The Rosewood Box

It looks like an ordinary jewellery box with a polished rosewood veneer and stained glass inlaid in the lid. However, the lid is permanently affixed to the case, and the hinges are decorative fakes. If you press on three different studs on the sides simultaneously, a catch releases and a hidden spring unfolds the box into an entirely new and inexplicable shape with mysterious extrusions and outgrowths of no obvious purpose. Whatever it might be, it’s not a jewellery box.

The box was one of the items placed at auction in a small local fundraiser to benefit a college library, and in spite of its lack of obvious purpose, bidding for it was intense. The most aggressive bidder only dropped out of the running when an official interrupted the auction to ask him to leave, having discovered that his credentials were falsified. The winner paid in cash and hurried away with his purchase. Later the auction winner and another person were found stabbed to death in a nearby hotel room, and the box was nowhere to be found.

Possibilities

1 The box was created as an offering to Daoloth for a ceremony in which the outer god grants the celebrants powers of perception into realms that mortals ordinarily never see. Its creator never used it, and it was eventually donated to the charity auction by his descendants. The buyer and his partners, and the ejected bidder as well, were ambitious occultists who hoped to gain knowledge from beyond the human sphere by using it.

In order to present the offering, the ceremony’s priest is required to take the box in its unfolded state and reach into the god with it. At the last moment, the chief occultist baulked, afraid of what the god’s touch would do to him. Daoloth left in disgust, and took his revenge by failing to lift the state of heightened perception the celebrants were brought to in order to conduct the ceremony. Both of them went instantly mad from experiencing the world unfiltered through human senses, and were stabbed to death in self-defense by a third conspirator whose job guarding the door meant he didn’t take part in the ritual.

The third conspirator took the box and left to search for a stronger-minded occultist to perform the ceremony properly.

2 The box is a disguised mi-go device for decommissioning interplanetary portals. It was left with a human agent to shut down a portal at the site of a depleted mine, once the aliens had all returned through it to Yuggoth. Before he could carry out his task, the agent was killed by a gang of thugs working for a sorcerer who wanted a supply of the mi-go mineral in order to transfer his brain to a younger body. The sortie through the portal to Yuggoth was a failure, and most of the sorcerer’s hirelings deserted him on the alien planet. They retreated through the portal and paid themselves for the venture by selling off as many of his possessions as they could cart away with them. However, the sorcerer successfully hid from the mi-go and eventually returned to Earth through another portal. He was even able to bring some of the mineral back with him.

Now wearing a fitter man’s body, he’s rebuilding his laboratory by tracking down all his equipment and reacquiring it one way or another.

3 The device is a puzzle box, an ordinary Victorian objet d’art. It belonged to the part-owner of a shipping company, a man whose partners had for many years been blackmailing him into helping them smuggle South-African diamonds into Europe. The box has a secret compartment, which has been used by its owner to store a written confession, including a full account of the smuggling.

Feeling his death approaching, the smuggler donated most of his possessions to the fundraising effort and wrote a taunting letter to his partners, letting them know that if they wanted to stop the secret getting out, they’d have to spend some of their ill-gotten gains on charity. As a final act of revenge, he also wrote to a former business rival, informing him that the partners were now themselves open to blackmail if the confession could be found. Now at least two different groups of criminals are wrestling over possession of the box, one to destroy it, one to exploit its secrets.

© Chris Kerr

The Dee Signet

The signet is a heavy gold ring with an oval of jet stone. The stone has been inscribed in silver with the image of a stylized skull. The signet was commissioned by John Dee, the Elizabethan court astrologer and was supposed to have been blessed with magical powers.

For a short while the signet ring was in the possession of Sir Isaac Newton, and it has been mentioned in the collected papers of the Order of the Silver Thistle. The signet has also been unreliably linked with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

The signet now resides in Blenheim Palace, in a locked cabinet in the Yellow Room.

Possibilities

1 The signet is older than it seems - it was old when John Dee owned it. The signet was forged in Greece by an unnamed necromancer. The ring allows the wearer to communicate with the skeletal undead, and it's maker used it to command a private army of skeleton warriors.

Unfortunately, the wearer of the ring is only able to communicate via the language of the skeletal undead - although it sounds like they are speaking normally, to everyone else sounds like harsh, brittle sounds. And everything the wearer hears sounds like gibberish, unless it is from one of the skeletal undead.

Of course, with the art of constructing skeletal undead artefacts now lost, the ring is of little use.

2 The signet ring is magical, protecting its wearer from edged or cutting weapons. The wearer's skin simply can't be cut with a knife or blade. However, as tough as their skin has become, it has also become quite brittle which makes them more vulnerable to blunt weapons and crushing blows.

Also, rather strangely, the wearer of the signet finds that their mouth tastes of peppermint.

3 The signet ring is magical, its origin unknown. Dee knew of the signet's secret, which is why he never wore it...

As soon as the signet is worn, it contracts painfully and cannot be removed. If it isn't somehow removed (and the only way of removing it is to remove the finger) then the wearer goes through a horrible transformation - although it doesn't seem like that at first.

To begin with, the wearer feels refreshed and invigorated. They lose the need to sleep, eat or defecate. They also no longer tire, and the sensation of pain is dulled and distant. However, after a month or two things take a turn for the worse: their hair starts falling out, and their flesh becomes dry and withered. Their eyes glaze over, as if they have cataracts (which is most peculiar because they have never had better eyesight in all their life). After three months, they have such a ghastly appearance that they cannot be seen in public. By six months the transformation is complete: they have become a living skeleton.

© Steve Hatherley

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

The Locket

The locket is old, and made of silver. It’s case is adorned with an engraved rose, and inside is a faded painting of a young woman. Opposite the picture is an engraving saying “All my love. E.”

Looking closely, what at first glance appears to be rust around the edges of the picture, turns out to be a red-brown residue that flakes off. It is dried blood...

Possibilities

1 The woman in the locket was slain by vampires, and the locket was made by her widowed husband Ezra Thorne shortly after her death. Grief stricken, he became obsessed with destroying the monsters that had murdered his bride, and became a vampire hunter.

The locket bleeds when vampires are near - and as they grow closer it becomes awful to touch. Using the locket, Ezra Thorne became a successful and feared hunter of vampires.

2 The locket is haunted by the spirit of the woman in the picture. Her name was Alice Thorne, and she married her one true love, Ezra. They were due to be married, but the night before the wedding she was murdered. On the anniversary of her death, the painting of Alice cries tears of blood.

The only way that Alice’s spirit will rest is when the locket is placed in her one true love’s grave.

3 The woman in the picture is a deep one hybrid - before the Change. She is now a deep one, and is living off the coast of Innsmouth.

The locket has since been enchanted and now grows warm in the presence of deep ones. It has been used by the enemies of the deep ones in identifying hybrids before the Change; they then kill them.

The blood in the locket comes from the enchantment that has been placed upon the locket. The enchantments needs refreshing periodically, and the ritual that creates it requires a few drops of the caster's blood.

© Steve Hatherley