The Italian army garrison is small for what it is and mostly deserted- the day shift is out on patrol and it seems the night shift is resting when you arrive. After inquiring with the sergeant on duty about the rail lines, he shakes his head with a bemused look on his face.
"The rail? That's not the army's- useless to us. Since we found potash in less horrible places, it's been shuttered for 5, 6 years. You want to use it? Go butter up Renzo Segni, he's the man the CMC put in charge of their mothballed warehouses- him and the Egyptian."
The officer smirks, looking between Evelyn and Cora.
"Be careful, girls- Segni might want a fourth or fifth wife!", he says, before turning to Evelyn. "You might not have to worry, you're probably too pale for his liking- he's practically gone native. Your friend, though..."
The other soldiers laugh.
At the small Catholic church, one of the missionaries invites you to have lunch. Local women (not nuns, just women living in Mersa Fatma) serve you Italian fare prepared as best they can with local ingredients.
"My brothers and I arrived here in '26 back when Mersa Fatma was much more populace. When the CMC mostly withdrew in '29, it became a ghost town. We've been spreading the gospel as we can to the Afar- it is only a matter of time before they accept Christ into their hearts."
"Strange things? Well! That Renzo Segni is a godless man- he has taken three wives, living with them and his whole gang of children in the CMC offices. And we're not the only ones that don't like it- the locals and the Afar aren't very happy with that arrangement either. It's disrespectful, certainly not making it any easier for us to spread the Good Word. But he's easily the wealthiest man in Mersa Fatma, so he can do as he likes.", the middle-aged priest says, shaking his head.
I will be out of town from tomorrow (Thursday) - Sunday for the second of three weddings this year. I may be able to post if I have time, but that's the reason for the silence if I'm not.
With packs full of food, medical supplies, water purification tablets and large water skins to refill your canteens you embark on the first dhow down the coast of the Red Sea to Mersa Fatma the next morning.
Mersa Fatma is a small town on the Red Sea coast, the docks bustling with traffic from throughout the Red Sea. You see very few Europeans here, as most of the workers and dock hands are native Africans of various tribes, though there are several Italian army troops keeping an eye on the town in their wool uniforms. It's quite hot, sweat running down the back of your neck and soaking your clothes already. From what you understand, where you're headed will be extremely dry and even hotter.
The town itself feels almost empty outside of the docks, where it seems most of the people still living here work. A series of warehouses and administrative offices with signs indicating they belong to the Compagnia Mineraria Coloniale dominate the town from their position at the docks and at the end of the rail line, towering over the rest of the buildings. The CMC complex seems to be relatively new compared to the rest of the town. A small Italian army garrison and a Catholic church are the only other buildings that stand out in particular.
Asking around will be Oral History (no spend, though language barriers apply), though feel free to come up with your own plan. Your goal is to get use of the railroad from the CMC, which will take you to Iron Point and Kolluli village near the border of Ethiopia.
"I wish you luck on your journey- you've got to be mad to want to go all that way for a volcanic crater.", he says.
You beg and barter with the Italian military drivers until you finally get a ride back to Massaua from Adua. Fortunately this time the truck is empty so you can spread out a little more on the trip back. You collapse in your hotel rooms for the evening and get some rest. The night's silence is broken in the early morning by explosive concussions of gunfire- probably miles outside of the city. Memories of the Yucatán come back to you with the sound and it takes a moment to remember where you are. It's difficult to return to sleep after that.
In the morning, you have a breakfast of strong coffee, bread and fruit. No one acknowledges the fighting last night, as they're likely used to it by now.
Getting a dhow to Mersa Fatma is quite simple and doesn't require any skills or money. If you want to buy anything in particular- appropriate clothing for the desert or other supplies, Massaua is likely the most frugal and efficient spot to do so.
Sorry, posted an update awhile ago right as the website was going down again.
Acuna shakes his head.
"I've got no desire to see that crater; it's a waste of time. 2 years of my time, to be exact, not to mention the workers that died in the blast. Even though the army doesn't work on my schedule, I've got important work here and I can't just up and leave it to walk down memory lane."
"Dangers? The g&&~*@n heat for one! I'm sweating just thinking about the place!", Acuna says, though he's been sweating the whole time. "So long as you aren't in Italian military uniforms, the tribesmen will accept your money- getting a guide won't be a problem, they're all hard-up for cash. You will need a guide, believe me, if just to set the pace and make sure you don't all pass out in the heat. Traveling in a group is a good idea, bandits were active there ten years ago."
There's a loud crash from outside of the tent, accompanied by a great deal of shouting and cursing in Italian. Acuna rolls his eyes and grabs a bottle of clear liquor, choking some of it down.
"So, let's say we're interested in seeing this crater that used to be your dig site.", Freddy says. "Could you give us an idea where it is?"
"Well, if you wish to see it... it's not far from Dallol village, in the shadow of the mountain near the salt canyons. Here, I'll draw you a map."
Acuna produces a pen and draws a map on each side, indicating the route from Mersa Fatma to Dallol and the location of the dig.
"The CMC rail line takes you close, but I doubt it's still running. You may have to grease their palms a bit to get those idiots to give you a ride."
Acuna sighs.
"It would have been a major find, I tell you. But it was not to be..."
"Ayers told me he had to see the site for himself, so he went back up the railway. I never saw or heard from him again. No sense speculating what happened to him. A thousand things meant us all ill by that point. Take your pick of angry laborers, bad supplies, lava floes, the hottest place on the planet. Maybe it's a miracle we'd survived as long as we had."
"If you're trying to find him, the last people I know of to see him are the tribes who travel the area near and around Dallol village. They worked for the CMC back during the dig, hauling salt to the railhead on their camels. We usually traveled with them between the railhead and the dig, for safety and their knowledge of the desert. Some even worked for us at the site."
"Now that one- that's a long story. I had become interested in an ancient text that had been acquired by the Universidad Complutense, where I worked, the Revelations of Glaaki. It had been translated before, but I did new work on the fragments concerning an ancient deity concerned with orgiastic ritual. Those passages, properly interpreted, suggested an ancient focus of worship at what I believed was Dallol."
"Naturally, I was vindicated when we arrived and we unearthed the temple exactly where I expected we'd find it.", Acuna says with no small amount of pride, clearly pleased to have an audience.
"George Ayers sought me out after he heard of my plans while I was searching for funding for the dig. I assumed George learned about it that way, at least. In any case, he was instrumental in securing money. His friend Echavarria paid nearly the entire expedition's expenses."
"We arrived in country in June of that year, organized our supplies, hired guides and porters. We were on site at Dallol by... well, July or August. It only took us a few months to find the outer walls buried under the earth, but in the end, they were right where the Revelations said they'd be."
"The reliefs on the doors that sealed the inner complex were different from other works from the same period. They were protective, it seemed to me. Ayers arrived around that time, and he was very interested in them. He insisted that we had to send a fragment back to Echavarria in Los Angeles. We did, of course. I still have a picture of it." You have this fragment, it was stolen by Douglas Henslowe during the raid on Echavarria's farmhouse and kept with his journal back in Savannah.
"It was about that time- just at the cusp of our success- that everything slowed to a crawl. Our laborers began to have misgivings, the CMC suddenly became unreliable at relaying our supplies, bandits destroyed critical equipment. Each delay begat more. We would spend weeks, sometimes months, at a complete standstill."
You swear you barely saw him touch the bottle of wine, but now Acuna is drinking the last of it straight out of the bottle.
"Ah. That's better. It was 1926 by the time we finally managed to get inside the inner complex. From then, just a few short days to the sanctum at the center of it."
"There was... well, there was..."
"There was a mouth there. A statue of one. I mean, carved in detail like you've never seen, made of some rock we hadn't seen before, probably quarried in the brine fields before Christ, boiled off now, fallen beneath the crust." This is two years after Echavarria met his end at the hands of Walter Winston and his friends- Ayers was still here in Ethiopia on the dig.
"A giant, screaming mouth, all tongues and a dozen kinds of teeth and lips that were... well, obscene."
"I have some sketches in here somewhere... ", he mutters, digging through some papers.
"Our troubles seemed to redouble themselves. The company cut off our supplies. We were both loathe to do it, but there was no recourse other than for Ayers and I to travel back up the rail line to Mersa Fatma and talk to the pinheads ourselves."
"We heard of the eruption after having spent a completely pointless day negotiating with company men- the whole site destroyed, fallen to the bottom of a crater thirty yards across, awash in lava. Gone. Our associates dead, some of the laborers apparently blaming us for the whole fiasco, as though we could cause a volcano to erupt."
"I couldn't bring myself to even go back to the site."
[Spanish]No good news on that front, friend. But we wanted to talk with you! We heard you were involved in an expedition a few years ago and we'd love to talk to you about it!
His eyes light up seeing a bottle of wine in Cora's hand.
[Spanish]"Thank god! Another day stranded out here with nothing but military oafs while we wait for our damn supplies would have killed me! Here, open that bottle- an expedition? I've been moving from project to project here in Africa the past decade while Spain's gone mad."
Acuna's got an army tent to himself, stuffed with trunks of books. A small lantern perches on top of one such trunk. He rips the cork out of the wine bottle with his teeth.
[Spanish]No good news on that front, friend. But we wanted to talk with you! We heard you were involved in an expedition a few years ago and we'd love to talk to you about it!
You can always make a Preparedness roll to have a bottle of wine tucked away.
Heads up: I'm going to be out of town tonight-Sunday. I should have internet access, but if I'm not posting much it's because I'm relaxing someplace where it isn't an 89 degree oven of concrete and humidity.
From the smoky cafe, you run out to where the Italians are staging a supply convoy. A few minutes of rapid-fire negotiations, aided by your travel papers, nets you spots in the back of a truck full of provisions and armaments. For the next several hours, you're jostled across the countryside toward Adua where Bartolo Acuna and his escorts are encamped.
In the late afternoon, the truck comes to a stop near dozens of rows of drab brown army tents. You hustle out of the truck as green recruits start unloading the cargo with which you had spent so long growing familiar. It takes a few minutes of asking around before you find an officer that can help you find Acuna's tent. After several more minutes of stumbling through the camp, looking for the "sour Spanish academic" as the Italians call him, you locate what you presume to be Acuna's tent. After calling out to him from outside, a middle-aged Spanish guy with unkempt hair plastered to his forehead with sweat peaks out from the flaps.
[Italian]"Yes? Are we moving finally? Ugh, you're not here to tell me we're finally getting out of here, I can tell. Do you at least have something to drink?"
[Spanish]"God above, I'd kill for something that's not f!*%ing grappa..."
Freddy will approach one of the military men in a cafe and strike up a conversation (cop talk) regarding his rifle. "Those old Mannlicher-Carcano rifles used to jam all of the time back in the war, glad to see you're getting some new hardware.." As the conversations goes on.. "Hey, we're looking around for a guy named Acuna. He's a bit of a lush, but we need some info from him. We think he might have been hired on by the cultural ministry. Any idea where we might find him?"
The officer sets down his drink and pulls out a cigarette case, offering one to Freddy and his interpreter, Evelyn.
"Oh, him! Yeah, yeah, I think he went west with the 21st division to Adua. Time being, they're stuck there- some snag with the pencil pushers on the supply train, so they have to wait for it outside the city. There may be a convoy headed their way soon if you hurry."
Cora passes a 500 lire banknote to the bartender, wrapped in the cash used to pay for her drink. He smiles and nods, deftly putting the cash for her drink into the till while pocketing his cash.
"Signor Acuna was very happy to get the contract transporting the cultural ministry's spoils from Abyssinia; he told anyone and everyone within earshot about it. It was a couple weeks ago, though, and he checked out of the hotel.", the bartender says with a shrug.
"I did see him leaving Massaua with a large column of infantry men, now that you ask. You may be able to track down that unit if you need to find him."
Oral History or I'll say Cop Talk (as "Military Talk") can get information from the cultural attache in Massaua or soldiers in the area. Streetwise a few liras in the hotel bartender's pocket can also get details about Acuna's possible whereabouts. No spends necessary.
”The cultural ministry has hired him- they’ve hired most of us that aren’t natives or soldiers for our expertise, after all. He’s a drunk and a crank, but he knows Africa better than nearly anyone.”, the scholar says, loosening his collar.
”Did you say you were with a dig? You aren’t... “attached”, are you?”, Giotto says, leaning in...
The academic guy at the hotel starts hitting on Cora; she’s pretty sure he doesn’t know much else about Acuna.
In lieu of a 2 point Oral History spend, someone can spend 2 points of Flattery and 1 point of Oral History while speaking with a local academic.
If the points are spent:
At the Hotel Internazionale (the main hotel for foreigners in Massaua) you're buying drinks for a bespectacled Italian historian named Giotto who is here to catalog the army's findings. After a few glasses of overpriced red wine, you ask Giotto about the 1924 dig in Dallol spearheaded by George Ayers and Carlo Acuna.
"Acuna?", he says, "Why, the Spaniard was here at the hotel only a few days ago! No idea where the drunk ran off to, though."
You spend some time asking around about the war in Ethiopia, reading the Italian language newspaper with a critical eye and asking around town about Ayers' expedition in '24. The Italians have invaded to "reclaim" Abyssinia as part of the fascists' new Roman Empire. Ethiopian nationals are, naturally, resisting them and conscripting local Afar tribes to do some of the fighting. Reading between the lines, the tribesmen are getting the short end of the stick here- many tribes have been massacred by the Italians during the conflict.
No one you've spoken to in Massaua seems to have much interest in or memory of the '24 dig in Dallol. Information may possibly be easier to come by in Mersa Fatma.
Would anyone be able to make a 2-point spend from Oral History?
The bars (and, come to think of it, hotels) in Massaua are almost full to capacity everywhere you go, but you find your Italian travel papers and Dr. Malley's fluent Italian open some room for you and make navigating the city far easier. In a cramped booth at a cafe, you get some overpriced glasses of wine or grappa to plan your next move.
For future reference, according to Ayers' 1924 itinerary, he took a dhow from here further down the coast to Mersa Fatma and then traveled into Ethiopia to Dallol via rail operated by the Compagnia Mineraria Coloniale (henceforth referred to as the CMC) an Italian company that mined salt from the Dallol area in the 1920s. Conventional wisdom suggests getting a guide, but that's up to you guys.
"Ah, but of course signora. Let me make your journey through the frontier a bit easier, hm?", Carlo says, as he returns to his stacks of paperwork. In a few moments of rapid signing, stamping and arranging he hands you a small envelope of documents asserting that you have been cleared to travel through Eritrea across the border into Ethiopia.
With your papers in hand, you emerge into Massaua proper. The air is thick with smoke from exhaust, the smell of horse teams and camels. Buildings are predominantly Ottoman-style architecture with some Western-style buildings constructed here and there (mainly churches). Everywhere are Italian troops in heavy brown woolen uniforms, marching in columns, smoking in cafes and bars. Massaua natives likewise transport military equipment or personnel, sell supplies or try to go about their business around the omnipresent military presence of the Italians.
The Inspector, Carlo, shuffles his papers and continues to ask thorough and specific questions. There are shouts in Italian all around you as more and more soldiers load up into wagons and trucks, ready to deploy further into Africa or to take some leave in Massaua.
Finally satisfied, Carlo smiles.
"Welcome to Eritrea and best of luck in Abyssinia. Be very careful- the native opposition will crumble in time but that doesn't mean they aren't dangerous."
Bureaucracy, no spend:
It occurs to you that you're walking into a warzone- getting some kind of travel papers from Inspector Salvatore here would go a long way toward making this trip easier.
The long trip makes Evelyn restless, but staying on the move at least keeps her mind off other things. She spends much of her time reading and rereading her notes on their investigation, particularly their leads on George Ayers.
In Massaua, Evelyn returns the military official's smile with one of her own. For once, they are dealing with a language she could speak fluently. She decides not to stray too far from the truth, lest they arouse suspicion.
"They are, sir. But no, we were only in Cairo very briefly. We've been traveling almost nonstop since leaving New York. We are seeking passage into Ethiopia, so that we may see some of the archaeological digs there." She chances a bit of flattery, adding, "I've heard that some of them are very beautiful - they will make fine additions to the New Roman Empire."
The inspector smiles broadly once more, folding and checking off paperwork.
"Yes, it is true. Civilization shall flourish here once more, it is only a matter of time. Where would you be traveling to in Abyssinia? And with whom are you affiliated?"
Cora for one looks genuinely happy and sports a wide grin during the group photo in Egypt. She'd never really thought about travelling the world, as busy as she was with her grifts and hustles, but she found it suited her really well.
She lets Evelyn handle the talking.
I spent one point on bumping up the Explosives skill, any feedback on what I should spend second point on? Would be good to spread our skills out as much as possible and Cora and Feddy have some very similar skills. Is it also okay if Cora has the Heavy Pistol they found in the pyramid? Having +1 damage would be nice
Conceal or Shadowing might be good, since those are the only skills that you, as a Criminal, can spend points from after making a roll on a 2 for 1 basis.
Janet Winston-Rogers organizes your travel itineraries while you all pack up steamer trunks and suitcases, say goodbye to your friends and family once more and get ready to depart for Africa. A limousine takes you to the docks on Manhattan's west side where you board a cruise liner to London. After three long days at sea, you disembark in London and spend the night there before getting up bright and early for the British Airways trunk line. Your passports are examined and re-examined after passing through Paris and Rome. You have a brief moment for a group photograph in Cairo before taking a short trip to Suez and the Red Sea via rail. You're hot and dry, uncertain what day it is or what time it is- but at least you're traveling first class and not clinging to the roof like the people in coach. Amadeus almost fits in with his turban here- at least until people realize he's white and doesn't speak Arabic.
At Suez, you fight your way through the press of people, camels, horses, automobiles to reach the docks and board your ship across the Red Sea to Massaua in Eritrea where the Italians are spearheading their military efforts in Ethiopia. From there, you will have to secure a dhow to take you further down the coast to Mersa Fatma where you will have to then travel inland to Kolluli and finally to Dallol, seeking information about Ayers' and Acuna's dig in '24 and Ayers' fate.
Even after reaching the waters around Massaua, it takes the better part of the day to actually dock. The docks are full to the brim with ships carrying troops, equipment and supplies to the Italian military and your ship is forced to wait until space opens up.
Finally the ship can dock and you step off the docks into Massaua to be greeted by an Italian official in brown military uniform completely unsuited to the African climate. He smiles widely, but without revealing any teeth, while local porters and military officers unload and inspect the packages on board the ship.
(In Italian)"Welcome to the New Roman Empire, here in Massaua. Americans, yes? What is your business in Massaua? Are these your possessions here? I see you've passed through Cairo- did anyone ask you to bring anything here?"
- George Ayers, along with Samson Trammel and Ramon Echavarria, made up the core inner circle of Echavarria's 1920s cult in Los Angeles.
- A UCLA professor of Archaeology and expert on ancient religions, he was responsible for bringing Edgar Job into the cult (Job is the only other survivor besides Douglas Henslowe of the '24 raid that killed Echavarria and Walter Winston's friends).
- The dig in Ethiopia where he disappeared was spearheaded by a Spanish archaeologist named Bartolo Acuna.
- Ayers was mostly concerned with researching Gol-Goroth and the Liar From Beyond; he sent the odd carving you have with your materials back to Echavarria in '24, which was intercepted by Douglas Henslowe.
I may have fudged things earlier in Malta: transatlantic flights aren't something that happens yet in real world history. Zeppelins like the Hindenberg did make the Atlantic crossing from New Jersey to Germany until that whole "Oh the humanity" incident in 1936. So the best way to get to Ethiopia following Ayers' travel itinerary seems to be via ship. A 3 day voyage from America to London will cost about $400 per person; from there, you can take the weekly trunk line via British Imperial Airways from London through Paris, Rome, and Athens to Cairo, Wadi Halfa (Sudan), Khartoum (even further inland in Sudan) and eventually Cape Town (too far).
Given that travel in the African interior is slow and difficult by car or beast, most people go via ship to port cities as Ayers did- to Massaua in Eritrea (an Italian colony in 1937 until the conclusion of World War 2) and then overland through Ethiopia. Your best bet may be to make the trip to Cairo, cross Egypt to the Red Sea and take a ship to Massaua. According to the newspaper of the day, Ethiopia is in the throws of the Abyssinia Crisis so Italian Fascists will be thick on the ground in the part of Africa you're headed to. In terms of languages, Italian is commonly spoken but Arabic and Afar are the other major languages in Ethiopia. English and French are spoken, but they are not common. An interpreter may be necessary if no one speaks Italian or else a 1 point ability spend will be needed to get communicate while on the case.
The Afar region of the Red Sea where you'll make landfall is equatorial and you can expect temperatures between 40-80 degrees Farenheit. According to Ayers' itinerary, though, he crossed into the interior to the village of Dallol which sits in hot and dry scrub desert. It's literally the hottest place on Earth, with highs in the summer exceeding 115 degrees.
Yes, Cora's lost 1 Sanity from gaining Cthulhu Mythos.
The goal is to find Y'golonac's body on Earth and destroy it somehow- either by summoning Gol-Goroth to fight him or blowing him up or somehow banishing him. A cult leader is at large in Bangkok, one of the founding members disappeared someplace in Ethiopia over a decade ago and the Mexico City cult is still at large- the location of the Devouring Mountain/Mount Kailash is all you need to find and destroy the body of the god.
Reading Alvár's notes to control the Xoxul Observatory would give both Evelyn and Cora 1 point of Cthulhu Mythos. This will drop your maximum Sanity by 1 from learning the skill. If you started with 9 Sanity for instance and gained 1 point of Cthulhu Mythos, you would be at 8 Sanity thereafter. If a Mythos shock (like communing with Gol-Goroth or witnessing the end of the world from the Xoxul Observatory) drops your Stability between 0 and -5, you lose 1 Sanity. If a Mythos shock drops your Stability between -6 and -11 you lose 2 Sanity instead (this can only happen once per investigation). At -12, you're incurably insane.
So in total, Evelyn should have lost 2 Sanity from the Yucatán expedition by my count. Casting spells cost Stability or Health, but knowing spells in and of themselves don't cost Sanity from what I can tell in the rules.
Just to clarify, should Evelyn be sitting on 5 Sanity since she knows 3 spells? And does Health go back to full?
As it turns out, the tequila doesn't really help. All the way back to New York, Evelyn's distant attitude does not improve. If anything, it gets a little worse. Without some obscurities or mortal peril to engross herself in, all that remained were bad memories.
Once she gets home, with a great deal of trepidation she calls Jeffery and her father. She did not dare meet them in person. As usual, she tells half-truths and vague recollections, presenting her exploits in Mexico as yet another medical research trip. The lies came naturally at this point; she did not even feel bad about it anymore. She now knew for certain that she was protecting them from something truly horrific and alien.
Eased out of her shell by the awkward phone calls, Evelyn then musters the courage to meet with Dr. Hastings in person, someone she definitely had some catching up to do with. She mostly just wanted to make sure that her job was still secure in light of her extended sabbatical, but the truth was, she was not entirely certain she would care if it wasn't.
Assuming phone calls count, I believe that is +9 Stability. Also, bumping Athletics and Sense Trouble up by 1.
I'll say phone calls count. I have to look at the spells again- I'm pretty sure you don't lose 1 Sanity per spell, but your stability falling into the negatives due to a Mythos shock would drop your Sanity. I'll look back through the posts over the weekend.
- Jonathan Brooks remains at large in Mexico City, should you wish to confront him.
- Correspondence to "S.S." in Bangkok, both pasted into Los Angeles cult leader Samson Trammel's disgusting Testament and written by Jonathan Brooks while seeking the identity of The Thing With A Thousand Mouths AKA Y'golonac lead you to believe that S.S. is a well-educated woman based on her penmanship, that she considers herself an equal to the late Samson Trammel and that Jonathan Brooks thought she could be swayed to help him get out from under Trammel and learn more about their god. You have a return address from a letter sent to Trammel- attached to the name "Daniel Lowman".
- George Ayers, a founding member of the 1924 cult and Edgar Job's former professor, disappeared in Ethiopia on an archaeological dig shortly before the destruction of Echavarria's cult by Walter Winston and his friends. You've dug up his travel itinerary from '24 after some digging in the UCLA storage units.
Sure thing! And you each get 2 build points to improve your investigators- these are spent to improve an Investigative or General skill on a 1 build point per point basis. Can’t be used on Sanity though.
I haven't been strictly keeping track of time- the campaign started in August, I would say Savannah > Los Angeles concluded in early September. The Malta investigation would then be late September, Mexico City and the Yucatán in mid-October. That's not a ton of time to be exposed to eldritch terror and then recover over and over again, but it's a game after all.
The last day in Mérida mostly involves packing your bags and looking over your shoulders. And a lot of tequila. You send a telegram off to your benefactor and head out to the airfield. Frank Kearns, Janet's pilot, doesn't ask any questions even after you introduce Cora for the first time. He shakes hands, scratches his bulbous nose and loads up your bags in the cargo hatch.
You hop from the Yucatán to Miami and refuel there before dropping Freddy off in Savannah to see his family while the rest of you get rooms at a motel near the airport. From there, it's another short flight to New York where you all head home to recover.
Alright- refresh 3 stability for each Source of Stability you spend time catching up with. I think Freddy's stability stayed above 0 for this trip, right? If so, that's one mark toward treating his PTSD related to subterranean spaces.
I may not be able to post until Thursday this week (though the game isn't super fast paced so I'm not sure it will be a big deal at all)- gotta set up for Book Expo America at my job, busiest day of the year for me. See you on the other side.
Poke. Anyone besides Cora want to do anything back in Mérida? Or just go home and try to get your stability back? If you just want to get stability back, give me a short rundown of how you spend your time with your Sources of Stability and we can reconvene the characters in Janet Winston-Rogers' hangar.
Since Joseph hasn't been posting I may just write him out again at this point.
Stability Test Difficulty: 5 (4 if performed in Mayan)
Cost:6 Stability and 2 Health
Time: Summoning takes 30 minutes of chanting and ritual bloodletting, culminating in contact with the target's body (by the caster or a piece of the Pyramid of the Sorcerer). This also binds the aspect to a particular act- the slaying of the target- at the end of which the aspect of Gol-Goroth must be bound again to some new task or banished.
The spell requires the caster to devour a snake, bones and all, at the site where Gol-Goroth's aspect is to appear.
Create Hyperspace Gate:
The caster creates a gate joining two points through hyperspace. The caster must have visited the place or have an accurate vision or visual reference of the destination. The spell requires some sort of drawn, painted or chalked marks. Using an already created gate costs 1 Stability in addition to any costs for the sights or threats at the destination.
Stability Test Difficulty: 5 (4 with Physics, 3 with Physics spend)
Cost: 2 Stability or 4 Health, doubled per increment of distance (continental, global, interplanetary, interstellar, intergalactic). For each 4 Health points spent from the caster's pool, lose 1 point from the caster's Health rating.
Time: One hour (ten minutes with Physics, one minute with Physics spend).
I'm assuming you guys are done with Chichén Xoxul?
Weary, pale and shocked you exit the Pyramid of the Sorcerer. Though you're in one piece, you leave burdened with knowledge no sane person should have. As you depart back to the game trail, there's no sign of the bandits that ambushed you on your way in- only the eerie hush of the jungle. You look back one last time at the damned pyramid and you see a black toad-like thing the size of a jaguar watching your exit from the steps. With a shudder, you retrace your steps through the jungle.
At the trail head, you find Pablo and the porters waiting for you, as agreed. Lucky for you, Cora demanded they wait an extra day- you lost an entire day in the Pyramid, though it felt like merely hours.
Anything you want to do in Mérida when you get back?
"Impossible..." Evelyn mutters deliriously, their return to their proper time barely seeming to register with her. At long last, she had been faced with something that she couldn't simply explain away with scientific theory. There is a wobble to her step as approaches the exit of the observatory; at the very least, she seems better off than Brooks's sorcerer.
In addition to being Shaken by the experience in the Observatory, Evelyn has lost 1 point of Sanity from the shock of seeing the all too real end of the world through the slits in the pyramid.
With a sudden dizzying jolt, you find yourselves wrenched through time once more- daylight streams through the slits in the Observatory, a quiet hush falling across Chichén Xoxul outside. The ruined ritual city looks as overgrown and forgotten as you remember it being when you first approached it, with no sign of the calamity you just witnessed.
[dice=Stability Test]1d6 Well, it was gonna happen sooner or later...
Evelyn’s psychological defenses can’t take another blow. She could retreat into a clinical mindset from the Xoxul attack, even hypothesizing some kind of shared hallucination of the god-thing and the time travel. But witnessing a biblical apocalypse outside is too much.
To be honest, I'm not sure. I'll need to go back and check. When does stability reset?
Between chapters, you refresh 3 stability for each source of stability you spend quality time with. So you can refresh between six and nine usually. During an investigation the Psychoanalysis skill can allow someone else to refresh stability points in a limited way. So you often end up with a degree of attrition throughout the campaign as your stability dips further and further.
Amadeus just can’t take seeing the literal apocalypse playing out before his eyes, after all he’s been through today. Lose 4 stability, Amadeus.
Cora barely registers what’s happening outside- she’s too busy trying to seperate which memories are really hers. Cora just made it, no further stability loss.
Another wave of vertigo takes you- and Gol-Goroth is gone from your vision.
You each know the spells Summon Aspect of Gol-Goroth and Create Hyperspace Gate, which I will detail in an upcoming post. You will need a piece of the pyramid at Chichén Xoxul in order to summon Gol-Goroth's Aspect.
Outside of the Observatory, blood and fire rain from the sky and Chichén Xoxul burns. The jungle smoulders around the ritual site and strange sounds- is it music?- echo out of nowhere. The earth shakes. The moon is a black shadow. Thunderstorms roll through and tear the sky with green lightning. Ash blankets all.
Joseph croaks in the invasive, inhuman voice of Gol-Goroth.
"This 'Thing With a Thousand Mouths' is known to be 'The Liar From Beyond', hated throughout the cosmos. It steals our names, our legends and hides behind them, growing fat on worship that should be ours- that should be MINE!"
Massive jaguar-like eyes peer in at you from outside of the Observatory as you twitch and shudder from the "conversation".
"It claims to be forgotten Gol-Goroth or Nyarlathotep, the soul and the messenger- but its true name in Y'golonac, the whelp, the coward."
A flood of foreign images flood your mind. The toad-like and multi-tailed, winged monstrosity of Gol-Goroth tears into a headless, corpulent human-like form with mouths on its hands. A chanting Xoxul man cuts the throats of his captives and devours a snake whole, bones and all, throwing a piece of the Pyramid of the Sorcerer before him.
"*I* will slay Y'golonac on Earth for his crimes against me. Summon me to his body thusly."
Detailed and arcane incantations (or are they equations?) flood your minds- you all know that if you wish to summon Gol-Goroth's Aspect, it must be at the hidden body of Y'golonac.
Even more information floods your minds and those of you that know of Physics and the laws of nature know that it is a blasphemy to all you understand of the world. A spell to bridge two points in space-time.
"Things must be at their worst for this bridge to lead to betterment."
The colossal eyes withdraw.
"If any of you return to Chichén Xoxul, it will be to die."
Lightning dances across the Observatory as Gol-Goroth digs through all of your memories.
A classy woman with sad eyes sits in a posh sitting room in an airplane hangar. She talks about business left undone by her late father- and the toll it left on his health and sanity.
In a humid asylum in Savannah, Douglas Henslowe begs you to dig up his materials and continue the work. Edgar Job, the former cultist and failed mathematician, describes Ramon Echavarria's ritual on that fateful night in 1924.
He promised me power. He said that: Power. It didn't work out the way I thought it would, though...
In a Los Angeles accountant's office, the 1924 cult leader's accountant describes the last meeting with his client.
Out of the blue he said to me: 'Abraham, would you like to know something truly perverse? Those who follow me in the way of Gol-Goroth are deceived. My work goes deeper than any of them know. Prepare yourself, Abraham. Prepare yourself for that end.'
In a Pasadena mansion, a vast grotesque mouth grows from the wall. Human beings writhe and fornicate before it as an amber drool collects in lined trash cans beneath it. A grenade thrown in its mouth erupts it in a shower of viscera. Trammel himself crawls away leaving a trail of blood, clutching his mad Testament.
In an outdoor coffee shop in Valletta, Montgomery Donovan looks weary and resigned- hardly the megalomaniac you expected to find leading the most profitable arm of the cult. You know he sacrificed his wife to the Mouth at the Thing's request, all in pursuit of greater profit. And it broke him.
I have to get my son out of this. He's all I have left since... Portia...
After crawling through dusty catacombs, you come to the shrine of the Knights of Malta, Godfrey Welles the old Hospitaller revealing a fresco of the Knights battling a multi-headed thing come out of the sea at the Strait of Gibraltar.
This evil has many names- but we know it to be Nyarlathotep.
Beneath the warehouse in Valletta, your friend Anatoly Dudko clutches a lit bundle of dynamite as the enormous Mouth in the ceiling devours him. He thrusts the dynamite into Mouth and they are both destroyed.
Joseph's Stability test- 2 point spend:1d6 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 8 Gol-Goroth has clearly lost his edge- or you guys are all just refreshed to not have another giant inhuman mouth to deal with. Not sure when/if Joseph will chime in so we'll just skip him.
More arcs of white lightning strike the shattered pyramid. You all spasm and twitch with each strike, keeping your eyes closed to the hideous form just outside of the Observatory.
In your minds, Gol-Goroth is ripping you out of the Observatory slits with his long serpentine tongues, devouring you in bloody gobs. There is a petty mirth in the images it forces into your minds. But it doesn't approach any closer from where it still rests, feasting on the ashes of what was once Golxumal.
Joseph Westmore croaks in a voice not his own.
What do you seek on Golxumal? Why do you defile my adherents' vessel?
What do you want to ask Gol-Goroth? It isn't a person, so Interpersonal abilities will not work- this is purely about roleplaying.
