a kidnapper. He wants one million dollars from Curtney’s father.

3 Mr. Lowe doesn’t exist. Behind all of this is the FBI chief, Edgar Hoover, who wants to detect American subversives and communists. Curtney wrote a story entitled “Red days”. Including Mr Lowe, the FBI arrested 756 people.

© Simone Bartesaghi

The Children's Room

It is a dark and stormy night. The investigators are lost - they have been travelling and the storm has blown away the road signs. Eventually, they arrive in a backwater town where the church and other buildings are in ruins. “Destroyed by a storm last year which killed Reverend Maynard, and Pauline’s daughter Sarah,” they are told, and are warned repeatedly about going back on the road since “the weather can be very ugly in these parts.”

Instead, the investigators are directed to a retired widower named James Barbarow for lodging; he has three beds in a building he built separately from the main house. Mr Barbarow shows them the place, which consists of a single large bedroom and a bathroom, readily explaining that this was for his children, now gone. Mr Barbarow implies that they are deceased; if pressed, he says only that they died in their sleep.

The place is run down, although attentive investigators will notice a fire extinguisher. There’s no electricity, and the lock is broken; James offers to lend them a lamp and put a padlock on the outside door to keep out animals or prowlers. The last casual remark he makes as he closes the door and leaves them for bed is, “Sleep well—I just hope nothing happens to you in the middle of the night.”

Possibilities

1 The most worrisome investigator can’t sleep—he or she hears scratching outside. It’s just a racoon or other animal; nothing dangerous happens that night, and the next morning Mr Barbarow won’t recall having made any ominous remarks.

2 The house is built on the edge of an ancient Indian worship site to Cthuga (the church was built at the centre of the site). Just before midnight, the investigator awakens having just dreamt of a door opening in the corner, spilling lights and voices into the room. At midnight, this door opens for real, releasing fire vampires into the room! The next morning, Mr Barbarow admits that whenever the moon is as it is now, he has a disturbing dream, but is always too frightened to investigate--his children died in that place from horrible burns, though the walls were untouched.

3 The village is being destroyed by ghouls. They have ransacked the church graveyard and torn down the church, killing Reverend Maynard when he interceded. The girl, Sarah, was carried off in the middle of the night some days later. Now, these creatures have struck a bargain with the villagers: in exchange for peace, the humans offer any travelers or new corpses to the ghouls. Mr Barbarow will contact the ghouls about the investigators, show them back to his land, and give them the key to the padlock.

© Mark W Henshaw

The Cardiss Tapes

Shortly after the invention of film reels, land developer Donald Cardiss shot a series of homemade pornographic reels featuring his friends and his own wife. The films were made in Cardiss’ home for distribution among a close-knit circle of ‘cinema enthusiasts’, in semi-open defiance of the authorities while he was awaiting trial on an obscenity charge.

The contents wouldn’t be considered particularly racy by today’s standards, being spliced together from scenes of unattractive naked people staring at the camera in drink or opium-befuddled complacency or having unenthusiastic sex in twos and threes. The most interesting moment is when one woman who’s sampled too much of Cardiss’ inducements over-balances and slides right off her partner, knocking herself unconscious on a coffee table.

However, anyone who watches the reels and doesn’t get distracted by the bumping and grinding in the foreground will notice that set up behind the participants and carefully framed in every shot are a series of canvas dropcloths crudely painted with erotic symbols and other, less recognisable (and faintly disturbing) marks.

The making of the tapes contributed to Cardiss’ conviction on the obscenity charge, and he was sentenced to three years in prison. During his time behind bars, there were a series of unexplained deaths among his friends who watched the tapes. Cardiss himself seems to have had a change of heart during his time in prison -- upon his release he made a frantic effort to re-acquire and destroy all copies of the reels. However, he died of a heart attack before completing the job, and the Cardiss tapes are still out there.

Possibilities

1 The Cardiss home was situated in an area where another reality is close to intersecting with our own. The frequent use of drink, opium, and other perception-altering chemicals made the household’s members receptive to outside influences. The weird symbols on the backdrops in the reels are concepts and ideas from outside our universe.

The senders are so alien to our way of life that there’s no knowing what their intentions were, but in our world their message, when completely assembled by watching all the tapes, takes on actual physical shape -- it hatches in the form of a worm in the viewer’s brain, which slowly eats the surrounding flesh, driving the victim mad and eventually killing them.

Cardiss felt the worm hatch in his own brain, and spent his time in prison in the horrified knowledge that a parasite was slowly destroying his faculties. The re-acquisition of the tapes was an attempt to find a cure for himself, and stop the malady from spreading, but in the end, there wasn’t enough time left to him. Anyone who watches the complete series of tapes is in danger of suffering the same fate.

2 The symbols in the backdrops are just a distraction. Anyone who studies the tapes carefully will notice that there are occasional frames spliced into the reels which have nothing to do with pornography -- they’re texts copied from a magical tome venerating Y’Golonac and laying out the materials and method of casting spells peculiar to Y’Golonac’s cult.

However, one of the viewers who was a quicker study than the others transcribed the tome and began using its spells to murder his fellow cultists and potential rivals. Cardiss was unable to do anything about this while behind bars, but when released, he tracked down and confronted the killer. Three years without practicing had made his skills rusty enough to lose the fight, though. The other cultist and the remaining tomes-on-tape are still at large.

3 There is nothing unusual about the tapes, the weird symbols are just Cardiss’ idea of good cinema.

When his corrosive influence was removed, his wife Dorothea (who fell pregnant during the shoot) set about reinventing herself. She moved away with her infant son, concocted a fictitious background to protect her reputation, and married well. The destruction of the tapes was a peace offering made by Cardiss in an attempt at reconciliation, and the deaths were just Cardiss’ friends falling victim to their other vices.

However, Dorothea’s family can still be hurt if her past comes out. Their money is in a complicated series of legal trusts set up by a conservative religious ancestor, and the bulk of it will revert to another branch of the family if the line is revealed to include an illegitimate birth. If evidence of the her activities on film is made public, the trust’s executors will strip them of their rights as beneficiaries.

© Chris Kerr

The Cairbh Gorge

The Cairbh Gorge, Ireland, is a deep, steep-sided valley that is impossible to climb out of. It is in a heavily wooded area and is far from civilisation. It is impossible to see the bottom of the valley. Sometimes, travellers hear horrific moans coming from the valley. Many claim the valley is haunted by a ‘bogey’ or evil spirit.

Possibilities

1 Several hundred years ago, a group of druids sought the area for its isolation. They were casting a spell that would give them immortality. At the climax of the ritual, a group of bandits attacked the druids and murdered them. After taking anything of valley, they dumped the corpses in the valley. Because the ritual was not finished, the druid’s spirits are still bound to their bodies in a horrible sort of half-life, screaming out in agony.

2 The IRA is active in the area and has found a novel way of disposing of prisoners. The prisoners are tied up and dropped into the valley, from which they can’t escape.

Anyone passing through will be terrified by the screams from the valley and attribute them to an ‘evil ghost.’ The valley floor contains three decayed corpses and one still living man, screaming into the night.

3 During the Victorian Era, the Irish explorer, Eamon Fitzgibbon, was deeply disturbed by an expedition to Africa. He also had a horrible mouth-like gash along his arm. Returning home, he raved about ‘deathless savages’ and ‘the accursed pits’ before dying. The horror happened at his funeral when Fitzgibbon rose from his coffin and began trying to feast upon the villagers. Not knowing what else to do, and not wanting to damn his soul, they flung him into the valley, from which he could not escape. He is still there today, horribly decayed, but still hungry.

© Paul Hebron

The Butcher

Even investigators have to eat. An investigator makes a routine shopping trip, and returns home, only to discover the package he picked up at the local butchery contains, along with the usual sausages and sliced ham, a human hand carefully folded between two pieces of waxed paper.

A closer look at the package reveals that it was intended for someone with the same first and last names, but a different middle initial. The shop assistant has confused the two orders.

Possibilities

1 Some of the anthropology lecturers at a nearby university went native and developed a taste for the local cuisine while studying inhabitants of the Plain of Leng. They formed a small cult to practice the cannibalism and ritual sorcery they learned. The butcher is an affable, conscientious lunatic and multiple murderer that they employ to supply their unique dietary needs.

2 The severed hand is from a body dead several days of natural causes.

No murder is involved. A small group of scholars are attempting to learn more about the mythos by making a deal with the local community of ghouls. As part of the arrangement, some ghouls have temporarily moved into the scholars’ homes to assist them. The academics have made arrangements with the mortician and butchery to supply them with suitable food.

In time, they conclude their study and end their relationship with the ghouls amicably.

3 The butcher’s assistant has been experimenting with drugs. He cut off his own hand in the bacon slicer and packaged it up without even realising it. He’s bleeding to death in the butchery’s walk-in cold store, and thinks it’s the funniest thing on Earth.

If he is not helped quickly, he dies of shock and blood loss.

© Chris Kerr

The Bus Survivor

The investigators are riding in a tour bus. They are having a pleasant time and enjoying the view. Eventually, one of the investigators notices that his neighbour is quite nervous. The investigator asks her what is wrong. His neighbour explains to him that she gets nervous on buses due to an incident a year earlier. She was on a similar trip and noticed that her neighbour was nervous. He told her about a curse that killed everybody on a bus leaving only one survivor who would carry the curse onto another bus which would then cause the death of every passenger except another one and so on. He then told her that he was the only survivor of a bus accident year earlier. The investigator’s neighbour then tells that, by all rights, she shouldn’t have survived when her bus fell off a cliff.

Possibilities

1 The curse is real. The bus the investigators are riding on will soon have an accident which will cause the death of every passenger except one, unless the investigators find a way to stop the curse.

2 The whole story is made up. It is only a joke to scare the investigators.

3 The accidents and death are real. But the story about the curse isn’t true. The woman was the only survivor of the accident but she imagined the curse as a post traumatic experience.

© Nicolas Dao Phan

The Box of G’Hyr

Adventurer and mystic, Ambrose DeBerry returned from an archeological expedition to Jerusalem, where he stumbled upon an ancient tomb buried deep within the hills under the city. Inside this tomb, he found a small 3”x 3” box.

The sides of the box are made from some kind of exotic hardwood covered with strange Arabic carvings. Whilst the top and bottom are made from obsidian and pottery. There is no obvious way to open the box. A box such as this was mentioned briefly in the Al Azif, being the box in which the soul of a powerful demon was kept imprisoned.

Possibilities

1 Ambrose DeBerry, in taking the box, awoke the guardian spirit of the tomb of G’Hyr. This amorphous black creature will seek out and kill all those who have touched the box. Once it has recovered the box, it will return the box to the tomb.

2 The box is taken from DeBerry shortly after he has translated the strange writings. The inscription reveals that the box contains a spirit of great evil, and if opened when Xoth is in conjunction with Mercury a great evil will descend. An evil that will last for all of eternity.

3 Ambrose DeBerry has taken away with him, a box containing not the spirit of a powerful demon but instead it holds the sangrail (Holy Grail). This will make the box extremely valuable to those who wish to exploit it for their own ends.

© Rik Kershaw

The Blackbird

A team of English students has recently released a documentary surrounding the myth of the Blackbird, a ghost ship which has featured in nautical legend for years around the North Atlantic.

According to the story, the Blackbird was engaged by an unknown figure in Southampton to carry a secret but valuable cargo to New York. All information concerning the voyage was subsequently lost in a fire a few days after the ship left Southampton. The Blackbird took over a month to cross the ocean, and was found sitting silently at anchor in New York. When she did not respond to any signals the harbour master boarded her but was violently repelled by someone, or something, aboard the ship. One of the harbour master’s guards was killed and left on board, and two others were mortally wounded.

When a group of government investigators arrived the next morning the Blackbird had vanished. A covert search found no trace of her and a few subsequent operations have also failed.

Since then, the Blackbird has been sighted many times and in many places. None have boarded her and returned, and legend speculates wildly at what lies in the hold. Some stories claim that unearthly howls and strange lights emanate from her.

Now the Blackbird at last lies caught, somewhere in the ice near Baffin Island. Her exact location is a closely guarded secret, but one well-connected and generous benefactor has engaged the Investigators to find the truth through research and eventually boarding the Blackbird itself.

Possibilities

1 The Blackbird carried canisters of gas, developed by the Germans shortly before the end of the Great War. A few canisters were captured by the British army and the rest were destroyed. Some of these were to be sent to the United States for scientists there to investigate; they were the Blackbird’s cargo. The gas induces psychotic behaviour, along with physiological changes. Muscles swell and become much stronger, and metabolism is slowed, forcing victims into hibernation until disturbed. Eventually, victims become little more than killing machines clinging to only the deepest of drives. One of the canisters aboard the ship leaked, affecting the crew. They killed one another off until only one-the captain-was left. It was he who attacked the harbour master and it is he who still hibernates within the ship, still occasionally steering it and guarding its precious cargo.

2 A rich American collector bought at auction in England a set of rare and powerful mythos tomes including the Necronomicon and Unausprechlichen Kulten. This information came into the hands of a cult, which decided to steal the books for themselves. To ensure the safety of his purchase the collector hired the Blackbird to secretly convey them across the Atlantic. However, one crewmember was also a cultist, and as soon as the ship was underway he opened the crates. His already-weak mind was rent asunder by the awful truths within the books, and he used the books’ terrible magicks summon strange beings. These attacked first the crew and then the harbour master and, even now infest the ship. The cultist, bound eternally by the dark magic he called down, continues to steer the damned vessel.

3 The Blackbird contained oddly-inscribed tablets uncovered at Avebury and apparently older than human civilisation. The tablets were being sent to experts in America for expert opinion. However, the artefacts radiate a powerful magical aura which was felt by the Deep Ones off Cornwall as the Blackbird passed by. They sent their agents to destroy the records in Southampton, then killed or enslaved the ship’s crew and opened the cargo.

The Blackbird was later sunk off Innsmouth. Stories of its later appearances are just that - stories.

© Rory Naismith

The Big Lie

This week, a small team of researchers have mapped the largest and most complex known mathematical object: the E8 Lie Group. A method of modeling E8 has eluded mathematicians since Norwegian Sophus Lie theorized the existence of this eponymous continuous group 120 years ago.

Surface and symmetry are two defining features of Lie Groups. In the simplest family of Lie Groups, a sphere has two surface dimensions, thus any place on its surface is defined by just two numbers. On its surface, a sphere has locations described in terms of longitude and the latitude, but its symmetry is described in three dimensions along its three axes. In the most bedeviling family, E8’s “surface” has 57 dimensions- that is, it takes 57 coordinates to define a point on it, and it has 248 axes of symmetry.

For mathematicians to map E8, they needed 453,060 points and express how each of these points relates to another. That meant they had to devise a matrix with 453,060 rows and the same number of columns for a total of 205 billion entries. Resolving the matrix is beyond raw, state-of-the-art computational power, so the researchers resorted to a combination of clever strategy and supercomputers to map E8.

Possibilities

1 Since it’s cheaper than building a particle accelerator with a track along Pluto’s orbit, particle physicists could use this map of an incredibly complex multi-dimensional object to advance String theory. However, resolving the mystery of E8’s structure has attracted the unwanted attention of alien intelligences, such as the Great Race, who wish to limit humankind’s understanding of outer dimensions. If ambitious investigators can stifle this attempted suppression, they might unlock a new technology, opening up another means of inter-dimensional travel or a novel portal for eldritch horrors to enter our world.

2 While Sophus Lie developed his theory of continuous groups in the winter of 1973, it wasn’t until 1884 that a young German mathematician, Friedrich Engel, came to work with Lie on a systematic treatise for publication beyond obscure Norwegian mathematics journals. The resulting collaboration was printed in three volumes of Theorie der Transformationsgruppen, which shipped in 1888, 1890, and 1893. Engel, however, authored an unpublished fourth manuscript. As it turns out, he was a rather powerful sorcerer and the last text reveals a means of creating doppelgangers of one’s self across all of the dimensions described by E8. Investigators could use this text to summon clones of themselves, yet they might bring back, for better or worse, some form of Freidrich Engel created decades ago and left to the sanity-wracking outer dimensions for any sum of relative time.

3 Dyscalculia, or the difficulty in learning or comprehending mathematics, occurs across the whole range of human intelligence. This affliction may also cause trouble with concepts of time, measurement, and spatial reasoning. Investigators attempting to discover arcane significance to the mapping of E8 may just, through a series of odd effects, ravage their own mental health and develop an acute case of dyscalculia.

© Jasen Johns

The Anachronomicon

A sensational find has been announced in a leading bibliographical journal - a book was discovered in the archives of a German family by one Professor Hasburg of the University of Munich. The book has been reliably dated using physical methods to the early 11th century. It is written in three languages - Latin, Arabic and Akkadian, the language of the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian Empires, which was thought to have died out in the 1st Millennium BCE and was not rediscovered until the late 19th century. While the find is largely denounced as a hoax, the scientific support for its veracity is considerable.

Possibilities

1 The human race will not dominate the earth forever. Humankind will be succeeded by an alien race that we would find horrific to behold; a race far more accomplished than our own. Their remote ancestors in our own time have not yet discovered Earth, but our planet presents a rare opportunity for them, as it can be transformed with relative ease to the conditions they require. The Anachronomicon has been sent from the future by their descendents to help them to realise this destiny. It contains rituals that will alert the present members of the race to the presence of humanity and grant them passage across the cosmos. They have used their limited knowledge of human history to prepare the manuscript in the three human languages of which most knowledge has survived into the far future. The anachronistic dating is a result of the stress of time-travel on the material of the book, and small inconsistencies between the results of available dating methods are apparent upon closer examination.

2 From the Latin text, the tome appears to have been written by Giordano Nola, an 11th century Benedictine monk. In the seventh century, a pious young girl called Dymphna was possessed by a Yithian, one of a race of creatures from the distant past who send their minds travelling through time by taking possession of human minds. Usually, they erase all memories of this possession from the minds of their victims, but this particular Yithian was careless. The memories were enough to drive Dymphna mad. For her trials and the strange events surrounding her life, she was later recognised by the Catholic Church as a saint, patron of the insane. Some hundreds of years later, the fingerbone of St Dymphna was held as a sacred relic in the monastery in the care of Giordano Nola. This connection drew him to the attention of the Yithian that had caused St Dymphna’s legendary insanity in the first place. Nola was able to record some of the creature’s memories before being overwhelmed like Dymphna before him.

3 The book is a hoax. Hasburg, a disciple of Nyarlothotep, had found a mainly empty book from the 11th century and created the Anachronomicon from it using his specialist knowledge. His intent is to disseminate the Akkadian writings - Hasburg feels that a controversial tome will receive more attention than a simple discovery, hence the Anachronomicon. The writings contain a hypnotic image, which is being used to recruit experts in ancient languages in order to perform a ritual which will summon Nyarlothotep in his pure form.

Copyright (c) 2001 Barbara Robson and Stuart Barrow

That Old Fashioned Charm

The characters regularly visit a diner or restaurant with a classic feel that harkens back to the simple pleasures of yesteryear. One day while enjoying their meal, they see the owner being harassed by two men in black suits. Voices are raised, and the men leave, but threaten to return. “And we won’t be so polite the next time around.”

Possibilities

1 Extortion. The men in black are gangsters, members of a local syndicate who are trying to muscle in on the business. Other rival gangs also have their eye on the restaurant, and soon the gangsters will clash.

2 Vampires. The restaurant owner is a ‘beard’ for the real backer, an undead. The vampire enjoys the atmosphere and uses the restaurant as a sanctum. The two men are vampire hunters, trying to track down the creature of the night.

3 Cannibals. The restaurant specializes in a certain kind of meat dish, only served to ‘very special’ customers, and only after closing time. They get their supply from a crooked mortuary, but the undertakers are beginning to demand more money, “since we’re taking all the risks.” This will make the ‘very special’ customers upset . . .

© Adam Gauntlett

Suffering Artist

Gaspar Brent, a successful local artist has been horribly mutilated and now lives mindlessly in a catatonic state. Upon the completion of his last work, a painting of an unusually strange series of lines and angles, Brent was “attacked” by an unseen assailant. Should he ever recover, Gaspar Brent will never paint again - the “mutilator” hacked both of his hands off at the wrist. The hands were nowhere to be found. The painting is missing as well.

Possibilities

1 Gaspar Brent was kept awake for weeks before the completion of his final work. Plagued by nightmares, the only thing that gave him rest was his painting. The nightmares were sent by a Dr. Nathan Hargreaves, a devoted priest of Hastur who needed the painting as a votive focus for an evocation of one of the Unspeakable One’s avatars. He removed the artist’s hands in an elaborate ritual of torture that was used to guarantee that he would never produce another painting like it.

2 Gaspar Brent knew the angles of the painting were unlike any others in the history of art. A morphine addict, Gaspar Brent was given to “dreams” and “visions” on a constant basis. It was from these that the inspiration for his most recent painting came. Unknowingly, Brent worked at the ancient diagram until one evening, in the midst of an inspired state, his hands pushed through the canvas into an extra-dimensional space where he felt a horrible and dreadful gnashing of fangs upon his wrists. When he withdrew them, the Hound of Tindalos that he had evoked, held tight to its prey. Upon seeing the beast, Brent went insane, buckling under the actuality of what he had done. Biting through, the Hound retracted back into the painting, taking the artist’s hands and sanity with it. Before Brent’s maddened eyes, the painting then crumbled to dust.

3 Gaspar Brent is not as well off as he used to be. Having spent his last cent on luxuries beyond his means, he borrowed money from a local mob family and has no means of paying it back. After repeated threats, Gaspar Brent went to the Don to beg for mercy and a means by which he could return the favor. After sending his thugs to demolish Brent’s studio and take anything of value (including the painting), Don Carriagi had Brent beaten within an inch of his life and his hands hacked off at the wrist. After his stumps were bound with filthy wads of gauze and twine, Brent was left on his doorstep, terrorized to the core.

© G Holochwost

Suffer the Child

Poor little Tania Langley. At the age of nine, she’s an orphan, her parents brutally murdered by her older brother, who subsequently committed suicide. Understandably, she is suffering from psychiatric problems, most notably being completely unable to sleep without medication due to horrific nightmares. Her legal guardian, a distant uncle, has had her committed and the devoted staff at the sanitarium is not hopeful that Tania will ever be cured. Tania herself is very withdrawn and shy and speaks very little. The few people that she does talk to say that she insists that a monster killed her parents.

Image by artflow.ai

Possibilities

1 Tania’s uncle is a greedy, sadistic villain. He murdered Tania’s parents and framed her brother in order to inherit. Tania managed to run away, and by the time her uncle found her, he had realized that he could still enjoy the money if he was her guardian. Unwilling to admit the reality of what she saw, she imagined that a monster had done it. Her uncle secretly encourages this belief.

2 The house that the Langleys lived in was haunted by a malevolent entity. This entity had been steadily gaining strength throughout the time that they had owned the house. Unfortunately, Tania’s parents refused to admit it and tried to ignore the unnatural happenings in their house. Tania’s brother realized what was going on, and tried to put a stop to it. His knowledge proved pitifully inadequate, and he only succeeded in allowing the entity a physical presence. The entity killed their parents. Tania’s brother made a last-ditch effort to stop the entity; he was successful, but it cost him his life.

3 Tania’s brother was a dabbler in the occult and had many books of forbidden knowledge, which eventually drove him to the brink of insanity.  He finally went over the edge after reading an old play, The King in Yellow.  His mind snapped, and he killed his parents before ending his own life.  He did in fact go through some physiological changes, caused by his proximity to the essence of Hastur the Unspeakable. (Hence Tania’s belief that it was a monster.) Unfortunately, Tania had a habit of sneaking peeks at her brother’s books, and he had left the play in plain sight on his desk.

So far, Tania’s age has worked in her favor; the mind of a child has some natural defenses that adult minds do not, and Tania neither understood everything she read nor finished the play. However, only time will tell what lasting effects this will have on her… 

© Megan McKnight

Stop, Thief!

The character is caught up in a bank robbery. (S)he was walking down the street when shots were fired. The robbers then came dashing out of the bank, and one, mortally wounded, collapsed in the character’s arms. Yet, only seconds later, nothing seems to have happened at all; there was no robbery, no dead man, and nobody but the character remembers anything at all about the incident.

Image by artflow.ai

Possibilities

1 Precognition. The events that the character saw will take place, but a week from now, at exactly the same time and in the same place. Before then, the character will see the ‘dead’ robber in the street, going about his business; what will the character do?.

2 Mental instability. The character recently survived a near-fatal incident. (S)he is dwelling on it, and is also suffering from delayed shock. The ‘death’ was an illusion, brought on by an overwrought mind. There will be more just like it - and each dead soul wears the character’s face.

3 Postcognition. The events that the character witnessed happened some time ago (years, potentially decades), at exactly the same time and place. However, now the dead robber has something to latch on to - the character - and his ghost will linger.

© Adam Gauntlett

Stare of the Monster

A travelling freak show is visiting the town. In various tents, visitors can see Siamese twins, the furred lady, the man without limbs, the Elephant girl...

Image by artflow.ai

But the biggest attraction is ‘the medusa’. Inside a cage that is obscured by curtains the director proclaims, resides the mythological creature the Greek hero Perseus encountered, whose sheer view could turn people into stone. To protect the visitors, the medusa is not shown directly, but only its shadow silhouette projected on the curtains by a light inside the cage. The silhouette seems to be that of a female figure with moving, hissing snakes extruding from her head.

To prove further, that it is a real medusa, the director holds a living bunny through a gap in the curtains, which in his hands seems to turn into stone!

Possibilities

1 It’s a swindle - the medusa is a normal woman with a pair of harmless snakes bound to her head. The bunny turning to stone is a trick, involving a fake stone bunny.

If the swindle is openly revealed, the members of the freak show, who’ve just lost their main attraction, will be really angry with the spoilsport... ever seen the movie ‘Freaks’?

2 It’s a swindle - though ‘the medusa’ really has a pair of moving extrusions like extra fingers on her head. In fact, all the freaks are the product of the director, an insane but powerful sorcerer abducting and experimenting on normal people to create a race of ‘improved’ humans - with the freaks being the failed results who at least survived his procedures but stay because they have nowhere else to go. The director always looks for new test subjects...

3 It IS a real medusa - and she does not like to be trapped...

© Philipp Mählmann

The Terrifying House

An old friend calls them for help. He had heard about their interest in paranormal activity but dismissed their interest for a new-age fad. Until now. The friend has recently acquired a mansion, but since he has moved in he has had terrifying experiences.

Image by Artflow.ai

Researching the mansion’s history reveals a lack of ghosts, strange figures, monsters or poltergeist activity that would explain their friend’s fear. However, it seems that he isn’t the only one: many of the previous owners sold or abandoned the mansion after only staying a short period.

Possibilities

1 The mansion is not haunted - it is the building itself that causes the terror. The mansion’s inner design, room layout and architecture somehow causes subconscious fear in the minds of those who dwell in it. Whether this is by accident or design is not clear.

2 The mansion is not haunted. There is an underground pocket of gas beneath the mansion which sometimes leaks into the basement and permeates throughout the mansion. The gas has no smell but stimulates the part of the brain controlling emotions and amplifies them. Given the mansion is a bit spooky, that spookiness combined with the gas becomes terror.

3 The mansion is not haunted, but the neighboring house is. In that house dwells an evil entity, trapped by ancient magic. The creature still has some limited power and feeds on the life force of those nearby his prison - such as the mansion owners. The life force drain causes anxiety and panic attacks.

© Nicolas Dao Phan

The Machine Beneath the Earth

Beneath an old city, the sounds of machinery can be constantly heard. The council have tried to locate the source of the noise by exploring the sewers. So far they have been unsuccessful.

Image credit

Documents in the library indicate that below the city there are uncharted catacombs from medieval times, extending beyond the sewers. The historical or religious significance of the catacombs is unknown, though they are clearly not Christian in origin. The documents do indicate that one entrance to the catacombs begins beneath the house of an eccentric. The eccentric claims to know why the catacombs were built and what purpose they currently serve, but he refuses to elaborate.

Until recently, city folk have endured the noises with admirable stoicism. However, a recent spate of clinically precise killings have the locals in an uproar. The murders have been conducted with technologically advanced equipment, leaving no trace of a culprit. Each murder victim has been found near an entrance to the catacombs, and fingers of suspicion are starting to point at the eccentric.

Possibilities

1 The eccentric is bluffing and knows nothing about the catacombs nor the murders.

2 A criminal organisation hides out in the catacombs, creating the noise with forging equipment. The catacombs, whose purpose is unknown, amplify the sounds of the equipment so that on quiet nights the sounds can be clearly heard. The eccentric is a lookout for the organisation. The murders, however, are committed by an unconnected individual hiding in the catacombs.

3 With uncharacteristic viciousness, the Great Race of Yith are trying to create a perfect vessel for their minds, using both the organs of humans and machine parts. The murders are committed by their minions to provide the necessary organs.

© Michael Blenkarn

The Forgotten Army

The recent discovery of a mass grave has sparked a furore in the archaeological community. Builders digging foundations have unearthed hundreds of skeletons, apparently battle-dead. When archaeologists came to examine the site, they had quite a shock!

Image by Artflow.ai

Possibilities

1 Some of the remains aren’t human. Roughly half the skeletons found are clearly deep one skeletons, and the excited archaeologists are preparing to make their discovery public. Deep one hybrids living locally have got wind of this. They plan to murder the archaeologists and destroy the evidence of their existence.

2 One of the bodies discovered was perfectly preserved as if the man had died only yesterday. The body was moved to the mortuary in preparation for an autopsy, but when the freezer was opened to retrieve the body, it was gone.

The man was a sorcerer who had been unable to avoid being drafted into the army. To escape the battle, he used magic to feign death and was buried with all the other dead. Now revived, he is roaming abroad with unknown intent.

3 At the centre of the grave, the archaeologists found a stone box. The box is being stored at the university, and hasn’t been opened yet. This is fortunate, as it contains something extremely nasty: something that killed hundreds of soldiers the last time it was imprisoned.

© Rob Illing

The Terror in the Fog

In the last years of the nineteenth century, something terrible stalked the fog-shrouded streets of London. For about three months in the autumn of 1888, a madman preyed upon the poor women who had, through poverty been forced to become prostitutes. But then, just when the terror seemed at its height, the killing stopped.

Image credit

Why was this? The police didn’t have a clue as to the identity of this killer. The press thought that perhaps the killer had moved away to America. Others thought that the killer, filled with remorse, killed himself. But just one man knew what had happened to this madman, and that man was Dr Forbes Winslow.

Forbes Winslow was the son of a Doctor who specialised in lunacy. He followed in his fathers footsteps and became a leading alienist. He was a medical theorist, a practical detective and also a noted occultist. Dr Winslow became engrossed in the Whitechapel murders and after spending weeks living in the slums of Whitechapel, he formed a mental picture of the killer.

Armed with this mental picture, he began to track the man whom he believed was the Ripper, and Dr Winslow is believed to have found him on Friday 9th November 1888, shortly after the Ripper murdered his final victim, Mary Jane Kelly.

However, what transpired on that fateful night, no one knows because Dr Forbes Winslow was found wandering the streets of Limehouse early the next day. The once proud Doctor, his clothes in tatters and hair turned white, was taken to the mental institute founded by his father and where he died in jibbering madness some two years later.

During that time he muttered the same statement over and over again. “He lies below us. Do not wake the earth.”

And so the matter rested until the spring of 1926 when something terrible rocked the city of London. The killings started once more. Within a two week period three prostitutes were murdered in exactly the same way as the Ripper’s victims. London is once more in the grip of a murderer who seems to kill and then vanish without trace...

Possibilities

1 Dr Winslow after tracking the Ripper down rendered the fiend down to his essential salts. He then took these salts, which he had stored in a jar and placed them into a segment of the new Inner Circle Line tunnel system that was opened in 1889. However, when work began on the mid-level District Line extension, the jar was unearthed and passed into the hands of an unscrupulous occultist. The man, George Chapman, not realising who was inside performed the rite of resurrection. The Ripper, after disposing of this fool, has found himself in a world that was so very different yet still the same, and able to begin his reign of terror once more.

2 The being that Dr Winslow tracked down was a Ghoul whose nest had been disturbed by the work on the new underground line. The Ghoul, finding itself trapped above ground, and having no way to return it had killed to feed itself. However, in a strange twist of fate, the work on the new mid-level District Line has disturbed the ghouls once more, trapping one of their number above ground.

3 The present wave of killings has nothing whatsoever to do with Ripper, but are being perpetrated by Dr Thomas Neill Cream, a man who needs the parts of his victim to help feed his need for fresh organs to help his search for a serum that would stop the ravages of time.

© Rik Kershaw

The Thing in Parcel 314

Three grizzly accidents along the same stretch of service road have ground forestry workers to a veritable stand-still in the North Woods. A stretch of logging road nearly 30 miles long and isolated from any but the most basic civilization has claimed fifteen lives since Parcel 314, an old growth parcel, has been allotted by the Department of The Interior.

The first incident was a logging truck, full of newly cut timber, that overturned and rolled down an embankment killing the driver and the two loggers that rode with him.

The next was a truck which mysteriously caught on fire while transporting replacement crew to the new parcel.

Then there was incident number three. A forest ranger, using the old logging road to get up country to check rumors of poachers, disappeared without a trace. All that was found was his SUV parked on the side of the road. About 100 yard away from that, his hat and shotgun, unfired.

A series of worksite accidents have claimed several lives closer to the parcel itself. Men found tangled in chains or crushed by fallen logs. One man was found, braced inside a portable toilet a look of abject terror across his deadened features.

With enough of a mystery looming over the newly accessible piece of forest the site has been temporarily shut down -- but not without protests from the local forestry concerns. A tense energy hangs over the local town while authorities try to sort things out.

Possibilities

1 Something long undisturbed has been awakened with the incursion into Parcel 314. Whatever it is, it does not appreciate the intrusion and has set upon the local workers and authorities as well as any others who might make their way through that stretch of woods. What’s worse is that the incidents seem to be spreading away from the site, down the service road and toward town.

2 The parcel was opened for a dark purpose. The very same corporate types who are salivating to get back into the woods to continue harvesting are looking for something there. Little do they realize that that something is also looking for them, bent on vengeance for the desecration of its resting place.

3 There is something in Parcel 314, something that wishes to be released from the prison of the woods. As more of the area is cut clear, its evil grows, sowing madness and fear as well as its own evil lusts further and further until it is free to roam the darkness of the North Woods.

©  Eli Arndt

The tower

The investigators read a newspaper report about a mysterious stone tower that has recently been investigated by the authorities. The tower is of unknown origin and is located on a desolate island owned by wealthy fisherman Marcus Moore outside of Nova Scotia.

The tower stands 30 feet tall and has been constructed using stones from and around the island. It is hollow and has a doorway at its base. Markings of unknown origin cover several of the stones, and can clearly been be seen on the photograph of the tower that accompanies the newspaper report.

Possibilities

1 According to local rumour, the tower has only been raised recently and the small fishing community on the island stays away from it. The islands’ owner, Marcus Moore, wants to tear the tower down - but the authorities have prevented him as they want to make sure the tower is not older than the local community claims.

The tower was actually constructed six months ago under the direction of two sorcerers - it is part of their plan to summon Yog-Sothoth. They have already arranged for a platform to be constructed and it just needs to be place it at the top of the tower and wait for the right moment to perform the ritual.

2 The tower is the meeting point for a local cult practicing animal and human sacrifices. The cult worships Dagon and was started 50 years ago when a fisherman named Jacob Moore arrived and told them about a powerful entity called D’go that lived in the ocean. D’go is a distorted version of Dagon, and Jacob discovered this “entity” when he read a very old and fragmented version of a scripture containing chants and rituals. Jacob quickly rose in power as he convinced the other villagers that D’go was the one true god. Those who were not convinced either left the area themselves or were chased away.

The stone tower was built to honor D’go. As the non-believers disappeared, the cult became more and more paranoid and bloodthirsty They usually stay away from the outside world and neighboring communities stay away from them. The cult is currently lead by Jacob Moore’s grandson, Marcus Moore. However, the cult is slowly dying since few children are allowed to live and the cult has failed to attract new members.

The report in the newspaper concerns an investigation by the police of several skeletons found near the tower by a fisherman.

3 The tower is a magical beacon that, when used correctly, attracts monsters and creatures from the deep. The tower is the last remnant of a human civilisation that worshipped Dagon. The civilisation is new to science, and archaeologists from several universities have been sent to examine the tower - and it is this that forms the report in the newspaper.

© Björn Hanson

Slump-Fast

Let’s see, what’s in the mailbox:

Image by artflow.ai

Bill, notice, advertising, bill -oh, a package... pfft, another marketing trick with a free sample of a new diet drug called Slump-fast - 100% guaranteed weight loss, even after eating prime ribs for a whole week while only working the chew muscles... well, it’s free and you’ve gained a bit weight - how bad can it be?

Possibilities

1 It works! Unbelievably, it works! Slump-Fast got thousands of happy customers in the last few weeks, who enjoy eating anything they want, while still losing weight. No side effects, nothing - and all the while, people enjoy eating more... and more... and more... ... ‘Brains!’ ... !

2 Behind Slump-Fast is a group of cultists-cum-businessmen, who worship the old ones. The drug itself contains eggs of a microscopic form of extra-terrestrial larvae, which will spread inside the body, nourishing themselves from body fat. They won’t harm the carrier’s body or internal organs (at least in the first years...). However, they’ll start to take control over their victim's body, first only while sleeping or unconscious, later even in conscious state, making them obedient to the cultist’s telepathic orders.

3 A week later: Of course, no loss of weight. Another bluff package! In fact, analysis shows, that the drug only contains the usual ingredients allowed for a non-prescriptive drug: herbs, water, salt, plutonium... Plutonium?!

© Philipp Mählmann

Southern Discomfort

It’s a hot summer day in 1897, when renowned millionaire industrialist Henry Bowens invites family, friends and acquaintances, including the investigators, to a wedding between his son Eric, and Amelia the lovely daughter of a banker.

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Henry, who pays for the entire wedding, has arranged for the celebration to take place on a riverboat cruising the Mississippi river for a couple of days.

But halfway through the dinner party, the lovely bride suddenly pours a bottle of liquor on herself and ignites it with a lit candle. Quick-reacting family members and guests extinguish the burning bride, but it’s too late; Amelia succumbs to her injuries and dies.

As they are witnessing the bride’s death, a mutual question is asked by the horrified family members and guests; what made such a lovely lady do such a horrid thing to herself?

Possibilities

1 A man bent on revenge and skilled in voodoo made Amelia kill herself. But poor crisp Amelia was not the vengeful man’s target. Her father-in-law, Henry Bowens, was.

The man, Raymond LeManeux, is the sole survivor of a bloodbath on his family during the American Civil War. A bloodbath that was ordered by Henry Bowens when he was a high-ranking officer in the Union army.

For several decades, Raymond has plotted to track down and exact his revenge on the murderous Henry. And now, armed with a vengeful heart and dreadful skills in voodoo - which he learned from a small band of runaway slaves who cared for him - Raymond has finally succeeded.

Raymond infiltrated the wedding party disguised as a cook. He now exacts his vengeance on Henry Bowens and his family, using his voodoo spells through the cooking. But even though his first victim, Amelia, went up in flames, Raymond believes that “Revenge is a dish best served cold”.

2 Forbidden love drove Amelia to kill herself. Even though Amelia was marrying Henry Bowen’s son, her heart belonged to another.

The marriage was arranged - Eric Bowen became smitten with Amelia and even though he realised that she didn’t return his affection, he got his father to exercise his wealth and influence on Amelia’s family. Soon after, Amelia was engaged to marry Eric. She was also forbidden to see her true love, Frederic Jones - a young man of meager status and wealth.

Despite her family’s plans and prohibitions, Amelia continued to meet with Frederic, in secret. Unfortunately, Eric found out and, once again, he ran to Daddy. He informed Amelia’s family and a few days later, a fatal “accident” befell poor Frederic. Distraught to learn about her lover’s fate, Amelia quickly realized the sinister truth about his death. But instead of confronting her family about her suspicions, Amelia conspired a plan all by herself. A suicide plan.

With hopes of an eternal reunion with her lover in Heaven, Amelia poured the liquor over herself and ignited it, setting herself ablaze.

3 Mental illness drove Amelia to kill herself. During her teen years, Amelia began to show signs of a progressive mental illness - brought on by her father’s molestations of her during her childhood years. Worried about her wellness, or rather, what the local gossip mill would say, her family arranged for her to be married to the son of a business friend, Henry Bowens. The family also hoped that the marriage would banish Amelia’s mental illness.

But the family’s plans and expectations did not banish anything. It only made it much, much worse. But no one took time to notice her deteriorating mental illness.

Amelia’s mind finally snapped moments before she turned herself into a human torch.

© Tim Deer

Stained glasses

An investigator is helping an elderly friend or relative to move house. While clearing out the attic, a box labelled “Glasses” is found. When asked where he wants it put, the old man pales and mumbles that he had forgotten all about that box. He suggests that it should be destroyed, and cautions against opening it.

Image by artflow.ai

Possibilities

1 The box contains a pair of opera glasses. The glasses allow scenes at a distance to be viewed with remarkable clarity, but (due to a malicious enchantment) show such scenes in the worst possible light. Viewed through the glasses, a loyal dog looks like a rabid beast and a friendly conversation takes on the appearance of a whispered conspiracy.

2 The box contains two beautiful, slender champagne flutes. They have been enchanted with a love charm.  If two people drink the same wine from the glasses, they will certainly fall in love. The charm, however, has been corrupted by the dark magic used to effect it. A love begun by the glasses will, over time, become a jealous, possessive and fearful thing.

3 The box contains fragments of glass reminiscent of the glass formed of sands beneath a nuclear strike. It is in fact the remnants of a similarly destructive event - an incarnation of Hastur on earth, many years ago. The old man helped to eradicate the menace in his time, but fears that this glass could provide the link necessary for its return. He is unsure why he has kept the fragments, but the miswritten label provides evidence of his unsettled mental state at the time.

© Barbara Robson and Stuart Barrow

Sentence Served

A Correctional Officer (CO) at a county jail is worried that an inmate who is currently incarcerated on a drunk driving conviction is set to be released in a few days. He wants the investigators to help.

Image by Artflow.ai

The inmate had been isolated from general housing because he caused too much of a disturbance with the other inmates. He’d never done anything directly; in fact, he’d been nothing short of well-behaved the entire time he’d been there, but he seemed to have a natural ability to make everyone around him agitated. He stank to high heaven, like rotting meat no matter how often he showered and, whatever housing unit he went to would start having problems--fights, unruliness, and a general sense of malaise--as soon as he arrived.

Once in isolation, the CO heard strange noises coming from the inmate’s cell at night--sounds like baying dogs, lions roaring, and hyenas laughing. Yet when he investigated, the inmate would be curled up in his bunk, apparently asleep.

One night, while doing his security rounds, he checked inside the man’s cell through the window in the cell door. The inmate was lying down with his eyes closed; as he turned to walk away, he felt something staring at him. When he turned, the inmate was peering out the cell window at him, his eyes pitch black, his lips drawn back to reveal a smile of pure malevolence.

The officer doesn’t have anything concrete to base this on, but he worries that the area will not be safe once this inmate is released from custody. He’s looking for the investigators to keep an eye on him.

Possibilities

1 The inmate is a powerful cult leader and a practitioner of black magic. He only allowed himself to be caught and arrested so that he could make contacts within the jail. The Correctional Officer is right to be worried - this man is dangerous and has nefarious plans once he is freed.

2 It isn’t the poor inmate’s fault; he’s been tormented ever since he inadvertently summoned a powerful demon during what he thought was some harmless fun with a ouija board. This demon haunts and sometimes possesses this man. He finds some respite in booze, which is how he ended up in jail.

3 The CO is making the whole thing up. He is the real evil one. He knows who the investigators are and wishes to dispose of them, and concocted this story as a mere red herring; something to distract them so he can catch them off guard.

Copyright (c) 2009 Luke Manning

Shannon's Photo

The photo was found in a collection of old photos donated by little Shannon. Coming from her old grandfather’s own, more extensive collection, this one seems out of place and perhaps that is because it is. While most of the photos in her collection depict bright and sunny places, parks, trees, animals at play and a host of cousins, aunts and uncles, this one shows a very moody, dark room.

Image by Artflow.ai

The grainy photo almost seems double-exposed, with hazy lines around some of the primary fixtures in the image. An ordinary table is the centrepiece, heavily shaded by something out of frame and stained darkly with layer upon layer of casually splashed pigment, all showing as varying shades of grey in the monochromatic photo.

Most notable is a mirror to the left of the frame that seems to display a much-obscured form, mostly in shadow except for a curious pair of leering female lips. The photo is too small to reveal too much detail, no bigger than a snapshot.

Possibilities

1 The photo is nothing more than a snap-shot cast aside by the girl’s grandfather and mistakenly included in her collection. The woman in the mirror is actually the photographer and her expression is nothing but amusement and frustration combined as she tries to get the shot right.

2 The picture is the last photo taken in a very macabre series kept in a lock box by the grandfather. The grandfather, a form psychiatrist, had taken them as a part of an ongoing study of a very lascivious and twisted woman, a woman with a dark history of violence, murder and of all things cannibalism.

3 The picture is a stray shot of an old room found in the basement crime scene during the grandfather’s days as a city crime photographer. Strangely, the woman is not in any of the reports or recollections of the men who were there that night (few of which survive). The phantom lady only seems to exist in the photograph.

© Eli Arndt