Sage Advice

At some point in their lives, investigators will have to look to a reputed scholar of arcane lore for advice on their current predicament. Jean Le Strange is one such man. But how do you approach such a man for assistance? And what will be the price for that assistance?

Born in Paris (or Alsace Lorraine, or Cairo), reputedly during the Revolution, Jean Le Strange is a figure of some notoriety, due mainly to his outre religious and philosophical beliefs. He is said to have inspired works such as “La Bas”, has given guest lectures to the Golden Dawn, made an enemy of Dietrich Eckhart, has been denounced by the Vatican, and has been studied and debunked by the Society for Psychical Research. Independently wealthy, he maintains elegant homes in a number of cities across the globe, furnished with many rare curios and pieces of art. He is a combination of scholarly recluse and Gallic playboy.

Apparent age 37. Height 6’1”. Weight 178 pounds. Slim athletic physique, narrow hips, wide shoulders. Tanned. Short dark hair oiled and combed back. Gallic nose and strong chin. Dresses in dark, rich, sombre, classic, fashionable suits made of silk or wool, white cotton or silk shirts, crimson silk ties, patent leather or suede Chelsea boots, and a dark fedora. Carries an ebony cane concealing a rapier. Speaks many languages with a soft, educated French accent. Smokes Turkish cigarettes and drinks only rich red wines.

Possibilities

1 Le Strange is a sorcerer of considerable power, knowledgeable in the ways of the Mythos and its creatures. He is on intimate terms with The Black Man (Nyarlathotep), who has granted him much of his power, and his position on the ruling council of the Illuminati (or whichever organization is appropriate for your campaign). He acts as a lethal lure for those who have enough knowledge to be dangerous. His great age is attributable to both his dark sorceries and his skill as a deceiver and manipulator.

When the investigators contact him he becomes a mysterious, reserved patron, and will aid them for some months. At some point he will unexpectedly enter a scenario to which he is ostensibly unrelated (e.g. as confidant of a certain high priest of the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh) and reveal the investigators to the bad guys. He is always guarded by a permanently bound Star Vampire (or two), which has had many years of feedings on foolish investigators during which to wax powerful and become difficult to dismiss.

2 Le Strange is a sorcerer of considerable power who has yet to be seduced totally by the Mythos. When PCs contact him (after establishing a relationship), he is evasive and distant. He is suffering from a severe and odd form of somnambulence. During his “attacks” he cruises the city streets in a large black saloon, engages an escort for the evening, returns to his home, kills her horribly, then dumps the body. He remembers only short fragments which he attributes to nightmares induced by his studies. Astute investigators should stumble across the pattern of slain prostitutes in the world’s fashionable cities, e.g. Paris, Venice, London, New York. This is the secret of his great age as his victims’ life force feeds both him and his personal demon. Those who can help him will make a useful friend, but he will then begin to age normally. Those who follow him at night will bite off more than they can comfortably chew.

3 Le Strange is a well-preserved scholar with more than a passing knowledge of the Mythos. His background is a combination of rumour, a pinch of truth, and a lot of fantasy. However, his occult collection is real. His latest acquisition during his travels is an ornate blue crystal bottle (9 inches tall, 4-inch diameter base, fluted and stoppered, sealed with lead), purchased at an exorbitant price at Sothebys in London.

It is reputed to have once been the possession of John Dee. When investigators visit Le Strange, his extensive house will be empty. In the large parquet floored study is the expected library, with a paper-littered desk and comfy chairs. There is also a wooden pedestal similar to a flat lectern but with nothing on it. On the floor is a fine sand which will crunch under the investigator’s foot. Looking closely will show that it is very fine powdered blue glass. Looking even closer will reveal the “burst” pattern which it appears to have. The floor beneath the wooden pedestal is mainly sand-free. What exactly was in that bottle? Where is the owner? What’s that noise?

(Thanks to David Drake, author of the novel Dagger, published by Ace, for option 3.)

© Peter Devlin

Problems with Transmission

The program was supposed to start at nine o’clock, but instead the message ‘Problems with Transmission’ appears, and blinks out after a second into a hastily chosen sitcom.

The show, “Evidence of the Supernatural” was meant to be on, but what’s wrong? What’s happened to cause the show, which promised startling new evidence of the paranormal, to be cancelled?

Possibilities

1 The shows evidence was a method an occultist, Randall Illings, had devised to allow a person to see the spirit world. It was a bluish grey powder he had found the recipe for in a book, and it promised to reveal the hidden worlds and dimensions all around us. Illings had cameras set up, and machines built to continuously spread the powder.

Illings had created a large amount of the Powder of Ibn Ghazi, a material that allows humans to see into other dimensions, and ravenous things to look back. When the police arrived to investigate a frantic phone call from the studio, they found nothing but piles of empty clothes scattered around the building. All of the people had been consumed by the other dimensional creatures, leaving nothing but empty clothing.

The tape of the event has not yet been examined, and is in storage at an FBI Forensics Lab.

2 Randall Illings had found a lot of interesting mentions of government research into the paranormal. He had found conclusive evidence of the CIA testing clairvoyance and fire-starting abilities in a document dating to 1970, and he was going to present this on the show.

However, the paranormal research group, which has since gone rogue, discovered this and secretly poisoned the food of the crew cafeteria. Illings however, a strict vegan, had prepared his own food and escaped poisoning. As people dropped dead around him, Illings fled the scene just as the rogue agents were arriving.

The agents burned down the building and stole the evidence linking them to the murders. As Illings is the only person not accounted for, he is being hunted by the police for the murder of around 60 people, with the rogue agents looking for him as well.

3 The show has been cancelled due to cold feet on the studio’s part. Nobody at the network broadcasting the show really had any truck with the supernatural, and cancelled the show at the last minute.

Randall Illings’ evidence was a 16th Century French manuscript on opening a portal to another plain of existence. Illings has promised his fans that he will show them the manuscript and perform the ritual on a podcast tomorrow night.

© Paul Hebron

Division Hexe

After winning his position in early 1933, Hitler cemented both his own position and that of the Aryan master race through military conquest and genocide. But there are other, infinitely older forms of power that he also tried to tap...

The interest in the occult held by Hitler, Himmler and many other leading Nazis is well documented, and during their reign of terror, expeditions were despatched to all corners of the globe, searching for lost and potentially war-winning lore. Several, in the 1930s, were sent by Hitler to Tibet in order to seek out Agharti-a secret underworld populated by enlightened immortals. Unfortunately for the Reich, Agharti was little more than a fairy tale, dreamt up in 1871 by English Occultist Edward Bulwar-Lytton. But these were not the only expeditions sent out by Hitler; some, in pursuit of more definite and real goals, may have been a lot more successful.

After the war, much of the knowledge was either lost or buried in infinite national archives (which is much the same thing). These days, no one knows for sure where these expeditions went, nor what they sought - nor whether they were successful or not. Only occasional, tantalising rumours loom out of the mists of time, perhaps best left hidden.

Recently, however, a series of documents have surfaced and are currently being posted around the internet by an anonymous source claiming to be in Moscow. The documents appear to be a series of intriguing typewritten sheets from towards the end of the war, detailing the activities of the ‘Division Hexe’; an elite development group made up of leading SS officers and occultists. It makes for interesting and dangerous reading.

Possibilities

1 The documents detail a range of biological experiments carried out upon unfortunate Jewish and Gypsy children in Auschwitz, on behalf of Dr Josef Mengele. It appears that they grafted the skin of a Deep One, retrieved by U-boat crews in the Pacific, onto a living human. Photographs and some convincing scientific details add an element of realism, and no evidence of tampering can be found. Unfortunately for the Auschwitz researchers of Division Hexe, the war ended before the results could be fully described or used-although their purpose still remains unknown (the final sections of this information, according to the anonymous source, were destroyed by disgusted Soviet officials – or so he claims). According to the unnamed source, the last sheet is stained with blood and even now smells suspiciously of fish.

2 According to these pages, Hitler called in the services of a team of top Gestapo spies to track down books and other sources of power and evil from across the world so that their secrets could save the Third Reich. Their research and discoveries from all corners of the globe are carefully listed, and include such titles as the ‘Necronomicon’ and ‘Unausprechlichen Kulten’. The pages describe the results of experiments using what was found in these texts, together with some interesting photographs showing the preparations and-occasionally-the results of various magical ‘experiments’.

3 In January 1945, a desperate Hitler sent a team of experimental researchers, ‘Division Hexe’, together with all their materials to a secret location, from where they would continue to develop further eldritch methods of defeating the Allies. According to the text, they departed Germany on a U-boat in late March 1945 and were never heard from again. The documents make it clear that they were well prepared, and that all were not expecting to regain contact with the Reich for many years. Strangely, it appears that no food rations were sent with them, and most of what they did take was in top secret, sealed boxes, some apparently marked with pentagrams and crosses. Where did they go? Why didn’t they need any food? What was in the sealed boxes? Are they still wherever they went? Most importantly, what have they been doing for the last 55 years?

© Rory Naismith

The Grainger Street Plates

A carved doorway on Grainger Street is quite unlike any other. It has a carved column on one side while the other door frame is now part of next-door. Above the door are two mirrors, too high to be of any use. The door is held firmly shut by a large brass latch and padlock; the original door lock is exposed where someone has forced off the wood covering it.

On the door frame are four brass plaques. Two are for companies: a shipping company and an accountancy firm. The third and fourth are strange indeed. On the third plaque is the inscription: Bonny looked at the box on top of the refrigerator. Inside it was a ham. As Bonny’s hand touched it, they began to fuse to form a whole new organ.

The fourth plaque states: Bonny’s hand, Bonny’s organ, Bonny’s dead. Who cares?

Possibilities

1 Behind the doorway, a set of steps leads up to another door. It is carved like the outer one and also has mirrors at the top, but these show the reflection of something. If inspected closely, different faces can be seen in the mirrors, but no reflections.

This door is unlocked. Behind it is a long corridor, stretching much farther than should be possible. The corridor is lined with statues of men and women, all missing one hand. Each is faceless. At the end of the corridor there are empty plinths and a large refrigerator. On top of it is a box and inside there is a ham.

The statues are people who have been lured inside. Their images are trapped in the mirrors and they become statues if the touch the ham.

2 On maps of the Grainger Market, the doorway does not exist. Should they break in, a staircase behind the door leads up into darkness and ends in a blank wall.

The original owner of the market, Anthony Philips, had the rooms sealed off and erased from the plans. A little digging will reveal that there were strange stories about the mysterious disappearance of Anthony’s secretary and eldest daughter.

Anthony Philips was a dabbler in the occult and had learned much whilst in India as a tea merchant. Once home having made his fortune, he continued to search out bizarre books and happenings. His daughter became interested, as did his secretary (his wife was a devout catholic and became alienated from her husband over the matter). The two women agreed to be part of a ritual, but things went wrong. Both daughter and secretary became possessed by some fiendish power and ripped each other to pieces. Philips barely escaped with his life, and sealed everything up himself to hide the awful truth.

Whatever possessed the two women is still trapped behind the brick wall. It cannot escape because the brass plaques are inscribed with powerful wards. The responsibility for maintaining the wards is passed down through the family, generation by generation.

If the investigators check the two plates carefully, they see that one is newer than the other. The first plate was stolen a few years ago, and had to be replaced. The current guardian is another Anthony Philips and he added the reference to a refrigerator (the original mentioned a chest) to include himself in the family legend.

Should the plaques be removed, then the creature will be able to escape its prison and will look for the man who summoned it into the world – Anthony Philips. It does not care that the original Anthony is dead.

3 A local poet is currently having very strange dreams. He is inspired to write bizarre pieces, have them inscribed on brass plaques and put up at various sites around the town. After a week he takes them down and puts them in a new location.

The muse strikes erratically and new plaques appear now and again. The poet is technically insane, but thinks of himself as a tortured genius and of these poems as his greatest work, guaranteeing his immortality.

© Lynne Wilson

Preacher Man

Seemingly from nowhere, a preacher shows up in town, easily noticeable on the street with his filthy black cassock and white collar, living off the charity of passers-by.

Nobody knows where he came from but one day he just started showing up on street corners preaching about the end of the world. It has also been noted that the priest seems to have some obvious mental problems and some very odd ideas about Christianity.

Possibilities

1 Benjamin Corwin used to be a priest until he turned to the worship of the Outer Gods. Becoming a cultist, Corwin decided to try and enlighten the public about the Cthulhu Mythos by simply telling people about it on the street. Corwin has a mystical ability which allows him to plant the seed for mind control in anybody who passes by and makes eye contact with him.

2 The priest was once Benjamin Corwin, an investigator of the supernatural. Corwin became an investigator after one of his practitioners asked for help (which lead to discovering that the next-door neighbour was sacrificing children in his attic to something awful). Since then Corwin has been investigating the occult wherever he can find it.

It was on his last outing that he encountered something so horrific it shattered his sanity and reduced him to a homeless, rambling derelict. In his mad ravings, clues to his final investigation can be discerned by a careful listener.

3 One night the homeless priest is murdered and left dead on the street. It is not long after that more priests start turning up dead, and it appears a serial murderer of holy men is operating in the area.

© Paul Hebron

The Terrible Old Bookshop

The Terrible Old Bookshop is situated on Darker Street. The once green (or perhaps grey) paintwork is peeling, the windows are filthy. Inside, the shelves are stacked high with dusty books, more are in heaps on the floor and in rotting cardboard boxes. It will take several hours of careful searching to realise that there is nothing of interest to investigators. There are, however, plenty of novels by Ethel M Dell and Marie Corelli, school texts on geometry, Latin grammar, and other such.

The proprietor sits on a high stool behind a small counter, bent over a large leather covered volume. He appears to be in his thirties and is strikingly handsome in a Saturnine way. He has a neat goatee beard and if he was an actor he could make a career out of playing the devil.

As strangers approach he hurriedly stuffs his book under the counter. He will answer no questions about the book and will refuse to let investigators see it.

Breaking into the shop is quite easy and is the only way to gain access to the books. Behind the counter are two books, Magna Mysteriis and Mysteriis Mundi. They are handwritten in an unrecognisable script. Also behind the counter is a cupboard with a good, strong, lock.

The proprietor is very furtive when he leaves the shop, taking a devious and tortuous route that doubles back several times. A careful investigator will be able to tail the man until he lets himself into a house on Coven Lane.

Possibilities

1 The two books are written in English using an alphabet of the shopkeepers own devising. Given time, it can be cracked. One is a racy, partially fictitious novel, the other a diary and ideas book. The house on Coven Lane belongs to a married lady who supplies him with practical experience to write his novel.

2 The locked cupboard contains hard-core pornography. The books are ledgers containing accounts and the house on Coven Lane is a place where young children are kept after being abducted. The children are sold to various unsavoury individuals throughout the country. They are never seen again.

3 The books are occult tomes, rare, original copies. The proprietor is compiling several lesser works (kept in the cupboard) into one big volume. The house on Coven Lane is a meeting for a group of black magicians. Currently they are harmless, with only the proprietor knowing of the power of the occult. That might change, in time.

© Peter F Jeffery

Homunculi

It’s a finely crafted chest made of walnut, but of a slightly mean character with four rows of six drawers. The drawers are 1.5 inches square and 3 inches deep and each contains a small clay figure: homunculi, 24 of them.

Possibilities

1 The chest is an Advent calendar, a ghoulish present by a Dr Rant to his sister, for his nieces. The homunculi themselves are carved to look like little people, sleeping in their drawers. Dr Rant promised that his sister would never have to suffer vermin if she accepted his present. Dr Rant’s sister disliked the macabre advent calendar and hid it their roof space, where it was forgotten

Time passed, and the house changed hands, several times. The house developed a peculiar reputation: pets never thrived and would disappear, or grow ill, or die prematurely.

When the roof space was eventually opened as part of building work for an extension, the Advent calendar was found, in perfect condition. Around the chest were hundreds of tiny bones from rats, mice and pigeons

2 The homunculi are crudely fashioned, and made of a mixture of clay, dung and blood: they are golems.

The interior of the chest, behind the drawers, contains a piece of parchment covered in writing. The writing is Latin, and when translated describes instructions for controlling the golems. The golems’ orders must be written inside a pentagram in which one or more golems are placed. A splash of blood and a short incantation complete the instruction.

Once activated, the golems carry out the instruction to the letter – and become inactive the moment they complete their task.

3 Each of the homunculi are extraordinarily detailed, and uncomfortably lifelike. Each one is unique, and dressed in fine robes suitable for 17th century nobleman and women. They appear to be representations of real individuals. Most of them are broken, however, with their heads severed as if by a chisel or knife.

Each homunculus has an eyelet in the top of its head, so that with a length of yarn or thread they can be suspended as if in a grotesque mobile. Four of the homunculi even have ancient thread still attached.

If any of the remaining intact homunculi are suspended, then they swing and spin before settling down into a very specific direction. Every time they are moved, they again swing and spin, before returning to that same direction. It’s always the same direction, as if they are pointing towards something.

The homunculi were commissioned by Mr Gideon Stem, an occultist. The figures represent powerful supernatural individuals. The homunculi, magically tied to the individuals, always turned to face them, and Mr Stem used this property effectively. He tracked and destroyed many of the individuals before removing their heads. He did not finish his task before his enemies caught up with him.

© Steve Hatherley

The Sinne Eater

Morton Blakelock is a tall, dark man in his early thirties. Thin to the point of being underweight, Morton dresses neatly and respectfully in black.

His business card gives his name, business and profession:

Morton Blakelock, H. Blakelock & Sons, Sinne Eaters

Sinne eaters offer a service – they consume the sins of the recently deceased. The practice was at its height in the 16th and 17th centuries, when sinne eaters would attend the funerals of the upper class. In return for a penny or two and a hearty meal provided by the bereaved, they would consume the sins of the deceased, permitting the soul to go to heaven.

Sinne eating requires a salted plate placed over the deceased’s heart. Over a period of 24 hours the salt absorbs the sins of the deceased, and at the end of the ritual the sinne eater consumes the sins by mopping the salt up with damp bread.

In modern times, there are very few sinne eaters left. However, in certain strata of Society their service is still requested.

The Blakelock’s have been sinne eaters since the 1800s. Their exclusive service come at a price.

Possibilities

1 Whether Morton actually consumes the sins of the deceased is open to debate. However, thanks to the circles he moves in, Morton knows many influential families. And he knows many of their secrets.

Morton typically attends seven or eight funerals each year. At times of such distress, inevitably guards are lowered and Morton finds himself privvy to confidential information and family secrets.

Of course, he will never reveal any of it. At least, not while his clients are so generous.

2 Morton’s older brother is now in care in Hampstead following a mental breakdown. Mental illness runs in the Blakelock family, but what Morton doesn’t realise is that the illness is caused by the act of eating sins.

The act, or ritual, of sin eating genuinely does mean that the body of the deceased passes to purgatory without sin. However, the price paid by the sinne eater is that they slowly become tainted by the sins of others, and in due course this can express itself as schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

3 Morton is well known by certain members of London’s Metropolitan Police Service who are prepared to explore unorthodox means to solve particularly tricky crimes. It seems that Morton sometimes knows things that only the deceased would know – and has been instrumental in solving a few particularly difficult cases.

Whether the deceased’s sins are actually transferred, Morton does not know. What does transfer during the ritual, however, are some of the deceased’s memories – and Morton sometimes learns details of crimes and other aspects of the deceased’s life. He is happy to share relevant details to the authorities, provided that his reputation with his clients remains intact.

© Steve Hatherley

The Old Cottage

At the end of an old track, a mile long through dark woods filled with twisted, stunted trees lies a cottage. It’s an old cottage, ruined and overgrown with vegetation. The windows gape open, the door is rotting and ruined. Inside, the cottage is pleasantly unspoiled. The woodwork is in good condition, and there is still even furniture inside.

On top of the old beams, between the joists that hold up the first floor, a small coin-sized artefact can be found. The artefact is silver, and not quite circular. On one side is writing, and on the other is inscribed a five-pointed star inside a six-pointed star on one side.

Possibilities

1     The artefact is a ward of protection - it has protected the cottage from the elements, wildlife and dark forces. As a result, no animal will stay in the cottage and plants wither and die. The ward was created by Zachary Bleach, a nineteenth century occultist and member of the Golden Dawn, who used the cottage as a retreat and haven. Removing the artefact from the cottage destroys the ward.

2     The artefact is an old Moroccan coin that has worn over time. It was placed in the rafters of the cottage by the owners as a lucky charm.

3     The cottage used to belong to Alice Catmint, a white witch whose spirit is bound to the place. When she died, her neighbours tried to remove her body, but when they did the cottage started to immediately decay. So, they returned Alice’s body to the cottage, and put it into the bread-oven in the side of the inglenook fireplace. (A local legend has it that bread baked in the oven brings good luck.)

As for the artefact, it belonged to a stranger who sought shelter from a storm in the cottage. The stranger was Alice’s true love, and she only spent one night with him. Before he left the following morning, she stole a coin from his purse and worked her magic on it. The coin brings good luck to the stranger and his descendants, and it continues to bring good luck to this day. Exposing the coin to moonlight breaks the spell.

© Steve Hatherley