From: "John & Christy Thompson" To: "Chaosium Digest" Subject: [Chaos-digest] Chaosium Digest v38.7 Date: Saturday, November 13, 2004 6:28 PM Chaosium Digest Volume 38, Number 7 Date: Sunday, November 13, 2004 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: * Family Snapshots (CTHULHU) by Nick Middleton * Turkey and Jaguar (CTHULHU FICTION) by Prof. Richard Scott Nokes, Ph.D Editor's Note: We've got a couple of interesting submissions for you this time. One is a cool little plot to pit your investigators against and another is a nice short story of horror amidst a Mayan archaeological dig. Enjoy! ANNOUNCEMENTS * The Worlds of Cthulhu website is now live. http://www.worldsofcthulhu.com Content will be added on an ongoing basis, and support material to each issue can also be found there. -- Adam Crossingham Editor - Worlds of Cthulhu * Transmitted by Dustin Wright of the Leng Embassy, from Silverton Colorado. The Elder Party Won! No More Years! This R'lyeh report contains all sorts of crunchy Chaosium info. For more Chaosium news check out our website at http://www.chaosium.com Howdy Folks This week finds us anxiously awaiting Shadows of Yog Sothoth. We might have it by the end of the week. That would have it hitting store shelves by mid-month. The Stars Are Right is ready to go to the printer now. That may also happen by the end of the week. Between these two books, we're likely to end the year on a positive note. CthulhuCon 2005 We're pleased to announce that we'll be co-hosting a CthulhuCon at GhengisCon this coming February. The Denver Gamers Association has invited us to attend their show February 17th-20th 2005. Charlie Krank and Dustin Wright will both be there. We'll have a big Chaosium booth and plenty of COC gaming. This is a great way for Chaosium to kick off our 30th anniversary. We hope you'll join us. Everyone should see the Rocky Mountains covered with snow at least once. The event will take place at the Four Points Sheraton in Denver Colorado. If you would like to run some Call of Cthulhu events there, please contact dustin@chaosium.com. We'll need plenty of GM's! For more information about GhengisCon check out http://www.denvergamers.com/genghis/generalinfo.asp Chaosium.com Update Recent new items at Chaosium.com include Miskatonic University Lapel pins. These swell little pins are available with gold or silver details. We've also added a Basic Roleplaying Creatures monograph and some swell (hard to find) books to our Grand Bazaar of Antiquities section. Rumors, Rumors, Rumors. Chaosium is working on some little items to bring you all sorts of holiday cheer. We're hard at work nailing down our 2005 schedule. Several new monographs are in the works. The Leng Embassy recently hosted a Halloween Party. Don't ask what was in the fajitas. Thank you for supporting the Chaosium! The Chaosium dudes. * Greetings All- As Ithaqua begins his slow assault upon us, Chaosium remains steadfast against him and his ilk. Warm yourself in the glow of some fabulous new toys and trinkets. Before we mention the new things we have, Chaosium would like to thank everybody for all your support lately. We pride ourselves on quality publications, and we look forward to bringing you great fun in 2005. This holiday season, we're trying something new. For a limited time, we are offering FREE SHIPPING on orders over $120.00. This offer is valid worldwide as well, but only until the end of November! Order big and save some hard-earned cash. Chaosium will of course ship using the cheapest method available - generally by surface mail for our international fans and UPS or USPS ground for our domestic buddies. Chaosium is quite pleased to announce the release of SHADOWS OF YOG-SOTHOTH. This is a classic scenario, with expanded scenarios and keeper aids. As the first published adventure for Call of Cthulhu back in 1982, SHADOWS OF YOG-SOTHOTH treats us to the first appearance of Mighty Cthulhu himself. Don't let him slip away again! SHADOWS OF YOG-SOTHOTH: http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=360 Chaosium is also happy to see some cool dice bags in stock. Carry your dice (or chips) in style with these cloth bags. Choose the black ELDER SIGN BAG, or amaze your friends with the swell YELLOW SIGN BAG. Click the links if you want to see them. YELLOW SIGN BAG: http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=574 ELDER SIGN BAG: http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=573 For fans of the Soviet Union, Chaosium has something special just for you. Brand new and still shiny, we introduce a new Call of Cthulhu adventure monograph, wherein soldiers in Stalin's Red Army find things not quite as they appear. The year is 1931, and you must defend MACHINE TRACTOR STATION KHARKOV-37 against an unknown threat. Do you have what it takes? The Soviet Union needs another hero. Grab your rifle and fight!! Click the link below to learn more. MTSK-37: http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=603 To help the world celebrate Great Cthulhu's victory in the U.S. Presidential election, Chaosium offers a special on our neat CTHULHU FOR PRESIDENT 2004 products. With Cthulhu wreaking havoc in the White House and around the world, Chaosium is poised for global domination in 2005. Join our team and show the world you care!! Please remember these shirts do NOT come to life if left unwashed, despite those rude internet warnings!! CTHULHU FOR PRESIDENT SPECIALS: http://catalog.chaosium.com/specials.php As always, we try to find or build great stuff for our friends and fans around the world. Chaosium does have lots of neat stuff under construction at Santa's Workshop, so check back on our site early and often. You may be delighted (or horrified) by what you see. Thanks from the Chaosium guys. Chaosium Inc. 895 B St # 423 Hayward CA 94541 fergie@chaosium.com 510 583 1000 phone 510 583 1101 fax --------------- Family Snapshots A Tale of Terror for Call of Cthulhu by Nick Middleton, ©2002 "The sense of isolation inspires Inspires me" Intruder, Peter Gabriel Celia Anderson is an occultist of dubious reputation known to the Investigators. Possibly, they have crossed paths with her on a previous case. She is an independently educated orphan. Now in her mid thirties, short brown hair sternly cut, always conservatively but durably attired, with a steely gaze and brusque demeanor. She has never been convicted of any wrongdoing and the investigators have no reason to believe she is a cultist, although she certainly has a reputation for sharp practice and a lack of concern over the fate of others. There are dark rumours regarding the ultimate fate of some artifacts known to have come in to her possession and questions have been raised amongst informed Occultists as to the sorts of clients Miss Anderson works for. Ideally, Miss Anderson should be introduced as a peripheral character some sessions before the Keeper intends to run this Tale, and certainly, Miss Anderson's formidable Occult knowledge and academic training might be of some assistance to the Investigators in a preceding case. Even so, the request to visit her at her family home should come as an intriguing surprise, one they will be willing to take up. The Investigators will no doubt wish to do some research before they visit Miss Anderson at home and the invite should allow them a day or so for such groundwork. What they discover depends on which option the Keeper has chosen (see below), but with such limited time only the facts of public record will be revealed before the Investigators have to make their way to the house. It is an isolated aristocratic pile, clearly over a century old (at least in origin) and some what isolated although sharp-eyed investigators will note that a telephone line and electricity have been installed. A skeleton domestic staff of three is retained but is obviously not capable of maintaining the house and grounds. Miss Anderson will be as genial a host as she knows how, although it is clear that much of the house (and grounds) is out of use and she will freely admit that she doesn't use the house much anymore, in fact she intends to sell the place soon. Which brings her to the reason she invited the Investigators: there is a collection of Occult material (books and artifacts) that has accumulated in the house over the years, some her late fathers, some her late brother's and some her own. Since the house is to be sold, she intends to dispose of the collection but chose to consult acknowledged experts (the Investigators) before approaching an auction house; in the field of the Occult and Paranormal, there are risks to any such disposal. Right on cue, the power (and phone) lines are cut, plunging the house into darkness... Miss Anderson has not been entirely frank with the Investigators. Her father was a minor mythos Sorcerer who dabbled and taught his children a little magic. She and her brother George found particular use for the spell, Keenness of Two Alike, especially after their father disappeared and they had to fend for themselves. Unfortunately, George had a particularly gruesome set of experiences in the War and became more than a little unhinged. Miss Anderson had him institutionalized and is selling the collection and house to be rid of the memories and to generate enough capital for a trust fund to pay for his care indefinitely. 1) She then intends to move away and change her name. Unfortunately, one of the Occult items is a mirror made from Glass of Leng which the Anderson children used as a focus for their spells and which George has used as a target for the other spell he knows, Wandering Soul... George has thus discovered his sisters callous plans and come to wreak revenge on her and all those whom he perceives as helping her. He knows the house and grounds intimately and has the ingenuity, agility, endurance and strength of the insane. He will stalk the inhabitants of the house, beginning with servants, then the investigators, then his Sister. He will also attempt to retrieve the Mirror (which is part of the collection the Investigators were viewing) and both the mirror and his sister are tokens for which George MIGHT bargain. 2) Unfortunately for Miss Anderson and the Investigators, Anderson senior has returned. Or rather, he never left, since his offspring caused his disappearance. Whilst scrying through his magical Mirror of Leng, Anderson Senior's body remained seated in his chair, apparently studying the mirror. When George attempted to shoot his father he was horrified to see the bullet, having passed through his father, smash the mirror, but rather than scatter glass fragments it splashed like quicksilver over Anderson Senior and George. George fled, irrevocably insane, and the quicksilver absorbed Anderson Senior's body and was forced into the cellar by Miss Anderson where it has remained, trapped by an electric barrier. Miss Anderson made the mistake of telling Daddy her plans yesterday and "it" has been desperately calling out for its missing part that was absorbed in to George. And now George is home and has cut the power... 3) Unfortunately for the Investigators, Miss Anderson is a minor Sorcerer and her staff are cultists. Driven mad by her father's experiments with magic and estranged from her devoted brother George by his experiences in the war, she has studied the Mythos too deeply. When George discovered what she was up to he attempted to stop here but she managed to bribe the right people and he was institutionalized. Fortunately, a pair of his friends managed to intervene to ensure he was not badly treated and they have played a watching game until word of Miss Anderson's intention to sell the house reached them. Rightly assuming that she intends to disappear to pursue her unspeakable interests elsewhere, George has been sprung from incarceration and he and his two friends have decide to assault the house, capture Celia and destroy as much as possible. George, although not entirely stable, will not initially intend to kill his sister. She, on the other hand, will be prepared to let everyone die (and will summon magical aid to achieve this) if she gets the chance, although ideally a paranoid stand-off between George and his companions and Celia and the Investigators should be arranged before any violence. Ideally, capturing the Investigators and Celia, but after Celia has managed to start the calling of a servitor... ----------------- Turkey and Jaguar by Prof. Richard Scott Nokes, Ph.D Seeing the wild turkey on the hillside reminded Pete Byrd that he would miss Thanksgiving with his family this year. Archeologists spent most of their time in classrooms and at colleges, but when they had to go out into the field they had to stay for long periods. Only seven months remained on Prof. Sinclair's grant to study the ancient Maya city of Tikal in the Peten rainforest of Guatemala, and he could not afford to lose any of that time. No days off, no slack days. He'd rest when the grant money ran out. Of course, Prof. Sinclair had flown out on Tuesday; No such luck for Pete, his research assistant. Pete lugged his laptop and machinery through the low brush on a small hillside, the worst part of his job. He was mapping out the still-buried structures of the city, which involved hauling three heavy trunks around each hill in the stifling Peten heat and getting an "image" from sound waves bounced off of about two dozen spots around the hill. The image was a fuzzy jumble of lines and blurs, but in later months he would clean up the images and construct a three dimensional image of each structure. The dirty, sweaty, boring nature of the work, and the excess of turkey droppings on this particular hillside did not make the job any more fun, Thanksgiving fantasies aside. At first he ignored the muffled sound of someone yelling up the path. The main temple square and north acropolis were off a way, so tourists generally did not get out to where he worked, but when they did they tended to be loud and annoying. As the person on the path drew nearer, though, Pete thought he could make out his name. Yes, it was his name. Sighing, he lumbered down the hill, knees aching. Like many Maya archeologists, his knees were starting to give out, the result of spending a career climbing up and down steep pyramid steps. If they're aching at the beginning of my career, what'll they be like by the time I retire? he wondered to himself. Luis was running up the path, out of breath and drenched in sweat. Luis qualified as the laziest assistant Prof. Sinclair had ever hired, so to see him moving so quickly was a surprise. Something was wrong. Even though the graduate student had good Spanish, Luis jabbered with such excitement that he could not make out what was being said. After repeating himself three times, Luis simply shook his head, gestured for Pete to follow, and sped back up the path. Pete followed. Soon he found the cause of all the excitement, and became excited himself. Recent rainfall had knocked over a tree. Rain in the Peten region had only two settings: On and off. The area saw no drizzles, showers or sprinklings. Rain either thundered down like a waterfall, or not at all. In fact, atop a pyramid you could see the rain coming in like a gray wall, a spot of twilight moving across the sky. Earlier that morning a torrent had come down for about forty minutes. That forty minutes had apparently been enough to fell an old, rotten tree on a hillside near where he was working. Luis's excitement did not come from a fallen tree, however. The root system of the tree seemed to have burrowed into a buried wall of the city. From his previous work, Prof. Sinclair believed this particular section of the city had been an acropolis, but it had never been excavated before because of the cost of labor, as well as the cost of preserving it from tourists and the elements. Indeed, now that the tree had fallen, the professor's hypothesis seemed correct, because the place that the tree had stood was now a gaping hole in the earth. The fierce sunlight revealed stone walls below. The excitement Luis had felt now infused Pete, and he recognized an opportunity. With Prof. Sinclair gone for at least another two weeks, Pete would have time to examine the interior on his own. If he moved quickly, he might be able to submit the initial findings under his own name, rather than as "second author" status under Sinclair. This find, Pete realized, could mean the difference between getting his first job at Podunk College for the Semi-Literate, or getting his first job at Ivy-Covered Research University. He would have to cut corners, he would have to move fast, and he would have to document his findings in some public way. Pete ordered Luis to stay and guard the entrance from tourists, who might disturb the site. He ran - yes, sprinted in the Peten heat - to get a flashlight. Though he was flushed from the heat and the exertion, Pete didn' t notice. His career was made, and next time it would be he who flew back to the States for the holidays, while his own assistant stayed behind to do the grunt work. The hotel in which they were staying was not, unfortunately, air conditioned. Some of the nicer hotels were, but they were too far from the site. Pete's shirt was dirty and heavy with sweat by the time he arrived at the hotel. He fumbled for the flashlight, smearing it with sweat and dirt on his hands. Luis squatted with a friend outside the hole when Pete arrived. They were munching some greasy chicken from "Pollito", sucking the taste off their fingers. Pete panted and gasped. When he brushed back his matted hair, Pete' s finger (which had somehow ended up in the dirt) smeared a filthy line across his forehead. Luis looked at Pete with a little disgust, but kept it to himself - it wasn't smart to disrespect the yankee archeologists, not if you wanted to keep this cushy job for the next research grant. "Señor Byrd ..." he began, wiping his fingers clean. Luis pulled a video camera from his bag. The camera belonged to Prof. Sinclair, and in his excitement, Pete had forgotten about it. He snatched it from Luis. Pete stripped off his sweat-drenched shirt, leaving him in just his ripped shorts and worn sandals. Just as Pete started to climb down into the hole, Luis heard him mutter something about "rats." The American then climbed back out, picked up a large branch off the ground, presumably to use to club rats, then descended into the cave-like hole. When Prof. Sinclair returned from America, the police had already found Luis and his friend, Enrique. Luis had refused to talk about what had happened to Pete Byrd at all, but Enrique, being a more practical man, had shown the police the hole, but refused to go near it, pointing from a distance. Since Tikal was a UNESCO Cultural Heritage of Humanity Site, the police had stayed out of the acropolis entrance, but insisted on sending an officer down to accompany Prof. Sinclair. Once in the hole, they found that only two rooms were connected. Another wall was completely obscured by ages of dirt, which the professor assumed led in the direction of more acropolis. The first room was simply stone, with two jaguar heads carved in relief on either wall. A low doorway led to the second room, which was simply small and cramped. On the ground was the flashlight, batteries dead, but in the "off" position, and the video camera. The dirt on the ground was disturbed, apparently from Pete walking around in the room, but there was no other sign of him, and only the one exit. The policeman apologized to Prof. Sinclair for the inconvenience, and he promised that someone would be punished for the disappearance of Pete. Obviously, he said, Luis and Enrique were involved in some conspiracy, perhaps a ransom plot gone wrong, and they had waylaid poor Pete when he was cornered in the second room. As Pete had been missing for two weeks and no ransom notice had been given, the policeman did not offer Prof. Sinclair much hope. That evening, Sinclair watched the video recording in the camera. It was rather short, less than four minutes long. It began from the base of the hole, spent a minute or so panning close-ups along the stone jaguar heads, then went into the next room. On the tape, Pete could be heard to laugh, as the flashlight and camera light revealed that a wild turkey had gotten into the second room and was staring up at the camera light rather indignantly. The last brief, chaotic images did not reveal much, and were of little use to the police; Pete's finger had come off the camcorder button before anything of use was filmed. A low rumbling noise, almost like a growl, could be heard. The camera swung wildly, randomly. A quick shot of Pete's dirty knees, a few words from Pete, so garbled that they might be English, might be Spanish, maybe neither, then static. The police never found Pete's corpse. They charged Luis and Enrique, but they knew they had no case, so after the grant expired and the professor returned to Los Estados Unidos, they quietly dropped the charges. They had found a pile of bones not very far away, but the bones were not human. They looked like the bones of wild turkeys and other birds. _______________________________________________ Chaos-digest mailing list Chaos-digest@lists.chaosium.com http://lists.chaosium.com/mailman/listinfo/chaos-digest_lists.chaosium.com