From: "John & Christine Thompson" To: Subject: Chaosium Digest v34.02 Date: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 9:14 PM Chaosium Digest Volume 34, Number 02 Date: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 Number: 2 of 2 The Horror On Two Forks Trail (continued) by Mervyn Boyd - jack@ktana.freeserve.co.uk The Camp As the players summon the energy and pick up the pace they notice, on a successful SPOT HIDDEN check that there is something wrong with the encampment. No signs of life. No horses. No children running or playing. Nobody comes out to meet them. Tepees stand crooked or are blown completely over. Closer inspection confirms it. There is no life at all. Just bodies strewn all around. It seems that the Union Army swept through with a vengeance. But no, the carnage is much, much worse. Several hundred twisted, broken bodies. Wind blasted and desiccated; and in near all cases the flesh has been stripped exposing bone. Horses included. Sanity loss for this grizzly scene is 1d3/1d6. What could have caused it? Well, sadly, the Indians were a little late in returning with their artifacts; and as they hurriedly conducted their Polyp-entombing ceremony, complete with spur-of-the-moment sacrifices thrown in for good measure, the Polyp broke free and killed everyone present. The vengeful entity continued its spree outside... and somewhere, out there, there's a Flying Polyp. Anybody with Mythos knowledge may recognize the work of the Polyp here. The Chiricahua Tribe has had the Polyp entombed for as long as can be told. They treat it as a living god. Degenerate as it may be, that is the only reason why they haven't tried to kill it. It doesn't matter that it is evil and would kill every living thing should it ever get out. They venerate it as much as they despise it. Picking through the remains, the players find the usual assortment of Indian materiel, and enough food and water to satisfy their immediate need which gives an automatic morale boost by way of 1d4 sanity gain. Also, while searching the camp, a lucky character may find in what appears to be the Chief's tepee a telescope. Using it to get some kind of bearing the player, on a SPOT HIDDEN check sees, at one mile distant carved stone idols at the base of some hills. Closer inspection would require a trip out to them. The idols and caves can also be discovered if the players head towards the high ground so that they get a better panoramic view of where they are... The dozen conical stone idols stand a full ten feet high and ten feet wide at the base. They seem to be clustered around a cave mouth opening. Upon their surfaces each bears deep etchings, and those of a fanciful nature might describe them to resemble three long tentacles, two of which terminate in enormous claws or nippers. At the end of the third are four trumpet-like appendages. Embedded in a ring atop the cones are yellow eye-like swellings. (Those with Mythos knowledge might identify these totems as crude representations of the Great Race of Yith.) Also, inscribed upon each of their surfaces are symbols and wards of protection and purification, but on each statue one sigil seems to be more prominent and stands out from the rest for whatever reason - a pentagon with an eye at its center. A lesser known variant of the Elder sign. A few more dead Indians complete the scene. Exploring the caves requires a light source. Essentially the mines are nondescript. Gravel crunches underfoot. A GEOLOGICAL check allows characters to see that the place has a rich seem of Iron Ore running through it. As the exploration draws to an end. the players emerge into a large cavern that appears to have been sculpted into a temple of some kind. It also seems that something large has exploded out from behind one of the walls - leaving an enormous cavity. But that is of secondary concern when faced with more death. Twelve bodies of a likes seen before; stripped of flesh and broken. Looking around players discover on an IDEA roll that there are two kinds of death here. One is carnage, the other is ritualistic sacrifice and the bloodied dagger held in the Chief's hand attests to that, as does the slit throat of a warrior. The box which was taken from the coach is found here - open and empty, its contents somewhere lost in the chamber. Indian totems such as drums, flutes and whistles, and other religious garb and artifacts abound - some of which are inlaid with gold and silver. Greedy players can load up here, and whatever their worth is left to the individual keeper. What Now Whenever it is convenient, have the Polyp ascend from behind a rocky outcropping, with an accompanying gust of wind. It rises higher into the air, apparently unaware of the players, before streaking off, at speed in a random direction. Remember Sanity loss, for those who see it. Generous keepers may allow LUCK rolls here. Who knows, maybe everyone has their backs turned at that particular moment. Obviously the characters can't stay here for ever, so they'll probably load up with as much as they can carry before continuing on their weary march. They might stay over night however. Either way, several hours later, they see in the distance a several hundred man strong military detachment of some kind heading their way - wagon bound and on horse back. Flagging them down and explaining their predicament Major General Thomas G. Copeland listens with a sympathetic ear. While arrangements are made for their safe escort on to wherever they players wan to go, our friend Mr. Polyp drops in to say hello. Soon all eyes are on it. Sanity checks for all. Men gaze open mouthed. Disbelieving. Stunned at the huge monstrosity. No one moves. Horses whinny and panic and try to flee. Set the scene then have the Polyp strafe the column for good effect. A strong wind buffets the wagons, blowing some of them over. General Copeland blinks then stirs from his momentary inaction and barks orders to: "Shoot it, Shoot it". The players may be at this stage already, and those soldiers who are able to follow their example open fire too. Other soldiers are just too far gone and will sit, drool & gibber, or run screaming into the desert. WAAAAAAHHH! Rifle and pistol fire are volleyed as fast as one can reload, however, due to the wind all ranged combat is conducted at -25. Since there are NPCs firing also, the Polyp takes an additional 1d4-1 damage per round. This way it can be killed even if the players are totally ineffectual. There are dozens of weapons to pick up and enough ammunition to eventually kill the wee beastie, but for the time being our players must do with what they have... then whenever it is appropriate blow the canvas off a wagon to reveal a Gatling Gun, complete with crank handle and boxes of ammunition.... For some reason it's not being used. Any takers? Sadly, there is no dynamite or barrels of gunpowder to be found. The urge to use the Polyp to full effect is too great, so to avoid a quick end it is advised to use its special attacks sparingly. Or, direct them away from the players for the first few rounds to give 'em a chance. Decimate soldiers and horses by the bucket load describing how their flesh is stripped in horrifying agony. Sanity loss to see this (1/1d6). As the Polyp is reduced to half hits it will no longer be able to keep aloft and will fall from the sky to continue its attack up close and personal. It pulls itself along with great effort, gouging a trench thirty feet wide and one foot deep. Thick ropy tentacles whip back and forth smashing wagons and whatever else that cannot get out their way. At quarter hits the Polyp attempts to flee to safety itself... try as it might it cannot lift off, so it drags itself away at speed 8 - quite easy to pursue and hunt down Killing the Polyp will be a joyous occasion indeed, and well worth the 1d20 sanity reward. Quite soon after it has bee slain, it begins to melt into a nauseating glutinous, mulchy goo. It bubbles and fizzes. Best not touch it. You know, just to be safe. Once all is done, the survivors pack up what they can muster and go home. The End. Flying Polyp STR CON SIZ INT POW DEX MOVE HITS 50 25 50 14 16 13 8 / 12 38 WEAPON ATTK % DAMAGE Damage Bonus: +5d6 Tentacle 85 1d10 Armour: The Polyp takes minimum damage from all Wind Blast 70 Special weapons, then another 4 points is subtracted. Spells: None, unless the keeper is truly evil. Are you? Sanity: 1d3/1d20 Special: Wind Blast Attack: This attack has a base range of 20 yards, doing damage equal to its damage bonus. The range can be increased but it loses 1d6 damage per multiple of 20. Thus, the blast at 100 yards range would do 1d6 damage. Victims of this attack have their flesh stripped from their bones at worst, to a rather bad case of dehydration and wind burn. All victims are also blown back a number of yards equal to the hit points they lose. Fixing Attack: In this mode, the attack has a range of 1000 yards without diminishing. It's use is to slow a fleeing target, which the Polyp has deemed a suitable snack. This time the wind has a peculiar sucking effect, which slows the target considerably. All targets must roll their STR versus half the Polyp's POW. If the Target wins, he/she can act as normal. Failure means the victim is stuck and cannot move away that round. ----------------------- James Aspera's "THE WHIPPOORWILL HOUSE AFFAIR" Chapter Three Michael Blenkarn and Brooke Johnson Recently I confirmed a suspicion. The weather was particularly cold and crisp and I made another excursion to the Tees Valley area. I wandered aimlessly for some time on the North York moors along the arbitrary boundaries of the valley, generally enjoying the inherent simplicity of moorland beauty; clear skies, delicate heather, trees fragmenting the light into patterns of golden radiance across the forest paths. So little is needed because beauty over-embellished is merely ostentation and pomp. It was cold enough for my breath to steam in the air and for acute and cold pain to flicker momentarily in my chest after moments of exertion. I detected the merest tendrils of cloud coalescing around the darkening horizon as I reached the pinnacle of the hill that marked Captain Cook's monument, a stark and funereal column of brickwork piercing the skyline unmistakably. I had scrambled rather animatedly over Roseberry Topping, not the most ambitious endeavour but made interesting by the pagan history of the dome of earth that was once a hallowed religious site of the Viking conquerors back in the Dark Ages. I was there to see the monument, however, and I approached it with a tense wariness. Night and snow-clouds were furtively gathering and the sky's hypnotic azure was rapidly darkening as I tentatively chipped at the mortar that held the weathered stones of the imposing edifice together. I reached inside my coat and pulled out a rather inadequate chisel, purloined from my barely-used workshop in Oxford. I began scoring deep pits in the crumbling mortar, my breath coalescing in the frigid air into ringlets of rising condensation. My hands slipped on the icy brickwork more than once, the little rivulets coursing across it nearly relieving me of at least a percentage of my fingers. After a seeming eternity of chiseling, my curses breaking the silence of the hilltop and the night now black and unforgiving around me, I managed to dislodge a brick, confirming an initial suspicion that the monument was hollow. This was a conclusion I had formed while ruminating over nothing much by the fireplace, in my drawing room back at Camberwick House in Oxford, nursing a rather expensive brandy, where things like wintry temperatures are a misrepresented memory and the aches of hard exertion in the cold unconsidered. As I pulled the heavy brick out with shaking, frost-bitten fingers I found that there was enough space for me to tentatively slide my gloved hand and thickly-coated forearm into the shadowed interior. Slowly, nervously, I obliged this compulsion. My hand met rounded, pitted, rough-hewn stone inside, the monument merely a shell encasing something older. I ran my fingers over the cracks to try and distinguish any patterns. The surface of the stone felt rough, but regular, as if carvings had been scored into it with primitive chisels, with an unusual degree of precision considering. I traced the outlines of what appeared to be vaguely familiar sigils carved into the hidden rock, or possibly monolith. Then I decided to search for something specific, something that I was familiar with. Needless to say, after several minutes of fruitless searching, I found that familiar thing. Suddenly depressed I withdrew my hand. It never ceased to surprise and depress me how far back the history of them went back, how long they had stalked the earth, leaving the mark. Then I turned to trudge the half-mile back to the car park through the darkling woods, needing a long, preferably strong drink. Right then, in the garage of Whippoorwill house, though, I was even more needful. The sounds of seemingly sentient machinery hammered into my ears and my eyes involuntarily clamped shut. Swindell was uncharacteristically silent. As the sounds washed over me like the caress of a jackhammer my mind was wandering incoherently elsewhere, recalling something I had read once about an incorporeal reality in which the sounds of our pedestrian dimensions echoed into a semblance of form for them. Quite what aberrations would spring from the cacophonous, almost tribal thundering of frenetic machines echoing off the damp, dripping garage walls were far beyond my meager imaginings. I felt a tickling sensation inside my head which was the lingering promise of migraines to come, and squinting in discomfort I tried to substantiate an origin for the omnipresent barrage. I found none. The garage was unpleasant, damp and stretched away into shadows not quite dark enough to accommodate such mechanisms. The floor was dirty concrete cracked and pitted by the crush of immense weights, but no hammering pistons, not hydraulic squeals of steam or flickering LEDs betrayed an inkling as to the source of the pounding. I tried to shut my ears and ventured slightly into the darkness, leaving Swindell quietly panting with discomfort, leaning against the cracked, pealing doorframe and twiddling a bedraggled lock from his curly hair disconsolately. My nerves were either strengthening against the menace of Whippoorwill House or had been short-circuited by an exhausted autonomic system, because for the first time I felt confident in leading the way. I still held my gun with all the professionalism of a five-year old with a water-pistol, but I was coming to understand that my brain would work better for me in this unusual situation. I soon found that my claim had been erroneous. Against a dark wall of pitted red brick hulked a machine like a brooding predator, glimmering evilly as a little ray from the flickering bulb in the kitchen caught it. It was silent, in a way that radiated readiness and poise in its cold efficiency, dormant but ready nonetheless. There seemed to be no specific controls of any kind or any particular feature that defined its purpose, merely complex tangles of frayed wiring and the occasional glimpse of internal mechanisms through the mess, refracting off the metal surface of the machine's insides. I looked at it for several seconds and digested this information as thoroughly as I could manage in that state of mind, then peremptorily motioned with one arching finger for my erstwhile companion to consider the situation in his own abrupt, and often misguided manner. Swindell, a rather fascinating shade of green, groggily meandered over and began unceremoniously to vent his discomfort in a series of deeply distracting utterances that conveyed a world of information. Idly, he reached forward and prodded the strange machine before us, with a look of bemused concentration playing across his features. I half expected it to make an irritated bleep or better yet to tear one of his arms off in a magical display of electronic affront, but I was sadly rewarded with neither of these. The metal under Swindell's fingers merely clunked, a characterless and unremarkable sound. Then Swindell began twiddling around with some of the wiring and my hopes dawned again. Perhaps a vitriolic blast of electricity would straighten his hair. Still, I didn't want him to vaporize himself and lose his potential as a shield, so I quietly tried to restrain his inept fiddling. "Where's your sense of adventure?" He blustered irritably. "In a small kitchen cupboard in Bermondsey. I wish I was." His brow wrinkled in confusion at this surreal use of humour, as I expected it to. "If your brow furrows any more it'll need a car jack to get your face back to normal," I said, and brightened at that mental image. Chuckling slightly to Swindell's obvious outrage I turned my attention back to the task in hand. I thought I'd infuriated him enough to even prevent him from mouthing another clichéd phrase. He winced, gently massaged his aching head and then destroyed my hope of even that by muttering 'Oh, man.' Even now that phrase is enough to make think longingly of filling his trousers with ferrets. Mmmmm. 'Could you please stop muttering those insufferable two syllables?', I asked him, a trifle more mildly than I should've in hindsight. 'Well, excuse me, but they're my way of dealing with the situation. At least I don't run screaming in a high voice at the merest hint of danger.' I scowled at him, though I had to agree that when danger threatened I became unsettlingly falsetto. Swindell turned to me and flourished a hand in a dramatic pose, head held high. I backed away nervously, realizing that he was about to make some sort of clichéd comment, of the sort that warranted protective clothing. After all, doesn't melodrama give off it's own sort of radiation? I'd certainly been exposed to it far too much recently. A serious expression welded to his face, Swindell said in a never-before-heard sonorous oratorical tone, candyfloss hair bobbing to every word, "Adventure makes the soul fly. Don't you want to soar like an eagle?" After my hysterical giggling had subsided and the look of affront had slid slowly off his face to be replaced with Swindell Look Number 23 (Daddy won't buy me a pony), I patted him gently on the shoulder, still smirking. "Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet intakes. Remember that." Then I think we both seemed to remember where we were, and the humour of the situation deflated considerably. Again, trying to shrug off all the snide little comments I was lining up for Swindell, and were currently squealing for attention, I turned back to the machine. There was a sudden sound. I suspect it had tugging at my consciousness for some time but I had not been able to perceive it for the thumping of my heart in its futile attempt to escape the horror via my ribcage. Despite my eyes still refusing to properly adjust to the gloom, there seemed to be a visual stimulus in the room that I had not noticed and so I homed in on this and was rewarded with a small red light a la the average TV remote control. Leaning forward gingerly, poising my feet in the event of danger, I tentatively realized that this light was the source of the almost subliminal sound. It was set back in the corrupted jungle of wire, vibrant colour spearing from stark darkness and the red LED seemed to actually absorb light whilst emitting it. It had a terrible mockery about it as if it knew what was to come, the sense of expectancy and probing awareness that had been a source of considerable uneasiness for me since crossing the threshold of the house. The light drew me to its dark, angular nest of god-knows what horror and I found myself unable to stop my hand reaching in and removing the surrounding clutter, fingers trembling. My hand was not torn from my limb to be shredded in some Hollywoodesque contraption of torture, not that I was in any way disconcerted by the milder turn of events. Instead the immediate solution to our narrative standstill became visible, and, as Swindell began to point out the obvious I groaned inwardly. In the space cleared with the LED in the center was a depression the area and thickness of the bizarre mirror we had discovered earlier. " Do you think we should put the mirror in there? I mean it's the right shape and all." I looked incredulously at him but could detect no hint of irony or sarcasm in his voice or face, just the innocence of a lamb to slaughter. It amazed me still how easily his course of action could be led and manipulated just by the provision of obvious, yet to my mind dubious, clues for our progression. Not that we appeared to have much choice but to blithely follow those clues. I toyed with various ideas of what to do for a while then with a sigh of resignation clicked the mirror home. There suddenly came the sound like a thousand wrecker's yards in full swing, in a deranged coupling a million screaming steam engines, each paying negligible regard to the presence of the others in their midst. The instant it assaulted our ears (and it truly was like having a jackhammer applied to each eardrum), I knew that I was to be confronted by something I wouldn't much like upon turning round. I hardly expected something pleasant and comforting. The machinery seemed to have grown in size and spread over the whole room like some kind of rust fungus in mockery of machinery. Pistons pounded fitfully as cogs whirled in irregular rhythms, spraying some vast cloying web filament of total mindless servitude, of pointlessness and the most pure condensation of absolute despairing futility. I screamed as I felt the optic fibers of mechanical purity and stagnation begin to weave into my nerves, dragging me inward, to become one with the machine, the ultimate in purity and insane order. Across crazily angled gantries struggling body-bags dangled from barbed chains, dripping thick, treacle-like globules of oil onto the floor below which had become a thick meshed grid of rust-encrusted wire. Beneath in the dark, strange suggestions of mechanical movement implied a vast, malign factory of pure evil distilled through machinery that contained no vestige of human life or character but was anything but automated. I had collapsed and allowed myself to be dragged in some direction. I moved my wretched head and saw that it was Swindell dragging me to the door, and his breathy, Neanderthal grunts at the effort were audible even amidst the thundering, perhaps merely because of all the cacophonous noises around us they alone spoke of life. The machine sounds grew to unimaginable levels and I released a single shrill scream, before like a drunkard passing out in reverse, staggered to my feet and exploded through the door with a flailing of limbs like a man trying to scream through the medium of semaphore. I was hit with what seemed the force of a car as I passed through and fell to my knees with an ungainly lack of grace, arms pinwheeling hysterically for balance before smacking into bruising contact with the surface. I barely registered that it was a harsh, cold, manifestly-un-kitchen-like surface that I had inadvertently thrown myself towards. It was the sound that had unbalanced me, a sound so intense that the transition from the cacophony of the hideously transformed garage to this had been like passing through solid matter. The new sound was the pure antithesis of that infernal racket, a sinuous sound heard distilled to its most potent form, pure ambience. I cannot describe it however much I contort the human vocabulary to accommodate it. It was the sound of being inside the womb again, it was the most soothing and relaxing sound, totally beyond anything ever experienced. It took hold of my very matter and invaded with its presence. I know I shall never experience this sound again and it leaves me with the most profound emptiness imaginable. No, beyond even that. Far be it from me to become profound and shatter my sardonic exterior, however temporarily, but I dare any soul to pass through that atmosphere and remain unaffected by its power. My tear streaked eyes cleared and I began to take stock of the kitchen or rather what it had become. Before the process of cogitation was complete Swindell's invocation, his reaffirmation of manliness of whatever that 'oh man' truly meant to him, had passed his lips. The room was now decorated with Spartan, utilitarian white tiles and a single mint green border. The mingled, incongruous smells of chlorine, ammonia, fluorine and rancid faecal matter attempted to eradicate my nasal organs and lungs or at least clean them from the inside outwards. A bronze grate gurgled in the corner in an obscenely happy way, with ruddy brown fluid slumping down it. My eyes followed the drain channel to its origin. I attempted to vomit again. I had emptied my stomach so much that I merely dry-retched with throaty spasms and sharp, acute pains stabbing acidic needles through my tortured stomach lining. I involuntarily doubled over and clutched my stomach so hard that my knuckles whitened. In the center of the room was something akin to a distorted dentist's chair, but with a more cruciform appearance, and a morass of slithering pipes and cables. Gleaming surgical attachments formed a quietly but frighteningly whirring mesh of precision pain. A struggling man fought the straps that bound him within, sweat beading a face gaunt and contorted from pain without reckoning, teeth grinding with the effort. He was being dissected while was still alive. Clustered around him were, I shudder now thinking back, four humanoids. They were emaciated, hunched stick figures all clad in what appeared to be lab coats. Their malformed, bulbous heads were bald, their complexions could only be described of as heroin chic. The faces were the worst part. All their facial orifi were sewn up. Precisely and cleanly inserted in the stead of normal sensory organs where all manner of mechanical replacements. Limbs were prosthetically replaced, terminating in grotesque tools with which they were occupied dissecting there victim. How can I describe them adequately? Think of the most advanced surgical instruments yet created; when the lights are out and all are asleep these are what those primitive butchery tools fervently wish to be when they grow up. They made a finely cut scalpel in the hands of a expert surgeon appear as a stick clasped in the muddy fingers of a chimpanzee. The victim looked at us with pleading eyes then using his head motioned one of the white coats. The creature stooped to listen, looked at us then nodded, at that moment my heart exploded. The thing simply removed the victims' gag. The victim looked and then opened its mouth.wide. The scream of untold billions erupted from that mouth, eternal agonies of horror and madness spilled forth in an almost solid torrent. The entire suffering of mankind was but a single note in this abhorrent symphony of soul burning perfidy. And, behind it all was the sound of mechanical workings, the conductor of this horror. The victim shut its mouth and allowed the gag to be returned as we fled the room. That image remained etched in white-hot metal across my mind, the hideous sight of a broken will acting in an almost sensual compliance with its tormentors, the most tortuously degrading subservience imaginable. Thrusting Swindell aside I would have clambered over my own mother to escape that dungeon first. So hasty was I that my ankles, in a violent argument regarding which was to cross the threshold first, tangled themselves together, much to the consternation of my body, which in desperation selected to protect itself by landing on my face and distributing the minor damage to my less delicate areas. Carpet textures printed across large portions of my face I scrambled somewhat pathetically and without dignity across the hall, like a hamster who's cage is being heated over a slow fire. Dignity seemed a small sacrifice if it granted me a full complement of limbs; the whitecoated things had looked as if they wanted to examine my innards with considerable attention to detail. Swindell followed me with as much a lack of physical grace but communicating the same ridiculousness through his normal, average walk as had appeared in my floundering retreat. Not once in this escapade had I seen him fall over with quite as much drama as I, with the flailing limbs and the pitiful mewling and legs trying to circumnavigate each other and run in twenty directions at once. Oh, he had fallen, but generally with the helpful aid of some large dripping tentacle. What he had in poise and verticality however was countered in the aura of supreme foolishness and ungainly waistline which to my mind inspired more fear than any of amorphous, bloated monstrosity that had escaped giggling from the pen of Lovecraft perhaps because Swindell was a bloated monstrosity struggling to fit inside a shirt and tie. Joints complaining, I rose to my feet and took pains to step carefully, each foot directed with the precision of a landing aircraft. Swindell, visibly perturbed as is easy to imagine, was looking at a spot on the ceiling somewhere above my head, his face pale and his babbling chatter uncharacteristically silenced. I followed his gaze and felt weary resignation as much as fright. I look at the faces that surround me in the street and wonder how many really truly know? And how many are in that merciful blissful oblivion that I once knew. Nothing is the same as it once was for me, a sunny day and children's laughter, even the very leaves of the trees, seem to be laugh at me. I'm drowning in paranoia; wave after wave of panic constantly attempts to swamp my bedraggled defenses. Building up in a crescendo of swirling semi madness attempting to take root and grow to full raging insanity. When I look back I know, it's moments like this that really pushed me to where I am now. The double-barrel punches of horror, one after the other, too quick to allow recovery time. A mind can't help but fracture. -- To unsubscribe from the chaos-digest ML, send an "unsubscribe" command to chaos-digest-request@chaosium.com. Chaosium Inc., Call of Cthulhu, and Nephilim are Registered Trademarks of Chaosium Inc. Elric! and Pendragon are Trademarks of Chaosium Inc. All articles remain copyright their original authors unless otherwise noted.