Chaosium Digest Volume 31, Number 12
Date: Sunday, June 25, 2000
Number: 4 of 4


The Events of one 2234 Water St.

Foreword:
This scenario is more of a very detailed adventure sketch, meaning, there are
numerous places to add events, change particulars, pick monsters, and customize
it to your liking. I hope some or all of it finds a home in your game. This
scenario is set in the 1920’s in a rural/suburban environment. It can be easily
changed to practically any other decade with a minimum of effort.

Keeper Info:
Living at the address of 2234 Water St. (city isn’t too important, though Arkham
sounds nice.) lives a very ordinary-seeming family, the Cooks, the mother is
Laura, the Father David, and the son is James. There is also an uncle, Roger, a
prosaic older man who seems to dislike people. The house could be in the suburbs
for a more modern feel of desolation, but wherever the house is, it should sit
comfortably in a residential area, with only other houses around; and as people
are there are kind neighbors but none that would go out of their way to help one
another. Then, it is sufficient to say that calls for help are ignored, and
screams only sometimes are heeded. Within this backdrop of community apathy, a
horror took place.

The only son James is now 24 and the family seems to be trying to get him out of
the house, but unfortunately for them his calling seems to be as a painter. And
further to confound the family his works (both disturbing and lovely at the same
time) cannot be drawn on purpose by James, he must have the feeling strike him,
and then the painting is made at an astonishing pace. The stark oil paintings
seem to show all sorts of twisting corridors deep underground, or muddy soil in
the foreground with buildings harboring strange non-Euclidian geometry in the
distant ocean haze. These paintings are strange, and some are outright
frightening (Keepers can choose to have 1 sanity lost after viewing 1d6 of these
paintings [and a failed san check], and viewing the whole basement gallery will
cost 1/1d6 san and add 1d6 Cthulhu Mythos). James will state that he doesn’t
know what he paints only that it comes to him in dreams, and that he usually
wakes up with his heart racing and his clothes soaked in sweat.
Recently David had become increasingly angered at the paintings, he would have
late-night shouting matches with David saying that he thought that they were
creepy and that he should get a real job. The fights intensified until David
stalked off to the basement and set to destroying the paintings one by one,
snapping them over his knee. When he arrived at “Darkened R’lyeh” he stopped
suddenly as if manipulated by a puppeteer, his head tilted back till he was
staring straight up, he muttered some strange language, and collapsed completely
dead.

James had no idea of what to do, so he told Roger the whole thing, who then said
that he would take care of it, for no one else would believe that James hadn’t
killed his father (the tensions between the two were well known). Roger fetched
a cracking tome from his private study and worked some manner of spell on the
body of David Cook, Roger and James then buried the body in the backyard taking
careful precautions to see that it wouldn’t be found. He then sent James away
and set to work on his own. Roger had worked a spell on the body of David to
entrap a part of his psyche in a small talisman (since he was in the basement
and didn’t have much time he chose a small nail), the talisman will convert
another person into David, by all tests the body of the victim will be an exact
copy of David’s body at the time he died. The only problem is that he needs
living bodies to have the cycle work so Roger finds the first body, he informs
this David that he is dead and that Roger can snuff him out with a word, and
that to continue living he must find people to stab the nail into (the nail can
be put anywhere, but usually a place where it won’t be found is best) the nail
is painful, but only slightly, and the pain comes from the fact that the nail is
slowly consuming the life force of the body that it is in (and the life force is
being sent to an appropriate elder god or baddie)  and will totally consume it
within 3d6+10 days, after this time if a new body hasn’t been found the current
husk will assume its normal non-David form and lie there, a slightly emaciated
corpse.

Even worse, nightly dogs try to dig up the actual corpse of David, and every
morning James goes out and covers up the hole. The dogs usually don’t go deep
enough. The ground seems to be giving off a putrid fish smell…

With all of this transpiring it has become very busy for the local police
department lately…


Player Intro:

The investigators can be contacted in numerous ways:
-A police friend of one of the investigators can contact them with a very odd
story; he knows they have a record of finding answers where none seem to be…
-They may be attacked by a hooded figure that tries (successfully?) to jab them
with a small nail.
-There are disappearances in one of the investigator’s home neighborhoods; his
family still lives there.
-A friend or family member writes to say that another member of the family has
been found, lying dead outside a home on the other side of town dressed
strangely, with a strange haircut, and a gun. The police say that there is no
known cause of death but severe dehydration.

Player Info:
However the players arrive there or even if they just happen by they should
start looking around for a cause for the disappearances, the police will explain
to them that a person will go missing from their home usually during the night,
then around a month or so later show up dead, nearly all water and bodily fluids
drained from the body, though the time of death is very recent, usually within
hours of when the body was found.

 If a doctor is consulted (there are a few private practices, and a large
hospital) he will comment that with a time of death that recent the body can’t
be dehydrated that quickly, they would have dropped dead a long time ago; the
body should be in a less dehydrated state. The doctor concludes that the fluids
must have been drained (very thoroughly) and then the flesh (inside and out)
dried completely, he isn’t sure if even a very modern well equipped facility of
any type could do the job in the time frame allotted, he reasons that there must
be some error in the time of death figures (which can be confirmed to be correct
as the police put them, at the investigators’ expense).

Events:
The scenario begins the night the most recent of the bodies that was found is
stolen. The night watchman is knocked brutally unconscious, and remembers
nothing of the incident; there is blood both from the victim and the attacker at
the scene (the blood is retained for later analysis). There are fingerprints,
badly smeared, but useable; they can be found with some difficulty, to be of one
of the people who are currently missing! The investigators are questioned the
next day (being one the few people that know the details of this case). After
the investigators’ alibis are confirmed (a police officer escorted them home the
previous evening, and was with them at the time of the attack). They will then
be show the scene of the crime, the body was taken very rudely out a back window
(1st story), there isn’t much evidence here that the investigators can use a
SPOT HIDDEN roll will reveal a wedding ring lying in a corner where it seems it
must have rolled, there is recent dried blood on it and the inscription reads:

“To my wonderful Husband David, Love Mrs. Cook”
Whether they found this or not they will be shown pictures of the body (before
it was taken) looking for clues SPOT HIDDEN will also reveal the ring in the
photo, and then on a LUCK roll of the most unlucky player will cause a police
officer to remember seeing that somewhere, he’ll remember in 1d4 hours.
Otherwise they can take the picture to the local jeweler who’ll be able to
identify who he did that work for (the ring has designs on it that are unique
and are cast directly into the metal [it looks like a rose wrapped around the
ring]).

Another person will be taken tonight…

The same as all the others, this time though the body is not subsequently stolen
from the police’s possession, if they haven’t already discovered the ring the
police will compare the two photos, and notice that the only difference between
the one that was taken and all the others is that it had a ring on, they will
then realize that no identifying information is on any of the bodies, except for
that one… The photo will then be taken to the local jeweler to try and discover
the owner of that lost ring.

The address: 2234 Water St.

When the police arrive for questioning they will ask where David has been these
evenings and have her identify the ring on the person in the morgue, a blood (or
DNA if the 90’s) will be run, and the fingerprints and blood will be different
from David’s (he is now a “different” person). He will also have a rock tight
alibi; he was home at the time of last night’s disappearance (a summoned minion
did the dirty work, this time). The police will be baffled and won’t pursue it
much farther, though they will still consider him a suspect, the players may
question also, but unless they have a different set of questions it won’t get
too much, James will show the investigators his gallery (if they dare) he is
clearly nervous but trying to hide it (psychology roll). If the characters
REALLY push him he’ll crack, but he won’t be able to tell them where uncle Roger
is. At this point the investigators should take action to protect James,
otherwise come next morning David will have found out and have a minion (pick
one) “deal” with him.

Climax:

 Someone has found out that the investigators are poking about, during this time
the investigators may make a SPOT HIDDEN roll to see if they notice a shadowy
figure following them at key places (the morgue, the police station, the Cook
household) the figure is far enough to be able to flee (75%) or get away with
only a glimpse (15%) and will be caught and desperately fight (10%). If Roger is
held to fight he will take a good whopping to defeat (he has a spell for
strength or one for damage absorption active, this should allow him to seem like
he is a supernatural creature).

1.) If the players defeat him they will discover plans for a complex rite to
exhume David’s body and gain the favor of  (pick a BIG nasty). This plan gives
the exact location of the body (in the back yard of the Cook house). If the
investigators crack the case this way David will be caught and thrown in prison,
(the body in the back yard isn’t identifiable, it is partly a thick slime, and
is taken to be one of David’s victims) where he will mysteriously wither in
about a month…

2.) Or if they don’t get Roger (they only get 2 chances before he becomes much
more cautious) and they set up a watch at the Cook house for 2d4 days they will
see the rite begin to be performed, at this point they will have a nasty fight
with Roger, who if he has any reason to believe that he is being watched (Keeper
’s determination) he’ll call a minion to kill the intruders. If not the players
can sack him at a key point (90% chance they pick a GOOD key point, and don’t
have bad side effects…) and he’ll go down without a fight, but will die soon and
melt into slime, punishment for screwing up such an important spell.

3.) The Rite is successful, a strangely glowing apparition will arise (vaguely
David’s corpse) and begin to melt away from sight, this costs (5/2d10 SAN) and
might (45% chance) activate their dormant pineal glands (allowing them to see
many incorporeal nasties) for 1d6 days.
4.) They can stalk David for another month (if they understand the pattern of
the murders) and attempt to catch him in the act of killing, if they get a
picture or other evidence David is apprehended. (viewing the act of David’s
attack costs 2/2d6 SAN)

Wrapping it up:
(winning in these ways)

1.) For finishing the adventure in way 1, the players gain 1d10 SAN for knowing
that Roger is dead, and knowing that David is caught. The police are happy and
they attribute the mysterious death in prison to some as yet undiscovered
disease.

2.) They gain 1d10+4 SAN for so obviously thwarting a horrible act. And for the
knowledge that Roger is good and dead, will have them resting easy. They could
also die easily in this way by being killed by the minion. If they have
interrupted the spell at a bad point (10% chance) the Keeper is free to harm a
few of them or kill depending on taste, this was a VERY bad time to interfere
with cosmic forces that they don’t begin to understand.

3.) Hopefully they will run. No SAN is regained, something horrible happened and
they were powerless to stop it, they hear about a few more murders, but then the
news stops…
4.) They gain 1d6+4 san for knowing that David is not going to be killing any
longer. However they must place the nail (if they recover it from the back of
David’s neck) in a safe place, it can’t be destroyed by any known means (another
adventure?) and it must be safeguarded or the whole nightmare will begin again.
This applies to all endings, if the nail isn’t accounted for the same thing
could happen in another place and time…

Any time the players get a hold of Rogers personal effects (he carries all the
important ones with him) they could learn all his spells, they are all hideous
and cost 4/2d6 SAN to learn them all and give 1d10 Cthulhu Mythos.






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