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