I ssue 21, J uly 2012

Contents W R ITE RS: Richard A. Becker, Chase Beck, Brennan Bishop, Adam Gauntlett,
Adam Scott Glancy, Shane Ivey, Bret Kramer, Jason Morningstar, Matthew
Pook, Brian Sammons, Greg Stolze and Graham Walmsley.

Columns Illustr ators: Vicente Silvera Catalá, Robert Mansperger Jr., Bradley
McDevitt, Jason Morningstar, Brennen Reece and Todd Shearer. Cover art by
The Dread Page of A zathoth 2
Todd Shearer.
The Eye of L ight and Darkness 7
Directives from A-Cell 58 A R T D I R ECTOR : Dennis Detwiller.

Tale of T e r ror PAGE DESIGN E RS: Jessica Hopkins and Shane Ivey.

The Mock Auction 20 E D ITORS: Adam Crossingham, Dan Harms, Shane Ivey, Greg Stolze and
John Scott Tynes.
Myster ious Man uscr i pts
FOU N D I NG E D ITOR : John Scott Tynes.
Saucer Attack 1928! 4
Engines Underground 16 E D ITOR- I N- CH I E F: Shane Ivey.
Ein Konto der Hexeraserei im L indheim 18
E D ITOR IAL BOAR D : Brian Appleton, Monte Cook, Adam Crossingham,
Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Dan Harms, Kenneth Hite, Shane Ivey,
Arcan e Arti fact Greg Stolze, John Scott Tynes and Ray Winninger.
Das Teufelherz 19
Playtesters: Brennan Bishop with Alex Gaiger and Lyndsey Holder;
Erik Cebrian with Rhonda Van Buskirk, Adam Popovich, JR Riegel and Sky
Scenar ios Sithbunkerd; Samuel Graebner with Matt Campen, Charlie Olmstead and
Bradley Woods; Liam Jones with Glenn Bellam, Brady Hammond and Andrew
Sukakpak 9 Millar; Christian Kelly; H. Schindler with Martin Bernhard, Alex Lang
Unaussprechlichen K lutzen 21 and Simon Neuner; Ralph Shelton with Brian Covey, Paolo Raden and Jeff
The M an With a Thousand Faces 28 Davidson; The Veterans of a Thousand Midnights; and Phil Ward with Giles
Hill, Lisa Middleton Hill and Tony Mansfield.

Message In a Bottle COPY R IGHT: All contents are © 2012 by their respective creators. The Yellow
She H ad Everything 68 Sign design is © Kevin Ross and is used by permission. Call of Cthulhu is a
trademark of Chaosium Inc. for their roleplaying game of horror and wonder
and is used by their kind permission. Trail of Cthulhu is a trademark of Pelgrane
Our Sponsors- Obey Them! Press Ltd. The Unspeakable Oath is a trademark of Pagan Publishing for its
magazine of horror roleplaying. The Unspeakable Oath is published four times per
Chaosium 6 year by Arc Dream Publishing under license from Pagan Publishing.
Innsmouth F ree P ress 13
Miskatonic River P ress 31 SUBM ISSIONS: We want your fears. Submission guidelines are at our website.
H.P. L ovecraft F ilm F estival 42
Atlas G ames 45
POD CAST: “Unspeakable!” In-depth interviews and hours of actual play to rot
your brains from the inside out. Subscribe at iTunes or listen online.
NecronomiC on 2013 53
Pagan P ublishing 60 CON TACT: Arc Dream Publishing, 12215 Highway 11, Chelsea, AL 35043,
USA; shane.ivey@gmail.com; www.theunspeakableoath.com.
 The Dread Page of Azathoth
B y S hane I vey

What’s a year? hurt he couldn’t even drink water for several days, but
the vet said the injuries were recoverable. I spent a week
It’s a long wait, sure. The Unspeakable Oath 20 was new or two—or ten, or a hundred; you know how time is in a
at GenCon 2011 and here’s Oath 21, new at GenCon crisis—caring for him nonstop, giving fluids from an IV
2012. In between, the world keeps spinning and our bag and painkillers by injection. Then he came around.
friends around the world keep making great things He has a giant scar on one side but he’s as strong and
for Lovecraftian gaming. We’ve heard details about happy as ever.
the upcoming Seventh Edition of Call of Cthulhu—see
theunspeakableoath.com for my notes on that. We’ve seen Like I said, we’re lucky.
Pagan Publishing’s classics Delta Green and Delta Green:
Countdown reappear at long last and become available But in times like that it’s not easy to work for the sheer
for the first time in PDF. We’ve kept playing and kept love of it. You feel guilty. You feel like you’re indulging
enjoying the exhiliration and humor and chills of horror in a luxury you can’t afford. That’s always been the case
gaming. with Arc Dream and, since we took it over, the Oath. It’s
hard work, years of work, done purely for love.
What’s a year? It’s an eyeblink and an eternity. Especially
for a small press like Arc Dream Publishing, where That’s why the Oath went quiet for a year. And that’s what
there’s never enough money to call it a real job. A year’s brought the Oath back.
enough time to drive home the seriousness of health
scares and the uncertainty of keeping good work. My Not long ago I read a book by Sebastian Junger called
wife suffered an at-home injury that made it iffy for War, a tie-in to his documentary Restrepo. War was based
months whether she’d be able to go back to work in law on a year’s work by Junger and photographer Tim
enforcement. I found out my day job (night job, really, Hetherington—who died in the field not long after it
but it’s the one that helped pay the rent) was coming to came out—a year they spent with a platoon of U.S.
an end as the state’s largest newspaper fired more than soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. These were men who
half its newsroom. Looking down double barrels of faced death and dismemberment but were heartbroken
unemployment makes time stretch and compress in weird and lost when they had to leave it behind and go home.
ways. In war, as Junger saw it, the thing that explains soldiers’
impossible courage is devotion to their comrades. It’s
We’re lucky. She recovered and kept her job. I didn’t keep love—a kind of love you don’t often find anywhere else.
mine, but I have freelance work and my little publishing
company to absorb my energies and help keep the lights I think Call of Cthulhu’s Investigators would understand.
on. Compare that to humanity at large and we’re far Why else are they out there, putting life and sanity on the
luckier than most. line to fight evil that can never really be defeated? Why
else stand by companions who are surely doomed? Why
Did I mention our dog got run over? He was so badly else choose to confront threats that merely want to be left

2
alone to do their little evils? Why else chase the cult into one whose sole purpose is to go mad or die gruesomely for
the swamp and stand firm when the inhuman thing with your friends’ enjoyment. That connection doesn’t happen
pale, glowing eyes lifts itself into the night? What else often, at least in most games that I’ve seen. But when it
moves any of us to do anything really worthwhile? does happen, that’s the heart of the game. That’s the stuff
that makes a role-playing game deep.
Not that many of us play Investigators so deeply. The
point of the game is to put them into horrific situations A little more than a year ago, a couple of issues back,
and laugh like fiends as their Sanity and hit points drain I wrote on this same theme. I can’t help retreading the
away. We’re not here to explore their motivations! We same ground. It’s a theme that matters. It might be the
gloss over all that method-acting nonsense. In most Call only theme that really matters, even though it’s one that
of Cthulhu games, the characters act like sociopaths every rarely sullied Lovecraft’s typewriter. I said back then that
time they can get away with it. They’re always ready with the key to making Call of Cthulhu frightening is to figure
torture or a tommygun, and no wonder. That kind of out why you care about your character. Well, this is a
violent power is cathartic, and it makes the contrast even shortcut. Why is your character ready to die in madness
funnier when they have to drop all the firepower and go and tears for the sake of friends or even strangers?
running in terror. Where’s the love in that? Discover that and you’ll almost certainly find something
worth caring about.
It’s worth finding out. There’s nothing quite like feeling a
genuinely emotional connection, even for just a moment, Moments like that keep the Oath alive—even when
with a character who’s completely made-up. Let alone another frightening year has gone by.

Issue 21 3
 Mysterious manuscript:
Saucer Attack 1928!:
The Dunwich 'Horror'
B y B ret K ramer
Thorough R eading
Saucer Attack 1928!: The Dunwich “Horror” was written by
Heath Berger and published in 1960 by Vast Cosmos According to Berger, the events of the “Dunwich Horror”
Books. It’s an A-format paperback (4 1/3” x 7”) in cheap were a series of calculated attacks by an unknown alien
newsprint, about 200 pages. The amateurish cover painting race (or races) against an isolated human settlement with
shows a glowing green flying saucer destroying a barn the purpose of testing local, state, and federal government
with a bolt of lightning; in the foreground a policeman is reaction.
disintegrated by a similar bolt. Title and author are given
on the cover and the spine. The work is poorly edited and Berger presents an eclectic body of anecdotal evidence for
contains frequent typographical errors and lacks source earlier alien visitors in the region, drawing on Penacook
citations. and Abenaki myths regarding “Winged Ones” (flying
spirits), standing stones (modeled on Stonehenge, “a
Saucer Attack 1928! can be found second-hand with a Luck well-known saucer landing site”) frequently adorned with
roll and 1D4–1 days of searching, or immediately (perhaps unknown symbols, reports of weird lights and noises, and
at an online bookseller) if the Luck roll is a special success. numerous missing persons.
Anyone with an exceptional interest in UFOlogy who
makes a Luck roll may, at the Keeper’s discretion, already The author then presents a chronological breakdown of
own it. the events of the “Horror,” beginning in early September
with a barn collapse and cattle mutilation reports,
through to the destruction of the Frye family farm and the
Skimming deaths of five Massachusetts State Police officers. Berger
cites multiple interviews with unnamed “eye-witnesses”
This work claims to reinterpret the events of the so-called including Dunwich residents and a Professor Armitage
“Dunwich Horror” of 1928, a series of deaths and accidents connected to Miskatonic University.
near the village of Dunwich, Massachusetts. The author,
self-described “Leading Saucer Phenomena Expert” Berger reports further mysterious disappearances, weird
Heath Berger, claims that the “Horror” was actually a lights, and sounds from the hills after the “Horror,” as well
coordinated attack by alien beings in preparation for a as an eerie “white humanoid” spotted near Cold Springs
future invasion—and that the U.S. government, in order Glen, epicenter of the attacks. In the years afterwards the
to prevent panic, actively conspired to conceal the events village, already in decline, was disincorporated and the
of the “Horror.” The work concludes by connecting the area taken over by neighboring towns, much of it being
“Horror” to contemporary UFO encounters, suggesting the purchased by the state in creating Bishop State Park.
final invasion is drawing near. Berger regards this as proof of official collusion in the
coverup.

“No remains were ever located save fragements of The final section of the book compares the events of the
human teeth and bones. There are two possibilities “Horror” to the Hopkinsville Goblins, the Flatwoods
here. Either the aliens used atomic disintegrator rays Monster, the Roswell crash, and a host of lesser known
or they used a matter transmission beam, causing the close encounters. He argues the increasing frequency of
annihilation of Elmer Frye and his clan on Earth only contact between humans and aliens is clear proof that the
to reassemble them elsewhere!” attacks begun in 1928 (if not earlier) are only increasing,
suggesting that the time for invasion is close at hand.

4
 R esearch “It is clear then that what Reverend Hoadely observed
was not the ‘voluble disturbations wrought by
A single Library Use roll provides a short summary of the demonick forces’ but instead the sounds wrought
so-called “Dunwich Horror” of the summer and fall of by the mechanism of the alien outpost, perhaps
1928, a hoax perpetrated by an Aylesbury, Massachusetts excavating saucer hangars and laboratories. Note
newspaper man who alleged it was caused by an “invisible that Dunwich lacks the limestone karst traditionally
elephant.” A series of several moonshine still explosions, associated with cave formation yet there are
wild dog attacks on cattle, and the accidental deaths of several caves noted on the 1919 Geological Survey.
several state patrol officers were misinterpreted by locals Might these not be of unnatural formation? Large
as a supernatural event. The reporter sold the story as a subterranean structures would account for the
piece of “hillbilly humor” to the Associated Press, who magnetic anomalies reported in the region.”
distributed it more widely. It is viewed as a precursor to the
panic associated with Orson Welles’ 1938 War of the Worlds
broadcast.

The basic details of the “Horror” as presented by Berger

can be confirmed with additional research. Curiously, while
Statistics
Berger’s conclusions about alien attack are clearly off-base, Saucer Attack 1928!: The Dunwich “Horror”—
his underlying questioning of the official account of the in English. Requires three days to read and study. No
“Horror” is much harder to dismiss. His basic research Sanity cost to read this work and no Cthulhu Mythos skill
showing the Dunwich area to be unusual (to say the least), gained; however, if additional research validates Berger’s
and the catalog of disappearances, weird phenomena, and underlying claims they are worth +1 Cthulhu Mythos and
the holes in Dr. Armitage’s account are very solid. 1/1D3 SAN loss; Occult +4. Spells: none.

Some information on Berger himself can be uncovered

with a separate Library Use roll. Heath Berger, born
Hiram Berkowitz (1924-1971), was an American writer
Using 'Saucer Attack 1928!'
of pulp fiction. Forgotten by all but the most well-read
aficionados of the genre, he is considered at best a prolific
In Your Campaign
but ultimately derivative author. In a modern game Saucer Attack 1928! could be the spur for
an investigation into the events of the Dunwich Horror,
either by the Investigators or by an NPC. Keepers might
make use of this work as an imperfect source of information
about the Dunwich Horror. Alternately it might be a curio
uncovered among the effects of an NPC with an interest in
UFOlogy or the paranormal. Finally, it might be used to
torture players familiar with Lovecraft’s fiction, especially
if the work is discovered and examined by one who is
unfamiliar with the stories.

“Armitage claims that the ‘Horror’ was noting

but mass hysteria. Why then take a sabbatical
afterwards? What of his government ties? Why had
the late Wilbur Whately—known for his curious walk
and his remarkable height; the same man whose own
grandfather bought many head of cattle which were
never seen again, and was said to haunt the very
stone-topped mountains discussed previously—why
had he called upon this ‘innocent’ academic just
before the ‘Horror’ began? Was it to warn him? Was
Armitage the government’s alien liaison?”
CATALÁ

Issue 21 5
the Eye of Light & Darkness B y various cultists

Reviewed items are rated on a scale of one to ten

phobias:
1-3: Not worth purchasing.

At the Mountains of
4-6: An average item with notable flaws;
at 6 it’s worth buying.

Madness 7-10: Degrees of excellence.

S tory by H.P. L ovecraft, adaptation and
illustration by I.N.J. C ulbard
P ublished by S elf M ade H ero
R eviewed by C hase W. B eck

“At the Mountains of Madness” stands out among H.P. The artwork is enjoyable. Culbard’s representations of
Lovecraft’s stories. It has that classic Lovecraftian feel, people are quite stylized, bringing to mind Hergé’s “The
but it departs significantly from many of his standard Adventures of Tintin” or Gray’s “Little Orphan Annie.”
practices. For instance, Lovecraft swaps New England The character designs are simple but easily distinguished
for the harsh and forbidding ice continent of Antarctica. from one another. The style is appropriate and certainly
Lovecraft tied the isolation and frigid desolation brings to mind the 1930s era in which the story is set.
deeply into the heart of his story. He fed upon personal Culbard sometimes uses texture to add another layer of
experiences and fears that had little to do with the depth to the illustrations. This serves many purposes,
Antarctic to create a deep sense of penetrating coldness often relating a sense of blowing snow, gale-force wind,
and cosmic horror. His attention to detail and use of or towering oppressiveness. Spectacular architectural
then-modern tools and vehicles of scientific exploration depictions evoke the other-worldly and cyclopean.
make this story a delightful, if somewhat deliberate read.
While not his last work, coming towards the end of his Culbard brings a fascinating visual style to Lovecraft’s
career it ref lects the knowledge and talent acquired story. He manages to bookend the story in a fascinating
in years of writing. “At the Mountains of Madness” manner and I appreciated the artwork and his story-
is a tremendous accomplishment and perhaps the telling aesthetic as well.
culmination of Lovecraft’s work.
At the Mountains of Madness, adapted by I.N.J. Culbard,
I.N.J. Culbard must have kept all of this in mind when gets 9 out of 10 phobias.
he set out to create a comic book adaptation of this tale.
The fact that Culbard manages to effectively honor
Lovecraft’s work in this adaptation is similarly amazing.
Unlike other, more popular, classic works, “Mountains”
has no other illustrated adaptations. While readings
and audio dramatizations exist, the many fantastic
Die Farbe
D irected by H uan V u
descriptions of horrific vistas, grisly autopsies and an
R eviewed by B rian M. S ammons
alien megalopolis make a visual adaptation distressingly
difficult.

For those unfamiliar with the story, “Mountains” relates

the events surrounding the ill-fated Starkweather-Moore
Expedition. The narrative draws upon then-widely Just in case you don’t “Sprechen sie Deutsche,” the title
publicized Antarctic expeditions, namely Scott’s Terra of this independent, feature-length film translates as The
Nova Expedition and Shackleton’s hardships faced Colour. Can you guess what HPL story it is based on?
during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. That’s right, it’s “The Outsider.” Ha, just kidding, it’s
Lovecraft’s own personal favorite of his stories, “The
Colour Out of Space.” It’s the most filmed of any of H.P.

Issue 21 7
 Lovecraft’s tales. What, you don’t believe that? There does the acting, and the direction is more than competent.
was 1965’s Die Monster Die starring Boris “don’t call me That is not to say the movie is completely without foibles.
Frankenstein” Karloff. Then 1987 saw The Curse staring Some of the German actors playing Americans don’t
Wil “don’t call me Wesley” Wheaton. Recently we got an hide their accent well, and there was one shot that baffled
Italian version called Colour from the Dark, which I reviewed me. It had two characters talking in front of a painfully
in TUO 18. Now we get this German import. So how does obvious green-screened background. The backdrop wasn’t
it compare to all those other “Colour” flicks? some strange alien vista that needed technical wizardry
to pull it off. No, it was a library. After the World War
Simply put, it blows them all away. Two, Germany was in short supply of old-timey-looking
libraries, so I understand the need for the green-screening.
To be sure, some of those other films had their bright spots. I just wish it weren’t so noticeable. Thankfully the rest of
Even the pretty crappy Wil Wheaton one had a few good the movie is shot on real sets, or if they are not, the special
moments, and I enjoyed Colour from the Dark quite a lot. effects are handled much better so as not to be so glaring.
But this is easily the most faithful adaption of Lovecraft’s
“Colour” ever put to film. In fact, it’s one of the best Bad accents and bad CGI backdrops are minor
Lovecraftian films ever made. complaints, really. If that’s all I can point to as faults with
this film then that says volumes for its overall quality.
Writer-director Huan Vu transferred the story almost
scene for scene from HPL’s original to the screen. For all Die Farbe is an exceptionally Lovecraftian film and a
the people who say Lovecraft doesn’t translate well into cinematic treat for Mythos fans and for those new to the
film, they need to sit down, shut up, and watch how it can cosmic horror of HPL. I cannot recommend it highly
be done right. enough. I urge you to get this movie, not only because it’s
a great film, but also to support independent filmmakers
Before we really get into it, a quick warning: About 75% who dare to bring Lovecraft’s horror to the movie masses.
of this movie is in German with subtitles. No surprise You can order a copy from the cultists over at the H.P.
there, since it was made in Germany. The surprising thing Lovecraft Historical Society (www.cthulhulives.org). This
was how much of the film was in English. Why was there film gets nine phobias out of ten.
English in a German flick?

Well, one of the few ways this movie deviates from the
original story is setting and time. Here we get a young
American named Jonathan who goes looking for his
missing father, who was last seen in Germany as an army
The Poisoner's Handbook
B y D eborah B lum
medic after World War Two. Traveling to the small, P ublished by P enguin
wooded farming community where his dad disappeared, R eviewed by G reg S tolze
Jonathan meets an old farmer who witnessed the slow
destruction of his friends and neighbors, a family called the
Gardners, or in this case the Gärteners. He also has a tale
to tell about Jonathan’s long-lost father.
The Poisoner’s Handbook concerns itself with an essential
What follows is pretty much a word-for-word retelling of human question: “If I put this in my mouth, will I die in
HPL’s tale of a cosmic entity coming to Earth inside a a froth of bloody spittle?” I got this book because I enjoy
strange meteor. The extraterrestrial rock comes down near reading about the horrible ways people die, but it did not
the Gärteners’ farm and an alien life form, which only take long to realize its value for anyone with a Mythos
can be described as an indescribable color, permeates a game set in 1920s-30s America.
farmstead causing untold weirdness over the course of a
year. No quick, wham-bam scares here; this is creeping, Blum tells the story of New York City’s’ first medical
inescapable dread at its finest. Vegetables grow huge but examiner, a man named Charles Norris. (There’s no
are rotten, trees sway when there is no wind, and one by evidence he ever went by “Chuck.”) Appointed in 1918
one the Gärteners begin to feel the direct effects of the vile after a scandal involving a drunken Tammany Hall
color. The family members go mad, they feel sick, and then coroner, Norris threw himself into the task of dealing
. . . well, I won’t tell you what happens next, but if you’ve with New York City’s many dead folks scientifically.
read the story then you know. This movie does a great (Previously, the politically-appointed coroners mostly
job of showing the final horrors that befall the blighted looked for ways to make a buck.)
farmers.
At the risk of cross-genre hyperbole, Charles Norris is
The whole film is well-photographed in black and white. basically Batman. Though his parents didn’t die in a
The special effects range from passable to very good, as squall of bullets (so far as we know) he was a wealthy

< CONTINU ED on pag e 6 1 >

8
 Sukakpak
T h u s s a i t h t h e LO R D o f h o s t s ,
B e h old , e v i l s h a ll g o f ort h f ro m
n at i o n to n at i o n , a n d a g r e at
w h i rl w i n d s h a ll b e r a i s e d u p
f ro m t h e c o a s t s o f t h e e a rt h .
—J e r e m i a h 2 5 : 3 2

U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

BY J ASON MORN I NGS TAR

I l l u s t r at e d by Br e n n e n R e ec e

Issue 21
 Sukakpak thousands of feet in the air. It’s dark, featureless, somehow
implacable.

Spring, well north of the arctic circle. 1975. A small

surveying camp sits just south of the Middle Fork of the
Koyukuk and Bettles river confluence, among dense forests
The Investigators
of spindly spruce trees. Above it, the ramplike prow of Since there has been a workplace fatality, officials are
Sukakpak mountain dominates. It is a striking, curious and being flown in to collect the body and investigate. These
isolated peak south of the Brooks range. are the player’s characters; let them each choose a role and
flesh it out a bit.
Sukakpak mountain is in Pipeline Section Five, a piece
of the massive trans-Alaskan pipeline project managed
by a conglomerate known as Arctic Constructors. Arctic R equ i r ed R oles
Constructors is a joint venture of industrial powerhouses
Brown & Root, Ingram, Peter Kiewit Sons, Williams A pilot (who may also be the state trooper).
Brothers Alaska, and the H.B. Zachry. This stretch of
wilderness that will eventually become Mile Marker 204 An Alaska state trooper, to investi-
on the soon-to-be-built North Slope Haul Road. It will gate and recover the body.
hug the eastern slope of Sukakpak mountain and cross
the Bettles river, avoiding a difficult crossing of the wide, A representative of Arctic Constructors, to investi-
treacherous Koyukon. A survey team is re-flagging the gate and make sure the survey is completed on time.
original pipeline route that was flagged in ’71. There is
great urgency, as construction of the North Slope Haul
Road has already begun and will reach Atigun pass in less P ossible add itional passenge rs
than a month. The route must be clearly marked.
This adventure works great with only two or three
And now a man has died. Investigators, but if you have more, here are some roles for
them.

GM's Note An aggressive new survey leader to replace Kennedy

Sukakpak is an atmospheric one-shot adventure created A clueless and unprepared federal OSHA safety inspector
using the technique outlined in Graham Walmsley’s book
Stealing Cthulhu. It is designed to be as bleak and mysterious A doctor hastily enlisted as a medical examiner
as Lovecraft’s stories. The forces that will confront the
Investigators cannot be understood or defeated, only— A second state trooper.
perhaps—accommodated. You have tremendous latitude in
presentation and resolution, but keep these facts in mind.
T h r ee Q u estions

Opening Shot Once they have chosen their roles, ask each player three
questions.
Before defining the situation or characters, offer this
image, viewed through scratched plexiglass windows, What is the Investigator’s relationship to the wilder-
over the roar of the Cessna 206 floatplane’s engine one ness. What do they want most in the world, and where
thousand feet up: do they see that in nature? What would make their life
complete? Do they crave isolation, knowledge, resolu-
Endless, fucking endless, spruce forest in three directions, tion? What does the wilderness provide for their spirit?
with the massive wall of the Brooks range abruptly
stopping its progress to the north, like a sea wall against What is it about the wilderness that frightens, unnerves
the brownish-green. Forest as far as the eye can see, from or intimidates the player? Wild animals? Helplessness?
Unpredictable weather? A phobia or traumatic event?

Who are your Investigator’s family and close per-

Trail of Cthulhu is a trademark of Pelgrane Press Ltd. sonal connections? Who do they love and care about?
Trail of Cthulhu is published under an arrangement Do they have dependents? Of course they do.
with Chaosium Inc.
Make a note of their answers and use them later.

10
 gloom is palpable in the air. Everything is falling down,
F ly i ng I n dirty and taped together. Spruce trees crowd in on all
sides. Mt. Sukakpak looms over everything, a dark grey
The Cessna has six seats. It has a shotgun aboard as a hump rising to the east. The mosquitoes and biting flies
general precaution against bears. A state trooper will have are ferocious and maddening. Nights are bone-chillingly
both a personal sidearm and a shotgun. Everyone will cold, days are wet and sloppy. A smoky fire burns at all
have basic camping equipment in case they must spend the times to keep them at bay.
night.
The survey team has a pair of shotguns as protection
The adventure begins as they land in the Koyukon river against brown bears whenever they leave the
and tie up to the eastern bank. No one is there to greet campsite. One of the weapons is currently missing—it
them. was with Scott when he died. They also have
a battery-powered radio that can reach as far
as Coldfoot, sometimes as far as Fairbanks. Sometimes
Camp 204 nowhere.

The camp consists of a pair of battered waxed cotton tents They are making almost no progress—half a mile a day,
and a rain tarp that covers their surveying equipment, way behind schedule. Even then, the surveying work is
clustered haphazardly around a fire ring. A dispirited occasionally torn up behind them and must be redone.

Dark Symbols
These symbols show how to use rules from Cthulhu Dark or other RPGs. They appear throughout the scenario and the
text to which they refer is italicized. They are guides only: You can ignore symbols or call for rolls where there is none.

This is a clue. Use a skill to do this.

You must investigate to discover it.  In Cthulhu Dark, make a roll.

 In Call of Cthulhu, make a skill roll.
 In Cthulhu Dark, make a roll.  In Trail of Cthulhu, spend a point.
 In Call of Cthulhu, make a skill roll.  In Nemesis, make a skill roll.
 In Trail of Cthulhu, spend an ability point.
 In Nemesis, make a skill roll. This may damage your character’s sanity.

Decide which skill is appropriate. Alternatively, the Use the number of branches, on the symbol, as a guide
Keeper may reveal the clue without a roll. to how bad the damage might be. (This symbol has six
branches).
You must talk to someone to reveal this clue.
 In Cthulhu Dark, make an Insanity roll.
 In Cthulhu Dark, make a roll.  In Call of Cthulhu, make a SAN roll. The num-
 In Call of Cthulhu, make a skill roll. ber of branches shows the die size for SAN
 In Trail of Cthulhu, spend an ability point. loss: This symbols indicates D6 SAN loss.
 In Nemesis, make a skill roll.  In Trail of Cthulhu, make a Stability Check. The
number of branches shows the potential Sta-
Again, decide which skill is appropriate: usually a social bility loss: this symbol indicates 6 points.
(e.g. Bargain) or academic (e.g. Architecture). one. The  In Nemesis, make a Sanity roll on an appropriate gauge.
Keeper, again, may simply reveal the clue. The number of branches indicates the Intensity.

Check to see whether you notice this. You might fight this thing.

 In Cthulhu Dark, make a roll. In Cthulhu Dark, run or die. In other systems, use the
 In Call of Cthulhu, roll Spot Hidden. combat rules, making up stats if you need to.
 In Trail of Cthulhu, roll Sense Trouble.
 In Nemesis, make an appropriate Sense roll.

Issue 21 11
 The Survey Team Radiate anxiety.

If Antal were an animal, he’d be a rat.

A four-man team was sent by Arctic Constructors to
re-mark the route of the pipeline. All the stakes, flags
and markers have been torn out of the ground, either by The Body
animals or weather. The route is too remote and difficult
for malicious persons to be responsible. It is, quite literally, William “Bill” Scott, a general laborer, was the team’s
in the middle of nowhere. The team consists of: unofficial tree-feller and pathfinder. Well liked and hard-
working, he died under mysterious circumstances two
days ago. Scott was found in the forest a quarter mile from
C h i ef S u rv eyor R ay K en n edy camp near the Koyukon. He’d wandered away from camp
during a storm and when they found him in the
Kennedy is a man deeply unsuited for wilderness work. morning, after a night of terrified searching, he
He is currently scared and miserable. Kennedy is quite was bent in half beneath a quaking aspen, face up in a
prepared to pack it in and admit defeat. He is dispirited lowbush cranberry bog.
and knows he’s failed. He’s also deeply frightened by the
death and his experiences around Sukakpak mountain. To Currently he is wrapped in a tarp at camp. They have
play Kennedy: posted a 24 hour guard—the alternative was to hang him
in a tree to prevent a brown bear from eating his corpse.
Be slow, indirect, and avoid eye contact.
His body is broken and mottled with peat bog dirt,
Sigh and rub your eyes. his clothes discolored by tannin. Aspen leaves remain
plastered to his skin, which bears the evidence of having
If Kennedy were an animal, he’d be a horse. fallen from a great height. Bones are snapped. He’s missing
a boot.

A ssistan t S u rv eyor M i ke R av ello Medically speaking, Scott has thoracic and lumbar spine
fractures, with the thoracolumbar junction essentially
Ravello has reluctantly adopted the leadership role. He pulverized, allowing the body to bend unnaturally above
is a competent surveyor, comfortable in the wilderness, the waist. Both lower limbs are broken, femur on right
and a little disgusted at the disappointing situation he’s and tibia, fibula, os calcis and ankle joint on left. His left
found himself in. Ravello’s opinion is that Kennedy is distal radius and elbow are fractured; severe laterally
incompetent and Antal is a worthless, lazy bastard. If symmetrical bruising appears on both upper arms and
given command and competent help, he promises to push shoulders. There is unpleasant evidence of catastrophic
the survey through in a few weeks. To play Ravello: blunt abdominal trauma.

Be very direct in voice and manner. They are painful injuries, but they didn’t kill him.
He died of exposure. And through what must have
Use your hands when you talk. been lingering agony, his face is frozen in a mask of
horror somehow tinged with ecstacy.
If Ravello were an animal, he’d be a bear.
The body stinks, but not of decay; rather a cloying
odor like burnt sugar. Perhaps it is campfire smoke.
G en e r al labor e r A r thu r A n tal
The extent of Scott’s injuries would require a fall
Antal is a useless scrub in the best of circumstances and of at least seven meters, onto a hard surface. But the
now a terrified useless scrub. His only goal is to get out trees of the Koyukon basin top out around three meters, and
of the wilderness. Antal immediately, privately, asks for a he landed in a swamp.
seat on the outbound flight. He’s had enough. He knows
Kennedy and Ravello “saw something” up on Sukakpak Antal’s theory is that Ravello beat him to death. Maybe it
mountain, and whatever it was, it killed Scott. Maybe they was a lover’s spat. He’s grasping at straws.
are cursed. They are way behind schedule and now a man
is dead. A malevolent force seems to haunt them and they Kennedy’s public theory is that Scott was picked up by
are exhausted. To play Antal: a whirlwind and thrown—they have had hellish wind
storms recently. Privately, if an Investigator gains
Speak quickly, softly, and pleadingly. his confidence (perhaps over alcohol), Kennedy can
elaborate on his whirlwind hypothesis. Both he and

12
Ravello have seen queer petroglyphs on the sheer western face Eventually the wind picks up until it is a gale, and then
of Sukakpak mountain. Ravello dismissed them but they the scent is gone. Whoever is guarding the corpse will see
certainly made an impression on Kennedy—they show, for dark shapes in the forest moving, man-sized, larger,
one, a man being dropped from a height by an “air spirit” watching, waiting, swimming through the trees
or vortex. like a fish through water.

Flashback K en n edy 's B ible

Use this as appropriate, maybe after an Investigator has a Kennedy has a waterlogged and worn out bible that
quiet conversation with Kennedy or sees the petroglyphs. he often references. It contains his detailed notes
The night before flying up to collect the body, somebody on an alternate route for the North Slope Haul
spoke to a young native Gwich’in (“KUTCH In”) welder Road that crosses the Koyukon and avoids coming close to
named Charlie Mitchell in a Fairbanks bar, pretty well Sukakpak mountain. He’s also marked some noteworthy
drunk. Mitchell described the People of the Air, Yo passages (see the Handouts section).
Xut’ane (“Yoe Roe TAH Nuh”) who brought nightmares
and delights in equal measure, and manifested on Earth
as whirlwinds. He said not to mess around near Sukakpak D r eams
mountain.
The Investigators will have strange dreams. Each
dream should be specific and address the
The First Night Investigator’s reason for being drawn to the
wilderness. They may involve flying. These should be
Bad weather moves in—a cold drizzle and low, scudding generally pleasant dreams in which the Investigator’s
clouds. The plane will need to be secured and the achieve their goals, resolve their problems, and embrace
Investigators will be spending the night. Near the plane an their essential wilderness natures. Family and friends
animal cries. It is a fox kit, half crushed beneath a rotten should be prominently featured. They will awake
spruce trunk that has fallen. The fox’s back is broken, it is refreshed, with the wind insistently rattling the flaps of
half sunk in tannin-colored swampy water, it is near death. their tents.
The forest has killed it.

Kennedy is very anxious. He builds a big bonfire, much

larger than necessary. He’s scared someone else
will be hurt. Something is out there, following
them, destroying their work, taunting
them, now killing. He doesn’t know what.

The thick, white smoke of wet spruce and alder

wood is choking, makes the eyes water, offers
blessed reprieve from the stinging insects. You
can’t see much close to the fire. it hisses and spits
and seeps into the pores. it provides no warmth
and little light. A brisk, insistent cold wind moans,
buffered by the trees, which sway and whistle.
The fire shudders with each gust, as though being
beaten down.

The edges of the tents are cloaked in grey-black,

nearly dark. The silhouettes of countless thin trees
are just beyond, alive with the discordant calls
of widgeons and unidentified night birds. Insects
hum. Unknown things crash through the
undergrowth. Then there’s that odor—a
stringent, offensive smell, like burnt sugar
mixed with the deep primordial rot of the
forest floor. It’s palpable, like someone standing
behind you. The odor could be chased into the
darkness.

Issue 21 13
 The Next Day like Scott was broken, screaming in a mix of agony
and pleasure. They will be hurled into the forest to
be found later. They won’t be quite dead but they
The plane is wrecked. It lies canted on its side in the won’t last long. They will die smiling.
middle of the Koyukon, flooded and bent in half. There’s
no way out. Another plane can be sent from Fairbanks as If, after this display, an Investigator want to do anything
soon as possible. Given the low pressure system moving in, but run away, let the same fate befall them.
it might be a few days.
The wind then dissipates. The thing is gone.
The wind continues. Being out of the trees by the river, or
up on the slopes of Sukakpak, is unpleasant—wind-driven
rain stinging the eyes and soaking the skin. The Mountain
The Investigators might want to tramp up to Sukakpak
W h ispe rs mountain on their own, or the thing might lead them to it.

The wind’s sussuration speaks to an Investigator, privately The western slope of the mountain is covered in
of course. It is the sound of the storm, mixed with the pictographs—many of them quite ancient, but some
death cry of a trapped animal. it comes from just beyond obviously more recent.
the circle of firelight, in the near trees.
The images crudely depict men and animals being
The voice offers the Investigator what they truly want. It carried up into the sky and falling to their deaths. Some
can show them visions. It can absolutely deliver, of them are carried to what are obviously stars
but there is something that must be done. It is an and planets outside the atmosphere. One chilling
unpalatable thing, unacceptable. Blood and filth. pictograph illustrates what can only be a mountain of
Feel free to ask the Investigator what it is if you want, but bones. Scott’s broken shotgun is here.
a few suggestions to set the tone: Sexually violating the
corpse, catching an animal and eating its liver while it still There is a cave at the base of the mountain that
lives, blinding someone with a fish hook, building an altar is inhabited by a brown bear sow and her two cubs.
out of human excrement. She will violently attack the Investigators with no
provocation, as sows with cubs often do.
The voice can be chased into the darkness.

Another Night
Pursuit With no easy way out and bad weather socking them
Anyone chasing an unnatural odor or noise will soon be in, the Investigators will be forced to stay at Camp 206
chasing something living through the forest. Something another night.
huge is crashing through the undergrowth and leaving a
trail of crushed undergrowth, alder and spruce pushed
aside and snapped at head height. N ightmar es
They may notice a lost boot—clearly one that used On the second night there will be more dreams,
to be Scott’s. There are glimpses of a dark shape. possibly waking dreams or hallucinations. These
The burnt sugar odor is strong. Finally, the scree- will be less pleasant.
covered base of Sukakpak can be seen, where the trees end
and the thing will be plainly visible at last! Use feverish imagery—climbing trees stretching upward
into space; watching smooth-polished river stones forming
But it isn’t—there is instead a whirlwind, a tornado letters and spelling messages just beyond the cusp of
of lichen-covered pebbles, forest debris, and understanding; Sukakpak mountain shaking off the
spruce boughs. Something alive and malevolent weight of ages and rising to reveal its monstrous self—and
and beautiful. A power. It circulates twenty feet up. The introduce a loved one. The loved ones should either die by
air pressure beneath it is giddily low. falling, or the Investigators should have transgressive sex
with them.
If an NPC is present they will try to interact with it. Antal
or Kennedy may well snap and join the thing, plead Feel free to guide Investigators gently, then ask for input—
with it, make a deal with it. Ravello may try to fight it. “what terrible thing is happening to your sister?” or “what
Regardless, any NPC witnessing this event will be taken impossible thing are the rock ptarmigan doing in the sky?”
up in the whirlwind and, as the Investigator watches, be broken

14
V o ices I n the F or est

U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

The most susceptible or least stable Investigators
will be spoken to again. The voices from the edge of
the forest return. They want an Investigator to join
them, and they will lure them into the black spruce with
whispers, promises, and the voices of the Investigator’s
loved ones. A wife or child will plead from the darkness.

This is also a good time for an NPC to do the bidding of

the voices, which will be something obscene, violent,
or otherwise awful to behold. Some examples—they
might mutilate or destroy themselves, or try to eat
someone’s liver while they still live, or perform
some act of horrific sexual depravity.

Anyone following will be chased and probably

caught by a ravaging whirlwind of unimaginable power. If
caught, an Investigator will be tightly confined in a
maelstrom of whipping branches and stones high above the
forest, in an ecstatic trance that combines pleasure with
pain. They are given a message for the group, a message
of despair. They can do as it wishes or they can die
suffering. What it wants is unspeakable, unimaginable
(ask the players what acts it requires).

It will not allow a road near Sukakpak mountain.

The abductee will be put down near the camp, badly

injured, their clothes in rags.

R esolution
A much more difficult pipeline route, crossing the
Koyukon river far away from Sukakpak mountain, can
eventually be pushed through. The easy route isn’t so easy.

Handouts
K en n edy 's B ible
Jeremiah 25:32 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold,
evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great
whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.

Isaiah 44:14 He heweth him down cedars, and taketh

the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for
himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash,
and the rain doth nourish it. … 44:17 And the residue
thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth
down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and
saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.

John 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou

hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth.

Issue 21 15
 Mysterious Manuscript:
Engines Underground
B y G reg S tolze
“Hastur,” and you come across Engines Underground,
especially if you also look for “the Yellow Sign.” (One of
The rain sounded like applause, but no one had Stokes’ overused motifs is yellow traffic signs.) Ill-exposed
clapped for Harry Hastur since his piano recital as a as it is, its profile is still higher than The King in Yellow.
spot-speckled high school senior. Harry paused as he
entered the train station, shaking his umbrella and But individual readers aren’t going to find Mythos content,
feigning interest in his cell phone as he considered unless they’re so crazy that they’re seeing the G’harne
that thought. He’d been, what, eighteen? Fragments in crossword puzzles. It’s only when reader
experiences are compared that the differences appear—
if then. Engines Underground is forgettable. If one does
recall the Jake and Elise scenes, it’s vague. Compared to
Released in 2005, Engines Underground was Elias Matherson another reader, it’s vague on vague. You might not think
Stokes’ debut novel. It made the midlist on the strength you remember that other fellow’s description of Elise in
of a Philip Roth blurb, then sank without a trace. It’s a ill-fitting lingerie, but it could have been one of the many
middling piece of kitchen-sink realism, focusing on shy paragraphs that one’s eyes slipped over in the sea of verbal
Harry Hastur and a nearly-albino tunnel engineer named mediocrity.
Constance Sleight. The backdrop for their neurotic,
stammering romance is the tunnels under Chicago, which There are no other paranormal effects to reading the
Constance is vaguely tasked with “inventorying for the book. Or if there are, they aren’t obvious. Or if they are
new mayor.” The story either ends with “a masterwork obvious maybe they just haven’t gone off . . . yet. Because
of understated irony and ambiguity” if you’re Allan a book that can adapt its meaning, drastically, in response
Stebbs (see Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity, page 233) to the consciousness that beholds it makes mincemeat out
or “pointlessly stops, like the writer ran out of money of standard notions of what language means and how it
to pay his electric bill. Or, more likely, ideas” if you’re functions. A literary chameleon that blends imperceptibly
“JuteCrab,” the Amazon top 1000 reviewer whose one-star with every other so-so Bildungsroman raises scary questions
rating was helpful to 30 of 33 readers. about how permeable consciousness is and how readily
we might miss something that uses feedback to create
What readers remember is the subplot between Elise and a stronger impression. Or an impression that is as
Jake, a pair as prickly as Constance is timid and assertive powerful as it is unnoticed, perhaps exactly as deep as it is
as Harry is shy. Roth enjoyed the scene of Jake and Elise unremarked.
coupling while simultaneously picking apart structural
issues in Law & Order: SVU. Stebbs found himself setting
the book aside after reading of their failed suicide pact.
To “JuteCrab” their cynical discussion of sexual mores in H i s O n ly D e m o g r a p h i c
North Africa was the book’s only redeeming feature.
The unfortunate slice of the population that’s exposed
Thing is, “JuteCrab” never read the SVU sex scene, and to the occult seems drawn to Stokes’ book. Anyone
Stebbs never read the North African scene and Roth never with any Cthulhu Mythos score is implausibly likely
read about the suicide pact. Anyone who reads Engines to have “Engines Underground” sitting next to the
Underground gets the same tepid main plot, but different toilet or lying on a bedside table. No one consults
readers remember the subplot differently. If you read the it as a ‘Mythos text’ (unless they’re already within
book alone, its effect is unique to you, solely. Hastur’s reach) —they just liked the cover or got
it as a present. This correlation lets you put it in
No one has noticed yet. Elias Matherson Stokes is not the background of other adventures, available for
popular. But do more than cursory research on the word Investigators to pick up (idly or deliberately).

16
 CATALÁ
Stokes’ customers include . . .
YUMIKO SCHÜLLER, who had
nightmares about ‘formless
darknesses of meaning’ her whole
life. She curated a Pickman
retrospective before slitting her
wrists in front of a piece entitled
“Curious Garb.” She liked Jake’s
story about his bar mitzvah.
ANDREW CRATES, imprisoned for
killing five men who, according
to his testimony, “were sorcerers
pursuing an Eric Drexler-like
Singularity by reconfiguring their
DNA into deeper dimensions.” He
remembers Jake and Elise ineptly
pet-sitting a Yorkie.
VERONICA IMBLICK, whose
‘Ebola virus’ death is considered
a covered-up case of spontaneous
combustion. (She was, in fact, killed
by thousands of gnawing insects
who acted in concert, as if directed
by a greater intelligence). She told
her husband about Jake and Elise
taking a bus to get gas when Jake’s
car runs out.

Finding Elias Matherson Stokes takes some

work. He has no web page or other aggressive
online presence. (He used to, but it’s been in
GoDaddy limbo since 2008 and his Facebook
status hasn’t been updated since 2009.) character’s last name, he says he made it up. Presented
Random House has his last address as an apartment in with testimonials from readers who recall different Jake/
Darlington, Ohio, as does his former agent Kitty Shihiaya. Elise subplots, he falls back on skeptical empiricism.
(His Random House editor, Frank Fawkes, enjoyed a scene “Which is more likely? That my book has weird mystical
where Elise throws a surprise party for Jake on the wrong properties, or that people are negligent readers? Hardly
date and tries to pass it off as intentional. Kitty Shihiaya anyone liked it. Why would you expect them to get minor
remembers the harrowing part where Elise confronts her details right?”
dying father while Jake struggles, fruitlessly, to get to her
side.) Stokes doesn’t live in Ohio any more, but he had his He’s happy to assure them that he has written no follow-
mail forwarded to his parents’ home in Wisconsin. Anyone up and has no intention of writing another novel, ever. He
who contacts them there can finally get his current address likens it to asking a one-legged man to cut the other off for
in Arizona, where he’s teaching at a community college. balance.

There is absolutely nothing special about him. Stokes There’s nothing else to learn from Stokes, and obsessed
is a bitter, sarcastic man in his thirties—in personality Investigators are likely to pointlessly torment a crabby
somewhere between Jake’s causticity and Harry’s self- young man if they fail to accept that. His only observation
effacement. He reacts to fannish appreciation with hollow of value would arise as a parting shot when they leave.
astonishment. If threatened, he cringes. If interrogated, “My book is decisively, aggressively nothing special.
he is flatly honest about knowing nothing, nothing at Whatever you think is going on with it, it could happen
all, unusual about his book. If asked about the main with any book. Any book at all.”

Issue 21 17
 Mysterious Manuscript:
Ein Konto der Hexeraserei im Lindheim
B y A dam G auntlett

For Trail of Cthulhu. In addition, the following Clues can be had concerning the
Devil’s Heart:
This octavo was printed in 1670 by a German bookbinder,
Glaubrecht of Hesse, whose maker’s mark is a small tower Core. Ein Konto claims that the Heart was taken
and raven with the Latin motto Memoria. It is rare to find a by Geiss but not destroyed. ‘In his impiety he sought to
copy in good condition. The print run was limited to five gain from his prize,’ claims the author, but Geiss died
hundred volumes, and some can still be found in German before he could do anything with it. ‘Those most con-
libraries and university archives. It is of interest primarily cerned with it laid it to rest.’ If Cthulhu Mythos
to collectors of witchcraft incunabula, and has been known is used, the description of the Heart and its box is
to sell for as much as £25 at auction. reminiscent of Shub-Niggurath cult activity.

Ein Konto describes the witch-trials in the village of Languages, Occult, Archaeology, His-
Lindheim, Wetterau, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, tory. Lindheim’s Witch Tower still stands and is
defunct as of 1918. Geographically, it is in the Upper Hesse owned by the novelist Emma Pichler, a distant rela-
province. Ein Konto is particularly concerned with the years tive of the barons who once owned the village.
1660 through to 1663, when the most notorious trials took
place. In a Bookhounds campaign, Ein Konto is sought by Elliot
(or Elanor) Warrington. Warrington is a plausible rogue
George Ludwig Geiss, a veteran of the Thirty Years War with a poor credit history. Warrington’s striking looks are
and mayor (as well as judge) for Lindheim, conducted beginning to fade with the passage of years.
the campaign. It began with the arrest, conviction and
execution of eleven persons, among them the “King of Arabesque: Warrington claims to be a Herle King,
the Sabbat” and the “Queen of the Witches.” Ich stehe nicht inheritor of the Wild Hunt. In horned mask and green
still, bis der vollstandige Stamm gerbrannt ist, swore Geiss, but robes, Warrington leads a cult.
it soon became clear that the trials were cover for Geiss’
own misdeeds. Forty-six other people, including several Sordid: Warrington is a confidence trickster working on
children, were arrested, but most were people whose behalf of an unnamed patron. Warrington hopes to have
property Geiss wanted to acquire, or against whom Geiss youth restored, if this patron is given *Ein Konto.
had a personal grudge. Of the unfortunate victims, twenty
were burnt to death. The trials were brought to a halt by Technicolor: Warrington is a descendant of Geiss who
the Supreme Imperial Court, which was petitioned by a feels driven to carry on his ancestor’s work.
merchant of Lindheim, but not before a small riot freed the
remaining prisoners and put Geiss’ cronies to ignominious
flight. Geiss himself died of a broken neck, the result of
falling from a horse, soon after, and the place where he
died became known as the Devil’s Ditch.

The text has two illustrated plates, one of which shows

the round tower where the witches were imprisoned and
burnt. The other purports to show the Devil’s Heart, das
Teufelherz, a trophy of the Queen of the Witches which she
supposedly kept in a box made of wood from the mythical
Thor’s Tree.

Skimming the text gets 2 dedicated pool points for any one
Investigative ability relating to Germany or occult studies.
Poring over it gets 1 potential Magic point.
Á
CATAL

18
Arcane Artifact:
Das Teufelherz
B y A dam G auntlett

For Trail of Cthulhu. the ventricle system indicate a completely different species.

This item is buried at the base of a late medieval round In fact, Cthulhu Mythos identifies the symbol as an
tower in the village of Lindheim, Wetterau, in the Upper Elder Sign. The Sign is a late addition, put there by those
Hesse, and has lain there ever since the witch trials of who opposed the cult and who wanted das Teufelherz lost
1662-1663. The trials claimed the lives of over thirty forever. The box is not wood but the flesh of one of the
people, among them the “Queen of the Witches,” one Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, as is the heart.
of the leading figures in a coven dedicated to Shub-
Niggurath. Most of the victims were not connected with In the early days of the Christian faith the saints came to
the cult, and the persecution came to an end with the pagan Germany to stamp out diabolic practices, among
death of the chief persecutor, George Ludwig Geiss. them worship of the god Thor. Saint Boniface is supposed
to have proved the power of God by cutting down the
The tower is crumbling, held upright by jury-rigged ancient oak, sacred to the Thunder God, in the 8th
wooden supports. Its owner, the novelist Emma Pichler, century. In fact the destruction of the cult and its sacred
has been trying to sell it and the land it’s on for years, but protector is the source of this dimly remembered story.
local interests and historical societies have prevented this.
Survivors of the cult crafted the heart and box and carried
The tower was where the witch executions were carried them off for safekeeping. When Geiss executed the Queen
out; das Teufelherz is buried among the burnt bones of its of the Witches, the box and its contents were captured,
former owners. but those who possessed das Teufelherz feared what might
happen if they tried to destroy it. Instead they hid it with
The artifact is found as box; the Teufelherz itself is inside. the corpses of the cultists.
The box, allegedly made from the wood of Thor’s Tree,
is carved from a dark, spongy biological material, damp Examining the box and heart calls for Stability 3.
and rotten, similar in some ways to musculature. The
box is rounded, perhaps three feet in diameter, and is Meditated over and studied, das Teufelherz is worth +2
both hinged and tied shut with straps of a strange leather potential Magic and +1 Cthulhu Mythos. It also
or ligament. Symbols of unknown (possibly alchemical) reduces the Inertia (–4) of any Dark Young summoned or
significance are carved on the outside. There is a faint bound by someone holding das Teufelherz.
odour of putrescence, similar to the smell given off by
gangrene. On two ritual days of the year (Keeper’s choice as to when)
it secretes a black, milky liquid that can be collected and
The heart inside is withered, the size of an orange, and used as a poison. When handling this liquid care must be
has two separate pumps, similar to crocodilians, birds and taken to avoid direct contact with skin. It’s a hallucinogen
mammals. Medicine or Biology might be fooled into that induces muscular contractions, vomiting and death;
thinking it a crocodile’s heart, but significant differences in +0 damage/round, 4 rounds duration.

Issue 21 19
 Tale of Terror:
The Mock Auction
B y A dam G auntlett

This Victorian Tale of Terror is based on an entry from The protagonists are the suckers in this Tale. They are
Dickens’s Dictionary of London 1888. The following is a direct stuck with a small statuette that doesn’t look valuable.
quote from the Dictionary: The others in the room are all rough-looking types; in
the gloom, they may appear sub-human. The proprietor
The MOCK AUCTION is a swindle, pure and simple. is a very burly man, nearly a giant, whose leer is far
It is commonly carried on in a small shop, carefully from friendly. There are no constables in sight. There is,
darkened by filling in the window with all kinds of however, an odd-looking ikon balanced precariously on the
ostensible merchandise, and tenanted chiefly by the piles of tat that may be really valuable. It is in an eastern
proprietor and his confederates, who keep up a lively European style and may have Mythos significance -- but
bidding till some unwary passer-by is seduced into there is no guarantee it is for sale.
entering, and speedily ‘stuck’ with some worthless
article at a fabulous price. Should the victim find he
is called upon to pay too dearly for his folly, he may,
by stoutly denying having made any bid, calling for
Option 1: Cursed
the police, and, if necessary, showing fight, make The protagonists have been stuck with a worthless item,
his way out again scot free. But he will possibly be and the ikon is no more valuable than the statue they
roughly handled, probably have his pocket picked, and already have. The proprietor is a wizard with some small
certainly pass a mauvais quart d’heure. power and hexes the protagonists with the evil eye or
infests their dreams with nightmares. He may remove this
curse for a small fee. Protagonists who want to fight back
will have to find out exactly how he cursed them; there
may be a way to turn his magic back on him.

Option 2: A la Carte
The protagonists’ statue and the ikon are both worthless.
Several ghouls are in the crowd of confederates,
while the others are humans on their way to ghoulish
transformation. Any weakness on the protagonists’ part
may provoke a bloody reaction. Showing fight, on the
other hand, piques their interest. They may follow the
protagonists to their homes, thinking to ambush them
later and carve up their tender meats for a banquet. The
proprietor is their leader.

Option 3: The Conduit

The ikon is something really interesting. It was created by
a devotee of Shub-Niggurath and offers a means of directly
contacting the Old One in her Great God Pan avatar form.
The ritual needed isn’t known to the protagonists but could
be researched, and study of the ikon grants +1 Cthulhu
Mythos as well as a 1D4+1 SAN loss. The proprietor is
unwilling to sell but can be persuaded. However, soon
afterward he is made aware of the true value of the item,
CATALÁ
and will go to any lengths to get it back.

20
 Unaussprechlichen Klutzen
A Fiasco Playset
W ritten by G raham Walmsley B ook C lub
E dited by S teve S egedy
C over art by J ason M orningstar The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross. A Study In Emerald,
Neil Gaiman. Everything by H.P. Lovecraft and Ramsey
Thank you to Jennifer Wong, Giulia Barbano and Scott Campbell.
Dorward. Thanks to Ryan Shelton for the name.
But don’t worry about being faithful to anything that
Lovecraft wrote. Make it up. You want Mi-Go to look like
Boilerplate reindeer? Or Cthulhu to resemble the Marshmallow Man?
Go ahead.
This playset is an accessory for the Fiasco role-playing
game by Bully Pulpit Games. In fact, you needn’t know anything about Lovecraft to
play this playset. Simply read any unusual name (Cthulhu,
This playset is copyright Graham Walmsley 2011. Fiasco Cthonian, Mi-Go) as “Big Bad Thing”. You’ll be right.
is copyright 2009 by Jason Morningstar. All rights are
reserved.
O ptional R u le : M adn ess an d I nsight
For more information about Fiasco or to download other
playsets and materials, visit www.bullypulpitgames.com. This optional rule uses the Stunt Dice: Golden Panda Style
hack from the Fiasco Companion.
If you’d like to create your own playset or other Fiasco-
related content, we’d like to help. Write us at info@ Replace one black die with a green Madness Die and one
bullypulpitgames.com. white die with a clear Insight Die.

When the Madness Die is chosen, the scene ends badly,

The Score as if the die were black. However, the player whose scene
it is must narrate their character’s mind breaking. That
character goes irretrievably mad.
A r e Y ou I nsan e?
When the Insight Die is chosen, the scene ends well, as if
All you wanted to do was impress the cute redhead from the die was white. And the player whose scene it is must
the coffee shop. Several ancient texts later, there’s a mile- narrate their character suddenly understanding the horror
high squid striding across the landscape, devastating of the cosmos. This also means they go irretrievably mad,
everything in its path. And you’re pretty sure it just of course. But in a happy, gleeful way.
stepped on the redhead.
If you get Madness or Insight, you don’t leave the game.
Unaussprechlichen Klutzen takes H.P. Lovecraft’s stories You keep playing. Madly.
and repeats them as farce. It smashes together worldly
ambitions with world-destroying horror.

22
R elationships . . .
1 wor k 4 romance

1 Librarian and borrower 1 Service worker and customer with inappropriate

crush
2 Students
2 Star-crossed lovers
3 Vendor and customer
3 Flirtatious co-workers
4 Artists
4 A blind date
5 Therapist and patient
5 Boss and subordinate
6 Drifters
6 Lovers too shy to tell

2 f r i en dsh i p
5 cr ime
1 Friends since childhood
1 Frustrated hitmen
2 Fellow thrillseekers
2 Fence / Supplier
3 Correspondents who, until now, have never met
3 Gambler / Bookie
4 Bully and follower
4 Con man / mark
5 Barflies
5 Crime boss / Second-in-command
6 Best friends forever
6 Lackeys

3 fam i ly
6 myste r ious
1 Newlyweds
1 “I am writing to invite you to witness a peculiar
2 Parent and child event”

3 Distant cousins 2 “I have news of your family”

4 Uncle/aunt and nephew/niece 3 “I have certain evidence that you may wish to see”

5 Sick relative and caretaker 4 “I am unsure what drew me here”

6 Siblings 5 “I have an offer for you, which you may find

surprising”

6 “I had a dream”

. . . in our doomed world

Issue 21 23
 Needs . . .
1 to get la i d 4 to get pow e r

1 … for the first time 1 … over people’s minds

2 … with the love of your life 2 … over the person you love

3 … to have kids 3 … to give moral guidance

4 … with someone dark and dangerous 4 … before T K Sedgewick does

5 … with that person you cannot bring yourself to talk to 5 … to protect the city you love

6 … for research purposes 6 … to live forever

2 to f igu r e out 5 to get th e job don e

1 … why that thing is at that angle 1 … by finishing the construction

2 … what the letters mean 2 … by opening the best damn fish restaurant in town

3 … who your parents really are 3 … by getting everyone to see the show

4 … the truth behind the stories you heard as a child 4 … by beating Wilson at his own game

5 … the strangely-shaped pattern you keep seeing 5 … by winning the game

6 … everything 6 … by Friday at 7.30pm

3 to get r ev enge 6 to be happy

1 … for a prank that was not funny 1 … with the best cup of light-roast coffee in the city

2 … for a relationship that went wrong 2 … with a nice, normal family

3 … for years of thankless hard work 3 … by chemical means

4 … on everyone who doubted your dreams 4 … by getting the hell out of here

5 … on the thief of your family’s heirloom 5 … through the power of art

6 … on the whole damn town. No, world. No, maybe 6 … by living like there’s no tomorrow
just town.

. . . in our doomed world

24
Locations . . .
1 th e city 4 old

1 A rented room, with blackened walls 1 The clifftop house, whispered about but rarely visited

2 A shadowed, cobbled street 2 A dark church of twisted architecture

3 A courtyard of strange dimensions 3 Squat, uninhabited stone huts

4 A maze of alleyways 4 Stone circles on remote hillsides

5 A district of ill-repute 5 A farm, where the animals are strangely quiet

6 Lost 6 The Whitmore House

2 th e tow n 5 un de rgroun d

1 The Ellingboe Museum 1 The blocked entrance to long-forgotten catacombs

2 A restaurant, smelling of damp and bile 2 Passageways between cellars

3 A shop of blasphemous trinkets 3 Mining tunnels, where strange voices echo

4 The creaking, stinking docks 4 Caves whose existence was rumoured, but never
proved
5 A bookshop with no customers
5 An eerily beautiful ancient city
6 A flowery, hillside suburb
6 A dark and oppressive ancient city

3 th e u n iv e rsity
6 lon ely places
1 An old laboratory bench, partly burned
1 An ever-shifting, icy plain
2 A locked room, filled with annotated charts
2 A windy, dreamlike desert
3 The furthest corner of the library
3 A vast, timeless and uncaring forest
4 Professor Parkhurst’s former office
4 A twisting wood of folktales
5 The specimen room
5 A foggy, howling moor
6 The room that makes you want to run
6 The Jennifer, a ship

. . . in our doomed world

Issue 21 25
 Things . . .
1 ar tistic 4 anci en t

1 A painting of blood and flesh 1 An inscribed stone of disturbing colour

2 Purposeful, mocking music 2 A constellation of stars

3 A monstrous carving in unknown stone 3 Carvings depicting the history of a race

4 Whirling, reminiscent dancing 4 Mathematical etchings

5 Daemoniac piping 5 Jewellery, glowing, eerie and beautiful

6 “Let us never speak of the thing in the box” 6 A technological device of unknown purpose

2 l ite r a ry 5 sci en ti f ic

1 Darkly significant scribblings 1 A meteorite, embedded in the wet earth

2 A warning, nonsensical yet worrisome 2 A crackling radio

3 An invitation, unusual yet compelling 3 Dissection equipment, not yet cleaned

4 A letter, regarding events, folktales and conjecture 4 A device for boring through rock

5 An unspeakable oath 5 A darkly stained map

6 A surprising translation of the Necronomicon, 6 A wax cylinder, on which voices are recorded

3 mu n dan e 6 i n ex pl icable

1 An unscrewed doorknob, carefully hidden 1 A mechanical cylinder

2 A blackened key 2 A Shining Trapezohedron of strange insights

3 A gun with two shots fired 3 A pearlescent sphere in a carved box

4 A flask of coffee, smelling faintly of juniper 4 A corpse, slowly dissolving

5 A previously-unnoticed door 5 An amulet, inscribed with a picture

6 Thick, velvet curtains, smelling of dust 6 A bloodstained opening

. . . in our doomed world

26
Bad Ideas
Here are bad ways to solve your characters’ problems. Try them out!

R a ise cthu l hu summon a shog g oth

Cthulhu is a big squid-like thing who sleeps under the Shoggoths are huge, bubbly, amorphous and multi-
Pacific ocean. He sends dreams to people and grants talented. They rush towards people and eat their heads.
immortality. With your help, he can rise from his watery They also imitate voices, making them popular at parties.
grave and take over the world.

steal a mystical object

acce p t a M i- G o's of f e r
Try stealing a Shining Trapezedron, a Cthonian egg or a
The Winged Ones have buzzing voices and build mines in Hound’s amulet. What have you got to lose?
remote areas. They offer to show you the universe. This
means removing your brain and putting it in a space-
travelling container. Omelettes, eggs. f i n d a spell

For any other problem, there’s a spell to fix it. Whether you
make a deal w ith the D ee p O n es want immortality, resurrection or simply a source of food,
there’s an incantation to fit your needs. Ask your local
They live under the sea and make deals with humans. occultist.
Most often, the deal is: you give them sacrifices, they
give you gold and fish. They might also mate with you,
producing hybrid offspring. Go with it.

I f Y o u L i k e T h i s ...

You’ll like Graham Walmsley’s Stealing Cthulhu. As he puts it, “Many Cthulhu games feel the same. You shoot
cultists. You do rituals. You unearth a buried god that’s like every other god you’ve dug up. This book shows you
how to make your games new and horrifying: by stealing from H.P. Lovecraft.”
Stealing Cthulhu also contains Cthulhu Dark, a complete, rules-light roleplaying game.
You can find out more at Graham’s site, Thieves of Time: www.thievesoftime.com.

Issue 21 27
 The Man With a
Thousand Faces
A 19 20 s Scenario
for Call of Cthulhu
B y R ichard A. B ecker

Malcolm Bainbridge, world-famous star of the silent

screen, has retired into the life of a recluse in his sprawling
mansion of Dellfaire in the Hollywood Hills. But his life is
far from quiet.

Introduction
The Investigators—we assume they are private
investigators with contacts in southern California;
adjust to suit your campaign—are contacted by an old
acquaintance, Hollywood acting agent Elliot Cline. Cline
is a tall, good-looking man in his early 40s, with good taste
in clothing and automobiles and a very conservative home
life. He cut his teeth as a junior agent on Broadway and
he’s made a real name for himself out west in the frontier
of movieland.

Cline meets them for coffee and a late lunch at the chic
industry restaurant Musso and Frank’s Grill on Hollywood
Boulevard. He explains that his partner, Robert Berkham,
has gone missing from work for about a week. He would
like to discuss the matter with the Investigators further
at his office, in privacy. He will make it well worth their
while, but he needs to be sure he count on their absolute
discretion and secrecy. If they agree, the scenario can
proceed from there.

S malle r I s B ette r
Call of Cthulhu typically works best with investigating
parties no larger than four or five people. This scenario
is not intended to accommodate larger groups than
this, and fewer would be better. It should begin with the
investigators already united as a group and ready to begin.
You may find four pregenerated Investigators on page 55.

28
 These are matters of great urgency, but Mr. Cline is
M eeti ng E ll iot C l i n e crystal-clear: It is imperative that no one involve the
police or the press. The studio is still deeply staked in
The Investigators go with Cline to the offices of Bainbridge’s career, Bainbridge is worth a lot of money
Berkham & Cline on Vine Street. After a few moments both in his personal fortune and to the studio, police and
of pleasantries, Cline gets to business. He explains that city officials are extremely corrupt and unreliable, and
Berkham, who represents world-famous movie star there is a lot of money in blackmailing movie stars over
Malcolm Bainbridge, hasn’t been home or at the office for indiscretions. No matter what, this must be kept quiet as
about a week, not since he went to visit Bainbridge at his the tomb.
estate (called “Dellfaire”) in the Hollywood Hills, only half
a mile away. Cline worries that something has happened to Cline is deadly earnest that the police are not to be trusted.
his friend and business associate, but it’s imperative that an If they smell blood money, they will bite into Bainbridge’s
investigation be conducted quietly. estate and life like a bulldog and never let go. He warns the
investigators that if they ignore his words, it could mean
Berkham has a few vices, it’s true, but nothing that would incredibly serious trouble for them.
necessitate his disappearing, as far as Cline knows.
Moreover, the two men had no secrets from one another, Cline wants the investigators to go to Dellfaire as his
and while Cline may be a straight arrow nowadays, he and trusted representatives and find out what happened to
Berkham raised plenty of hell back in New York in their Robert Berkham. He will pay them well for this, and for
early years working together. So he’s certain that it isn’t a information about Malcolm Bainbridge’s current condition
case of Berkham fleeing a scandal that he couldn’t tell his and likelihood to return to work for the studio. Cline has
partner about. The agency’s books are completely on the been in contact with Bainbridge’s wife, Paulette, and he
up and up. agrees with her that Malcolm Bainbridge may need to be
committed to a mental hospital until he’s well enough to
What really worries Cline is that he thinks Bainbridge may function again.
be responsible for whatever has happened. Several months
ago, Bainbridge dropped out of public view after a series Assuming investigators agree, Cline gives them the address
of strange, violent seizures and refused to communicate of Dellfaire and a letter of introduction that shows they
with most of the outside world, retaining only his “taciturn work for him. He directs them to visit Mrs. Bainbridge at
oriental manservant,” a “mysterious foreigner” named her hotel so that they can speak with her and collect the
Han. (Cline has never visited Dellfaire and has never met necessary keys to get into Dellfaire (though he points out
Bainbridge’s servant. He’s only met Bainbridge and his that they had better knock and announce themselves to
wife a few times, always on business.) Bainbridge is clearly Malcolm in any case).
not well.

Berkham had confided in Cline that the actor

didn’t have any addictions he knew about, but
had been acting very strangely for the past couple
of years. Apparently, Malcolm Bainbridge had
been behaving erratically both on the set and
toward his wife and small son. He had also made
increasingly strange requests of the studios,
particularly a demand that there be no mirrors
in his dressing room and that no one visit him
there between takes without his express prior
permission—not even producers or directors.

Shortly before he dropped out of view,

Bainbridge sent his wife Paulette away with
their child, Malcolm Jr. Only his sole remaining
servant, Han, was left with him at Dellfaire,
and then even Han stopped appearing in public.
About two months ago, Bainbridge ripped out his
telephone and could only be reached in person.
Rumors abound. Bainbridge’s career is faltering.
Cline’s partner Berkham went to see Bainbridge,
and now Berkham is missing. Cline is certain
that the trail leads directly to Dellfaire.

Issue 21 29
 MANSPERGER

Paulette sincerely and emotionally insists that none of this

is Malcolm’s fault, he’s a good man, a good husband and a
good father. Something strange and very frightening has
happened to him, and she wants him to be helped.

Malcolm is one of the great character actors in Hollywood.

He’s the only screen rival to Lon Chaney, and is famous
in his own right as “Bainbridge the Astounding,” an actor
whose skills in disguise and mimicry are so formidable
that he seems to disappear into the weird and fantastic
roles he plays. This quality has rendered him a box-office
competitor with Fairbanks, Lloyd, and Pickford. But at
the height of his career, he has withdrawn from all contact
with humanity beyond handwritten messages in a nerve-
strained scrawl. And although it has been kept (barely)
from the gossip columnists, Bainbridge has sent away his
wife and son.

Bainbridge had always been a very secretive, withdrawn

actor while on the job, and didn’t like to share in his
performing process until he was actually on the set with
the rest of the cast. But he had always treated everyone
well. It wasn’t until the last year that things had gone
terribly wrong.

At around the same time that he became strangely

withdrawn, Malcolm Bainbridge began to wake in the
night screaming. He slowly became more and more violent
and unstable—never toward Paulette or their son, but
toward himself and his surroundings. He expressed a great
hatred and dread of mirrors.
Malcolm Bainbridge, star of the silent screen
One day he smashed every mirror in his opulent mansion.
Investigators may wish to check out Berkham more Paulette and Malcolm Jr. could no longer bear the strain of
thoroughly than Cline suggests. Cline isn’t very keen on his increasing violence and they fled the great house in the
this, but permits them to examine Berkham’s appointment dark of night as Bainbridge screamed.
book. Cline tells them that he’s already spoken with both
of the people Berkham met before going to Dellfaire (a Paulette is deeply distraught and emotionally as fragile
casting director and a studio executive) and that they’re as thin glass. It’s nothing to do with money; Bainbridge’s
completely above suspicion. Investigating Berkham yields riches are fully accessible to her and Malcolm Jr. They
nothing but red herrings. want for nothing—nothing but the man she loves, the
father of her son.

M eeti ng M rs . B a i n br i dge Whatever’s wrong, Paulette is certain that modern

medicine can help. In addition to what Mr. Cline has
Paulette and little Malcolm Jr. live at the plush, newly asked of them, Mrs. Bainbridge wants the Investigators to
opened Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel, located at 1714 enter the mansion and collect evidence needed to commit
Ivar Avenue, half a block north of Hollywood Boulevard her husband to the insane asylum so that he can be given
and one block west of Vine Street. She is a pretty, good- the help he needs. If it’s at all possible, she wants them to
natured woman in her late 20s, with short red hair and convince Malcolm to surrender himself to psychiatric care
cool green eyes. Mrs. Bainbridge is quite petite for a so that he doesn’t have to wait out a lengthy commitment
woman who had a strapping baby boy only a few years procedure. She will be glad to add her own fee to whatever
ago. The adorable little boy, who is now four years old, is Cline is paying. Like Cline, Paulette insists that this be
napping in the other room. kept as quiet as possible. Malcolm’s reputation and their
son’s future are at stake.
She has been expecting the investigators (Cline phoned
after they left his office) and offers them coffee and coffee She will not permit the Investigators to talk to the little
cake. They sit down together in the living room of the boy, who she insists understands none of this. (He does
comfortable hotel suite and talk.

30
not.) If asked about the “oriental manservant,” Han, is under construction and due to open in just another
she has very little to say. He was just the help. Careful couple of years. Though the city is dotted with many
questioning could pry out of her that Jack Han is merely small airfields, it has no major airport or commercial
an ordinary, older Chinese-American, rather than some air traffic yet, and interstate visitors either struggle to
stereotypical “oriental archfiend,” but she wouldn’t even Los Angeles across gravel highways full of potholes
think to volunteer that information. Han is the last thing or, more likely, by means of sleek diesel trains that
on her mind. disembark in the little borough of Pasadena. They
then either book a room in a local hotel in Pasadena
or take the trolley (or hire a car to drive) into the heart
H olly w ood in the 19 2 0 s of Los Angeles. From there, Hollywood is a short jaunt
westward, down long streets lined by palm trees,
It is impossible to fully flesh out the details of small businesses, orchards and little farms.
Hollywood in the 1920s in this scenario, but it can be The movie studios are the city’s new empire, cheek
summarized as a movie boomtown—a sleepy suburb by jowl with the old money of Los Angeles agriculture
of a growing agricultural city that has suddenly been and oil, and fortunes are made and lost in the wink
flooded with vast mountains of cash by the movie of an eye. The government and police department are
business. dirty from top to bottom, and they keep a finger in
The sign overlooking the city is only two years old every pie, especially the motion picture industry. The
and still reads “HOLLYWOODLAND.” There are no richest people in Los Angeles live in enclaves such as
freeways, but there are many fruit orchards and Beverly Hills and San Marino, but the nouveau riche
housing developments linked by long, efficient public cluster together in seaside colonies like Malibu and
transit trolley lines. There isn’t even any real smog Santa Monica or up in the hills and mountains. Many
yet. movie stars and studio executives have large and
expensive estates in the Hollywood Hills overlooking
There are already a few very impressive structures, the town of Hollywood itself. One such estate is
including opulent movie palaces, the stylish upscale Dellfaire, home of Malcolm Bainbridge.
restaurant Musso & Frank’s Grill (opened in 1919) and
the gleaming white spire of Los Angeles City Hall that

Issue 21 31
 Keeper Information His lawyer and agent have been at cross-purposes all
along in this matter. His lawyer has faithfully executed
Bainbridge’s wishes, in spite of his own opinions.
In the days before the magic of silent films, Bainbridge Bainbridge’s agent, Robert Berkham, fearing the end of a
had already had spent years on the stage in both theater paying prospect, has not been so amenable to the actor’s
and magic, with his mentor, escape artist/illusionist the need for privacy.
Amazing Kolzow. (Karl Kolzow, 1860-1922.) While
touring, Kolzow introduced Bainbridge to an old friend, Only a week ago, the agent came to visit Bainbridge and
the fantastically gifted actor Guillaume Willette, who convince him to return to his career. During a heated
told Malcolm Bainbridge about the whispered magicks of discussion, Bainbridge struck him in the head with a heavy
faraway Tibet, which were said to enable a man to take on blunt object, in a fashion not unlike Bainbridge’s role in
any appearance. the 1922 film, The Unholy. Mr. Berkham’s corpse is now
decaying slowly in the pantry of Dellfaire.
Bainbridge traveled Asia to discover the truth about what
Willette had said. In Tibet, on the lamentable Plateau of Bainbridge now wanders his house, sometimes reenacting
Tsang, he met a sinister group of asiatic-looking men led strangely distorted performances of scenes from his most
by a shaman called the Lesser Lama. This tribe of Tcho- successful movies, and sometimes merely weeping and
Tchos taught Bainbridge the magical skill to become any looking for the life and loved ones he can no longer find.
role he chose, at a certain price. At the time he thought the The police have not yet been informed of Berkham’s
price would be worth paying. disappearance.

Slowly, Bainbridge began to see tiny, distorted pustules

appearing in his reflection in the mirror. They were
invisible and undetectable otherwise, but eventually they
became distinct in his looking-glass as tiny, abhorrent
faces.

The discovery began to drive him mad. But far worse was
that in the back of his mind he began to hear their voices,
which whispered incessantly of unspeakable, primordial
secrets.

Bainbridge began to wake in the night, overcome with

alien urges too horrible to contemplate. One day he
smashed every mirror in his opulent mansion to end the
sight of the obscenely mewling faces. His wife and son
fled the great house in the dark of night as Bainbridge
screamed at himself to be silent.

Soon after his wife’s flight, Bainbridge had his servant Mr.
Han barricade him inside a guest bedroom to keep him
from doing anyone harm, but Bainbridge soon escaped
R esearching Bainbridge
the self-imposed prison. Bainbridge’s delusions deepened. Most of the information available about Bainbridge
He quarreled with Han at length, accusing him of being through Library Use rolls is nothing but P.R. fluff (though
a member of the Tcho-Tcho tribe of Tibet and finally it does give investigators access to his filmography; see
imploring the “sorcerer” to remove the curse of his power. page 52). Inquiries into his travels reveal his journey to
Han tried to flee, insisting he knew no such secrets or Tibet and his claims to have learned mystic secrets in the
mysteries, and Bainbridge walled the old man up alive in far east. Nowadays, with chintzy Orientalia and Egyptian
the wine cellar. (One of Mr. Bainbridge’s most famous roles fever running amok, that usually seeks like hype and
was in a 1923 adaptation of Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado.”) hokum. But in this case, the hints that Bainbridge gives
in interviews ring strangely true: His descriptions of the
Bainbridge has torn out his telephone, and passes notes places and culture of Tibet are easily discovered to be
and money for supplies to delivery boys from the markets accurate, and his metaphysics sound more like the actual
in town. Neighbors receive no reply to complaints that his Tibetan Book of the Dead than warmed-over theosophy.
garden and lawns are overgrown, fire-hazardous jungles. He is not clear about exactly what he learned, but he says
The strange noises that might often be heard faintly across cryptically that “It opened new vistas in my acting ability
the manor grounds are drowned out by his neighbors’ loud that I never imagined possible before.”
parties.

32
Reading up on the situation in newspapers and magazines boys will go with them and they can have a few laughs.
yields nothing of any real value. The yellow journalists The police know nothing useful about Bainbridge or his
haven’t gotten anything concrete, and the scandal situation. If none of the Investigators is a police officer (or
columnists have all been paid off. They’ve all gotten the a similar public official, such as a federal agent), things will
idea in their heads that Malcolm Bainbridge is suffering go much worse for them.
the hell of alcoholic detoxification, and that right now he’s
in a nice private sanitarium near Santa Barbara screaming As it turns out, the Los Angeles Police Department’s
at the pink elephants on the ceiling. Hollywood Division is not in the habit of answering
questions about possible crimes. Instead, they quickly
Should Investigators let members of the press know what turn the situation around and begin questioning the
they’re doing (or worse, what triggered the investigation), Investigators. Who are they? How do they know something
they have betrayed their employer and will cause the is wrong? Did a criminal tip them off? A fellow criminal,
deaths of 1D4+2 NPC reporters who try to “scoop” them that is? Why are they investigating this? Why did they
by getting into Dellfaire before the Investigators. All of think they could question the police? Mr. Bainbridge’s
these NPCs will be tricked and killed by Bainbridge, and address is not publicly known, so where did they get it?
the Keeper should describe the scenes of their deaths as Will they be so kind as to empty their pockets? This last is
desired. not a request, and if it is refused, they are met with armed
force. If they do not resist, they will be held for a few hours
If the Investigators’ employer ever learns of their betrayal, of questioning. If they resist without violence, they will be
they will be fired immediately. held for 24 hours while they are investigated. If they resist
with non-lethal force, they will be beaten severely. If they
resist with lethal force, they will be killed.
B a i n br i dge's L awy e r
The Investigators might sit tight and say nothing about
If investigators visit Bainbridge’s attorney, Oliver Cuttle who hired them or why they are looking into things. That
of the law firm of Torinsky, Cuttle and Tate, they get no will work once, and after a short questioning they will be
answers. Bainbridge is his client and he does not work for sent away with a warning. If they are taken in again and
anyone else in the scenario. Cuttle is sympathetic to Mrs. refuse to answer questions, they will be given very rough
Bainbridge and little Malcolm Jr. and sees it as his duty to treatment and the police will check on Bainbridge’s estate.
protect their interests according to his client’s instructions, Bainbridge will fool them into going away, though they
but he does not answer to Mrs. Bainbridge or Mr. Cline will have ideas of a juicy insanity scandal in their heads.
and has no reason to believe his client is incapable of
making responsible decisions for himself. In fact, Cuttle If the Investigators blab about their employer, or if the
is very wary of anyone attempting to have Bainbridge police go to the estate while the Investigators cool their
committed, or even to investigate Bainbridge, and he heels in a holding cell, they are embroiled briefly in a nasty
may very well warn the Investigators to keep away from spate of extortion. The cops smell the Bainbridge fortune
Dellfaire. and the studios’ desire to keep things quiet, and they go
after Paulette Bainbridge and Elliot Cline for a truckload
If he is convinced that they intend to bother Malcolm of hush money. Paulette and Cline have no choice but to
Bainbridge, Cuttle may call the police himself to go after give fat bribes to the police, and then quietly and angrily
the Investigators. Cuttle also speaks with Cline and Mrs. pay off the Investigators, furiously asking them to go away
Bainbridge if this happens, which leads them to confide and never come back.
their worries in him. Cuttle then, in 1D4 days, goes to
Dellfaire alone to speak with Malcolm Bainbridge. An If the Investigators choose to proceed to investigate
hour or two later Cuttle’s dead body is dumped in the Dellfaire and Malcolm Bainbridge’s condition at that
middle of the unused swimming pool at the estate. point, they are burglars and are dealt with in that fashion.

I n te rv i ew i ng the P ol ice Calling the Employers

Mr. Cline said not to involve the police before the Over the course of the scenario, investigators may wish
Investigators set out on their case. If they disobey him and to contact Mr. Cline or Mrs. Bainbridge and discuss the
go to ask the police what they know, they will be in for a best course of action. Since there is no working telephone
little education about life in the early 20th century. If any service at Dellfaire, they will need to leave the estate and
of the Investigators are police officers from out of town, either go bother the neighbors for the use of their phone or
they will be given grudging courtesy from their brother go down from the Hollywood Hills into the main streets
officers but will be told they are out of their jurisdiction of town to use a public payphone. Either course of action
and that they need to have a beer and go home. Hell, the could work, depending on the hour of night (they would

Issue 21 33
 need to go to a bar or nightclub to use a phone after 9
p.m.). If the investigators choose this highly 21st century Dellfaire
course of action (the long-distance “tether to the home
office”), they receive one of two general responses: Visible across the overgrown jungle of the great lawn
and gardens, Dellfaire clearly once was a palace in the
grand style. The homes of Chaplin, Keaton, Pickford, and
C all i ng M r . C l i n e Lloyd, all are rivaled by the magnificence of Malcolm
Bainbridge’s dream-house.
Cline is angry and troubled that the investigators are
calling him to find out what he wants them to do. Do The opulence has become decayed and withered. Weather
they need someone to come wipe their noses for them? He stains the fading paint, which seems older than it should.
hired them to do a job. Malcolm’s killed someone?! Oh my The hinges of the gates bleed tiny trickles of rust to the
God, that’s impossible. Are they sure? “Please, for God’s ground. Inside the house piles of clothing and scattered
sake, don’t tell anyone. I’ll make sure it’s worth your while. makeup jars lie everywhere; the house itself is a veritable
Don’t go back there to Dellfaire, just stay by a phone and museum of props and pieces of sets.
I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Somewhere inside lives the crazed Bainbridge, waiting
Cline goes to Dellfaire alone the next day to see if what to play his final roles. He might appear before the
the investigators said was true. They never hear from Investigators with any of his faces, in any of the rooms.
him again. Bainbridge hides Cline’s body at Dellfaire. He will observe them for a time before revealing himself;
Cline’s lawyer understands the confidential nature of the how he interacts with them depends greatly on how
Bainbridge situation and closes all of the books on his late they conduct their investigation. Those who behave like
client’s business as he executes Elliot Cline’s estate. The burglars could meet an angry police inspector, a twisted
Investigators are paid nothing, are not acknowledged and freak intent on frightening them away, or even a like-
are asked very politely to go away. minded hoodlum. Those who comport themselves like
scientists may be met with a dignified lawyer and orator
from a courtroom drama, declaiming their actions
C all i ng M rs . B a i n br i dge and threatening them with the fullest legal action.
Undisciplined parties may be met with random chaos:
Mrs. Bainbridge is frightened and anxious, particularly visitations from princes and fiends, cleaning women and
because she thought she was hiring professionals (the killers. Malcolm Bainbridge has become a funhouse
Investigators), and now these amateurs have come to a mirror.
housewife to ask what she thinks they should do. If the
Investigators haven’t found anything too horrible, she
nervously says that they should go back and finish the S tak i ng O ut D ellfa i r e
investigation, since that’s what she brought them in to do.
If they tell her about the murders, she flies into a panicked Given the surrounding wall and months of neglect to the
hysteria. That’s impossible! How can they be sure? Maybe landscaping, as well as the poor lighting at night, it is a
there’s someone in the house holding Malcolm hostage and waste of time to stake out Dellfaire. Investigators can see
killing anyone who might free him. She absolutely refuses nothing from the street except the occasional glimpse
to involve the police and begs the Investigators to tell no of someone moving on the grounds, viewed obscurely
one. She asks them to stay near a phone and she will call through the wrought iron front gate. That person will
them tomorrow to arrange their payment. be Bainbridge disguised as his wife Paulette (75% of the
time) or as the fictional groundskeeper Bowman (25%). In
Paulette tearfully goes alone to Dellfaire the next day. The addition there is a substantial chance that the neighbors
investigators never hear from her again. Unlike Cline, she will see the Investigators, assume that they are harassing
is captured and held hostage by her deranged husband, the Bainbridges and call the police.
who ties her to a bed. Within a few days her SAN is 0 and
she is a catatonic shell. Malcolm lovingly feeds her random
garbage and pieces of whatever he can find. She dies Q u estion i ng th e N e ighbors
within a few months. Their son, Malcolm Jr., has been left
with Paulette’s sister in Santa Monica, and when the estate Dellfaire’s neighbors are all wealthy and influential,
is eventually settled the orphan boy will be rich but lonely. many of them also silent-film actors. It takes a successful
Persuade, Credit Rating, or Fast Talk skill roll to simply
get to see these people, and a successful Luck roll for
them to be at home when the investigators come calling.
If Investigators do manage to get past these barriers,
they must still make a Persuade roll to get any more

34
 MANSPERGER

information, with a modifier of –20% if the average of

their POW and APP scores is less than 14.

Everyone in Hollywood knows how hard it is to grab

stardom, how ephemeral it can be, and most of all
how many skeletons dance in everyone’s closets. Secret
abortions, gay affairs, addictions to heroin, cocaine and
alcohol, murders, suicides, interracial affairs, adultery,
betrayals and much more haunt the homes of the new
movie legends. No one is in a hurry to talk to outsiders,
and this chic, snobbish in-crowd of glamour-folk have very
little of importance to tell the Investigators. All they really
know is that Bainbridge has probably suffered a nervous
breakdown and has dismissed his servants and forced his
poor wife out to stay in a Hollywood hotel down the hill.
The amateur Freudians insist it’s a sex problem, while
others claim it’s got to be alcohol. Everyone agrees it’s a
shame Bainbridge doesn’t come round to parties anymore.
He was always a really swell guy, and his wife was a peach.

The neighbors’ servants are not much help, but can offer
up strange, misleading tidbits of things they’ve seen and
heard at a distance in the next-door estate.

It may be entertaining to have the investigators meet

neighbors at a Hollywood party of the 1920s, complete
with bathtub gin, live jazz musicians, flappers, the Fox
Trot and Charleston, and even a few Mah-Jongg fanatics
at a tile-covered board in a nook somewhere. Feel free to
introduce red herrings in interviews with directors, stars
and producers. Perhaps Bainbridge will disguise himself
and infiltrate the party, feeding the Investigators false Sybil Maybower, screen siren
information and setting them up for later.

With a successful Luck roll or enough diligence, the G et ti ng I n to D ellfa i r e

Investigators run into Sybil Maybower, a siren of the silver
screen, who insists that she once saw Bainbridge from the If the Investigators respectfully ask to be admitted to
balcony of a neighboring mansion at night. The moon Dellfaire, Bainbridge, disguised as his own (nonexistent)
was full, and she saw him struggling with a smaller man butler or maid, will let them in. The door is locked
near his cellar door. Before she got any of the other guests’ otherwise. If the Investigators ask their employer to give
attention, he had disappeared into the cellar. them keys to the house, they will be given, but are still
expected to knock before just barging in.

F ood D el iv e r i es If they ignore all these niceties and simply break into
Dellfaire, there is a 50% chance that a neighbor will see
If investigators gain access to Bainbridge’s grocery bills, or hear them and call the police. If they are not noticed by
they discover that he receives weekly deliveries from neighbors, there is still a 50% chance that they will make
Ralphs grocery store at Hollywood Boulevard and Western enough noise on entering the gloomy, cluttered darkness of
Avenue. The goods are delivered by different men who Dellfaire that Bainbridge will hear them.
operate the truck and make their drop-offs every Sunday
afternoon. They usually just leave a cardboard box full of In any case, no matter how they enter the house,
Bainbridge’s purchases at the service entrance to the main Bainbridge will already be in disguise and “playing a role”
house (accessible from the side gate) and collect the signed by himself. Only during the hours of 6:00 and 9:00 a.m.
check which is waiting there pinned to the door jamb. It’s can the tortured actor be found in his “natural” form, in
just a bunch of food and drink each week: water, milk, fitful and too-brief sleep.
bourbon, coffee, butter, bread, canned food. It would be
very easy to bribe a delivery man to let an Investigator
take his place.

Issue 21 35
 SHEARER

36
 SHEARER

Issue 21 37
 F or th e R ecor d Mailbox

There are no underground utility pipes leading into or The mailbox is stuffed with old mail for Bainbridge and
out of Dellfaire that are sufficiently large for any human his driver and servant, Jack Han. There are utility bills,
being to crawl through them. There is no room to land a few royalty checks, notices from the company that
an airplane on the estate’s grounds, helicopters have not handles Bainbridge’s fan mail, several issues of Silver Screen
yet been invented, and everyone would see a landing via magazine for Bainbridge and several issues of American
hot air balloon. The estate is landlocked. The estate is Fisherman and Today’s Mechanics for Jack Han.
surrounded by a high wall that has one front gate and
one side gate, both visible from the street. It would be B e r k h am's C a r
extremely easy to cut the electricity to the estate from the
outside, although it is difficult to imagine how that would The car is parked on the parking circle in front of the main
help the Investigators. house, untouched by anyone since the late Mr. Berkham
got out of it. It’s a black 1922 Gardner Roadster R with
California license plates. The gas tank is two thirds full.
The Estate Grounds Like all newer cars in the United States in the 1920s, it
does not require an ignition key but starts at the push of a
The estate faces onto a quiet hillside street on one side; on button. (The doors are locked with a key, however, and the
the opposite side, it faces out onto a small bluff overlooking windows are rolled up.)
an estate about 75 feet further down the hill, and winding
residential streets leading into Hollywood proper below G ar age
that. The estate grounds are surrounded by a 10-foot
concrete block wall topped with ornamental wrought iron A midnight-blue 1923 Duesenberg Model A dual-
spikes. Neighbors have large, multi-story houses and can windshield Phaeton is parked in the garage. The gas tank
see into the grounds, but it is impossible to see into them is three quarters full. It has not been started in a long time
from the street except through the wrought iron front gate and is covered in a thin film of gritty dust. The garage
and a smaller side gate that’s accessible by a small gravel has a full selection of auto repair tools, a jerry can full
path. An electric intercom speaker system and an old- of gasoline, several cans of oil, four spare tires and other
fashioned pull-chain bell are installed at the front gate, replacement parts (spark plugs, fan belts, etc.).
but the side gate has only an intercom. The overgrown
grounds within the walls are poorly lit by a few floodlights
and path lamps that still have working lightbulbs.

L o s t Fa c e s

On several occasions, Bainbridge has become so

frenzied with derangement and horror at his condition
that he has torn away parts of his skin where the
faces manifested in his reflection. Separated from his
body, these bits of flesh have grown and continued in
an awful sort of life, inspired by his madness. Unable
to die until Bainbridge dies (see “The Man With a
Thousand Deaths,” page 45), they are mentally linked
with the faces still buried in Bainbridge’s flesh.
They work together like the component organisms
that comprise a Portuguese man o’ war; when a
“scene” requires a “thrown” voice offstage to call
out the right dialogue at the right moment, these
discarded faces whisper, speak or shout as needed.
They achieve this despite being sliced free from
Bainbridge’s trembling form and then desperately
buried behind shelving, walls, floorboards or
anywhere else he can keep them out of sight.
Investigators who find these “lost faces” lose 0/1D3
SAN for each one. At the Keeper’s option, the “Getting
Used to Awfulness” rules may apply.

38
 Gardens Ten n is C ourt

There are extensive gardens on the grounds but they The court is just a flat expanse of empty pavement with a
are all ruined now. Most of the garden landscaping was net and one working light that casts a dreary pall over it…
modeled on the French palace of Versailles, but one corner very ominous.
is “oriental” themed and features a fish pond stocked with
a few surviving koi and a rock garden that has strange Work Shed
symbols raked into its gravel. (A Cthulhu Mythos roll
reveals that it is the name of Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat A workshop located inside a large, locked shed includes
of the Woods, and the name of the unholy Plateau of tools for woodworking, metalwork, glass cutting, leather
Tsang.) working and heavy-duty sewing. The tools, fasteners,
materials and pigments stacked on the shelves are mostly
Many small animals wander the gardens now: coyotes, unused, many of them still sealed. A thin layer of dust
raccoons, opossums, squirrels, rats, feral cats and dogs, covers everything.
lizards, even the occasional deer. Any of these could
provide a surprise for Investigators as they hear a grunt or A “Lost Face” hidden under a stack of lumber pleads
the sound of something running into the underbrush. Owls movingly for help in the rich, plummy voice that
sometimes roost in the trees; their glowing eyes may glint Bainbridge used for the dastardly caped villain The Wolf
in the darkness and spook the unwary. in his film The Wolf of Paris, when that character was
caught in his own deathtrap. It is difficult to find, but if
A “Lost Face” is hidden under a thicket of yellow- Investigators do, they lose 0/1D3 SAN.
bloomed rosebushes in the gardens. It occasionally
whispers promises of mystic power and worldly wealth
in the “Arabic” accent and otherworldly tones used by
Bainbridge in the role of The Giaour in his film Vathek, a
Tale of Arabia. The monstrous little bit of flesh is difficult to
find; if investigators find it, they lose 0/1D3 SAN.

Greenhouse

There is a greenhouse choked with plant growth; its

narrow pathways permit only single-file investigation, and
vines scratch and caress the investigators’ faces and the
The Main House
backs of their necks. Most rooms have hardwood floors with rich area carpets.
Walls and ceilings are hand-crafted plaster over wooden
G u e s t C o t tag e lath, with beautiful mouldings along the baseboards and
the edges of the high ceilings.
This is a lovely one-bedroom house with a sitting room, a
small but complete bathroom, a small kitchen and a dining It is very dark inside. Thick drapes on both floors are
nook. It has some overturned furniture and is dusty but is mostly drawn shut both day and night. Most of the
more habitable than the main house. The door is unlocked. lightbulbs in the fixtures are either burned out or broken.

A “Lost Face” hidden under an overturned armoire In nearly every room the air is still and stale, with the
occasionally shouts threats of violence and exquisite unclean smell of someone living amid trash and without
torture in the rough baritone that Bainbridge used in hygiene. Any Investigator who has visited an asylum or a
his film South of the Sudan. The ghastly chunk of oozing homeless flophouse recognizes this depressing odor.
tissue making these outsized noises is difficult to find; if
Investigators discover it they lose 0/1D3 SAN. Most of the rooms are cluttered with masks, makeup
containers, mannequins, prosthetic limbs and wigs—
Sw imm i ng Po ol myriad distractions for Investigators. Hundreds of
photographs, paintings and etchings cover the walls in
Dry and empty as an eye socket, the competition-sized most rooms; it’s as if there were eyes watching, everywhere.
pool has leaves and trash at the bottom and scattered
outdoor furniture around it. The little cabana beside it, On the ground floor and the upper floor, Bainbridge’s
where guests would change into swimsuits or get a fresh meandering footprints in the dust betray his occupation of
towel, is locked. The poolside bar is empty. All the liquor the house—but not his location. Bainbridge has wandered
bottles and glassware are now smashed fragments at the through much of the house on a daily basis, and there is
bottom of the pool. no way to discern where he last walked. Alert Investigators

Issue 21 39
 may notice that the footprints reflect a bewildering variety towering over all the other characters and laughing
of shoe styles, both male and female, all basically the same malevolently.
size. This could be revealed through a skill roll, but it
might be better to grant the players the obvious knowledge Kitchen
of footprints in general and then see if they ask the right
questions. A flyridden stink of unwashed dishes and heaped trash
pours from this room as the Investigators open the door.
Cockroaches and half-eaten cans of food lying among the
T he G rou n d F loor antique china attest to the rank decay. Another, even fouler
odor emanates from the pantry; Investigators who are
A faint sound of music drifts from upstairs. physicians, veterans of the Great War or who have been
policemen or private investigators recognize the smell of
The rooms and side corridors of the ground floor, as well death. This costs 0/1 SAN.
as stairs linking it to the upstairs level, are all linked by one
main corridor. A broken Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheel L ibrary
(inscribed with a prayer for healing from disease) lay in a
corner of the corridor. Investigators should be encouraged to search the room
for any books from the Cthulhu Mythos, perhaps even
D i n i n g R o om with the appearance of similar titles or authors (the Cellini
Fragments?). Alas, no matter how thorough the search, there
Opulent as a ballroom, the dining room features a large are no such volumes in this room, unless one counts the
teakwood-inlaid dining table and an overhead lead-crystal very complete collections of the works of Poe and Bierce.
chandelier which chimes with bell-like tones in any breeze. (There is also a copy of Arthur Machen’s Casanova, but this
The table itself is covered with grimy dishes and open tin would in no wise affect someone’s Cthulhu Mythos rating.)
cans of food. A cockroach crawls across a waterstained film A vault built into the wall stands half-open and prints of
magazine with the headline, “DON’T STEP ON IT! IT Bainbridge’s films lie unspooled in celluloid heaps on the
MIGHT BE LON CHANEY!” floor. These are highly flammable.

There is a broken chair in a corner; if examined, the If Investigators examine all the furniture in the room,
broken woodwork reveals long-dried brown bloodstains they find a folder in a locked desk drawer that holds papers
and a few bits of grey hair embedded in the splinters. The from Bainbridge’s journey to Tibet: airplane and passenger
chair was smashed over Jack Han’s head while he was ship ticket stubs, his passport, letters of reference for local
unaware, permitting Bainbridge to drag him downstairs guides (both Sherpa and lowlander), and a map of Tibet
and wall him up alive. with an unexplored region labeled “Tsang” in Bainbridge’s
handwriting.
A “Lost Face” hidden in a small pile of trash in this room
occasionally laughs loudly and hysterically, in the voice of M u s i c C o n s e r vat o r y
the Shedim (Bainbridge’s character in the film The Shedim).
It is difficult to find, but if Investigators find it they lose A gleaming white grand piano sits in the center of the
0/1D3 SAN. room, with a piece by Chopin lying open on its music
stand. Sheet music lies scattered in meaningless clumps
E ntry V estibule over the floor. (If investigators reassemble it into order,
the only complete songs are Benny Krueger’s “I Cried for
Gilded French lions herald the entryway to Dellfaire, You,” Al Jolson’s “I Wonder What’s Become of Sally?” and
which is illumined by a beautiful antique stained-glass Ethel Waters’ “There’ll Be Some Changes Made.” A dead
window. Rich oriental carpeting muted with dust covers potted palm looms in one corner beside a gilded faux-
the hardwood flooring. It is obvious that someone has Egyptian canopic jar. (An Egyptology skill roll shows that
walked through these halls many times, leaving paths worn Bainbridge is no more an Egyptologist than anyone else
into the dust. There are stacks and bundles of letters and infected with the Egyptomania of the 1920s.)
postcards, most of them from Bainbridge’s adoring public,
fading with time. Pan try

A framed poster for Malcolm Bainbridge’s movie The There is a hideous discovery in the center of the pantry:
Mystery of the Yellow Room hangs on the wall of this room. the bloated corpse of Bainbridge’s missing agent, Robert
It features his character, Frederic Larsan, puzzling over a Berkham, with a terrible blunt impact wound to the head.
clue near a dead (but glamorous) woman. A framed poster He is sprawled over a small oriental throw rug with an
for Bainbridge’s movie Vathek, an Arabian Tale features antimacassar from one of the chairs covering most of
his character, the sinister djinn known as The Giaour, his face. He has been dead several days. Flies’ eggs form

40
a teardrop in his half-open eye. Seeing the body costs it cleanly to the pantry. A locked cabinet holds several
another 0/1 SAN. Almost hidden behind four sacks of important letters (see page 56-57).
weevil-infested flour is the padlocked door to the wine
cellar. “A Lost Face” hidden in this room occasionally speaks
intelligible, crafty words and phrases calculated to mislead
S cr e e n i n g R o om listeners and get them to wander aimlessly. It speaks in the
voice of a young delivery man that brought Bainbridge his
A comfortable miniature theater with a permanent silver groceries for a few months before transferring to a store in
screen, small proscenium stage, projector, adjustable lights, the San Fernando Valley town of North Hollywood. The
plush seating, small bar and side table for buffets. Large severed face-thing is hidden underneath another throw rug
cabinets store prints of Bainbridge’s movies, which are all and is difficult to find; if investigators do, they lose 0/1D3
made of highly flammable silver nitrate stock. There are SAN.
also home movies of Malcolm, Paulette and little Malcolm
Jr., along with various famous friends from Hollywood. Wine Cellar

When investigators arrive in the room, the lights are Stairs down to the wine cellar are located just behind the
dimmed and the projector is playing a scene from pantry, behind a locked door. Another set of stairs lead
Bainbridge’s film Apprehension. He plays a killer of beautiful down to the wine cellar from the outdoors, also behind
young women who is frightened and on the run from the a locked door. Investigators must make a successful
police, and who has taken refuge in an isolated convent Locksmith roll or use brute force to get past the padlock
where a lovely young novice has taken pity on him. (opposed by STR 12 unless they have a prybar).
The film is full of stark images of fearful faces gazing
uncertainly from the darkness. A winding, narrow staircase leads down to a roomful of
dusty racks of wine bottles. There is nothing unusual about
A framed wall poster for Bainbridge’s movie The Sideshow any of the wines, except that they are unusually expensive
Man features his character, the oily and villainous and extremely good vintages. There are bricks, mortar,
Professor Manfrotto. A framed poster for Written On the buckets, hods and such lying about. These tools came from
Rain features his character, the horrifying Twisted Man, the work shed on the estate grounds.
about to strangle an innocent victim. A poster for The
Shedim features his character, the gruesome demon called A Spot Hidden roll or specific inspection of the walls
the Shedim. Finally, a framed poster for Apprehension allows Investigators to notice that one of the room’s alcoves
features Bainbridge’s character, Scourby, in a chiaroscuro has been freshly and badly bricked up, perhaps three to
portrait that suggests a crescendo of mind-shattering six months ago. The new masonry is partially covered
terror. by a framed poster for Bainbridge’s hit film The Mask of
Amontillado, which features the actor in the role of the
S tu dy vengeful Montresor.

A brass bust of Shakespeare sits on a varnished Chinese If the Investigators spend about an hour or so for loud,
desk beside the gilt-worked telephone, which is quite dead. backbreaking labor with picks and hammers, they find the
Careful inspection or a Spot Hidden roll detects a small decayed corpse of Jack Han. He had only been knocked
bloodstain on a corner of the base of the bust, and closer unconscious when he was thrown into this loathsome
examination discerns a few human hairs likewise clinging death-cell, and he died of thirst despite catching and
to the sculpture. eating some vermin. His discoverers lose 1/1D3 SAN as
Han’s desiccated corpse falls out of the wall, its fingertips
worn to blood-encrusted nubs by clawing at the bricks
from the inside.

G et ti ng F rom F loor to F loor

The two floors of the main house are connected by two
stairways, one in the front of the house, the other in the
back. They are quite well made and do not creak in the
There is a “clean pattern” in the dust of the carpeting least.
near the desk in the oblong shape of a throw rug. This
is where Berkham fell when he died from the smashing
blow Bainbridge dealt him with the Shakespeare bust;
Bainbridge wrapped the carpet around his corpse to carry

Issue 21 41
 T he U ppe r F loor McInnis, dragging himself agonizingly toward a lighted
doorway, desperate to share a vital clue with the other
As the investigators climb the stairs, the sound of music policemen.
grows louder. It comes from a doorway down the hall.
G u e st B e d r o om Tw o
The rooms and side corridors of the upper floor, as well
as the main staircase, are all linked by one main corridor. Another unoccupied bedroom. The shards of a broken
Toward the back of the house, in a dimly lit expanse of mirror scatter light from the dusty-curtained windows
corridor, words are written in lipstick on the wall in a or the Investigators’ electric torches. A framed poster for
shaky but legible (masculine) cursive hand: “Thank you for Bainbridge’s movie The Wolf of Paris features his character,
all your service, Jack. There is only one thing left now that The Wolf, in a huge silhouette that merges the slouch-
I need from you.” hatted villain with his mitered bishop alter ego, towering
over the skyline of Paris and the young hero and heroine.
G u e st B at h
G u e st B e d r o om Th r e e
A smashed mirror greets Investigators in this room,
which is just as filthy as all the other bathrooms in the The remains of a makeshift barricade are scattered around
mansion. A few scattered brown droplets on the tiled floor the outside of the bedroom door—someone (Bainbridge)
can be readily identified as dried blood. A framed poster was clearly boarded up in the room against his or her
for Malcolm Bainbridge’s movie She’s a Cad! features his will (by Jack Han) and then broke free. A Spot Hidden
character, Stanley the Butler, mugging for the viewer while or Mechanical Repair roll reveals that the barricade is
his crazy blonde boss-lady falls back into a young male months old and was apparently carefully removed from the
star’s arms. inside. A triptych-style dressing mirror lies flat on the floor
in splinters of glass.
G u e st B e d r o om O n e
The bed has a long-dried bloodstain on its mattress and
Like all the bedrooms in the house, this chamber is covers. A Spot Hidden roll finds a small, pinkish-brownish
lavishly decorated in a rococo-Orientalist fashion. It has object just underneath the bed. A Medical or Biology roll
also not been occupied in quite some time. The floor- reveals that this ragged, odd-shaped patch of leathery
mirror is smashed. A framed poster for Bainbridge’s movie tissue is a four-square-inch patch of human skin sliced off
Crusade On Smith Street features his character, Officer with a razor. If the investigators examine it closely enough,

42
they discover that it has a tiny, warped human face on it; M a lco lm J r .'s B e d r o om
this costs 0/1 SAN. This “Lost Face” is truly dead and
makes no sounds. Decorated after the fashion of a castle from the novel
Ivanhoe, this is clearly a long-abandoned child’s bedroom.
A framed poster for Malcolm Bainbridge’s movie Wicked The bed is covered with toys and photos of the boy and
Passion features his character, John Wesley Hardin, his parents. Here, too, the mirror on the chest of drawers
brandishing a six-shooter amid several other characters. is dashed to flinders. Along the wall behind the bed two
words are scrawled in a child’s paint, too high for any child
G u e st B e d r o om F o u r to write: “LOVE YOU.” A framed poster for Malcolm
Bainbridge’s movie Memories of Mr. Middleton on the wall
Judging by the thick layer of dust, this room has not been features his character, Bowman the Groundskeeper,
occupied—or cleaned—in quite some time. The mirrors smiling out at the viewer from within a wreath along with
on the nightstand and the closet doors are smashed to the rest of the main cast.
pieces. A framed poster for Malcolm Bainbridge’s movie
South of the Sudan features his character, cruel One-Thumb M aste r B e d r o om
Tyler, threatening to use a whip on a beautiful and nearly
nude young actress. The master bedroom is heaped with clothing of every
conceivable sort: men’s, women’s, everyday garb and
A “Lost Face” hidden in this room occasionally mutters costume pieces. An electric phonograph player sings away
or shouts unintelligibly in the voice Elliot Cline, who to itself, and as the Investigators open the door the stylus
Bainbridge met on a few business occasions; Investigators skips across the waxen disc and the singer’s voice hiccups
recognize the voice without seeing the horror with a Listen in a tinny repetition of the chorus (“Oh please don’t talk about
roll. The gobbet of rotting tissue making these sounds is me when I’m gone—scritch—Oh please don’t talk about me when
smeared on the wall behind the poster for South of the Sudan. I’m gone—scritch—Oh please don’t talk about me when I’m
Finding it costs 0/1D3 SAN. gone—”).

J ack H a n 's R o om

MANSPERGER
This room has been torn apart. All the rich, decadent
eastern furnishings have been laid waste, heaped up in a
pile in the middle of the room. A number of cryptic books
and scrolls lie nearly completely burnt in a charred corner
under a singed blanket. A Library Use roll reveals these
tomes to have been original editions, hand-scribed in odd
languages. A Cthulhu Mythos or Occult roll reveals that
they are hand-copied notes from such notorious books
as the Zanthu Tablets, the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, the
Decrees of Serpent-Bearded Han, and the R’lyeh Text. They are
too incomplete to be of any use to anyone, now.

A clue to the riddle of Malcolm Bainbridge is here. An

Art or Art History roll reveals that not only are the ruined
furnishings much too expensive to be afforded by Mr.
Han, but some of them share a distinctive auction-house
marking tag with other luxurious furnishings in the
house—western-style furnishings. This makes it obvious
that Jack Han did not furnish his room in this fashion.

An Investigator who searches Han’s wardrobe and makes

a Spot Hidden roll finds a satchel containing some black-
and-white photos of several Chinese-American parents
with their children, and a turn-of-the-century postcard in
Mandarin Chinese. (It is from Jack’s late wife, informing
him that she has just boarded the boat for San Francisco
from Shanghai with their son and her aged parents, but it
will only be readable by Investigators with a language skill
in Mandarin Chinese.)
Jack Han, unfortunate servant

Issue 21 43
 The walls were once hung with plaster masks of the many
faces of Malcolm Bainbridge, but those mementoes lie in Solving the Mystery
fragments on the dusty floor. One of the curtains on the
great four-post canopy bed is half torn off, and there are What happens when Investigators discover the true reason
old dried bloodstains on some of the sheets. A photograph for Bainbridge’s disappearance depends largely on how
of the handsome Mr. Bainbridge and his beautiful wife they present themselves to Bainbridge. He can be placated
and child sits on the bed, carefully cleaned. for a time by those who pretend that everything is normal
at Dellfaire, but it won’t be long before he decides they
There are no screen acting trophies on his shelf, as the must be tricking him. Those who try to shock him into
Academy has not yet begun to present its famous awards. facing reality aren’t going to solve his problems, either.
Bainbridge is a paranoid psychotic but he is only too aware
A framed poster for Malcolm Bainbridge’s movie The of his reality. And he is not a “split personality.” When
Unholy features his character, Old Mother Colby, gazing he takes on one of his roles, no matter who it may be, he
out menacingly at the viewer as a procession of coffins is aware that he is acting. The insanity for Bainbridge
passes in the background. lies in the delusion that he is performing once more for
cameras, and that the voices of the pustules within his
M ast e r B at h mind are the voice of a director guiding him through his
great impersonations. He sometimes “breaks the fourth
Dominated by a large gilded bathtub supported by Atlas- wall” and interacts with “the maestro,” but this should not
like Grecian statues, this lavatory is grimy, mildewy, and happen until later in the scenario to avoid spoiling any
unclean. The dressing nook, which was once surrounded surprises.
by floor-length mirrors and bright lights, is now littered
with fragments of glass. The Tibetan word “nyonmong,” He has tried to cut all the faces off his body, or burn
meaning “affliction,” is scratched over and over into the them off, but it’s never enough. The pain and the howling
enameled lip of the bathroom sink. A framed poster for laughter in his head are too much for the man. The “Lost
Bainbridge’s movie Toilers of the Sea features his character, Faces” he has already sliced from himself have proven
Gilliatt, holding his sweet and pretty leading lady as they impossible to completely kill, and he has hidden them
gaze out hopefully upon the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean. away. He made the mistake once of picking up one of the
sickening little gibbering bits of flesh and eating it, in a
S olar ium desperate bid to shut it up. He hears it from somewhere
inside his guts now.
Dust cakes the floor-length windows of the solarium. Wind
gusts mournfully through one of the upper broken panes. Bainbridge believes in some corner of his twisted psyche
that if only someone can kill his invented character of
Dead flowers are scattered among a letter-opener, a Han, the Lama of Tsang, then he can be cured of the
paperweight, an ashtray, and the fragments of a lovely doom of the thousand faces. That killing need not be
vase on the floor. Several dead plants in pots are arranged real; it can be play-acting that one is destroying Han, if
artistically around the room. it’s convincing enough—it needs a Psychology roll and
an Art (Acting) or Persuade roll to carry out the role-play
A “Lost Face” hidden in this room occasionally emits a for Bainbridge’s benefit. Bainbridge will not hold back, of
weird, ominous wordless song in a piping, childish voice. It course. Anyone play-acting the hero in “the death of Han”
was a face of Malcolm Jr. that grew on Bainbridge’s body, will be at risk of murder at the actor’s hands.
and it is his voice. If investigators have met the toddler,
they recognize it. The small dollop of mutated flesh is Bainbridge can never be free. His curse is permanent,
buried among the roots of one of the potted plants. It is and even if investigators assist him in “killing Han” he
difficult to find, but if the Investigators do, they lose 0/1D3 only lapses into the hallucination that he is normal again.
SAN. Shortly thereafter he creeps back into lunacy.

The actor’s role in life can only end in his death or his
O the r R ooms permanent installation in an insane asylum (with persistent
rumors among the staff that “this one is special”), one
Additional rooms are up to the Keeper to detail. They are more wreck on Hollywood’s boulevard of broken dreams.
much as they appear to be, but are strewn with costume
pieces, covered in a thin layer of dust and in a slight degree Bainbridge might be dragged out of Dellfaire and forced
of disrepair. into the sanitarium. But can he be kept there? Tough,
two-fisted Investigators who force him to undergo
treatment are likely targets for his inevitable revenge.
Hospital orderlies, doctors and nurses will not believe

44
ridiculous stories about his magical power to take on
their appearances and escape. The police laugh at such T h e D eath of D ellfa i r e
warnings. Of course he’s good at disguises. He is the only
real rival to Lon Chaney. At the Keeper’s discretion, at any point in the night, if
Bainbridge believes he has killed the Investigators or
If Investigators can talk with Bainbridge carefully and get driven them off his estate, he may become gripped with his
through to him, they can convince him to stay in a hospital recurring despondency and douse the place with gasoline
for treatment that will never work. But if he is strong- from his garage and torch it. The men of the Los Angeles
armed like a sack of cornmeal, Malcolm Bainbridge’s Fire Department’s Hollywood station will never arrive in
movie personalities include some very nasty characters time to save the house or its occupants.
that will patiently pursue the investigators across the world
and enact horrible revenge upon them, one by one.
S hots F i r ed
A M omen t of T ruth Dellfaire is located on a large tract of land, surrounded
by other large estates. The neighbors throw a lot of
If any Investigator presents Bainbridge with a mirror, parties and have gotten used to Bainbridge shouting and
forcing him to view his reflection, he stares in frozen shock screaming in all kinds of voices (albeit not as much as
for a moment—allowing the investigator a clear view of lately). Voices don’t get any attention from outsiders. If
his nauseating curse in the mirror—and then he smashes Investigators (or Bainbridge) start shooting guns, however,
the glass, heedless of injury. The Investigator must make a that will definitely get the neighbors to call the police. (See
Sanity roll as per the Black Goat’s Disguise spell. “Going to the Police,” page 46.) They arrive even faster
if they hear explosions. Note that the police have access
to both submachine guns and grenades if they feel it is
M ay I H av e Y ou r A uto gr a ph , S i r ? necessary to use them.

If anyone thinks to “break scene” and ask Bainbridge

politely for his autograph, he immediately and terrifyingly T h e M an W ith A T housan d D eaths
transforms back to his “normal” self right in front of them,
dropping all pretense and signing the proffered item. Actually killing Bainbridge during his “killing Han”
Witnessing the transformation costs 0/1D6+2 SAN. scene is the most merciful possible outcome, and it could

Issue 21 45
 be argued as a self-defense killing from the evidence in Paulette Bainbridge will have Malcolm declared legally
the house. But it won’t be easy. Bainbridge is a clever dead in the mid-1930s, and until then the estate will be
psychotic, often armed with deadly weapons, and in an managed by his attorney.
extended brawl with Investigators he is entirely capable of
confusing them by taking on their appearance (and more
importantly, their voices). Going to the Police
Malcolm Bainbridge isn’t bulletproof, fireproof or This is a bad, bad idea. Malcolm Bainbridge is insane and
anything-proof. He does, however, have a thousand faces. dangerous. He is also still worth a great deal of money—
Each has its own reserve of hit points. When he is “killed” for himself, for his wife, for his agent and for his studio.
in any face but his own, genuine form, he appears to die Hollywood is a company town in the 1920s, and a great
in that guise, complete with a “death scene.” Each time deal of crime and scandal is swept under the rug by brutal,
he “dies” in this way the witnesses lose 0/1D4 SAN. He corrupt cops who know how to keep people’s mouths shut if
cannot assume that face again. But he will change to they’re paid right—or how to spread bad publicity all over
another face, prefereably when no one is looking (SAN cost L.A.’s dozens of newspapers and tabloids if they’re not.
1/1D6+2 to witness), and rise again at full HP. Bainbridge
feels tremendous pain and terror each time he undergoes At first blush, calling the Hollywood division of the
these deaths, and has no desire to do so. Nevertheless, his Los Angeles Police Department seems like a very good
seeming immortality can make him appear quite daunting idea when Investigators spot danger at Dellfaire. After
to violence-prone investigators. all, the Investigators have only to exit the estate, drop
in on a wealthy neighbor or possibly drive down to the
Ralphs grocery (depending on the hour of day) and use a
T he T housan d -an d - F i rst D eath payphone. If all else fails, they have the option of visiting
a police station in person. Surely nothing could go wrong
If the investigators do kill the real Bainbridge, he calls out then. Or could it?
for Paulette and his son as he is dying. The moment should
not be not stagey or hammy, but genuine. Bainbridge Bainbridge’s agent and his wife both prefer to keep this out
welcomes death and fears it at the same time. of the public eye, and that includes involving the police.
Neither of them agrees to pay the Investigators anything
After he breathes his last, something unbearably loathsome if this happens, and in fact, both immediately swear out a
happens: Bainbridge’s cadaver dissolves into dozens of tiny, complaint against the Investigators with the Los Angeles
twisted faces (like his “Lost Faces”), each attached to its District Attorney that alleges that they have conspired to
own nauseating polyp of oozing flesh like some horrible frame Malcolm Bainbridge, world-renowned movie star,
Salvador Dali painting of the damned. The morsels of for murder. This is absurd, but Cline and Paulette are too
slimy tissue flow into the crevices of the floor and walls, emotionally involved and cannot believe the horrifying
dissolving down into the whispering darkness of the depths truth.
of the Earth. Those who witness this vomit-inducing sight
lose 1D6 SAN and will be haunted by it in dreams for After a short encounter with the police (which the Keeper
the rest of their lives—especially if they ever see another may run out, if desired, with the assumption that the cops
Malcolm Bainbridge film. will suffer casualties due to Bainbridge’s supernatural
tricks but will ultimately prevail by brute force) Bainbridge
Unfortunately, there is another problem with killing himself will be taken to a mental hospital and placed
Bainbridge. The lack of a corpse means that there is under private and very expensive care. No visitors, most
no way to prove he is actually dead. The investigators, especially the Investigators, are permitted. But this is not
having killed a famous millionaire and seeing his body the end of the matter.
dissolve itself before their revolted gaze, must answer to an
extremely unhappy Mr. Cline and Mrs. Bainbridge for his Neither Cline nor Mrs. Bainbridge are directly responsible
disappearance, to say nothing of the powerful movie studio for what follows, as the messy business at Dellfaire must be
that worked with Bainbridge and the very corrupt police “cleaned up” by the forces of business and law. Millions of
department in the city. No one is going to accept any crazy dollars and Hollywood’s glittering reputation are at stake.
stories about dissolving dead men. Bainbridge’s studio pays off the police to clear the mad
actor’s name—by not revealing what they know, and by
After they are “sweated” and beaten by detectives, the throwing the D.A. a group of patsies: the Investigators.
investigators should make a group Luck roll (rolling against
the lowest of their Luck scores). If it succeeds, they are Despite the fact that the Investigators called in the police
merely run out of town and told never to return. If it fails, to begin with, the People of the State of California bring
the Investigators are accused and face a very unpleasant charges of murder, conspiracy and extortion against them.
legal situation. (See “Going to the Police,” below.) The official story is that they found Bainbridge helpless to

46
control his actions, eliminated his helpers so they could no No one will ever believe them in the general public for
longer protect him, and attempted to force Bainbridge to generations to come. Even then, it will only be a “dark side
give them his wealth. When this failed, the Investigators of Hollywood” piece of gossip.
attempted to extort a ransom from Mrs. Bainbridge
(she will, with great shame, pretend this is true) for her The base chance of conviction is 65% due to the diligent
husband. When all of this failed, the “desperate criminals” efforts of the police and DA’s office. Add +10% for
(the Investigators) tried to avenge themselves by framing their defense attorney (it doesn’t matter if it’s a public
Bainbridge for their crimes. defender or a private practitioner) being bribed by the
studios, unless the Investigators somehow replace him
The case is ridiculous. It should be drummed out of court. with someone honest. Add 15% for the presiding judge
But there are no civil rights groups to appeal to, the system being bribed, again unless the Investigators can somehow
is rigged against them with plenty of money and favors, overcome the bribery. This leaves only a 10-35% chance
and the Investigators should never have put this process that the Investigators will walk free. If they do, they’ll still
into motion. Hollywood Division “finds evidence” linking receive a very rough message from the police: Leave town
the Investigators to the deaths at Dellfaire and clearing and never come back.
Bainbridge, and the District Attorney’s office has them
arrested, booked and held in cells at Hollywood Division For sentencing, roll 1D100.
pending trial, with no possibility of bail. (They are
“dangerous and unstable,” possibly “subversive.”) 01-30: The investigators are placed in Los Angeles
County Jail for 2D6 days to await transfer under
If the Investigators defend themselves to the court by guard by automobile and train to Folsom State
insisting that Malcolm Bainbridge has supernatural Prison, where in 10D6 days they are to be hanged
powers, they are remanded to a much less cushy mental by the neck until dead, may God have mercy on
hospital than he is, and spend the next 5D6 years there their souls.
undergoing electroshock, ice bath and pharmaceutical
treatments. Each Investigator faces a 20% chance of being 31-00: The investigators are sentenced to 2D6x10 years
lobotomized during their stay. (Lobotomized Investigators at Folsom State Prison without possibility of
are no longer in play.) parole. They are transferred there from L.A.
County Jail by automobile and train under armed
If the Investigators defend themselves to the court by guard.
arguing that Bainbridge killed his victims through normal
means, they face an almost unbelievably unfair trial. The
Investigators are tried before a downtown Los Angeles
judge as a group, and the police who investigated the
Dramatis Personae
scene of the crime act as witnesses against them. The
evidence brought to the case is damning and utterly false. M alcolm B a i n br i dge
The Investigators are initially to be tried without a jury of
their peers. If they demand that their lawyer secure a jury Bainbridge is a tall, once-handsome man with black hair
trial for them, it will go much harder on them, because and piercing blue eyes, with the strong build of a silent-
Bainbridge’s celebrity status makes them the villains. movie star who does most of his own stunts. Keepers
should encourage Investigators to expect him to live up to
In any case, the trial is rushed, their defense attorney is his screen image as a suave, dapper leading man. However,
bribed to “throw” the case by the movie studio, and the if Investigators succeed in entering Dellfaire undetected,
presiding judge has is bribed the same way. There is no he is found to be a dirty, unshaven maniac wearing a
CSI 1925 to prove that the evidence has been substantially grubby mohair suit.
faked or tampered with. Bainbridge is not competent to
say anything in court or even appear in it. The prosecuting With a great deal of warning of their arrival, or shortly
assistant district attorney is extremely skilled, the jury after his discovery of their presence, he takes the time to
despises the Investigators and the whole thing is being groom himself properly with his hair-pomade, smoking
buried deep in the newspapers. It goes extremely badly. jacket, and straight-razor. Despite his self-loathing, his
At least the Investigators can console themselves that they insanity drives him to make himself presentable to his
didn’t have to wander around in that dark, scary mansion audience—but he has no mirrors, and his hands shake
without the intervention of the police. so badly that he is oblivious of the web of cuts he makes
on his chiseled features, or the section of skin sliced away
Muckrakers and scandal mongers of all types will be (replaced by a festering, scabby open wound).
thrilled to pay the the Investigators for dirt on Bainbridge,
but selling out this way from the jailhouse will only make In his own original form, Bainbridge mutters to himself
them look worse and their story less likely to be true. incessantly. He is lost in a nightmare world of terrifying

Issue 21 47
 voices that whisper forgotten obscenities, bound up in his Bainbr idge's Skills
own personal hell with his anguish at losing his wife and
child. And slowly, inexorably, the little faces and their vile Bainbridge spent several years working with an escape
personalities have begun to shape his actions. artist and magician, the Amazing Kolzow, who capitalized
on the early success of Harry Houdini. He is very difficult
The mad actor sought a cure for his hideous curse, but to restrain with knots or locks. He also changes costumes
he is now certain that there is no way to escape. On some and props with lightning speed, especially since makeup is
level he means to die. Unfortunately, the shattered pieces no longer a consideration.
of his mind continue to play out the roles he acted for the
silver screen, and they wish to make the Investigators a The C lothes M ake the M an
part of their fantasy world forever. Bainbridge wishes to
die, but they wish to kill. It is imperative to note that the spell (Black Goat’s
Disguise) does not change Bainbridge’s clothing and
In playing these “roles,” he always attempts to confuse props, only his body and hair. He needs to escape the
or delay Investigators, no matter what his persona. He Investigators to change his outfit and pick appropriate
always suggests splitting up to cover ground more quickly. props. Resist the urge to alter the spell to permit it to
Creative Keepers may also wish to have Bainbridge depict change these things as well, as that makes it too powerful
“roles” like Paulette, Berkham and Jack Han sometimes as and reduces Investigators’ chances of ever solving the
they really are or were, or as he imagines them. mystery of the many faces of Bainbridge. It also ignores
the surreal, comical and grotesque potential of catching
The “Lost Faces” hidden across the estate and house help Bainbridge in an inappropriate costume for his role.
Bainbridge maintain the illusion, to some extent, that he
is more than one person. Any useful voice might call from L et 's K eep an Eye O n Th is O n e
around a corner or just downstairs; someone might be
singing in the bathroom or laughing in the cellar, while Many Investigators will probably want to keep Bainbridge
Bainbridge is right there in front of the Investigators. constantly in their sight and never leave him alone or
permit him to step away. He will constantly attempt to do
With Bainbridge’s amazing ability to take on anyone’s so, and this is made easier because the estate is extremely
appearance thanks to the Black Goat’’s Disguise, the shadowy, cluttered and maze-like. But most Investigators
Keeper should take every convenient opportunity to are determined, and unless Bainbridge (and his “Lost
confuse the Investigators. How many people are in Faces”) can fool them, they might stick to him like glue.
Dellfaire, anyway? Where is Malcolm Bainbridge? And He can only be in one place at a time, after all, and there
why is our friend acting so strangely since he came back are no secret passageways at Dellfaire—it takes him time
from checking out the other room? to go from “set” to “set,” and to change his appearance
completely.
Malcolm Bainbr idge, Age 37
W o r l d -Famous S i l en t F i lm Acto r If this happens, Investigators soon (within five to fifteen
minutes of game time) begin to have an uncanny sensation
STR 13 CON 16 SIZ 14 INT 12 POW 8 that they are being watched. The feeling is accurate,
DEX 18 APP 16/1 EDU 13 SAN 0 HP 15 because they actually are being watched—by Bainbridge’s
Damage Bonus: +1D4 pustule faces. The things are invisible outside of his
Weapons: Fencing Foil 50%, 1D4+db reflection, or until the growths are separated from him
Fist/Punch 55%, 1D4+db by dismemberment or death. The sensation induces a
Club or blunt object 50%, 1D6+db creeping paranoia, and investigators must begin to make
Mirror Shard 25%, 1D3+db Sanity rolls every 10 minutes of game time or lose 1 SAN
Meat Cleaver 20%, 1D6+db each time. If they overpower Bainbridge and drag him
Skills: Credit Rating 65%, Cthulhu Mythos 20%, Dodge away from Dellfaire, the paranoia follows them wherever
76%, Drive Auto 35%, Escape Artistry 85%, Listen 35%, they take him and never stops until they are out of his
Locksmith 85%, Occult 50%, Quick-Change Artistry 85%, presence.
Read/Write English 80%, Sing 30%, Swim 30%.
Spells: Black Goat’s Disguise*, Elder Sign. The Keeper should play on this growing sense of being
*New spell in this scenario. watched. An innocent sound (of a rat skittering or a tree
branch knocking a window) becomes the sound of someone
moving upstairs. A shadow in the corner of the eye seems
to be the movement of a spy hiding just out of sight.

48
 G r a b H i m , W e C a n R e mov e Th at D i s g u i s e T h e Tw o M r s . B a i n br i d g e s

If the investigators seize Bainbridge and attempt to “take The real Paulette was once a level-headed woman,
off his disguise” by prying at his face and body for a mask but she’s become fragile with the strain on her nerves
or makeup, they discover that it is impossible. This requires of this past year of fear and doubt and her persistent
a Sanity roll as the implications sink in, costing 0/1 SAN. abuse of tranquilizers. If she sees Bainbridge’s
Any Investigator who continues to hold onto Bainbridge reflection and learns the truth of his affliction, her
must make a second Sanity roll as he or she feels the mind almost certainly snaps as well; her SAN loss
distinct sensation of an invisible mouth on Bainbridge’s for Bainbridge’s weird condition is double that of an
body nipping with tiny, misshapen teeth that leaving marks Investigator.
on the Investigator’s skin. SAN loss is 0/1D2.
If the Investigators leave Dellfaire to question
Mrs. Bainbridge a second time without dealing
with Malcolm Bainbridge, when they arrive at the
F eatu r i ng M r . M alcolm B a i n br i dge hotel Mrs. Bainbridge will be gone. She has left
I n th e R oles of . . . little Malcolm Jr. at her sister’s home in Santa
Monica and has gone to Dellfaire, according to the
In alphabetical order . . .
hotel concierge, at about the same time that the
Investigators were coming to meet her. By the time
M rs . Pau l et te B a i n b r i d ge they arrive at Dellfaire, she is in the hands of her
lunatic husband. It is up to the Keeper whether or not
A significant portion of the horror of this role, for
she is already dead, or if the Investigators have a few
Malcolm, is that it is what he sees in his mind’s eye as
minutes left to rescue her. If they do nothing, they will
the love of his life and the mother of his child. He loves
never hear from her again.
her fiercely, with every fiber of his being, and she is every
woman on Earth to him. Sometimes at night when the Captured by her husband, Mrs. Bainbridge pleads
voices dim a little, he darkens his room of every light but with him to get help and reunite their broken home.
one, and is filled with a hundred shades of self-loathing and Bainbridge is driven by his demon faces to kill
need as he becomes his own dear wife. her as well, and only comes to his senses briefly
after her demise. It is up to the Keeper whether the
She is a thousand fantasies and a hundred thousand Investigators can prevent her death.
memories for Malcolm Bainbridge. Sometimes she’s
a homemaker, cooking on his rancid stove, or a lover T h e R e a l P a u l e tt e B a i n br i d g e , A g e 2 8
reclining in mildewed lingerie on the great bed in the W i f e a n d M ot h e r
master bedroom. At times, when the voices in his head
multiply and he’s filled with pain and rage and revulsion, STR 8 CON 10 SIZ 8 INT 13 POW 7
Bainbridge sees her as a screaming harpy tormentor. The DEX 10 APP 15 EDU 12 SAN 5 HP 9
Investigators may see Mrs. Bainbridge cast in any female Damage Bonus: –1D4
role that Bainbridge can think of, from any of his many Weapons: none
films. Of course, they’ll wonder how it can possibly be her. Skills: Credit Rating 65%, Drive Auto 35%, Listen 35%,
If they talk with “Mrs. Bainbridge” about their earlier Read/Write English 60%, Sneak 30%, Swim 30%.
meeting, “she” awkwardly plays along with them, but since
Malcolm Bainbridge does not know any of the details,
it will not take very long for things to very obviously go
astray.

Issue 21 49
 R obert B er kham

MANSPERGER
Mr. Berkham was a suntanned man in his late 40s with a
wild flip of hair and a taste for bright pastel suits. He was
slender, with an ingratiating smile, smoked occasionally
and sometimes punctuated his sentences with “Y’see” and
“Do tell.” As portrayed by Malcolm Bainbridge, Robert
Berkham is a parody of himself. He wears a blood-red
necktie against a sunshine yellow shirt and smokes two
or three cigarettes at once. He rapidfires his speech with
“Y’see” and “Do tell” and is fired up with greed to a
homicidal pitch. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about
Bainbridge’s version of Robert Berkham is that he only
thinks to perform the role after someone has already
discovered the real, dead, Mr. Berkham in the pantry.

Berkham was the senior partner of Berkham & Cline by

virtue of winning a coin toss with his friend Elliot Cline.
They cut their teeth as junior agents working with “crazy
actors” on the Broadway circuit in New York and came
west to make it big. Of all their clients, from Mukluk Buck
the Eskimo Hero to the femme fatale Kushtri Odom,
Malcolm Bainbridge was the biggest and brightest. He
was a genuine star. Berkham lost confidence in the other
players signed to Berkham & Cline and wanted Bainbridge
back at any cost, so he visited Dellfaire. Sadly, he was not
prepared to meet a truly crazy client. Bainbridge’s mental
condition has degenerated to such a state that he has made
no effort at all to bury or even hide Berkham’s corpse
beyond perfunctorily dragging it into the pantry and Robert Berkham, y’see
leaving it there.

The false Robert Berkham tries to find out what the wisdom and offers to help with whatever they need. If they
Investigators are doing at Dellfaire. If they answer him accept his aid, he sabotages their efforts in every way.
honestly, he laughs and explains that everything is all
right, and Malcolm has just been having a little trouble J ack H an
with his health—he should be ready to receive guests
in a few days. He asks the Investigators to give him Jack Han was a slight, wizened Chinese-American man
their contact information. That may prove disastrous if of advanced years with parchment-like skin and soft
Bainbridge attempts revenge against them later. brown eyes. He wore a servant’s simple blue-and-white
uniform and wore small bifocal glasses to read his evening
B owm a n t h e G r o u n d s k e e p e r newspaper over herbal tea.

The film Memories of Mr. Middleton was a heartwarming When Bainbridge takes on the persona of Jack Han, he
Christmas tale about the good-natured Mr. Middleton, plays him as he remembers the Tcho-Tcho lama of the
the operator of an orphanage full of sweet, ragged Plateau of Tsang, replete with the elaborate silk robes of
children. The angelic Mr. Middleton quietly arranged an eastern potentate. His gentle voice implies a serene
things throughout the story so that all the good little dignity belying his depraved love for cruel and degenerate
boys and girls ended up in wonderful homes, and the few rituals associated with the Black Goat of the Woods, Shub-
who were still there at the orphanage on Christmas Eve Niggurath. He attempts to cajole investigators into freeing
were made as happy as could be. Mr. Middleton’s right- him from his “magical imprisonment” on the grounds of
hand man in all his good deeds was lovable Bowman the the estate, and if they seem interested he promises to teach
Groundskeeper, played by rising star Malcolm Bainbridge. them “eastern wisdom” without cost and without limit.
Always seen with a rake, hoe, shovel or other large and
dangerous garden implement, crusty but charming Bainbridge as Han explains that he is bound within the
Bowman was Mr. Middleton’s sounding board and encircling wall of the estate grounds by ritual tablets that
accomplice. He always knew how to keep a secret. If the are buried next to the middle of the north, south, east
Investigators meet Bowman, he imparts some homespun and west walls. Of course, nothing is buried there except

50
 possibly a concrete drainage culvert or buried natural gas Josephine the Maid
pipe, but he drags this ruse out as long as possible, and
does his best to let the Investigators get wrapped up in the There is no Josephine the maid at Dellfaire, nor was
task so that he can sneak up on one and smash a pickaxe there ever any maid there by that name. Josephine was
into the back of his or her skull. the name of the flighty maid from Bainbridge’s 1920 film
She’s a Cad!, in which Bainbridge played a supporting
The real Jack Han was simply an elderly domestic role as a butler named Stanley. Josephine the maid, as
servant employed by Malcolm Bainbridge because the portrayed by Malcolm Bainbridge, is a cheerful, airheaded
old man was a good valet and driver, and because having woman with a feather duster who looks just like his wife,
“an oriental serving-man” added an exotic cachet to Paulette Bainbridge. She’s likely to send Investigators
Bainbridge’s household. Jack Han has three surviving on a hazardous wild goose chase searching the house
children in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, who have never been for Malcolm Bainbridge, only to “remember” that “Mr.
allowed to visit Dellfaire in the year Bainbridge has been Bainbridge went out of town for a few days and he should
barricaded inside. They have no idea that their father be back this coming weekend. You should drop by on
is dead. The police are not yet aware that Jack Han is Saturday night around eight.”
missing, and if they were, most of them would not care.
Officer McInnis
Jack’s two sons, Louis and Calvin Han, are men in their
early 40s with families of their own. They are a hard- A stern, by-the-book cop that Bainbridge played as a bit
working florist and photographic developer, respectively. part in the movie Crusade On Smith Street, Officer McInnis is
Jack’s daughter, Adelaide Chow (née Han), is a housewife armed with a revolver and a wooden billy club that he will
in her late 30s. She’s constantly trying to keep her two use on anyone who gives him “too much lip.” McInnis is
squabbling boys on their best behavior, but it’s a losing there to “check on things” and “was called by a neighbor
battle. None of the three know anything about the who heard noise.” If Investigators include McInnis in their
supernatural or the bizarre events at Bainbridge’s mansion. prowling, he splits off from the group to either “go check
on something” or to walk down the hill a few blocks to his
patrol car or to use a phone box to call in to the station.
MANSPERGER

(There are no radio-equipped police patrol cars until

1929.) Once alone, he stalks and murders Investigator.

O ld Mother C olby

From Bainbridge’s film The Unholy, Old Mother Colby is

a ruthless murderess from a turn-of-the-century cutthroat
tenement of the sort that used to infest New York City’s
Five Points neighborhood. She is a simpering, heartless
crone who takes advantage of any unguarded moment
alone with an Investigator to attempt to kill him or her
with any handy blunt object.

S ta n l e y t h e B u t l e r

The role of Stanley the butler in She’s a Cad! was a breakout

part for Bainbridge. It helped him establish a screen
presence, which he then surpassed with his amazing range
of roles in later films. Stanley the butler is a short, balding,
mustachioed gent in a slick black tuxedo whom Bainbridge
plays with an upper-class New England accent. Stanley
is a more or less harmless persona, but not very helpful to
Investigators. Like Josephine, Stanley tells Investigators
that Bainbridge is away from Dellfaire and will be back
tomorrow night at around 9 p.m.

Th e Tw i st e d M a n

In one of Bainbridge’s most spectacular roles, he recreated

the appearance of a beggar he once saw in an alley in
Singapore for a 1924 film called Written On the Rain. The
Bowman, groundskeeper who never was

Issue 21 51
 character was simply called The Twisted Man, and was a
grotesque spy and killer for hire for an exotic underworld The Major Roles of
mastermind.
Malcolm Bainbridge
The Twisted Man doesn’t at first appear to be a human
being. At first glimpse, he resembles a manikin or a corpse
that someone wound up contortionist-style into a tangle of 'A p p r e h e n s i o n ' ( 1 9 2 4 )
warped limbs and left in a heap of rags. Even his matted S c o u r b y , a Paw n b r o k e r
mop of brown hair and glassy eyes just sit there on his
head as if they were a wig and two doll eyes, not so much This almost hallucinatory, ultra-Expressionist thriller
signifying a face as the end of a body. Bainbridge as the clearly influenced Hitchcock’s later work (rumor has it
Twisted Man waits until someone comes near, then lurches Hitchcock was on the set during production). The plot is
to life with a wordless groan and rattles his cup for coins. almost impossible to follow, but the film is so well made
He can’t talk, he just paws at the Investigator and begs. and the performances so strong that the suspense and
dread it generates are almost palpable. This is the only film
Whosoever gives him money will be his target. After he in which Bainbridge does not wear a heavy disguise, but
believes no one is watching him, he tortuously unlocks his instead uses only the planes, lines and angles of his own
arms and legs and stagger-hobbles through the house. His face to convey a growing atmosphere of unease.
benefactor is his planned victim for a quiet strangulation
when no one is near enough to help—just like the movies. 'The Cask of A mon tillado' (1923)
If no one comes near, the Twisted Man just lies there in Montr esor , a Nobleman
a pile and watches the investigators. He watches and he
waits. A phenomenal performance by Bainbridge as Renaissance
Venetian nobleman Montresor, who murders his friend/
You enemy Fortunato by walling the man up in the dungeons
under his family’s castle.
Malcolm Bainbridge can impersonate anyone he has met
even once, and that includes the Investigators. Naturally, 'C rusade O n Smith Str eet' (1921)
he doesn’t know everything they know and can certainly Officer McInnis, a Good Cop
be tripped up by details (such as wearing different
clothing), but he is a brilliant actor and impressionist. Bainbridge has a good supporting part in this movie about
the war to clean up a major American city despite the
Other Roles best efforts of vice barons and their allies in the political
machine. Bainbridge’s death scene, as he’s shot to death by
The Keeper is encouraged to create other roles for hoodlums under a bright full moon, is unforgettable.
Bainbridge as needed, but to keep the confusion at a
manageable level. A certain delicacy is required. While 'M e m o r i e s o f M r . M i d d l e t o n ' ( 1 9 2 2 )
Bainbridge may, for example, have portrayed a Royal B owm a n t h e G r o u n d s k e e p e r
Canadian Mounted Police officer or a circus clown at some
point in his career, either persona might seem unlikely in A beloved Christmas film about the saintly proprietor of
the context of the happenings at Dellfaire. an orphanage (Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Middleton) and
his fun-loving helper, Bowman the Groundskeeper, played
by Malcolm Bainbridge.
A C i n easte's E dge
'The Myst e r y o f t h e Y e l l ow R o om' ( 1 9 2 3 )
If it is already well established that an Investigator is a film Fr eder ic L arsan , D etective
enthusiast and well-versed in the roles played by actors
like Bainbridge in their movies, the Keeper may offer an An adaptation of the classic locked-room mystery by
opportunity to make an Idea roll to get a “creepy feeling Gaston Leroux, in which Bainbridge played debonair
of recognition” about a persona taken on by Bainbridge. police detective Frederic Larsan.
But this should not be carried too far, since it could easily
reveal too much, too soon.

52
 'S he's a Cad! ' (1919) ' Th e U n h o ly ' ( 1 9 2 2 )
S ta n l e y t h e B u t l e r O ld Mother C olby, an I n n keeper

A rare comedy turn for Bainbridge and his first major A sprawling tale of the crime and degeneracy of old New
featured role, this time as loyal butler Stanley. York in the days of the Plug Uglies and other bloodthirsty
gangs of the 19th century, this movie features Bainbridge
' Th e S h e d i m' ( 1 9 2 2 ) cross-dressed as the two-faced psychopath Old Mother
The S hedim , a D emon Colby.

A tale of the medieval Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, this film 'V at h e k , a n A r a b i a n Tal e ' ( 192 3)
pitted Bainbridge (playing the fearsome Shedim) against The G iaour , an Afrit
co-star Conrad Veidt, who played a heroic rabbi and
exorcist. An adaptation of William Beckford’s fantasy classic.
Bainbridge played the role of the sinister djinn called The
'The S ideshow M an ' (192 5) Giaour in makeup so horrific and convincing that they say
Professor Manfrotto ladies fainted in the aisles.

Malcolm Bainbridge plays the cruel thief, confidence 'W i ck e d Pas s i on ' ( 1920)
artist, mountebank, kidnapper and cheat Professor J o h n W e s l e y H a r d i n , O u t l aw
Manfrotto, looking very stereotypically Italian but with
Satanic touches of a forked beard, pince-nez glasses, goat- A not-very-faithful depiction of the life and death of several
headed cane and stovepipe hat. notorious Wild West outlaws, including Bainbridge as John
Wesley Hardin. Scenes include his tense confrontation
'S outh of the S udan ' (1924) with Wild Bill Hickok and later death in the Acme Saloon
O n e -T h u m b T y l e r in 1895.

Bainbridge establishes himself as a formidable screen 'Th e W o l f o f Pa r is' ( 1924)

action villain with his character of One-Thumb Tyler, a The W olf, a M asked Smug gle r
brutal thug (played shirtless, scarred and with one thumb
strapped down and “missing”) and the master of the lives Bainbridge is fairly hammy in his portrayal of The Wolf,
of everyone in a remote East African trading port. A a masked, gun-wielding criminal in 19th century Paris
pre-censorship film infamous for its portrayal of opium who doubles by day as an ordained bishop in the Catholic
smoking, gay characters, sadistic violence and a man Church.
devoured by a crocodile.
'W r itten On the R ain' (1923)
' To i l e r s o f t h e S e a' ( 1 9 2 0 ) The Tw i st e d M a n
G i l l i at t, a G u e r n s e ym a n
Bainbridge chose to play the Twisted Man, a hideous
A box office failure: an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel assassin and spy, because he knew it was the role people
of love and sacrifice, in which Bainbridge played tough, would remember in this lurid melodrama about young
earnest young sailor Gilliatt. lovers fighting a web of crime.

Issue 21 53
 The Black Goat's Disguise Timeline
This spell endows its user with the uncanny ability to take 1888: Malcolm Bainbridge is born on a small farm in
on the outward image of anyone—male or female, of any Ohio.
ethnic type, and of any age from childhood to venerable
old age. The outward image is perfect in conception, 1901-1903: Bainbridge abandons his family’s struggling
extending to voice, mannerisms, gait, and any distinctive farm at age 14 to join a small, seedy traveling circus and
scent (cologne, perfume, tobacco, etc.) characteristic of the sideshow, working any job that’s given him.
person being imitated. The spell-user needs only don the
appropriate garb and accessory props (as from Malcolm 1904-1908: Bainbridge works the American vaudeville
Bainbridge’s extensive private costume wardrobe) to and theater circuits, pushing himself to improve and
complete the illusion. However, in order to carry out this advance in every possible way.
transformation, the spellcaster must have observed the
person being imitated for at least 12 minutes, followed by a 1909-1913: Bainbridge tours worldwide as the assistant
slow period (five to ten minutes) of adjustment in which the to escape artist and magician The Amazing Kolzow.
spellcaster’s flesh swells, contracts, tints, and molds itself.
During this time the spell-user can take no other action 1914-1916: Bainbridge diverts his life from show
than to walk at a movement rate of 6, perform simple business and tours Asia in search of esoteric knowledge
actions such as opening doors, and gurgle out a few words. and philosophical peace; he finds the curse of the thousand
After the identity has once been assumed, it can thereafter faces instead.
be assumed at will (with a one-round transformation
period, during which most users prefer to remain hidden). 1917: At age 29, Bainbridge begins his Hollywood acting
Each use of this ability to change form to one already career
“known” costs nothing, but each new form taken on costs
one point of SAN. Obviously, the Sanity cost is no longer a 1919: Bainbridge becomes a rising star with his portrayal
consideration for Malcolm Bainbridge. Directly witnessing of the comic supporting character Stanley the Butler
the transformation costs the investigator 1/1D6+2 SAN. in She’s a Cad! He is represented by Elliot Cline of the
Berkham & Cline Agency.
After each new identity is added to the repertoire, the
spellcaster receives a horrid pustule-face, visible only in a 1920: Bainbridge marries Paulette Gilroy, a script girl.
mirror. Glimpsing the spellcaster’s reflection costs 1/1D6
SAN. 1921: Birth of Malcolm Bainbridge Jr. Bainbridge hires
an elderly Chinese-American manservant, Jack Han, to
Each face has its own Hit Point reserve and its own help out around the house.
life or death. If Bainbridge has taken on the role of the
Headsman of the Tower of London and the investigators 1922: Proceeds from the holiday hit Memories of Mr.
shoot him, the wound will appear consistently on the Middleton (in which Bainbridge co-stars and is also a
Headsman but not on any other face that Bainbridge co-producer) enable Bainbridge, age 34, to purchase his
assumes. estate, Dellfaire (previously built and owned by faded
1910s movie star Corky Stinton).
Fire will kill all of the faces, and Bainbridge with them, in
a single conflagration. Earlier this year: Bainbridge’s final film, The Sideshow
Man, is released. Shortly afterward, the curse of the
thousand faces overwhelms him and Bainbridge sends his
wife and son away.

Now: Robert Berkham visits Bainbridge and is murdered.

One week later, the investigators are called in.

54
Pregenerated Investigators F r an k W oodwar d
M organ-W essle r D etectiv e A gency
M ichael T he iss
A r t H istor ian an d F i lm E n thusiast STR 13 CON 12 SIZ 15 INT 14 POW 15
DEX 13 APP 12 EDU 15 SAN 67 HP 14
STR 7 CON 4 SIZ 11 INT 17 POW 16 Damage Bonus: +1D4
DEX 10 APP 9 EDU 18 SAN 72 HP 8 Attacks: Fist/Punch 70%, 1D3+db damage
Damage Bonus: none Club 60%, typically 1D6+db damage
Skills: Art History 75%, Climb 50%, Credit Rating 50%, Grapple 50%, special
Cthulhu Mythos 4%, Fast Talk 50%, Film Knowledge Handgun (.38 revolver) 40%, 1D10 damage
75%, Library Use 45%, Occult 65%, Persuade 60%, Other Skills: Climb 60%, Dodge 56%, Drive Auto 50%, Fast
Language (French) 85%, Other Language (Italian) 85%. Talk 55%, Hide 40%, Law 45%, Library Use 50%, Listen
Equipment: Wallet, wristwatch, electric torch, fountain 55%, Persuade 55%, Sneak 40%, Spot Hidden 55%.
pen and booklet of paper, lighter, pack of cigarettes. Equipment: Wallet, wristwatch, electric torch, pencil
Description: Age 45, distinguished, with a sharply and notepad, .38 caliber revolver and extra ammunition.
intelligent gaze, well-dressed and tasteful. Mr. Theiss Description: Age 37, strongly built, dressed in a
is an author and sometime lecturer in the arts who has nondescript dark blue suit and hat. He has a “great
acted as a consultant on a number of films and has stone face” of complete impassivity. Only Sanity-roll
acted as a “friendly face” (for a fee) to help studios and situations get a reaction from Woodward; otherwise
handlers “talk down” distraught, strung-out actors from he’s unmovable. He’s seen it all, heard it all and done
suicide attempts, fleeing the country, etc. He engages it all. He suffers the minimum possible SAN loss from
them in talk about their art form while others do the encountering ordinary blood and gore. He worked for the
heavy lifting of dealing with whatever the actor is railroads until a passenger (a grifter working a con scam
about to do (set themselves on fire, mutilate their pet on the Santa Fe) got rough one night while being kicked
Chihuahua, etc.). off the train and stabbed Woodward in the leg. That left
him with a slight limp and a desire for easier work. He
gets into some rough situations working with Hollywood
D o ctor R ebekah P ow e rs clients, but it’s rarely anything he can’t handle.
T h eolog ian an d P e rsonal C ou nselor
STR 4 CON 12 SIZ 9 INT 15 POW 18 A . J . H ar r i ngton
DEX 6 APP 16 EDU 19 SAN 78 HP 11 M organ-W essle r D etectiv e A gency
Damage Bonus: –1D4
Skills: Credit Rating 60%, Cthulhu Mythos 6%, Fast Talk STR 11 CON 13 SIZ 12 INT 13 POW 12
55%, Hide 30%, History 50%, Library Use 55%, Listen DEX 14 APP 10 EDU 17 SAN 52 HP 13
60%, Occult 65%, Persuade 55%, Psychoanalysis 60%, Damage Bonus: none
Psychology 75%, Spot Hidden 60%, Theology 55%. Attacks: Fist/Punch 70%, 1D3 damage
Equipment: Purse, wristwatch, electric torch, pencil Grapple 55%, specia
and booklet of paper, flask of 80-proof bourbon (non- Club 50%, typically 1D6 damage
flammable). Handgun (.38 revolver) 50%, 1D10 damage
Description: 33 years old, pretty, vivacious, a million- Skills: Climb 50%, Dodge 68%, Drive Auto 50%, Fast
dollar smile and costly clothing that fits right in with Talk 65%, Hide 55%, Listen 50%, Martial Arts (Judo)
the Hollywood “fast set.” Doctor Powers combines 50%, Persuade 40%, Sneak 60%, Spot Hidden 70%.
new-fangled Freudian psychology, a smidgen of occult Equipment: Wallet, wristwatch, electric torch, pencil
blather (spiritualism, Egyptian reincarnation, energies and booklet of paper, .38 caliber revolver and extra
in balance, Christian revivalism, astrology) and her own ammunition, pocketknife.
personal charisma to act as a friend and confidante to Description: Age 34, slim and short, with brown hair
celebrities all over tinseltown. Oh, the stories she could and darting, nervous brown eyes, with a slight Boston
tell you about Douglas, D.W., and all the rest. But right accent. Harrington wears a nondescript dark brown
now, she’s on the clock and has work to do. suit and hat, and his body language is edgy and slightly
anxious. He is ready for action and a bit paranoid. Having
worked as a strikebreaker on the docks in San Pedro
and served in the Great War in 1918, he’s a little shell-
shocked but is hardened to violence. He suffers the
minimum possible SAN loss for encountering ordinary
blood and gore. Harrington is generally the “bad cop”
and Woodward the “good cop” in their team.

Issue 21 55
 Handouts for
“The Man With a
Thousand Faces”
 Delta Green:
Directives from A-Cell
B y A dam S cott G lancy

One of the beauties of Call of Cthulhu’s BRP system is the then the bug is in place, working and undetectable.
way it handles task resolution. Just find the appropriate Making the Electronics roll but failing Tradecraft means
skill and roll the target number or less. Success or failure that the bug works but could be detected by a Spot
as well as degree of success or failure are determined in Hidden roll. Failing Electronics and making Tradecraft
a one roll. would mean that the bug isn’t working, but won’t be
detected.
Looking at skills and groups of skills can tell you more
about a character. They suggest knowledge and abilities This combination of skills could be applied to
that live in the spaces between the skill scores. High clandestine surveillance (Spot Hidden), undetectably
scores in Spot Hidden, Disguise, Conceal, Sneak, picking a lock (Locksmith), or tailing a car (Drive Auto).
Locksmith, Sneak and Hide are the kinds of skills that Tradecraft allows you to exercise a skill in a way that
professional espionage agents and counter-intelligence prevents detection of the task you have performed.
officers would have. But do those skills necessarily
translate into the specialized knowledge necessary to Of course, the effect could be replicated by combining
perform a dead drop, a brush pass or a black bag job? the primary skill with existing skills such as Hide,
Sneak, and Conceal. The Tradecraft skill was meant to
In Delta Green, we can answer that question with consolidate those stealth-related skills when they’re used
the Tradecraft skill and by playing out the details of specifically for intelligence work, leaving the character
tradecraft. with more skill points to spread around. Which is not
out of line with the archetype of the highly trained
Tradecraft is usually defined as the specialized skills intelligence professional.
of professional intelligence and counter-intelligence
operatives. Playing Delta Green has thrown a spotlight What using Pagan’s Tradecraft skill during the game
on tradecraft because the campaign setting almost can’t do is satisfy the oft-voiced desire to know the
universally puts the players in the role of modern specifics of executing covert and clandestine operations.
professional investigators with backgrounds in the Players who run spooks and feds want to know how to
intelligence and law enforcement communities. Player convincingly act like spooks and feds. Adding a new skill
characters are expected to have high levels of training, to the game isn’t going to provide the immersion these
professional standards and systems of institutional players are looking for. They want to know the tricks of
tradecraft that the agency that trained them developed the trade.
over many decades.
As the Keeper, you should encourage them to learn
Back in 1999 Pagan Publishing published an optional how to fake it convincingly. When a player uses actual
skill called Tradecraft (base skill 5%) in Delta Green: intelligence and counter-intelligence tradecraft, have
Countdown (now available again in print and for the first it enhance the character’s in-game performance. The
time in PDF). Author Adam Crossingham designed the simplest way is to provide a bonus to skill rolls based on
Tradecraft skill to combine with and modify other skills the tradecraft the player uses. As a rule of thumb, grant
when conducting covert and clandestine activities. To a 5% bonus to the Tradecraft-related skill roll for each
plant a bug, for instance, you roll both your Electronics specific tradecraft technique that the player describes,
skill and your Tradecraft skill. If both skill rolls succeed up to 1/5 the Tradecraft skill level.

58
 Directive 108:
Tradecraft Meets Lovecraft

For example, a player wants to determine if he is being Fiction is another source of tradecraft, but one that
followed without revealing that he is on the lookout for should be taken with a grain of salt. More often than
a tail. He needs to roll under Spot Hidden/Tradecraft. not, when I read accurate tradecraft in fiction I can
To gain a bonus, he could tell the Keeper the actual recall the historical incident, memoir or news story from
tradecraft technique he’s going to use: a cleaning run. which the author had cribbed the details. Better to get it
The player character checks for a tail using ref lections in from an original source.
store windows while he appears to be browsing. He goes
into public places with confining entrances and exits. He The information age has granted us a bounty of search
sits in a coffee shop to read the paper while keeping an engines for finding articles, websites or even good ol’
eye on the patrons. That’s three key details, worth up to fashioned books on the subject.
+15%.
The best way to introduce tradecraft into your Delta
Further, sometimes just knowing detailed tradecraft Green game is to make sure everyone around the game
techniques could eliminate the need for a die roll. Rather table is involved. If it’s just you as Keeper instructing the
than just using a Conceal roll to set up a dead-drop players on good tradecraft, that puts a lot of weight on
system, the player could describe the intended system one pair of shoulders. Getting all the players involved in
in detail based on real dead drops from the Cold War. learning about tradecraft will almost always benefit the
Whether to obviate the skill roll based on such juicy whole group. That’s just more eyes on the same target
player details is always the Keeper’s call. Of course, if and more information being brought in from a wider
you don’t roll you don’t gain a skill check, but sometimes variety of sources.
reducing the risk is worth it.
It has been suggested that it’s asking too much of the
Picking up genuine intelligence and counter-intelligence players to want them to know all the ins and outs of
tradecraft is easier than one imagines. Intelligence modern espionage just because they want to play Delta
agencies rarely share their techniques, not even the Green. That makes about as much sense as suggesting
old dusty ones from one or two conf licts back, but it’s asking too much for Dungeons & Dragons players to
intelligence historians such as Norman Polmar and know something about the fantasy genre. The very fact
H. Keith Melton provide a great deal of accurate that players are playing Delta Green suggests they are
information. Tradecraft can be picked up from the interested in the horror, mystery and espionage genres,
memoirs of intelligence officers like Robert Baer, Peter all three. They probably have already consumed a great
Wright, Victor Ostrovsky and Oleg Kalugin. In many deal of pop culture and entertainment on these subjects.
cases, however, the authors’ former employers screen They won’t be overly burdened by consuming some
the manuscripts to prevent them from revealing current more.
intelligence methods and capabilities. Journalists who
write on intelligence matters generally don’t have that What’s that? You say you want a condensed set of
restriction. Books by Mark Bowden, James Bamford and tradecraft and procedures tailored specifically to Delta
Robert Young Pelton contain very specific examples of Green operations? Sorry. You’re not cleared for that.
tradecraft.
Not yet.

Issue 21 59
 the Eye of Light & Darkness
< CONTINU ED from pag e 8 >

genius who dedicated a large part of his fortune to the First, it gives you a taste of period lab-work. The
scientific pursuit of . . . well . . . fighting crime. He even accessibility of Crookes tubes (as mentioned in the
had a loyal partner, chemist Alexander Gettler. This Lovecraft ouvre) is touched on, as are the early days of
dynamic duo’s career forms one of the book’s central gas chromatography. Did you know refrigeration down
threads. to -103 degrees was so commonplace, it was used to ship
vegetables? Dry ice was available in Lovecraft’s New
The second element? Science! Every chapter is named York.
after a different killer substance, and each toxin’s
description is admirably thorough. From its molecular As a bonus, the science is disgusting. Want a slightly
structure, effects on the body, characteristic symptoms nauseating clinical tone for your game? Describe how
and (in several cases) its distinct f lavor, odor or mouth- tissues were tested by finely mincing a few pounds of a
feel, poisons from chloroform through carbon monoxide relevant organ, then boiling them down to a residue. For
get a treatment that perfectly balances specificity with control subjects, Gettler used unclaimed corpses, and
accessibility. Explaining science that an average reader unclaimed live dogs—both in large quantities.
can grasp isn’t easy; Blum just makes it look easy.
Another use for Keepers is as a ‘cheat-book of villainy.’
Alongside the poisons, we have the poisoners. Some Got a plot but need someone twisted and evil to carry
are psychotic, like Frederic Mors who, after confessing it out? The criminals described have various motives,
to eight chloroform murders, escaped from custody methods and degrees of expertise, but most were looking
and disappeared without a trace. Some are mercenary for the easy way to what they wanted. They used rat
(Ruth Snyder convinced her lover to kill her husband) poison, cosmetics or over-the-counter drugs because
and some are sordid (Mary Frances Creighton, who they were available. If they’d had access to the Eltdown
escaped one poisoning conviction only to be sentenced, Shards, they might have tried that too.
years later, for helping her teen daughter’s lover kill his
wife). Some are baff lingly unsolved, like the Shelbourne On the other hand, if you’re well-stocked on evildoers,
Restaurant case: Sixty people ate arsenic-laced pies, The Poisoner’s Handbook gives plenty of evil for them to do.
eight of them dying from it. If charging in with a Tommygun doesn’t fit their style,
maybe filling the room with deadly gas would. Poison
What emerges, as the reader follows Norris through his gas was so commonplace in vermin-infested New York,
challenges and discoveries, is a tone-perfect portrait there were instances where it killed residents by mistake.
of the era. Before Norris cleaned house and Gettler
worked on detecting substances like radium, thallium But perhaps the best role for The Poisoner’s Handbook is
and mercury, poisoning seemed like the perfect crime. ‘historical anchor.’ It’s rich with details about policing,
Even if you were clumsy enough to be suspected, the politics, and all levels of society at the heart of the epoch.
reputation of forensic science was so low, your lawyer Want an excuse for why a bungled killer still got away
could probably mock the evidence out of court. with it? It’s in here, along with an equally persuasive
rationale for effective, aggressive investigation. Its
But the best history, perhaps, comes in the chapters on examples don’t constrain your plots: It provides, instead,
alcohol—wood, ethyl and methyl. These provide Blum a menu of rationales for events in the Roaring Twenties.
with a framework to examine Prohibition as it passed,
through its unintended consequences (bootlegging, The 1920s-30s, with all their racism, f lash and
transformed drinking habits, and thousands of deaths) ignorance, can be as integral to a Lovecraft story as
emerged, and as it was repealed. The ban on liquor cosmic horror. Without a sense of humanity, the alien
emerges, not just as one event of the age, but as a central terror of the Mythos falls f lat. If we don’t care about the
fact of many lives. Also, deaths. investigators, their madness or sacrifices are wasted.
But if they’re people of their time, with comprehensible
How, though, does one tie all this to Call of Cthulhu? beliefs and behaviors, then their collision with the

Issue 21 61
 the Eye of Light & Darkness< CONTINU ED >

incomprehensible is thrown into powerful relief. The must preserve them from further harm.
possibilities from that kind of grounding, arising from
details both scientific and historical, are what convinced Zombie ‘types’ are derived from our own history or
me to give this nine phobias. popular media. For example, the “Common Gray
Shambler (Mortifera immortalis romeroi)” exemplifies
But I am the guy who likes books about poisons. those seen in The Night of the Living Dead. Each zombie type
is given a full page of description including behavior and
method of reproduction. These enjoyable and informative
write-ups are accompanied by full-color drawings and
world maps showing the ranges of each species, as well
Zombies of the World as designations that range from “Least Concern” to
“Extinct.”
B y R oss Payton
P ublished by S lang D esign
R eviewed by C hase W. B eck A book containing only these descriptions would be a
great buy. Payton also throws in some fascinating fiction
concerning how the world and society would react to
these various species of zombies. It contains information
on the Zombie Rights Movement, insights into zombie
intelligence research and details on how zombies can
be used as a source of near limitless energy. One of my
favorite sections shows how human survivors can be
When I first heard about Ross Payton’s Zombies of the much more dangerous during a zombie attack than the
World, it sounded unnecessary. After all of the movies, the zombies themselves. Another great entry that really got my
Romero remakes and the satires by Snyder and Wright, imagination going was the all-too-brief description of The
and all the book treatments from Stephen King to Brooks’ Abattoir, a fictional novel about unsafe factory conditions
wonderfully informative and eye-opening survival guide and the use of (disguised) zombies as an inexpensive
and pseudo-historic account, it didn’t seem like we really workforce.
needed any more material about the living dead. They
have saturated every medium imaginable. I love zombies, While lacking much direct application to Cthulhu gaming,
but at some point, probably around the time Pride and Zombies of the World can serve as a source of many ideas.
Prejudice and Zombies came along, it seemed as if everybody Any one of these zombie descriptions could make for an
was already talking about them. exciting game session or a campaign.

Then I held Payton’s book in my hands. Suddenly I The pictures are fantastic, but some can seem a little
understood what made it fun: It was a field guide. cartoony at times. I enjoyed that once I got used to it, but
another approach might have worked better. Each zombie
You probably remember your high school biology class, type gets a genus, species and subspecies name. Since these
where you had to carry around a picture book of flowers names describe various incarnations of diseases, it would
or insects, trying to collect enough of either to pass. That’s make more sense to show light microscope or electron
what Zombies of the World does. For zombies. microscopy photos of the bacteria or virus itself rather
than a picture of someone infected by the disease. Showing
It takes the approach that not only have zombies been a picture of the zombie might be more descriptive, but it’s
around since the dawn of man, but we’ve known about less informative, and often confusing when paired with the
them and feared them all along. In these enlightened scientific name for the disease. It would be like labeling a
times, many zombie types have become endangered or picture of a rabid dog “Rabid Dog (Lyssavirus rabies)”; a
even extinct. We, as self-appointed protectors of the planet, rabid dog is not the rabies virus just as the Common Gray

62
Shamber is not Mortifera immortalis remeroi. That’s a customised dice. Of the large cards, the Investigators are
small and perhaps nitpicky complaint, but any book that characters controlled by the players, the Ancient Ones
is marketed as a scientific field guide had better get the are the alien entities coming to Earth, and the Adventure
science right, or at least provide an explanation for why Cards are encounters and situations that the Investigators
standard practices were not followed. must resolve to gain resources and Elder Signs. The small
cards represent various Common and Unique items,
All in all, though, Zombies of the World is a delightful and Spells, and Allies (all beneficial to the Investigators), as
useful book and earns 8 phobias. well as Mythos cards that have various deleterious effects.

The game’s primary time component is represented by the

Doom Track on each Ancient One’s card. If this Track is
filled in, the Ancient One is summoned to Earth. In which

Elder Sign case, the Investigators have to jointly face the Ancient
One and defeat it in combat, a difficult prospect. The
D esigned by R ichard L aunius and second time component is the Clock. Every time it strikes
K evin W ilson midnight—every fourth turn—a new Mythos Card comes
P ublished by Fantasy F light G ames into play with immediate and lingering effects.
R eviewed by M atthew P ook
At the heart of Elder Sign are its custom dice. These are
rolled by a player on his turn to try and match the symbols
of the Tasks on each Adventure Card. A player can make
The focus of so many exotic curios and occult artifacts at several attempts, gaining better dice by expending Item,
the museum is the cause of a new threat to Arkham. They Spell, and Ally cards or his Investigator’s special ability.
weaken the barriers to the beyond, letting Gates open If he succeeds, the Investigator is rewarded, sometimes
and monsters in, and laying a path for an Ancient One to with Elder Signs, at other times with more Items, Spells,
make its way to Earth and lay waste to mankind. Only a Allies, and even Other World Adventure Cards, like a trip
few dedicated Investigators have the knowledge and will, to the Plateau of Leng. If he fails, he can lose Stamina and
and perhaps the allies and the tools, if not necessarily the Sanity, unleash monsters that make resolving Adventure
time, to locate enough Elder Signs to seal the portals and Cards more difficult, or add tokens to the Doom Track.
prevent the Ancient One’s arrival. This is the setup for
Elder Sign, a board game from the designers of Arkham The players all have the same goal and the current player
Horror. It uses the same artwork and trade dress as Arkham can elicit advice from the others. It is a “dice and decision”
Horror and Mansions of Madness. game: A player must decide where to send his Investigator
and how to assign his dice.
Elder Sign is a cooperative game, meaning that the players
are opposed by the game itself rather than the other The game is pleasingly produced, though the rules are a
players. It features a time component that regulates when little succinct, needing a careful read through. Game play
the Ancient One will arrive and other, random events is tense; resolving an Adventure Card, let alone defeating
that occur throughout play. To overcome these events and an Ancient One, is not easy, and the Investigators are
prevent the arrival of the Ancient One, the Investigators frequently beset by random and lingering events that add
must explore the Museum, having Adventures within its to the atmosphere of the game as seen in the art. This and
confines, to find and marshal the resources necessary to the wide selection of cards means that Elder Sign offers
save the world. plenty of replay value and room for expansion.

Elder Sign includes several sets of large and small cards, With everything being card-based, Elder Sign is not as
various tokens and counters, a card clock, and a set of location-oriented as Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness,

Issue 21 63
 which reduces the possibility of seeing a coherent narrative lights on the horizon, hear chants and growls in
emerge in play. The focus on dice mechanics can have the the mist-filled jungle, and feel as if they are under
same effect, although they and the time requirements do surveillance. Clues can be found at the sites of a second
induce tension. shipwreck and a crashed aeroplane, which could be
that of Amelia Earhart (the scenario is set in 1937) or,
Elder Sign captures much of the tension and atmosphere depending upon when the Keeper sets the scenario,
of fighting desperately against the Mythos. That it does could merely be a shadow of the past or the future. The
so in such a self-contained and time-constrained manner scenario comes with six pre-generated Investigators and
is a sign of a good design, at the heart of which is clever, there are guidelines for tournament play. It naturally
tension-inducing dice rolling. Not too complex for the focuses on the survival process. Inevitably, “Devourers
casual player, but still evocative for the Lovecraft devotee. in The Mists” draws comparisons with Lost, but this
Worth rolling seven phobias. scenario has none of the television series’ unanswered
meanderings, instead providing two or three good
sessions of impending dread.

“The Devourers in the Mists” is followed by a possible

Stunning Eldritch explanation as to why the Investigators are in the Orient:
“Shanghai Bullets.” Set before the city’s capture by
Tales the Japanese, it combines international intrigue with a
Hitchcockian McGuffin hunt, hurling the Investigators
B y R obin D. L aws
P ublished by P elgrane P ress into a world of espionage, gangland rivalries, and the
R eviewed by M atthew P ook dichotomy of the International Settlement’s glamorous
exoticism and seedy poverty. This potboiler of a scenario
is superbly supported with a rich supply of NPCs and
background material. Its background and opening
If Pelgrane Press got the most appropriate author in Ken scenes are so good that they are worth using for when a
Hite to write the best game of Lovecraftian investigative Keeper runs the Shanghai chapter of The Complete Masks
horror since 1981—Trail of Cthulhu, reviewed in The of Nyarlathotep.
Unspeakable Oath 18—it scored a double in getting Robin
D. Laws to pen that game’s first scenario anthology. The third scenario, “Death Laughs Last,” involves a
Stunning Eldritch Tales is a set of four scenarios written murder mystery in New York. Wealthy philanthropist
for Trail of Cthulhu’s Pulp mode, and so are slightly Addison Bright has been found impaled by a javelin in
more action and adventure orientated than many Trail his study. The Investigators are hired to solve his murder
scenarios. Further, they are inspired by particular sub- and keep his reputation unsullied. This is a traditional
genres found in the pulps, including man versus nature, investigative scenario that puts a definite Mythos twist
masked adventurers, and international intrigue. All are upon the madness of the costumed adventurer.
set during the “dirty decade” of the 1930s, but could be
adapted to other periods. Given the simplicity of Trail of Rounding out the collection is “Dimension Y,” in
Cthulhu’s rules, all could be run with other Lovecraftian which maverick physicist Polton Williams invites the
investigative horror RPGs. Investigators to the inaugural demonstration of a new
and radical device, the Y-Scope. Activating the device
The first scenario, “The Devourers in the Mists” pits exposes them to a strange radiation, increasingly
man against nature, casting Investigators ashore, intense nightmares and eventually waking visions that
shipwrecked on the beaches of a mysterious South tear at their Sanity. It drives others to murder, and the
Pacific island. Initially, their focus is on survival, on the Investigators should realise that it is only a matter of
need for food, water and shelter, but the Investigators time before they find themselves heading the same way.
suffer from a growing unease after they see strange “Dimension Y” introduces the “Ticking Clock” scenario

64
the Eye of Light & Darkness
< CONTINU ED >

to Trail of Cthulhu, which calls for careful handling of time detective language with Lovecraft’s setting and weird
by the Keeper. magic, but it felt like the author really wanted to write
gritty crime and was willing to add creepy tomes to sell it.
All four scenarios are well written, with advice aplenty A similar problem plagues John Langan’s “The Shallows.”
and new rules for Trail of Cthulhu. Each works as a simple There’s a great, affecting story about a sad family and a
one-shot, while “Devourers in the Mist” and “Dimension dog in there: Pity it’s bogged down with dimensional shifts
Y” would also work as campaign starters. The standout and monsters.
scenario is “Shanghai Bullets” because it so evocatively
captures its subgenre and gives a sense of the Paris of the The anthology’s mid-range is full of stories that have tone,
Orient. Overall, a solidly fearsome foursome worth seven theme, plot and characters pulling together in traces, like
phobias. Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “Andromeda Among the Stones”
(though she does seem overfond of comparing things to
buttermilk). Others, such as “Jihad Over Innsmouth” by
Edward Morris, concoct intriguing blends that can’t quite
go the distance—especially if they over-reach. Or, like the
The Book of Cthulhu usually-stellar Bruce Sterling’s “The Unthinkable,” if they
don’t reach far enough.
E dited by R oss E. L ockhart
P ublished by N ight S hade B ooks
R eviewed by G reg S tolze Ramsey Campbell’s “The Tugging” evokes the 1970s
(when it was written) through a fine command of detail.
“Flash Frame” (by Silvia Moreno-Garcia), “Lost Stars”
(Ann K. Schwader) and “Fat Face” (Michael Shea)
are all solid and benefit from investing heavily in their
mundane settings of skeevy Mexico, a Boulder women’s-
The Book of Cthulhu is an anthology of Mythos short stories. empowerment collective, and L.A.’s prostitution industry.
None are written by Lovecraft, but all show the influence. “Fat Face” in particular does a nice job of marrying
How well that influence works varies from piece to piece. human tragedy to inhuman horror.

But what is a good Mythos short story? My standard is Two other stories (W.H. Pugmire’s “Some Buried
whether the story uses Lovecraftian themes, concepts or Memory” and Molly Tanzer’s “The Infernal History of
mood to examine something new, or whether it simply the Ivybridge Twins”) take chances, make big departures,
rehashes tentacles and cosmic nihilism. With one glaring and make it work. Pugmire’s resembles Lovecraft in
exception, many of the best in here take the Mythos Dreamlands mode, telling the story of a grave robber
somewhere new. Others tread water, or simply aren’t viable coming home to her heritage with an arch, idiosyncratic
hybrids. tone that works better than you’d expect. As for Tanzer’s
story, purists will hate its humorous tone, but if you judge
Let’s start with the disappointments. For me, the book’s it by its own standards, it’s an amusing story that moves
worst feature was not any particular story, but slack briskly along and gets just where it wanted to go.
proofreading throughout. Do missing (or extraneous) quote
marks, problems with italics, and absent connective words The collection’s best stories often use the Mythos as a
like “to” and “of” bother you? Because once I spotted the backdrop to historical human conflicts. “Shoggoths in
pattern I couldn’t stop looking for them. Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear touches on American racism
between the World Wars without devolving into a message
“Calamari Curls” by Kage Baker isn’t badly written, but story, and backstops it with beautiful description and a
with a cutesy-fey street mime conjuring extradimensional strong sense of science. As for David Drake’s “Than Curse
wrath for cash, it doesn’t need to be. “To Live and Die the Darkness,” it’s just a bold idea: Taking the themes of
in Arkham” by Joseph S. Pulver Sr. mixes hard-boiled “The Dunwich Horror” and applying it to the setting and

Issue 21 65
the Eye of Light & Darkness
< CONTINU ED >

details Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Drake makes it work.

The harrowing details of the Congo’s Belgian occupation
plausibly answer the question, “Why would anyone want
to destroy the world?” He makes it sound like we almost
deserve it.
Historical Lovecraft
E dited by S ilvia M oreno -G arcia and
Paula R. S tiles
Other fine historical stories include Joe R. Lansdale’s P ublished by I nnsmouth F ree P ress
“The Crawling Sky” (pulp horror western that gets by on R eviewed by B rian M. S ammons
the strength of dialogue and action scenes), “The Oram
County Whoosit” by Steve Duffy (a tale of unfortunate
discovery during the gold rush, echoed years later for
an ill-starred journalist) and “The Men From Porlock”
by Laird Barron (in which a lumberjack finds far worse The cover of this anthology of Lovecraftian tales by the
things in the north woods than the chills, toil, and injury wonderful Innsmouth Free Press features understated
that Barron describes with detail reminiscent of Algernon art of an Egyptian woman with a big hat and a staff
Blackwood’s “The Wendigo”). “A Colder War” by Charles festooned with images of Cthulhu. Perhaps the art is a bit
Stross makes the Mythos impact on humanity overt, too understated; it really doesn’t grab your attention. But
during the Oliver North era, and takes us through a full- that’s the cover. Let’s get to the meat of this collection of 26
blown apocalypse without ever getting cute, striking a false Lovecraftian tales set all over time and place.
note, or relieving the pressure of politicians playing with
forces beyond their pay grade. I must admit I was a bit concerned when I immediately
recognized only one of the authors in the table of contents.
T.E.D. Klein’s “Black Man With a Horn” is singled out After some thinking I remembered reading a few of the
in the introduction as the editor’s introduction to Cthulhu others before, as well, but noticeably absent were most of
mythology, and I’m glad it got included. It’s extremely the big names in modern Mythos collections. I’m all for
subtle, keeping most of the events obscured by the remove giving newer authors exposure, and some of the scribes
of letters and news reports, while the narrator’s personal here may be very accomplished, and it may be only due to
decay and resignation steadily fill the reader, like a tear my own ignorance that I don’t know their work better; but
preparing to spill from an eye. It has no shocks, but is the you see many of the same names in Lovecraft fiction again
second-most affecting tale in the book. and again because they tell Lovecraftian stories very well
in their own unique voices. Their omission here was a bit
The most affecting is Thomas Ligotti’s “Nethescuria,” disheartening. But I endeavored to put that out of my mind
even though it does nothing original or outstanding in and read the book with fresh eyes.
terms of character, setting or plot. Ligotti does mood;
that’s what he does, and any other element of story is First, the good. The stories are placed all over the world
included at the minimum level the atmosphere requires and in many points in history, with tales divided between
and no more. It’s a limited approach, but when you’ve got ancient times, the Middle Ages, and the recent past. So
a hammer that good, why use anything but nails? this book gets an A+ for variety if nothing else. The writer
whose name I immediately recognized, William Meikle,
Overall, most of the narratives here are solid, and there does his usual great work, delivering with “Inquisitor”
are more excellent pieces than failures. A broad variety of perhaps the best tale in the anthology.
approaches and styles are on display. If nothing else, The
Book of Cthulhu indicates the width of topics that Lovecraft’s Another winner was by Orin Gray, an author I need to
ideas can infect and encompass. I’d give it 6 phobias—or 5 get more acquainted with if his “Black Hill” is typical.
if you care a lot about proofreading. His story puts a whole new twist on the phrase ‘oil crisis.’ I

66
also want to draw attention to “The Good Bishop Pays the
Price” by Martha Hubbard. Set in the Byzantine Empire,
The Doom From Below
B y S tan !
it was one of the most historically steeped stories in the P ublished by S uper G enius G ames
book, and yet it was entertaining, mysterious, and never R eviewed by M atthew P ook
dusty, dry or dull.

Another thing I liked about this collection was the number

of shorter tales. I love a nice, leisurely soak in Lovecraftian
dread, but sometimes a good, quick shock feeds the hunger The Doom From Below is a sequel of sorts to Murder of Crows,
for horror. A good example is “Deus Ex Machina,” a tale Super Genius Games’ inaugural scenario for Call of Cthulhu
of ancient Greece which accomplishes a hell of lot in just (reviewed in The Unspeakable Oath 20). It is set in the 1920s
over two and a half pages. These four gems shone the near Bethlehem, New Hampshire, but it can be relocated
brightest. to almost any mountainous and forested location and game
period. The science fictional nature of its horror suits it for
Now the bad. If all of these stories were in fact gems, many modern or science fiction RPGs.
then some would not shine at all, dull with uninspired
characters and predictable plots. Worse, a few are simply The scenario focuses on the one curious locale, a strange
pastiches. They seem to consciously mimic the prose, tone, sinkhole and the caves below it. Initially the Investigators
and style of H.P. Lovecraft rather than telling Lovecraftian encounter natural dangers such as thick roots, insects
stories in a unique voice. One tale in particular I thought and bats (and their guano), and then a mystery—one
was pretty good, but the author’s persistent use of that could be the source of the bird and animal attacks
Lovecraftese kept drawing me out of the story. that threatened Bethlehem in Murder of Crows. What
the Investigators and the Keeper find is a locked-room
The stories I would actually call bad are, thankfully, few situation supported with plenty of detail.
and far between, but the sad truth is that much of this book
is just sort of forgettable. Historical Lovecraft is not a terrible The plot to The Doom From Below is well explained as is the
book. Perhaps if it had been released some years past, background; in some cases, overly so. Its Mythos elements
when the pickings for good Mythos fiction were slimmer, are relatively light, at best expanding on an ancient alien
I might have liked it more. But we are blessed to be in a presence in New England, although the investigators
virtual golden age of Lovecraft-inspired goodness, with do not encounter that particular race during the course
plenty of publishers putting out high-quality books based of play. One nice touch is that the investigators’ need
on HPL’s creations and ideas, and it’s hard to recommend for physical skills such as Climbing and Jumping, often
this title over other recent Mythos books unless you have overlooked by players, are covered by the inclusion of two
unlimited funds or you are a completist for all things NPCs.
Lovecraftian. Its standout stories bring it up to six phobias.
Where The Doom From Below suffers is in the lack of
maps for the cave system. Also, the four pregenerated
Investigators are poorly designed and at odds with the
suggested college anthropology/geology department, the
Department of the Interior, or the corporate research team
ideas that the scenario suggests would be investigating the
sinkhole.

Although it lacks polish, The Doom From Below is a

pleasingly small and self-contained affair worth four
phobias.

Issue 21 67
 Message in a Bottle:
She Had Everything
B y B rennan B ishop

She had everything I had wanted in a victim. She was But this time it wasn’t any of those things. Not a
intelligent, attractive, kept to a routine, and sprinted like a meaningless scream, not a profound connection. The
deer. I watched her come out of the University once it got words that came out of her barely caused me to slow. It
dark and I began to follow her. I knew the road she took. I was gibberish. Random-letter garbage tumbled out of her
could’ve met her along it at any point, but I preferred to do like blended alphabet soup. I knocked her over and was so
it from start to finish. She didn’t have many friends outside disappointed in what she has said, so angry at her and at
of a little circle, but that would’ve worked in my favor once myself for thinking she might have been different, that I
the news of her murder hit the pipeline. didn’t notice the thing that had appeared behind us.

My little friend, the knife, was ready. I was ready. She was I think she called it. She had a connection, I could feel it
ready. I kept pace with her for nearly thirty minutes along then—but not with me. At least, not the way I could have
that dimly-lit parkway until she cast a glance at me with a expected.
furrowed brow. It was then that the universe was ready. I
dashed towards her. It was always the same, the screaming, Despite my surprise I never dropped the knife. It was just
but every time I hoped that maybe this one was smarter that my arm had come off while the thing struggled to pick
than the rest. Maybe she would say something, a sentence me up. It managed to get me on the second try, though,
so profound it would stop me in my tracks, make me doubt and now we’re heading upwards, toward the stars. I can
myself, allow her to escape, or even attack me first. still hear the girl, shrieking at us in that same gibberish
from down below while her creature’s wings beat all
Once I came close, with an ex-girlfriend. She shouted ‘No,’ around me. I can feel myself getting colder as the park gets
and that she loved me. It was a lie. Her fearful eyes said so. smaller and the moon bigger. My arm doesn’t hurt. I doubt
I will have much time for pain.
I want someone to share a connection, no matter how
brief. I don’t know what she would have to say, only how I realize I’m smiling.
it would affect me. Something that was deep, meaningful,
full of truth and emotion that we alone would share Finally, someone different.
forever. Maybe then I could stop.

68