Plague Row

It is known locally as “Plague Row”, although there are no historical records of plague in the area.

Instead, it is a run-down row of buildings, all in a poor state of repair. Those living nearby are ill, and what little vegetation there is, is twisted and diseased.

Nothing thrives on Plague Row.

Possibilities

1 Plague Row was once marked by a stone circle that was originally erected to protect against an ancient evil. The stone circle was removed in 1750s when building work started on the site. Over a period of decades the evil influence returned, contaminating everything.

The source of the evil influence is a monstrous demon imprisoned in the ground, deep below. The demon is still securely bound, but its malign influence seeps upwards to contaminate everything above.

However, Plague Row is just one of several locations where the wards imprisoning the demon have been removed. Someone, or something, is destroying them, and the demon is growing stronger...

2 Behind Plague Row is a deep well in which a cold, alien intelligence has made its home. The alien intelligence absorbs the life essence from organic matter, which results in malaise and decay.

3 Plague Row is not far from the site British Ordnance Factory No. 7, constructed in 1940 to manufacture munitions. The factory produced explosives for shells and artillery rounds, as well as phosphorus and other chemical weapons.

Although little remains of the site above ground (it is now a business park), the factory’s underground chemical storage tanks were never fully decommissioned and they have leaked, contaminating the land now known as Plague Row.

© Steve Hatherley

Book of Bones

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

Possibilities

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

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

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

© Allen Varney

Spare Some Change?

He stands outside the bus station playing badly on a harmonica, it could be “Auld Lang Syne” perhaps. He is bundled in greasy overcoat belted with string and you shudder to think what may be in his pockets. The coat is covered with badges including one with a pyramid and eye, and one bearing the motto “Watch the Skies.” His greying beard is long and unkempt, with “things” in it. His hair is no different.

As he turns his watery eyes towards you an unpleasant, red-blotched bald patch (or is it shaved?) about the size of your hand is clearly visible above his left ear. Moving the harmonica from his mouth, he wheezes at you. “You’ve seen it too, eh? You’ve seen it. You can’t fool me nor them neither, heh heh heh, an’ that’s why their watching you too. They sees everything!”

He nods excitedly in the direction you have come from. Looking back you see two tall, clean-shaven men in dark suits and shades; they could be watching him, or they may be watching you.

Possibilities

1 Robert Beauchamp was a former rising star scientist in the government defence programme. He dropped out (ethical differences) and disappeared. The government has finally tracked him down and considers him a security risk. The men in black are government agents who intend to apprehend Robert, after ascertaining the extent and nature of his real or imagined contacts. They monitor everyone that Robert takes an unusual interest in. As far as the investigators are concerned, this might prove disastrous.

2 In hunting for pickings in the bins outside a corporate office late one night, Robert heard a strange and unearthly wailing. Peering through a window he witnessed corporate officials engaging in some kind of communion with an eldritch being. He fled in terror but was filmed by a security camera. As the players chance on him, corporate agents are moving to abduct and silence him. If he never gets a chance to speak about what he saw, the only clue to where he had been is some crumpled office stationary bearing the company logo in his filthy pockets.

3 Robert suffers from amnesia. The marks on his head are the results of experiments he has suffered at the hands of cultists who held him prisoner and tortured him for extended periods. He has no idea how he escaped – or even that he was ever tortured. Robert has been arrested several times, and his scars have piqued the curiosity of a secret government department responsible for investigating strange phenomena. The suited watchers are from that organisation but do everything to disguise their motives and employer. They are observing Robert to see whom he contacts and, perhaps more importantly, who contacts him.

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

Seven Woodcut Blocks

It's an online auction for seven woodcut blocks by Thomas Kilner. The seller's username is bugman666, and the starting bid is £100.

Thomas Kilner (1803-1831) lived in London and was an artist of minor repute. He was a member of the occult Order of the Silver Thistle, and illustrated the order's only publication with a series of 35 woodcuts. He was savagely attacked with a knife while sleeping. The murderer was never found.

The Order of the Silver Thistle was an occult society formed in 1820 by James Pinkney. The order broke up in 1831. The order published one book, Light of the Seven Orders of Truth, a 128 page volume written by Pinkney. No volumes are known to remain intact.

Possibilities

1 The auction is a lure. Bugman666 is an avid collector of magical esoteria and artefacts. He knows that the order was involved in powerful occult rituals, and hopes to lure other magically-inclined individuals to bid. His plan is to sell the woodcut blocks and get a postal address (he'll insist on a real address, not a mailbox). Bugman666 will then make a personal visit to rob the seller not only of the blocks, but also any other artefacts, books or ephemera he can find at that address.

2 The winner of the auction is Colin Jessop and he has been fascinated in the Order of the Silver Thistle for the last five years. Colin has collected anything and everything to do with the order that he has laid his hands on, and he would love to meet some like-minded individuals to reform the order.

3 Bugman666's real name is Thomas Kilner and he is now nearly 200 years old.

The order's last ritual in 1831 was livelier than they could have anticipated. Through powerful magics that they never really understood, Kilner underwent some fundamental physiological changes. Nobody else survived.

Kilner is now an ageless vampire, and hates his pathetic existence. He has few vampiric powers but must drink human blood once every few years or so. The rest of the time he spends in his increasingly dilapidated house, feeding from rats and spiders. As his resources and finances dwindle, he finds new ways of raising money - including selling his work online.

© Steve Hatherley

Couch Potato

Darren Richards, aged 13, is not a happy boy. Neither is he an unhappy boy. At least, not so far as you can tell. He sits vegetatively, occasionally rocking to and fro, unresponsive to external stimuli - even his favourite TV show. His parents spoon feed him mush. "The lights are on, but nobody seems to be home," as Doctor Clarke says.

Darren was found in exactly that state, sat in front of his computer game console plugged into the wide screen TV in the family home, a little over a week ago. Prior to that he was a perfectly normal lad of his age.

Questioning the family reveals a seemingly irrelevant detail, that the computer game had malfunctioned, the screen looked "odd". If pursued it emerges that Darren was video taping his progress to enter a "game glitches" competition in a magazine. The tape shows the player's character in the game moving through a seemingly solid mountain range in the game environment into a "wrongly" coloured surreal landscape where moving images leave strangely blurred after-shadows.

Possibilities

1 The game provides an entrance into the dreamlands. If the investigators play the game and retrace Darren's route (requiring hours of frustrating practice), they are also drawn into the dreamlands, leaving their unconscious bodies behind. Getting out of the dreamlands is a little more complicated, but if they manage it, they restore Darren and themselves to normality.

A larger issue remains to be solved. Is it only Darren's copy of this game that has this potential, or will there be an epidemic of dreamboys amongst fanatical players of this new game?

2 The game's effect is caused by a combination of its addictive gameplay and hypnotically flickering lights. It has induced a form of catatonia. Darren is not the only player affected, and while medical hope remains, he may remain unresponsive for years.

3 The effect is deliberate and has the same effect on any weak minded player. After a few days, Darren starts to come out of his catatonia, and returns to normal. However, he has now been reprogrammed by the game. In response to broadcasting a further subliminal signal (teenage computer gamers always watch too much television) the affected feel a compulsion to carry out some great and terrible task.

One of the programmers at EtherTec, the game manufacturer, has been corrupted and seduced by an agent of the mythos. He has added unnecessary code to the game, and although he now swears allegiance to his new master, he has no real understanding of the additional code.

© Jon Freeman

Can I touch the angel, mummy?

Everyone sees them from time to time, but nobody knows why they do it. What does it all mean? Why do those white and silver rag-shrouded street performers with benignly vacuous faces stand motionless in city centres like shabby angels? When someone drops a coin in their box they move, open their eyes, smile, turn, wave. Then as suddenly as they activated, they return to a motionless pose. No one ever hears them speak.

Things are changing. No longer just the occasional angelic visitation, they are seen with increasing frequency. No longer solitary, they sometimes appear in twos and threes. Their motion is no longer gentle, and sometimes when “activated” they writhe and gyrate frantically while remaining unnaturally rooted to the spot. Their expressions are tortured, and small children run crying from their baleful red-rimmed stare.

When at rest their heads are cocked to one side as though listening to something that no one else can hear. They fix on a spectator and mouth indecipherable messages with horrible urgency. To a lip reader they appear to be saying “the waiters in the light” over and over again.

Possibilities

1 The white angel people have been touched by Gabriel, a deranged lone sorcerer under the sway of a little known demonic entity. The entity is referred to as Lumen Formidolosus (the terrible light) in an obscure Roman text, Concoquere Nefandis (the deplorable digest). Gabriel believes himself to be an angel serving this being of pure light, winning converts to the cause of universal light. Those who watch the street performer feel strangely calmed - and are compelled to gather in a secret location where Gabriel awaits them. Exposed to the power of the terrible light, they serve it by becoming a tortured white angel-person, their sanity slowly slipping away as they mime.

2 The weird street entertainers are converts of a profitable cult that uses hypnosis to win members at public meetings. The new members make little money for the cause in their miming, but (more importantly) donate all their worldly wealth when they join. The leader of the cult is a charismatic guru, known as Lumen, who mixes woolly new age philosophy about “universal light” with a healthy dose of capitalist enterprise.

3 The angel-people are sub-human. These beings are the product of an infection passed to ordinary people by touch - so don’t get too close when you drop those coins. Those infected then undergo a painful and sanity blasting metamorphosis. Is a cure possible, or is eradication the only solution? How widespread is the problem, and why is it only manifesting now?

© Jon Freeman

The Gibbet Frame

The old gibbet on Gallows Hill in Shropshire had a long and eventful life before executions were moved to the county town of Shrewsbury. Famed executions that met their end on the old gibbet included murderers, arsonists, poachers and even witches. The gibbet’s most famous victim was Salton Paxton, an unchristian person (it is not appropriate to describe him as a gentleman) who incorporated the bones of his victims in the walls of his hall. These were only found after his death, when the hall was being renovated. The hall has since fallen into ruin.

The old gibbet was dismantled, and only the stone blocks that made up the foundation remain, slowly weathering over time.

The timber that made up the gibbet was considered unlucky by the Shropshire residents, and left to rot. However, small pieces of the timber were taken by a witch, Luella Cawford and fashioned into a crude picture frame. Luella was eventually caught, tried and put to death by pressing. After her execution, the magistrates returned to her cottage to dispose of Luella’s possessions. They found the cottage completely bare. No one knows what became of her possessions.

Possibilities

1 Luella cursed her enemies with her gibbet frame. She drew or painted a likeness of the object of her enmity (a person or place) and placed it within the frame. From then on, corruption and foulness would befall the individual or location. If a person, they would suffer terrible accidents, or a wasting disease, or a became the victim of a brutal crime: they rarely lived for long. If Luella was cursing a place, then it suffered from infestations of vermin, vandalism, burglary and worse.

As the curse takes effect, the picture foretells reality. If the picture was of a person and the picture showed a bruise, then that person would soon receive a corresponding bruise.

The frame is now in a property managed by the National Trust. The frame is accurately described as being thought to have once belonged to the noted Shropshire witch Luella Cawford. The picture inside the frame is of a ruined folly in the property’s grounds. It seems that no matter what the Trust do, they cannot preserve the folly.

2 Luella used the gibbet frame to escape her fate. Some time before she was arrested as a witch, Luella poured her essence into the frame. From that time on, Luella’s was able to possess the body of whomever’s portrait the frame contained. Upon leaving the body, the victim had only a hazy memory of what had happened, and was often plagued by nightmares.

It mattered not the accuracy or likeness of the image in the frame. If the portrait was drawn with the intent of being the likeness of somebody, then Luella was able to possess that person. If the frame contained a picture of more than one person, Luella could posses any of them. Photographs, however, do not work.

Over time Luella became quite skilled. She learned to ‘lightly’ possess someone and watch through their eyes and listen through their ears, learning their ways and manners before fully taking over. In this way she saw her enemies act against her, and before she was arrested she took flight in the body of one of the magistrate’s clerks, took her possessions and fled.

With her real body gone, Luella is now a body thief. Her frame is now stuffed with portraits, and when she tires of a person, she simply adds a new portrait to the frame. The gibbet frame is her most important possession.

3 Luella was a kind witch and was commissioned by the local landowner, Sir Arthur Musgrove to protect him and his family from harm. For this she crafted the gibbet frame, and instructed Sir Arthur to place likenesses of those he wanted to protect within the frame.

Luella, however, did her work a little too effectively. The frame protects its wards from ill health and unfortunate accidents, and provides lucky escapes from calamities of all kinds. It effectively grants immortality. One side effect, however, is that the frame’s wards become barren and may bear no children.

Sir Arthur’s family enjoyed good health and vitality for many years, until, for reasons unknown, the picture in the frame was changed. Shortly after, Sir Arthur’s family suffered a run of shocking bad luck, as if their good fortune had run out. They were all dead within the year.

The gibbet frame is now owned by the reclusive Whistler family of north London. Mabel Whistler, on learning of the gibbet frame, understood exactly its powers and dangers, and uses it to protect her family - her sons, daughters and grandchildren. They are all much older than they appear.

© Steve Hatherley

The Book

Following a successful tour in the SAS, Jim Book started a private security business (Book and Templeton Security) with an ex-colleague, Mark Templeton. They set up office on a business park in Redhill, south of London and prospects, initially, looked good.

The business was only in its fourth month when they were hired to protect Dr Michelle Crompton. Crompton’s enemies sent a werewolf – which killed Templeton and Crompton, and hospitalised Book, scarring him for life.

Possibilities

1 Book and Templeton Security now specialises in occult and preternatural security. Following the incident with the werewolf, Book investigated Dr Compton and found himself in a world of the supernatural and occult that he initially found hard to believe.

Once he overcame his scepticism, he pursued a crash course in the occult and mystic and has developed a niche in the security business – providing occult and preternatural security services to discerning clients.

Book runs the company alone, hiring in specialists as and when he needs them.

The business is now doing well (good occult security services are hard to find), and has moved from its original office in Redhill to a converted Islington town house.

2 The werewolf and its master are still out there.

It was three weeks before Book left hospital and the trail was then too cold to follow. With the business in ruins, Book vowed revenge. Starting with Dr Crompton, Book is slowly, methodically, patiently tracking the werewolf and its master. And when he finds them, Book will kill them both.

Book’s single-minded pursuit has led him to research and document various means of killing (or protecting oneself from) preternatural creatures. He is becoming quite an expert, and his documented research is now a valuable store of knowledge.

3 Following his near-death encounter with the werewolf, Book was rescued by Mr Broach, one of Dr Compton’s associates. Mr Broach brought Book into his carefully protected home and nursed back to health.

Mr Broach is a warlock, and a member of one of several factions battling for occult control of London. He plans to recruit Book, arm him with weapons and knowledge, and send him into battle.

© Steve Hatherley

Superswarm

Lake Vostok, under the Antarctic ice, has been sealed off from the rest of the world for millions of years. When a Russian probe finally brought back samples of the lake water, the scientists were amazed to discover that it was rich in microscopic life.

Deep in cold Lake Vostok, the life was dormant. The heat and light of the Russian laboratory brought a remarkable transformation and soon the samples were buzzing with life. In particular, the samples swarmed with a kind of primitive midge larvae that had hatched from tiny eggs.

The larvae grew and over a period of weeks matured and eventually grew into adults. The adults lived for three days in which they mated and each laid thousands of eggs in the water. The cycle continued.

Eventually, the inevitable happened and some of the midges escaped one of the Russian laboratories where they were being studied. (By this time samples had been distributed to a number of laboratories around the world.) The midges vanished into Siberia and no more was thought of them. The scientists continued their studies.

The midges colonised ponds and lakes in Siberia. During the winter they would go dormant, becoming active each spring and summer. Eventually they reached 400 mile long Lake Baikal in southern Siberia.

Five years after the midges escaped the laboratory (and only six years since being first discovered) the first superswarm appeared over Lake Baikal.

Possibilities

1 From their stronghold in Lake Baikal, the midges rapidly expand. A year later, midges have been found in Europe, Asia, North America and Africa, transported by migrating birds. A year after that a superswarm appears over Lake Victoria – and the year after that Lake Eerie.

Projections indicate that within ten years every freshwater body on the planet will be home to what becomes known as the supermidge. Superswarms will become regular features over any body of freshwater bigger than ten cubic miles. In tropical climates supermidges blacken the skies and threaten the viability of mankind’s already fragile drinking water supplies.

In cooler, temperate climates, winter brings at least some respite. But not for long, as the warmer weather is never more than six months away.

2 Although the midges individually live for no longer than three days, a superswarm typically lasts for about ten. At its height, when trillions of midges make up the superswarm, a kind of mental critical mass occurs and the superswarm develops a rudimentary intelligence.

Awareness typically starts on day three of the superswarm and is at its peak at about day seven. During these few days the superswarm is self-aware, and communicates in writhing patterns. It is aware that it only has a few days to live, but it is hungry to learn how it might live longer.

3 The midges are the heralds of the many-angled ones. Millions of years ago, when the many-angled ones last walked upon the Earth, Lake Vostok was open to the air. The many-angled ones left their spoor upon the Earth, but over time all was erased from the land, air and sea. Only Lake Vostok was left. Untouched. Unspoilt. Dormant. Waiting.

Now, with the Lake Baikal superswarm containing many trillions of midges, something begins. The superswarm starts to dance. Complex, fractal patterns appear, and the superswarm pulses rhythmically. The superswarm is tearing a rift in space-time, a doorway to where the many-angled ones dwell...

© Steve Hatherley