Under new management

A local asylum has appointed a new head of staff after dismissing the last one as quietly as possible. The new Doctor has an interesting manner of treating the ill, paying particular attention to each patient, and he has ushered in an atmosphere of respect and dignity. Other members of staff have commented on the doctor’s success with the schizophrenic and paranoid patients who, previously thought incurable, now speak coherently.

The doctor has also shown an interest in events about town, attending those related to the strange or supernatural with noted passion. The investigators, if they have not met him before at the asylum, might encounter him at one such occasion, a dinner party.

The doctor and the investigators attend a dinner party given by a local spiritualist, who heads some local society for the feeble exploitation of the mundanely odd. The investigators enjoy a pleasant evening of food, conversation, and wine with the doctor and the host.

The Doctor is the first to leave, about twenty minutes ahead of everyone else.

On their way home, the investigators suffer from peculiar emotions of disease and apprehension. They feel light-headed from the wine, and the starless night turns their feelings into paranoia. Once they get home they feel safe. For a time.

Later that night, they discover an odd doll-like figure in their room. The dolls wear small-scale normal clothes of the period, either male or female, but lack any defining features--their faces are white, blank globes. If handled, the doll squirms, and attempts to scramble up the investigator's arm towards her/his face. The dolls are amorphous and gooey, and all but impervious in their single-minded attempt to reach the investigator’s face.

Possibilities

1 The dolls are a hallucination, a nightmare. Mentioning the phenomena to anyone results in a visit from the new doctor, and a declaration of insanity may be quick to follow. If this happens, the new patient finds her/himself interned in a clean, orderly mental hospital, where the doctor and staff patiently try to cure them.

2 Asking around after the nightmare reveals that everyone who intended the party had some sort of nervous experience, though some decline to share its nature. Investigation reveals that the curious society led by last night’s host is much more adept than it seems at the arts of the supernatural. Investigation leads to a plot to replace officials and people in power in the town, with members loyal to this group. The dolls are part of a dark magic meant to rob someone of their sanity by implanting dementia-causing toxins into the victim’s bodies.

The doctor may at first be thought an ally, but has already been replaced.

3 The dolls are a hallucination suffered by everyone attending the dinner. The hallucinations were caused by the new doctor who poisoned the wine with a powerful hallucinogen on his way back from the restroom. The nightmarish visions persist, and eventually, the victims feel persecuted everywhere, seeing life-sized, faceless horrors shuffling towards them, obscenely sucking air through their white, viscous flesh.

These delusions will eventually turn a sane man mad, without treatment. Unfortunately, the cure offered at the asylum is worse - the doctor is creating from the minds of the mad, a perfect mirror for the mindless horror that is Azathoth. Individuals are locked alone in a dark room, with only a small white doll for company. The hallucinations return, with the creature refusing to rest until it has slid its way bloodily into the investigator’s brain. There it prepares the victim’s mind for the glory and the terror of an eternity of Azathoth.

Fear and Amnesia

You think you are being haunted. Small objects are not where you left them, and you feel like you are being watched. You even dread stepping around corners and looking in mirrors. This is disturbing enough, but there is more.

You think you are suffering from amnesia. You cannot remember conversations that your friends say took place. You have been seen doing things that you have no memory of and would certainly not ordinarily do. Handwritten notes turn up, which you are certain you never wrote.

Are you haunted or are you losing your mind?

Possibilities

1 The peculiar events all have mythos links. Case notes are tampered with, artefacts moved. Sometimes clues appear, sometimes evidence vanishes. It does not make sense.

You are haunted by the ghost of a recently deceased investigator. This ghost does not possess any consciousness; it is merely “psychic residue” trying to fight the never-ending fight. In order to continue the battle against the mythos it occasionally
possesses your body to manipulate events, thus causing your periods of amnesia.

The ghost is occasionally helpful in an investigation, sometimes providing an important clue. However, it is equally likely to draw wrong conclusions and chase red herrings.

2 Meddling in strange magics, unknowable entities and alien intelligences can have unpredictable effects. You are being gradually displaced from reality by a doppelganger, or double. Two copies of you are trying to exist at the same place and time.

As time has passed, the doppelganger has grown strong, and has created a material body. This materialises from time to time - and when it does, you cease to exist. Eventually the double tires and its body dissipates (so you and your double are never seen together).

You obviously have no memory of the doppelganger’s deeds, because you didn’t do them. Unless you get help the doppelganger will eventually replace you completely. Oddly the doppelganger is equally confused and believes itself to be haunted . . .

3 You really are mad. Pushed to the limit one time too many, your mental defences have collapsed, releasing your evil thoughts and desires. Worse, due to the unearthly energies you have been exposed to, these have been given an independent existence, creating a mental entity composed of malice.

While you continue with your life, this “shadow” tries to destroy those people and things that you care the most about. Although unable to exert much physical strength (moving a small object such as a pen is about its limit), the shadow influences people’s memories, thus manipulating others to further your destruction.

© Matthew Grossman

Who is the murderer?

Miss Sarah Spencer is convinced that someone is going to murder her but does not know who or why. She needs help and is willing to pay. Two days ago she received a letter with a local postmark. The letter was typed on a typewriter with a missing ‘e’.

She was going to leave it at that but yesterday found a message in the personal column in the newspaper.

There is another message today.

She has left her job and has booked into a hotel.

The messages were telephoned to the paper and paid for by a man giving his name as Robert Cook. Tomorrow’s note in the paper is to read:

Possibilities

1 Miss Spencer is dangerously schizophrenic and quite insane. She is usually Miss Spencer, but at times of stress becomes Robert Cook. Cook is gradually exerting more control and believes that by killing Miss Spencer he will be completely free. He will, but not the way he thinks.

One room in Miss Spencer’s fastidiously neat house is messy and unkempt. This is Cook’s, and pride of place is an antique typewriter with a missing ‘e’.

2 The letter was written by Miss Jane Marsh, jealous ex-lover of Robert Cook. Miss Spencer is now seeing Cook, and Miss Marsh has sworn to kill her and frame him. She knows where Miss Spencer is staying and has posted an invitation to Cook to visit her there. There he will find the mutilated body of Miss Spencer just as the police arrive.

3 Miss Spencer is a deep one before the ‘change’ and is luring the investigators to their death. They have been getting too close. The cliff top hotel she says that she is staying in is old and dilapidated and smells of fish.

© Graham Theobalds