TEXT: 1 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  Shadow Kingdoms 
  “Men were not always ruled by men!” – R..E. Howard 
   
  February 29th, 2010. In investigating a “sex ring”, the 
  investigators – affiliated to a special police force – keep a 
  run-down hotel under surveillance. The stakeout quickly 
  degenerates into a bizarre crime scene. 
   
  The investigation eventually leads the investigators to 
  London, where they uncover a global conspiracy and find 
  out that their world is not quite what it seems. The 
  investigators draw the attention of a secret organization 
  and soon wind up in a nightmarish web of deceit and 
  occult machinations. 
   
  At the center of this web lurks the influential Chinese 
  businessman Chih. 
  Keeper’s Information 
  The main theme of this scenario builds upon the premises 
  of R.E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom”, i.e. a 
  conspiracy theory as old as humanity itself, in which men 
  were not always ruled by men but by Serpent Men (see 
  Play Aids for background information). 
   
  The plot consists of three layers: 1) first, an investigation 
  into sex crimes and abductions that turn out to be linked to 
  Mythos activity; 2) an increasingly stressful cat and mouse 
  game as the meddlesome investigators draw the attention 
  of the Serpent Men, their servants, and scarier entities 
  become involved; 3) the investigators, with some outside 
  help, must end their current nightmare by finding a way 
  back to the 1021 AD reality. 
  Mood 
  As in all Cthulhu games, mood is paramount. The keeper 
  should not let the modern setting make the players 
  comfortable. Counterbalance the apparent familiarity of 
  the setting by building up an atmosphere of insecurity: 
  create 
  indoor 
  locations 
  that 
  are 
  consistently 
  claustrophobic, gritty, dark, or depressing. Throw in  
  miserable weather, with cold and rainy outdoor locations. 
  The keeper can also destabilize the players by portraying 
  non-player characters as ambiguously as possible – even 
  the “good” ones. 
   
  Apocalypse 
  The following information should only be divulged to the 
  players in the later stages of the scenario, if at all. 
   
  Shadow Kingdoms is set in an alternate reality halfway 
  between the world we know and one dominated by a 
  Serpent civilization, where man is extinct. The “normal” 
  world is the one in which the Dark Age investigators 
  succeeded in thwarting Seth’s plan, and the non-human 
  world is the one in which the Dark Age investigators 
  failed. 
   
  In this alternate reality, on the night of October 31st, 1021, 
  an extinction event destroyed 70% of all life on earth. The 
  most widely accepted thesis is that a 2-miles asteroid 
  known as "Wormwood" hit the earth west of London, 
  obliterating Slough (UK), and creating a crater nearly 200 
  yards deep and 125 miles wide. The year long winter night 
  that followed, the acid clouds and rains, the global 
  disruption of ecosystems all nearly destroyed humanity; or 
  so history books claim! 
   
  At the beginning of the scenario, the investigators are 
  unaware of the “abnormality” of the world they live in – 
  they don’t know any better. As the plot of Shadow 
  Kingdoms unravels, the players may note disturbing 
  differences between the post-Wormwood world and our 
  own. A special side story is available to stage the 
  “awakening” of the investigators. As it turns out, 
  Wormwood was none other than Yog-Sothoth, invoked by 
  a Serpent priest to erase earth life back in 1021 and thus 
  make room for a Serpent civilization. For some obscure 
  reason the gate did not remain open long enough; in spite 
  of the Wormwood extinction “event” and the year long 
  Black Winter that followed, life prevailed, and so did 
  human civilization. 
   
  Additionally, we recommend the keeper not inform the 
  players about the connection of this scenario to the Pagan 
  Call campaign. Instead, present the scenario as a stand-
  alone modern-day scenario and let the players create 
  investigators from scratch. The scenario’s starting point 
  can be any city familiar to the keeper or the players. 
   
  Shadow Kingdoms 
  The Serpent people depicted in this scenario are drawn 
  from the tales of Robert E. Howard. This breed of Serpent 
  people, hailing from the fabled prehistoric lands of 
  Valusia, appear as human aside from a snake-like neck and 
  head (and a predisposition for mottled skin). 
   
  Awakening from centuries-long slumber after the aborted 
  apocalypse in 1021 AD, pockets of Serpent people found 
  the human civilization still ruling the earth, but also 
  weakened in the aftermath of Wormwood. Talking 
  advantage of their sorcery and the prevailing chaos, the 
  Serpents assumed the likeness of humans and slowly but 
  surely infiltrated human society at all levels of power, thus 
  influencing the course of human history. By the year 2010, 
  the Serpents are firmly entrenched in all walks of life. 
   
  The modern-day Serpent people are sophisticated yet 
  depraved beings. Their pastimes include participation in 
  secret societies where abducted humans of all sexes and 
  ages are tortured, abused, and eventually disposed off. A 
  few elected humans (high-profile pedophiles, psychopaths, 
  depraved politicians, etc.) are occasionally allowed into 
  these secret circles, but they have no knowledge of the true 
  nature of their hosts. 
   
  
  2 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  Player’s Information 
  At the beginning of the scenario, all investigators are 
  members of a special police force investigating sex crimes. 
   
  All the contextual information the players need at this 
  point is contained in the daily newspaper - see handout #1 
  near the end of this scenario. 
   
  The Investigators are affiliated to a special operations 
  police force fighting sex crimes, with a focus on organized 
  crime and recidivists. The team has had to operate within a 
  context of dwindling budgets and reorganizations. Here are 
  example occupations that the players could choose from: 
   
  � 
  Medical Examiner (ME) 
  � 
  Criminalist 
  � 
  Computer Specialist 
  � 
  (Police) Detective 
  � 
  Forensic Psychologist 
  � 
  Evidence Technician 
  � 
  Undercover Agent 
   
  In the interest of the scenario, it is important to either have 
  one investigator specialized in electronic surveillance (e.g. 
  Computer Use and Electronics skills) or at least know a 
  hacker non-player character that can provide such skills. 
   
  Recently, the team has been investigating a "sex ring". The 
  investigators uncovered an internet network of unidentified 
  persons sharing illegal pornographic material. They 
  recently discovered that the activities of this ring go 
  further than mere file swapping: the ring appears to be able 
  to produce illegal material (photographs, movies) on 
  demand, to organize "encounters", and to have connections 
  with East European people traffickers. 
  Recently, the force succeeded in positively identifying one 
  member of the sex ring, Mr. Yamamura. Mr. Yamamura is  
  managing director of a small pharmaceutical company (see 
  Statistics for more background information). 
  Every weekend, Mr Yamamura visits a shabby hotel in a 
  suburb and meets there with underage prostitutes and other 
  shady characters. The investigators have organized a 
  stakeout in closed-down business offices opposite the 
  hotel. So far, despite the surveillance, they have not yet 
  established the probable cause necessary to arrest Mr. 
  Yamamura and obtain the court warrant to search his flat. 
  To further the investigation, the suspect would need to be 
  arrested. But to make the arrest, the investigators must 
  have probable cause, i.e. reasonable belief or evidence that 
  the suspect committed an alleged crime. Catching Mr. 
  Yamamura red-handed with an underage prostitute would 
  allow an arrest and issue a search warrant of the suspect’s 
  house to find further leads into the sex ring.  
  The Man without a Head 
  The keeper can relocate the first part of the scenario in 
  any place of his or her preference. For this reason, 
  locations are left as fairly generic, being listed as, for 
  instance, “hometown” and “the flat”. The starting 
  location is the hotel where the suspect is currently staying. 
  The “California” Hotel 
  The “California” hotel is located in a depressing part of 
  the suburbs, a spread of second-rate stores, non-descript 
  businesses and warehouses. At night, the area attracts 
  prostitutes, dealers, and gangs. Now is only 4 PM, but a 
  sudden rain has darkened the skies, and the rare occupied 
  offices are lit, as if it were already winter… 
  The hotel has three floors, served by a single lift that 
  creaks and groans. There is no restaurant or bar but the 
  lobby does boast a vending machine. 
  An alley runs alongside the hotel leading to a parking lot 
  at the back, where the suspect parked his Toyota Prius. 
  There are no other customers besides him at that time. 
   
  The suspect that the investigators are after is in fact a 
  depraved Serpent man, disguised as Mr. Yamamura. Mr. 
  Yamamura hired room 207. He is expecting a young 
  Russian prostitute named Roksana, see Statistics, an 
  androgynous character who enters the hotel half an hour 
  later. After 15 more minutes, the Serpent man suffers the 
  equivalent of a fatal coronary. Falling dead to the floor, the 
  Serpent man’s masking magic fails and his Serpent’s neck 
  and head are revealed. The prostitute screams and stares at 
  the dead Serpent man in horror. Hotel owner Dimitri - a 
  human goon of the Serpent people - rushes upstairs, finds 
  the body, barks at Roksana to pick up her stuff and leave, 
  then calls the “cleaners” on his cell phone. The cleaners 
  tell him to quickly dispose of the Serpent head as a first 
  measure; they’ll be coming in 10 minutes to “clean up the 
  mess”. Between the moment that Roksana runs out of the 
  hotel lobby – literally under the investigators’ nose - and 
  Dimitri throws the garbage bag with the Serpent head in 
  the garbage container at the back of the hotel, no more 
  than 2 minutes pass! It takes another 10 minutes before the 
  “cleaners” are due to arrive in their white pest-control van, 
  intent on removing all evidence.  
   
  Here is the sequence of events assuming that the 
  investigators do not intervene: 
   
  Timing (in minutes) and events 
  In bold are the events that the investigators can witness 
  from their lookout position. 
  0 mn. The suspect undresses in front of the window 
  1 mn. Roksana is spotted closing the curtains 
  5 mn. The suspect dies of heart failure 
  6 mn. Dimitri checks on 207, finds the dead Serpent 
  7 mn. Dimitri tells Roksana to leave; calls the “cleaners”  
  9 mn. Dimitri grabs a fire axe and returns to room 207 
  10 mn. He severs the Serpent head, puts it in a garbage bag 
  10 mn. Roksana runs out of the hotel 
  12 mn. Dimitri bins the head and the fire axe at the back 
  20 mn. The pest control van arrives, parks at the back 
  21 mn. One cleaner picks up the Serpent head, not the axe 
  21 mn. The other cleaners start “cleaning” room 207 
  28 mn. The room is “clean”; cleaners carry garbage bags  
  30 mn. The cleaners depart in the van 
   
  The keeper may decide to play this sequence in real time 
  in order to immerse the players into the action and at the 
  same time confront them with a go/no-go dilemma. Room 
  207 has a window onto the street, through which one 
  
  3 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  investigator can see first the suspect starting to unclothe, 
  then the androgynous character coming to the window and 
  closing the curtains. Here is the dilemma facing the 
  players: if the androgyny is under eighteen, then the 
  suspect is engaging in an illegal sexual activity and may be 
  arrested. If however, she is above eighteen and consenting, 
  arrest is unlawful and any evidence would be thrown out 
  of court, thus weakening further investigation as well as 
  alerting the sex ring of an intrusion: the investigators are 
  “burnt”. The keeper is invited to explicitly state the 
  dilemma to players who have to take a gamble. 
  If investigators do not act, only the events occurring 
  outside of the hotel may be observed (in bold). If the 
  investigators do act, they are likely to cross the path of the 
  cleaners who will try to put them out of action - see 
  Statistics to play a confrontation. 
   
  Here are things to consider for the follow-up: 
   
  � 
  If the investigators do not interfere with the cleaners, 
  the cleaners remove the body and the head. If they do 
  interfere, the cleaners leave the headless body behind. 
  � 
  If the headless body somehow lands onto the autopsy 
  table, the Serpent organization tries to “replace” the 
  Medical Examiner by one of their own kind. 
  � 
  Owner Dimitri stays put in his little office until the 
  investigators find him, smoking Russian cigarettes. 
  � 
  The Serpent organization (behind the sex ring) tracks 
  down the prostitute Roksana and tries to eliminate 
  her, she has seen too much. This takes 48 hours. 
  � 
  If the investigators look into the garbage container in 
  the filthy courtyard at the back, they find the bloodied 
  fire axe that served to cut the Serpent head off. It has 
  the fingerprints of Dimitri all over it. 
  � 
  The investigators find an unmarked DVD in 207’s 
  DVD player; but they never find the Serpent head. 
   
  ROOM 207: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION 
  Moving up the elevator or the staircase that both reek of 
  urine, then through the dimly lit corridors with stained 
  carpets, one eventually arrives in front of the door to room 
  207. The door is ajar. Room 207 is a typical room; it has 
  an en-suite bathroom, a work desk, a color television with 
  a Chinese DVD player, and a small table with a chair. 
  Here is the evidence that can be found, once the first 
  officer to arrive has secured the crime scene: 
   
  • 
  Room 207 is remarkably empty (apart from the 
  eventual body, the blood on the carpet and the DVD in 
  the DVD player, and the leather restraints hanging 
  from the bedposts). The room strongly smells of 
  cleaning fluid, as if room service just did the room. 
  This is because the cleaners wiped all surfaces clean 
  of fingerprints with detergent. The cleaners also used 
  an “evidence vacuum” to remove as fibers, hairs, etc. 
  from the crime scene. 
  • 
  If the cleaners were not able to dispose of the body: 
  the eyes are drawn to the naked body upon the floor. 
  It takes a second to realize that it is headless – the 
  naked torso terminating in the stump of a neck. The 
  pale beige carpet around the upper half of the body is 
  deep scarlet in color where the rapidly congealing 
  blood from the decapitation has pooled. Two deep 
  dents in the carpet and the floorboards under the neck 
  indicate that the head was cut in situ with a heavy 
  blade, probably an axe. The suspect’s clothes are 
  neatly folded at the foot end of the bed. 
  • 
  If the cleaners were able to dispose of the body: the 
  carpet is stained by a pool of blood in front of the TV. 
  There are two deep dents in the carpet and the 
  floorboards in the middle of the bloodstain, apparently 
  made by some heavy sharp blade, possibly an axe. An 
  investigator 
  looking 
  into 
  the 
  bathroom 
  finds 
  suspicious tool marks on the inside of the bathtub 
  (where the cleaners quickly cut the body with an 
  electric meat saw, to fit into garbage bags). The 
  suspect’s clothes cannot be found anywhere. 
  • 
  The queen size bed is relatively undisturbed, certainly 
  not slept in, its purpose made obvious by the leather 
  restraints hanging from the bedposts. 
  • 
  The TV displays a grainy screen, flickering with static 
  noise. A white “EXT 1” is displayed in the upper left, 
  indicating that the TV is attuned to the DVD player. 
  The DVD player has been playing a DVD, which has 
  been paused after 5 minutes of play. 
  • 
  An observant investigator (Idea roll) may notice that 
  one fire axe is missing in the corridor of 207. 
  • 
  If the players do not think of searching the back of the 
  hotel, in particular the garbage container, the keeper 
  may allow Spot Hidden rolls until one investigator 
  spots one drop of blood (having dripped from 
  Dimitri’s fire axe on the way down) in the corridor in 
  front of room 207. The blood drops are sparse, but 
  after careful back tracking lead to a spot in front of the 
  garbage container. The missing fire axe can be found 
  at the bottom, blade smeared with blood and handle 
  bearing Dimitri’s fingerprints all over. 
   
  The “snuff” DVD 
  The DVD is a read/write DVD of a known brand but 
  further unmarked. It is a genuine “snuff” DVD: the 
  moviemakers have staged and filmed an actual murder for 
  distribution in illegal circuits. 
  Note that snuff movies are an urban legend: no real snuff 
  movie has ever been found. All so-called snuff movies in 
  circulation are fakes. The keeper should remind this fact to 
  the players. For the purpose of this scenario however, the 
  DVD found in room 207 turns out to be a real snuff movie, 
  and possibly the only one in existence. The keeper is 
  referred to the film “8mm” by Joel Schumacher, in which 
  a snuff videotape plays a central role. 
   
  The DVD has a single track, which lasts only 5 minutes. 
  These 5 minutes however are intolerable to look at. 
  Watching the movie to the end, viewers incur a 1D3 SAN 
  roll. We leave the explicit description of the scene to the 
  imagination of the keeper, who should take into account 
  the sensitivity of the players. Suffice to say the grainy 
  movie features a fat masked naked man, an underage 
  victim (a 10-12 year old Asian girl), a badly lit and 
  relatively bare bedroom, sexual abuse, torture, and ends 
  with the brutal execution of the victim. A third person 
  holds the camera and moves about. An open door in the 
  bedroom reveals parts of a shower room . 
   
  
  4 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  Analysis of the movie by experts doesn’t reveal any 
  noticeable special effect or inconsistencies. Also, forensic 
  psychological investigation of the scene indicates that the 
  emotion of the victim is real, not acted (corroborating 
  one’s gut feeling when watching the movie). 
   
  The actual location of the shot can be discovered by the 
  investigators in the second part of the scenario, set in 
  England. Observant investigators might notice the unusual 
  make of the shower. An Internet search reveals it to be a 
  Triton electric shower; electric showers are common in the 
  United Kingdom and in some developing countries; Triton 
  is a leading British shower manufacturer. 
  As to the victim, if the investigators do a search of 
  INTERPOL’s database of missing and abducted children, 
  they eventually spot one possible candidate: the daughter 
  Kanna 
  Takahashi 
  of 
  a 
  Japanese 
  diplomat 
  who 
  disappeared about 3 months ago at school (The Nippon 
  School in West London, UK). As it turns out, two girls 
  have disappeared from that school: Kanna Takahashi and 
  more recently Hisayo Yamamura, but in the case of 
  Hisayo, no yellow notice was issued by INTERPOL so she 
  does not appear in the database.  
   
  DEAD ENDS 
  Investigators may want to trace phone calls made with 
  Dimitri’s cell and the license plate of the pest-control van. 
   
  Dimitri’s call log shows two recent calls. The most recent 
  call was placed at T+7mn to a contact named “cleanr”. The 
  second most recent call was placed a few hours before the 
  events to a contact named “Roksana”. 
  If investigators call “Roksana”, they get her voicemail 
  (girly voice with a Slavic accent): “Hi, I’m Roksana, can’t 
  take your call right now, please leave a message. Kisses!” 
  If they call “cleanr”, the service provider replies that the 
  number is not in use (Serpents have remotely disabled the 
  phone’s access to their network just after the events). 
  Requesting a “trap and trace” court warrant to do cell 
  phone forensics on Dimitri’s device allows investigators to 
  learn a few more things: the carrier triangulates Dimitri’s 
  position to be close to the California Hotel for both calls. 
  Roksana’s service provider can supply Roksana’s address 
  in “The Projects” social housing, and determines that 
  Roksana was home at the time of the call. 
  Tracing the other phone number is more problematic. 
  Contacting the NPAC (a center providing law enforcement 
  agencies a “reverse lookup” system to determine the 
  service provider of any phone number) is fruitless: the 
  number is unlisted! This means that the cleaners cannot be 
  identified nor located, but it has more profound 
  implications too: a phone call was placed using a phone 
  number and signal not known by any service provider! 
   
  A search of the license plate yields an equally 
  disconcerting result: the number is not registered; it simply 
  does not exist! The only thing the investigators can deduce 
  is that the van came from a location within roughly 6 miles 
  or 10 km of the hotel, as no more than 12-13 minutes 
  elapsed between Dimitri’s call and the van’s arrival. 
  However, this represents too large an area to be searched 
  without additional information on the mysterious cleaners. 
   
  Hacking a Serpent cell phone 
  It takes considerable expertise to acquire information from 
  or hack into a cell phone. Here is some keeper information 
  in case one investigator decides to do forensics on a 
  “Serpent” cell phone. 
   
  Dimitri’s cell has a normal SIM card (Subscriber 
  Identification Module) and operates with a normal Service 
  Provider or Network Operator. However, two viruses or 
  “malwares” hidden in the phone file system run in the 
  background. One called “Shadow” allows the device to 
  encrypt and secretly reroute specific calls towards the 
  secret Panopticon Switching Office and through that to 
  access the Serpent communication network. The Shadow 
  virus also deletes all such call log data after 24 hours. The 
  other virus is called WatchDog and as its name implies 
  “listens” for specific events. It can for instance recognize 
  the use of certain keywords (typed or spoken) and sends 
  that information with a time stamp to the Panopticon 
  offices. It also provides a “backdoor” to Serpent People 
  surveillance experts who can remotely activate the 
  microphone of the cell phone and thus eavesdrop onto 
  conversations held in the vicinity of the device, should 
  they want to. 
   
  An expert or a hacker skilled with “acquisition toolkits” is 
  able to image the file system of the cell phone. There is no 
  further incriminating data on the device. A successful 
  Computer Use skill roll or equivalent locates the two 
  viruses. A second skill roll is required to understand the 
  function of the viruses, in broad terms, e.g.: “there is this 
  one program, not sure if it’s a Trojan virus or some kind of 
  watch-dog app, which seems to listen to key strokes. It 
  could be voice activated too but I’m not sure. It also does 
  encryption and sends data through the carrier control 
  channel that I can’t make sense of. The other program 
  called Shadow is an odd one. It somehow hijacks the 
  normal carrier protocol and reroute calls to unlisted 
  numbers, god knows whereto though. Escapes me. Is this a 
  military device or what?” 
   
  INTERROGATING DIMITRI 
  The keeper must be sensitive to the fact that the crime 
  scene is so bizarre that the players might be initially 
  clueless. Help them focus on the few tangible clues and 
  suspects. Thinking murder, there are three likely suspects: 
  the prostitute, Dimitri, and/or the elusive cleaners. The 
  only one close at hand being Dimitri, it is important to 
  arrest him and interrogate him about what happened. 
  The axe found in the garbage container plays an important 
  role in the interrogation and its outcome, since it bears 
  Dimitri’s incriminating fingerprints. 
   
  Dimitri tries to appear cool and indifferent. However, 
  Dimitri worries about the events and his role in particular, 
  replaying in his mind every minute and trying to preempt 
  the police’s questions. Dimitri knows all too well that his 
  fingerprints are on the fire axe, and is wondering if the 
  cleaners took care of the axe, or if they left it behind for 
  the police to find. The perceptive investigator notices 
  telltale signs of Dimitri’s anxiety beyond his cool stance, 
  and the keeper should allow appropriate skill rolls to 
  further the interrogation. Simply pointing out to Dimitri 
  
  5 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  that his nervous tension shows and is “evidence” of his 
  guilt should set him talking. 
   
  Several interrogation approaches can be tried on Dimitri, 
  but only the “direct” approach really works, which consists 
  of accusing him of Mr. Yamamura’s death and stressing 
  the evidence against him: 
   
  • 
  Dimitri’s fingerprints on the fire axe. 
  • 
  As telecom forensics will reveal, he called Roksana a 
  few hours earlier, telling her to come for a “job” with 
  a client: the “Jap”. 
  • 
  He also called a cell number that does not seem to 
  exist, yet the cell phone log shows the conversation 
  lasted 90 seconds! 
   
  Conversely, Dimitri’s goal is to come out clean; after all, 
  he didn’t kill or harm anybody right? Note that although 
  Dimitri is afraid of being imprisoned, he is even more 
  afraid of failing his masters: the Serpent People. How 
  much the investigators can get out of Dimitri is a delicate 
  balance between the two drives: tell enough to get him out 
  of jail, but not so much that the Serpent People want to 
  “take care of him”. 
  Here is the leverage that investigators have on Dimitri, in 
  order of importance: 1) closing down his business (on the 
  charge of operating an illegal brothel), 2) accusing him of 
  criminal homicide (based on the fingerprints on the fire 
  axe handle), 3) suggesting that he is associated to an occult 
  transnational criminal organization, possibly involved in 
  crimes against humanity. 
   
  Below the keeper will find information Dimitri can 
  provide when asked specific questions. Answer 1 is the 
  default position of Dimitri to each question. Answer 2 can 
  be elicited by using proper leverage and interrogation 
  tactics, at the keeper’s discretion. Answer 3 is provided as 
  reference and shows what Dimitri really knows; however, 
  Dimitri only provides such information faced with certain 
  death, or worse, threatened by retribution from the Serpent 
  People. It is conceivable that at a later stage of the 
  scenario, when investigators know more about third 
  terrible foe and would question/threaten Dimitri again, he 
  would provide answer 3. 
   
  How well do you know Mr. Yamamura? 
  1. Never seen the guy before. 
  2. I don't know him, he’s just a guy, you know, he likes 
  to do young girls, mostly streetwalkers, that kind. He 
  came… maybe 10 times or less. I’m just the hotel guy, 
  what people do in my bedrooms is their business. 
  3. Well, I, kind of helped him get in contact with, you 
  know, the kind of girls he likes, that’s it. I knew he 
  was one of them and some hot shot in the company he 
  works for and that’s about all. If you’ve been around 
  them long enough, you can pick them out you know… 
   
  You killed Mr. Yamamura. 
  1. No I didn’t, you can’t prove that. 
  2. Shit, ok you know, I chopped the man’s head with the 
  f*****g axe, but he was already dead you know. I 
  swear he was. I never killed anybody, never did no fly 
  no harm, you can check my record. 
  3. Mr Yamamura was one of them. She saw his true face 
  and freaked out. People… are not ready to handle the 
  truth yet. I was just doing my job removing his head. 
  Nobody should be allowed to see this. Not now. 
   
  Why did you cut Mr. Yamamura’s head of? 
  1. I didn’t. Why would I do that? 
  2. Yeah, well, I was… I kind of freaked out I think: dead 
  man in my hotel, so I… I needed to dispose of the 
  body so, I don't know… I just grabbed the axe in the 
  corridor and… started to chop him into more 
  manageable bits you know? 
  3. I was just doing my job. If something happened 
  Yamamura told me to call them cleaners. They tell me 
  to remove the head quick? I remove the head. Quick. 
   
  What killed Mr. Yamamura if it wasn’t the axe blow? 
  1. I don't know why he was dead, I wasn’t even in the 
  *****g room, heard the girl shout, go in the room, the 
  fellow is f*****g naked, dead on the floor you know.  
  2. You are f*****g CSI no? You go figure out why the 
  man died. Can’t you tell from his blood or something? 
  3. Look, nobody killed Mr. Yamamura. I don't know, 
  maybe he got a bit too excited and, you know, he had 
  a heart attack or something, who knows? Who 
  wouldn’t get all worked up with the pretty little 
  package I got him (winks). 
   
  Who is the girl who was in room 207? 
  1. Don't know. Never seen her before. 
  2. Come on, she’s a streetwalker, who cares. Name is 
  Roksana I think, she came here a few times meeting 
  with Dr. Yamamura. 
  3. Yeah well, sue me, I know Roksana, turns out she’s 
  from the same town as me, back in Russia. I was 
  doing her a favor you know, she has to eat too, can’t 
  blame her. She lives in “the projects” (social housing). 
  Yeah, I even have her cell number here. 
   
  Who were the pest control guys? 
  1. Don't look at me, how should I know? You figure out. 
  2. Well, ok, I remember I think, I have this cockroach 
  problem so I got this number from this guy you know, 
  so I called them to come clean the hotel. I don't know 
  them and why they did what they did. Whatever man! 
  3. They’re the cleaners, you know. You call them when 
  there is a cluster f**k that you can’t take of on your 
  own. They clean up your mess. Got the number from 
  Dr. Yamamura with instructions, that’s all… 
   
  Where did you get your cell? What is this number you 
  called? 
  1. Like everybody, in a shop stupid! What number? 
  2. Look, I don't know what you’re talking about – if the 
  phone is rigged or something I didn’t do it. I don't 
  have the brains right? 
  3. It’s my cell phone all right, but they have, like, 
  modified it. Yamamura sent me an SMS with a virus 
  or something, which “upgraded” my phone. You can 
  call phone numbers that don't exist in any phone book 
  you know. You could call them if you wanted to and if 
  you knew their numbers; but all I have is the number 
  of the cleaners… 
  
  6 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  The Autopsy 
  If the authorities recovered Mr. Yamamura’s headless 
  body, it ends up on the autopsy table of the medical 
  examiner’s neon-lit office. Given the circumstances a full 
  medico-legal autopsy is in order. After identification of the 
  body and toe tagging, the body is photographed, weighed 
  and measured by an assistant. The medical examiner then 
  proceeds with the external examination, toxicological tests, 
  dissection and internal examination. For the purpose of the 
  game, highlights of the autopsy are rendered in spoken 
  form, as dictated by the medical examiner on her voice 
  recorder. The keeper can read the account aloud if the 
  investigators witness the autopsy first hand. Alternately, 
  adapt the account in the form of the autopsy report. 
   
  “This is case number 10-0229, assumedly Mr. Yamamura. 
  The body is that of a well-developed, slightly overweight 
  Asian male. The body is 59 inches long and weighs 158 
  pounds. If the head were not missing I’d estimate length to 
  be, say 67 inches and weight about 170 pounds…” 
  “Note the closely shaven genitalia and arm pits. The skin 
  is rather thin and of abnormal texture, showing patchy 
  discolorations or dyschromia. Apart from the rigor mortis, 
  there is obvious swelling of extremities. The two taken 
  together could hint at arterial occlusion, maybe a heart 
  failure. I see a small tattoo on the right thigh that looks 
  like… a phallic symbol maybe? No visible scars, bruises, 
  or skin lesions: the victim didn’t struggle. The obvious 
  thing is the missing head and the neck wound. Question is: 
  is the neck wound the fatal wound or not? In any case, 
  decapitation was quick: one stroke, maybe two, with a 
  relatively sharp and heavy instrument, probably an axe. 
  The single stroke and accurate aim, cutting C4 (fourth 
  cervical vertebra) in two, precludes that the victim was 
  standing or sitting, or lying on a soft mattress. He must 
  have been lying on the ground and lying pretty damn still. 
  It’s not unreasonable to think that the victim was 
  unconscious or already dead before the decapitation…” 
  “I’ve performed the Y incision, removed the breastplate 
  with the Stryker saw, and exposed heart and lungs, as well 
  as… Wait a minute… I’m opening the pericardium and 
  removing the heart, let’s have a good look. There are clear 
  signs of myocardial infarction, possibly acute based on the 
  pallor of the myocardium after so many hours. I need to 
  confirm this under the microscope but it looks like this 
  fellow suffered SCD (Sudden Cardiac Death) before 
  decapitation! I’m doing a section of the coronary artery. 
  Bingo! Major roadblock of the artery caused by a 
  thrombus (blood clot). Death was rapid, think minutes…” 
  “The heart shows abnormalities! It looks as if there are 
  only three chambers instead of four, could be a congenital 
  heart defect. Incredible that this man has gone 
  undiagnosed for so long – and lived! I wonder if it caused 
  the heart attack… Kidneys are small; again a likely 
  congenital maldevelopment... The small intestine seems 
  relatively short, but I can’t yet find signs of surgery…” 
  “It is my opinion that Mr. Yamamura, a 45 year old Asian 
  male, died of a heart attack. The cause of death was a 
  blood clot obstructing the coronary artery. There is some 
  evidence 
  of 
  a 
  rare 
  chromosomal 
  disorder 
  (7p2 
  monosomy?) that could explain the small kidneys, small 
  intestine, and the congenital heart defect. The mechanism 
  of death was restricted blood supply to the heart, leading to 
  an Acute Myocardial Infarction and Sudden Cardiac 
  Death. The manner of death was natural.” 
   
  Keeper’s note: the abnormalities observed by the medical 
  examiner are of course not due to a chromosomal disorder, 
  but to the semi-reptilian anatomy of the Serpent people. 
   
  THE MEDICAL EXAMINER 
  The medical examiner is Dr. Marcella Scarpa (see 
  Statistics). The subplot fork to consider here is whether the 
  investigators meet with Dr. Scarpa before or after a 
  Serpent has replaced her. Both options are interesting from 
  a role-playing point of view and the keeper must weigh 
  their respective advantages and drawbacks. If one 
  investigator is a medical examiner, coroner or pathologist, 
  the keeper could also opt to let the player role-play the 
  autopsy. 
   
  The key difference between a human Dr. Scarpa or a 
  Serpent Dr. Scarpa is the following: with a human Dr. 
  Scarpa, it is the body of Dr. Yamamura that is abnormal 
  (see full autopsy above, as well as the result of the 
  toxicological examination – see “Serpent blood” below). 
  In contrast, a Serpent Dr. Scarpa omits any evidence of 
  Serpent anatomy during the autopsy and in the autopsy 
  report: the keeper must leave out the underlined text in the 
  autopsy account. Instead, it is the behavior of the look-
  alike that presents some oddities: the Serpent may have 
  some difficulties finding things, and generally not be 
  herself (as her assistant may confess – investigators may 
  catch a surprised look or two by the assistant towards the 
  doctor); in her defense, Dr. Scarpa alias the Serpent may 
  lie that she feels unwell (“I think it’s the flu)” and absent 
  minded. The keeper is referred to Dr. Scarpa’s Statistics to 
  role-play her character. One possibility, if an investigator 
  attends the autopsy and succeeds a Medicine skill roll, is to 
  notice what Dr. Scarpa leaves out during the autopsy (the 
  skin condition, the phallic tattoo, the three-chamber heart, 
  etc.) The keeper should let the investigator or Dr. Scarpa 
  come up with the 7p2 monosomy hypothesis to explain the 
  congenital anomalies.  
   
  Serpent blood 
  Note: if the body of Dr. Yamamura hasn’t been found, all 
  that can be recovered of him at the crime scene is his 
  blood soaking the carpet. In that case, the information 
  below is the only thing that the medical examiner or her 
  assistant can provide about him. 
   
  While the medical examiner proceeds with the autopsy, the 
  assistant runs a number of toxicological tests on various 
  bodily fluids, including blood. Tests are negative: no 
  evidence of alcohol, drug, or poison is found.  
  However, the blood sample is problematic (due to its 
  reptilian nature): first it clots very easily, especially in 
  small amounts, which complicates blood analysis. The 
  pathologist is not be able to make sense of any test result 
  or analysis of blood smears under the microscope. Most 
  readings are “out of range”: no sensible interpretation 
  should be offered by the keeper at this stage of the 
  scenario – just leave the players in the dark for now. 
  
  7 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  The Projects 
  At some stage the investigators will have identified 
  Roksana (a potential suspect) and decide to pay her a visit 
  at her home address “for questioning”. 
   
  Roksana lives in a flat in The Projects, a depressing 
  neighborhood of public housing: low-rise, gray tower 
  blocks. Neglect and rampant poverty have turned The 
  Projects into a focus for drug problems, crime, and 
  prostitution. The police usually avoid the area because of 
  gangs that resent any form of authority; there have been 
  incidents in the past in which police officers have been 
  cornered and attacked, and police vehicle damaged and 
  burned down. Suffice it to say that investigators going in 
  blind are not welcome.  
  Roksana’s flat is in the Woodside Block, investigators 
  must first wriggle through a crowd of hostile teenagers 
  hanging around the entrance, take the urine reeking lift to 
  the third floor, and find apartment 302 down the dirty 
  corridor. Roksana’s flat is small, extremely untidy, dirty, 
  and dark – Roksana has closed all the blinds and has lived 
  the last day or two as a recluse.  
   
  As with the medical examiner Dr. Scarpa (above), the 
  keeper faces a choice. If the investigators have displayed 
  due diligence and concern in identifying Roksana and 
  finding her, the keeper should reward them: she is still 
  alive. If however the investigators have been slow or 
  negligent, then let the Cleaners find her first and eliminate 
  her: investigators find her dead in the flat. 
   
  ROKSANA, ALIVE AND ANXIOUS 
  Roksana can be overheard rummaging in her apartment 
  and talking in agitated fashion (to herself). The incident 
  with the serpent man has shaken her sanity. The keeper is 
  referred to Roksana’s Statistics to role-play her. 
  Specifically, she is suffering from post-traumatic stress 
  disorder (PTSD): retrograde amnesia of the 2 hours 
  preceding the event (she can’t remember anything from the 
  moment she left home to fleeing the hotel). Additionally 
  she is plagued by intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and 
  anxiety. Since the events she hasn’t dared leaving her flat 
  and mistrusts all human beings including her best friend 
  who she wouldn’t let in, although she can’t articulate why. 
   
  Initially, she won't let the investigators in, shouting 
  through the door that she doesn’t want to be disturbed and 
  please leave her alone.  Roksana needs some solid 
  convincing on the behalf of the investigators before she 
  lets them in. We leave it to the keeper to decide what 
  constitutes success: role-play the conversation (showing 
  understanding and offering help, or threatening with arrest 
  and jail wins over Roksana), require some appropriate skill 
  rolls (e.g. Fast Talk or Persuade), or a combination. 
   
  Once inside, investigators with the psychology or 
  psychoanalysis skill may be able to establish that Roksana 
  suffers from PTSD and retrograde amnesia. She cannot 
  remember the last two hours before fleeing hotel room 
  207.  The only way to restore some of her memory is to 
  help her relive the events just before the trauma; obviously 
  the investigators weren’t there to witness those, but may 
  still be able to reconstruct some of the events. It is 
  important not to rush Roksana but instead give her enough 
  space and time to recollect. Depending on how well the 
  players role-play the questioning, here are recollections 
  they can elicit from Roksana, from vague to more specific: 
   
  • 
  I don't know, I, I’m sorry… I’m confused. And I’m 
  scared – no, I don't know why, it’s awful! 
  • 
  I remember coming out of the hotel, into the 
  daylight… As if I walked out of a dream and into the 
  waking world. 
  • 
  Yes, I remember now… Oh my god I forgot his name, 
  how could I? Dimitri? Yes, Dimitri. I think. I had to 
  come to… To do something. What was it? A client? 
  • 
  Yes, I’ve done this before. It’s… A hard world to live 
  in. You have to earn money you know – to eat, to have 
  a place of your own. I do this (prostitution). And… 
  I’ve been at the hotel a few times; this was not the first 
  time… Maybe Dimitri knows something? 
  • 
  You say I met this man? Dr Yamamura (she flinches)? 
  It's not the name – he’s Japanese right? Yes (tears run 
  down her cheeks, she’s visibly agitated). I don't think 
  this is a good idea. Could you please leave now? I’m 
  sorry, maybe come back tomorrow. I’ll feel better. I 
  can’t take this anymore…(If investigators leave now, 
  they won’t see her alive anymore – see below). 
  • 
  I was in this room. Oh no! It’s like a mist, horrible. 
  This man… He stands there, he’s naked I think, but 
  his face is so… Blurry (she sobs). My god, he looks 
  like a ghost. Something happens, I can’t… (She 
  frowns, crying). Something happens to him, I watch 
  but… I didn't do anything. I’m so sorry. Can you help 
  me? I’m so scared that I feel like I’m going to die! 
   
  ROKSANA, OD’ED 
  If the investigators wait too long, the Cleaners have paid 
  Roksana a visit, broken into her flat (so the door is open) 
  and subdued her, injecting a lethal dose of the “Serpent 
  drug” CI 582 into her left leg. Investigators find her dead 
  in her flat, lying peacefully at last on the grimy couch. 
  Autopsy reveals a shriveled bladder with blood in the urine 
  sample and some evidence of cell death in the brain. The 
  toxicology screening report indicates that a 2-mg/L 
  concentration of a psychoactive drug has been found in the 
  urine sample, either PCP or an analogue of PCP. 
  The investigator may request a more advanced forensic 
  toxicology test. Such a test confirms the presence of a drug 
  resembling Ketamine but with a different molecular 
  structure. 
  The case file mentions an injection needle mark on her left 
  leg, inside the thigh on the iliac artery. The opinion of the 
  medical examiner is that she OD’ed from an unidentified 
  psychoactive drug, possibly self-administered. 
  Investigators may notice a detergent smell hanging in the 
  apartment, which may remind them of the smell in room 
  207 of the hotel. 
  No fingerprints other than Roksana’s are found in the flat. 
  Oddly, no syringe or needles are found to explain the 
  needle mark, which may indicate foul play. In fact, 
  Roksana did do drugs, including CI 582, but she would 
  typically ingest it. A flat search comes up with a small 
  plastic bag containing 10 grams of the stuff. 
  
  8 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
   
  Serpent drug 
  Note: the game mechanics of the Serpent drug are 
  explained in the appendix of this scenario. Here we only 
  provide some contextual information for the keeper. 
   
  The “Serpent drug” is not the name by which this illegal 
  drug is known. Recreational users call it K-loch, Green 
  Matter, Tunnel, Sleepwalker, Little Death or Dream Drug. 
  Users liken its effects to PCP or Ketamine. When taken in 
  the dark, high doses induce extremely vivid out-of-body 
  experiences, hence the name “Dream Drug”. However it 
  lacks the unpredictable mood-altering effects of PCP and 
  users of the dream drug retain a sense of self. As a result 
  the effects of the drug are all the more “realistic”, and 
  often experienced as traveling to other worlds and 
  dimensions. The drug has a very high abuse potential. 
  The Serpent drug started as compound CI 582 developed 
  by S&K laboratories (controlled by influential Serpent 
  people) while researching a revolutionary fast-acting 
  antidepressant and anxiolytic. The compound was 
  abandoned because of its pronounced hallucinatory side 
  effects but drew the attention of the Serpent People for that 
  very reason. The Serpent People discovered that the drug 
  opens a temporary gate to the Dreamlands in the user’s 
  mind – worse still, if the user died while under the drug’s 
  influence, his or her soul would be trapped there, forever. 
  Add the high addiction potential and the Serpent 
  organization decided to stimulate illicit production in 
  2005. In recent years, helped by its very low price, demand 
  for the drug grew explosively and it is becoming one of the 
  most popular psychoactives – with the potential to create a 
  major social problem: an entire “lost generation”. 
   
  Of course the secret history of the drug is not known by 
  law enforcement agencies, yet. The Serpent people’s hand 
  has long withdrawn, and humans are diligently working at 
  their own demise. The investigators only know that a new 
  drug is hitting the streets and touching all strata of the 
  population: young, old, poor and rich. Special teams 
  around the world are being put together to understand the 
  threat and contain it. So far without success. 
  Dr. Yamamura’s Daughter 
  By now the investigators should have obtained the court 
  warrant to search Dr. Yamamura’s house, which also 
  grants authority to do electronic surveillance of his 
  computer and intercept emails, etc. in the next 48 hours. 
   
  Dr. Yamamura, being the CEO of a subsidiary of 
  pharmaceutical giant S&K employing 30 staff, owns a 
  large house in a well-to-do neighborhood of the town. 
  After breaking the lock of the front door, the investigators 
  find a strangely cold, dark, and empty house, which 
  doesn’t seemed to be lived in at all. Although records 
  indicate that Dr. Yamamura lived in this house since 
  entering the country 3 years ago, it is virtually devoid of 
  furniture and immaculate. The keeper should ask the 
  players if they switch on lights (or alternately use a torch). 
  It takes about 10 minutes to walk through the entire house, 
  and sounds echo strangely in the emptiness. After 10 
  minutes, the investigators converge to the only upstairs 
  room that seems inhabited: the master bedroom. The 
  bedroom features only a mattress in the middle of the 
  floor, a desk with a high-end laptop lying on top, as well as 
  a pen and a pad of yellow post-it notes. Dr. Yamamura’s 
  attaché-case is next to the desk. It takes half an hour to sift 
  through its contents, which is largely business-related – 
  nothing suspicious. A cell phone is found inside, of the 
  same make as Dimitri’s, but empty of data and call logs; 
  Dr. Yamamura must have made a point of regularly 
  deleting the contents of the device. 
  The walk-in closet is typical of a workaholic businessman, 
  full of suits and shirts, and little casual clothing. 
  Eventually, investigators turn their attention to Dr. 
  Yamamura’s humming laptop. In order to login, the 
  investigators need to provide the required password. Dr. 
  Yamamura changed password every two or three days. His 
  security mania had one flaw: he often needed to write 
  down passwords in order to memorize them. He wrote the 
  last one on a post-it note, which is long gone. However, 
  the subtle imprint of the ball pen can still be felt and even 
  spotted on the topmost post-it. The keeper should allow 
  one investigator to notice the imprint: the password 
  “Pan0ptic0n” can be revealed by carefully shading the 
  post-it with a pencil. Once logged in, here is the 
  information that can be found within an hour or two of 
  rummaging through the laptop’s file system and emails: 
   
  • 
  Dr. Yamamura has a 12-year old daughter, Hisayo 
  Yamamura. Father and daughter exchange polite 
  emails every Sunday. Hisayo attends a boarding 
  school in the London area, UK. The email exchange 
  abruptly stopped about 6 weeks ago on both sides. 
  There are a few pictures of Hisayo in the image folder. 
  The most recent one shows her in company of a 
  friend, also Asian, posing smiling in front of what 
  could be the boarding school (The Nippon School in 
  West 
  London, 
  UK). 
  The 
  picture 
  electrifies 
  investigators who have seen the snuff DVD, as they 
  recognize in Hisayo’s friend the face of the little girl 
  in the movie (Kanna Takahashi)! 
  • 
  The computer contains scant personal information 
  besides the pictures, almost all data relates to the 
  business of managing his pharmaceutical company. 
  • 
  Dr. Yamamura’s company Yamamura Tech develops 
  in collaboration with WSU (Wayne-State University, 
  Michigan, USA), battlefield psychoactive drugs that 
  enhance the mood and cognition of soldiers in the heat 
  of action, or to deal with disorders such as PTSD. 
  Although the Ministry of Defense is the main 
  customer of Yamamura Tech, a few spin-off products 
  have been commercialized. 
  • 
  The computer contains an encrypted folder that cannot 
  be opened without knowing a password. Dr. 
  Yamamura actually stores all incriminating data 
  relating to his sex ring there – pictures, movies, 
  contact information, incl. archives of emails - 
  unfortunately breaking into this folder proves too 
  difficult even for an expert computer user within the 
  time limit of the court warrant; the players can decide 
  to sidestep the law and hand the laptop to a hacker 
  friend, but by the time the folder’s contents are 
  revealed, the investigators will be in London and 
  already know more than they need to. 
  
  9 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
   
  Well into the computer search, investigators are startled by 
  a loud “ping” bringing up a live messaging window from 
  “8mm” with the following text: 
   
    8mm [13:57]: 
   Hi Doc, you online? 
   
  This is a crucial moment for the investigators: they have 
  the opportunity to pose as Dr. Yamamura and obtain 
  information about his double life, the sex ring and the 
  whereabouts of Hisayi Yamamura. The trick is to make 
  8mm talk without getting burnt (i.e. 8mm discovers his 
  interlocutor is not Dr. Yamamura). The keeper must play 
  8mm and improvise the chat. Some scripted interjections 
  are provided below to help the keeper, arranged in order of 
  increasing information content, and they are interspersed 
  with questions to test the players’ wits. The keeper is 
  invited to read the Statistics of Dr. Yamamura and 8mm 
  before role-playing the “encounter”. 8mm is the cold-
  blooded cameraman involved in the making of the snuff 
  movies, however he has no ties with the Serpent People 
  and knows nothing about their worldwide conspiracy. He 
  is however uneasy about the fact that Hisayi Yamamura, 
  the sex ring’s next victim, is Dr. Yamamura’s daughter! 
  If the players fumble their replies to those questions, 8mm 
  realizes the con and closes the communication. 
   
   Long time no chat doc. Don’t think we've 
  spoken since I sent you the last DVD. 
  Whad'ya think of it? 
   
   The little jap was great. Screamed her 
  heart out, damn sight better than the 
  polish chick. What do you want us to do 
  with, er, Hisayi? Dunno but, given her 
  connection with you wouldn’t it be easier 
  to, you know, pick another girl? 
   
  Here the players have a choice, one that can save the girl. 
  They can ask 8mm to keep her alive, in which case she’ll 
  ultimately be found at the “studio”, alive. They can ask 
  8mm to free the girl, sedated, in which case the police 
  finds her after 24 hours and place her temporarily in foster 
  care. Players may come with other surprising schemes that 
  the keeper may agree to follow-up on. 
   
  Players may want 8mm to reveal his location. Direct 
  questions arouse his suspicion. What works is asking 8mm 
  indirect questions such as the weather at his end, what he 
  is going to do in the week-end/holidays, was it difficult to 
  locate the girls, etc. The keeper should improvise a casual 
  answer that includes “South London”, but 8mm is not used 
  to small talk from “doc” so add to it: 
   
   Why do you ask? You ok doc? You don’t 
  seem yourself. Is there trouble? Why 
  don’t I call you on your cell? 
   
   Btw doc, your spelling is awfully better 
  than it was. What happened to your typos? 
   
  The only way to obtain information about the sex ring is to 
  bring about the topic of the next snuff movie. Note that the 
  scenario is constructed such that investigators are able to 
  unravel the mystery even if they do not succeed here. 
  Make the information hard to get: if the investigators show 
  they know too little or ask too pressing questions, they are 
  burnt. Draw the players out of their comfort zone by 
  asking them to decide about the next girl’s fate: 
   
   Customers 
  are 
  getting 
  impatient; 
  so 
  here’s my question: you’re the boss doc, 
  what you want done with the next cute 
  little butterfly I've got? It’ll be #3 
  you know, nice milestone, how time flies! 
   
  The investigators must answer or fail. The keeper can 
  require a Sanity roll (0/1D3) for providing a reply that 
  may doom the sex ring’s next victim. The only way out is 
  to return the question, e.g. what do the customers want? 
  Here are replies the keeper should work into the chat: 
   
   The Ring, they have plenty of sick ideas 
  you know. The way they write the emails, 
  I can tell they must be hot shots, 
  educated and stuff like you. Who am I to 
  judge, the customer is king as they say! 
   
   The bodies? Ah, don’t worry Doc, we bury 
  them in the basement, no one will ever 
  know. I may be an artist but I’m not dumb. 
   
   I’ll continue to drop each master DVD in 
  a bag locker at the train station as we 
  agreed doc: has worked well so far no? 
   
   Studio is in a big abandoned warehouse on 
  the south side, nice and quiet, good 
  lighting for my camera work. Just Sex 
  Machine, the girl and me. Sometimes a 
  f*****g homeless we have to snuff out and 
  dump in the Thames, no one gives a s*** 
  about em. Parasites. Hey that’s an idea: 
  have one play with the next girl and Sex 
  Machine kills em both, you like that? 
   
  Note that inquiring about dead homeless people fished out 
  of the Thames River is a clue that can lead to locating the 
  studio in the next part of the scenario. The bag-locker 
  story is another vital clue, since only one major London 
  train station has them: London Victoria Station. 8mm does 
  not reveal anymore about the people in the Ring or its 
  modus operandi at this stage, and quickly gets suspicious 
  of the investigators if they press. If the investigators have 
  successfully conducted the chat without getting burnt, here 
  is the last message of 8mm: 
   
   As I told you tomorrow I've got a trip up 
  north, boring family stuff. After that 
  I'm back in London ready for the shoot 
  with Sex Machine and miss lucky number, 7 
  days from now. Have to call Machine see 
  if he can free himself from work. Who 
  would know that he’s a f*****g computer 
  scientist in real life LOL. 
    
  Now the investigators have a mission (save the girl), a 
  location (London), and a deadline: 7 days. 
   
   
   
  
  10 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  The Cleaners 2 
  In order to spice up the search at Dr. Yamamura’s house, 
  the keeper can have the Cleaners stop by while the 
  investigators are chatting with 8mm. The cleaners come to 
  check the house and are intent on removing Dr. 
  Yamamura’s effects, in particular his laptop. 
   
  An investigator looking out of a window sees a white van 
  stop in front of Dr. Yamamura’s house. This is the same 
  van as in the opening scene. It is up to the keeper to decide 
  how far the cleaners go this time. In any case, the cleaners 
  won’t 
  knowingly 
  interfere 
  with 
  law 
  enforcement 
  personnel. If the investigators switched lights on to ease 
  their progression through the house, the cleaners will be 
  very wary. Three of them step out of the van (the driver 
  stays), casually look left and right and start walking 
  towards the house. Investigators may spot that at least one 
  of them carries a concealed weapon (see Statistics). Two 
  cleaners stop at the front door and use the doorbell. After 
  ten seconds however, they open the door with their own 
  key of the house, walk in, and draw their weapons. The 
  third cleaner walks around the house and checks the house 
  at the back. 
   
  The rest of the encounter is left at the keeper’s discretion. 
  Flight 301 
  At this stage, it is a good idea for the keeper and players 
  to pause, take stock of the situation, and plan their next 
  move. Below is a summary of the necessary leads the 
  players should have learnt in order to progress the 
  scenario to the next level. 
   
  • 
  Dr. Yamamura’s daughter Hisayi has possibly been 
  abducted 6 weeks ago by the sex ring and could be its 
  next victim; she was attending a boarding school in 
  the Greater London area and was seemingly 
  befriended by the girl featured in the snuff movie, 
  Kanna Takahashi, who disappeared 3 months ago. 
  Kanna attended the Nippon School in West London. 
  • 
  The snuff movie was shot in an abandoned warehouse, 
  (“the studio”) possibly not far from the Thames on the 
  south side. The cameraman is a shady figure that goes 
  by the nickname “8mm” and works together with a 
  brute he calls “Sex Machine”. Bodies of dead girls are 
  buried in the basement, and it seems that 8mm and 
  Sex Machine also killed one or more homeless 
  squatters and dumped their bodies in the river. 
  • 
  Master copies of snuff DVDs are dropped in a bag 
  locker at a train station, likely a major London train 
  station. A member of the sex ring most likely picks up 
  the DVD or DVDs for further distribution. 
  • 
  The investigators have 7 days before the next girl is 
  being sacrificed. 
   
  The logical next step for the investigators is to contact 
  their counterparts at the Metropolitan Police Services 
  (MPS or simply “the MET”) and share their story. After a 
  few phone calls, they end up talking to Chief Inspector 
  mac Morna (role-played by the keeper) heading a sex 
  crime unit for Greater London. Role-playing the phone call 
  – mac Morna has a dark voice and a strong Scottish accent 
  - gives the keeper an opportunity to engage the players in a 
  discussion around what they know so far, and help them 
  where necessary to structure their thoughts and indirectly 
  fill them in on what they might have overlooked (see 
  bulleted leads above). 
   
  If the players do not think of contacting their English 
  counterparts, have Chief Inspector mac Morna call them 
  instead: “your investigation has come to my attentions, and 
  there are certain matters of importance that we need to 
  discuss, etc.” 
   
  The Chief Inspector is very interested in what the 
  investigators have to say, and hint to them that some of 
  their findings connect with an unsolved case they’ve been 
  working on, and lead to a breakthrough. The players may 
  want to press him for more information; instead the Chief 
  Inspector asks them to pack and jump on the first plane to 
  London, to help his team at New Scotland Yard; he will 
  obtain proper authorization through INTERPOL. If the 
  players hesitate, the Chief Inspector reminds them that 
  time is the essence, lives are at stake, and that both teams 
  need each other to unravel the operations of a sex ring that 
  seems to operate like an international crime organization: 
  “we have in our hands the only snuff movie in existence, 
  let’s make sure that this is the last we’ll ever see.” 
  Paranoia points 
  Initially, the investigation moved on the fringes of the 
  Serpent conspiracy, and the investigators, not drawing too 
  much attention from the Serpent People, have been more 
  or less in control of their comings and goings. This is 
  about to change. As the investigation delves deeper into 
  the Serpent People’s schemes, invisible alarms are 
  triggered that elicit counter measures from the Serpents or 
  their servants. In order to simulate this in the game, we add 
  “paranoia mechanics” to the scenario. It works as follows: 
   
  • 
  Every time the investigators get burnt (e.g. by 
  confronting a Serpent person in human guise, or 
  interfering with a Serpent operation, or looking into 
  Serpent information systems) they gain one or more 
  “paranoia points.” 
  • 
  Above certain thresholds, the Serpent organization 
  launches counter measures. The investigators’ current 
  number of paranoia points, i.e. how “burnt” they are, 
  determines the level of the counter measure. This can 
  vary from simple police obstruction, to assassination 
  attempts, and in the last stages even sorcery. 
  • 
  A list of pre-cooked counter measures, which read as 
  scenario sub-plots, is provided in Appendix. Counter 
  measures and mini-plots are organized according to 
  threat level and described in a generic way to ease 
  integration with the current storyline. 
   
  As the investigation progresses, the investigators become 
  increasingly aware that they are being watched and caught 
  in a vast web of intrigues. The keeper should do his or her 
  best indeed to instill a sense of diffuse threat, mistrust, and 
  increasing paranoia as game play progresses. 
   
  
  11 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  Having come this far, the keeper must count paranoia 
  points incurred by the investigators in the first part of the 
  scenario. Add points as follows: 
   
  • 
  Investigators confront the Cleaners and find the 
  headless body: 3 points. 
  • 
  Investigators arrest Dimitri: 1 point. 
  • 
  Investigators highlight the anatomical abnormalities 
  hidden by Dr. Scarpa (who has been replaced by a 
  Serpent): 2 points. 
  • 
  Investigators find Roksana alive and question her: 1 
  point. 
  • 
  Investigators report that in their opinion, Roksana was 
  murdered: 1 point. 
  • 
  Investigators 
  confront 
  the 
  Cleaners 
  at 
  Dr. 
  Yamamura’s house and/or take custody of the doctor’s 
  computer: 2 points. 
  • 
  For every week in which paranoia points did not 
  increase, subtract 1D3 points from the total. 
   
  Add up the paranoia points: 
   
  • 
  0-2 points: Serpent People ignore the investigators. 
  • 
  3-5 points: Serpents conduct covert surveillance of the 
  investigators (intercept communications, hire people 
  to tail them and report back, etc.). 
  • 
  6-8 points: Serpents obstruct the investigators’ police 
  work (eliminating evidence and witnesses, setting up 
  cons to defame investigators or get them arrested, 
  scare them off, etc.). 
  • 
  9-11 points: Serpents try to kill the investigators in an 
  accident, or using drugs and poisons. 
  • 
  12+ points: overt attacks, both physical and magical, 
  and summoning of Mythos beings. 
  The Terrorist 
  If the investigators’ paranoia points exceed 7 points at this 
  stage, the keeper should consider playing the following 
  “terrorist attack”. The Serpent People, alerted by their 
  informants of the investigators’ meddling into the case of 
  Dr. Yamamura, decide to eliminate them in one go. 
   
  As the investigators wait at the boarding gate for their 
  flight to London Heathrow, they notice or observe a 
  number of interesting co-travelers. The keeper is free to 
  sketch a few colorful characters that may draw the 
  investigators’ attention. Amongst those, mention an 
  attractive young person (man or woman at the keeper’s 
  discretion – below we assume a “she”), late twenties, 
  casually but smartly dressed, who returns one of the 
  investigators’ inquiring look. This occurs two or three 
  times, enough to arouse one’s curiosity: romantic interest, 
  something else? If that person is approached and 
  questioned, she declines her first name and nationality 
  (“Sacha, I’m Irish, how do you do?”), politely indulge in 
  small talk, but excuses herself if questions become too 
  inquisitive (“sorry, I need to go to the washrooms”). 
   
  Sacha turns out to be a Christian extremist, member of a 
  national unity group implicated in political murders and 
  terrorist attacks, and indirectly sponsored and manipulated 
  by the Serpent organization. Under false pretenses Sacha 
  has been instructed to blast flight 301 in midair, and with it 
  all sinners on board – especially the investigators who she 
  was told are envoys of Satan! 
   
  The flight is pleasantly uneventful after the events of the 
  last few days. One hour before landing however, the 
  investigators notice Sacha walking down the aisle from 
  business section where she was sitting, towards them. A 
  few meters away she stops, and by the look of her face, 
  hysterical and determined at the same time, all realize that 
  something is very wrong. She raises her right fist above 
  her head and shouts: “I AM THE ANGEL OF GOD! Ask 
  forgiveness for your sins NOW, as you meet your Maker!” 
  On a Successful Spot Hidden roll, an investigator 
  fleetingly notices that Sacha holds a small device in her 
  right hand. Players have a few seconds to react (the keeper 
  can mentally count 3 seconds in real time): if they do not 
  wrestle Sacha to the ground, she detonates a PETN 
  (pentrite, a high explosive) “body bomb” using the 
  pager/transmitter in her right hand. 
   
  What follows is a flash of light and deafening explosion, 
  instantly killing 18 people. Investigators incur 1D6 
  Damage each and incur a 0/1D3 SAN roll for witnessing 
  Sacha blown to bits. An entire segment of the fuselage 
  blows out leaving a gaping hole right in front of the 
  investigators and causing explosive decompression: the 
  cabin floor caves in next to the huge hole and three rows of 
  seats are instantly sucked out of the cabin with their 
  passengers (4 additional fatalities), with one flight 
  surviving attendant frantically clinging to a seat leg. The 
  ensuing noise and confusion are overwhelming, oxygen 
  masks dangling wildly above the passengers’ heads, and 
  debris flying though the cabin. Investigators can feel the 
  plane free falling rapidly and have difficulty breathing 
  (pilots perform an emergency descent down to breathable 
  air). The debris from the explosion and the ejected rows of 
  seats have visibly damaged the left wing and set the two 
  left engines on fire (all thrust lost). Within minutes the 
  pilots realize that they will not be able to safely reach an 
  airport or even land with the damaged airliner, and so have 
  to “ditch” it, i.e. attempt a water landing! The controlled 
  descent takes 10 minutes and the keeper should tell the 
  players of the nearing crash into the Atlantic Ocean… 
   
  Although water landings of commercial airliners are rare, 
  the survival chances are surprisingly high. The keeper 
  leaves players contemplating certain doom, but in truth the 
  experienced captain of flight 301 successfully glides the 
  airliner above the Atlantic Ocean before ditching it. 
  Immediately after crashing into the water, the fuselage 
  twists near the hole yet does not break, and the plane 
  slowly fills with water. The pilots and flight attendants 
  urge passengers to put their life vests on, climb over seats 
  and evacuate the sinking airliner through the gaping hole. 
  Apart from the suicide and the 22 fatalities right after the 
  explosion, all remaining passengers and crew survive the 
  crash and are eventually rescued by nearby vessels and 
  military helicopters. The whole experience costs 0/1D6 
  SAN; failed rolls result in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 
   
   
  
  12 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  Cane Hill Hospital 
  If Flight 301 crashed, the first task of the keeper is to care 
  for the shaken or injured investigators. In the interest of 
  the unfolding plot, the period of recovery period should be 
  short and effective. The rescued investigators are flown by 
  helicopter to Gatwick Airport, 35 miles South of London, 
  then on to Cane Hill Hospital. The Hospital is located 15 
  miles to the South of Central London, a 45-mn drive. The 
  keeper may grant 1D4 Hit Points to each investigator for 
  First Aid and Medicine provided by rescuers and medical 
  staff. Assuming light injuries, investigators are discharged 
  after one night of observation. 
   
  Two notable events can take place at the hospital: Chief 
  Inspector mac Morna pays the investigators a visit, 
  accompanied by one of his subordinates (see Statistics). 
  The purpose of the visit is the same as described in “The 
  MET” section, only taking place at Cane Hill Hospital 
  instead. This twist helps the players to reclaim some of the 
  time lost in the plane crash and reconnect to the main plot. 
  In the middle of the night, hospitalized investigators are 
  awakened by spine chilling wailings and howlings that 
  resonate through the empty corridors. One cannot identify 
  what causes these sounds: man, hound, or something else. 
  In fact, Cane Hospital has an important role to play at the 
  end of this scenario, and the howling is a cue to its darker 
  nature. The sounds continue intermittently for a long hour, 
  and eventually subside. If investigators ask the staff about 
  it, a nurse or doctor dismissively mumbles something 
  about a “difficult patient”. 
  New Scotland Yard 
  The investigators soon meet Chief Inspector mac Morna 
  and his team at “The Yard” in Westminster. The 
  headquarters of the Metropolitan Police is a sterile, 
  polished long office block adjoining a 20-stories tower, 
  rising like the prow of a ship at the Y-shaped intersection 
  of Broadway and Victoria. Notably, the entire building is 
  surrounded at ground level by concrete blocks (a terrorist 
  counter measure), imparting the whole a forbidding 
  appearance. The headquarters – as mac Morna tells them 
  while escorting them inside, out of the pouring rain, and 
  through the neon-lit corridors and open offices – houses 
  the MET’s senior management team and the national 
  Police communication command core called “Panopticon”. 
   
  After having made acquaintances with mac Morna’s Sex 
  Crime Unit (see Statistics) and making themselves 
  comfortable (bad coffee, English tea and biscuits), mac 
  Morna and the investigators brief one another on what they 
  know about the sex ring. The keeper/mac Morna should let 
  the players summarize their progress, listening carefully 
  and asking questions to elicit any information that they 
  may be overlooking. The investigators notice that mac 
  Morna is writing down notes on a sheet of paper while 
  they’re talking. In turn, here is what mac Morna has to say: 
   
  “From now one you’re officially an IRT, an INTERPOL 
  Response Team operating on British soil. Your visitors’ 
  badges grant you access to this building for a whole week. 
  Here is the address of the hotel you’ll be staying at. You’ve 
  been deployed to provide specialist expertise and 
  investigative support to my team on operation ‘Ring’, 
  named of course after this sex ring. Formally you will be 
  reporting to the local INTERPOL liaison office but time is 
  of the essence, so let’s not worry too much about process. 
  Under the Crime International Cooperation bill, you are 
  allowed to pursue your investigation and carry out 
  surveillance as a constable in the execution of his or her 
  duty. However, and this is important, you will NOT be 
  allowed to carry firearms on UK soil, you CAN’T arrest 
  anybody (that’s our job), and you DON’T enter private 
  premises without permission from the owner. Also, under 
  the new INTERPOL arrangement you officially need to 
  report to the British police – that’s me, every five hours!” 
   
  “We think that the snuff movie is the real thing, sadly. 
  Searching through INTERPOL’s database of missing and 
  abducted children, we believe the victim to be Kanna 
  Takahashi, daughter of a Japanese diplomat. Indeed she 
  had been reported missing by the Nippon School in Acton 
  and by her parents 3 months ago. The girl you’re looking 
  for, Hisayo Yamamura, was attending the same school and 
  the two were befriended, like sisters. Hisayo disappeared 
  in broad daylight six weeks ago in the same mysterious 
  circumstances: no witnesses, no clues! The Takahashis 
  called 999 but the information never got to us. You made 
  the connection, but too late! You should know that with her 
  expat father working in the US, Hisayo was staying with 
  the Takakashis in West London; in fact, she’s the only 
  reason they stayed in the UK after the disappearance of 
  their daughter. With Hisayo gone, they went back to Japan 
  a week ago. Thanks to your investigation and the finding 
  of the DVD, we know now what happened to Kanna, and 
  we must find Hisayo before it’s too late!” 
   
   “You probably know more about the ring than we do. We 
  accidentally found out about it after the arrest of a few 
  pedophiles, going through their files. All were referring to 
  this sex ring, maybe a handful of online individuals, one of 
  them (“doc”) assumedly Dr. Yamamura, the other ones 
  like “8mm” still unidentified. We haven’t been able to 
  track down their IP addresses. What caught our attention 
  like you is that intercepted chats and emails suggest that 
  the ring can produce material on demand. Well, the snuff 
  movie is the evidence of that I’m afraid.” 
   
  “Did you know that Dr. Yamamura lived in London for a 
  while with his wife and daughter before moving on to set 
  up his subsidiary in the US? He actually left the UK 
  shortly after his wife unexpectedly died of a heart attack. 
  That’s when Hisayo moved in with the Takahashis.” 
   
  At a fitting moment, mac Morna silently hands the piece of 
  paper he was writing on to an investigator. The note reads: 
   
  “We’re burned. The Ring is only the tip of the iceberg. 
  ‘They have infiltrated the Met. Can’t talk aloud. We’re 
  being watched. Forget INTERPOL and the Crime bill. You 
  report to me. Find weapons. Do what you have to do. Trust 
  nobody, only your instincts. I’ll explain, but not now, not 
  here. I’ll be in touch but low tech. Check your message 
  inbox at the hotel reception.” 
   
  
  13 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  Investigators suddenly become very conscious of the stern 
  and tired expressions on mac Morna’s staff. All eyes are 
  intently fixed on them. The Chief Inspector continues: 
   
  “Thanks to you we have a number of new leads, yet none 
  of them very specific. It still is a bloody needle in a 
  haystack. Five days! Where do we start?” 
   
  Let the players answer. Here are the workable leads: 
   
  • 
  The Nippon School in Acton, West London 
  • 
  A train station with bag lockers 
  • 
  An abandoned warehouse near the Thames 
  • 
  Men 
  called 
  “8mm” 
  and 
  “Sex 
  Machine” 
  implicated in the illegal/amateur porn circuit 
   
  If the players forget to mention one of those 
  locations/persons, have one of mac Morna’s team 
  complete the list. Apart from the Nippon School, the other 
  leads may seem unspecific and useless as such. However, 
  asking through narrows down possibilities as explained 
  below. It is most rewarding if the players find this by 
  themselves, but if they get stuck, the keeper should 
  provide additional hints, e.g. through mac Morna, in order 
  to put them on the right track: 
   
  • 
  The only major train station with bag lockers is station 
  London Victoria. Further, 10,000 surveillance cameras 
  (close-circuit televisions or CCTVs) cover Central 
  London, including stations, and feed through the 
  Panopticon network, the MET’s communication 
  center at New Scotland Yard. With a proper time 
  stamp and angle, it may be possible to analyse 
  suspicious activity around the bag lockers area. 
  • 
  Searching all abandoned warehouses around the 
  Thames River is a nonstarter. However, mentioning 
  bodies of murdered homeless people that may have 
  been 
  found 
  drifting 
  downstream 
  provides 
  a 
  breakthrough (see the chat with 8mm in the “Dr. 
  Yamamura’s daughter” section): two bodies have been 
  found in recent months, badly decomposed, on the 
  south shore of the Thames. A jogger found the most 
  upstream body just East of the Bermondsey wharves; 
  the most downstream body was found past the Old 
  Salt Quay. This narrows down the search to a 1.5 
  miles walk between Bermondsey and Rotherhite. 
  About 10% of warehouse complexes in the area are 
  disused. 
  • 
  A good idea to start the search for 8mm or Sex 
  Machine is to visit the skuzzier Adult Shops in 
  London, the ones that may be selling amateur and 
  illegal material under the counter. 
  Cat and Mouse 
  The players have now reached a turning point in the 
  scenario, where each lead is about to branch off into 
  parallel plotlines. The remainder of the scenario is 
  organized around locations (the Nippon School, Victoria 
  Station, “K” Cold Store warehouse, Adult shops and 
  Clubs, etc.) that the investigators can visit and find clues 
  that lead them on to new locations and Non-Player 
  Characters. To enrich the London experience and give the 
  players a real sense of space, the keeper can augment the 
  plot with “random” events as provided for instance in the 
  Appendix. Use these events when players decide to 
  investigate a location not scripted in this scenario, or in 
  response to the investigators crossing another “paranoia 
  points” threshold. It is therefore important for the keeper 
  to keep count of the team’s paranoia points – you are 
  referred to the Appendix for the paranoia mechanics, 
  which are linked to the aforementioned events. Use your 
  imagination and do not hesitate to improvise sub-plots as 
  suits the adventure. 
   
  On the first day of investigation in London, simply let the 
  investigators loose, and assess the players’ progress in 
  unraveling the sex ring and the overarching Serpent 
  conspiracy. If progress is too slow, remind the players that 
  some tasks can be delegated to mac Morna’s police 
  officers (see Statistics). This may lead in turn to interesting 
  subplots and role-play (one of the constables being a 
  “mole”). The Chief Inspector’s staff also provides either 
  cannon fodder or unexpected threats (if “replaced” by a 
  Serpent) in the later stages the scenario, when the 
  investigators become an overt assassination target of the 
  Serpent People. 
   
  In terms of mood, the weather above London is cold and 
  rainy at this time of year, with occasional snow. The days 
  are still relatively short, and the city is often shrouded in a 
  white mist in the morning and in the evening, turning 
  streets and buildings into a ghostly diorama. 
   
  Panopticon 
  At some point, curious players are bound to ask questions 
  about “Panopticon”. Here is the publicly available 
  information that the keeper can provide them. 
    
  Panopticon is the world’s largest security and protection 
  service company. Historically, Panopticon started as a 
  prison builder (advocating the “panoptic” prison design) 
  and rapidly expanded to provide a wide array of security 
  and protection services. With the age of information, 
  Panopticon diversified further, and now dominates the 
  market of electronic security systems and recently 
  developed into a mobile network operator. Panopticon 
  built the UK’s nationwide CCTV network, and also 
  provided the total solution for England and Wales’ 43 
  police forces: a wide-area telecommunication network 
  called “Panopticon”, the central server of which – the 
  “core” - sits in the basement of New Scotland Yard. 
   
  In reality however, Panopticon is controlled by the Serpent 
  People, who use it to exert wide-reaching electronic 
  surveillance of Internet traffic and phone calls. For 
  instance, it allows them to remotely switch on a mobile 
  phone and eavesdrop on nearby conversations, as well as 
  use secret telephone channels to communicate with one 
  another or with their servants 
   
  The Panopticon company majority owner is Chih 
  Corporation, the CEO of which is billionaire Mr. Chih, 
  none other than the modern-day avatar of the Serpent 
  Priest Seth-heh! 
  
  14 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  London 
  The objective of the investigation is to unravel the Sex 
  Ring and save Hisayi Yamamura before she becomes the 
  sex ring’s next victim. The investigation is divided into two 
  chapters. The first part “London” follows on the initial 
  leads of the players. The keeper should keep track of 
  paranoia points as explained in the Appendix, and be 
  ready to throw in sub-plots as the situation demands, 
  progressively increasing the pressure on the investigators. 
  Resolving the mysteries of this first part, new locations and 
  events will be unlocked in a second part - “Cane Hill”. 
  The Nippon School 
  While in Anglo-Saxon times Ac Tun had been a farm 
  surrounded by oak woods, in 2010 Acton is a sprawling 
  suburb of West London. From a distance, the main 
  noticeable landmarks are the rows upon rows of run-down 
  block flats of South Acton Estate. 
  The Nippon school is situated in West Acton, a more 
  sought-after part of the suburb. West Acton is a labyrinth 
  of streets lined with little semi-detached houses that attract 
  young professional commuters as well as Japanese expats 
  living near the school. With its four tube and three railway 
  stations, Acton is easily accessible from Central London. 
  The independent Nippon School Ltd on Creffield Road 
  provides Japanese-language education to more than 400 
  pupils of ages 6 to 16. The school grounds are surrounded 
  by a six-foot brick wall, above which looms a narrow and 
  long three-storey, century-old red brick building that looks 
  more like an Edwardian textile mill than a school. 
   
  As the investigators walk towards the main school 
  building, somebody shouts: “where are you going? Excuse 
  me, yes you!” The janitor, a balding man in his forties, 
  briskly walks towards the investigators: “who are you? 
  You know you can’t just walk up here like that. This is 
  private property. What is your business?”  Let the players 
  explain themselves. The janitor isn’t easily impressed and 
  asks the investigators’ identification, and studies them for 
  a long minute, comparing photos with the investigators’ 
  faces. If the investigators refuse to show their 
  identification or play tough, he says: “I can be stiff too you 
  know, it’s my job. You’re trespassing. I ask you to leave 
  the premises, we have our rules”. The janitor won’t 
  hesitate to call the local police if necessary. Once things 
  are clarified one way or another, the janitor barks: “This 
  will do. Follow me. I’ll take you to the director”. 
   
  Little do the investigators know that the janitor is none 
  other than “8mm” (see Statistics)! 8mm is of course 
  suspicious of them but won’t show it, and he is shrewd 
  enough to keep his curiosity in check and not to arouse 
  their suspicion. He has memorized their names and faces, 
  and plans on asking the director what they’re up to later 
  on. He’ll keep silent all the way to her office and won't 
  speak unless spoken too. If asked he’ll decline his name 
  (see Statistics), and his role (“I’m the janitor”). On the 
  topic of the disappeared girls he’ll limit his comments to 
  some variant of: “a tragedy. I’ve told everything I know to 
  the police, which don’t amount to much. You understand 
  now why we have strict security rules. Ok, here we are…” 
   
  The janitor and the girls 
  If they ask about the janitor at the MET, some of the 
  personal information provided in his Statistics can be 
  shared. The janitor has been questioned by mac Morna 
  who recalls: “we interrogated him six months ago after the 
  disappearance of the Takahashi girl, but neither him - or 
  teachers or parents for that matter, could provide us with 
  any clues. We only know that the girl disappeared in broad 
  daylight between school and her home, a fifteen minutes 
  walk. No witnesses… The same happened with the 
  Yamamura girl. We didn’t suspect him because he was at 
  school both times, seen by several teachers or parents.” 
   
  In reality, Sex Machine, not 8mm, picked up the girls with 
  his car both times, just around the corner of Creffield 
  Road, hence 8mm’s strong alibi. 8mm had instructed Sex 
  Machine beforehand to tell a believable story he got from 
  Dr Yamamura, and warned him when the girls left school. 
   
  The school director is Ms Sadako-Morgan, a tall stern-
  looking woman. After greeting the investigators, she 
  launches into a long monologue about the school’s high 
  standards, imported directly from Japan, and stresses her 
  focus 
  on 
  discipline 
  and 
  safety. 
  A 
  successful 
  Insight/Psychology skill roll reveals that her somewhat 
  contrived lecture on safety hides a profound anxiety that 
  she developed since the awful events around Kanna and 
  Hisayi. If the investigators tell her about the likely fate of 
  Kanna, and the current situation of Hisayi, she becomes 
  very emotional. Her voice falters and her eyes brighten 
  with tears. She quickly regains control of her emotions 
  however and tells the investigators everything she knows 
  about the disappearances – unfortunately the information 
  is trivial and does not hold any relevant clues. 
  Eventually, Ms Sadako-Morgan escorts the investigators 
  back through chalky corridors now alive with Japanese 
  girls in uniform, who eye them with a mixture of curiosity 
  and suspicion. Halfway down the hall, the group meets an 
  attractive Caucasian teacher; the school director introduces 
  her as Eva, the mentor of both Kanna and Hisayo: “these 
  are good people working with the local police, hoping to 
  find our Hisayo.” Eva frowns: “and Kanna?” After a brief 
  exchange, Eva shows the investigators into an empty art 
  classroom where the girls once studied together. The 
  classroom walls are alive with students’ artwork and 
  colorful posters announcing diverse art exhibitions. The 
  investigators’ attention may be drawn to one poster in 
  particular featuring a large stylized “O” or ring shape: 
  “The Divine Snake Ouroboros: from prehistory to Eve and 
  beyond – archaeology, ancient art, and symbolism; a 
  fantastic exhibition and lectures at the British” (the keeper 
  is referred to the British Museum section). In the 
  conversation that follows, the keeper role-plays Eva: 
   
  • 
  “Kanna and Hisayi were as inseparable as sisters can 
  be. They were both very studious and bright.” 
  • 
  “It is obvious why the kidnapper singled them out: 
  both girls were remarkably pretty. Tragic, no?” 
  • 
  “Hisayi was withdrawn since the death of her mother 
  and the disappearance of Kanna.” Eva looks into a 
  drawer: “ah! Here are her drawings…” Investigators 
  
  15 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  may notice a solitary figure of a man on a few 
  drawings, the head scribbled out in black ink. Eva: “I 
  think it represents her father, although she never 
  admitted to it. After the death of his wife he was 
  changed and the father-daughter relationship, er, 
  suffered… I believe the Takahashi’s even sent her to a 
  therapist to help her through… It’s all I know.” 
   
  The shrink 
  If the investigators want to identify the psychotherapist 
  Hisayo was seeing, in reality a psychiatrist, they have to 
  meet with the Takahashi’s living nearby in West Acton. 
  Ms Sadako-Morgan can give them their address. They find 
  a devastated father and mother, both Japanese, speaking 
  rudimentary English despite having lived in the country for 
  the last 3 years or so. There is little to be learnt in the 
  house Takahashi, and the mother insists on showing them 
  loads of posed photographs of their daughter, as if this 
  might summon her back from wherever she is. The father 
  nods repeatedly at any question relating to Hisayo and a 
  doctor: “doctor? Hai doctor! Doctor Tso” and eventually 
  produces a business card with the address of Dr. Tso, 
  Psychiatric Services Ltd, West Acton Road. 
   
  Dr. Tso runs a successful private children psychiatry 
  practice in West Acton and is clearly a well-off man. Dr. 
  Tso only describes Hisayo in the broadest terms, invoking 
  medical secrecy. With successful role-playing or an 
  appropriate skill roll, Dr. Tso reveals that in the last 
  months; the girl had developed resentment towards her 
  expatriate father, and possibly some misplaced fear. She 
  was torn between her desire to talk and some huge block 
  with regards to her father. Dr. Tso’s believes Hisayo to 
  suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and besides 
  therapy he had been prescribing a low dose of the novel 
  anti-depressant Morphée, recently approved for use with 
  children and adolescents. 
  Investigators nosing about the office while Dr. Tso is 
  being questioned, notice considerable promotional material 
  from pharmaceutical giant S&K, suggesting an affiliation 
  of the renowned psychiatrist to the company. 
  As it turns out, S&K is on the verge of facing British 
  lawsuit for paying psychiatrist Dr. Tso £150000 over the 
  last 3 years to promote its new drug. Tso will be accused 
  of preying on more than three hundred patients, children, 
  over-prescribing Morphée. Tso has a long history of 
  collaboration 
  with 
  S&K, 
  and 
  received 
  substantial 
  consulting fees and speaking fees to promote the drug 
  worldwide and conduct supporting research at the Cane 
  Hill Center for Mood Disorders as Psychiatry Chair. 
   
  Obviously, the above information is not readily available 
  to the investigators. We leave it to the keeper to properly 
  dose the information to the players, ultimately pointing to 
  Cane Hill Hospital, setting the stage for the finale. 
  The Sex Shop 
  It’s been suggested to the investigators that London’s sex 
  shops provide a way into the underground of snuff movies. 
  A look in the business directories reveals a number of 
  shops with names like “Love Palace” and “Temptations”. 
  All have a similar fronts and sales areas to the eRotica 
  shop (below), but any attempts to get unusual or under the 
  counter 
  material 
  is 
  rebuffed, 
  with 
  a 
  grudging 
  recommendation that they try eRotica, who does “that sort 
  of thing”. Asking the MET also elicits the suggestion they 
  try eRotica, as they have suspicions but nothing has been 
  proved or followed up. In reality, this is because the 
  Serpent People are protecting it. 
   
  Having recently changed its name to cash in on the craze 
  for all things internet, eRotica has a small shop front on a 
  Soho side street, with wooden panels covering all the 
  windows, a stout wooden door, and the shop name spelt 
  out in pink fluorescent lights across the top. Inside is a 
  large open area with floor to ceiling shelves down all the 
  walls and waist high shelves in rows across the floor 
  space. A counter sits partially across the back wall, with a 
  door out. The only light is from the somewhat dingy strip 
  lights. The shop is filled with sex toys, bondage clothing, 
  videos and films ranging from the conventional softcore to 
  the truly bizarre hardcore, and there is a section devoted to 
  sexually violent imported computer games. A fur suit in 
  the shape of a cartoon bear dominates one corner. Out of 
  the back of the shop are a small toilet, a packed stockroom, 
  and a private viewing room with a projector and screen. 
  There is a back door at the far end of the stockroom that 
  leads to a dirty courtyard and from there, onto a busy Soho 
  street through a narrow alley. Observant investigators 
  notice a wide-angle security camera in a corner.  
   
  Steve sits behind the counter with a cigarette in his mouth 
  (despite the ban on smoking in the workplace). He is busy 
  tapping away at a laptop computer with an inbuilt webcam. 
  He’s as thin as a rake, very tall (six foot four), with a 
  number of obvious facial piercing, hair shaved at the sides 
  but jelled up into a fin in the centre, and a chain smoker. 
  He wears a black t-shirt and jeans, and there are a number 
  of “gothic” rings on his fingers. 
   
  What’s really happening in eRotica 
  Steve makes a modest income from legal pornography and 
  marital aids, but has a wealthy sideline in supplying 
  bestiality, other illegal pornography and, recently, 8mm’s 
  snuff films. He has an equally profitable sideline in 
  blackmailing certain people who both buy this illegal 
  material and aren’t part of the Serpent’s network of 
  corruption, although Steve has no knowledge beyond there 
  being a “ring” of powerful people watching over him. The 
  shop is configured to give Steve clear video clips of 
  anyone coming over to the counter; alternately he can 
  rotate the laptop’s small webcam and point it to the shop 
  area. Steve has a mole in the MET who checks out any 
  prospective “specialist” customers. Steve is thus slightly 
  wary of new faces, but confident he can quickly get them 
  checked out. He is also keen to be connected with 
  politicians, 
  lawyers, 
  doctors 
  and 
  other 
  wealthy 
  professionals. Steve keeps all the “under the counter” 
  material on his laptop ready to be burnt off as required on 
  a recordable DVD, and the master copies in a safe under 
  the counter. 
   
  GAINING STEVE’S TRUST 
  Any investigator who comes out and asks Steve if he’s got 
  any “snuff” meets a half-hearted response that it’s strictly 
  
  16 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  against the law. Investigators have to broach the subject 
  and try and talk Steve round to it. He plays coy at first, 
  responding to vague questions by directing them to legal 
  footage. At one point during the conversation, Steve’s 
  laptop makes a beep. He goes over to it – still talking – and 
  ejects a disk, on which he writes and drops it into a jiffy 
  bag. He nods to the investigators and say it’s an order. 
  This is a clue designed to attract players to Steve’s laptop. 
   
  We leave it to the keeper to decide if the players manage to 
  ease the talk onto snuff movies or not. If the role-playing is 
  sub-standard or if required skill rolls are failed, Steve can 
  set the investigators a last challenge to gain his trust – see 
  the “corruption” text box. In addition, if the players have 
  performed really poorly, Steve checks them out at the first 
  opportunity – see the “mole” text box. 
   
  If the investigators win his trust, Steve tells them he’s 
  gathered some films, and invites them into the back to 
  have a viewing, decide whom they want to pick. The back 
  room is dark, crowded and sometimes used for private 
  viewings, so has a surprisingly large 50” television. Steve 
  remains in the room during the judging session, showing 
  them the start of all 6 of 8mm’s films, allowing them to 
  “choose” between various children. 
   
  If the investigators are burnt or stuck, they need to follow a 
  more tortuous path to collect the clues they need: Steve’s 
  laptop, the snuff DVDs, as well as a link to the Black Ring 
  Club. The keeper should use the optional storylines in the 
  “theft” or “assassination” text boxes, or improvise an 
  alternate sub-plot so that the players obtain the information 
  that may lead them further, e.g. to the Black Ring Club. 
   
  THE MOVIES 
  There are six labelled “8mm 1-6” snuff DVDs. Each 
  movie takes place in the same location now familiar to the 
  investigators, and depicts the murder of a young girl. 
  Investigators suffering under the strain of this dark 
  investigation will be troubled by the experience: request 
  SAN rolls, 1D3 loss if failed for seeing a single movie, and 
  3 points loss for watching two or more. 
   
  Each film costs £300 in cash, and Steve gets difficult if 
  nothing is bought, asking them to leave the store, after 
  which he checks on them through his contact at the MET 
  (see “the Mole” text box). 
   
  If the investigators buy more than one film, Steve attempts 
  to make himself look like some sort of hotshot spy by 
  divulging that the films come from a secret pickup at 
  Victoria Station. He’ll also brag that the guy in the films – 
  Sex Machine - set his computer system up in return for a 
  load of the equipment used in the films. He can’t give any 
  more info, not even a real name, he just meets him at the 
  Black Ring Club’s S&M night. He won’t say anymore, his 
  hubris only goes so far.  
   
  Optional storyline 1: Corruption 
  This optional storyline is designed to give the players a 
  verbal workout, gain Steve’s trust, and in passing 
  introduce them to one of the deviants flourishing in the 
  Snake People’s corrupted society. 
   
  Steve - “Look, I think I know what you’re getting at. I first 
  need to know I can trust you. Deliver a package for me, get 
  the payment, come back here, and then we’ll talk.” 
   
  Steve hands over an addressed A5 padded envelope, and 
  tells them to come back with the payment: “£400 pounds, 
  nothing less.” He doesn’t tell then anything else. Steve 
  does really want a package delivered, but he’s not too 
  worried if it gets there: he’s not sending them with 
  anything incriminating, he’s just winding up a particularly 
  arrogant politician who’s annoyed him while testing the 
  investigators’ eagerness. If the investigators at any stage 
  catch sight of the photographs inside the envelope, they’ll 
  see a bundle of wildlife animal pictures. 
   
  The package is addressed to John Howick, a Member of 
  the British Parliament who has an office at 53 Celtry 
  Street, a thirty-minute journey away from the Sex Shop. 
  When the players arrive, they find a tall, white stone 
  building that runs the whole length of the long street, with 
  many front doors. 53 is the office where John meets his 
  constituents, and at whatever time the investigators arrive 
  he is in. Saying they have a package for him allows ingress 
  to a wood panelled office with a large, heavy desk. On it is 
  a pile of papers, and investigators looking around notice a 
  rather bizarre poster advertising a special lecture at the 
  British Museum’s “Extinction Level Event: 1021 AD” 
  exhibit and a framed tabloid newspaper cover proclaiming 
  “Howick’s War on Whores”. 
   
  John is a tall, handsome man with a thin moustache and an 
  expensive suit. He gets visibly excited for a second or two 
  when the package is given to him, before regaining 
  composure and remembering the investigators are looking. 
  He’ll tear the envelope open and extract some 
  photographs. The investigators see him first smile, then 
  frown, and despondently throw everything in the dust bin 
  next to his desk. Howick’s lips tighten and a cold rage 
  seems to take possession of him: 
   
  John - “Okay. What is this? A f*****g joke or what? Did 
  Steve send you? Who the f**k are you anyway?” 
   
  Howick grows as explicit as the keeper wants, demanding 
  where “the real stuff is”. The investigators have to handle 
  Howick, who isn’t keen on paying, even though they 
  might not wish to return to eRotica having seemingly 
  failed. When the keeper thinks the players have performed 
  enough, Howick ushers the investigators out but demands 
  they come back soon. If the investigators prove 
  impressively smooth talkers, he hands over half the cash, 
  £200. If the investigators start to agree to supply the 
  material, this might start to build on the moral strain 
  they’re under (Sanity Roll, 1 point loss if failed.). 
  The players may decide to fetch £400 of their own bank 
  account and give that to Steve, pretending that the business 
  transaction was successful. 
  In any case, if the investigators return with £200 or £400, 
  Steve is surprised at first, then smiles and lowers his guard 
  – they have gained his trust. 
   
  
  17 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  Footnote: there are many ways the keeper can spice up this 
  episode and make the players uncomfortable. If for 
  instance the investigators tamper with the package to try to 
  look up its contents they may damage the envelope. If they 
  come back to Steve with their own money, Steve may 
  want to call Howick, or Howick may call Steve, etc. 
  Anything that can expose the players’ own machinations is 
  a good lever to increase the tension they’re under. 
   
  Optional storyline 2: The Mole 
  If the investigators have aroused Steve’s suspicion in any 
  way, he contacts his police insider using an instant 
  messenger on his laptop, and sends over a picture of the 
  investigators taken from the camera in the shop. 
   
  At a minimum, the mole reports back to Steve that the 
  investigators are from Interpol. As soon as he receives this 
  information, Steve becomes very formal towards the 
  investigators, ushers them out of the shop with some lame 
  excuse: “sorry but there’s been a death in the family, I 
  have to close shop – there is nothing that might interest 
  you here, goodbye!” Steve locks the door from the inside, 
  flips the “closed” sign, grabs his laptop and a few 
  incriminating DVDs (though in his haste he forgets the 
  ones in the safe), and swiftly leaves the shop via the back 
  door (investigators may hear the metal door slam shut). 
  Even if the players react without delay, they cannot 
  intercept Steve in time before he either disappears into the 
  Soho crowd or gets killed – see the Assassination text box. 
   
  If investigators ever take a peek at - or get hold of Steve’s 
  laptop, the keeper may let the players find the following 
  chat between Steve (DrWatson) and the MET insider 
  (Holmes). Steve could also have saved the chat onto his 
  desktop to cover himself should he get caught: 
   
  [DrWatson] Hey copper, you have to do a job 
  for me 
  [Holmes] Don’t call me that. Can’t you get 
  someone else? I’ve done enough already! 
  [DrWatson] Hey IT guy: you ARE f***ing 
  Scotland 
  Yard 
  literally 
  sitting 
  inside 
  Panopticon’s big ass. Do you want me to 
  tell your bosses that you’ve been naughty? 
  Just look these punters up and the next DVD 
  is on the house 
  [Holmes] F*** you. Just send the pics over 
   
  [Holmes] Shit, we’re so f***** 
  [DrWatson] What? 
  [Holmes] They’re Interpol. They’re here coz 
  a Jap girl got killed on tape. Your stuff 
  stupid. Oh yeah, they’re onto you 
  [DrWatson] Shit. Can’t you send them home? 
  [Holmes] Me? Who do you think I am king of 
  the world? Wait there’s a confidential file 
  on them. Can’t open it. Ah. SOMEONE very 
  high up is watching these little rats: I 
  think they’re dead they just don’t know it 
  yet 
  [DrWatson] F***, what do WE do? 
  [Holmes] You lay low. I’ll take care of 
  myself. Burn your stash before they get 
  you. And delete all your f***ing chat 
  files. You don’t keep records do you? 
   
  Note that the above conversation can lead the players to 
  investigate operators of the Panopticon system at the 
  MET. The keeper is referred to the “Inside Panopticon” 
  section to follow this lead. 
   
  Optional storyline 3: Theft 
  If the investigators failed to gain Steve’s trust, or are 
  burned one way or the other, breaking into the shop is a 
  pragmatic if unlawful option to gather clues. The players 
  find eRotica surprisingly hard to break into, protected by a 
  rolling steel curtain at the front, and a hollow metal door 
  at the back. 
   
  Once inside, the investigators discover incriminating 
  material hidden in the large code operated safe under the 
  counter (a range of DVDs and memory cards, 6 with 
  8mm’s name on), and on a password-protected laptop. 
  They also find a handwritten ledger book, giving a list of 
  names, jobs, addresses, and a set of dates. A quick browse 
  reveals little to the investigators, but any check on the 
  names exposes local politicians, doctors, teachers, and 
  several members of the police force. Running a search on 
  the names prompts a phone call from mac Morna, saying 
  he’ll follow the ledger up while they concentrate on the 
  bigger fish. 
  There is a calendar on the back wall featuring naked 
  women in explicit poses. One date has been circled in red, 
  with the words “SM, Club, 21:00”. A quick look around 
  reveals flyers for the Black Ring Club (with address) 
  amongst other seedy promotional material. 
   
  Optional storyline 4: Assassination 
  If the investigators are burnt, or if Steve contacts the MET 
  insider, or if their paranoia points are above 9, the keeper 
  may trigger the assassination sub-plot. In it, the Serpent 
  People decide to eliminate Steve, because he is a weak link 
  that may lead the investigators to them. 
  The keeper may also opt for Steve’s assassination if 
  investigators are failing so far to obtain the necessary 
  evidence for the remainder of the scenario, are stuck, or 
  simply to spice up the game. 
  The specific location and timing of the assassination 
  attempt are left generic on purpose: the keeper should 
  adapt the write-up to any location suiting the storyline. 
    
  The investigators first hear a nerve-jangling cry of distress.  
  Upon getting close, they find Steve twitching on the 
  ground, some smoke rising above his head, a large bag 
  dropped by his side. A quick examination reveals his face 
  charred and blackened beyond recognition. Steve is in 
  shock from the third degree burns that destroyed his face, 
  nose and lips down to the muscle, and also melted his 
  eyes. There is no sign of the attacker. Passers-by look in 
  horror at the body on the ground. One woman shouts to a 
  nearby man “do something! Call the police!” 
   
  The investigators now have ten minutes before the call to 
  the police is answered and the MET arrive to take over. 
  First Aid should be attempted on Steve to raise him above 
  0 Hit Points, else he will die before the ambulance arrives. 
  Talking to any of the retreating crowd reveals that a 
  “tattooed man” approached Steve and “grabbed his face 
  
  18 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  with his left hand, like that”, after which Steve started 
  screaming and his head started smoking. The man held 
  Steve for at least ten seconds, even as Steve was dropping 
  to the ground. A witness offers: “it must have been acid, 
  like what happened to this model on TV”. The attacker 
  was then seen dashing into a side street, and no further 
  details can be provided. Descriptions of the attacker are 
  contradictory at best and left to the keeper. Witnesses only 
  agree to the man being “young”, wearing a hooded 
  sweatshirt, and covered in tattoos, at least his left arm was. 
  Searching Steve’s body or bag will elicit a reaction from at 
  least one outraged man (the one who called the police): 
  “what do you think you’re doing?” The keeper should 
  challenge the players in role-play and be obnoxious and 
  self-righteous enough to make them feel stressed and 
  guilty, or force them to reveal their identity. 
   
  Keeper’s note: what really happened is that a servant of 
  the Serpent People attacked Steve with the “Black Hand”, 
  a variant of the Shrivelling spell. Examination of the burns 
  indicates that an intense fire has probably caused them, 
  rather than chemicals. Of course, none of the witnesses 
  remembers a fire. Investigators incur a 1D3 SAN roll for 
  the entire incident, unless they tried to save Steve, in which 
  case no Sanity loss is incurred. If Steve survived the attack, 
  he will eventually be brought to Cane Hill Hospital, which 
  is renowned for its one-of-a-kind “Adult Burn Centre”. 
  The ultimate fate of Steve and what happens if the 
  investigators pay him a visit at Cane Hill is left at the 
  keeper’s discretion. 
  To add to the mystery of the event, the keeper may tell the 
  players that their investigators feel uneasy and “watched” 
  all the time until distracted by the arrival of the police on 
  the crime scene. For instance, make a few dummy dice 
  rolls and ask the investigators to look up to the rooftops… 
   
  A search of Steve’s bag reveals a bundle of R/W DVDs, a 
  laptop, and a ledger. The investigators also find a “Black 
  Ring Club” business card with an address and “SM 21:00” 
  scribbled on the back. The laptop is obviously on and still 
  has a peripheral (mouse) attached, as if Steve had been in a 
  hurry. Opening it enables the investigators to see what 
  Steve was doing shortly before he panicked: having a 
  conversation with his mole in the MET – see “The Mole” 
  text box for details. Searching Steve’s laptop further 
  reveals a set of password protected folders with names like 
  “Animals”, “Pre-teen”, “Teen”, “8mm”, and the rest of the 
  laptop is a testament to the time and soul wasting powers 
  of online games, internet sex, and proof of everything bad 
  that has ever been uttered about chat rooms. 
   
  After ten minutes, a police car pulls up; an ambulance 
  arrives thirty seconds later. The MET officers swiftly find 
  Steve’s body, and proceed to corner off the area, 
  restricting the investigator’s movements. The officers 
  question the investigators, calling HQ if necessary to see if 
  these really are Interpol officers, and ask what exactly they 
  were doing. If the investigators admit that the bag and 
  laptop were Steve’s, the items will be removed by the 
  police. If the investigators try to portray themselves as 
  civilians, the police will arrest them until their ID is sorted 
  out. At a stage of the keeper’s choosing, an irate policeman 
  radios back to HQ and reports what has happened. This 
  exchange costs the players a paranoia point. A short time 
  later one of the investigators gets a cell phone call from 
  mac Morna. He admonishes the investigators for someone 
  being murdered in their investigation and asks if they 
  actually managed to find anything useful. 
  The “K” Cold Store 
  Following the lead of homeless people dumped in the 
  Thames, the MET are able to point the investigators in the 
  direction of a mile and a half stretch of abandoned 
  warehouses on the shores of the river between Bermondsey 
  and Rotherhithe. 
   
  As they travel to this area the investigator pass through a 
  set of redeveloped wharves full of trendy housing and 
  shops, but once they pass Tower Bridge life comes to an 
  end, and they find an almost totally abandoned landscape 
  full of rotting industrial architecture. The buildings are tall, 
  long and imposing, all once connected to a bustling trade 
  from abroad, but now dull, grey concrete and fading brick, 
  weeds slowly trying to reclaim them. There are many 
  entrances wide enough to fit a pair of cars at once, and 
  taller than humans, but the metal of their heavy shutters is 
  rusting. There is graffiti, one protesting the creation of a 
  helipad next to stranger text like “IS lives” or “the Dark 
  Man is here”, random pieces of twisted metal seemingly 
  dumped at random, and decaying signs leaving bizarre 
  names. 
   
  It is impractical for the investigators to start a fingertip 
  search of the area, but a walk up and down the mile and a 
  half stretch of River Thames – which looks somehow 
  thicker and more lifeless in this region – make a few things 
  very apparent: there is little life or transport, aside from 
  burnt out cars; many of the old warehouses are abandoned, 
  and those that aren’t are in poor condition. The only 
  people they see are homeless huddled in the dirty corners 
  of doorways or adjoining buildings. 
   
  WAY IN 
  There are too many locations for the investigators to find 
  the right one without help; random searches should 
  produce a lot of corroding industrial equipment, but little 
  else. Investigators looking for human life, or those who 
  pass either an Idea or Spot Hidden roll, eventually find a 
  few homeless people. Either the investigators approach 
  one of the homeless from around the area, or they demur 
  and are actively engaged in conversation by one asking for 
  aid. In either case, they soon speak to Mick, a 
  schizophrenic man who’s been in poverty for a long time 
  and who twitches when talking. The investigators discover 
  the following if money, alcohol or something stronger is 
  offered, or if a Fast Talk check is passed: 
   
  “Oh, no, we don’t go near Rogers Wharf anymore, 
  people don’t come back. Police don’t care, think 
  we’re all so f***ed we fall in the river on our own, but 
  spend the night by the Cold Stores and you’re a 
  goner...” 
   
  
  19 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  Further bribes or success can prompt Mick to reveal 
  groups of men come and go every so often and there’s one 
  there now. 
   
  THE COLD STORE 
  The Cold Stores at Rogers Wharf is a decrepit building 
  with three levels, one below ground, spread around three 
  sides of an oblong large courtyard. There are a range of 
  large entrances for trucks, all blocked down by shutters 
  rendered immovable by time, and small wooden doorways 
  with rusting locks.  
   
  Ingress can be made through a door at the side of the Cold 
  Store, the lock of which appears permanently broken, but 
  on which an open, suspiciously new padlock hangs. Inside 
  they find themselves in what used to be the storage area 
  for frozen or chilled goods. There are very few windows, 
  so the Cold Store is cast in darkness and progression can 
  be slow and demoralizing. They enter into a small room 
  which has a decaying desk and a pair of filing cabinets in 
  which damp has eaten away at the paper files. This office 
  has one exit, into the main unloading area, which is two 
  storeys high and leads off into six cold storage areas. The 
  unloading area is the only area filled with light, which is 
  raining down a broken skylight onto large pools of water 
  littered with wrecked, rusty shop trolleys (an indication 
  that homeless people once used the space). The cold 
  storage areas are now filled with rubbish, and used to have 
  heavy sliding doors lockable by a lever on the front, but 
  now five hang open; the sixth is slid closed, but unlocked. 
  Each door is big enough for a forklift truck to pass 
  through. At the back of the main room is a set of stairs that 
  leads up and down. When exploring, the investigators may 
  find: 
   
  BASEMENT 
  The damp, gritty, pitch dark basement level has a winding 
  corridor with a set of smaller storerooms leading off. The 
  keeper should make the basement as creepy as possible for 
  the players: fill the darkness will strange echoes and 
  occasional scurrying sounds(rats, something bigger?). Let 
  the darkness and confined spaces play tricks on the 
  investigators’ senses and mind: maybe one fancies hearing 
  ghostly sounds of a sobbing girl echoing through the 
  corridors, or footsteps behind the party, etc. In short, 
  prime the players, so that any Cold Store scare you 
  planned will come twice as hard on them. 
   
  The Bodies: One of the storerooms in the lower level has -
  had its slab flooring lifted up and piled to one side. The 
  floor is now stamped down soil, and less than a minute of 
  inquisitive digging reveals the rotting remains of a corpse, 
  no more than 5 feet long. (1d3 San Loss) Depending on 
  how long the investigators spend digging (1d3 san loss if 
  they spend another ten minutes), they uncover more bodies 
  in various states of decay, which a skilled investigator 
  reveals are largely young females. There are six bodies in 
  total, all children. 
   
  Hisayo Yamamura: One of the storerooms is shut, and 
  has a combination padlock in place. This door has clearly 
  been reinforced, and the padlock is impossible to open 
  without either cutting equipment, or the code. The digits 
  are 81313, or 8mm turned into numbers, M being the 13th 
  letter of the alphabet.  
   
  What’s inside depends on the paranoia point score of the 
  players, e.g. how well the investigators have done so far in 
  avoiding being burnt. Either they are rewarded for their 
  skills so far with Hisayo, at which point the camera 
  upstairs points them towards a way to stop 8mm and save 
  the next girl, or they are punished for sloppy work by 
  instead giving the investigators further to go to get Hisayo 
  If they didn’t arouse any suspicions while talking to 8mm, 
  and their paranoia points are under 6, then the conspirators 
  haven’t been panicked and Hisayo is present in the room; 
  the players are given clues to the Black Ring Club via the 
  video camera upstairs (see below), in order to save the 
  next girl. If they’ve been burnt at all by 8mm, and badly 
  elsewhere, then Hisayo has been hastily moved to 8mm’s 
  flat while he awaits instructions from Dr Yamamura, not 
  aware that Hisayo’s father is dead. The players have to try 
  and follow the video camera’s clues to the Black Ring 
  Club and onto 8mm’s flat to save Hisayo. 
   
  Hisayo Present: 
  Inside is Hisayo where she’s been kept for the last few 
  weeks, along with a large glass of milk, a bowl with 
  some sort of food in, and a bucket. She is terrified and 
  almost catatonic, and still wears her school uniform, 
  soiled. If the investigators open the lock, either by 
  guessing the code, getting Sex Machine’s clues, 
  speaking to 8mm later in the scenario, or are returning 
  with cutting equipment, the girl responds with fear to 
  any male members of the party, but responds 
  cautiously to any females or uniformed officers. She is 
  unable to speak at all about what has happened to her 
  and instead sinks into a thousand-yard stare. If the 
  investigators succeed in freeing Hisayo and getting 
  her to safety, the keeper must increase the 
  investigators’ paranoia points by 3 as a result of 8mm 
  discovering this and raising the alarm within the Sex 
  Ring. This will bring the players to the next threat 
  level and the keeper should plan an appropriate 
  response to increase the pressure on them... 
   
  Hisayo Absent: 
  The Investigators find an empty room with traces of a 
  cruel habitation: a bowl with scraps of fairly fresh 
  food, a glass of unsour milk, an empty bucket, and a 
  torn school shirt with the initials “H.Y” sewn just 
  inside the collar. Hisayo has evidently been here fairly 
  recently, but been moved. The players can quickly 
  identify the uniform as coming from the Nippon 
  school, either on sight if they’ve been there, or 
  enlisting police aid. 
   
  GROUND FLOOR 
  When the investigators slide open the heavy door, they are 
  first overpowered by a nauseating stench – a strange 
  mixture of mould, rot, and plastic. The entire cold store 
  area (25 x 25 yards), is covered in white tiles, many 
  broken; the ceiling is lined by a zigzagging meat rail 
  system complete with rail hangers and meat hooks. Black 
  pools of water cover the tiled floor. Everywhere hang thick 
  greyish plastic curtains and sacs, which transform the cold 
  
  20 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  room into a kind of plastic labyrinth. Many improvised 
  weapons can be found littering the floor, e.g. meat hooks. 
   
  Serpent Scare: If the investigators have a Paranoia Point 
  score of over 8, then the keeper can stage a quick, jack-in-
  the-box scare. The shut cold store door conceals a Serpent 
  Man who has come along for some unnameable reason, 
  but has detected the danger and hides. When the 
  investigators search the area, the serpent man tries to avoid 
  them and moves around them to be able to exit the cold 
  room and escape. The snake man won’t be noiseless 
  though, so investigators quickly realise something is with 
  them in the room. If cornered, the snake man bursts out 
  with unnatural speed, bites the closest investigator in the 
  face, slithers past them evading all tackles, and escapes. 
  The investigators can notice he’s stark naked, with the 
  mottled body of a man but the head of a huge snake. 1D3 
  Sanity loss for all who see him. 
   
  UPPER FLOOR 
  The upper floor has a corridor that loops round three sides 
  of the main truck entrance, leading into two long rooms. 
  One of these used to be the locker room for the Cold Store 
  workers, but is now empty of lockers; at the far end is the 
  disused shower room, fitted with six Triton electric 
  showers. However, the locker room is not totally empty, 
  and it gives the investigators a worrying sense of Déjà Vu, 
  for they have seen it before on the video. At one end sits a 
  cheap bed, restraints bolted into the uprights and a stained 
  mattress lying on top. A chest of draws stands nearby, 
  close enough to be in view in the camera frame, containing 
  a range of tools and props, like sex toys, lengths of chain 
  and power tools, many of which seem to be covered in 
  blood, as well as bondage clothing. There is enough room 
  to the side to set up a camera and get the bed in shot, and a 
  small digital camera is present on a stand. There is also a 
  cupboard and a chest of draws. 
   
  The Camera: The camera is charged and has a memory 
  card containing a few minutes of film. If the investigators 
  have found Hisayo, the recording directs the players to the 
  Black Ring Club, where they can try and catch 8mm red 
  handed and save the next girl(s). As such, features Sex 
  Machine standing at one end of the bed mopping up fluid 
  stains. The voice of 8mm comes from out of shot, and they 
  are discussing where to get their next victim: 
   
  8mm: “I’ll pick another girl up in the next few days.” 
  Sex Machine: We could do two at once, a new one and 
  that Jap, Yunno make them do stuff… 
  8mm: Yeah, good idea. I reckon I’ll get one of the 
  girls from the next Black Ring Club night. Loads of 
  jailbait there and everyone makes a point of not 
  remembering what they saw! 
   
  If the investigators haven’t found Hisayo, the video 
  features a few minutes of her sat on the bed, dressed in an 
  oversized kimono, as 8mm alternately threatens and 
  questions her from off screen, for the perverse amusement 
  of the viewers. Keepers are urged to gauge the tolerance of 
  the players before giving any details, but if the 
  investigators gave any suggestions at all to 8mm when 
  discussing the films with him via the doctor’s computer, 
  then 8mm is heard telling these to Hisayo, making the 
  player’s actions come home to them. At the end of the 
  piece, 8mm can be heard saying “right, time to get you 
  back to my flat.”  
   
  SEX MACHINE 
  If the investigators have remained largely quiet, Sex 
  Machine is still in the video room on the upper floor. He is 
  stood to the side of the chest of draws, examining a 
  reciprocating saw; if for some reason the investigators 
  make a racket downstairs, then Sex Machine is hiding in 
  the unlit shower room adjacent to the ‘bedroom’, hoping 
  they’ll go away without noticing him. If they discover him, 
  he barges out and tries to dodge the investigators and 
  escape, or else fights using the reciprocating saw as a 
  weapon (see Statistics). The investigators are confronted 
  by a man they recognise all too well from the film, largely 
  because he’s naked just like the video! Sex Machine is an 
  obese man about six foot five tall, whose face is covered 
  by a black leather mask. He squeals when hurt or grappled, 
  and after losing one HP or more he backs off and start 
  begging the investigators not to hurt him: 
   
  “Stop, no, stop, you got the wrong person.” 
   
  Assuming the investigators let him live they can try to 
  cajole Sex Machine into giving information away. He has 
  only limited knowledge of the operation, but reveals a love 
  of sexual violence and a recent involvement in the torture 
  and murder of abducted youth. The “wrong person” he 
  referred to is the cameraman, who he only knows as 8mm. 
  Sex Machine insists it’s 8mm who organises the 
  production of snuff, from abducting the girls to dropping 
  the footage off at Victoria Station “somewhere”, and they 
  only meet here or at special nights at the Black Ring Club. 
  Sex Machine gives a deliberately vague description of 
  8mm - ***** - but then starts to imply he has the 
  protection of powerful people, and they’d better not mess 
  with him. If the investigators keep Sex Machine talking, he 
  starts to suggest these shady figures he doesn’t really know 
  anything about will also protect him. 
   
  If Hisayo is in the basement, Sex Machine knows she is 
  and will tell; if she’s at 8mm’s flat – depending on the 
  investigator’s actions – he’ll explain she was there until 
  8mm got panicked by something. He’ll also tell them the 
  padlock code is 8mm, he doesn’t know how that turns into 
  a five digit code. He tells them he is waiting for 8mm to 
  show so they can record a final sex film with the girl, but 
  any attempt to stake out the building fails when 8mm 
  doesn’t show, instead sending Machine a text saying he’ll 
  meet him at the Black Ring Club.  
   
  If Sex Machine manages to take an opportunity to escape, 
  either before capture of during questioning – and he will 
  take advantage – then the investigators lose him in the 
  streets outside the Cold Store because of Sex Machine’s 
  superior knowledge of the area. He won’t be seen again 
  until telling 8mm what happened at the Black Ring Club. 
  If he escapes, if the investigators kill him, or even if they 
  search the room having let him live, they can rifle through 
  his clothes that lay on a table out of camera shot. Aside 
  from a standard set of jeans, jumper and grubby 
  
  21 
  Cthulhu Dark Ages – Pagan Call 
  Gesbert, Anderson, and Wilde 
   
  Copyright © 1997-2005, 2010 Stéphane Gesbert, Kevin Anderson, and Robert Wilde 
  underwear, they discover a wallet with £120 in cash, a 
  receipt from the eRotica Sex Shop, and a crudely printed 
  black and white flyer for a forthcoming S&M night at the 
  Black Ring Club. 
   
  Calling the MET in to take Machine into custody, to look 
  after Hisayo, or anything else involving the Cold Store, 
  adds another paranoia point. 
   
  (Under construction…) 
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Cthulhu Dark Ages (CoC)/adventures/CoC - Dark Ages Adv - Pagan Call 5 - Shadow Kingdoms.pdf