Music from the Stars

A group of radio astronomers working in a secluded desert observatory have died. Investigation suggests that they all killed each other in a kind of frenzied bloodlust. Detailed investigation reveals that the astronomers were picking up a strange signal from a distant star - a strange kind of music with high-pitched wails and deep groaning moans.

Possibilities

1 The song is the Song of Shoggoth and is transmitted from a star in a far-distant galaxy. The song is a prayer that causes madness in weak-willed humans. Cults in certain areas of South America have duplicated the song in their own way over the years but none of them has ever brought the madness that the true Song of Shoggoth brings upon those who hear it.

2 The astronomers picked up a communication from another galaxy that is being sent by a highly advanced civilization as a message of peace. However, the message is too complex for human minds to comprehend, and those that try are stricken with madness.

3 The music is made by the mi-go as they travel across the vastness of space. It is filled with subliminal signals that are meant to convey an attitude of peace and solitude, but human minds cannot process the complexity of the music and they go insane from listening to it for too long.

© Paul Comeau

Glossolalia

In a small town, located in the foothills of larger mountains, are more and more cases of people speaking in tongues (glossolalia). It started some weeks ago and it grows. Every day there are more people who are affected.

Possibilities

1 The outbreak of glossolalia can be tracked to an itinerant preacher, who entered the town just a few days before the first cases were noticed. He has always a round slice with him, which is the source.

The slice is an alien artifact, containing a parasite that powers the preacher’s sermons (which are now highly addictive). The parasite drains energy from the listeners to fuel the slice. Once it has enough energy it will return to space. The tongue-speaking is a adverse reaction, but people stop after several days.

The parasite’s energy-drain is harmless, it just lets the people speak in tongues and gives them a little fatigue.

The preacher himself has no idea what is going on, but won’t let the slice be taken.

2 The town is built above a source of raw minerals that the Mi-Go want to mine. They have placed emitters around the town that are affecting human brains and causing them to become disturbed. This leads to the tongue-speaking and incapacitates the people. They won’t eat, drink or sleep until they leave the area (or the emitters are deactivated).

Some of the officials who have come to the town are Mi-Go henchmen and are here evacuate the town. They will also resist any attempt to interfere with the Mi-Go’s plans.

3 The glossolalia is caused by a Serpent Person. A few decades ago one of the ancient serpent-scientists awoke from his hibernation and started to explore a way to overthrow humanity and restore the ancient kingdom. He invented a disease which weakens the human mind sufficient to allow the scientists mental suggestion. The disease has three different stages:

First the victims loses consciousness for some hours, then it awakes.

In the second stage the victim has loses the ability to speak, and only speaks in tongues. This stage is very dangerous, because everybody who listens more than four hours to the victim’s glossolalia will be affected too.

Finally, after some days the victim regains the ability to speak, but is then a viral carrier, spreading the disease via sexual intercourse and obeying the Serpent’s mental instructions.

© Jochen Koltermann

Unexpected Guest

An old friend of one of the investigators has called for a meeting at his home. Apparently, there are matters to be discussed between people with knowledge of the Mythos. The investigators arrive at their friend’s place. They find him sitting in the lounge. In front of him is a Mi-Go.

Possibilities

1 The Mi-Go have developed a cloaking device allowing them to take the appearance of humans. Since nobody seems to notice the Mi-Go’s nature, the investigator appears to be the only person immune to the illusion. How or why? Maybe the Mi-Go knows. Or perhaps it doesn’t.

2 It's a trap! The Mi-Go plan to capture the investigators - they have an alien need for the investigators’ knowledge. The old friend has struck a deal with the Mi-Go -  he has sold out the investigators out in exchange for Mi-Go technology.

3 The Mi-Go isn’t hostile and is here to bargain for some assistance concerning a threat to the Mi-Go coming from a group of cultists. The Mi-Go are proposing technology and knowledge in exchange for the investigators’ services.

© 2009 Nicolas Dao Phan

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

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

Bad Trip

It is a long, hot, dry summer. News reaches the papers of a late-night bus crash in a mountainous part of the country. While travelling between two small, remote communities, the bus came off the road on a steep incline, crashing through a fence and hurtling down the near-vertical slope of a steep gorge to smash into the rocks at the bottom, where it burst into flames. Anyone on board unlucky enough to survive the horrendous descent was burned to death in the conflagration.

Twenty-two people have been killed, nearly all of them from the small town the bus was travelling to. The bodies have been taken to the nearest hospital mortuary pending identification. Local police have called in expert help from a nearby city to assist the accident investigation.

Possibilities

1 Mi-Go in the area want several healthy human brains for a diabolical project. Intercepting the bus on the remotest part of its route, they remove the tops of their victims’ skulls and take the brains of everyone on board. The skulls are crudely repaired, and the bus and its cargo of brainless dead are crashed into the ravine and set on fire to conceal evidence of the crime.

2 The crash is a genuine accident, a coincidence that draws any investigation to the site of a cave within the ravine, the entrance to which had been concealed by dense undergrowth now burnt to ashes by the fire.

Deep inside the cavern, hidden within a maze of cramped tunnels, is the grave of a sorcerer who once held the native peoples of this area in thrall until a band of warriors gave their lives to overthrow him. Shamans placed his corpse in this deep cave, surrounded by wards to guard against an evil magic that might awaken him once more to walk amongst them. But now their spells are losing their efficacy and the sorcerer’s crazed spirit wanders the caverns, reacting venomously against anyone it comes across, seeking a way to return life to the shrivelled corpse that was once its home.

3 Around here lurks a small pack of werewolves. The crash occurred at the time of the full moon when one of the werewolves, mindless with blood-lust, flung itself on the bus in a savage attempt to get at the succulent flesh within. Not surprisingly this caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle. The werewolf was thrown clear before the bus made its final plunge into the ravine.

Although not killed, the werewolf was injured and, now in human form, is bed-ridden and weakened. Evidence of the werewolf’s attack can be found in a careful inspection of the wreckage: raking claw-marks in the bodywork of the bus and bite marks on one of the corpses (the werewolf smashed through a window to attack the victim before being thrown clear).

© Tony Hickie

The Wreck

Dr. Harold Rathborne has been locked away in an asylum. Otherwise a prominent medical examiner for the police department, Rathborne lost his mind after examining the corpses from a recent train wreck. In related news, someone removed an as-yet unidentified corpse from the morgue in which Rathborne worked the night he went mad. Police are investigating the case, but the real evidence is in Rathborne’s private journal, not his work one.

The new examiner has learned that many of the victims were dead prior to the crash. The police have suddenly stopped sharing information.

Possibilities

1 The Fungi from Yuggoth have stolen back the corpse of the Reginald Bernby whom they impregnated with eggs prior to the train’s departure. Controlled by the Fungi to travel to a specific location, he boarded the train. When he began to germinate in the train car he flipped out and started attacking people with whatever weapons were on hand insisting he be killed. The Fungi, realizing their eggs were suddenly in danger, swept in and caused the chaos that led to the wreck.

Rathborne examined poor Reginald Bernby and discovered the eggs in his abdomen, ready to hatch. Rathborne went mad and later Bernby continued on his quest to the hatching grounds, easily discovered by plotting out the path of the wrecked train.

2 Rathborne’s notes reveal the source of his insanity. One of the bodies he examined (the one that has gone missing) had crawled off the examining table using its skin - not unlike a slug. Rathborne went mad, but not before he concluded that the body was host to an inexplicable organism whose plastic nature seems, to those that know, much like that of a shoggoth.

As it happens, train wreck victim Alexander Marcus shares his body with a shoggoth. The shoggoth gives him unusual strength and durability, enough strength in fact to have ripped an axle off of the train car he was on, and enough supernatural constitution to have regenerated his body sufficiently to walk out of the morgue. His goal was the scientist on board the train who had learned of his unique condition. Rathborne will be next.

3 After seeing one too many bodies broken apart in this horrible wreck doctor Harold Rathborne went stark raving mad. In the comfort of his asylum cell he hears the screams of the dozens of mutilated passengers and the whispers of one victim in particular, a powerful wizard seeking a new, working body.

© Jim Sliney Jr

Flightscare

The passengers on the red-eye from New York to Los Angeles are slowly waking up. The stewards are busy making coffee and breakfast, while the dawn light shines through.

Suddenly, the passenger on seat 21A starts to scream and flail violently with their arms and legs. The startled stewards and fellow passengers are having a hard time calming the screaming passenger.

Possibilities

1 The screaming passenger, a Mr. James Carlson, is a businessman bound for a business dinner in Los Angeles. He took a glance out the window to check the horizon, and, in a brief moment, spotted a small swarm of Mi-Go passing. A sight no human normally witnesses, but the dawn light - and the fact that James witnessed it from a plane window several thousand feet up in the air - made it possible.

Mr. Carlson’s mind shattered when he saw the alien Mi-Go, and although stewards and fellow passengers managed to calm down the screaming Mr. Carlson, he’s still as mad as a hatter and must spend some time in a mental hospital.

2 Mr. James Carlson, who’s visiting family in Los Angeles, is a first-time flyer. He’s been afraid of flying since he was born. Up until his first flight, he has always gone by train. But this time a good friend suggested that he could seek help to get rid of his flightscare. He did, and it seemed to help. But it didn’t last.

3 Mr. James Carlson had a nightmarish dream, that resulted in his involuntary screams and flailing. A calmed, and extremely embarrassed, James Carlson apologizes and keeps a low profile on the rest of the flight.

© Tim Deer

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

Spaceman

There are strange lights in the hills near the investigators home, strange pulsing beams reflecting off the clouds and casting ghostly images on the sky above.

Strangers, hippies and other weirdos begin to appear in town, driving through in flower-painted Volkswagen buses to pick up groceries before setting off again. There are never many of them, no more than half-a-dozen at a time, but more seem to be coming every day.

In the hills is a cluttered campsite accommodating about fifty people. The inhabitants are friendly, but strangely reticent about what has brought them here, only saying that something of importance will be happening in a few days.

They all seem perfectly happy and mentally healthy. At night they set up a large strobe-light machine and gather around it wearing masks (these masks are large card constructions like the heads of the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Most of them partake of hallucinogens to “enhance” the feeling of standing around the strobe light.

Possibilities

1 Mi-Go, through their human slaves, have spread rumours among the “alternative” community that aliens are going to land nearby and are to be greeted by “Enlightened Ones.” The Mi-Go wish to acquire several brains from that part of human society, for strange and alien purposes.

The Mi-Go leave behind them fifty corpses; men, women and children. The tops of their skulls have been removed and their brains are missing. A few are untouched and one drug-crazed survivor remains to tell his tale to the world.

2 The hippies are destined to wait in vain, until complaints from local people about littering and strange noises at night cause the police to move in and make several arrests. The group, dispirited and more than a little disappointed, moves on. All except for Mad Eddy, a solitary dope smoker who claims to have seen “the Great Ones”. He becomes a hermit and lives in the hills for several years.

3 One night the hills are lit by a very bright light – the following morning the hippies have gone. All that remains are scorch marks and crop circles.

© Eamon Honan

Strategic Industries

Plattsmouth: A small rural town not too far from a city and military base. Plattsmouth has been growing lately because of its proximity to the “big city.” Because of this, some dark secrets are starting to come to light. Strange rumors, odd news articles, unusual happenings, and details of missing people have started to emerge. The unfriendly (if not downright hostile) townsfolk are silent and have done everything possible to keep newcomers out.

Enter Strategic Industries, a company founded by retired Army and Air Force personnel. Due to reductions in military spending, many people opted for retirement rather than moving. Some of the more enterprising retirees founded Strategic Industries and hired displaced civil servants and former military personnel. The company develops what it expects will be the “strategic” technologies of the future. It is a think-tank rather than an actual manufacturer. The company performs research and development, then sells the designs and plans to other companies.

Strategic Industries is looking to build a new office in Plattsmouth. The inhabitants are fighting it for the unwelcome attention it would bring to the town. The company views the development as bringing commerce to a town that has otherwise stagnated.

This initially appears to be a company versus town conflict, but there is something else going on underneath: missing people and strange unexplained events.

Possibilities

1 Plattsmouth is dominated by cultists performing blasphemous rituals in the hills and woods around town. They are the inbred descendants of Mi-Go experiments that have crossbred with human settlers. The investigators must pick apart the company-town conflict which hides Plattsmouth’s real secret.

Complicating matters are a number of people in Plattsmouth who know nothing about the cult but are against Strategic Industries’ expansion on principle.

2 The problem is actually Strategic Industries. They have created the incidences in Plattsmouth for a number of reasons: to draw attention from themselves, to drive property values down, to make themselves look like victims and strengthen their case to open a new office.

There is nothing supernatural happening at all, it is merely a clever sham perpetrated by faceless corporate suits.

3 Strategic Industries is actually controlled by cultists trying to reach the Great Old Ones and their minions at Hades. They have been researching the magical technology of the elder things in hope of bringing them back.

Cult-dominated Plattsmouth is located near several important sites - temples and the like. Strategic Industries want access to these sites to further their research. Unfortunately, the cult presently occupying Plattsmouth resents the intrusions and a cult war is developing.

© M J Aylor

Grave Tidings

The investigators are begged to come to a small, isolated, backwater town by a native of the area, who relates an intriguing tale of dark forces.

He explains that for the last year a ghostly gravedigger has haunted his town. The gravedigger’s presence is mainly known by the freshly dug graves which are discovered in the town graveyard every few months. However, on two occasions, residents of the town have seen some manner of ghostly apparition working through the night in the graveyard. Neither resident stayed long enough to take a close look.

Whenever a new grave appears in the graveyard, someone dies in the town within a week. Thus, the ominous appearance of a new grave terrifies the townsfolk. One person at a time, the town is being destroyed.

The investigators won’t be told the townspeople’s unfortunate reaction to these occult events. At first, they remained within their houses whenever a new grave appeared, each hoping to hide from fate. However, recently, things have taken a more violent turn. The last few times a new grave appeared, the townsfolk began to murder each other, in order to ensure that the grave has an occupant.

The night that the investigators arrive in town, a new grave appears, forcing the investigators to deal with murderous townspeople as well as the force at the centre of the mystery.

Possibilities

1 The ghostly gravedigger is truly a restless spirit. In life, he was Robert Took, who was the mortician for the town half-a-century ago. However, he did not respect his job, or the clients that he cared for, and thus he frequently buried several people in the same grave, to save time, and often omitted gravestones and coffins because it seemed financially sound to do so. After he died, Took’s wrongdoing gnawed away at him, and so he has returned to do a proper job, digging a new grave whenever someone is destined to die.

Took is not malicious, but his presence has affected the town itself. He only digs a grave when he senses that a death is to occur, but recently his digging graves has become the impetus for those deaths.

If Robert Took’s wrongs can be undone, he will finally be able to rest. This will require finding out about Took, perhaps by consulting records or speaking with the ghost itself, and then repairing them. This will likely result in the grisly task of digging up most of the graveyard, and reburying the corpses properly.

2 The ghostly gravedigger is a spirit, but it has been purposefully raised by a group of malicious cultists. A group naming itself the Black Circle operates out of an abandoned house near to the graveyard. When they began to worship the Black Man, they found a need for sacrifices. They raised the spirit of a dead mortician, and whenever they needed a sacrifice for the Black Man, they would dig a fresh grave, and then make sure that someone died before week’s end.

So far, the cultist’s plan has gone perfectly. Several people have seen the ghostly gravedigger, and thus added credence to the existence of a genuine supernatural phenomena. The recent, murderous actions of the townspeople have pleased the cultists immensely, for the townspeople are now doing half their work for them.

If the cultists are dealt with, the ghostly gravedigger returns to his just rest, for it is only their necromantic rituals which tie him to this world.

3 The ghostly gravedigger is a holographic projection placed by the mi-go. Last year, the unearthly insects discovered an immensely valuable vein of minerals beneath the town. Unfortunately, its location made it impossible for the mi-go to mine it in secret. They were afraid to destroy the town because they knew that such an action would not go unnoticed, and that they would be driven away before they could mine more than the smallest fraction of the minerals.

So, the mi-go began a campaign of terror to force the humans to abandon the town. Every few months, they would dig a grave, and then ensure that there was a body to fill it within the next week. Twice, they used alien holographic techniques to allow townspeople to see the ghostly gravedigger. They understood the superstitious mindset of the townspeople well, and very soon, the legends of the ghostly gravedigger had taken on a life of their own.

If the mi-go can be driven away, the appearances of the apparition will end, and, perhaps, the town will return to normal.

© Shannon Appel

The Desecration

Two weeks ago Mr Andrew O’Vel died of a heart-attack. He was buried soon after in his town’s churchyard. Twelve days later Mr O’Vel’s relatives issued orders for the body to be exhumed and transported to their private cemetery. However, during transit an accident caused Mr O’Vel’s coffin to break open. To the driver’s horror the corpse was missing its head!

The resulting investigation reveals that Mr O’Vel’s grave was not the only one to have been desecrated. A total of thirty-seven decapitated bodies have been uncovered, all having been buried during the last two years. The undertaker claims that the bodies were intact when they were placed within their caskets, and this is confirmed by the parish minister.

Police believe that the heads were severed after their burial, but can offer no motive for the brutal and inhumane acts.

Possibilities

1 For the last two years the churchyard has regularly received unwelcome nocturnal visitors. On each occasion the four intruders - equipped with spades, knives and chains - have unearthed a coffin, dragged it free of its resting place and cleft the head free of the unresisting corpse.

Those responsible believe that their work will eventually benefit mankind. They are scientists who - having mastered the reanimation of the body (with the help of the notes of Dr Herbert West) - now seek to reanimate the brain. Their foul experiments are conducted in a small laboratory located in the basement of their accommodation.

2 From an early age no-one understood James Miller, but this was only natural since he didn’t understand himself. At the age of seven he was placed into a rehabilitation institution. He remained there for twenty-two years, taking no interest in the world around him.

Then, three years ago, he received his first visitor – a tall, lean, black-skinned man. The two talked for many hours and the stranger finally left upon the insistence of the asylum’s senior director, but not before promising James that he would return.

James in the meantime, began to show an unprecedented change in his attitude. The following week at exactly the same time, the black man again visited. This continued for many months during which time James’ condition showed obvious signs of improvement. Finally he was considered fit to rejoin society and discharged. The evening before James was due to leave, the Black man visited one final time. The staff were surprised that he only stayed for five minutes; just long enough, he claimed, to offer a “parting gift”.

The following day James went to live in a small town and examined his gift - a fine parchment scroll. The scroll contained instructions for a ritual which allows the caster to “transcend his mortal form”. In order for the spell to be successful the caster must have ingested a total of forty human brains.

Over the last two years, James has dug up thirty-seven corpses, removed the head and - in the comfort of his own home - digested the brain. He only needs to consume three more brains before the metamorphosis occurs. If he succeeds a Hunting Horror bursts from the now-useless human shell; only then will James Miller become a true servant of Nyarlathotep.

3 The police are mistaken; the bodies had already been beheaded prior to their burial. Reverend Matthew Thompson is responsible. Almost two years ago he received a visit from a group of Mi-Go who requested his aid to help obtain dead human brain-tissue for experimental surgery. He refused.

The Mi-Go retaliated by connecting him to a machine that planted false experiences into his mind - experiences that he believed had really occurred. Consequently, the reverend now remembers receiving a divine visitation telling him to aid the Mi-Go. The Mi-Go have retained their control by implanting the experience of further visitations whenever his resolve weakened.

The reverend was unnerved by the recent discovery, and subsequent investigation, of the decollated corpses. He pleaded with the Mi-Go to cease their relentless demands, at least until the current investigation was closed. They refused. The reverend is now suspicious and has begun to doubt the nature of his “visitations”. The Mi-Go are aware that they can no longer rely on him and the next beheaded corpse may be wearing a clergyman’s habit.

© Hadley Connor

Ghost in the Machine

From: laura@karr.aol.com
To: john@soda.berkeley.edu
CC:
Subj: Help!

Received: From laura@karr.aol.com by soda.berkeley.edu
 Sun, 8 Oct 1995 20:36:26 PST
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 1995 18:34:15 MST

John? It’s Laura! You gotta help me, I’m in deep trouble. I’m at the institute, I feel so strange. They’ve got me hooked up to this machine, and I’m cold, I can’t feel a thing. I’m afraid they’ll pull the plug on me, joh;owqihefp8y2er99@@oweh934yrhflknflkjsndfk

*****************************************************************

Then the message breaks off and continues for a while with several kilobytes of ASCII-trash. Attempts to mail back are futile, as the Internet connection is now offline.

The message is from Laura Sinclair, with whom the recipient (John) has extensive email communication. Six weeks ago, Laura, a psychology student with a background in computer science, left college to participate in some kind of cutting-edge research program with the Karr Research Institute located about 35 miles outside Golden, Colerado. Laura never told the investigator what kind of research she was to do there, but she was very excited about it. The investigator hasn’t heard from Laura since.

However, there is something weird going on. The email is dated around 6:30 p.m. and was sent from the Karr institute. However, according to Golden, Colorado authorities, Laura died in a climbing accident near the Institute. She was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. on the day the email was sent – a full three hours before she sent the message!

Possibilities

1 The Karr Institute, high up and isolated in the Rocky Mountains, has recently been taken over by the mi-go, who run a mining operation nearby. The Fungi from Yuggoth killed the scientists and placed their brains in control cylinders. They attached Laura’s brain to the institute’s powerful mainframe computer in order to examine this human technology. The mi-go dumped the bodies in a crevice, but accidently dropped Laura’s, which was found.

In a clear moment, Laura’s brain sent the email to John. After noticing this, the Fungi disabled all the computer’s connections to the outside world and have since left.

The dimensional shambler attacks!

Laura’s body, with its surgically removed brain, has caused a stir in some parts of the FBI. News of the body’s odd mutilation has been quietly suppressed as the authorities mount their own investigation.

2 It is a trap. An old enemy of the investigators infiltrated the harmless Karr Institute and murdered Laura. He staged a climbing accident and then wrote the mysterious email to get the investigators attention. If they take the bait, the villain will blow up the only bridge to the institute, trapping them. Then he, she, or it, summons a dimensional shambler to drag his enemies to screaming hell.

3 The Karr Institute is headed by Dr Lawrence Karr, a brilliant but unscrupulous psychologist. Karr, funded by a secret government agency, runs a research project in human-computer communications combining virtual reality technology, neuronal networks, hypnosis and certain drugs. Karr’s real goal is to establish mind control with virtual-reality enhanced hypnotic messages. He has met with success.

But something went wrong. Laura, a latent psychic, somehow merged her mind with the institute’s computer during an experiment, leaving her body dead. Karr panicked and had his brainwashed assistants stage a climbing accident in order to avoid investigation.

Laura’s mind, trapped in the computer, managed to access the email program and write a message to the investigator at 6:30 p.m. Karr noticed and turned the computer off, garbling part of the message.

Any investigation runs into a dead end - and the cover-up operation of a government project turned sour.



© Markus Huenemoerder

Buzzing

All day long images have been flashing into the investigators brain: electricity pylons, bee hives, neon lights, electric trains, and air conditioning vents. These images don’t have any bearing on what has been going on around her, but still the images are there.

That night, the investigator’s dreams are filled with the same images but this time a unifying theme is sensed: buzzing. All of the items are buzzing, a constant humming sound fills the dreams. Next morning the investigator wakes with an intense headache and still the buzzing fills her head. In fact, now she thinks about it, the sound has been there for the last couple of days, just too quiet for her to detect consciously.

Possibilities

1 The investigator is psychically sensitive but is ignorant of that fact. Some miles below her house a cthonian has laid an egg, an egg due to hatch in the next couple of days. The buzzing in her head is actually the telepathic communications between mother and young. As the hatching gets nearer the telepathic traffic gets heavier and heavier. When the egg hatches the telepathic blast might push her over the edge.

The parent and young then move on, possibly causing seismic disturbances in the process. The effect stops if the investigator leaves the area.

2 The investigator is carrying the eggs of a genetically engineered creature in her head. The creature has been created by the Mi-Go and planted in the investigator as an experiment. The next stage in the creature’s life cycle is a maggot type larva which stops buzzing but instead consumes the frontal lobe of the investigator’s brain causing her to lose all reasoning faculties in the process. Then it eats its way out of the investigator’s head via her ear. Finally, the creature pupates into a large fly-type creature which will search for more humans to deposit eggs into.

The investigator may feel grateful when the buzzing stops but if she realised what was going to happen next perhaps she wouldn’t feel so relieved.

3 Thinking back a few days, the investigator remembers a strange encounter in the street. A small man in a black suit approached her and asked for directions. He had a strongly oriental accent and appearance. After his brief, and dull, conversation with the investigator he touched her left hand very briefly whilst saying “Thank you.” The investigator had felt a slight itching sensation in her hand for the rest of the day but could not identify anything else wrong.

The oriental was in fact a cult assassin trained in the art of the Quivering Palm. The assassin has set up deadly vibrations in the body of the investigator, vibrations that in a few more days will cause the investigator’s head to messily explode.

© Simon Taylor

A Family's Heritage

A close friend’s family has, for hundreds of years, owned a homestead in a sylvan mountainscape. However, their neighbours watch carefully because there is supposed to be a curse on the family.

It is said, that every 40 – 50 years one family-member suffers from an extreme change in personality.

There is also a story of an ancient hideout in a cave nearby. Is there an association?

Possibilities

1 The family has always bred strong dreamers, and a long time ago they created an access to the dreamlands in the cave. This door leads to the enchanted wood, wherein family-members are welcomed by the Zoog. This secret is passed on from one door-keeper to another. (The ability to physically enter the dreamlands is a closely guarded secret.)

The change in personality occurs when the door-keeper hands over to a new keeper. The new door-keeper, upon experiencing the dreamlands, becomes more filial, is happier, lets loose of covenants, but gains friends, and has wonderful fairy tales to tell.

2 The family was once genetically altered by the mi-go (the cave is an entrance to one of their mines). It is written in the family’s genetic constitution, that one family member guards the cave.

When the existing guard dies (normally of old age), then the genetic manipulation kicks in, affecting one of the existing family members who then retreat to a cabin near the cave where they remain on guard for the rest of their life.

3 One of the ancestors made a contract with Yog-Sothoth, he refused to bring the appropriate victim and so the Key and the Gate cursed the family. Every fifty years he absorbs one of the family.

Every fifty years one of the family dies of an unknown disease, which leaves their body mummified glistening like mother of pearls.

In a secret corner of the family’s hideout is the heritage, which provides the means to the end of this horror.

© Jochen Koltermann

The Disappearance

A pretty woman approaches a Private Investigator to track down her missing husband. She gives the investigator a thorough description of her husband, Phillip Wainwright, and a key to his study. She has contacted the police, but after their initial interest they do not seem to be very cooperative.

Phillip vanished during the night after working late in his study, a week ago. She found him missing in the morning and he has not been seen since.

His study reveals little. There is evidence that Phillip was engaged in much research - lots of cryptic references and what appears to be several attempts to crack a code. However, there is nothing concrete to follow up.

At his place of work, the library, his colleagues display no surprise. A policeman was snooping around several days ago. Phillip had been spending much too much time in the Restricted Access reading room. A check of its contents reveals that one of the books is missing.

Possibilities

1 The missing book was the original Al-Azif by Abd al-Azrad. This same copy is possessed by the soul of the author and Phillip, through deciphering sections best left alone, opened his mind to the ancient Arab.

Currently Phillip, under the influence of Abd al-Azrad, is working his way towards The City Without A Name in the Arabian peninsula in search of the Arab’s last remains.

2 The book is an ancient sorcerer’s diary, and Phillip decoded a spell from it to summon Nodens, the Outer God. He foolishly cast the spell and after a few moments Nodens appeared. Phillip bargained badly and the God dropped him and the diary upon Yuggoth where the Mi-Go have preserved his brain.

3 The book is a hypnotist’s workbook and has been taken from his study by the police as possible evidence. They will return it soon, when the case is closed. When Phillip decoded and recited the chants he fainted. Upon returning to consciousness he found his memory had vanished. He wandered out of the house, into the streets and onto the knife of a murderer. His corpse has yet to be discovered.

© Steve Hatherley

Fungus

Dr Samuel Christian Chiltern is a driven mycologist and brilliant in his field. Unfortunately, he is so wrapped up in his work that he does not easily interact socially with the real world – Chiltern is rather shy and doesn't take well to strangers. While discussing mycology he is fluent and clear, but as soon as conversation strays from his field he develops nervous twitches and uncomfortable mannerisms. However, his worst trait is his failure to admit to being wrong.

Chiltern is happy to talk about his new discovery. He explains that his studies have proven, beyond all doubt, that the samples he took in the three states all came from the same plant. However, he is at a loss of how to describe it, as the fungus does not behave anything like other fungi. He has a specimen in his laboratory should the investigators show an interest.

The fungus has taken over one corner of a workbench. Thin tendrils reach out from a large glass tank filled with soggy leaves. The tendrils have spread out, dangling onto the floor. One of them has reached a phone book and is feeding from that, reducing the directory to a pulpy mass covered in pale fur.

Chiltern uses a spatula to push aside the decaying leaf litter to reveal a fleshy lump the size of his fist. Thin tendrils sprout from this, and he explains that there are other lumps, or nodes, in the tank. Chiltern is particularly interested in the nodes as he hasn't discovered any in the field to date; these have all been grown from cuttings taken in the field. He is still examining the fungus and has yet to form any theories.

Chiltern is reluctant to provide details of the exact locations of where he found the fungus, although that is driven from a sense of scientific confidentiality rather than anything more sinister.

If asked about Dr Meredith, his ex-wife, Chiltern scowls nervously. He worshipped the ground she walked on, and she treated him by divorcing him - he isn't even allowed to see his son. His is still emotionally scarred, and it hasn’t helped that Dr Meredith has publicly denounced his work. It is a subject best avoided.

Possibilities

1 The fungus is concentrated around the nodes which are greatly dispersed in the wild. The nodes themselves are about the size of a three-storey house, growing in large subterranean caverns which glow eerily with a weak phosphorescent light. Land around the fungus is rich in mutated flora and fauna. Trees suffer attacks from fungi of myriad colours, and the area is generally damp and unhealthy.

There is also an effect on communities drinking untreated water drawn from wells tainted by the fungus. Such communities become isolationist and secretive. Inbreeding is common, as are wine-stain birthmarks. Such communities have even been known to practise cannibalism. As a side effect, such people are susceptible to the temptations offered by the Outer Gods - and temples to blasphemous creatures can sometimes be encountered in such communities.

The fungus' most visible symptom during an investigation is the large proportion of cultists with wine-stain birthmarks. Simply destroying the cultists will not be enough - the fungus must be destroyed as well. (At the very least, the water supply needs purifying.) The sheer scale of the fungus may become apparent when investigators encounter different cults worshipping different gods in different parts of the country all displaying the same wine-stain birthmarks.

2 The fungus is a huge Mi-Go supercomputer wrapped around the globe. Each node is, in human terms, a processing centre and may grow to the size of a small house. The fungus may be found in all locations that the Mi-Go have been know to frequent.

Each node (the exact number of which is known only to the Mi-Go, but it is believed to be no more than three dozen or so) is carefully monitored by the Mi-Go. The Fungi from Yuggoth themselves (often through their human agents) watch over the nodes to ensure that each operates undisturbed. The nodes are usually located in isolated areas, but there is a chance that construction activities will disturb one. When a node is threatened, the Mi-Go will act - preferably using government agents and legal means, but with direct force if absolutely necessary.

The computer's purpose is unknown - although it has been suggested that its existence is the reason that the Mi-Go remain on Earth. Whether the Mi-Go serve the computer or whether it serves them is a subject open to debate. Certain serpent people texts uncovered at Borobodur, Java suggest that the Mi-Go act on the computer's behalf – for what reason, the texts do not disclose.

3 The fungus is not of terrestrial origin. In 1908 a comet fragment collided with the earth over the Siberian wastes. The comet was mostly rock and ice, but also carried a Mi-Go terraforming fungus. From its cataclysmic arrival, the fungus buried into the soil and spread across the globe.

The fungus is engineered to provide a climate on Earth similar to Yuggoth. Once the fungus has infiltrated an area it attacks the native flora, killing it and replacing it with a new ecosystem. The fleshy nodes (which grow no larger than a soccer ball) contain the genetic information for a variety of fungoid forms. At present the fungus has only colonised several subterranean caverns. Where active, the Mi-Go have encouraged the fungus' growth, achieving toe-holds in remote areas.

Elsewhere, the fungus slowly creeps around the globe, burrowing invisibly through the earth's crust. Once this phase is complete, it will move toward the surface and smother the planet in a thick, fungal embrace.

© Steve Hatherley

Harsh Words

It’s a sudden pain in the head, a searing agony that slowly subsides into a pounding headache. And there are the words, meaningless words:

"Kath rinto Cha’col neblod zin."

Possibilities

1 The words mean "Embrace the waters and rejoice" in an ancient, nearly-forgotten language. They are the result of a powerful spell that has recently been cast. The spell only affects potential deep ones - and all of them within the spell’s range will have felt the effect.

The spell triggers "the change." Fairly soon, everyone affected will learn that the only way to completely ease the pain is by immersion in water - be it a bath, swimming pool or the sea. Over time, physical changes will become apparent, until eventually the call to the sea becomes too strong and they are never seen again.

2 The words are instructions, and with them comes an image of a distinctive building at night, and on that building a gargoyle. Through trial and error, the victim learns that to ease the pain they have to be actively working on visiting the building. First they have to find the building, then travel there. Then, once they are standing at the corner of the building below the gargoyle’s perch, at night, they must shout the words. Only then does the pain finally ease.

Upon hearing the words the gargoyle blinks and turns its head. Then, under the cover of darkness, it spreads its stony wings and flies heavily into the night to assist whomever (or whatever) summoned it.

3 The words are instructions; simple commands that the victim is compelled to carry out. The instructions are meaningless - go to the third stair, walk on the left side of the street, comb your hair backwards. After completing the first task, the pain fades. Then, after a while, a new instruction arrives…

The victim only recently recovered from a head injury that resulted in hospital treatment. Although the head surgeon is internationally renowned, he is also a servant of the mi-go. In their service he implanted a device during surgery. The device conveys mi-go instructions, and is now being tested.

Unfortunately, this model of the device doesn’t appear to be working well as the instructions are being followed incorrectly. Soon the mi-go will need to kidnap the victim and harvest the device to find out what has gone wrong and where they can make improvements...

© Steve Hatherley