The Mists of the Aeons

The Curse of the Idol

a scenario for Call of Cthulhu by Christian Conkle
e-mail: conkle@mecha.com
http://www.mecha.com/~conkle

time: January, 1920 place: Miskatonic University

Scenario: The museum receives a gift of an ancient Egyptian snake-idol from an anonymous benefactor. The idol attracts the popular attention of the townsfolk, giddy from the recent discoveries in Egypt. Soon, mysterious deaths and nightmares beset the t own. A connection is drawn between the maladies and the arrival of the statue and a noted scholar and Egyptologist from Nuremburg, Freidrich Hamm.

Can the mystery be uncovered and the truth revealed about the visiting scholar despite a skeptical and enamoured townsfolk and faculty? Can Arkham be saved from The Curse of the Idol?

Event 1: The Idol. The Miskatonic University Library receives a stone idol in a package postmarked Cairo, Egypt. The idol is of Set, the Egyptian god of serpents. Upon inspection the idol appears to be millenia old and is of great value. The faculty i s consulted and it is decided to place the artifact on display in the library. The announcement is made in the local paper and soon people from around the area are coming to view the gift. (Keeper's note: try to have the investigators be somehow associat ed with M.U. Try having the idol sent to one of the investigators if they are a faculty member or staff. Also have any expert investigators consulted on the artifact.)

Event2: The First Sign. Coincidently, within a few days, mysterious deaths beset the town of Arkham. The first is discovered when the remains of a townsperson is found by the river, horribly crushed and mangled by some powerful force. The next occurs w hen a child is bitten by a poisonous snake and dies en route to the hospital. The third victim is a farmer found clawed to death in his barn, his pitchfork nearby. (Keeper's note: try to include the investigators in as many of these occurences as possibl e, either by having them find the mutilated body of the first victim on the riverbank, being a witness to the second, or being called in as consultants by the police on the third.)

Event 3: The Professor. A Scholar visits from Nuremburg, Germany. His name is Prof. Freidrich Hamm. He is an archeaologist of some note and wishes to view the Miskatonic Library. His digs have included the Secret Temples of Tunisia, the city of Kadesh in Persia, and the lost grave of Aken-Aten in Egypt. He will request to have access to the Library vaults so that he might research his finds. His academic credentials are outstanding and the library aquiesces. Further inquiries or interviews reveal t hat Dr. Hamm to be downright racist and hostile to Americans. He wishes only to view the resources, not to make friends.

Event 4: The Attack. A student on campus is attacked by what witnesses claim to be a large snake. When approached, the snake quickly rose up on two legs and appeared to skitter down College street into Hangman's Slough and was lost. Police, skeptical o f the bizarre account, believe it to have been a trick of the light and are currently looking for a man of slight build, perhaps a transient living near the railroad tracks. Careful analysis of the crime scene will reveal several clawed footprints. It i s raining, however, and the prints soon turn to mud.

Event 5: The Purchase. Dr. Hamm purchases a cottage in the woods so that he might stay and continue his studies into Prof. Armitage's collection. Oddly, he has no possessions shipped in from Germany. His solitary studies continue.

Event 6: The Janitor. The school janitor reports finding a sliter of snakes in the sub- basement. Upon returning with help, they are gone.

Event 7: The Townsfolk. The artifacts is beginning to draw large crowds of townsfolk. The recent wave of national Egyptmania has not left Arkham untouched. All of the attention forces the library to place a guard on the idol and rope it off.

Event 8: The Nightmares. Everyone who has seen the idol soon begins to have horrible nightmares regarding serpents. The dreams usually revolve around one of the following themes (Keeper's note: It is usually best to isolate each player while describing their dream. It adds to the mystery of the game and keeps them all guessing.):

A lewd dream regarding a sexual encounter with a large serpent (1/1d4 SAN loss)
Being eaten alive by a liarge serpent (1/1d4 SAN loss)
Becoming a serpent (1/1d4 SAN loss)
Taking a bath in a tub full of writhing serpents (1/1d4 SAN loss)
Drowing in a river of serpents (1/1d4 SAN loss)

Event 9: The Students. Students begin missing class. The school doctor receives an unusually hight number of headaches and periods of nausea.

Event 10: The Nightmares II. The nightmares return. This time, however, they are less esoteric and more lucid. The investigators dream of being a half-man/half-serpent living in a tropical land with cities of black basalt. There is an otherworldly asp ect to this land. The vegetation and animals suggest the middle Pleistocene epoch. Before the coming of modern man. There are other serpent people here, a thriving civilation. Although the serpent people speak an unpronouceable language of hisses and clicks, the investigators will understand it perfectly. The serpent people are a race of sorcerors. At the center of the city is a square with a pyramidal basalt temple. The base of the pyramid is surrounded by a carpet of writhing snakes. The serpent men bow before the pyramid and begin writhing about, intertwining with the other snakes. The area around the base becomes an orgy of serpentine lust and bestiality. At the apex of the pyramid sits a large statue of a diety the dreamers recognize as Yig , father of Serpents. The Statue looks just like the idol of SET!

Event 11: The Vagrant. The police find a vagrant living near the tracks and charge him with the attack. The vagrant denies any involvement in the attack. He was near the slough the night of the attack and he testifies that he saw a snake with legs slip into the murky water. He is a drunk, however, and the police disregard his statements. The case is otherwise closed.

Event 12: The Cottage. If the investigators decide to search Hamm's cottage while he is away, they will find an empty house devoid of furniture or decoration. Empty, that is, save a pile of pillows in the middle of the floor surrounded by a white circle of chalk and some mystic runes. If anyone disturbs the pillows or the magic circle, everyone in the house suddenly grows very dizzy and begins sinking into a mass of writhing snakes (1/1d6 SAN loss). Everyone will continue sinking, feeling crushed by t he snakes (1d6 damage per round) until everyone is unconscious.

Event 13: The Awakening. Everyone who passed out wake up at the hospital. they are fine, apparently, they just passed out. They were found in the woods by a hunter. They are released (with full Hit Points). If approached, Hamm will deny any knowledge or involvement. The investigators must have been suffering from the same malady afflicting the rest of the campus. They never visited his cottage. "If du hast ein allegation, make it! Ottervise, let me alone zu do mein research! Ich veel repulsed by your decadent Amerikan inhospitality!" and either he will leave or ask the investigators to leave.

If the investigators make some sort of allegation, they should be reminded that they have no evidence and of the skepticism of the townsfolk. If they continue, Hamm will threaten legal action. If they pursue, they will lose in court (unless they make so me VERY good rolls).

Event 14: The Observation. If the investigators decide to surreptitiously observe Hamm at home, he will enter without lighting any candles or fires. Eventually, there will be a dim glow from inside the cottage. Closer inspection (spot hidden plus move s ilently checks) will reveal Hamm to be sitting in a Lotus position on the floor, candles lit around him. Suddenly, the floor becomes a mass of writhing snakes and each investigator finds that they have a python encircling them (0/1d6 SAN loss). If they kill the snakes, they may want to make a retreat. If the snake wins, they are crushed to unconsciousness and wake up in their homes (this time with the loss of Hit Points).

Event 15: The Child. A woman, previously stricken ill by the mysterious malady, gives birth to a grotesque child with dry scaly skin and a deformed head! Doctors call the disease Ichtyosis. Horribly, the child survives!

Event 16: The Followers. Hamm has gained several students as followers. He as been teaching them secrets in archeaology not taught in the formal classes. If any of the investigators teach at M.U., some of the students will querey about strange notions that contradict accepted facts. They will not reveal their source, but their association with Dr. Hamm is no big secret.

Event 17: The Rumours. The Investigators should overhear or find out through gossip that Dr. Hamm and his "students" are preparing for a trip into the woods. It is rumored that they are going on an anthropological field trip into the back-woods of Massachussets. They are going to Cheshire Peak to investigate strange standing stones found there and re- experience the way of life of the indians who erected them. The night before they leave, the statue of Set is stolen from the library. No clue can be found regarding the theft. No entry was made, no fingerprints can be found, no footprints, the guard saw no one. The police are baffled. They fear it must have been an inside job and all of the faculty are questioned the next day, except for Dr. Hamm and his students, who have already left.

Event 18: The Ritual. Dr. Hamm has hired a bus and is taking a group of 24 students to Cheshire Peak to do some łanthropoligcal work.˛ He is secretly going to use them as a part of a ceremony to summon Yig, Father of Serpents, to transform all of the students into degenerate Serpent People. He will also summon many of his Serpent Brethren via the mine in Cheshire Peak which is an exit for the extensive tunnel network that lies beneath North America. The weahter has grown dark.

The investigators must go the local town, also called Cheshire Peak, and inquire about the mountain. An old dirt road leads up to an abandoned mine, halfway up the mountain, where the bus is parked. A trail leads up the rest of the mountain (several Constitution or Climbing rolls may be made). If the Investigators reconnoiter before approaching (make a secret Hide roll and don;t tell them the results), they see the students sitting in a circle, dressed in period costume, łrecreating˛ an ancient indian ceremony. Torches line the periphery of the circle and a bonfire burns in the center, casting a flickering glow as blue lights dance among the stormy clouds above. As yet, nothing is amiss. If they try to intervene, they will be attacked from behind by eight degenerate Serpent Men. Likewise, if Hamm notices them (they failed their Hide rolls), he will motion his Serpent men to attack and continue with the ceremony (unless a Spot Hidden roll is made, the Serpent Men will have the suprise and will attack with poison bites.

As his ceremony gets underway, his chanting begins to cause the students, sitting in a circle around Hamm, to sway hypnotically. As the intensity of the chanting increases, the students fall to the ground, writing in epileptic agony. Suddenly, a lightning bolt crashed in the sky. In the flash, Hamm should be seen for his true form, that of a royal Serpent Man of Valusia!

The ceremony continues as Hamm's voice becomes one of a gutteral hissing serpent's. Lightning crashes around the mountain. The students are visibly slowly becoming Serpent folk! A glowing mist descends from the sky and forms a vortex in front of Hamm. The ground around him and surrounding the students becomes a mass of writhing snakes (0/1D6 SAN if this hasnšt happened before). Yig, Father of Serpents, is manifesting himself. Hamm's ceremony needs to last (24+POW spent) minutes. Yig's form is clearly visible and Hamm begins shouting "Yig! Yig! Ia! Ia! Yig! Yig!" in ecstacy for his god!

The investigators' obvious objective is to fight off the Serpent Men and interrupt the ceremony before Hamm succeeds. As Hamm is attacked, he turns back into his Imperial Serpent Man form! His spell is now broken. He will attack the investigators in his ture form (if he can). He has a pistol and can use it effectively as well.

Hamm must be defeated, but there is no reveral for the transformation spell cast upon the students. They are slowly changing into hideous fleshy masses. If Hamm is stopped, they will die a gurgling wet death.

Failure to defeat Hamm will result in Yig being summoned. Hamm will change back into a Serpent Man and the students will become his serpentine slaves. Great plagues of snakes will afflict the surrounding towns, driving out all of the inhabitants. A secret colony of serpent men will be formed in the tunnels of Cheshire Peak (1D8/2D6 SAN for knowing this if it comes to pass).

If Hamm is defeated, the investigators will be left with a mess: 8 dead Serpent men, 24 dead unidentifiable pulpy students, and a single dead full Serpent Man. It also starts to rain, turning the ground to deep mud and small stream to gushing torrents descending the mountain. If the investigators donšt come up with a convincing story, they will be detained for questioning regarding the disappearance of Hamm and his students, possibly even arrested for murder! (in my campaign, the PC's doused the entire camp in kerosene and set them afire. They then descended the hill, half-dead from their battle with the serpent men, and called for help, for a fire had swept the camp in the night! It was plausible enough to let them go, but there were enough holes in their story to possibly bring back the spectre of investigation later on...)

Dr. Friedrich Hamm, Noted Archeaologist/Imperial Serpent Man

Str=14 Con=8 Siz=10 Int=18 Pow=15 Dex=12 App= 8 Edu=18 San=35 HP= 9
Spells: Control Snakes, Illusion, Summon/Bind Child of Yig, Mesmerize, Summon/Bind Yig.
Carries a Revolver (30%, 1d10 damage).
In Serpent Man form he can bite at 35% and do 1D8 plus potency 8 poison, has 1 point armor, and can cause 0/1D6 San loss.
In Human form Hamm is a stout Prussian gentleman with a military hair cut and a dominating personality. He is curt and often rude to non-Germans. He is a recluse and will avoid contact with others if at all possible.

Degenerate Sepent Men

Str=3 Con=3 Siz=1 Int=5 Pow=4 Dex=4 App=1 Edu=1 Mov=8 HP=2
Damage Bonus=-1D6
Each Serpent Man can bite at 35% for 1D8 plus potency 3 poison, has 1 point armor, and causes 0/1D6 San loss.
Degenerate Serpent Men live in caverns and tunnels beneath North America and Europe. They rarely venture near the surface but can be summoned from time to time to act as servants. They are mindless creatures and perform only the most menial of tasks.