Wasteland

Possibilities

1 The small community is the victim of a strange, cancerous meteorite similar to the one in Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space.

2 The knoll on which the community stands was once behind German lines, and its houses used by the German Army as a makeshift headquarters. The entire area was used as a dump for chemical and gas weapons and a large amount of phosphorous. As they were beaten back the chemicals were buried in preparation for a counterattack which never came.

Over the years the containers have corroded, contaminating the knoll with phosphors and a deadly mixture of poisons, causing the yellow glow. Once in the food chain it killed vegetation, animals and eventually humans.

3 The story is very inaccurate. There is no ‘deathly brimstone light’ and no evidence of a plague on the land. The war years left the land in great neglect, the population suffered under the German Occupation and both have left what was once rich fertile land a virtual wilderness.

© Garrie Hall

The de'Vere Pool

Possibilities

1 The pool is haunted by the tormented soul of Charles de’Vere.

A lesser known manifestation is that each time the water turns to blood, the portrait of Charles de’Vere hanging in the hall cries real tears.

2 The soil beneath the pool is on a clay base and occasional natural movement of the earth’s crust brings the clay to the surface, staining the water red.

3 Deep below the de’Vere house a nest of Cthonians festers and seethes. It is their burrowing and worming which disturbs the soil beneath the pool.

© Garrie Hall

The Crazed

Possibilities

1 The riot was an unfortunate, but not sinister, event. The paper is owned by an evangelist called Edward Richards. Mr Richards owns a very profitable business empire and is head of the Cleansing Flame evangelical group. He is not a man to be crossed and can call upon a variety of businesses (including a satellite television channel) to aide his retribution.

The Cleansing Flame has a para-military wing, the Witchfynders. Richards is Witchfynder General and leads them in their cause to destroy evil. However, they will not accept that the Cthulhu Mythos exists as anything other than a form of Satanism.

They believe that they are the only true saviours and that no other organisation has the right to carry the fight. Any alliance with the Witchfynders will be strained at the least as they tend to act before thinking. All traces of Satan must be burnt to cinders, cleansing the Earth of evil.

2 The Karloff’s are using voodoo to further their career, swelling their audiences through manipulation and voodoo frenzy. They do not understand the powers they meddle with and cannot fully control them. A riot and the deaths were inevitable.

3 The Karloff’s worship Nyarlathotep. Using mass hypnotism they enthral the audience. Bit by bit they are building a reserve of psychic energy which is saved for Walpurgis Night. During this massive open air concert the audience will be so frenzied that during the final act, Howl at the Moon, blood will flow and the Crawling Chaos will descend to earth.

© Garrie Hall

Smuggler's Cove

An investigator, an author of weird supernatural tales, is approached by a shifty and suspicious looking man wearing a heavy overcoat and a fur hat. He has a mass of tangled beard and the voice which booms through it is deep and powerful, and Russian.

His English is good but tainted with accent. He explains his predicament - he is a stowaway and a communist. He is also a vampire hunter. Since the revolution his group have found it difficult to pursue their quarry outside of Russian territory due to the attitude of neighbouring countries.

His group had been tracing a vampire, an ex-smuggler, but had lost him across the Baltic. Two of his men had been sent to Wismar in Germany, the known destination of the vampire. There has been no contact with them in over a month.

Now he is a stranger in a strange land, devoid of friends and allies. He has tracked down this author of strange tales to implore him to go to Wismar and find his men, if he can. He backs his plea with a small down payment in Czarist gold, with the hint of more to follow.

The house is now in a state of great neglect. It is structurally unsafe and has been threatening to fall down for many years now. The combination of the legend and its isolated location has prevented anyone from developing the site further. At the bottom of the cliff are several caves which were used for smuggling. A quite extensive cave network runs through the rock including one passage which leads up to the house.

Possibilities

1 Von Mannheim was, and still is, an active vampire. He now lives in a boat, shuttered from the harsh sunlight during the day and free to prey at night. The tunnel from the house is blocked off so that the only access to the caverns is by sea.

Von Mannheim returns periodically and the caves are filled with all manner of stolen items from his victims. Von Mannheim is alone except for a normal human aide - the captain of the boat. The captain is not a servant or slave, he is von Mannheim’s friend.

The two vampire hunters had come too close for comfort. Since his earlier discovery von Mannheim has become much more cautious, wary of the strength of his prey.

2 Von Mannheim worshipped Dagon and sacrificed trespassers to a colony of Deep Ones who live in the deepest part of the Baltic Sea. In return for the sacrifices the Deep Ones protected his ship and sometimes destroyed his competitors.

Deep in the cave network, in a cavern with direct access to the sea via submerged tunnels he erected a statue of his ancient god. Here he held his sacrifices and worshipped Dagon with the Deep Ones.

Von Mannheim is now a Deep One himself and now only rarely returns to Smuggler’s Cove. The two vampire hunters stumbled in on a ceremony. They found their cloves of garlic a most inadequate protection!

3 The legend has been used as a cover by White Russians in the years since the revolution. Russian nobility are smuggled through Estonia, Latavia and Lithuania and then to Wismar across the Baltic. The house on Vampyre Cove is a safe house and armoury for weaponry smuggled back up the route.

The Bolsheviks have narrowed their search to Wismar and their agents, the two so-called vampire hunters, tracked the White Russians to Vampyre Cove. Unfortunately for them they were caught and added to the Cove’s victims, as will anyone else discovering their secret.

© Garrie Hall

Short Story

The advert should catch the eye of any aspiring author wishing to make a name for himself in the world of strange fiction. It is entirely possible that past events have gifted the young writer with several ideas for some peculiar tales involving gods, cultists, monsters and magic.

The magazine is genuine. At least, there is a small group of people trying to put one together. However, it is destined for failure and will not survive beyond the first issue.

Possibilities

1 The magazine is being used by cultists trying to gain more mythos knowledge. This is not a very secretive way of going about it, but it may work if ‘investigators’ decide to relate their experiences to the magazine.

2 One of the authors printed in the first issue evidently knows quite a bit about the mythos, and writes a gruesome story featuring some of the gods. If contacted, he will be a useful ally in their battle against the dark forces.

3 An author, writing about a location well known to him, accidentally reveals a possible mythos presence in the locality. The story is a mix of fiction and fact, but there are certain clues and references to things which indicate that things may not be what they seem.

© Steve Hatherley

Grim Justice

Little is known about Grim Justice. He (it?) seems to be a creature of the supernatural, not least in physical aspect. A thing with no face, just a skull and the ability to appear and disappear into the night.

Grim Justice exhibits an uncanny ability to find his victims wherever they choose to hide. To date no less than ten known gangsters and countless lesser felons have fallen to his ‘tommy gun’.

Possibilities

1 Grim Justice is the ghost of Jim Malone, a cop investigating high level corruption and murdered by gangsters in cold blood in front of his family. His tortured soul has risen from the grave and stalks the city, avenging Malone. He is killing those that he believes set him up, from the hoods that pulled the trigger to his boss, Police Chief Nathan Jordan.

Jordan has guessed the force behind Grim Justice and will covertly hire investigators to ‘exorcise’ this menace.

2 Grim Justice is a highly organised and dedicated group of vigilantes. They have agents placed in all walks of life, from the ganglands to the courts, and can trace just about anyone anywhere.

However, the organisation has fascist tendencies and is inclined to target non-WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) individuals. Attempts to breach their security will be met with violent resistance.

3 Grim Justice is a classic case of paranoid schizophrenia. By day he is plain old Harry Brown, librarian and something of an expert in the occult. By night he is Grim Justice.

Brown was driven insane by the sight of his parents gunned down in cold blood by a lone robber. He has remained stable until recently when he witnessed another killing, pushing him over the edge.

As Grim Justice, he uses his considerable occult knowledge to magic his way to his victims. By night Harry Brown is a powerful sorcerer indiscriminately murdering criminals and gangsters.

© Garrie Hall

Who is the murderer?

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

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

There is another message today.

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

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

Possibilities

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

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

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

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

© Graham Theobalds

Dark Incal

Possibilities

1 The statue is a representation of the N’Ho, a tribe of sand dwellers making their home in the desert during the time of the Egyptians. A small enclave of the tribe still exists and Pennyworth died at their claws as they recaptured their totem.

2 The statue, with the help of a piece of translated papyrus, was used to summon Anubis. However, without a binding ritual there was nothing to keep the old god at bay. He grabbed the professor and dragged him back to his realm.

3 The professor’s jeep overheated in the desert. Unable to re- start it he set out on foot in the direction he thought his camp lay. He perished in the storm, hugging his prized possession to his chest.

© Perry Okerstrom

The Helmsdon Monster

The papers of 1913 are full of stories about the Helmsdon Monster. It is possible that some similarity between the killings can be reached.

Possibilities

1 The Monster is a ghast summoned by some foolish farmers dabbling in the occult. It came up through the caverns that riddle the area and began slaughtering the sheep. By day it hid in the caverns, by night it stalked the moors.

The farmers were terrified by the thing they had unwittingly called, but were powerless against it. However, the stories in the press attracted a sorcerer who came and bound the ghast to the caverns.

The sorcerer has just recently died, releasing the ghast from its bindings. Once again it is reaching out to the surface and feeding on the sheep it finds. Eventually it will get brave enough to attack individual homesteads.

2 The slaughters are the work of one crazed lunatic who roams the moors, killing the sheep with his bare hands. He is completely insane, and very dangerous.

3 The creature is a large wild dog, a doberman. It is quite canny and will do its best to avoid capture. It was a guard dog at a nearby manor, but was set free during a drunken party. It will attack unhesitatingly.

© Steve Hatherley

The Toast of London

Anyone with the right connections receives the above invitation. At the meeting, dozens of London’s rich elite will be there. This is an ideal time to establish contacts, and new clients.

Note: Victor Neuberg was a medium and conjuror, and a genuine member of the Golden Dawn.

Possibilities

1 Neuberg is a fabulous fake. He is very flamboyant and every spectacle he produces is designed to milk money from the unsuspecting public. His illusions look to be completely realistic but are accomplished using sleight of hand and expensive magician’s props.

2 The magic tomes offered for sale seem to contain genuine magic formulae but are all flash and no substance. The Psychic Circle does own some dangerous works, but these are kept under lock and key.

3 In his effort to impress, Neuberg accidentally summons something a little too powerful during his act. The demon, happy to be in the material world, pushes Neuberg’s mind aside and takes control of his body. Nobody is aware of this fact. Not at first.

© Perry Okerstrom

Dead Man's Bluff

The above letter arrives for one of the characters on the Thursday of the appointment.

If they check the address they can confirm that Czeminski is listed as the owner. Apart from that, for official purposes, the man simply does not exist. He is not on the tax department’s books, no birth certificate exists for him, no passport or immigration papers, no police record, no phonebook listing. Nothing.

If they go there during the day, number 117 is a dark stone house set away from the road. An unleashed Doberman in the yard discourages them from entering the property.

If they go there at night, Czeminski answers the door. He is quite handsome. He does not shake hands. The house is dark and dusty and there is an odd smell about it. He leads them into a well-stocked library, pours them a drink, motions them to be seated, and begins. “My good people, I am pleased to have this opportunity to meet you. My name is Alexander Czeminski, and I am a vampire.” He is.

Possibilities

1 Czeminski is a collector of esoteric books and paraphernalia. He asks them to bear him in mind if they ever have anything of that nature. He will pay handsomely. He bears them no malice.

2 He has heard of them and guesses that eventually they might track him down, for being what he is. He has asked them here to strike up a more civilized arrangement: they leave each other alone. If he can’t, then he will attempt to kill them; maybe tonight, maybe in the weeks that follow.

3 He wants to make a deal. He lives on the dark side of normal existence and is aware of the dark things that dwell there; be they monstrous creatures, or crumbling undead, or gibbering ghouls, or ancient godlings. He is privy to information, the rumours and gossip that travels along the telegraph wires of the dead, unheard by mortal ears. He offers to fence information in return for their protection against vampire hunters, clergymen, and others. If the bargain is struck Czeminski will appear in the future, giving odd tips, translating old documents, and scaring the hell out of them with sudden appearances.

© Mark Morrison

Fire Victim

Possibilities

1 Poor Hedda is the victim of spontaneous human combustion, a rare occurrence but not without precedent. Often the victim will be burned beyond recognition, in some cases without disturbing the surrounding environment.

2 Hedda has fallen prey to a cluster of Fire Vampires who find the city of New York populated with easy prey. Prey often too slow or weak to fight back. Investigators will find many such fires in the ghettos of New York.

3 Tesla is in New York demonstrating his new machine. This generator produces immense electrical charges which are then discharged to earth. Occasionally his machine produces ball lightning, which targets victims totally at random. The fires will stop when he takes the machine to Boston. There they start again.

© Perry Okerstrom

Peverill Manor

Possibilities

1 After the curse had struck, the witch’s grave was exhumed and found to be empty. Her corpse was never found and is still buried near the house. Her presence is disturbing the other ghosts, when she is returned to her true grave they will fade away, at peace.

2 Peverill Manor is built upon a ritual serpent people grave. Residual magic in the reptilian corpses is mistaken for ghosts.

3 Psychic emanations from a demon trapped below the manor are picked up by those above and turned into ghosts. The Church-Peverills do not fear the ghosts so the ones they create are benign. Visitors, however, are less relaxed and create terrible creatures that haunt them from their own nightmares.

© Steve Hatherley

The Ghost of Heddon Manor

Taken from Fleming’s Old Country Houses, 1917.

Possibilities

1 The Water-Spirit is an old deep one that lives in subterranean caverns beneath Heddon Manor. It is trapped there by an ancient spell, only able to escape into the manor and feed from the larder at limited times.

2 The Water-Spirit is a genuine ghost. The restless spirit of a fisherman haunts the manor. Lord Poppleford wronged him, sending the fisherman to his death in a terrible storm. He now haunts the great house and those that live there.

3 The Water-Spirit is mere legend and superstition. The combination of a damp, old house and some unusual, windswept, caverns (which produce the sloshing sounds) caused Lord Poppleford to imagine rather more than there was.

© Steve Hatherley

The Second Circle

Should anyone with experience of the Dreamlands visit the exhibition then one painting, The Second Circle, catches their eye. Painted about ten years ago by an obscure German artist, the picture is quite ordinary. It shows a peaceful beach with waves lapping at the sand. A bird is perched on a rock in the foreground.

The bird is, as any investigator familiar with the Dreamlands will identify, a varchine. These are birds of prey unique to the Dreamlands. What is one doing in this picture?

The artist has evidently painted a picture of the Dreamlands. Such pictures can sometimes be used as gates through to the Lands themselves. Particularly skilled Dreamers can dream their way straight to the locality pictured.

It is possible that the artist has painted other scenes, other doorways direct to the world beyond sleep. It is also possible, if the artist was a powerful Dreamer, that she is still in the Dreamlands. Somewhere.

Possibilities

1 The picture leads to a mist covered island. Wandering through the mist eventually brings the Dreamers to a stone circle, the ‘second circle’ of the title. This is an exact replica of a megalithic stone circle which can be found somewhere in Europe. The area is a place where the realities between the two worlds mix, allowing passage at certain times.

2 The artist is quite mad and is kept in a Bavarian asylum. There she paints scenes from her dreams; gugs and ghasts, Ulthar and Celephais, and more. If the investigators track her down in the Dreamlands they find her lucid and sane.

3 The coastline belongs to a deserted island in the Southern Seas. It is a regular stop for the black galleys that trade with Dylath-Leen and Dreamers waiting there are in danger of being captured by the men that crew such vessels. The circle refers to what appears to be either a dormant volcano, or a meteor crater.

© Steve Hatherley

The Ripper

The last person to see the notes was one of the students at the university. He can be contacted and may let investigators see his notes. Although the diary and "Jack’s" handwriting has been compared before, the student has studied them both and concludes that they may have been written with the same hand.

Possibilities

1 Dr Black was Jack the Ripper, and has been Re-animated. He has stolen his own notes and intends to continue his research. A week later the first of a series of ripper murders scorches headlines.

2 The notes are an elaborate fake. They were written by several medical doctors to shock one of their fellows. Several ‘in-jokes’ can be found amongst the document, if searched for properly.

3 Dr Black was not the Ripper, but was engaged in similar studies. Although not of the mythos, he had connections. The diaries point to where Dr Black purchased some of his bodies upon which he worked - and notes the poor, almost gnawed, condition of some of them.

© Steve Hatherley

The Midlock Dragons

The above is the precis to a collection of papers. Little more can be gleaned from the papers which require wading through pages of old English handwriting.

It would be a considerable accolade to any scholar to prove that the Midlock Dragons were the original source of the St George and the Dragon legend.

Possibilities

1 The legend is mostly true, but the dragons were in fact a group of astral entities known as lloigor. George was an investigator of an earlier century and, armed with considerable magics, vanquished the lloigor. The lloigor would like to return, but the stone circle from which they drew their power was disrupted.

2 George did not fight any true dragons, but instead freed Midlock from the tyrannical reign of a local landowner. The description of the battle hints that the ‘dragons’ used magic, and there is still some of this lying around in the old manor.

3 There was a battle of some sort, but no concrete evidence to say whether this is the true source of the legend or not.

© Steve Hatherley

Dinosaur Experiment

Catterall is a recluse and works from his secluded manor in the centre of its densely-wooded grounds. He is regarded as dangerous by his scientific peers, and has a record of cruelty. During the Great War, he was rumoured to have performed much unnecessary surgery.

If any of the others of the expedition to Africa can be found, they will be reluctant to talk about the trip. Many bad things happened there.

Possibilities

1 Catterall is far ahead of his time and has already cloned several dinosaurs from their fossilised bones. The process was a gift from Nyarlathotep in Africa. He already has had some success and intends to display them in a years’ time, crediting them as early successes of his fake experiments.

2 The experiments work, but take much longer than anticipated. Eventually, some sixty years after they were started (and twenty years after Catterall’s death) the first ‘dinosaur’ is born. It is intelligent – a bipedal lizard man. It is the pinnacle of dinosaur evolution but the dinosaurs died out before it had a chance.

3 Catterall is insane and his experiments are fakes. However, several of his assistants are Serpent People in disguise. They are using Catterall as a cover for their own sorcerous methods for bringing their own kind through from the Permain era, along with some of the proto-dinosaurs of that time.

(Inspired by the novel Carnosaur, by Harry Adam Knight.)

© Steve Hatherley

The Old Church

Possibilities

1 The floor of the church is the roof of a very old crypt. The crypt is full of the remains of bodies, all well preserved in the cool, dry environment. All the bodies show signs of being bled to death.

But one of the bodies is not yet dead, and after such a long sleep it is very thirsty.

2 Further information comes to light in original translations of the Bible. The place is very unholy indeed, devil worship was actively carried out and only after the place was cleansed was the church built. A ward against evil (similar in design to similar wards found on Neolithic megaliths) has been carved upon one of the flagstones, but it has been removed by the University for study.

Without the ward, it is only a matter of time before evil returns.

3 Removing the flagstones reveals a narrow, unpleasant tunnel. Entering the tunnel reveals a complex of narrow, winding passages. Although clearly ancient, the tunnels are structurally sound and are relatively safe to explore.

When mapped, they form a strange twisting complex of no obvious design. And despite clearly having been constructed long before the modern city above, they loop around foundations, sewers, pipelines, and other modern contrivances as if the original builders knew to avoid them.

They, and their builders, are a complete mystery.

© Steve Hatherley

The Manacles

Taken from G Hall’s Myths and Legends in Cornwall (1921), this is the only recorded copy of this legend. The Manacles derive their name from ‘maen eglos’ which means ‘stone church’ in Cornish.

Just around from Manacle Point (on the nearby coast) is Porthoustock. The cliffs there are carved into grotesque shapes by extensive blasting.

Possibilities

1 The legend is partially correct and a great demon known only as the kirix is imprisoned beneath the sea bed.

2 The legend is a complete fabrication, but there was evil present at one time. Upon the Manacles an ancient, squat temple dedicated to a dark god, can be found. This is the stone church and it was abandoned centuries ago and can be found by anyone who explores the Manacles.

3 The stone church is a deep one temple, with their hybrids quarrying away at Porthoustock to free a star-spawn of Cthulhu trapped there. They are still a long way from freeing the vast beast.

© Steve Hatherley