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 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 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

Sister Rosetta

Dr. Matthew Devereaux is a well-known psychologist. He also works with a local paranormal research institute, providing specialist knowledge when called for. He believes that paranormal phenomena have rational explanations that can be discovered through scientific means. This does not mean, however, that he believes that the rational explanation is necessarily something that science is already familiar with.

Recently, Dr. Devereaux was investigating supernatural occurrences at a local cemetery. He was the only survivor of his team, and was found clinging to a large vine-covered stone gravestone in the shape of a cross.  He was half hysterical, muttering incoherently and behaving in an alarming manner. He has been sent to his own sanatorium for observation, and his co-workers are unsure if he’ll ever recover. He only says one thing that anyone can make sense of: “Sister Rosetta.”

Possibilities

1 Sister Rosetta is a nun at the church the graveyard is located at. She also isn’t particularly pious or chaste; she’s been using the graveyard to have secret meetings with her multiple lovers, some of whom are quite influential figures.

Dr. Devereaux’s team caught her and one of them (a particularly violent underworld figure) in a compromising position. Being the only one with the presence of mind to hide before he was noticed, Dr. Devereaux watched helplessly as the sister and her lover calmly and systematically murdered all the witnesses.  The doctor is suffering from shock, and will recover in time.

2 The cross that he was found clinging to marks the grave of Rosetta de Mar, who was a nun in the late eighteen hundreds. She was found murdered in the graveyard where she was later buried, and the murderer was never caught.

Research will show that since that time, the graveyard was thought to be haunted by her angry spirit. It was clear that something was attacking people foolish enough to be in the graveyard at night, particularly young men. Unknown to anyone on Dr. Devereaux’s team, a young man, Charles l’Orosi (an employee of the institute), is a direct descendant of Sister Rosetta’s murderer. The enraged spirit attacked what she perceived to be her enemy, killing him. Then she turned on the others who tried to help him. Dr. Devereaux used her gravestone as cover, and thus survived her wrath; but he did not escape unscathed.

3 Sister Rosetta is a gifted psychic employed by the institute and was part of Devereaux’s team. The graveyard was being raided on a regular basis by a pack of Ghouls in search of their next meal. The team interrupted them, and the Ghouls were only too happy to take something a tad fresher. Sister Rosetta became hysterical shortly before the massacre (the result of a premonition), and fled before the ghouls arrived. Currently, she is wandering around the countryside with stress-induced amnesia.

© Megan McKnight

The Hole

This morning, you and a friend had begun to dig out that old, neglected and long unused well at the bottom of the garden. At first things had gone well, although proving harder work than you had thought, but hard work as they say.

After digging furiously for what seemed hours, but in reality was probably no more than one, the ground beneath you had given way. You had both fallen about seven feet, both covered in dirt but luckily nothing damaged. By the flickering flame of a cigarette lighter you can see a low, rough-cut tunnel, extending into the darkness both before and behind you. Yet, somewhere in that darkness ahead of you there appears to be a small pinprick of light. A pinprick that seems to be getting bigger.

Possibilities

1 The tunnel provides a means of access to a small, nearby graveyard. For many years it has remained a hidden way of transporting recent remains to ghoul caverns. However thanks to you, the tunnel is no longer secret, and it would appear that someone knows they have been discovered.

2 The tunnel has been created to facilitate an escape from a nearby prison. The planned breakout had been going well, in total secrecy. However, your misadventure has put paid to that, unless the leak in security can be dealt with.

3 The tunnel has been created as part of the new gas pipeline. Coming towards you, at breakneck speed, is on of those new-fangled welding machines. Now if only you can gain an exit before it gets here.

© Andrew Parfitt

Where are you, Sister?

A millionaire shipping magnate invites some old university buddies to a reunion get-together at his manor in Liverpool, England.

While they’re halfway through the reunion dinner, a couple of local police officers arrive and inform their host that they have apprehended a suspect in the matter of his sister’s disappearance. When asked what happened, the friend informs his old buddies, that his sister mysteriously disappeared a few days ago, and that they suspect foul play.

Possibilities

1 The sister has been snatched by ghouls who dragged her to their underground warrens and killed her. The ghouls have been battling a local coven of witches and sorcerers, led by their host, the millionaire shipping magnate.

The coven knows who took the sister, and what has happened to her, but they maintain a veil of normality, while they gather strength to deal a final blow to the ghouls.

The apprehended man is just an innocent crook.

2 The sister’s husband, a renowned solicitor, killed the sister in a jealous rage because he discovered the sister was fooling around with another man. When he realized what he had done, he chopped the sister up and incinerated her remains in his furnace.

The apprehended man is the sister’s lover.

3 The sister was seduced by a visitor from Scotland, whom she met at a society ball. He convinced her to go with him back to his home in northern Scotland. She gladly followed him.

Unfortunately, the man was a member of an old cult that worships an avatar of foul Shub-Niggurath. When the sister arrived, the cult claimed her and performed a fertility ritual. Now, as her brother searches, the sister is trapped in northern Scotland with a foul entity growing inside her. Her sanity is unlikely to hold out for long.

The apprehended man had been courting for the sister’s love - but without any luck. The police now suspect that he’s behind her disappearance.

© Tim Deer

What lurks below

During a visit to a local bookstore, the characters find an independently published manuscript written by a prominent “beat” author. It describes a set of tunnels beneath Hartford, Connecticut where the store is located. The author found the tunnels during his wanderings across the country, during which he was periodically homeless, and briefly describes how hoboes were afraid of them due to rumors that these were haunted.

The basement has been renovated to contain shelf space. Alert characters might see eyes peering through a breach in a boarded wall in the basement, which separates an unused portion of it from the rest of the floor.

Further research indicates there are unused portions of the sewer system that are separated from the current sewer system and are not up to code. There are also disused canals beneath certain city streets that are adjunct to the tunnels. Characters exploring them discover that the canals and tunnels do connect, but represent only a portion of the underground site described by the author.

Possibilities

1 Certain tunnels were dug upwards into the other tunnels by Ghouls. One of the canal tunnels connects to a breach in a basement at the store.

2 The author did not accurately describe the tunnels. A vampire living there used psychic powers to read his mind and discovered he was a prominent author. It meddled with his mind and sent him away. This creature preys on small groups of isolated curiosity seekers, vagrants and others who will not be missed. It uses its powers to simulate a haunting, has found an outlet in the tunnels near the store and can read minds with some effort.

3 The tunnels were covertly expanded and used for illegal activities such as bootlegging. There are a few dead bodies and evidence of other dark secrets there that at least a few prominent people in the state with ties to organized crime would prefer were never discovered. A community of vagrants resides there. The “thing” in the basement is merely a homeless person residing in the tunnels who could provide clues if the characters meet him.

© Brian Woodman

Desperate Remedies

Someone close to the investigators is succumbing to a horrific disease. Symptoms include unpredictable attacks of agony; loathsome swellings, horrible alterations in skin texture and bone structure, and foul excrescences. Conventional doctors are mystified and alternative therapies are futile - because the sufferer is turning into a ghoul.

Oddly, a group of stalkers seem interested in the invalid, following him everywhere and breaking into the offices of some of his doctors to steal case-notes. If observed, they too are suffering from a disfiguring disease.

As the character becomes increasingly debilitated, his friends (the investigators) discover Dr Ladislav’s Sanatorium. Ladislav is a gaunt cadaver of a man who greets his new patient with strange excitement. The patient has a private dorm with every luxury during his stay but the doctor will not discuss his radical therapy and is very anxious for his friends to leave. These characters notice a larger wing of the Sanatorium which more closely resembles a high-security prison (yes, Ladislav explains, the Sanatorium was once a gaol last century). Orderlies leaving the Old Wing have blood on their uniforms.

And that is the last they hear of their friend. Mail isn’t answered nor are calls returned. The stalkers ransack the sick character’s old residence and will be seen lurking near the Sanatorium. If the investigators return to the Sanatorium, Dr Ladislav, looking disturbingly decayed, has no records of the patient’s admission and the luxury dorm is occupied by an elderly man with gallstones.

Possibilities

1 Ladislav heads a necrophagic ghoul-cult, and the Old Wing’s cellars access nearby ghoul warrens. Patients are treated with foul transfusions and rituals until they transform fully; others are eaten. All food served at the Sanatorium is human flesh, either that of patients (their extremities surgically removed over a period of time to grace the Doctor’s table) or from corpses from the old gaol cemetery.

The ‘stalkers’ are a group of patients who escaped through the ghouls’ tunnels: half-demented and hideous, they are desperate to rescue fellow-sufferers from the Doctor, but are in terror of ‘regular’ humans and ghouls alike. The sick character is in the last stages of transformation, but may be saved in the nick of time. A long-term cure is still needed...

2 Ladislav is a Mythos scholar dedicated to finding a ‘cure’ for ghoul-ishness. His treatment is exceptionally brutal, involving electrocution, organ transplant with hallucinogens instead of anaesthetic and physical purgings. Obviously, he would be incarcerated if his therapeutic methods were known.

The ‘stalkers’ are true ghouls, looking to liberate their half-changed brethren from the good doctor’s clutches. They are hideous, but oddly sympathetic - compared to Ladislav, anyway. The ghouls would like to destroy the Sanatorium and rescue the inmates, but aren’t sure how.

3 Ladislav is himself becoming a ghoul. His treatments are all attempts to stave off his own inevitable transformation: he used to transplant fully-human organs into himself, but his ghoulish body has started rejecting them. Now he needs partial-ghouls for transplant subjects, victims less far gone than himself.

The ‘stalkers’ are Ladislav’s former-patients, too far gone into ghoul-ishness to be useful transplant subjects (though they bear the amputations of earlier surgeries). Instead, they now locate fresh victims for the Doctor in the (futile) hope that, once he is cured, he will in turn cure them. They’re a pitiful crew, but may be turned against the one who did this to them by a investigator sensitive to their tragedy.

© Jon Rowe

Breaking New Grounds

Shock and grief spreads like a wildfire through Boston, when the mutilated corpse of renowned construction entrepreneur Richard Walker is found sprawled on top of the thrashed scale model of his recent building project, covered in a rancid smelling fluid.

When questioning the family, friends, neighbors and employees of the deceased construction entrepreneur, they all seem to have noticed a man, who seemed to have stalked the victim. But when asked, no one seems to be able to describe the strange stalker.

Possibilities

1 The strange man, who stalked the victim, is not the murderer, but he is a spy for the true murderers – a group of ghouls. Ghouls, who felt, that the victim was about to threaten their existence.

The construction entrepreneur, Richard Walker, was about to turn an unoccupied spot of real estate into several apartment complexes. But the same real estate already housed the underground warrens of the ghouls.

Knowing that the imminent construction of the apartment complexes would inevitably reveal the existence of the ghouls, they quickly plotted to track down and stop the entrepreneur from putting his plans in motion.

The scale model that the victim was found sprawled upon, represented what was planned to be constructed on the abovementioned real estate. The rancid fluid is from the ghouls, who snuck in and murdered the entrepreneur.

2 The strange man, who stalked the victim, is the murderer – a hired killer, sent by a locale gangster, in order to shut up the victim for good, as he was about to alert the authorities.

The construction entrepreneur, Richard Walker, planning to construct several expensive luxury apartments, had bought the real estate from a local gangster. But when the entrepreneur learned that the gangster had used the real estate as a dumping ground for several barrels containing dangerous chemical waste, he chose to gather more evidence, and then alert the proper authorities of his findings.

When told about the entrepreneur’s suspicions, and his successful attempt to gather irrefutable evidence, the gangster hired a professional killer to seek out and silent the entrepreneur for good.

The scale model that the victim was found sprawled upon, represented what was planned to be constructed on the abovementioned real estate. The rancid fluid was the samples that the victim had collected to present to the authorities.

3 The strange man, who stalked the victim, is the murderer – sent from the remnant Esoteric Order of Dagon, hiding in the ruined remains of dreaded Innsmouth, in order to thwart the entrepreneur’s newest building project.

As a highly skilled and recognized construction entrepreneur, Richard Walker was hired by the US government to turn the dilapidated Innsmouth into a new and thriving coastal town, hoping it would bring new life and blood to the dread and forgotten town. A huge project worth billions of dollars, all funded by the government, and destined to take several years.

But when the remnants of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, who had be hiding within the ruined remains of bombed Innsmouth, learned about the plans to rebuild and renovate Innsmouth, they chose to act against the project immediately, and thus they sent one of their agents, who hasn’t yet made the change into a deep one, fully.

The scale model that the victim was found sprawled upon represented how the new and renovated Innsmouth would look like, when finished. The rancid fluid comes from the murderer - a human/deep one hybrid.

© Tim Deer

This Old House

It’s strange… The Petersons always seemed like a nice family, even if their house was so old and rickety. But they’ve started to keep to themselves lately, and now their neighbours are complaining of strange visitors late at night, foul odours, and lights in the windows at odd hours.

Has the family gone eccentric all of a sudden, or is something more sinister involved?

Possibilities

1 Having been originally built by members of a local ghoul cult, the Petersons’ house is conveniently located with respect to a network of tunnels beneath the nearby cemetery. The cult was eradicated several decades ago, but the ghouls are still alive and well, and several of their number have killed the Petersons and replaced them using a Consume Likeness spell. They are now using the house as a base to infiltrate human society, and trying to re-establish their cult.

If the investigators explore the house, they will find an entrance in the cellar leading to a maze of dank tunnels, culminating in the ghoul warren. There are quite a lot of ghouls there, so let’s hope the investigators brought a shotgun.

2 While cleaning the attic about a year ago, Mr. Peterson discovered an old journal behind a loose board in the wall. This book contained the notes of a previous owner of the house, who also happened to be a powerful sorcerer. Mr. Peterson was intrigued by the descriptions of arcane rituals, but when he tried one he unwittingly opened a passageway for the dead sorcerer to possess his body.

The sorcerer has since killed off the other members of Peterson’s family, which is why they haven’t been seen lately, and is continuing his occult research while trying to keep a low profile. He is also re-establishing connections with other wizards and cultists, some of whom he knew in his previous life. A sinister plan may be afoot…

3 The Petersons’ house is haunted by an entity which gradually drains life force from the house’s inhabitants. It has been causing the strange effects, and the odd people who have been showing up in the neighbourhood are psychic sensitives attracted to its presence, or perhaps exorcists hired by the family.

Over time the Petersons will become more and more withdrawn, and as their will is sapped, they will be unable to leave the house even if they can realize what is happening. If this continues for much longer, the Petersons will die and the entity will become strong enough to move to other, surrounding houses.

© Emily Johnsen

A Matter of Taste

Mrs Jane Crispin lives in a little detached house on the edge of town. Although in her 60s, she is still hale and hearty despite the handicap of her blindness (exceptionally near sighted, she only sees blurred colours through her milk-bottle lensed glasses). She makes a modest living selling the product of her labours in her well-equipped kitchen. Across town her pies are famous for their wonderful pastry and delicately herb-flavoured meats.

However, horror stalks the town at night. Senior citizens are slain in their beds or disappear in the night, never to be seen again. The bodies left at the crime scene are mutilated horribly, missing limbs and organs. The authorities have been unable to keep the murders from public knowledge, but they have been able to conceal the fact that they have been occurring sporadically for over a year.

The glare of the media spotlight has forced the police to institute a manhunt, and they have no manpower to spare to chase a new (although very slim) lead. Their lead comes from Mrs Crispin, who has reported a strange man hanging around her herb garden. Under normal circumstances such a report from a blind old lady would receive little attention, but with a maniac on the loose, things are different. Independent, discrete and trusted persons may be able to assist the police by looking into the matter.

Talking to Mrs Crispin brings unexpected results. She is very sorry to have disturbed the police, but she is fine really. The stranger is no longer a stranger, but a new friend whom, at first, she mistook for a potential thief. Her friend George is a shy type not easily traced. She doesn’t know where he lives, but he helps her around the house and garden, and does errands for her.

Possibilities

1 Mrs Crispin is being stalked by George the homicidal odd-job man. His modus operandi involves befriending his victims to lull them into a false sense of security. He also gets a thrill from the stalking. George is a genuine gardener (or social worker), real name Henry George Baird. He lives out his twisted dark fantasies by killing the pathetic senior citizens upon whom he depends for his living.

George lives with his innocent Christian wife Mary, an organiser of church fetes and charities. Mary provides many of his initial contacts. George and Mary are childless due to George’s impotence, one of the factors which has sent him over the edge. George has an extensive collection of tools such as scythes, hammers, axes, saws, a furnace, a nondescript van, and a good-sized garage next to his rose garden.

2 Mrs Crispin’s new friend George is a ghoul who moved to town in the last year or so. He has been unable to let go of the world of man and can often be seen raking through garbage bins and scrounging. Unless scrutinised carefully he appears to be just another homeless person. Naturally he is quite sneaky and very good at moving around unobserved. George and Mrs Crispin met by accident when George was attracted to the smell of her cooking. As Mrs Crispin couldn’t see him, George found it easy to make friends with her. George has started running small errands, but he keeps the money that he should spend on butcher meat and substitutes the best cuts from his victims. Forensic examination of remains has identified odd partly-human bite wounds on the victims, but this has not been made public and will only be divulged after much bureaucratic manoeuvring.

Mrs Crispin’s usual butcher Andrew Cross drops the clue that the amount of meat he supplies her has decreased in recent weeks (as the rate of murders has increased). The distributor of her pies, Norman Kent, is most pleased at how well Mrs Crispins’ pies are selling and is due to call on her to ask if she can increase her output.

Norman may unwittingly become the ingredient for her next batch!

3 Mrs Crispin is a homicidal cannibal who has been doing a nice line in long pig pies for over a year. She is inhumanly strong due to her unnatural diet and, although blind, has the senses of a bat. She is very adept with her old-fashioned razor-sharp butchers knives. The offal from her victims helps her herbs and vegetables to grow rapidly. Mrs Crispin selects her victims during her bi-weekly visits to the Women’s Guild and senior citizens outings. George is a relative of one of her victims who met her just before his own mother Eleanor Trent was killed. He feels sorry for the blind old lady and is working out his grief (and suppressed guilt at having left his mother alone to be killed) by looking after Mrs Crispin.

He should be looking after himself.

© Peter Devlin

A Grave Situation

After going to bed one night in the hotel of a sleepy rural town, one of the investigators wakes up to find himself lying inside a padded coffin with air running out!

Possibilities

1 The investigator has been contacted by a Great Old One or Outer God (Nyarlathotep would work well), who has constructed a dream-trap for him in order to extract a service. As the investigator’s last gasps shudder through his body, he hears a whispering in his mind: ‘Serve me or die.’ If the investigator agrees, he awakens in his bed, covered in sweat, with a mind-numbing certainty that he will be contacted soon, and he won’t be able to refuse. If the investigator declines, he awakens in a similar manner, but certain that he has been marked for death by the god’s cult.

Either way, it is time to prepare for a brush with a god.

2 The investigator was drugged and kidnapped by a degenerate cult that worships ghouls. As an offering to the flesh-eaters, they have buried the investigator as a meal for their ‘underground gods.’ As the investigator begins to suffocate, a scratching noise occurs and great claws rend through the wood of the coffin and drag him down into a faintly lit cavern where he is surrounded by six hungry ghouls. Hopefully, his fellow investigators have figured out what is going on and are on their way.

3 The investigator died during the night from natural (or were they?) causes and has been resurrected by a local sorcerer to serve as his undead servant. Within moments after awakening, the coffin lid is pried open by the sorcerer. At first, the investigator is unable to do much except obey the sorcerer’s commands, but over time, when the sorcerer’s mind is on other things, the investigator can act on his own. He needs to break free soon, because the sorcerer is laying a deadly trap for the rest of the investigators, and his new servant is the bait.

© C C Chamberlin

The Last Carriage

During an overnight rail journey the train unexpectedly slows and stops at a small station shortly after midnight. Passengers who are still awake are politely informed that supplies are being collected. Although it is dark, the station looks to be old and in a state of disrepair. A damaged sign reveals only part of the station’s name. Nobody is seen outside the train, but passengers in the penultimate carriage hear clanking noises towards the end of the train, followed by a slight jolt. After about 15 minutes the train resumes its journey.

The next day when the train reaches its destination, observant passengers note that nobody leaves the last carriage.

Possibilities

1 The railway staff are part of a cult serving a small tribe of ghouls using the disused station as a base. The train stops at night and the final carriage is replaced with an empty one. The guards are brutally efficient in silencing non-sleeping passengers in the final carriage. Most passengers are destined for the ghouls’ dinner table, but a few are to become ghouls themselves.

2 The occupants of the last carriage were taken over by the Great Race of Yith who, when fleeing the Flying Polyps, chose to spend time in the present. Rather than move directly among mankind, they have chosen to hide themselves away for a short time and learn about the world. They are currently living in the abandoned station, aided by human allies.

3 The unfortunate occupants of the last carriage have become the victims of a cult obsessed with youth and beauty. Gas rendered them unconscious and they are now prisoners at the station. During the next full moon, the cult sacrifices the prisoners, using Steal Life to regain their lost youth.

© Robin Low

Hunting Pink

A Rolls Royce Silver Lady is parked at the side of the road. An elderly chauffeur, uniform jacket removed, struggles to change a flat tyre. A little way along the road stands a well-dressed gentleman, hoping to secure assistance.

Simon Beaumains (Bart) of Clovenford is the epitome of English nobility; intelligent, educated, charming, handsome, his ancestors may be traced back to Norman times. He is a staunch Conservative and a defender of law, order, King and country.

Beaumains is very grateful to anyone who helps the elderly Grimes to change the tyre on his Rolls. Good samaritans (and their friends) receive an invitation to spend a weekend as guests of the Clovenfords. It is impossible to refuse without causing offence.

Astarte Hall is an impressive English manor set in immaculate gardens and rolling wooded English countryside. The nearest civilisation is the small village of Clovenford five miles from the Hall. Once settled at the Hall, the elderly and very infirm Baron Clovenford is ‘wheeled’ in to thank the good samaritans for assisting his son. He invites them to take part in a weekend of hunting and shooting activities, then retires.

Guests arriving for the weekend include a selection of famous socialites, wealthy businessmen, artistes and politicians. As the weather worsens the enormous fireplaces are banked with logs and brandy is served. The after-dinner party ends in the wee small hours with everyone in a fair state of inebriation.

Next morning there is commotion at (late) breakfast. The Baron has been found dead near the enormous outdoor maze. His body appears to have been torn apart by a wild animal and there appear to be cloven hoof footprints around the body. The Baron is laid in state in the cold of the family crypt.

The telephone lines are down due to the still-raging storm. The chauffeur returns with the news that the main road bridge at Clovenford has been swept away during the night. The area is cut off until the storm abates. There is no need to worry as there are supplies aplenty in the cellar and a backup generator in case the electricity lines are knocked out. “Honest, guvnor.”

Possibilities

1 The Clovenford Hunt (of which many of the guests are members) is an archetypal English tradition, hunting foxes on horseback accompanied by hounds. It provides a convenient cover for the cult activities of the Beaumains family who have been associated with The Black Goat of the Woods for hundreds of years.

Their favourite sport is hunting a human. The Beaumains horses are an unusually robust and temperamental breed as they are fed on human flesh in classical Greek tradition. The hounds are likewise barely domesticated wolves.

Last night the old Baron was forcibly removed as Master of the Hunt by his son. The new Baron immediately takes charge of the situation and organises a rather unseemly wake to commemorate his father’s passing. The wake becomes a drunken orgy and soon the Hunt members get into a sporting mood. Tonight is again the dark of the moon and the Master of the Hunt must organise a special feast to celebrate his ascension. This celebration will climax with the summoning of a Dark Young to assist the Hunt in pursuing their prey. Guess who is to be the prey?

2 The Beaumains’ bloodline has been contaminated ever since the British campaigns against Napoleon in Egypt; there is a ghoulish ancestor some way down the family tree. It is a matter of historical record that the Beaumains usually pass quietly with only an obituary in The Times, all the better to cover up their degeneration into ghoul. It is a family duty to take care of the Beaumains’ ghouls (the elders) who live in the extensive family crypts, obtaining a steady supply of recently buried corpses.

The new Baron has been properly schooled by his late father in his duties but the lessons did not take. His studies in Beaumains’ extensive occult library have prompted him to an alternative course of action. The new Baron intends to make use of this family curse by offering immortality to many of the influential guests (who are confidantes of his). The first step for them is to become cannibals, a well-documented method of greatly extending the human lifespan.

The elder Baron refused to accept this idea and so was lured outdoors and killed by his son. The guests in the know all participated in a sorcerous quickening ceremony and had a taste of the Baron. They were scared off by the elders, prowling out of the crypt, who become restless around the time of their regular feeding. Using their own magical means the elders will soon know of the new Baron’s plans and they will not approve.

One of the guests disappears later that day, kidnapped by the elders. The Baron realises what is happening and looks for suitable volunteers to descend into the crypt to deal with the family legacy. He makes a private faux confession of the family legacy in the hope of gaining sympathy and assistance. If the brave volunteers survive the ghouls then the cannibals may have fresh meat that night.

3 For untold years the area known as Clovenford has sheltered a large coven of witches. The witches were persecuted by the Beaumains in the years following the Norman conquest, and since then the coven has been very secretive. Many of the Beaumains males have died by violent means, attributed to a non-existent curse laid by the innocent coven.

The new Baron is in considerable debt due to poor play at the bridge table. Angered by his father’s recent refusal to cover his debts, Simon has taken violent action. The previous evening Simon killed his father using a rather blunt dagger from the Great Hall, spirited the body outside via the hidden stairway in the master bedroom, then faked the animal attack. The cloven hoofprints were made with a family heirloom; a plaster casting of ‘The Devils Footprint’ which sits beneath glass in the study, a curio dated 1867.

Simon plays upon the idea of the Curse of the Beaumains, telling many old family tales to back up his story. He even shows off the curio in the study. Unfortunately, he was seen returning last night by one of the guests, the actress Mary Bartlett, his fiancée. She confronts Simon later that morning within sight of one of our heroes, then an hour later accidentally falls to her death from the second-floor balcony. Simon again speaks of the Curse but this time he is watching carefully.

© Peter Devlin

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