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Chaosium Digest Volume 32 Number 03
Chaosium Digest Volume 32, Number 3
Date: Saturday July 15, 2000
Number: 1 of 2
Contents:
* 'The Whippoorwill House Affair' Chapter Two (CTHULHU)
by Michael Blenkarn (blen@onyxnet.co.uk)
and Brooke Johnson (z_signal@hotmail.com)
* Solomon Bites the Worm (CTHULHU NOW)
by James White (boerjim@hotmail.com)
* A Damsel in Distress (PENDRAGON)
by Raymond McCann
Editor's Note:
"The Whippoorwill House Affair" continues this issue with the warning that it is
not for the squeamish. "Solomon Bites the Worm" is a modern day Call of Cthulhu
adventure of Faustian theme. Lastly "A Damsel in Distress" is an encounter for
Pendragon knights of the most classic kind.
I still haven't heard the identity of the winner of last quarter's Chaosium
Contest or what the next prize offered will be but I'll let you know as soon as
I hear anything.
Finally, aside from the usual announcements, I've received a letter from a
subscriber seeking a specific article. I believe that it's one from before my
term as Editor, so if any of our readers could assist him, I'd appreciate it
greatly.
That's it for now. Enjoy!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
* Fellow Gaming Enthusiasts,
We'd like YOU, your friends, and your family to attend ConQuest 2000, Northern
California's premier game convention for the Labor Day Weekend.
The ConQuest Game Convention is dedicated to presenting an enjoyable and
exciting gaming experience to the thousands of game lovers of all ages living
throughout Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. This year,
ConQuest 2000 will feature many different kinds of games, including
miniatures games, role playing games (RPGs), board games(including many of the
standard combat oriented games), collectible card games (CCGs), and live action
role playing games (LARPs). We welcome all gamers and their families to
participate in this wonderful weekend experience.
Come to our ConQuest 2000 website at http://www.con-quest.com to learn
everything about ConQuest 2000 and the ConQuest convention experience. From
there you can register to attend the convention
http://www.con-quest.com/site/conventi.htm, sign up to be a Game Master
http://www.con-quest.com/site/game_reg.htm ), and discover the many events we're
planning to sponsor this year. If you have any questions about ConQuest 2000,
please feel free to email directly at information@con-quest.com . You can also
contact us at our website using the feedback page at
http://www.con-quest.com/site/feedback.htm.
ConQuest 2000 will run nonstop the entire 2000 Labor Day Weekend, beginning
Friday, September 1st at 2:00 PM and ending Monday afternoon, September 4th at
5:00 PM. ConQuest 2000 is being held at the Clarion Hotel on 401 E. Milbrae
Avenue in Milbrae, California, south the Hwy 101-380 interchange
near the San Francisco Airport. Don't forget to make reservations early at the
Clarion Hotel. Special room rates for ConQuest attendees are available. To make
reservations, please call the Clarion at (650) 692-6363 and tell them you want
the special ConQuest Game Convention room rate!
Here's what ConQuest 200 has to offer you:
Games, games, and more games. An astounding variety of games and events, from
traditional favorites to the new gaming systems you've read about in the
fanzines!
No fees for regular games and events with a Paid Convention registration!
* Special games for beginning miniaturists, board, collectable card,
and role players!
* The RPGA Network is hosting a wide variety of RPGA tournaments.
* Computer games.
* ConQuest's famous flea market.
* Seminars and demonstration games will be presented by
the gaming industry leaders.
* The dazzling Dealer's Room, hosting some of the best game stores
and manufacturers in the industry!
Last year, over 900 people attended ConQuest over the 1999 Labor Day weekend.
We had 65 miniature, 89 role playing, 50 board, 28 collectable card, 13 live
action role playing as registered games. That does not include open gaming and
the wonderful selection of seminars and demonstration games. From all reports,
everyone had a lot of fun and played a lot of games.
Are you a gaming enthusiast? Come to ConQuest 2000 to have a good time, bring
all your fellow gaming friends to support the ConQuest 2000 experience, and meet
new and old friends and fellow gamers. Register now to attend ConQuest 2000 at
http://www.con-quest.com/site/conventi.htm .
Are you a Game Master? Our goal here at ConQuest 2000 is to create a venue where
talented Game Masters like you can come together and share your talent and
creativity to create an enjoyable and exciting gaming experience for the many
gaming enthusiasts who plan attend ConQuest 2000. Register your event now using
our simple online Game Master Registration Form at
http://www.con-quest.com/site/game_reg.htm . ConQuest staff will contact you to
schedule your event at a time and place convenient for you and your players.
Remember, we need your enthusiastic support and attendance to keep the gaming
convention experience alive and well in Northern California. Please consider
ConQuest 2000 to be your Labor Day vacation this year. We'd love to have you
attend this year.
Signed
The Staff at ConQuest 2000
West Coast Convention Services (WCCS) 467 Saratoga Ave. Suite 1422, San Jose, CA
95129
email: info@con-quest.com website: http://www.con-quest.com
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Hi, I know this is probably a very annoying and maybe even an impossible
request, but I am in a state of great agitation over the matter. I recall
reading a Call of Cthulhu adventure involving the deity Daoloth,
and its manifestation in a house the investigators had inherited. This adventure
was very well put together, and I was quite impressed, enough so as to decide to
begin a new campaign with it. However, now I can't find it. It could be in any
of your issues, but I really don't know which one. I know its probably extremely
unlikely, but if you can remember such an adventure, and its respective issue, I
would be extremely grateful for a copy.
Thank you very much.
Regards,
lessthan_n@hotmail.com
(As I notified the author of the above letter, I have no memory of this article
nor can I find it among those issues that have been under my term as Editor of
the Digest. If any of you readers have memory of this article and can provide
either an issue and date or a copy of the article, please contact either myself
or lessthan_n@hotmail.com with that information. Thanks!)
UPCOMING RELEASES (CHAOSIUM)
JULY
>The Yellow Sign & Other Tales
THE COMPLETE WEIRD FICTION OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
6023 $19.95 ISBN 1-56882-126-3
by Robert W. Chambers
http://www.chaosium.com/cthulhu/fiction/6023.shtml
This massive collection brings together, for the first time ever and with much
of the material unprinted since the 1890's, the entire body of Robert W.
Chambers' weird fiction work. Chambers is considered a
landmark author in the horror field for his _King in Yellow_ collection, but
that is just a small part of his weird fiction output. The Yellow Sign & Other
Stories brings together tales from five different Chambers collections, and also
includes the novel _In Search of the Unknown_ and an excerpt from the novel _The
Tracer of Lost Persons_. These stories are also connected to the Cthulhu mythos,
for they introduce concepts such as Hali, Hastur, and Carcosa. Selected and
edited by S.T. Joshi.
------------------------
James' Aspera's
"THE WHIPPOORWILL HOUSE AFFAIR"
Chapter two
Michael Blenkarn & Brooke Johnson
"For everything around me that I experience is cold and dead, the blood of
others is of a colder substance and taste. Therefore I must spill and serve the
blood that in me runs vibrant. In the frost of the dying minds of western
society, I recreate!"
Mayhem 2000.
Swindell's hands noticeably shook as he aimed his inadequate pistol. Beads of
glistening sweat were forming on his forehead, his face horribly contorted by a
mixture of fear and loathing. I can't claim that I was in a better condition as
I beheld what had awaited us. Stars were pinwheeling in my head, fogging my
mind, arcing through my coherent thoughts and lacerating them with slivers of
pure insanity. Suddenly faced with an unshakeable fear that I hadn't known for
years and which had only barely flickered at my own writings, I felt laid bare
beneath an inhuman scrutiny which I couldn't conceive of
what I'd done to warrant. The first thing that really reached my fear addled
brain was the fragments of cloth hanging from the obscenity before us and I once
more vomited, little more than pure bile, as I realized what was taking place.
The tatters of clothing flapping ineffectually in a non existent breeze were
most definitely that of a young girl, but, what floundered upon the floor was no
longer the slightest bit human, save it's eyes which bore the glint of insanity
and terror beyond recognition. Slowly it flubbed its way to one of the large
windows by the door and hurled its self through, we though we heard crying and
the sound of rustling shrubbery then, silence weighted like lead settled upon
the lonely hallway.
I let out my breath explosively. My mouth had the awful acidic taste of stomach
fluids and my throat ached painfully. Swindell had eschewed the liquid outburst
that had marked my instinctual, involuntary reaction, but he looked as if he was
restraining himself with difficulty. His eyes were bulging with a look of
strange incomprehension, as of someone forcefully yanked from a flimsy universe
of naiveté to deal with the trials and tribulations of a much less forgiving
world. More colloquially, he looked as if someone had poured a bucket of
freezing water over him without the slightest bit of warning, wracking his spine
with involuntary shivering. I felt a brief pang of sympathy, but as usual my own
rather pathetic vomit stained condition made me dive headlong into the heaving
seas of self-pity. Disgusted, I tore my jacket off and threw it ineffectually
against the pristinely furnished wall. I cast my eyes disconsolately around to
try and find an adequate replacement.
It was then I noticed the coat stand and its one lonely occupant, which appeared
to be an oily and dirty rain mack unfortunately similar to that which my
acquaintance wore, but nevertheless I hurriedly picked it up. I instantaneously
dropped it as I realized what it was actually made of, suffice it to say, a most
unusual 'leather' indeed. As it hit the floor something in the pocket clanked.
Swindell stooped and picked the contents out of the morbid vestment, which
turned out to be a key. The key was ten centimetres long and along the shaft was
engraved the word "Mordiggian". Lying dejectedly beside it was a crumpled piece
of paper.
Feeling more than a little repulsed I tentatively fingered the strange coat
again. The material felt just as familiar which heightened my repulsion. With a
disgusted exclamation I dropped it back to the floor and embraced the endeavour
of going without a coat for a little while yet. The idea seemed unusually
welcoming. I tucked a loose hair behind my ear which had become temporarily
liberated from my ponytail and straightened my collar in a futile and
meaningless attempt to appear presentable. I shivered then, anew, as the image
of the obscenity which had so recently crossed our paths, and the foul wave of
loathsome stench that it had washed over us in the wind of its passage. Sourly
and despondently I wondered if our fate would be similar to that of the young
girl. I searched for sympathy but it had been drowned in revulsion. My mind was
occupied with oscillating stars pulsing with mechanical precision. They arced
across my recollections again and for a moment a brief hallucinatory glimpse of
pyramids gliding relentlessly across that same maleficent night-sky, searching
for something unnamable.
Suddenly jittered I was aware that I was being engaged in conversation by
Swindell, who was urgently elucidating me with some inconsistent conspiracy
theories. I listened out of want of something better to do. Words fluttered
across my cognizance, disparate and convoluted, about haunting and supernatural
activity. I dismissed them summarily and allowed my own mind to ponder the
situation. I had to confess that I had encountered nothing like this even in the
fields of horror fiction, which seemed to be developing more into overwrought
paeans to human adversity and socio-political wrangling than the truly
horrific. I had been disillusioned, searching impotently for the spark of utter
horror and sinister supernature that had eluded my own derivative writings as
much as any other fledgling horror author. I felt the signature of such a primal
horror now, and excitement tinged my fear with thoughts of the possibilities of
the situation.
I seceded back into reality through a change in stimulus as I noticed that
Swindell was excitedly proffering the crumpled paper to me.
"I really do not like this, Aspera. This spells out trouble."
"I'll be the judge of that," I said with deliberate condescension, "and you can
be the judge of any liaisons we have with vegetables. I'm sure you'd be
gratified by talking to something with a comparable IQ."
Swindell's brow furrowed with annoyance and I sensed a diatribe being aimed.
"Just be quiet, Matthew," I said with exaggerated pronunciation, "and let me
examine this. If it will help us get out of each others' company and back into a
sane world of sanity, where I might procure a decent cup of coffee, then I will
do anything for its furtherance."
I sourly smoothed the paper out and analyzed its content. It looked like little
more than a classically thematic occult symbol, a slight derivative of the
standard pentacle formation. It felt different though, radiant with an inner
power and suffused with malevolence not normally encountered. Gingerly I traced
the edges with my finger and felt a tingle of indecipherable energy filtering
into me. Now that I looked from certain angles I perceived machine-like
connotations and elements of circuitry etched in a filigree of light and shade
etched not in ink but seemingly by clever manipulation of the very molecules of
the paper. Suddenly I was frightened anew, and tore the pentacle in half
involuntarily. A strange shivering ran through me, an echo of barely tangible
substance sinuously pirouetted from the crumbled fragments like colourless
smoke. I felt more than heard the merest suggestion of an electronic pulse, and
then everything was silent.
Swindell was looking wild-eyed, obviously baffled at my sudden acerbic outburst.
Then an over-emphasized, hammed up look of enlightenment dawned on his face and
he nodded a supposedly deep and meaningful nod. Then a brief flicker of
puzzlement crossed his countenance and I knew for certain that the understanding
was fraudulent. Then he motioned to me with a wave of one hand to follow. I
considered momentarily going in a contrary direction, but then the image of the
just-witnessed monstrosity flitted across my recollection, as well as the
remembrance that Swindell was equipped with a greater proficiency with firearms.
My quick walk across the wide hall was not hesitant.
Swindell was meticulously examining the alcove at the far end of the hall as I
approached, and where that hideous thing had so recently slithered from. Stairs,
dark and hung with an unwelcoming veil of shadows led to a large and funereally
adorned door, its embellishments mere suggestions of lighter patches in the
darkness. The faintest etching of words could be made out cut into the
splintered wood in spidery handwriting. Swindell was busy examining a much less
forbidding, ground floor door. Silently he pointed at small but insistent
looking slashes into the woodwork, from what unknowable creature I hesitate to
speculate on. A chilliness and unease was settling over me, and from beyond the
door I felt something inscrutable, some presence which infected me with a
nauseating swirl within my stomach. With artlessly raised eyebrows Swindell
looked at me with an overly companionable look of understanding which made me
want to maliciously poke him in the eyes with two forked fingers. Muttering with
irritated tones under my breath about this unfortunate partnership I motioned
for him to enter the room. I could visualize myself becoming increasingly irate
with Matt Swindell.
It was at this point that I noticed another door opposite the gaming room and my
legs decided on behalf of my brain that this should be investigated before the
room in front of us. Evidently Swindell agreed by following in my hollow
sounding steps as I made my way to the door. I couldn't describe quite how it
had evaded my examination before, and why it had suddenly captivated my
attention. It was as if something had been deliberately manipulating my
awareness, deluding my perception of significance and clouding my reasoning. For
whatever reason, the door had been imposed on my cognizance and I was being
inexorably drawn towards it. Swindell noted my rapt attention with something
approaching bemusement and unease.
We were not greeted by a sight of macabre horror as we half expected but instead
our eyes were met with pleasant décor, an expensively furnished living room
complete with the single largest home entertainment system either of us had ever
seen. On small pedestals, ashtrays gleamed dimly. Again this seemed a blatant
facade over reality. The mantle piece was adorned with religious artifacts that
didn't look quite right some how. Something ungainly thudded on the opposite
side of the room, we spun, and I screamed, inappropriately as it turned out. My
nerves were becoming lacerated. A book had fallen from a rather large bookcase,
ordinarily nothing warranting such a reaction, but under the circumstances it
seemed to suggest conspiratorial manipulation of the highest order, somehow. I'm
sure Swindell saw it like that too, if for different reasons. I crossed the room
and stared wide eyed at the volumes present, the titles I'm sure won't need
mentioning to anyone familiar with occultism. However, the offending book was
completely unknown to me yet at the same time a bit to familiar. It's title was
the "Liber Maleficia", and from the brief glance it appeared to be what could be
summed up as a "satanic bible". I put the book back vowing to return to this
repository of arcane knowledge and mercilessly plunder it for my own collection.
Despite everything part of me was still a literary vulture taking notes and
circling for profitable scavenging.
Matt's whimpering was what brought me drunkenly back to my senses. Despite his
amateur dramatics, he had seemed stoical in the face of horrific aberrations and
staunchly moralistic, and to hear him reduced to childlike fear unnerved me
considerably. Slowly and hesitantly I turned to see what vision of abhorrence
would greet me.
The T.V. had erupted into life. The room was bathed in a cold blue static glow
as the picture, slow to emerge, coalesced out of the deadening reception to form
ghostlike images which expanded in cohesion and dimension, hypnotically sinuous
and somehow possessive of an evil grace, like images formed by curling wisps of
incense. Then, the imagery seemed to distort horribly, and a wave of grotesque
imagery and garbled, hideous sounds began to filter through the towering and
hitherto silent speakers. The images escalated in speed and horror and suddenly
everything was cohesive, and horribly clear.
People where running screaming, blood, a city laid to waste, decimated. The sky
was burning red, a tri-lobed sun that blinked, electric stars, machines in the
sky, pulse fear. Words REPENT, PAIN ETERNAL, MECHANIKANNA. Every where daubed in
blood was the same machinated symbol as before, the circuit pentagram,
everywhere glittering horribly in the baleful ember light. The stimulation of
it, the welter of images and sounds blackening my perception and sending my
sanity to wheel incessantly in the same mindless dance of the darkened stars
above, my lungs opened again involuntarily and I was beyond the power to stop
them! I turned screaming and looked on in horror as Christ, leering inhumanly,
ripped himself from the crucifix above the fire, tearing suddenly living flesh
from its miniscule, grasping hands and feet. With insectile precision and
chittering pleasure it disemboweled itself and then with sickening, wet sounds
removed its eyes, rivulets of blood coursing down its tiny, gaunt cheeks, and
holding them out it spoke in the voice of no savior that I have ever known.
"Liberate te ex infernis!", deep, guttural hypnotic tones overlaid with the most
hair-raising insectile stridulation that I have ever heard in my existence.
Blood spurted in a warm and sticky jet from the messiah's mouth and spattered
onto the horrified face of Swindell. That was enough for him. Shrieking
profanities, he drew his gun and with a practiced flick of a wrist which was
evidently controlled by instinct and not his bewildered and fear-maddened brain,
fired. A deafening crack of metal, a gout of smoke, and then a white-hot metal
projectile hammered into the giggling prophet of Christianity.
Instantaneously, with the tearing wail of tortured metal, the ashtrays blew off
their ornate pedestals. Where they had been, distorted Giger-esque mouths
vomited forth fountains, cascades of blood which drenched the ceiling, spattered
the books, and peppered our screaming forms with coppery spots.
Then, for the merest fragment of a second, the machinated pentagram dominated
the TV screen, bulging out, stretching the plastic and melting through, and then
the true deafening explosion occurred, and the universe turned black.
It was unwilling eyes that opened minutes or eternities later. Spattered with
dried blood, cut with shards of the exploding screen, eyes wide with still-felt
horror and incomprehension of absolute silence, I and Swindell re-entered the
waking world. Oppressive and mocking, the silence imposed pressure upon our
exhausted frames as we staggered our way to our feet, brushing dust and
fragmented pieces of television from our tattered clothing. We had not been
engaged by death as perhaps we secretly hoped. Our enmities were forgotten as we
attempted to collect our scattered thoughts.
It was Swindell who first noticed the mirror. His hands shaking, he tentatively
reached to lift it from the wreckage of the entertainment system. Alarmingly
that was only alteration to the room since our initial arrival; the smoldering
remains of the T.V. Everything else was as it was before. I wanted to scream but
my sore throat made me compromise with pitiful groans. Attempting to stand,
before my mind realized I already was, my legs protested and I promptly found
myself horizontal. Swindell muttered something derogatory. My eyes instinctively
glanced towards the crucifix on the mantelpiece. It was
totally intact. And also as a cursory note, I might add, it had been inverted. I
sighed despondently at the predictability of such a religious statement.
Swindell had been preoccupied. I looked at him disinterestedly, as he stared,
inanimate and frozen, into the mirror. Idly I picked up a newspaper that had
been lying on one of the chairs and inadvertently tossed it at him, lamely. It
seemed to break his hypnosis and he flinched, wrenching his eyes away from the
mirror, which he still tightly grasped in stiffened fingers.
Again the infuriatingly familiar two syllables that he was inordinately fond of
passed his lips. My eyes were rolling with irritation before I could deliver
contrary instructions. Wordlessly, though with a slight grunt of annoyance, he
offered the mirror to me. I prepared a comment about the triteness of his
mannerisms, but my mouth went instantly dry as I glanced, and then stared, at my
reflection in small mirror.
It was and wasn't me. My countenance, my facial structure and superficial
mannerisms were present and correct, but a sadistic cruelty curved the lips, an
unnatural paleness suffused my skin, giving it a jaundiced pallor. A thin,
trailing scar decorated my right cheek and it was countered on the other side by
a graceful but perverse tattoo, incredibly intricate and dark. Facial piercings
decorated both my eyebrows and my septum, and a small, glinting metal spike
emerged from beneath my lower lip. But the main difference were my eyes. The
didn't just glimmer with malice, they burned, with a derisory, mocking and
arrogant malevolence reflecting aeons of inflicting pain on others and aeons to
come. Mind reeling, I handed the mirror back to Swindell. I didn't ask what he
had seen in there, and he didn't appear willing to elucidate me further.
There was noise from behind the wall in what would most likely be the room we
had deferred entering previously. It was not a noise that invited visions of
wholesome family life, but of death by strangulation while being submerged in
boiling oil, overlaid with a perverse gurgling laugh that chilled me. Instantly
I clung to the formidable gun which I had seemingly forgotten about as to a
long-lost sibling. The sounds escalated in a ravenous crescendo and then faded
into a constant undercurrent of suppurating wetness
communicated through sound. Swindell, full of professional enthusiasm, and his
temporary lapse into fear forgotten, bolted with gun brandished in a hand eager
for catharsis. With a cacophonous and jarring slam of the door burst through the
doors into the hall, making far too much noise for a supposed private
investigator.
That damn idiot!
I sighed, and awaited the execution that must logically follow such a rash move
in such a distinctly evil environment. Another door banged, with a melodramatic
sound of someone presenting the moral argument by noise. I could practically
hear the gears of opinionated stubbornness working into a frenzy in his head.
Then, from beyond the wall erupted an especially loud rendition of his
catch-phrase and, rather alarmingly the smell of sewage suddenly hijacked my
nostrils. It was his scream that jarred me into movement, my gun hugged tightly
to my chest. Bracing myself for a shock and chastising myself for the foolish
'bravery' of the action which was so uncharacteristic of me, went to Swindell's
aid.
(cont.)
--
