The Freighter

The citizens of a small coastal town in northern Florida quickly mobilize a rescue mission when a derelict freighter runs into trouble at some cliffs, and is in danger of tipping over and go under.

When the rescuers board the freighter, they’re met with a horrible sight: the crew and passengers have been brutally slain.

The only person left alive is an insanely mumbling sailor, drenched in blood and armed with a bloody weapon. Being unable to question the mad sailor about the brutal murders, the local police charge him for the murders and incarcerates him in a mental hospital.

But before long, a series of strange and brutal murders starts to haunt the coastal town.

Possibilities

1 The mad sailor is not the killer. He’s the only survivor of a desperate battle against a being of monstrous nature. The being was brought aboard the ship as part of the cargo - ancient artefacts recovered by an archaeological excavation in East Africa.

When a nosy sailor searched the cargo for some valuable trinkets to steal, he released the monstrous creature. Then the murders started.

Moments before the ship ran afoul of the cliffs, the surviving sailor successfully fought the being to a retreat. Unfortunately his mind was destroyed by the horrible ordeal. The monster fled when the resuers arrived and went into hiding, gathering strength.

Now, at full strength, the monster terrorizes the coastal town.

2 The mad sailor murdered the crew and passengers, but an outside source drove him to do it.

The freighter’s cargo contained rare and expensive lumber - which was also the home of a species of arachnid unknown to science. The arachnids’ bite contains a poison that kills small prey but has a hallucinating effect on humans. The hallucinations drives the bitten person to become highly paranoid, and later, permanently insane.

Once onboard the freighter, it was inevitable that someone would be bitten. That someone then went on to butcher everyone else on board, and is the only survivor.

As the rescuers salvage the cargo of rare lumbar and dangerous arachnids, they unknowingly endanger the coastal town.

3 The mad sailor is not the killer. The real killer is a serpent-man sorcerer who infiltrated the freighter, disguising himself as one of the crew. The sorcerer is after an ancient artefact that the passengers, a team of archaeologists, have brought along with them.

The archaeologists were returning home after an expedition in southern Egypt where they located and excavated an ancient temple of mysterious design. The temple, which was actually a remnant of the serpent-people’s civilization, contained a lone, surviving sorcerer kept alive in hibernation.

As the archaeologists entered the temple, they woke the sorcerer. He watched from the shadows until they left, but when he discovered that they had stolen sacred artefacts, the sorcerer followed the archaeologists to the freighter. The sorcerer’s plan was to kill theoffenders and the crew, and then sail the freighter back to Africa.

Things didn’t go according to plan, and there was a fight. Moments before the ship ran aground, the surviving sailor successfully fought the serpent-man sorcerer to a retreat, despite going insane when he witnessed the sorcerer’s real appearance.

As the rescuers arrives onboard the freighter, the weakened sorcerer fled and went into hiding.

Now, however, he is trying to locate the sacred artefacts that are stored somewhere in the town. Anyone who gets in his way is murdered.

© Tim Deer

New Bugs

At the local university, Doctor York of the biology department is prepared to show the board an incredible discovery he has made. He claims to have discovered a whole new species of insect just this morning!

As he places the large glass case at the table, he dramatically pulls back the covering over it revealing...

Possibilities

1 Hundreds of tiny, scuttling white spider like creatures. They are still tinged red with blood and internal organs.

Josephine Thayer was a student at the University. She was also a powerful dreamer, who wandered into the labyrinth of Eihort. She accepted Eihort’s dread bargain. A week later, she felt her whole body alive with pain. She was trying to get to the medical room, when she stumbled into Dr York’s room. She fell apart into hundreds of tiny white spiders, which York, his mind now broke, scooped up into a specimen case.

2 A strange, blob-like creature.

Dr York is an ambitious but flawed cultist. He is more concerned with making cash than worshipping anything nasty, but he finds an odd invocation to Zathokkwua necessary when he wants to learn how to transmute lead into gold.

His latest experiment was trying to summon a servant creature for himself. He ended up calling on the “Primal Slime” to grant him one of its children. He received a small disgusting blob like creature, which he was very disappointed with. He decided to make some cash by claiming it was a new species of insect and selling it to the university.

It is one of the protozoa like spawn of Ubbo-Sathla. In time, it will grow in size and sprout many tentacle-like appendages. It will then begin to absorb every living thing around it.

3     An empty box.

While Doctor York was having his breakfast this morning, he found a centipede like creature in his melon. Excited, he thought it was an unknown creature, and bundled it into a box to take to the University. When York pulls back the covering, the box is empty.

The centipede is in fact a known poisonous species, and York has somehow unleashed it on the university. It won’t be long before students start to drop dead.

© Paul Hebron

Pest Trouble

An investigator visits an archaeologist of long acquaintance, Professor Andrew Dutton Long, at Long’s small but well-kept home. The yard is groomed, the house clean and neat, but every room is infested with vermin. Spiders and slugs crawl the walls, fleas infest the carpet, and houseflies swarm so thick the investigator can hardly breathe. No neighboring houses have the problem. Long is friendly and seems completely sane, yet oblivious to the vermin. He does not see them, and he casually deflects all comments. “This is a nice neighborhood,” he says as earwigs crawl over his forehead. “No problems here with bugs or the like.”

Possibilities

1 Long has procured or devised a talisman to summon Atlach-Nacha. The talisman does not work, but it has the side effect of attracting vermin. The necessary research into the talisman snapped Long’s sanity. A strongbox in his basement, covered thickly with ants and wasps, holds the talisman.

2 A serpent man, Haus-saris-sith, has killed Long and assumed his identity. The pests have been drawn by the serpent’s repellent heaps of carrion hidden around the house. As the investigator continues speaking with “Long,” Haus-saris-sith extends its illusion to conceal the vermin, then attempts Cloud Memory. If the investigator succumbs, the serpent plants a post-hypnotic suggestion that compels the investigator to learn Mythos spells and convey them to Haus-saris-sith

3 Dholes spread to new worlds from the Dreamlands by implanting larvae in the dream forms of victims. Eating a dreamer from within, the larvae gradually materialize in the dreamer’s waking world. Exploring the Dreamlands, Long was trapped by a dhole and received a single larva; it now grows in his material body. The manifestation attracts vermin as a side effect. Now mad, Long has blocked all memories of his ongoing nightmare, and refuses to perceive the pests. To stop the manifestation, investigators can kill Long and fight the emerging larva, or enter the Dreamlands, locate Long in the Vale of Pnath, and extract the larva before Long’s dream form dies.

© Allen Varney

The Island

The seas of the Dreamlands are not as well charted as some would like. The eastern reaches of the Cerenian Sea are infrequently travelled and only vaguely mapped. Sailors avoid these areas, they are filled with horrors that sane men would rather avoid. However, fate sometimes lends a hand and storms whip up from clear skies to blow a ship a long way from home.

Any ship is vulnerable to these storms, all the crew can do is try to hold on and survive until it blows itself out. (Many vanish, sent to the bottom of the sea never to be seen again.) They can then try to find a suitable port for repairs.

The players are on one such ship. They are lucky and do not sink, catching only the edge of the storm. Once the skies have cleared it is obvious that the ship requires extensive work before any major voyage can be undertaken. Worse, most of the supplies have been ruined. If something is not done soon, they will all starve.

Sails in tatters and at the mercy of the currents they drift slowly towards a mist shrouded island. Dark mountains peep cautiously above the mists but the rest is hidden. However, all does not bode well, the shallows around the island are littered with the deserted hulks of other ships.

The hulks provide raw materials for the repairs, but a boat will have to put ashore to search for food and water.

Possibilities

1 This is the Island of the Cloudbeasts. In deep vents high up the sides of one of the mountains Cloudbeasts are born. The young beasts float gently out of the vents and into the swirling mass of other Cloudbeasts that make up the mists that shroud the island.

There are few legends concerning the Island of the Cloudbeasts, but all mention the great treasures that can be found in a temple hidden somewhere on the island. However, the Cloudbeasts guard their treasures well and do not take kindly to thieves.

2 The mist is not mist at all, it is web. The island is home to millions of spiders. Most are tiny, but some are true giants. They spin their web everywhere and dominate the island. The spiders have consumed every other living thing on the island except the plants. They survive by feeding upon one another, but would rather take fleshier prey.

3 They island is a verdant paradise. There is plenty of water and food to be found in the rich forest that coat the mountainous island.

© Steve Hatherley

The Spider Man

He is their least favourite patient. Everybody, even arachnophiles, find the presence of so many spiders disturbing. They are everywhere in the barren room: on the floor, walls and ceiling. They infest his bed, scamper across his clothes, and stalk through his hair.

They are ignored by the patient, known to the staff of the Seaview Home for the Insane as ‘the spider-man’. He sits on his chair, head cocked to one side, staring blankly at nothing. He does not speak and needs to be hand-fed, not a popular task among the staff.

The spiders have defeated all attempts to shift them. Steely nerved cleaners used to periodically clean the room, but each time they were back within a week. Now they just don’t bother. Besides, the spider-man does not seem to mind.

Possibilities

1 Blown off course by a severe storm, the crew of a capsized tramp steamer found themselves cast on a pacific island inhabited by natives belonging to a spider cult.

In the months that followed, those that weren’t killed lost their minds. Eventually, the cult elected one of the crew to godhood, sacred for the rest of eternity. They cast him adrift in the lifeboat to take the word to the masses, quite unaware that his mind was utterly blank.

The man was picked up by a warship, pronounced insane, and committed to Seaview. There he has attracted the attention of the local spider population. He is their god, and they like being around him.

2 The spider-man is host to the Children of Anansi, huge spiders with horrible faces. In a nightmare, he stumbled across Anansi, the spider god, who happily took the opportunity to inject its young into a suitable host.

He awoke in screaming terror. If it was only a dream, why did he hurt so? Then he saw the neat puncture marks in his abdomen, and felt their presence. It shattered his mind.

Now the spiders are waiting for the joyous day when Anansi’s brood will hatch from his rich flesh. For beneath the spider-man’s tender skin they slowly mature, soon to hatch.

3 The spiders are all one species. The spider-man has been cross-breeding them. His listless, blank periods are interspersed with activity when he is permitted to go into the gardens and catch spiders for his room. There he is breeding a new species.

© Steve Hatherley

The Tattoo

You don't know how long it has been there, but a friend points it out. In the small of your back, on your left side, near your kidneys. A tattoo of a jewelled spider. It is quite exquisite, quite unusual, oddly evil - and a complete mystery. How on earth did it get there?

The design is surprisingly lifelike - except that you are certain that no spider ever looked quite so malevolent. Tattooists who see it are impressed - the design has a richness of texture and colour that they have never been able to achieve.

Yet the question remains. You have never had a tattoo in your life. So where in hell did this come from?

Possibilities

1  Three weeks later and there's a second tattoo, on the sole of your foot. This time it is a reddish ball, which appears to glow eerily.

Then you begin to feel increasingly tired. You have difficulty waking in the morning, and begin to look drawn and haggard. As the weeks pass you become weaker, and fall prey to the weakest of germs. Coughs and cold cripple you; you are quite sick.

All this time, the spider tattoo never moves, never changes. The same cannot be said for the ball. It swells and grows to the size of a large coin. It becomes oddly translucent, and smaller spidery shapes can be seen inside. It is an egg sac.

Then you wake one morning feeling fresher and brighter than in ages. The sac tattoo has gone, but in its place are dozen of tiny spider tattoos, covering your skin. And three days later they are also gone - as has the larger spider, their mother. They are never seen again.

2  Over a period of time, the tattoo seems to get smaller. In fact, if you measure it, you learn that it is getting smaller. Then one night, it has gone.

Two days later, it reappears - but on a different part of your body. It is bigger, bloated. And again, over a period of several weeks it shrinks, growing smaller until once more it vanishes. Only to reappear.

This cycle is repeated over and over. Each time the tattoo returns, bloated, corpulent and somehow sated. As if it has fed from something. Or someone . . .

3  The tattoo is the mark of the spider-god. Spiders from all around come to be near their god. Your house slowly becomes infested with spiders. They are everywhere, as are their cobwebs. (There is not an insect to be seen, naturally.)

Wherever you goes, spiders are drawn to you. They climb through your clothes, hide in your hair, scamper across your skin.

They simply like being with you, near you.

© Steve Hatherley