Listen to the Rain

​​Dramatis Personae

• Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Radovan Venclovic, Romani ex-soldier
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

​It was a ten hour train ride to Sofia, and the party used the time to catch up Rosaline on what had happened in the forest and explain what they were up against to Radovan. To their relief, Radovan accepted their story of secret cults, lands of dream, and vampires without much question, and when the story was done, the countess proposed a toast "to those who are no longer with us." The party drank gladly, though with some tears in Jazmina's eyes as she thought of Demir.

As they lowered their glasses, Jazmina spotted her father's friend Radko Jordanov, sitting alone at the far end of the dining car and taking notes on some documents spread on the table in front of him. Led by Jazmina, the party approached, noticing over his shoulder the words "Sedefkar" and "Simulare," as well as "Dzhudzheta" underlined several times. Jazmina greeted him and he responded warmly, astonishment that they were on the same train. The party asked him his business, and he said that he was on the way to Sofia to catalogue Dr. Moric's possessions and was studying a student's old paper that had some remarkable similarities. The student Ivo Pinev found a statue head that he claimed he bought from a farmer and spun a fantastical tale of a prehuman race, which he named after the Dzhudzheta of Slavic myth. His paper was full of gross inaccuracies and he was laughed out of academia, but Dr. Jordanov added that he was surprised to see that the strange words like "Sedefkar" that he thought were simply fabrications were reflected in the papers from Mr. Moric's cache.

As he spoke, Jazmina and the countess noticed that one of the waiters had stopped doing serving and was blatantly listening in to Dr. Jordanov's conversation and taking notes in his serving pad, ignoring all of the summons from the diners. When he noticed the party's attention, he turned and began moving toward the far end of the car. When the maître d' asked him why he was leaving, the waiter drew a knife and slashed at him!

As the panic started in the car, Radovan jumped up and began leaping from table to table in pursuit, while Jazmina tried to force her way through the crowd. Radovan was notably more successful, forcing open the door at the far end and struggling with the assailant as one of the conductors tried to dissuade Jazmina pursuit. She was not delayed long, however, and arrived as the waiter was trying to leap off the train and Radovan was grabbing at the briefcase the waiter carried. As he grabbed at the satchel, the strap broke and it went tumbling off the train. Soon after, the pair were able to restrain the waiter, after which the conductor arrived with several men to haul him away.

Radovan followed his nose and found the corpse of a young man, stripped to his underclothes and missing his right hand.

The party reconvened and discussed the situation. They couldn't think of of a reason why the hand would missing, and Jazmina, the professor, and Rosaline eventually decided to go check on the man himself. When they arrived, the guards told them in confidence that the waiter had killed himself while he was in the cell. Jazmina spun a tale of a ring that the waiter had snatched from her, which got the professor entrance to the cell. The waiter had killed himself by stabbing himself in the eye, and after a moment controlling his stomach, the professor inspected the body. The waiter had both hands, no rings, no tattoos, and nothing suspicious about him. His search fruitless, the professor exited the cell and they all returned to their rooms, where the awaited their arrival in Sofia.

In Sofia they were met by a grizzled police inspector, Major Kristova, who took them to the station and questioned them about the events on the train. He seemed to accept even the strangest of their stories about cults, and when Rosaline asked if these events were common, he replied in the affirmative. He seemed like he wanted to say more, and at the countess's urging he revealed that there was a group of slavers operating in Sofia called the Butchers, who kidnapped people and occasionally took body parts as trophies. He urged them to be careful and report anything they saw, and led the group out to the street. As they left, the investigators noticed that the other policemen snickered at the inspector as they walked out.

Dr. Jordanov offered the use of his car to the group if they would drop him off and the investigators accepted. They took rooms at the Hotel de la Bulgarie, and while everyone else went to bed, the professor and the countess ordered up wine and cheese and had a quick meal before retiring.

In the middle of the night, Radovan and the professor were awoken by scuttling in the middle of the night and awoke to find disembodied hands clambering toward them! They began to scuffle, dodging the hands' attacks. Radovan grabbed his hand and hurled it out the window, and the professor tried to hurl blankets over it but failed.

In the other room, the countess was awoken by cold fingers as the hand plucked out her eye!

Rosaline and Jazmina were also under attack, but after the hands strangled them for a moment, they let go and began to run toward the heating vents. Most of the party let their hands go, and the professor's attempts to capture his were unsuccessful.

As the countess screamed in agony, Rosaline ran over and treated the wound while the professor called the front desk and demanded a doctor. Radovan closed the heating vents and searched the room before the doctor arrived and began to treat the countess. The professor said that he and awoken to figures in the room, but they fled as soon as they noticed their targets were awake. The doctor replied that this fit with the times, gave the countess some laudanum, and said the police had been called. The police took a statement, looked around, and then left, and the group drifted into an uneasy sleep.

As she slept her opium dream, the countess had visions of running through back alleys and climbing into a black car, leaving the city and speeding off into the country.

In the morning, Major Kristova was waiting for them in the lobby. The major did not buy their story of disembodied hands, and left in disgust after telling the investigators not to call him again. As they returned to their rooms, the countess told them about her visions and had another, of the car driving through the mountains, which had a very distinctive outline.

About this time, Rosaline, the countess, and the professor remembered what had happened to the priest whose eye was taken during the Fourth Crusade.

As they were leaving, the hotel staff took the professor aside and told the professor that an eye was found in the alley behind the hotel, but it was green and her eyes were brown. The professor thanked them and the group continued on to Dr. Jordanov's house, where after an awkward explanation and breakfast, he wrote down the title of the monograph and the party split up to search. Rosaline eventually found it in the library.

As the countess was searching, she had another vision, a stronger one almost crystal-clear. A person walking through a cavern carved out of the living rock.

In the study again, Jazmina sat down with the manuscript and began to read it. It claimed that the idol was created by prehuman dwarves, ridicules the academic establishment, and says the idol was sent to Dr. Todor Mativ at Sofiiski Universet. At that name, Dr. Jordanov pales and says that Dr. Mativ had killed his wife and sons and was found wearing their skins. He rushed at the police and was shot down like a mad dog. Years later, his assistant killed herself by stabbing herself in the eye. Dr. Jordanov sat down and said that he was done with the investigation, but the countess managed to drag a promise out of him to contact the Sofiiski Universet and arrange and introduction with Professor Chedenko.

As the investigators were leaving, the countess had another vision, again in the same cave. On a huge overhang, images were carved of mammoths and men wearing antlered headdresses.

At Sofiiski Universet, the staff were supremely uninterested in the urgency of the party's plight, until a professor of English took pity and, in a roundabout way, asked for a bribe. The countess gave over the money and he led them to Professor Chedenko's office, Jazmina knocked, and the investigators entered. Professor Chedenko was slightly absent-minded and easily distracted, but when Jazmina mentioned the Dzhudzheta Idol, Chedenko opined that it was probably a fake, maybe plastic. Rosaline tried to impress the urgency of their mission onto him with Jazmina's help translating, and Chedenko offered to show them the idol. Up a stair and down a hall lined with armor, was a door, and through the door was chaos. A headless man, spurting blood, and two seriously beaten men lay in the scattered parts of the workroom. Most of the investigators were okay, but for the professor this confirmed that Le Comte truly was after them, and he fled screaming.

The others saw men in dark clothes climbing out the window. One escaped, but the others turned at the opening of the doors and moved to attack. One of them had a shotgun, but his wild firing missed as Radovan charged in toward them. The other hurled a grenade. Jazmina tried to kick it back and Rosaline tried to throw it, while,the grenade man pulled a handgun and shot Radovan in the chest, dropping him. Then the grenade exploded.

Rosaline and Jazmina were seriously wounded and the countess, though she had run, was still shaken by the explosion. She stood up and treated Radovan and Rosaline, but her attempts to save Jazmina were unsuccessful, and Jazmina bled out on the floor of the Sofiiski Universet.

As Rosaline worked, the countess looked out the window and saw the men in black standing by a large truck with a covered back. It screamed out of the parking lot and right into another car that moved to block it, plowing through the car and sending its driver flying. This knocked off the tarp and revealed a maxim gun, which the assailants fired at all the other cars in the parking lot as they fled.

The countess applied first aid to the only one of the survivors in the room, who muttered "Men. Robes. Who wear shoulders not their own," before passing into a coma. She checked on Professor Chedenko, but found that he was dead, and as she stood up she had a vision of a group of men in black robes walking through a fanged maw carved from living stone.

The students and faculty of the university arrived and, after some panic and worry, doctors were called, and Major Kristova was there as well. He said that he would protect them from the rest of the police, taking them in as witnesses, and he warded off the rest of the police when they tried to question the investigators and took the group away.

He managed to arrange some time for the investigators in the library, and the countess asked about the mountains. The librarian recognized it as the Sredna Gora, a local mountain range. Rosaline and the professor did some general research into eyes and heads, finding a few fragments about the eyes being the windows to the soul and cave paintings being symbolic representations of the animals. Then they left the library, went into a truck, Major Kristova whispered a password and the truck drove around randomly to confuse pursuers until it arrived at an abandoned bakery, where, after an exchange of knocks and passwords, they were admitted. In safety, they shared stories with the Major, explaining the cults that chased them, and the major replied that he had been chasing the Butchers for three years and now, the location of their base was finally known. The major said they would need a plan, and then attack tonight. Then he offered the base as a place to rest.

As they rest. The countess had another vision of horrific mutilations performed by something not quite seen. Limbs ripped out with impossible force, screaming faces torn apart, before something rushed at her and vanished in an explosion of light. As the countess panicked sightlessly, her brain refusing to see anything at all, she realized that the pain and itching in her eye was gone. Perhaps she was safe?

As they were resting, the group received a call from an informant saying that they saw a truck passing near full of bullet holes. The major stood up and said that this was their chance, and after passing out weapons, they all left to take the fight to the cult.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.

The deaths are coming faster now.

I forgot about the eye! And those cultists in the library were much deadlier than most of the opposition we've faced this far. Shotguns and grenades? We're going to need to start carrying tommy guns like the most stereotypical of Call of Cthulhu protagonists. At least now we have a group of heavily-armed paranoid conspiracy theorists on our side. It's almost like we're playing Delta Green again!

When I failed the SAN check in the library, I drew from mutantur's deck of failed SAN rolls and got unshakeable belief, so the professor is now even more convinced than ever before that the hand of Le Comte is behind everything. And honestly, I don't see why that's not correct. Once you admit that there are vampires, well.

​​Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

At the Filipovics' house, the dinner party began. As they sat down, Todor Necic mentioned that dinner was earlier than normal due to the ceremony, and when the professor asked what ceremony he meant, he said that tonight was an ancient Cigany fertility ceremony and that the investigators were welcome to come. The professor agreed that that sounded fascinating, and they all sat down to eat. The dinner was classic Eastern European fare, hearty and beet-centered, held in a room decorated with dozens of clay pots and knickknacks. The countess asks about the clay pots and Father Filipovic said that they were often dug up in the fields, dating from Roman times.

As she was looking, the countess noticed an old bone flute, almost ivory-colored, and asked Nedic if she could examine it. He handed it over, and she examined it, noticing the intricately-carved vines on it, but there was something that seemed odd. She couldn't place it, and neither could the professor, and after a time she handed it back.

As the dinner wound down, the professor asked about the old woman who lived in the forest. Nedic spoke of her with slightly caution due to an old woman who lives alone in a dark forest and hasn't been to the village for forty years. He said that she was just called Baba, "grandmother," and she lived alone and spoke to no one. The professor asked how long she had lived there, but Nedic said that he didn't know and had only spoken to get once.

After dinner, preparations for the ceremony began. While the people gathered, an old woman was seen arguing with the Cigany and stormed over to the countess, demanding through Jazmina's interpretation that the investigators refuse to attend the ceremony. The countess said that she would go pray, but that the professor should watch because of the academic value. The woman eventually grew frustrated with translation and stormed off.

The ceremony invoked a young Cigany girl, dressed in a cloak of leaves and painted with mud, being led to every house in the village and having water poured over her in the February cold. By the end she was shivering, and while she was taken back to one of the houses to warm up, the professor's memory was jogged. Something that the masked man in dream Zagreb had said in his torrent of words crawled out of his memory, and he muttered, "The Black Goat of the Woods." The countess asked him what he said, and the professor explained that the Cigany ritual had some elements similar to protective ceremonies dedicated to the Dark Mother. He couldn't explain any more than that, and eventually shook his head.

After the ritual, Todor Nedic told one of the Cigany that the party was planning to go into the woods. The old woman was dismissive of foreigners being in the town at all, but when she learned they could be dissuaded, she said that she would send her nephew with them. Before she turned away, the professor and the countess noticed that she had a bone whistle around her neck, very similar to the one in the Filipovics' house. Then, the party split, with the professor and Demir going to the priest's house and the women going to the Nedics'. The priest noticed that the professor was looking at the flute, but he was unable to answer the professor's questions about it and expressed surprise that the Cigany had a similar whistle. Then he asked if the professor wanted to tell stories, and the professor and Demir gratefully accepted, staying up late and drinking into the night.

At the Nedic house there was a much more subdued night, and the women eventually get to sleep. Jazmina awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of voices talking in low tones in the kitchen. She couldn't understand the language, so she woke up the countess and they discussed what to do. Eventually, Jazmina tried to sneak downstairs, but a squeak of an errant board silences the voices instantly. When Jazmina descended the stairs, she found Anna alone in the kitchen, making tea. She accepted Anna's offer of tea reluctantly, and drank one cup while listening to Anna's imprecations against the Cigany before excusing herself and going back to bed.

In the morning the investigators assembled in the silence of the Nedic house and the chaos of the Filipovic house, other than Rosaline, who stayed in her room due to a sudden bout of sickness. As they made to leave, Todor Nedic's sister walked up to the professor and pressed a bone whistle into his hands, explaining through pantomime that it would offer protection from the forest spirits. The professor, knowing what he knows about the forest, gratefully accepts.

Radovan Venclovic, the nephew of the old Cigany woman, was waiting for them and introduced himself as their guide. He said that he was wary of the forest but this was a request, so he would take them to Baba's hut, and they began walking. The villagers watched them go as Radovan mentioned that they got few foreign visitors in the town, pointing out the lush fields, the smoke arising from the Cigany encampment, and the verdant grass with no livestock grazing on it. Then, the investigators entered the woods. There was no path, but they followed Radovan as the woods grew darker and darker, the trees slowly began to gain coatings of mold and slime, and all other sounds vanished. Except one--the professor noticed a faint hum, just under his hearing. He stopped, looking around warily, but none of the rest of the investigators heard it. The countess offered the professor water and Radovan suggested that he stop to rest, but the professor said that he would rather get through the woods.

After several hours, the party smelled the scent of freshly-baked bread and came on a brown hut, alone in the forest, surrounded by a fence of thorns. The professor and Demir both felt eyes watching them, but there was nothing out there, and eventually they entered the hut, though not without Jazmina pricking her hand on the thorns as they entered.

The inside of the hut was cluttered with dozens of bits of statuary, with an oven filled with a roaring fire and a young woman sitting at a tapestry. Radovan immediately noticed that she looked very familiar, almost like the twin sister of a girl he knew who had gone missing, immediately making him wary. She introduced herself as Kcerca and was surprised that Radovan recognized her, but brushed it off as a strange coincidence. Kcerca said that Baba was out, but she would be back soon.

As they waited, Jazmina and the countess examined the statuary. The countess accidentally knocked over a shelf containing a bunch of statue pieces and Kcerca rushed to help her pick it up, apologizing for the mess, while Jazmina looked at the tapestry she was working on. It's a picture of a peasant village, and as Jazmina looked at the village she noticed that it was definitely a picture of Orašac.

As the statues were put back into place, a cold wind blew outside with the sound of sheets ripping and the door opened. An old woman entered, hunched over, and nodded at the party and then moved over to Kcerca and began to speak with her in an unknown language. After a moment, she asked what the investigators were there for, and when the professor said they were looking for a statue, Baba smiled and said she had plenty of statues and they would have to stay for dinner. Radovan turned down her invitation with as much grace as he could muster.

Baba told a story about her father, a professor in Sofia who kindled her interest in Roman architecture and statuary, and she became something of an amateur archeologist. She sold statuary to fund her habit, but now she was old. As Kcerca put wood in the oven, the professor told her about the statue arm they were looking for and gave it its name--the Sedefkar Simulacrum. Baba perks up at the name and begins looking around, directing a search. After a short time, she pointed it out on the highest shelf, and Demir volunteered to get it. He climbed up the shelves and grabbed it, trying to tug it free from the shelves as Kcerca put more wood in the oven. Then, several things happened at once.

The statue arms near Demir reached out and grabbed onto him as the other investigators noticed that the roof wasn't actually thatched, it was composed of writhing tentacles! Baba reached out and grasped a giant breadpan, scooping up Demir while cackling and dumped him into the oven, now a giant rugose mouth ringed with tentacles, that clutch at Demir hungrily! Kcerca pickled up a large kitchen knife and turned on Radovan, charging forward, as the shelves revealed themselves as conglomeration of bones that grasped at the professor and the countess!

The countess ran over to Demir and tried to pull him out of the oven, but Demir yelled something in Turkish and pushed the arm into her hands. Radovan, surprised, took a nasty wound from Kcerca's knife and tried to grab at her, but as the professor pointed out the door and the countess pulled the arm away and moved toward the door. The investigators jumped out of the now-high-up hut, hitting the ground lightly except for Jazmina, who twisted her ankle, but not enough to prevent her from running, which they made haste in doing. Behind them they heard a horrible discordant singing and the shrieking of Baba, answered by many other voices, crashing through the woods with their own answering song that reminded the professor and the countess of the shepherd calls of the terrible Men of Leng.

Knowing that now was the time, the professor pulled out the bone whistle and blew it. A shrill noise seemed to fill the air, growing louder and louder and filling the air until the whistle shattered into fragments, cutting the professor's face, as they ran past the briar fence, now revealed to contain hundreds of bones. Behind them, the cottage tore its tentacle-like roots free from the earth and stomped toward them, but the sound of the whistle cut through Baba's singing and the answering cries from the woods. The house staggered around, confused, and a flailing root hit Baba and knocked her off into an old oak tree with a sickening crunch.

The delay did not last long, but the investigators wasted no time in running. After a few moments, they heard the house and the other things in its wake crashing through the forest behind them. They ran as fast as they could, finding a deer path and following it to its end, and when they smelled smoke, Radovan recognized his camp and shouted that they should go there.

As they burst out of the forest, the leader of the Cigany, Marco, approaches and asks Radovan what had happened. The investigators told their story as the Cigany edged away from the arm the countess carried, and then Jazmina noticed a woman who seeemd to be an older version of Kcerca. She pointed out to her in the crowded and shouted, but Radovan shushed her, saying that the woman wasn't who Jazmina thought she was. In Romani, he told Szuba that he had seen someone who looked like her sister who they had thought lost by wolves, leading to Szuba wailing in anguish and collapsing.

These two stories combined infuriated the Cigany, who start to gather torches and pitchforks and assembling a mob. They asked the investigators if they want to join them in seeking vengeance. The professor was reluctant, but assented when both the countess and Jazmina expressed a desire to find Demir's remains. They steeled their courage and followed the angry Cigany into into the woods.

They reached the location of the house before too long, but the clearing was mostly empty. Only dead brown grass remained, though as the mob spread out to search, Jazmina and the countess found a pile of viscera, barely recognizable as having once been a man, near a tree. The countess blanched and turned away, but Jazmina carefully checked Demir's remains, finding the Mims Sahis--untouched by the horrors that he had endured--and a strange red gem that radiated an almost palpable sense of hate. Jazmina asked the others about it, and the professor recognized it as the gem that Madame Bruja had employed against the sorcerer in the Dreamlands. After a brief conversation, they took it and continued.

Before they left, the professor noticed a patch of dirt blown away from bare stone. An ancient mosiac, depicting images of tree-like abominations devouring sacrifices.

Further on in the forest, the mob entered another clearing and found, crouching like a wounded animal, the horrible house that had chased the investigators through the woods. Radovan staggered about as though blinded and JAzmina fainted away, and while the professor an the countess dragged them to safety, the mob charged forward and set upon it with axe and torch. They took horrible casualties and over half their number fell, but eventually the house collapsed and lay, hacked and burning, on the ground. The Cigany thanked the investigators for their help in pursuing vengeance and led them back to their camp, where they had a hearty meal and finally slept.

When they arrived in Orašac, they found it in the same condition as they left it...except for Father Filipovic, sitting vigil in the church over the twisted body of his wife. Nedic said that she had collapsed during the night, in front of Father Filipovic, and the investigators exchanged knowing looks before leaving him to his grief. They told Rosaline what had happened, accepted Radovan's offer to travel with them and purge the earth of this evil, and took the morning train out of the town.

Their trip back to the Orient Express was plagued with problems. In one small town the investigators were attacked by an enraged mob of black chickens, leading to a pitched battle in the streets. When the battle ended, the chickens were the white of normal chickens, and only money offered by the investigators prevented a mob of villagers from seeking redress for the death of their flocks. AS they arrived in Belgrade they were stricken with boils and spent the night in feverish dreams, but awoke clean and whole. As they prepared to board the train, they saw many figures watching from doorways, like old woman shrouded in heavy clothes, but no one was there if looked directly at. And finally, after they bought Radovan a ticket and settled into the train and sped through the countryside, a terrific storm broke and they saw, silhouetted against the hills, illuminated by flashes of lightning, something large, like a giant headless bird, keeping pace with the train but never drawing closer. Rosaline suggested that perhaps the Baba drew its power from the natural world and the iron of the train kept it away.

As they crossed the border into Bulgaria, the investigators noticed a broken-down hut near a river. The hut's thatch twitched like branches in the breeze as they passed, waiting for them, but it did not cross the border.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.

This one is extra-long!

This is one of the moments in Horror on the Orient Express I've been most waiting for because I hated the presentation in the original. Then, Baba Yaga was just that--Baba Yaga, flying on mortar and pestle and all, and it was very hard to square her existence with the rest of the Mythos around her. Here, it's much more like "Baba Yaga" is the human mythology that sprang up around something older. Something that lurked in the forests before humans ever came to the Balkans.

Demir's death and the arrival of Radovan are due to a player shuffle, so next session we'll have Radovan Venclovic the Romani ex-soldier as a permanent party member. This does mean that the combat potential of eh investigators is steadily increasing, which is good as we head into the more dangerous parts of the campaign.

Thus ends Horror on the Orient Express, Book III. Next time, Book IV: Constantinople and Consequences!

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Since Elaphe was seriously injured, the rest of the party left him to rest in the abandoned village while they decided to scout out the battlefield that Spring Breeze had mentioned. They rode the entire day through the rain, seeing no one except a few animals that fled at their passage, and as the sun was setting their search bore fruit as the Green Knight found a rusted sword hilt poking out of the ground.

All of them spread out to search for any clues. Amos muttered one of the incantations he had learned and asked the birds in a nearby copse of trees if they had seen anything, and after some prodding he learned that there were a large number of the walking dead that had passed through the field and gone away to the northeast, a fact confirmed by the Green Knight's questioning of the local flora. That also revealed there had been three figures that had performed a ritual to call up the dead from the earth, but they had left as well. Shining Star sensed the remnants of dark magic pooling in low places in the earth, but it was faint. Whatever had been done there was fading and not a continual source of problems. Finding nothing else, the four spent the night in an abandoned farmer's house after burying the partially-eaten bodies of the amanita farmer and their family. The night was uneventful, and they left in the morning, again seeing no one as they traveled back to the village they had left Elaphe in.

They found Elaphe peacefully relaxing in the house, looking slightly better but still injured, and spent the night in the village. Near dawn, the Green Knight heard voices outside speaking in Muskalan, and he woke Elaphe who took a look through a shutter. He saw an amanita, a mycon, and a chuzan sitting around a fire, talking in low tones about the walking dead, how one of their number had been killed, and the lack of easy pickings in Fontina. Elaphe woke Amos, who readied his bow and snuck out of the house to get a clear shot, but after observing the group for a few minutes he snuck back into the house and shook his head. They weren't worth the trouble, and indeed, in the morning when the party woke up the bandits had moved on and left only the ashes of a fire.

The group saddled up and rode north toward the town of Gyere, which they had left a few days before after fighting a vampire in the streets. The roads were mostly empty, but just after midday they heard the sound of marching feet and overtook a company of three dozen chuzan mercenaries under the banner of a red dove holding a sword.

Bonnie's player: "Is he cute?"
Me: "He's grizzled."

The group slowed their riding and questioned the captain, who said that he had planned to winter in the Scarlet City but they had heard there was money to be made in Fontina fighting the walking dead. He was less than amused when Bonnie and Shining Star told him about the vampires they had fought, but seemed confident in his soldiers' ability to hold their own. He thanked the group for the information and they kept riding. A mile later, they spotted a speck in the sky slowly descending, and the Green Knight readied his bow, but it turned out to be a pigeon that landed on the head of Elaphe's claw strider. There was a message tube attached to its leg with a note inside that said:

"Vampire in the city. Come quickly."

They reached Gyere just before nightfall, where they found a cold reception. The militia kept the gate closed and demanded they identify themselves, leading to some disbelief until Amos fired off his musket and they quickly opened the door. Elaphe rode straight to meet with Black Salted Earth while the others questioned the militia captain. They learned that six people had been attacked and four were dead, but all of them had been in their homes. They knew the jiang they had seen before couldn't enter structures built by mortal hands without an invitation, so something else must be afoot...

Elaphe met Black Salted Earth, who after asking Elaphe to prove his identity and accepting the Black Rose code phrases he offered, explained that there must be a shedo in town, a vampire capable of disguising itself to look like others. The town was in a frenzy of paranoia because of it and Black Salted Earth didn't have any means of distinguishing a vampire from the person it was impersonating and asked if Elaphe's associates did. He conceded they might, and led the amanita back to the Three Wheat Sheaves, the tea house they had stayed in last time they were in Gyere, and we ended there.


The session this time was a bit shorter, since Elaphe's player has just returned from a two-week trip to Paris and hasn't entirely recovered. We're going to play again next Monday, though, and that's when everything becomes a paranoid search of the town. How do they find a creature that can disguise itself as other people and stop it? Good question. I'm looking forward to what they come up, though I do think they'll heavily consider "burn down the whole town" based on their past performance.

Gyere is, of course, based on "Gruyere," since in classic Mario tradition everything has a cutesy name.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Bonnie dragged Shining Star away to give her time to summon a Knowing Whisper, a spirit servant of Nyarhé that can detect lies and read others' hearts, as Amos and the Green Knight questioned Spring Breeze. The amanita claimed that they hadn't seen any people as they walked, only wild animals, and asked again if there really was all that trouble to the north. Amos confirmed that the walking dead were rampant north of them as Shining Star and Bonnie returned, and Shining Star told the spirit to verify Spring Breeze's story. The Knowing Whisper confirmed that Spring Breeze was not secretly a necromancer in disguise or some kind of spirit-possessed monster and that they believed their story. They did ask about locla battles and were told about a story that mentioned a battle between the Kong Imperium and an unnnamed enemy that took place there long ago during the Imperium's attempt to expand into Agarica.

And so after advising the amanita to turn back and take the longer road around to get to Etemenanki, the party turned around and rode north as the amanita's whistling faded into the distance behind them.

They spent the night in the ruins of the same village that they had left that morning, stabling their horses and eating trail rations in an abandoned house. They go to sleep and Shining Star's watch is uneventful, but in the middle of the night, the Green Knight hears something prowling around outside the house. He grabbed his shield and crept outside, but banged the shield on the doorframe as he left (botched the Stealth roll). As soon as he stepped outside, something grabbed him from behind.

As the other members of the party all groggily woke up, the Green Knight grappled with his unseen assailant. He tried to claw them with his wooden claws, but was seized with an unbreakable grip--and then fangs plunged into his neck!

Elaphe and Amos exited the house to find a chuzan holding the Green Knight's arms to the sides with its mouth over his neck, and Amos circled around to try to get a better shot with his musket. Elaphe threw the torch at the assailant, but the chuzan sidestepped without seeming to move, not crossing the intervening distance but avoiding the torch entirely. Amos fired, blowing off the creature's ear, but as they watched, the blood flow slowed and the wound began knitting itself closed. It lifted its mouth from the Green Knight and hissed, revealing blood-covered fangs and blood-matted fur. A vampire!

Shining Star summoned up blazing chains of light that closed around the vampire as it threw the Green Knight like he was a toy, hitting Amos but failing to injure or even phase him as he reloaded his musket. Elaphe darted forward and slashed at the vampire, ripping open its chest with his dagger and using the secret arts of the Black Rose--unlike with Amos's musket blast, this time the blood flowed freely. Bonnie sent her iron jaws to attack the vampire, but it dodged aside as its claws blurred. Elaphe blocked the first strike with his dagger, but he was unable to block the second, which torn a chunk of flesh out of his side and sent him reeling backward.

Shining Star blasted the vampire with white flames and the Green Knight stood up and readied his shield. The Green Knight and the vampire charged toward each other to little effect--the vampire sidestepped the Green Knight's claws, and the vampire's strike impacted on the Green Knight's shield. Elaphe retreated into the house as Bonnie hurled a flask of glue which her familiar caught and then it ignited on the torch that Elaphe had thrown, and it bit down on the vampire's shoulder and began to gnaw.

Amos fired again, and the vampire tried to get out of the way, but not fast enough. It reeled back and hissed, and as Shining Star hurled another beam of holy fire at it and Elaphe threw a dagger from inside the house, it fled, moving so quickly that it left only a blurred afterimage in their eyes, around the corner of the house and out of sight.

Injured and bleeding, the party decided not to pursue, and Elaphe drank a cinnamony Hero's Recovery while Shining Star administered first aid to him and the Green Knight. Real treatment of his wounds would require a longer period of surgery, but for the moment he slathered on an alchemical paste to prevent his wound from becoming infected and the party mostly went to sleep. The vampire did not return that night.

In the morning, Amos and the Green Knight tracked the vampire north to a stream, where the tracks vanished. The Green Knight spoke to the local plantlife which, after some prompting, said that their quarry had killed a deer and then flew away to the north, confirmed by a monjara hiding in a nearby bush that Amos asked. With their leads exhausted, they returned to the village, everyone climbed on their various mounts, and they rode out to the north.


Vampires!

I was a little worried partway through that I was going to have at least one death on my hands. The vampire could have killed Elaphe in a single blow--it did 2/3rds of his health with one attack--but beyond using a Charm that let it convert damage dice into damage successes, it didn't roll very well, which is a pattern with my NPCs. It's also possible that that vampire would have died, since several attacks only barely missed. But it got away to fight another daynight.

Elaphe doesn't wear armor--Black Rose Style forbids it--which is why he took so much damage. Enough damage to be seriously injured to the point of disabling. He has a crippling wound requiring surgery (or sorcery unavailable to the party) to heal, but it would require several hours of downtime the party isn't willing to spend yet. Maybe after they check out that ancient battlefield to see if there's a necromancer there causing this zombie problem!

Dramatis Personæ

• Asinius Ravila, Iberian medicus
  
• Belasir of Tihama, Arabian sagittarius et speculatore
  
• Emeric of the Suevi, Germanic auxiliārius, and a Christian
  
• Galerius Evodis, Constantinopolitan optio
  
• Milonius Kanmi, Carthiginian sagittarius

The legionnaires returned to the fortress with their prisoners, immediately reporting to the commander. After the local medicus saw to Emeric's injuries and they explained the bat-monsters they had fought to Longinus, he urged them to question the prisoners and learn what he cult was planning. They first tried a good cop/bad cop routine, but the two cultists just smiled with far-off expressions and ignored their questions. It wasn't until Galerius hit the boy across the face that he reacted, and that single hit opened the floodgates. The cultists began ranting about the doom and plague that would sweep over the Empire, and claimed that the "Army of Skin and Blood" was even now on its way. The legionnaires immediately reported the news to Tillius Corvus and Centenarius Longinus, who begin making preparations. At the legionnaires' urging, the refugees were brought within the walls and bonfires were kindled. As the soldiers made preparations, Galerius gave a rousing speech about the glory of Rome and the fortitude of the legions, sending up a wave of cheers from the men.

Almost as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, the army arrived. Groups of skin creatures and bat monsters, mixed with howling cultists with strips of their skin ritually flayed off. Emeric was more far-sighted than his companions, and beyond the army he saw a skinned parody of horse, bearing a robed rider that lifted a curved knife above its head. Overwhelmed, Emeric began to babble Christian prayers in Germanic as the army moved to the wall and began to scale it, paying no heed to the arrows and javelins of the Romans.

Several of the monsters gained the wall and combat dissolved into melee. One of the skin beasts latched on to Belisar and began to drink his blood, only to be shoved off and then chopped to ribbons by Galerius. The other monsters are quickly dispatched now that they don't have the element of surprise, a process that repeated itself across the came. Apparently, necromancy was no match for Roman steel.

After the battle, Emeric felt slightly ill, though he waved it off as the effects of his earlier fight. Tillius ordered the legionnaires not to pursue the fleeing army, but rather to wait until morning. After several hours of fighting, they were glad to obey that order, and they went to sleep. In the morning, they met with the centenarius, who assigned another group of legionnaires to accompany them as they followed the trail to the cult headquarters. The trail required no expertise to follow, littered as it was with blood, the bodies and greasy remnants of monsters, and discarded weapons from the Army of Skin and Blood. It led into the mountains, through a narrow defile that there would have been almost no chance to find if they hadn't had the army's trail to follow. As the proceed into the mountains, Milonius notices that the other legionnaires have abandoned them and turned back for the fort, but Tillius orders them to proceed with the mission.

After a few hundred yards, the trail opens up to a bowl-like depression in the mountains, with seventeen tall menhirs, half again the height of a man, each covered in weathered hieroglyphs and with a skinned human corpse lashed to the stone. In the midst of the menhirs was a pit, descending into an unnatural darkness. A dropped torch vanished into the darkness, and it wasn't until they spread out and searched that they saw a cunningly-concealed stairway descending down the rim of the pit. With no other choice, the legionnaires descended, finding a pool of liquid blackness near the bottom. A spear poked into it came out clean, and so the legionnaires steeled themselves and kept walking. The blackness felt slightly unclean and seemed to leave a thin film on them, but they were not further harmed.

At the bottom of the stairway was a cave complex, with three tunnels leading away and mosaics of implike creatures all around the floor and walls menacing primitive humans armed with spears.

Me: "Did you say, 'Impolite creatures'?"
Belasir's player: "I also heard impolite."

The floor was covered in a curling mist and the legionnaires heard the faint sound of whispers. As well, the sound of footsteps echoed through the caves, and so the legionnaires took one of the corridors that led to the cult's food stores. Milonius suggested destroying the stores, but Tillius was against it, and so the legionnaires continued, finding a barracks with two injured cultists who they quickly slaughtered and then hid the bodies in the human skin hammocks and covered them with the human skin blankets that furnished the room. When the patrol's footsteps had vanished again, they continued down the corridor and found the cult's main room. The mist was stronger here, coming out of holes in the wall, and there was a column in the center with a flayed human figure and some kind of instruction or ritual area in the back. After ambushing the patrolling cultists and killing then, Milonius and Emeric examined the column and were stunned when it transformed into an image of their own faces, each seeing his representation. The others examined the ritual area and the rugs and wall hangings made of human skin, drawing their swords as the skins began to move and attack. There were three against six legionnaires, though, and when they were cut to ribbons another passage was revealed leading further into the cave.

Through that passage was a floor carpeted in human scalps and walled with the skins of legionnaires. Bone windchimes hung from the ceiling and in the back was a bone bedframe with human skin sheets and bedding. In the center was the cult leader, who lifted aloft a curved knife with an unnatural sheen to its blade and babbled that "Your skins are mine!" and then the skin the chamber animated to surround the cultist as he started chanting in Gothic. The legionnaires charged, but Milonius was overcome by the cult leader's magic and attacked Emeric. Emeric managed to block the blow with his shield as the others attacked the skins, and when they were shredded, the sorcerer's skin fell away. Most of it became a strange insectile monster, slithering to attack, except for the skin of his face which animated as a bat-like flitting abomination. But none of it mattered as the legionnaires charged in, and Tillius drove his blade into the sorcerer's heart, causing all the skins to crumble to dust and the mist to fade away.

But the blow unleashed a fountain of blood, much more than a human body could contain. The flood knocked Tillius over, and when it faded Asinius examined him, noting that he was still alive but in a coma. The other legionnaires picked him up and carried him out, back to the fort, and arranged for transit back to Constantinople, where the magister militum offered them two months' leave and a year's pay in exchange for a promise never to speak of this again. He also demanded that Emeric surrender the knife he had taken from the sorcerer, which he did with extreme reluctance--at this, the professor and the other investigators reading the account stopped and looked at Demir, who simply shrugged.

The legionnaires all took that offer and, after their leave, they gathered for Belasir's wedding to Nona and then, when Tillius finally awoke, his wedding to Eudoxia, held on her family's barge on the sea. Just before the wedding, the magister militum summoned them back for one more mission, saying that the the knife has vanished. All of them except Belasir agreed to the mission, but first they attended the wedding.

Tillius gave a toast to the men of the Fortes Falcones, commending them for their bravery...but ended it by saying that Tillius was dead, and then snarled at the wedding guests as a wave of pain and nausea spread through the group. Before anyone could react, he tore out his new bride's throat with his bare hands and began drinking her blood! Milonius, Belasir, and Galerius died of the poison almost immediately, but Emeric and Asinius managed to fight off the nausea and crippling pain and flee to the side, deliberately knocking over several lanterns into their flight. They leapt into the sea as the tapestries and decorations caught fire, and looking back, they saw Tillius killing the wedding guests until the flames grew too high, where he transformed into some flitting winged thing and took off into the night. They knew they were not strong enough to swim back to the Golden Horn, but a passing fishing boat saw the flames and came to investigate, hauling them aboard.

Emeric quickly succumbed to his injuries, the shock of the sea, and the poison, but Asinius lived. He finished the journal stating that he planned to change his name and take ship to Iberia or Gaul, traveling as far as he could from Constantinople and the horrific sights he had witnessed. This was the last page.


Mr. Johnson!

I was expecting something to go wrong, but I was not expecting the commander to turn into a vampire. Maybe a bit more explanation would have been nice, since the historical Constantinople scenarios seem partially set up to explain where le Comte came from and why a Call of Cthulhu game has a vampire as a villain. Or, okay, an evil sorcerer who just happens to have all the legendary powers of the vampire. But it doesn't, really. Was Tillius possessed by the blood? Does the Gothic cult leader live on? Is it unrelated? Who knows. It's fun to play Romans, but this didn't actually seem to serve much story purpose.

I did like the combat, though. It turns out that our modern-era investigators should probably go buy some chainmail, since that, our shields, and our high combat skills matched with Fight Back meant that we slaughtered our opposition without much effort. We need more combat prowess from our elderly academics.

I like to think that Asinius is the ancestor of Professor Durand, but assuming he had children, he died probably around 360 or so. He's undoubtedly an ancestor of the entire group of 1920s-era investigators.

Next session, back to the 20s and on to Belgrade!

In the comfort of the salon car, surrounded by his fellow investigators, and one new addition, Profesor Durand opened Chronicon de Tillius Corvus and began to translate the classical Latin into English.

Dramatis Personæ

• Asinius Ravila, Iberian medicus
  
• Belasir of Tihama, Arabian sagittarius et speculatore
  
• Emeric of the Suevi, Germanic auxiliārius, and a Christian
  
• Galerius Evodis, Constantinopolitan optio
  
• Milonius Kanmi, Carthiginian sagittarius

XII mensus Martius, F. Gallicano et A. Valeriō consulibus

The men of the Fortes Falcones were in Nova Roma, supervising construction crews for the Imperator's new capital. All of them had served long years in the legions and were looking forward to finally retiring and getting their pensions and land--other than Galerius, who loved the soldier's life and was grumbling about being forced to leave. As they went about their various tasks, their tribunus Tillius Corvus found them and told them that the Magister militum had told him that he had one last mission for them, and they needed to assemble immediately. Grumbling slightly, they did so.

They waited in the magister's office, along with their fellow veteran legionnaires Laurentius (Lorenz) Germanicus and Nabidius Ursus, both of which looked very disgruntled. Galerius asked the magister's aid why they had been summoned, and while the aid demured, eventually he explained that a courier had come from Lydia, and after hearing the message, the magister had the man imprisoned and immediately summoned Tillius.

Eventually they were invited into the magister's office, and he explained his tasks. There were rumors of plague in Sardis and the Ghilian Outpost in Lydia had been out of contact for days. He required a small force to investigate in absolute secrecy. The people were saying that this was the work of a Satanic cult, and it had to be dealt with before the Imperator opened his new capital. He brusquely commended them for not trying to speak with the courier and then ordered them to leave in the morning before dismissing them. Outside, Tillius apologized for the summons and the sudden calling away from their duties, but he said he was asked for his best men. He wouldn't force them to go, but he urged them to flee the city immediately if they had second thoughts. For his part, he was going to celebrate since his amica Eudoxia had promised to marry him as soon as he returned. The legionnaires eventually joined him, though some took care of other business first--Belasir said goodbye to his own amica Nona, and Galerius and Milonius both made sure to make a sacrifice to Aesculapius. Then, with much praise to Tillius and much ribbing of Belasir, they went to sleep.

The next morning the legionnaires assembled, minus Laurentius Germanicus and Nabidius Ursus, and they boarded a ship and crossed the Sea of Marmara. On the other side, as they were relaxing, other soldiers asked them what they were doing, as is the way of soldiers, which they deflected with varying degrees of skillfulness. Then, in the morning, they left.

They rode for days through the countryside, the villagers getting less and less friendly as they went until after three days the they hid at the legionnaires approach, shouting of plague. Finally, they arrived at the fort and several outriders rode out to meet them. The soldiers anxiously asked where the reinforcements were, and Tillius assured them they were only a few days behind, having been delayed by washed-out bridges. Then, they were taken to meet Curio Longinus, the local commander, who explained the problem. There was a local cult called "The Flayed," who were harassing the villagers, and there was an illness. The Valerian Plague, it was called, and it caused fevers and hallucinations, eventually leading to death. Longinus said his men had also been attacked, and so he finally ordered all of his men to remain within sight of the fort walls. The legionnaires ask if they can speak to the refugees, and Longinus agrees, so they go to the refugee camp.

The legionnaires split up and ask about the situation. They learned that the villagers were being attacked by bats and strange, flat ghost-things, that the plague had a 40% fatality rate and there were always six days of symptoms, that whole villages had been depopulated, and that the cultists were in the mountains to the east.

While Asinius was speaking to the refugees, a plague victim surged up from his bed, raving, screaming to G-d to save him from his fate. Asinius shook him off...only to have the man's skin come off in a single piece and fall to the ground. The man vomited black bile and stopped moving, and the camp's medicus and his assistants carried him off toward the trench in the north, where they had put the bodies of those who died of the plague. The legionnaires followed, and when the oilskin over the trench was removed, they found that all the bodies were skinless and piled haphazardly, and there were no flies or smell of decay. The medicus was shocked by this, saying that they had treated the bodies with respect, and the legionnaires carefully approached to examine the trench. Belasir found a strange trail, like a man walking dragging something, and followed it to the east to see where it led. Meanwhile, Emeric heard something moving in the bodies, and as Milonius readied his bow, Asinius and Emeric drew their swords and began moving the bodies, only for something leathery and white to surge up out of the pile at them!

Despite the initial surprise, they made quick work of the thing, which seemed to be made of human skin, but there were more sounds of movement in the trench. The thing's body burned away in the sunlight, and when it was nothing but an oily stain, Tillius arrived and asked the legionnaires for a report. He agreed with their plan to check the rest of the ditch, and when Belasir returned, they pulled the oilcloth back and found three more of the things, which surged up to attack as the sunlight began singeing and blackening them. When they were dead, Tillius ordered them to follow the trail immediately, and they did, eventually finding a farm with several corpses on the ground and an ominous silence.

The legionnaires began their search by opening the barn, and again they were surprised as three chiropteran, chimeric monsters rushed at them. Emeric howled at them, foam flecking his beard, but Tillius and Galerius met the rush with their blades, cutting one to ribbons immediately.

schoolpsychnerd and me simultaneously: "Die, monster! You don't belong in this world!"

The remaining two beasts were harder to kill, with one latching onto Emeric as he barely defended himself in the depths of his berserker rage and drinking his blood, but they finally chopped down the creatures. As they did, they noticed two youths running from the smokehouse. Their skins were marked with ritualistic scars, and they were wearing black robes and carrying knives, so the legionnaires chased them down and overpowered and bound them. The youths had far-away smiles and said nothing, and Tillius ordered the legionnaires to return to the fort and report what they had found.


SPQR!

One of the reasons I've been looking forward to this section is that in the modern world, bat monsters running around and attacking people tend to raise questions among the players. How come they aren't being reported? Where are the photographs? In the past, where so many people already assumed that there were monsters, the gloves can come off. Bring on the Draculas.

I wasn't a fan of how two of the PCs are archers but everything we found so far takes half damage from impaling weapons. That's always been a flaw of Call of Cthulhu, though. I mean, Pickman's Model has Pickman deal with the ghouls using a revolver, and yet ghouls take half damage from impaling weapons. Mi-go take minimum damage from guns even though in The Whisperer in Darkness, a guy with a shotgun kills like a dozen of them. Monsters being unstoppable in the face of modern weaponry is a trope of Cthulhu RPGs, not the original media, and I suspect is mostly just to prevent the investigators from solving everything with tommy guns and dynamite. I just wish it wouldn't extend back to arrows.

This could have been a very frustrating scenario, what with having a commanding officer, but mutantur struck a good balance by characterizing Tillius as a wise leader who listens to the advice of his men--i.e., lets the PCs make the decisions. Some of the orders above were made after listening to us discuss our course of action, so it was more like an imprimatur than explicit orders. If we have to have NPCs telling us what to do, having us do what we were going to do anyway is the best way to go about it.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

A few hours before dawn, Elaphe's keen hearing picked up the sounds of movement and voices outside over the crackling of the tea house fire. After listening, he woke up the others and they grabbed their weapons and walked out into the town square, pausing a moment for Shining Star to murmur a blessing to Nyarhé that left all their weapons gleaming with a faint silver light. They heard commotion from the south and made their way toward it. Elaphe, Amos, and Bonnie climbed to the tea house roof and leapt from building to building, and the Green Knight and Shining Star walked through the maze of streets.

At the edge of town, Elaphe peered over the roof onto the wall of wooden stakes around the town. On the dirt ramp behind the wall was a motley militia of chuzan, amanita, mycon, and a few mandragora, as well as two kappa each holding a pair of battleaxes, and on the other side of the wall were dozens of of the walking dead. The townsfolk were holding them off with rural weapons--spears, pitchforks, and bows--but the wall was starting to creak ominously, and Elaphe noticed that some of the walking dead seemed to be moving more purposefully and their eyes were shedding a faint red light.

He leapt down to the wall, followed by Bonnie and Amos, and hurled his bob-omb into the middle of the walking dead. It exploded in a burst of silver fire, hurling bits of dead flesh everywhere and stopping the press of bodies against the wall, but drawing the attention of the red-eyed monsters, who jumped onto and over the wall. Up close, with the stink in her nose, Bonnie recognized them as ghuls, the hungry dead, eternally driven by empty stomachs that could never be full and whose bites were infectious.

The ghuls were vicious combatants, but not very skilled. Perhaps the bob-bomb explosion had damaged them enough that they were slower than normal. Amos used his musket and blew one ghul off the wall, and Elaphe followed it down, running down the wall and leaping toward it, and hacked off its head. He then turned and hurled a dagger into the eye of another ghul that was strugging with a chuzan militia soldier with a spear, also destroying it.

One ghul ran toward Shining Star and, while it dodged the bolt of holy fire she hurled at it, it could not dodge the Green Knight's wooden claws, which extended and wrapped around its neck until they took off its head. Amos shot another one before it started grappling the kappa next to it, prompting Bonnie to grab it from behind. It leaned back and bit her, tearing into her shoulder, and then Shining Star incinerated it with white fire and it burned to ashes in Bonnie's arms, leaving her untouched.

The last ghul was ripped in half by one of the kappa, and the other administered first aid to Bonnie while she admired the smooth curve of his shell and the pointiness of his spines. Shining Star also looked at Bonnie's wound, and when Bonnie told her about ghul fever, Shining Star murmured some words over the wound and made a note to keep an eye on it. As Amos continued to shoot flaming arrows at the walking dead, the others questioned the kappa.

In Muskalan heavily accented by the tongue of the Kappa Wastes, he gave his name as Sakuya, and said his clutchmate Ayumi and he grew sick of the Dragon Emperor's sacrilegious abandonment of the ancestors and decided to go somewhere where they wouldn't be bothered. This softened Shining Star's attitude toward them considerably, and Bonnie next asked about the walking dead. Sakuya replied that they first showed up a month or so ago, first only a few and occasionally, but gradually increasing in number until now they attacked almost every night. The kappa cursed the king of Fontina, saying that he hid in his palace with mercenaries around his town and refused to help his people.

The party asked Sakuya about the rumors they heard in Fontina, about shrouded figures attacking and people on rooftops. Sakuya replied that there were often people on the roofs, but a chuzan named Old Three Eyes had vanished after complaining about seeing eyes in his window. A local wise woman had tried to find out where he went, but turned up nothing, even when using his precious locket given to him by his dead wife as a focus. The party asked if they could see his house, and Sakuya considered and then agreed to lead them to it.


Combat can take a while. I was expecting to get a bit more time in for investigation, but it looks like that will be the focus of next session. There isn't really anywhere in the town for someone to disappear to, especially now that there are walking dead outside the walls, so what could have happened to Old Three Eyes? Will the party actually have to talk to people and do detective work, or will they get bored and decide to just kill their way to a solution? I guess we'll find out!

Bonnie is infected with ghul fever now. Bitten is not as good as dead, but Bonnie also has a Stamina of 1, so it's closer to that meaning with her than it would be with the others. Though maybe not. I realized when I went to check that I hadn't actually written the rules for ghul fever yet, though it'll probably end up being a less severe version of The Embrace of Decay from canon Exalted, which niche it fills. So I doubt she'll die, but she might be unhappy for a while.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

The first half of the session or so was taken up with more logistics from last session in the Scarlet City. Buying a few more hedge magic spells and equipment, getting various alchemical concoctions to deal with future injuries likely while fighting the walking dead, and so on. After all that way accomplished, we picked up back in the Kingdom of Fontina.

B'rabht had been hot and sunny, but in the city of Rockfort it was pouring down rain and much colder. The party clutched their cloaks tighter around themselves and made their way through the crush of refugees to the closest tea house they could see, the Gateside, on one side of the square. They negotiated for a place in the stable and bedded down for the night, sleeping comfortably on the straw, though they were unpleasantly woken up early, shivering in a sudden cold snap.

Shining Star went to offer her services in the temple of the Blue Lady, the Fontinan goddess of love and the family, healing the refugees. Most of those she treated were wounded by exposure and malnutrition, not the claws and teeth of the walking dead, though there were some who had been injured in fights with other refugees. Amos prepared his armor and weapons and then went down into the tea house and spoke to the patrons, asking them what they had heard. They mentioned the walking dead coming from the south, and that some villages had to post guards around their graveyards because while the bites of the dead were not infectious except in the normal sense, their very presence seemed to raise other bodies nearby into unlife.

Elaphe pretended to sleep by the fire and listened to the chatter, and he heard people talk about shapes on rooftops and mysterious attacks by shrouded figures. The chatter wasn't clear on their appearance or exactly what they were wearing, but Elaphe remembered the rumors they had heard three weeks ago, about Sarasan Veiled Ones being seen in Fontina, and wondered. He also heard that the mercenaries from Etemenanki had arrived, but they were being used to guard Rockfort.

Bonnie went to visit Onyx to ask her to teach a spell to keep off the rain and bask in the wisdom of the sorceress. Onyx seemed pleased that the party had found what they were looking for, but she and Bonnie did not speak long. Onyx mentioned that killing the walking dead would probably be a good idea, and Bonnie made her excuses and left.

After lunch, the party took their gear and rode out the south gate, heading toward the place where the walking dead were coming from. They didn't meet any zombies on the road, though they occasionally saw corpses, both fresh and rotted, by the roadside. They didn't take the time to bury them, and Elaphe thought better of looting them to avoid trouble from wraiths, but Shining Star offered a brief benediction over every corpse they found. At sundown, they rode into a town surrounded by a palisade and took space in the common room at the sign of the Three Wheat Sheaves, and we ended there.


It took a while for people to figure out what else they wanted. Having not been in civilization for well over half the period of this game and finally being in a major city for a longer period--they were in tower town, but only for half a day--they went on a shopping and XP-spending spree.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the party does to deal with the zombies. Are they going to try to just kill all of them? Find the source? Blame the Sarasans? Bring in the witchhunters? We'll see!

Amos's player asked for a preparation montage, so I played the Shatterhand stage select theme. I also played the Super Mario 2 Underworld theme for B'rabt and then cut to the Link to the Past Opening Theme for rainy Fontina. I have so much music to draw on for this game. It's fantastic.

Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

Having successfully evaded two cults for most of the day and boarded the Orient Express, the investigators finally had a chance to relax. They settled into their cabins and, when the time came to go to dinner, turned out of their cars and made their way to the dining car. On the way, though, they found a man in his dressing gown, standing between cars, staring off into the distance and repeatedly muttering to himself, "He called, and I have come. He called, and I have come." The professor laid a hand on his shoulder to wake him, and found it easy. The man was profoundly embarrassed, claiming to have had no dreams, and quickly made his excuses and retreated to his cabin.

At dinner, after a delicious meal, the waiter Maurice brought out a bottle of Sauternes from another guest and offered to pour it. The investigators agreed, and after the professor inspected the wine and the cork was pulled, a soothing sweet scene filled the air, bringing calm to everyone and more than a bit of envy from the other tables. The countess asked Maurice his opinion, and he took a taste and nearly swooned, saying it is the best wine he has ever tasted and that it is for such moments that he would not trade his job for a dukedom. The group--except Demir, who refused--drank their wine, luxuriating in the taste, and then looked expectantly to the corner when Maurice indicated their benefactor...only to find an empty table. Apparently he had slipped out during dinner.

Full of delicious food and drink, the investigators went straight to their beds after dinner, falling almost instantly asleep, only to be awakened just after three a.m. by the night conductor, who told them that they had arrived at their destination. He was unmoved by the party's protestations that they were going through to Belgrade, showing them a list of departures at Zagreb with their names clearly printed on it, and said that their luggage had already been unloaded. As the investigators reluctantly glanced at the fog-shrouded platform, they saw a cloaked figure, muttering to itself, and holding something gleaming white in its hand.

Since their luggage was already on the platform, they debarked and approached the cloaked man, who greeted them with a strange speech:

"What ho! Abed so early? And you too? sluggards! Did you plan to slumber like swine and forgo one of Europe's great cities, hurrying onwards to your gathering task? Bah! Come, come. I have arranged your stay here. Time flows swiftly, and we have much to talk about ere dawn. Perchance you will permit me to tell you the full strange history of the Sedefkar Simulacrum, and of what you can expect to find on your arrival in Constantinople. Hah! Follow good fellows, and let the Devil steer the course."

Before the investigators can ask him anything, he walks forward into the eddying fog, vanishing in moments. As the bells rang in the distance, the investigators found a nearby area with a lock to stow their luggage and followed him. Where he stood when giving the speech was a crumpled page from a diary, and Demir stooped to pick it up, but he quickly blanched and handed it to the Countess, who handed it to the professor. It read:

We were always destined to be together. From the moment I saw you I loved you; so beautiful and cruel, so heartless and perfect. I, your vile servant, was not fit to worship at your feet. Yet I caressed your alabaster limbs. I kissed your shining eyes. I held you close, closer than skull to skin.

I knew from that first moment of ecstasy that we were doomed to part, that you would use me and discard me as a snake escapes its old skin.

I tried to write down all you were. I thought that way I would remember you. I thought I could pin your essence down like a flayed hide and hold you forever in my heart. I should have known that any attempt to describe your loveliness was doomed from the start. Yet I wrote in a fever of longing, and I drew you on scrolls of skin. I hoped and dreamed that you would always be with me. But now you are gone. All I have left are a hollow hide and words, empty, useless, tormenting words.

There was no signature and no clue in the handwriting, but something about it seemed ominously familiar.

The investigators wandered the city of Zagreb, encountering no one, but occasionally seeing the cloaked figure of their host, always just out of reach above on a bridge or across a canal or around a corner. They followed the sound of hissing and squawking and found a statue of a gryphon and a serpent locked in mortal combat; a fish dying on the cobblestones that Gianni picked up and threw into the river; a shadow on the wall following their own, with pointed ears and long talon-like fingers, that on inspection turned out to be cast by a tangle of leafless trees; frosty message on bare earth that spelled out "But do they dream?"; a river of milk and a flagstone under which was a tarnished silver ring. And at each place they found another strange passage, written on tattoos on skin, or diary pages, or on a swirl of snow in the air. One, in particular, written in blood on the inside of a straightjacket, caught the professor's attention:

I lust. I hunger. I thirst. I rave. I cannot live without you. You are under my skin. You are my self. I had you once. Then I was perfection, killing and reveling and laughing with joy. I lost you and became a brute. Mad with desire for what I have lost I want to kill myself but I cannot. My shriveled skin resists the knife-thrust, my dead heart cannot be stopped again. I will kill all those pathetic would-be lovers who stand between us. When I seize you at last I will despoil you, ravish you, consume you. You will be me. I will be perfection, and laugh and kill and revel once more.

After the professor read it, he stood, looked off into the distance, and muttered to himself, "Le Comte."

In one square was a woman laughing and weeping alternately about a man ahead ("a man, a head"?), and when asked about the shrouded figure, she told them to:

"Ask the Tide, and name the one you seek by his proper title. She can tell you where to find him."

And she walked away, smiling, with blood on her lips. The professor addressed the black waters of the river as to the whereabouts of one Brother Merovac, called Le Comte Fenalik, but there was no reply other than the sound of the river sluggishly flowing in its bed.

mutantur: "Is it the Styx? Perhaps. Chunks of ice whirl in lazy spirals, quiet testimony to the biting cold of the dark water. No bridge dares to conquer this slumbering wet beast."
Me: "...I'm pretty sure I saw Slumbering Wet Beast open for Seraphim Shock."

There was a man in one square turning over flagstone after flagstone, searching for something, and when Demir gave him the ring, he exclaimed with joy that now he could be married and Death should be his bride. When asked about the cloaked man, he told Demir to find the One Who Knows, and ask for "He Who Knows Great Men's Secrets." Then he stepped off the quay onto a patch of ice and sailed off over the black waters until the fog swallowed him up.

Lashed to a statue of Mary was a woman who cried out about her crime, that of assuming that as her son also suffered as all men suffer, and her toil was as onerous as all mother's toil, why was he not as worth as the son of G-d? When asked about He Who Knows Great Men's Secrets, she directed them to fort at the center of town and told them he awaited them there. She refused food, and when Demir spent time cutting her free, she fell to her knees...and as the party turned away for merely a moment, they looked back and found unmarred ropes bound her again to the statue.

When the party reached the fortress they found the shrouded man was indeed there, and after a brief acknowledgment he lets them in. Doors, bars, and gates all opened with a mere touch, and finally at the top of the highest tower, he bade them be seated. He told them he also once sought all knowledge, and he would be willing to impart what he knew, but there was danger. He claimed the skull he bore was his own, blasted by its inability to contain what he knew, but the party have already paid the price of his assistance, and so he would grant his knowledge.

And he did. As the investigators sat down, words poured almost in a torrent from his lips, burrowing into their brains. Of the secret history of the Earth, and the species that dwelt there before there were any humans. Of the ultimate futility of all human endeavor and the end of history, of the cruel Empire of Tsan-Chan thousands of years hence, of the feeble attempts humanity made to reach for the stars and the desperate retreat back to the mother world, and the dark conquerers fifteen millennia in the future. Of the Great Old Ones that lie dead but dreaming, and wait for the stars to be right. Of the ultimate source of reality, the blind idiot god Azathoth, who dances mindless to the piping of demoniac flutes from the blasphemous Throne at the center of the universe, and of its voice and soul that is the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep-

His brain reeling with what he had heard, the professor wrenched his attention away from the shrouded figure's words to find that his companions had already stopped listening--except for Rosaline, who also shook her head violently and looked away just as the professor did. As the figure saw that his words fell on deaf ears, he stood and shrieked:

"You are lost anyway! For if you have not returned to your beds at dawn, you are doomed to walk the endless night of this place with the rest of us!"

As his voice died away, the bells began to toll, pitilessly and relentlessly, and the investigators rose from their seats and scrambled down the stairs from the tower in a headlong dash through that maddening City of Bells and Towers, shrouded in fog and horror. And as they ran, stumbling in panic, as the sixth bell tolled and their doom approached, they saw the lights of the Orient Express in the distance and they flung themselves aboard as it pulled away from the station, dashed to their rooms, and opened the doors--to find they were too late! For there they were, safe in their own beds, starting awake at the interruption! And as the knowledge of their doom pierced their brains, they fell into a swoon-

-and awoke in their beds, in the middle of the night, as a violent wrench threw open their doors and they came face to face with themselves, gasping and white-faced, with staring eyes filled with fear, and oblivion took them back into its embrace rather than face what terror it was that they themselves fled from.

Only to be awoken just after three a.m. by the night conductor, who told them that they had arrived at their destination. He was unmoved by the party's protestations that they were going through to Belgrade, showing them a list of departures at Zagreb...but then he looked again and apologized profusely, for their names were not on the list. After an assurance that this mistake would not be repeated, he bade the investigators go back to sleep and exited the car.

That morning, at breakfast, the countess fussed over the professor's health...and he poured her a cup of tea.


I did not remember this at all!

mutantur last session mentioned that this wasn't in the original HotOE and I would be surprised, but it turned out that it was, it was just much less relevant. Originally it was all quotes from The Journal Of J.P. Drapeau by Thomas Ligotti, but in the revamped version it's all quotes from the various players in Horror on the Orient Express. The first quote is from Sedefkar himself, who wrote the scrolls, and I correctly guessed that the second one in the post--the third one we found, I think--was from Comte Fenalik. There were a half-dozen others, but this is already over 2000 words long and quoting them all would add a ton of space. It's especially ironic because the session only took about an hour and a half to play through.

The professor is no longer Sanity Man. He's now Cthulhu Mythos man, with a score of 26% after the shrouded figure's knowledge dump. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Shining Star attempted to diagnose the strange illness affecting Bonnie and the Green Knight that was turning their skins a greyish color and making their veins stand out black against their skin, but after a close examination she simply had no idea. Elaphe searched through the burning building to find the pieces to reassemble his bob-omb, while Meohan the hedge wizard sat despondently and Ringo and Dim Ember tended to their wounds. Amos got the idea to ask the nearby birds if they have seen Kurome, so he cimbed to the top of the tea house with Bonnie's help and began chanting the words of the Discourse with Birds spell.

The first set of starlings Amos asked flew away without an answer, but then he took some of his travel rations and scattered them around the roof. A pair of crows took the bait, and Amos asked them if they had seen anything of the warlock. They answered that they had, tripping over their own words and interrupting each other, and indicated the overgrown orchard to the northeast of the town center:



Elaphe sent his claw strider familiar to the east to search out that area, and the party asked Meohan about his scrying spell. He said that he could cast it, but he would need a reflective surface, and Elaphe went off to find one while Shining Star searched to the west, walking around the town and looking for any spot where she could smell lingering taint. The whole town smelled faintly like rancid meat to her sorcerously-enhanced senses, but she found a few houses where the smell seemed stronger. One house was empty, with a table set as for a meal but abandoned mid-feast, but another had a barred door and shuttered windows, though Shining Star could hear the sound of movement within.

The Green Knight walked around the town hall to the trees in the south and summoned up his connection with the forest, asking the plants nearby if they had seen Kurome. The grass did not remember, but the tree said that two rains ago, Kurome came from the rising sun. The Green Knight moved northeast and asked the trees the same question, and they told him that they had seen Kurome enter the orchard several times.

Elaphe brought out a bottle of wine, after taking a long drink for himself, and poured it into a bowl in front of Meohan. The hedge wizard stared at it for a moment, then shook their head and began moving his fingers over the liquid and chanting. Shining Star returned to the town center, as did Elaphe's familiar, and the group moved into the orchard, following the crows. Elaphe remained behind, some distance from Dim Ember, Ringo, Cheerless Sword, and the chanting Meohan, eyeing his bob-omb and considering.

The party searched the forest and, where Shining Star smelled the strongest odor of rancid meat, dug into the ground. They found several chunks of obsidian, shallowly buried in the dirt, and Shining Star recognized them as a ritual tool for summoning demons. She wrapped them in cloth and took them with her. The party then returned to the town square to find a distinct lack of explosions.

Meohan finished his scrying ritual and began searching the places that Shining Star pointed out. In the barred house there was a family of mycon who had pushed a table against the door and were cowering behind the bed, and another house was empty. But at the final house, to the northwest, Meohan frowned and said that something was interfering with the spell.

The party, accompanied by Dim Ember and Ringo, immediately traveled to that part of town. Elaphe climbed up to the roof and dropped his bob-omb through the smoke hole, and after the explosion, the door and windows were blown open. The house was empty of mortal inhabitants, but in the middle was an ever-moving, vaguely humanoid shape of greenish liquid. The ground hissed where it stood, and curls of smoke arose from the dirt. Shining Star and Bonnie recognized it as a metody, a demon formed of liquid corruption!

Amos fired an arrow, which went straight through the demon, but the arrow's fire singed it. The Green Knight charged forward to engage, swiping with his wooden claws, but the metody flowed out of the way and then dissolved into a green foam, washing over the floor--and the Green Knight's feet, eating away at his boots and flesh. Shining Star thought of using the last of her Essence to cast a spell, but chose to fire her bow. The arrow sunk with a splash into the metody and began dissolving to no other effect.

Bonnie pulled out some of her alchemical glue and began to craft a crude bomb as the Green Knight leaped out of the acidic foam. Ringo danced forward and swiped a claw through the metody, and its color changed to a slightly darker shade as it began moving slower. Bonnie gave the bomb to Elaphe, who tossed it into the foam. The bottle began dissolving, leaving flaming liquid in the demon. Amos shot another arrow at the house, setting part of it on fire, and Elaphe and his mount leapt into the wall, knocking a piece of flaming debris onto the demon.

The Green Knight, seeking more flammable material, crossed the street to another house and opened the door...and came face to face with Kurome! He made to shout a warning, but the sound died in his throat as he stared into Kurome's good eye and felt like he was falling into it. Kurome swung his black sword at the Green Knight's head, but the briarwitch retained enough presence of mind to turn it aside with his claws.

Galvanized, the Green Knight yelled "Kurome!" and charged, swinging his claws, but the warlock blocked with the flat of his blade and escaped injury. Bonnie and Shining Star spun around, and while Bonnie tried to silence the warlock's voice, Shining Star saw her chance. She called up the power of Nyarhé and hurled a bolt of white fire at Kurome. The warlock raised his sword again, and the fire split on the blade...but not far enough. It hit Kurome on both sides of his body, and as his arms and shoulders kindled in white fire, he threw back his head and soundlessly screamed. Then, smoking, he crashed to the ground. The demon pulled itself back together from its foam and, to everyone's eyes but Amos, vanished. Dim Ember stepped forward and fired an arrow at Kurome's head, and in a rain of floral blossoms, the warlock's breathing stopped.

Shining Star and Dim Ember both made the sign of the goddesses over the dead warlock, and in the most formal way, Dim Ember thanked Shining Star for her help. Shining Star also expressed her thanks, and she leaned down and stripped Kurome's eyepatch from his body, handing it to Dim Ember. Then they bowed to each other. Meanwhile, Elaphe searched the warlock's body, taking the warlock's sword--an unattuned enchanted item, so it was incredibly heavy--and a black crystal that is freezing cold to the touch. Then the party withdrew to the tea house to regroup.

At the tea house, they drank mushroom beer and wine, and Bonnie told Dim Ember about the ghost of Summer Rain. Dim Ember explained that Summer Rain's father was a merchant who sold arms to the Dragon Emperor during the way and used that money to fund a dowry for his daughter, ending with, "But what good will that money do him now, I wonder?" and taking a drink of her wine. After more drinks, everyone went to sleep. The villagers did not come to the tea house that night, and they slept undisturbed.


Kurome is dead! I made the map and chose a location for Kurome beforehand to give the party a chance. He picked a ruined house to hide and stuck a demon nearby, figuring that the taint would be enough to metaphysically disguise him and that the party wouldn't be able to search every house without bothering the residents. And he was right! It was pure chance that the Green Knight went off looking for flammable material and opened the right door.

The party got lucky in other ways too. If Kurome had hit with his first attack, he could well have incapacitated the Green Knight, dragged him into the house, and then made his escape. If the search had taken longer and the Green Knight's disease had been further progressed, Kurome could have commanded him to fight his friends. There was a real chance that Kurome could have won and driven them away to lick their wounds.

And that's good! The best way for an RPG to go is for the PCs to win...barely.

Next session, the PCs are thinking of going through the pipe at the center of town to the Scarlet City, stronghold of the Silent Ones, to sell their loot and figure out what to do next. It'll be nice to be in civilization again after a half-dozen sessions in the wilderness.

I made the map in Cityographer and projected it onto our TV during the game, so the players could always see it while they were planning. Maybe I should do that with the world map, if I expand it from its current contained-sandbox boundaries.

Also, I have to post this great quote:

Me: "I've got rules for dysentery, too."
Bonnie's player: "Great!"
Me: "Don't fail those Survival rolls, is all I'm saying."

Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

After the altercation with the Turk the previous night, Demir was still convalescing and unable to travel far (and his player was absent), so he remained in the hotel while the investigators went to another museum elsewhere in Trieste, since they were just waiting for the translator to finish his work with Herr Winckelmann's diary. On the way to lunch, though, they noticed a man was following them through the streets, who looked very like the man that Demir had described in the library, having the pages of his book turned.

The investigators turned down a small alleyway and waited, and the man walked right into the alleyway and up to the investigators, making signs that they should follow him. After some hesitation, they did so, and he led them through the streets to a house in a run-down area of town. Entering, they found a single-room hovel with papers everywhere. The man rummaged through the papers, finally finding a sheaf of them and thrusting them at the professor, while Rosaline and the countess noticed a photo of the man, smiling, with two intact hands resting on a woman and a young boy. As they left, the man gestured frantically toward the northeast, and when the investigators began moving in that direction, he seemed satisfied and went back into his house.

At lunch, the professor read the papers. They were the diary of one Helmut Grossinger, and while fragmentary, they described a series of fantastical events. Cults living in caves beneath the earth, "human fish," limbs grafted onto other bodies and moving on their own, and names he had never heard of like "Ghatanotha" or De Vermis Mysteriis. As they talked and ate, they noticed the man with the red hair and black streak was standing across the street, watching their cafe--until a van pulled up just past him and two Turkish men jumped out, bundled him into the car, and then sped away.

After lunch they went to the library for research. They found the Postumia Caves were northeast of Trieste, and while there was a cave that was closer that was fully explored, another cave closer to Postumia had much that was still mysterious about it. The professor researched the unfamiliar terms in the diary and found nothing, but Gianni was more successful and learned that the library in Trieste had a reference copy of Nameless Cults, the Bridewall translation into English. The professor could tell that the translator had either been incompetent or taken extreme liberties with his work, but he still found himself disturbed when he opened to a random page and found an account of trees moving on their own or when commanded by the will of another.

At the hotel, the front desk told the professor that he had a message from the translator, so the investigators left again to get the translation. The professor paid the man, with a bonus for his quick work, and left. The translation spoke of Winckelmann's mission in Trieste of the "Beasts" and "Them" who were hunting him, of the need to hide the medallion before Archangeli got his hands on it, and of the need to have the amulet to enter the caves safely.

On the way back to the hotel, the professor noticed a pale-faced man dressed in antique clothing, far behind them on the street. He turned to tell the others about it, but when he turned back, it was gone. It was merely a foreshadowing of the events that would occur at dinner, however. The table rose, seemingly by itself, before falling back to the floor. Gianni cut into his chicken to find it full of writhing maggots, but when he spit out the moving piece in his mouth, it was merely normal chicken. The wine glass rose into the air, filling with blood, which poured out and made an image of Bacchus. The professor's knife moved his hand seemingly of its own accord, brandishing itself in the air. None of the other hotel guests noticed anything, and eventually the investigators left dinner before coffee and retired to their rooms.

At the professor's suggestion, they conducted a séance. Gianni had a Ouija board on his person, and the group pulled it out began chanting Johann Winckelmann's name after the professor improvised some Latin invocation. The planchette moved slowly, spelling out the letters M·A·R·C·O·P·O·L·O before the planchette shattered!

That night, they didn't get much sleep either. In the two other rooms, the candles refused to light, escalating into chairs moving, pillows exploding, the doors opening and shutting, and light bulbs shattering. Eventually, they were all ejected from their room and the doors would not open. The professor slept soundly until he woke in the middle of the night to find the fire had changed to a strange blue color and the room was freezing cold. Frost formed on the window, creating an image of Bacchus and his maenads in some pastoral scene--and when the professor took out a sheet of blank paper and pen, a similar image was created after the presence tried to write and found only scribbles coming out. When the professor got out of bed and touched Winckelmann's diary, radiating bone-chilling cold on the desk, the fire roared up, the frost melted, and the room returned to normal as a knock came on the door.

The others found the professor nearly hypothermic and bundled him into a blanket and sat him near the fire as the investigators relayed their experiences. The hotel staff thought that the rooms were ruined as a joke, or at least so they said, but they fixed the room and the investigators went back to bed. In the morning, they went immediately to the library to research Bacchus's involvement with Trieste. After some time, they found an artist named Nicholas Burnette who had been on a tour of the continent and had sketched a frieze in Trieste of Bacchus, reproduced in the account they found. It was on the "Via Marco Polo," only a few streets away.

The investigators made their way to the house and found the frieze, above a gate that was heavily padlocked. Asking a neighbor, they found that the building was abandoned, but the key was held by a widow, and the professor posed as an interested buyer. The widow was surly and suspicious, but she handed over the key and asked that they bring it back when they were done, so the party went back to the building, opened the door, and entered the dilapidated building. It was in extremely poor condition, with multiple holes in the floor and ceiling, but after the professor leaves to buy a lantern and comes back, they are able to make their way down the basement. Then, as they are examining the room, a pale-faced man in antique clothing, slightly translucent, comes down the stairs! He makes his way into the room, to a flagstone, pries it up with a pry bar, and places an oilskin bag into the hole. He moves the flagstone back into place, walks away, and vanishes before he reaches the stairs.

Working together, the investigators manage to raise the flagstone and, among the fragments of rotted leather, find a gleaming amulet, the last of Winckelmann's medallions:


Gianni picked it up and as he touched it, he heard a howling, as of a great wind roaring down from the north, and in an instant the cold of Trieste's winter seemed much more bearable. He slipped the medallion around his neck and the investigators replaced the flagstone, returned the key to the old widow, and went back to their hotel to sleep. This time, their sleep was undisturbed, though Gianni dreamed of a strange hunting call.

In the morning, they took a train to the Grotta Gigante, the closer caves, and took the tour, but found that there was nothing to learn there, so after the tour they went on to Postumia, arriving just in time to take the tour there. A man named Carlo was their tour guide, and he took the opportunity to play up the mysterious caves, pointing out formations that looked like body parts and menacing Rosaline with an olm pulled from a cave lake. All of this becomes much more siinster when Carlo turns off the cave lights, lights a flashlight, and more lights appear in the darkness. A group of men, led by Antonio Tremona, surrounds the group and demands the medallion as a tentacle falls from Tremona's "empty" sleeve. Gianni says "What medallion?" and Tremona snaps at him to hand it over...and then other figures move in the darkness. The Brotherhood of the Skin had come!

As the two cults engage in pitched battle, the investigators flee through the caves past scenes of chaos. Cultists being eaten by giant olms. A Brother of the Skin flaying a fallen tentacle cultist and placing the skin on his own wounds while chanting. Brothers of the Skin impaled by tentacles, fighting on. Eventually, they pass through a formation that seems like a series of sharp teeth and arrive at a subterranean lake, surrounded by treasures encrusted with a thin layer of limestone...including the right leg of the Sedefkar Simulacrum, iron oxide around its end, making it seem as though it were covered in dried blood. As they entered the cavern, a voice boomed in the investigator's minds: AT LAST YOU HAVE BROUGHT THE MEDALLION!

Rosaline kicked the leg free and took the Simulacrum piece, and the group turned to go. As they did, a giant water shape formed, like a gigantic serpent, and roared GIVE US THE MEDALLION! After a moment of hesitation, Gianni complied, flinging it into the water. The shape collapsed, the cavern went silent, and the investigators ran for their lives. They stole a car when they exited the cave and found the outside was also a battleground between cults, went back to Postumia, and stayed in another hotel that night. When they went for their baggage in the morning, they found it in place, but with two mangled corpses there, mutilated beyond recognition, and the pieces of the Simulacrum had been assembled into the shape of a human body...

The next morning, they made their way back to Trieste, retrieved their luggage, and boarded the Orient Express. As the train pulled away, they saw the shape of Johann Winckelmann on the platform, who lifted a hand and smiled, and then faded away with a beatific smile on his face.


Next up, Belgrade...maybe! mutantur implied that something mysterious and unexpected might happen, so we'll see!

This section was a bit of a Mythos Hoedown. An amulet with an image of Ithaqua on it, the Brotherhood of the Skin, cultists of the Lloigor, a legitimate ghost...it was a bit much. But we made our way through it, even if we did give the medallion up to the Lloigor and furthered whatever their presumably nefarious plans are. To return, I'm guessing.

I'm not sure how I feel about legitimate ghosts in Call of Cthulhu. There's a danger in mixing horror sources, I think. When human horror, with ghosts and the afterlife, is mixed with cosmic horror, with monsters from beyond the stars, it can dilute either. If there's an afterlife and an immortal soul, does that mean that people who die are beyond the reach of the mythos? Does it dilute the impact of tentacle arms when glasses are filling with blood and light bulbs are shattering? I think it does, a bit. It's like having good human magic and bad mythos magic, in that providing a human source of power dilutes the "true nature of the universe" aspect of the mythos.

I mean, not as much as [REDACTED] does later, assuming that's still part of the campaign.

Also, a brief amusing aside--the professor is learning Arabic faster than Turkish, even though he's learning Arabic from a dictionary and scrolls written by a madman and he literally has a native Turkish speaker he can talk to at any time he wants. That says something about our man Professor Durand, I think.

Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

The wind was howling when the investigators arrived in Trieste, to the point where there were no horses on the streets, only cabs. None of the inhabitants would subject their animals to the fury of the bora (illustrative painting), as they heard some of the locals call it. They managed to find hail and taxi and check in to a hotel, a slightly lower-class/more reasonable one--replace as appropriate depending on whether you are the professor or the countess--but as they were leaving their cab, a furious blast of wind blew Professor Durand and Gianni off their feet. They weren't injured, other than their pride, but they were glad to get indoors.

After dinner where they discussed their plans in Trieste, which entirely consisted of trying to find a Johann Winckelmann at "the museum," that being the only clue they had received from Professor Smith as to the statue piece in the city, they retired for the night. The professor sent a telegram back to the University of Paris, asking that Arabic<->French translation materials be sent on to Belgrade, the next destination where they would be stopping. Demir noticed a Turkish man in a business suit and fez reading a newspaper in the lobby, but when he tried to engage him in conversation, the man brusquely said that he did not wish to talk and Demir eventually gave up and went to sleep.

That night, Demir had horrible dreams which he was unable to remember in the morning.

After breakfast the next morning, the investigators braved the bora and took a cab to the Museo Civico di storia ed arte e Orto Lapidario, where inquiring after Herr Winckelmann got them directions to the statue garden outside. It was very impressive and would have been a wonderful place to spend an afternoon without the howling winds, so when Rosaline spotted a Roman temple through a bunch of hedges, she directed the others toward it and everyone gladly took the chance to get out of the wind.

On the side of the temple was a strange frieze, of humans offering sacrifices to animal spirits. The human figure were worn, but the animals, of vaguely reptilian shape with proportions that were disquieting to look on, were unnaturally free of weathering. Something strange about the shapes struck the professor and Rosaline, but they could not place it and eventually entered the temple.

Inside, after their eyes adjusted to the gloom, the group noticed two things. The first was the large number of cats, also probably taking shelter from the wind. The second was the cenotaph in the back of the room with a dedication to Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the father of modern archeology, who died in the 18th century. A search of the premises turned up something but some archeological equipment probably left by graduate students on pilgrimage, so after speaking again with the front desk, the investigators went to the library.

Gianni looked up Winckelmann's life and found some brief biographical information while Rosaline followed a hunch about Napoleon's army, finding a reference to a document, but since she was unable to read French, she couldn't follow up on it. When the professor had a free moment he did so, discovering an account of a French soldier who brought a treasure from Paris to Trieste, but refused to give it up, claiming that it was for his "master." There were two murders, the second in revenge for the first, and the soldier died. Another soldier died as well, a third went incurably insane, and another insisted that one of the bodies was a "monster" who had attacked the first.

As this, some pieces fell into place and the professor called over the countess and explained his theory to her. From the Devil's Simulare, he knew that Fenalik had survived from the 13th century to the 18th century. He knew that the Comte had been sealed in Charenton, and that they had found a cavity in the walls when they explored in the basement. He mentioned the orderly who had been attacked, the footsteps in the empty Paris street, and hte grisly murders that seemed to be following them across the continent, and laid out his theory:

That Comte Fenalik was somehow still alive, and was following the investigators across Europe to retrieve that statue that he had held for so long.

As the professor explained this to Rosaline as well, Demir saw a man who seemed to have no hands reading a book. He approached him to ask if there anything he could do, to turn the pages or otherwise offer assistance, but when the man saw him, he fled without saying anything. Demir was sure that his tongue had also been removed...

There was a reference to a Giovanni Termona who had purchased Winckelmann's papers, including a diary, at auction, and asking the library staffs gets an address. The professor drafts a letter, mentioning the "book" he's writing and a desire to see the papers, and since it's late in the day the investigators leave to go back to their hotel.

On the way back, they see a face peeking at them from a hotel second story which does not seem to be bothered when they stare at it. Entering the hotel, Gianni asks about the room and the clerk says it has not been rented in weeks. The professor suggests that the investigators rent the room, and they do. At dinner, he reveals his suspicions about Count Fenalik to Demir and Gianni, and Demir tells the others about the man he encountered in the library. Then Demir goes back to the old hotel while the countess arranges for the transfer of luggage and the professor asks the front desk about the waiter who also received some of Winckelmann's papers.

The professor turns up nothing, but Demir finds another Turkish businessman, wearing the same suit and reading the same newspaper, in the lobby of their old hotel. He is again unwilling to speak to Demir, so Demir hides, waits, and follows him. The man walks down to the dock, to a small pensione, and enters. Demir waits and then tries the door, opening it onto the unmistakable scent of rot that he remembers from the battlefield.

The lights are off, but Demir creeps in and checks under the stairs, finding the body of an old man who has been horrifically mangled, with organs misplaced and chunks carved out of his body. He listens at the stairs, hearing the Turks above discuss what was obviously the location of the investigators, and then begin a low chanting in a hideous tongue which grated on Demir's nerves. He pulled out three bullets, left them at the top of the stairs, and slipped out back to the hotel.

There is nothing strange about the room and no sign that anyone was watching them, but that night, Demir and Rosaline have hideous dreams. Rosaline doesn't remember, but Demir remembers something enormous moving in dark water, far below the surface.

The next morning the investigators catch each other up at breakfast--the professor, remembering Sedefkar's face-changing power from the Devil's Simulare, especially asks Demir if he would remember the pensione-owner's face if he saw him alive again--and then they go to the museum to ask about Winckelmann's medallions and the dispensation of his papers. The museum curator is happy to speak with the professor, but he doesn't know much, continually directing them to Antonio Termona who may know more. So that is their next stop.

The scion of the Termona family is a young man who is missing his left arm. He is happy to speak to the investigators, and when the professor tells him about the book he is writing he brings up Winckelmann's papers and says that the diary is written in a dialect of Ancient Greek, which the professor does not know. Antonio is willing to lend the diary to a fellow scholar and provides the name of a translator who could do the work, and then they part.

As they are talking, Rosaline and the countess think they see movement in Antonio's empty sleeve.

The professor goes to the linguist to get a translation, which the man says will be done in a day and a half. Demir leads the others to the docks, down to the pensione, to see if anything has changed, but nothing has. On the way back to the hotel, the professor passes a man with red hair but a strange streak of black in it. The professor looks behind him, but the man continues down the street and doesn't seem to be following him. Nonetheless, the professor makes sure to take a slightly different route back to the hotel, continually checking behind him to be sure he's not being followed.

When they meet up at their hotel and ascend upstairs to their rooms, a Turkish man is standing outside the room door! He turns to leave, but Demir explodes into motion, running at him and seizing him by the arm. The Turk pulls a knife so Demir draws his gun, and a struggle ensues. In the struggle, Demir tries to disarm the man but leaves himself open and is stabbed in the chest. As he bleeds copiously and collapses, the Turk runs and escapes down the stair at the far end of the hall.

The countess provides first aid as people stick their heads out of their rooms, and at a nod from the countess, the professor tells a woman nearby to call a doctor. The doctor tends to Demir and asks what happened, and Gianni and the professor explain. Demir asks if his tattoos will heal, and the doctor says that it is too soon to see and that Demir should come see him in the morning to make sure the wound isn't getting worse.

After speaking to the police, who are very skeptical of Gianni's "It was a scary foreigner!" defense but eventually come around and agree to go check out the pensione by the docks, the investigators go to sleep, where the countess has horrible dreams of being in the vastness of space and something enormous rushing at her.


The professor has 98 SAN, but his paranoia here is entirely logical! The Devil's Simulare really made him start jumping at shadows, so now he's worried that everyone is either a servant of the Comte, the Comte himself, or a Turkish cultist wearing someone else's face. If/when he loses enough SAN for a permanent mental disorder, I'm going to push hard for that kind of paranoia.

I asked if the professor could go into the Dreamlands to get more study time for the Sedefkar Scrolls, but mutantur pointed out quite reasonably that while he was familiar with the Dreamlands and their properties, he didn't actually know how to get there without Henri pulling him in. Which is true, but .

There were also several instances of the bora blowing people over that I didn't include. It got pretty predictable, at least for Gianni and the professor--go outside, get blown head over heels.

Dramatis Personae

• Andres of Troyes, Frankish Knight
  
• Brother David, Cistercian monk
  
• Eloise of Flanders, Handmaiden to the Countess and spy
  
• Gilles de la Grave, Frankish Knight
  
• Renault of Flanders, Frankish Knight

The group approached the Church of Saint Mokius, carefully surveying the square in front of it. They had left their horses by the bottom of the hill, and so Eloise carefully crept through the square to get a look at the church. She spotted several warriors hiding in the rubble in the square and one man dressed as a priest, and just as she entered the church door, the warriors spotted the party. As the priest yelled for the party to give themselves up and the warriors leveled their crossbows, the party charged for the door. Brother David took a crossbow bolt in the shoulder and, as the priest began shrieking exhortations to the Skinless One, felt a strange pain in his forehead and blood dripping down his face, but they managed to make it inside the church and bar the door.

Inside, they quickly looked around. The church dome was broken, with a rent gaping open to the sky, but the rest of the church seemed intact. The more martial members of the group quickly dealt with three Italians who tried to climb into the church one-by-one and then spread out to find the relic that the Venetian priest had hidden. Eloise kept Ramaldi, who was outside the church, busy in conversation until they found the relic in a nave in the southern wall, hidden beneath a statue of the Virgin so small that they had originally overlooked it in favor of the giant statues standing in the corners of the church. Then, as bricks began to come out of the damaged wall and Ramaldi's men were almost broken through, the party entered the crypt, blocked the door behind them.

Lighting torches, the group looked around the crypt. There were several sarcophagi, some of which had been smashed and the remains within strewn around the room, but most prominent was the tunnel in the corner that seemed freshly dug. With no other options but to go forward, they entered the tunnel, following it for perhaps a hundred feet, and then almost at the end, they came face to face with the horror that had been stalking the city that the Byzantine priest claimed to have called up. A serpentine horror, with long neck and horse-like head, thrust itself into the tunnel and roared at them.

As the monster took a deep breath and flames kindled in its throat, Eloise hurled a vial of poison at it, but her throw went wide. Fortunately, the monster failed to use its breath and tried to bite, snapping ineffectually at the party. At first, they attacks were similarly ineffective, with Renault's torch failing to affect the monster and Brother David's mace clanging off its scales, but Andres managed to strike a mighty blow and the dragon--for surely it could be nothing else--withdrew. Looking down, they realized they were perhaps forty feet up, overlooking a cistern, and with Italian cultists behind, they decided to jump.

They fell into the water and splashed toward the walkway, Eloise moving separately from the others and trying to sneak around the cistern out of sight of the dragon. The dragon attacked the knights repeatedly, with many blows simply failing to hurt it, until it took a deep breath and breathed flames over the party. Andres and Renault managed to deflect the flames with their shields, but Brother David and Gilles fell, seared and bleeding badly. Renault tried to save their lives as Andres fought the dragon, managing to stabilize both them through some miracle, and as the dragon stooped over its victims, Renault dealt it a mighty blow. It hissed and dove under the cistern's waters, and did not emerge again.

Some of them staggering under their wounds, the party emerged from the cistern and found their horses, where Eloise and Brother David took some time to study the package. It had a few creepy poems and a ritual that seemed designed to detect the presence of the Skinless One, and below that, a large capsule marked all over in Latin and Greek that to open it is death. Eloise and Brother David do not open it.

On to way to Merovac, the party ran into a group of Frankish knights who babbled about how the French were being taken by strange things and there were monsters loose in the city. The party pointed them at the Church of Saint Mokius and told them about the Italian cultists and Ramaldi, after which the knights charged off now that they finally had a target.

Merovac examined the ritual and determined that it needed to be performed to find Sedefkar's tower, and that he had most of the ingredients, but would need a bit of skin. Andres volunteered some of the skin of his back, and Merovac took it and dropped it into a cauldron, after which the water turned red and revealed the tower. Renault recognized the place in the city, and after Merovac gave the group some healing supplies, they left the leper ship.

On the way to the tower, the party ran into a French nobleman and his retinue, who questioned them about their intent. Eloise noticed something odd about him, a hint of marble-liked flesh, and as he noticed her looks, he denounced the knights as traitors and demanded that his men seize them before he fled. The party tried to force their way through, but the men were unyielding and the party was forced to kill them in pursuit of the nobleman.

The tower was a dull ochre color and the inside was a parade of horrors. Bodies strewn about or suspended from the ceiling, some still twitching, or sewn into new creations that writhed feebly. Ropes of intestines stretched into a diagram, blood liberally strewn everywhere, and monsters in the shapes of devils with terrible lamprey mouths. The party fought their way up the tower until the reached the top floor, where the sorcerer Sedefkar, the guise of a French nobleman, was attempting to perform a terrible ritual in front of a vast altar made of skin with still-living babbling faces strewn about its surface. The battle was terrible, and Renault and Brother David came away with serious wounds, but through coordination and their martial prowess, the knights managed to remove the sorcerer's armor and kill him. As they did, the tower's vile decorations crumbled into stinking slime, the armor pieces solidified into more of a statue, and the sorcerer hissed, "A curse on your crusade..." and then died.

The party gathered up the statue pieces and knife and rode back to the count. On the way, they saw many crusaders in shock, distraught over what they had done, and when they reached the count he was very pleased and gave them all fifty gold marks and the services of his healers, and they went to sleep. The artifacts would be turned over to Merovac for study.

In the morning, they were summoned again. The count was furious--he informed them that the leper ship had disappeared, as had Merovac, and all the guards on the ship were found dead, drained of blood. He swore that he would give the party a ship to seek out Merovac wherever he had fled, and bade them beware. If they sought to go further east, Merovac was well known and hated there, and went under a different name.

Fenalik.


Shock! Gasp! And now, some of why I was using [REDACTED] earlier is revealed.

mutantur did the best he could, but I thought this was a very badly designed scenario. It was basically a playable cutscene with a pre-determined ending, so whenever we ran into a situation where there was one way to proceed but we had to roll dice to accomplish that task, he was forced into increasingly-ridiculous explanations of how we succeeded or just having us win by fiat. Which is fine with me, because if the way to finish the scenario is a lot of single-roll fail points, it's a bad scenario. If there's no option but to do X, then X should just happen.

That bit above, Renault failed to heal Brother David and mutantur had it succeed anyway because there wasn't any other choice. That was where I lost interest in how the scenario turned out, really. I made a joke that as the professor was reading it, he said, "I think there's something missing here, the account just skips ahead and the knight and monk are healed somehow."

I also didn't really like Sedefkar. This is the feared sorcerer, infamous in history, and his tower was basically Spatterpunk Blood Feast, which sounds like an amazing metal album but isn't a great way to show Sedefkar as some kind of cosmic threat. He's just a magic serial killer, which is one of my least favorite fiction archetypes. Well, at least he's dead now after our quicktime-based cutscene. We mashed X + Y like a pro.