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