Category: RPG

Manitou

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Synopsis

When Mr. Armitage unexpectedly shows up wounded at Dr. Nannetti’s house carrying a newspaper clipping of an accidental shooting at a ranch in Oswego County, NY, he manages to convince the investigators that a pack of werewolves are causing trouble in the little rancher community of Redfield. Frequent disappearances and even more frequent cattle mutilations have caused a lot of tension between ranchers but also between the ranchers and the nearby Mohawk and Iroquois reservation.

The investigators decide to stage a small expedition to Redfield and investigate. After two days of hard driving they finally arrive and find the small community to be friendly and open. When the following day Mr. Simons’ dog Barry is brutally murdered, things take a turn for the worse.

Visiting with Mr. McClain and his son on their ranch, they are invited to spend the night. They accept and are treated to a delicious meal and interesting conversation. At night, the ranch is attacked by two man/wolf hybrids, one of which the investigators manage to kill, but not without Mr. McClain getting lost in the fight and the next day being found decapitated some distance from the ranch.

When the sheriff is called in he treats the investigators as suspects and interrogates them seperately. He concludes that their story doesn’t add up and when Sir O’Reilly gets lippy, he locks him away in the local jail. The sheriff then takes Mr. McClain’s son and heads out to the ranch to do some more research in what happens.

When the investigators are later warned that Mr. McClain’s son is dead, they suspect the sheriff of being dirty and they free Sir O’Reilly from the jail and head out to the ranch only to find the corpse of Mr. McClain’s son and the sheriff inside the ranch shooting at them. They return fire and manage to take the ranch only to be beset by more werewolves at nightfall.

The investigators survive the night, but not without taking heavy damage. They don’t trust anyone in Redfield and decide to grab their things and return to Arkham. Mr. Armitage, not keen on giving up, especially when everyone agrees they haven’t gotten to the bottom of things, decides to stay behind and try to finish up what they started, but the rest is ready to throw in the towel and head home.

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Prison of Darkness

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Synopsis

The Nameless, a loose-knit group of vigilantes who fight the evil forces of the occult, have come in the posession of an old painting by Bohemian warlock Pavel Dvorak who was burned at the stake for witchcraft in 1476. They, through a series of intermediaries, trying to remain anonymous, ask Mr. Simons to verify the authenticity of the painting. Sir O’Reilly and Mr. Mason, each through different channels and for different reasons, come to the aid to Mr. Simons’ attempt.

Quickly, it turns out the painting has a very storied past and that a person is locked inside of it, only becoming visible at roughly 10pm each evening, showing more and more of himself. It turns out to be late Mr. Armitage, a erstwhile companion of Sir O’Reilly who died when banishing a malevolent spirit from a farmhouse in a village outside of Arkham.

Doing their research, the investigators find a way to ressurrect Mr. Armitage, which was The Nameless’ reason for giving them the painting all along. They manage to perform the ritual and ressurrect Mr. Armitage, only for him to disappear without a trace the following day.

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The Dark Brotherhood

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Synopsis

Rupert Merriweather, a notable resident of Arkham, while on his deathbed, confesses a dark secret to Dr. Carly Nannetti; while at college, he and several of his fellow students, dabbled in the occult and tried summoning a spirit. Eventually they succeeded, but not without paying a price; one dead and one permanently institutionalised. They bound the summoned spirit to a farmhouse in the little town of Ross’ Corners, close to Arkham, but when the last of their group dies, the spirit will be freed from the binding. Mr. Merriweather begs Dr. Nannetti to do something, and she reluctantly agrees.

Dr. Nannetti manage to convince Sir Kevin O’Reilly, Mr. Darren Cobwell and Mr. Jake Armitage to take up the charge of banishing the spirit. After doing research into the brotherhood Mr. Merriweather belonged to and studying the material he used in the summoning ritual, they realise that this case might have close ties to the previous case they worked on, the haunted house on French Hill Street and the Chapel of Contemplation on Brown Street.

Shortly after, Mr. Merriweather passes away.

While investigating the abandoned farmhouse in Ross’ Corners, they find more evidence of the occult goings-on of the dark brotherhood and eventually are witness to a malicious evil residing in the attic of the small house. When Mr. Armitage goes to check out the attic, he is promptly decapitated by a vicious attack.

A man introducing himself as Jonathan Arlington and offers to help, claiming to have been an associate of Mr. Armitage. Not in a position to turn down the offer of help, the investigators accept. In one horror-filled night they manage to face the spirit and some of its undead minions and banish the spirit from this realm. As with the dark brotherhood, the ritual came with a price; an investigator decapitated, a contact at the library murdered for offering his help and the mental decline of another investigator.

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The Haunted House

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Synopsis

In mid December of 1920, Dr. Doyle, a history professor at Miskatonic University was asked by Mr. John Lawyer to do some research into a house on French Hill Street in Arkham. The owner of the house, Mr. William Layten of Arkham, had a hard time renting the property after tenacious reports of paranormal activity. Mr. Lawyer had spent some time investigating the property himself, but hadn’t come up with any evidence of any strange goings-on and wanted some respected names of the university to back up the claims that it was fit for habitation.

Mr. Doyle assembled a small group of notable people from around Arkham and went to investigate. The group consisted of John H. Mason, award-winning and best-selling novelist, Sir Kevin O’Reilly, British national and historian at the Miskatonic University, Dr. Carly Nanetti, medical doctor at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Arkham and Darren Cobwell, Arkham private detective.

After a thorough investigation into the history of the house, its owner and the previous tenants, the investigators decide to spend the night. During the night, they are witness to many strange, threatening and macabre things they cannot explain and eventually find the tomb of one of the previous tenants, Mr. Walter Corbitt sealed away in a hidden part of the basement. Upon disturbing Mr. Corbitt, he starts to stir and attacks the investigators. Nothing seems to work and they are forced to flee the house and allow Mr. Corbitt’s to escape into the streets.

Later, they manage to track the reanimated corpse of Mr. Corbitt back to an abandoned church. Against the protest of many of the people in the neighborhood around the church, the investigators enter the old building and several bizarre and curious objects and strange tomes of ancient knowledge. At the same time, they find the undead body of Mr. Corbitt, with which they once again do battle.

During the fight with Mr. Corbitt several are injured and Dr. Doyle is killed. A man by the name of Jake Armitage, roused by the disturbance in the church, comes to the aid of the investigators and fights along-side them. The church is partially destroyed by fire resulting from the battle against Mr. Corbitt. The fate of Mr. Corbitt’s undead body still remains unclear, but the investigators reasonably assume the body was destroyed in the raging fire.

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Castle Bloodstone

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9th day, 2nd ride, April, 1372 DR

We woke up in the Crippled Griffon inn in the quaint village of Cold Springs to the sight of a thick blanket of snow on the ground. While this is quite normal for Damara, it was quite shocking for most others.

Roland and I were the first ones downstairs. The innkeeper only had oatmeal for us to eat, but we convinced him to let Roland cook our own breakfast, paying him a silver piece for the use of his kitchen and the ingredients. Roland made the most delicious sweet toast I have ever tasted. Roland convinced Ebon his share of the costs for the food was one silver piece, which he later gave to me. “Hoar be praised!” Thieving the thief! Ha!

While riding towards Bloodstone, Roland startled me with his sudden magical attack on a deer. We’re well stocked now, but the shock knocked ten years off my life!

When we arrived at Bloodstone, we found a ruin of a large, four-tower fortress. We also noticed that the tracks of wildlife had diminished considerably. The towers were mostly collapsed, but we could make out that they had stairs going down into the hill underneath the keep. A sudden pressing feeling descended upon all of us when we approached the inner keep. It was obvious that this ground was descecrated somehow, which filled me with a sense of dread and foreboding. It reminded me of Vaasa and I was immediately assailed by the feeling of death and dying at the whim of that winged beast. I lost my breakfast.

We had no luck finding an entrance down in the keep, but we found a cave behind the keep, about fifty paces away. We explored it and found it lead to an entrance to the basement of Bloodstone. Inside we found several revenants, which put up quite a fight and scared some of us half to death, literally. I started to regain my confidence and was reminded of why I was still here; I have lived through this and managed to make it to this point. I have more experience now than I did then, and I have Abaddon to protect me and help me endure. There is no reason why twentyfive years of living and fighting in Damara and Vaasa wouldn’t undo me and an incursion into an old keep would.

Finding several magical items that the others immediately pilfered, I was once again reminded of Dialan’s tomb. I can’t help but think we should let these items rest, but the others were eager to take them along. Magical items are rare, but there’s always a story behind as to why you find them in the basement of a haunted keep and it’s hardly ever a pleasant one.

We found a ritual chamber with a sacraficial altar in the middle of a semi-circle of fifteen ornate wooden thrones. One for every vampire lord. Iron sigils were embedded into the wood and we decided to pry loose three of them and take them along. We had to go back inside to gether another one when the first one crumbled in the sunlight when we emerged, so we wrapped the others in cloth.

We rode back to Cold Springs and took loggings at the Crippled Griffon, where I’m now writing this while sipping a cup of warm honeybrew mead. Tomorrow we ride back to Dagger Falls.