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

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

Keyboard Music

The radio was jealous of the computer keyboard, the writer could see that now. He had written his radio scripts with the keyboard, and they had been played on radios across the world. Except his own. He didn’t want to hear his own plays; they were so much better in his imagination. But, the radio was fed up at not even being able to be a part of its master’s success. The writer realized that as soon as the keyboard started playing music.

Closer inspection reveals that there is a crack in the cellar wall, and the snail has come through from next door. The neighbouring house is owned by Sebastian Crease, a thin gentleman in his late-fifties, who lives alone.

Possibilities

1 The writer has been doing a lot of work recently, and is just tired. What actually happened was that he left the keyboard by the radio, and due to a trick of acoustics the music seemed to originate from the keyboard.

2 It’s true. The radio has developed an evil intelligence.

3 The writer recently was asked to write a censored, non-sanity threatening version of The King in Yellow. This is Hastur’s vengance. It is just part of a long campaign to drive the writer insane.

© Arthur Boff

Dangerous Play

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

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

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

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

Possibilities

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

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

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

© Mauro Reis

The Big Lie

You receive a letter from an old high school friend, Tor Hukli. He is now a rich owner of a line of banks and has heard about your investigation activities and was wondering if you would like to be a special guest speaker at one of his business parties. Naturally, you accept.

When you get to his house you realize how big it is - a huge 6 story mansion. You get there at 7:00, and he tells you he would like you to speak right after he gives his speech.

Possibilities

1 Tor introduces you to some of the more notable guests at his party. They are all high-class businessmen, and as you speak to the different people you realize that they don’t know why this party is being held. Most of the people at the party are tired, and in deep thought. Only by getting one of the guests drunk do you learn that everyone at the party is a member of some ‘religious church group’ and that they are meeting in the woods later that night for some sort of ceremony...

2 You explore the house to kill time. The upper four floors are entirely deserted. Most of the rooms are empty or used for storage. At the end of one of the halls is a locked door with intricate designs depicting numerous mythological scenes carved into it. Only by picking the lock or breaking the door can you access the room - and doing so reveals a small alter with a book on it. A mythos book...

3 When Tor gets up to give his speech, the room goes silent. He proceeds to give a long speech about his banking line, pledges, and about how it started and has evolved. Everything seems normal until about half way through the speech when the audience seems to get restless and intimidated. He notices this, and ends his speech and introduces you. As you start to give your speech, the crowd slowly becomes a raving mob and rush forward to sacrifice you to their god Hastur.

© Donswald Badfood

Barratt's Brain

Eric Barrett’s short life wasn’t a happy one. Confined to an asylum at four when he began to exhibit autistic behaviour, he spent three years scribbling weird, meaningless shapes on any scrap of paper he could reach, before finally dying of unknown causes.

Eager to study an unusual case further, the asylum’s doctors have convinced the grieving parents to allow them to perform an autopsy and craniotomy to identify the cause of death.

They cut into the boy’s skull and find...

Possibilities

1   ...a brass clockwork engine where his brain should be.

It’s still ticking over, tiny wires tugging at nerves and muscles that no longer respond. Interior convolutions of the skull suggest that the engine somehow GREW in its current position.

Eric’s uncle Phillip was an investigator into the unknown who looked too deeply into mysteries he should have avoided, and slowly went mad. In his insanity, he talked about the things he’d discovered. No-one listened, except his nephew, who didn’t understand what he was hearing. He understood one thing, though—the name ‘Hastur’. He made a game out of repeating it, and even invented a pretend playmate named Hastur.

The childish chanting, coupled with a boyish imagination that treated Hastur as real, was enough to evoke a partial manifestation of the Great Old One, with limited power. Eric and Hastur spent countless hours together, and Hastur told him things even his uncle didn’t know. The boy’s devastating transformation is the result.

His three years of drawings contain mythos secrets imparted by Hastur. Only a few, but they’re big ones, and each is repeated hundreds of times. Someone with the right knowledge could interpret them to reveal information with horrible implications for the whole human race. The Barrett’s have no idea what they have stuck on their fridge.

2.  ...a hollow, filled with nothing but bloody fluid.

Three years ago, parts of Eric’s brain were extracted by mi-go while the family vacationed at a mountain lake resort. They left enough to maintain basic functions, but took everything responsible for higher thought. The mi-go used those pieces of Eric in a mi-go mining machine, burrowing for minerals under the same lake he stayed at with his parents.

Worse, a week ago, Eric’s parents received a phone call in a buzzing, metallic voice claiming to BE Eric, begging them to rescue him. They thought it was a cruel joke, but if the boy is still alive in some form, something will have to be done.

The scribbled drawings are maps of mine shafts, somehow transmitted by the remainder of his brain.

3.  ...a bullet.

While she was pregnant, Eric’s mother was injured in a drive-by shooting. Because it was so close to her unborn baby, the doctors who attended her elected to leave the bullet in place and remove it after the boy was born. However, exploratory surgery failed to locate it after the birth.

The bullet penetrated Eric’s skull, and his brain formed around it. However, the lead slowly poisoned him, leading to the mental breakdown and eventual death.

The gangster responsible for the shooting was never convicted, and is now a wealthy and powerful man. A ballistic examination of the bullet could be the evidence which finally puts him behind bars.

The drawings are meaningless.

© Chris Kerr

The Stars Are Right

Chad Sylvester has been a patient at a mental institution in Arkham for nearly 80 years. In a catatonic state, Sylvester only awakens from this state for one night every thirty years. On each of these nights he acts in a very bizarre manner and bizarre things happen in the surrounding countryside. Sylvester’s condition developed after he got lost in the woods on a hunting trip and was stricken with fear and hysteria over something that he had witnessed in the woods but did not dare speak of.

Possibilities

1 Chad Sylvester was the first and only human being to ever see the great Hastur the unspeakable in his true form. Permanently stricken with catatonia, Sylvester only returns to his senses every thirty years when the great Hastur visits earth in his true form.

2 For unspeakable reasons of their own, the mi-go took Sylvester’s brain to Yuggoth. They replaced it with an artificial brain and the body was placed in an institution staffed by allies of the mi-go. Every thirty years the mi-go return his brain to his true body for a short period of time.

3 Sylvester accidently breached the barriers between the dream world and the waking world. This gateway is only open every thirty years and he is forced to return to his body for one night every thirty years or he risks becoming ungrounded from the laws of reality and drifting forever in limbo between our world and the dream world.

© Paul Comeau

The Mirror of Blood

The Mirror of Blood is a spell; the basic ingredients are an ounce of benzoin (an aromatic gum), coriander seeds, and some fresh human blood. It requires two people to cast it. The viewer cups his hand, upon which the caster cuts a glyph, enough to draw blood, and the hollow then fills with blood. As the viewer looks at his reflection, the benzoin and seeds are burnt and the reflection turns into a scrying window. The viewer can nominate whatever he wishes to see, which he need not have direct experience of. To maintain the image requires more blood.

The mirror shows broad vistas rather than details, and it becomes blurred
if the focus is too narrow.

If the mirror is used too often, the viewer suddenly sees ‘the Man with the Mask’. He may previously have been half-glimpsed in the background, and although his dress changes according to locality, he is always masked. This time, he is at the front of the scene, staring straight at the viewer.

The masked man is Hastur, summoned by the use of the spell; as he takes off his mask, the effect on the viewer is horrific: skin bubbles and festers, as do internal organs, until the body swells up and bursts. So die all who presume upon the King.

Possibilities

1 The players find quite detailed instructions on how to cast the spell in a modern, quasi-mystical, book. While the rest of the book is obscure rubbish, this dangerous spell obviously works.

2 The Stars are Right, and the time of Hastur’s permanent release from Carcosa draws near. Over the coming months his worshippers will become more active, and portents of Hastur will multiply; the effect of this spell, though terrifying and strange, is merely an indication of things to come.

3 If the spell is used at night and Aldebaran is over the horizon, then after the horrific death of the viewer, something more horrific yet happens; the corpse rapidly begins to distend and become scaly, while the limbs become tentacular, and the face distorts into pseudopods; Hastur has come to occupy his avatar. In his own way, he is grateful to the caster of the spell for allowing his return to Earth; grateful enough, if the caster is still present, to take him back to the Lake of Hali. Eventually.

Inspired by The Mirror of Ink by Jorge Luis Borges.

© Charles Ross

Book of Bones

Weeks or months after a brush with the Mythos, the modern-day investigator notices an irregular bruise spontaneously forming on one arm. Though painless, the bruise appears to resemble illegible writing. Over days, despite all efforts, the bruise spreads and grows legible. An X-ray or CAT scan shows that the investigator’s bones are engraved with small, precise letters in an alien script, which the growing bruise duplicates.

Possibilities

1 In the earlier Mythos encounter, Nyarlathotep noticed and cursed the investigator. The alien words, when fully formed in a week, transform the investigator into a Living Bruise, an invalid who lives in continual agony. Certain tattoos cure the curse (without conferring other protection), but the only qualified tattoo artist lives in Burma. Alternately, the victim can call Nyarlathotep, who grants a year’s relief from the curse in return for a service, such as destroying an Elder Sign in a distant ruin.

2 Decades ago the investigator’s grandfather, a secret worshipper of Yog-Sothoth, performed a ritual on his unconscious daughter that marked all her descendants. The investigator’s siblings are also forming bruises, which describe the spell Call Yog-Sothoth. Each victim experiences dreams that translate the alien script. The investigator’s attempts to inform his siblings may heal or create family breaches. The bruises fade normally, but will reappear in the next generation.

3 Despite the victim’s entreaties, the doctor who performed the CAT scan can’t resist sharing the peculiar case with fellow physicians. Word reaches a Brother of the Yellow Sign in a nearby hospital, who identifies the investigator as a sacrificial victim chosen by Hastur. A group of cultists posing as doctors capture the investigator and friends and read the bruises aloud. The resulting spell transports the investigators to the underground world of K’n-Yan, where Brothers wait to flense the flesh from the victim’s bones and inter them in a sacred library. If the victim escapes, the bruises fade.

© Allen Varney

Turkish Delight

Turkish Delight

While on holiday in the Balkans the investigators find that their well-earned rest is not meant to be. As they leave their hotel they are greeted by a detachment of the local militia who ask them in no uncertain terms (despite the language barrier) to accompany them to the station.

The conditions in the jail are inhuman and they are forced to stay in a rancid, overcrowded, cell with cut-throats and murderers for two days. Eventually they are questioned by the regional prosecutor regarding the disappearance of a local girl on the night they arrived in the area.

Instructed not to leave the Balkans, the investigators are released without charge. However, during the ‘interview’ the following facts emerge:

There have been several disappearances of young ladies in the Balkan area. The names and descriptions change, but the circumstances are familiar. Two girls have gone missing in Bulgaria, two in Serbia, three in Albania and five in Romania. Each time the girl is beautiful and disappears at night without trace.

The more superstitious locals are talking of supernatural goings on and the prosecutor is anxious to put an end to these rumours by making a quick arrest and conviction. As the investigators are the only foreigners in the area (and therefore easy scapegoats) he makes it plain that they are at the top of his list.

Should the investigators look into the disappearances they will discover that the common denominator is a Turkish Circus on the return leg of a European Tour.

Possibilities

1 The Turks are using the girls as catalysts for a spell. The circus hypnotist turns their will to Hastur the Unspeakable and they form the coven of witches needed to call Him to the Nameless City.

2 The girls are sold as part of the white slave trade in Turkey. They are kidnapped in the closest countries to Turkey on the return journey so that minimum of care is needed. They are hypnotised and hidden in false compartments in the lion cages to prevent both their escape and discovery by inquisitive officials.

3 The circus has a freak show in which is featured a cannibal from Africa. His twisted keeper lets out his charge who has a taste for young female flesh.

© Garrie Hall

Band of Gold

It’s a murky pawn shop with smears on the glass and a stale smell coming from inside. But the ring in the window is eye-catching for all of that. It’s a ring, like a wedding ring made from greenish gold with an inscription running around the inside.

Possibilities

1     The inscription is simply the same three-armed symbol repeated: the Yellow Sign. The ring is strangely heavy, and is referred to in a few texts as Hastur’s Bridal Ring. Wearing the ring for any length of time results in two events. The first is that the ring contracts and cannot be removed, and the other is the arrival of a byakhee. The byakhee, summoned by the ring, takes the wearer of the ring (Hastur’s Bride) back to Hali. The byahkee only appears when Aldebaran is in the sky, and if somehow dismissed another replaces it on a following night.

At Hali, Hastur’s Bride commands all of the Great Old One’s attention. When the wedding-night activities are over, Hastur discards the remains of his bride and the ring is eventually returned to the pawn shop and its devoted owner.

2     The insciption is written in Hyperborean and says "Sleep Well, Dream Well." Wearing the ring whilst sleeping allows the wearer automatic entry (barring other effects prohibiting entry) to the Dreamlands via the Cavern of Flame. The ring is otherwise unremarkable.

The ring was sold to the pawn shop by John Montego who used it for some years before his Dream-self was killed, preventing him from returning to the Dreamlands. Through the shop’s records, Montego can be contacted. He knows much about the Dreamlands, but knows nothing of the horrors threatening the Waking World.

Perhaps he would make a good ally.

3     The ring is slimy and cold, and if worn will not come off - at least not without the finger. The inscription, if translated before the ring is first worn, says “Welcome friend, join us,” in the language of ghouls.

If the ring is not removed (with the finger) then the poor soul’s flesh slowly starts rotting and her appetite turns to rotten meat. She is turning into a ghoul. The ring falls off when the transformation is complete.

The ring was sold to the pawnshop after Laura Black vanished from her lonely city garret. Her family have no idea what happened to her, and found the ring among her belongings. Now, whoever buys the ring may soon be in a position to find out exactly what happened to Laura . . .

© Steve Hatherley