Listen to the Rain

I kind of exist adjacent to most fandom endeavors. Despite my long presence on Dreamwidth and Livejournal before it, I've never really participated in any fandom communities. I have a fanfiction.net account and have used it to read maybe half a dozen stories ever, and I have an AO3 account and have used it to post a single story and haven't read anything on that site at all. Of the stories I have read, some of them aren't on fanfiction.net--like the old classic Children of an Elder God that I read while it was updating at university. On fanfiction.net I read Aeon Natum Engel--you can see my interests here, in the intersection of cosmic horror and giant robots--and...I think that's all I can remember? I have a bunch of stories I turned into ebooks with the intention of reading them and then just never did. Part of it is that I'm not at all interested in romance in fanfiction. I found one Stargate/Cthulhu crossover fanfic, an area I had thought would be ripe with potential, and never ended up reading it because 1) it was abandoned 2) it was Stargate: Atlantis and 3) it was mostly slash. The only part I remember is that the nanoswarm cloud in the original Stargate: Atlantis was turned into a rogue shoggoth in the fic. I read a relatively short fic about what if Harry Potter were raised by the Culture (which I really appreciated because it did not assume that the Culture Minds automatically understood magic, they were baffled how an owl traveled thousand of light years from Earth to poof into a room on an Orbital) which ran about nine chapters before it petered out.

I have read a lot of Let's Plays, and some of them approach fanfiction by using video games to tell a story. I read the Final Fantasy VIII Altimate Rewrite, which was very good but also never finished. I read a long narrative let's play of Morrowind that was originally hosted at morningstarlady until it was purged and moved to Dreamwidth, which was then hosted at lady_morningstar until it was locked and limited to access only, and is now seemingly being remade (again!) using models from The Sims at aeronwen. I only got partway through the previous version (they were very long), but I think they never finished as well. You can probably see where the source of me being leery of reading fanfiction comes from, here.

I guess the most fanfiction I've ever read, now that I think about it, are the stories set in The Night Land. I read every single story on that site and keep thinking about buying the books, especially after the untimely death of its maintainer.

The reason I brought all this time is because last night I thought "I wonder if that old Sailor Moon website I found back in the day is still around..." and it turns out it wasn't, but it's still available on the Wayback Machine. Sailor Moon Expanded ran from the late 90s through the early 00s and...well, I have to admit that while there's a ton of fanfics I've never read any of them. At the time, 2010, I had never seen a single episode of Sailor Moon, and wouldn't watch any until Sailor Moon Crystal came out several years later. The part that drew me in was the meticulously-expanded bestiary, maps, and cultural information on the Dark Kingdom and the Silver Millennium, which was envisioned as a magic-based solar-system-wide confederacy that ended with the sealing of magic after Queen Beryl attacked the moon. Or, as I described it at the time, "The war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts when the Unseelie Court wanted summon Cthulhu."

The other reason is A Dark, Distorted Mirror, a Babylon 5 AU fanfic that assumes that the inciting event of most of the plots in the early series--the Earth-Minbari War, a war where the vastly-technologically-superior Minbari curbstomped the humans for two years, only losing a single capital ship in all that time, until on the very moment of victory as they annihilated Earth's last defensive fleet before suddenly ceasing fire and surrendering--did not end with a treaty. As a result, Earth was glassed, most of humanity was killed, and the series is much less hopeful in tone. I did actually make it through the entire first book but tapped out when I had four more books of around 200K words each left, around the size of a doorstopper fantasy book. That one is still online and is finished, though, so maybe I should go back and read it.

I apply to fanfiction nowadays the same principle I apply to fantasy series--once the author finishes it, maybe I'll read it.

If anyone has any recommendations for finished, good Cthulhu crossover fic, I'm all ears. I had a lot of hope for Aeon Natum Engel until the author blew it up with a "rocks fall, everyone dies" sudden ending. They then declared they were going to re-write the entire thing better and higher quality, and I read the first chapter of Aeon Entelechy Evangelion and, when I saw how overwrite and baroque it was, I said to myself "This will never be finished" and stopped reading. And, well...it was never finished.

So there was a dust-up on social media about sanity rules in RPGs recently, kicked off by this tweet:



And of course, since Twitter is a terrible medium for most discussion, everything descended into hell. But I'm going to talk about it here where I can write as much as I want!

( Unleash the eldritch madness )

Last year, I played in mutantur's Call of Cthuhlu game where we ran through The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man, and while I didn't do full writeups of the sessions, I did take notes and save them. And now I'll leave them here.

( The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man )

lisekatevans had a terrible trip back home on Friday from a work visit, so I invited her over for Shabbat dinner. Then it turned out that she wouldn't be able to come over until even later than she originally thought, so I had leftover curry and she ate elsewhere, but she came over, drank a bunch of water, and we sat down and watched Five Centimeters Per Second. It's one of my favorite movies ever--the first time I watched it, I wrote about it here--and since lisekatevans loved Your Name and Five Centimeters Per Second is also by Shinkai Makoto, I figured she'd like it. And I was right!

I'm glad, because when the anime club I was in watched it, everyone except schoolpsychnerd and I hated it, so I was a little apprehensive. I told her about Garden of Words, too, which neither of us have seen, so that's probably on the list sometime in the future.

After a longer-than-expected hiatus, mutantur managed to get us back together to play Call of Cthulhu. goodbyeomelas had to quit due to the time it was taking, since it was a four-hour session along with an hour-and-a-half commute each way, but the remaining three of us won back to Inqanok, reported the news to the council there, spent a year in the town studying the "Book of Keys and Gates," and then when we finally took a ship out we were captured by pirates. I managed to incapacitate or kill several pirates while unarmed and get the scene I wanted, where I surrendered after fighting my way up to the deck and finding a dozen pirates up there and the crew overwhelmed. Not bad for a Call of Cthulhu character, even if the game is taking place in the Dreamlands.

This morning, at meowtima's invitation, goodbyeomelas, tropicanaomega, her husband, and I all went to a recently-opened restaurant called Churro Waffle, which is pretty much as the name describes. It took us forty-five minutes to get a table, after repeatedly being told it was a ten-minute wait--I didn't believe there since there were maybe twenty people outside when we got there, but that's what they said--so when we finally sat down, they brought out a churro waffle on the house as an apology for the wait time. We all dug in, and after tasting it, most of us ordered churro waffles. And can you blame us?

( Behold! )

We also came up with a great idea, based on me mishearing something that tropicanaomega's husband said. He mentioned a "hostel book club," talking about books kept in hostel libraries when he was traveling, and I heard it as "hostile book club," a book club where people bring books they hate and force others to read them. Maybe we should try to get this to work. I can think of a few books I'd love to bring to a hostile book group. Caitlín R. Kiernan's Threshold, S.M. Boyce's Lichgates... If I really want to rant, Charles Murray's Coming Apart. tropicanaomega's husband mentoioned running it like a TED Talk + white elephant gift exchange, where each person brings a book and gets five minutes to explain how terrible their book is and why everyone should hate it. Then people pick orders out of a hat and pick their books. Reading Unicorn, my online book group, hasn't met in a while, so something like that would be nice.

As a way of keeping track of my moods, I downloaded an app called iMoodJournal. It's pretty standard--rate moods 1 to 10, write a short description of how you feel, including hashtags for later analysis--but the thing I thought was funny was that the pre-populated list of emotions was pulled from LiveJournal. It even had ones on there like #indescribable and #quixotic, which I'm not sure I'll ever use. I'm not sure anyone would ever use them. But I guess it's an easy list to draw from.

I had to add back "worried," though. I can't imagine why they would remove that and not quixotic, but here we are.

​Dramatis Personae

• Antonio Abella, Italian Legal Assistant
  
• Dr. Conrad Nemeth, American Climate Scientist
  
• Ivy Davison, American Construction Worker
  
• Jean-Yves Laurent, French Army Officer

Jean-Yves searched Walters' room, checking to see if there was a reason other than murder why the assailant would have entered. As he crouched down, he saw something under the bed, and, shining a flashlight on it, he saw a figure of an arm drawn in red chalk. After he pointed it out, Milton rushed in, staring around in shock and gasping about murder and how terrible everything is. After a moment, Dr. Weiss the plastic surgeon arrived and offered to examine the rooms--alone.

Antonio opined that the doctor was guilty, but the said through the extremely-thin walls that he was not. After examining the rooms, he took Milton and the stewards down the hall to discuss the incident. Antonio followed as though he was looking for someone, but Jean-Yves walked down and said that as a member of the French military, in a situation with no other authority than the train staff, he should be included. The doctor agreed, and Jean-Yves called over Dr. Conrad and Ivy. Dr. Weiss said that the arms were removed post-mortem, and Walters put up a struggle. He also said that the killer was right-handed, wielding a knife, and probably known to the victims.

The group debated their action, arguing briefly about why no one had called for help or moved the train, and then suddenly they heard Morisa Ocana calling for help and saying that there had been another murder! They rushed into the dining car and found Wanda Ziegler standing over a body, face-down, missing its left leg. Jean-Yves looked around the dining car and found nothing, but as Ivy bent down and looked up, she saw a group of four guests in 20s or 30s clothing being served a bottle of dark-colored wine. The wine was poured, the guests toasted, and the they faded away. Dr. Weiss stood up and said the body was Enzo Banuelos, stabbed perhaps a few hours previously. Milton again said how terrible things were and suggested going up the line to get help, after which Jean-Yves took him outside and showed him the figures watching from the distance within the mist.

On the train, Milton said that one of the stewards had offered to walk up the line, and Ivy offered to accompany him. After a moment, so did Dr. Conrad and Antonio Abella. After some consideration, knowing he was the only one who had a firearm, Jean-Yves agreed to go as well. They headed out into the mist, walking along the line, into the mist. They saw no strange figures, and after ten minutes of walking, they came to a tunnel. Taking out their flashlights, they entered the tunnel. As they entered, they noticed that the darkness seemed to press down on their light, reducing the radius of the light. It seemed like the light was oppressed, getting squeezed, and there were sounds from around them. Faint cries, screams, strange echoes in the distance. After a long time in the darkness, they suddenly came on a brick wall blocking up the entire tunnel. Ivy examined it and said that it had been there for a while, but Antonio pointed out that it couldn't have been built between when the rest of the train left them behind and now.

Ivy suddenly heard the sound of marching boots. After trying to find a hiding spot and realizing there was no place to hide, the investigators waited for whatever was coming. After some time, a group of soldiers in greatcoats and fur hats, with rifles shouldered but not at the ready...and no faces. They gestured with their rifles at the other direction, and with no real choice, the group went back the way they came followed by the faceless soldiers. As they exited the tunnel, the soldiers took up positions across the mouth of the tunnel, standing guard, and Jean-Yves thought of the figures he had seen in the mist.

When they arrived back at the train, the sought out Milton and found him in the salon car along with several other people. They told him about the brick wall and the soldiers, causing gasps and murmurs among the crowd. They looked for the people who were missing, and when Ivy noticed Chantelle was missing, she went after her and found her in her compartment. She had been crying, and there was a note sitting near her sink.

DEAREST CHANTEL

MEET ME TODAY AT 6 P.M. IN THE FOREST

COME ALONE

PLEASE FORGIVE

THE NEED FOR SECRECY

I PROMISE THAT

ALL WILL BE REVEALED

Chantelle said she was planning to go, and Ivy suggested that other people had to come as well. She suggested Jean-Yves, since he was armed, and said she had to go to prepare. Then she returned to the salon car and showed Dr. Conrad and Jean-Yves the note. They decided to go get Chantelle, and as they stood to go, they car suddenly changed. It transforms into a medieval hall, lit with flickering torches, with an ornate throne in the distance and a man whose skin is sewn-together patches sitting on it. The man asked if they had a deal, but he wasn't speaking specifically to the investigators. Several of the other passengers panicked, or stood staring in shock, but Jean-Yves left the car and the others quickly followed.

There were a few people in the salon car, but none of them had seen Oscar Griffin or BJ recently. They went to BJ's room and checked, but found nothing. Next was Oscar's compartment, and when Antonio opened the door, they saw him laying face-down with his leg missing. Ivy gasped, and Jean-Yves went to summon the doctor. Jean-Yves returned with the doctor, and he examined the body. Dr. Weiss said that it was the same knife as the previous deaths, and that he did not understand why the mouth seemed to be sealed over with skin...but that it was no stranger than the tunnel behind the train being sealed by a brick wall. Dr. Weiss left, and the investigators looked for Milton but couldn't find him after a quick search. Then they looked for one of the stewards and told him about the chalk limb drawings, and suggested they check the other rooms. As they argued, suddenly they noticed something small moving in the hall, scurrying toward the group, and as the shapes drew closer the investigators noticed that they were hands! Then they leapt.

A struggle ensued, where the hands leapt on people's faces but didn't manage to do much damage before simply vanishing. The investigators searched the salon car but found nothing, and Jean-Yves climbed up on top of the train and found a stone torso, like a statue piece. He said he couldn't move it, but when Ivy climbed up to help, it vanished. Antonio checked Enzo's room and found a chalk leg, and then checked BJ's room and found a red chalk circle, almost like a head, under his bed. When Jean-Yves went to check his room, he found two people in it, one murdering the other! He drew his gun and pointed it, at the men, but realized by their dress and style that they were ghosts, and indeed, when the murder was done, the murderer walked toward Jean-Yves and vanished.

Jean-Yves, Dr. Conrad, and Ivy went to Chantelle's room and they left into the woods. The three of them hid in the trees near the appropriate spot and waited, watching as Chantelle waited for the writer, and Mark Wilson came out from behind a tree smiling. Chantelle reacted poorly to being stalked, and when Mark Wilson's expression grew cloudy and he drew a knife, Chantelle drew a derringer from her purse and fired. Mark Wilson ran, and though Ivy chased after him, she quickly lost him in the woods.

Antonio had followed them out to spy on them, and just as he decided to return tot he train, he saw movement in the bushes. He called out to it but got no answer, and approaching, he found BJ curled up in the bushes. BJ would not answer his entreaties, and Antonio reached out to him and managed to pull him to his feet and lead him back to the train. As the others approached the train, Dr. Conrad noticed a mound of something white or blue lying on the ground and found his shirt, bloody, in a heap. He took it and put it away, and they re-entered the train.

Antonio took BJ to see Dr. Weiss, who examined him and then treated his leg wound. Or tried to--when he went to the tap and turned it on, blood came out instead of water! After a moment of shock, Antonio turned off the tap, and the doctor said that the wound was a gunshot wound. Just a graze, and the doctor could not tell what kind of gun it was. He left and took BJ to the salon car. The others were already there, including Dr. Conrad, who had taken a detour to stuff the shirt in the bottom of his luggage. After seeing who else was there, they decided to check the rooms of the missing people. The first was Faustino, whose room was closed and locked. Mark Wilson's room was also locked, as was Milton's. After a short discussion, the investigators went to get the stewards and ask them to help determine whether the three others were okay, or even alive.

At that moment, a troupe of faceless Italian blackshirts entered the car and demanded everyone's credentials. But they seemed happy with the ID provided, even Jean-Yves' EU passport, and went on their way. Antonio left the car to avoid them and, as he exited the train, he saw something on the ground. He checked it, and found a set of limbs and head, with the torso missing, of a person, with a small journal next to it. Once he recovered his composure, he recognized Faustino Gonzaga, and grabbed the journal just as Ivy went to check on him.

Once they entered Antonio pulled everyone into the dining car and showed them the journal. Inside the cover was a label that it was the property of the National Library of France, and it was listed as the diary of the Countess Valentina Durnovo, describing a fantastic and horrific journey on the Orient Express and their fight against the Brothers of the Skin. At the end were two chants, both labeled "Ritual of the Cleansing," and one labeled "inaccurate version."

When they returned from the dining car, Milton was there, but Antonio realized that if he came from his room he must have come from the outside since he didn't pass them on the way in. The investigators explained the murder of Faustino and the entire crew discussed what to do. Milton seemed to want to leave, but Antonio pointed out that there might be the same situation the other direction. Eventually, they decided to pull everyone into the salon car and stay together, sleeping in shifts to guard against the murderer. Strange things happened during the night, and on the third shift, Milton, Jean-Yves, and Dr. Conrad were all awake together. Milton struck up a conversation, and eventually said he wanted to head to the bathroom. Dr. Conrad went with him, and after they left, Jean-Yves woke Ivy and Antonio and followed after them.

Milton left the bathroom, looked Dr. Conrad right in the eyes, and said "Pretend I'm still in the bathroom." As Dr. Conrad stood there, Milton went out past him. After some time, Jean-Yves looked in the window from the connecting car and saw Dr. Conrad standing there. After some berating, Jean-Yves checked the bathroom and found nothing, and after telling the others and arming themselves with kitchen knives, they searched the train. Milton's cabin's door was open, and almost everything was missing from it. Milton wasn't on the train, but Antonio found a set of tracks heading down the line toward the tunnel. They followed the tracks to the tunnel, and then they entered. They found Milton by the brick wall, conducting some sort of ritual, with several faceless guards. Antonio charged him, but went down under the bullets of the guards. As Jean-Yves provided first aid, Milton yelled:

"Come and see! The new dawn awaits!"

and jumped through. After a moment, the others followed.

They were in a large, dark space, illuminated by a ring of torches, with thick carpets everywhere. In the center was an altar and on it were a series of body parts, two arms, two legs, a torso...and the head of Mark Wilson. Milton was in the middle of a circle of blood with a serious wound in his stomach, and as they entered, he yelled at them to take their revenge. The investigators did not act, and after a moment, he looked at Dr. Conrad and ordered him to kill him. Despite Ivy and Jean-Yves's attempt to stop him, Dr. Conrad grabbed the knife that Milton had used and stabbed him. As Milton collapsed, the body parts on the altar rose into the air and came together into a horrific monster with eyes like black pits!

The investigators ran.

They found themselves in Istanbul, and alerted the police that they had seen strange activity in the city, but they did not stay around to see what the police found or what they did. When they checked the area later, they found no portal and no way to get back, and so they never learned what happened to the other people on the train...


Apparently if we had had more time at the end, Fennelik would have attacked, since the ghosts on board the train were re-enacting the memories of the faithful trip the 1920s investigators took as part of the ritual that Milton was enacting. And succeeded at, despite my efforts to prevent it from happening. 70% Brawl and I failed at my attempt to grab Dr. Conrad...

The ending was a bit anti-climactic, though I think a lot of that is that we were at the end of playtime. If it had happened with a couple hours left, we could have explored what the police found in the Shunned Mosque (for so it was), or tried to fight the flesh golem, or had to talk our way out of Turkey, or any number of things. But we only had a few minutes left, and so it ended. Sometimes, there's just no time.

And that's that for the entire Horror on the Orient Express game, from late 2015 to early 2018! Final thoughts in another post.

​Dramatis Personae

• Elena Costanza, British Agent of the Crown
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman
  
• Yan Nikolaev, Bulgarian police inspector

​After taking the connecting train to London, the investigators disembarked. While the other passengers joked and laughed about the events, they were haunted by what they had seen, and by the continuing corruption of their bodies. As their luggage was being unloaded, the professor tossed a pound Sterling to a newsboy and snatched a paper out of his hands, quickly scanning it. He saw an article about a missing schoolmaster and showed the others.

After they read it, they noticed a scruffy man holding a sign that said "Mac Rat," and after a brief consultation, they approached him and told him that they were Mr. Mac Rat and yes, they were heading to 3 Brophy Lane, Islington. He loaded up their luggage and they all piled in and headed off. The cabbie was talkative, especially about the disappearances in the area, and the countess made polite conversation until they arrived at their destination, Makryat's Islington shop. The front door was locked, and after the professor searched the stoop and didn't find any spare keys, Yan walked around the back and, with a little effort, broke the lock and entered a rear storeroom. It was dim and dusty, but not obviously dangerous, and he walked to the front and let the rest of the investigators in. The shop was much the same as they remembered from two months previous, but disused. They turned on the lights and searched the front room, but found only Middle Eastern antiquities that, while genuine, had no occult function or power. After shoving a box in front of the door the made for the stairs, and the professor shown his flashlight at the ceiling...revealing a creature of flesh and bone, a twisted and misshapen devil, descending on them and snarling with the face of Beddows.

The countess began screaming at the top of her lungs as viscera splattered over Yan and Elena, burning them. The devil landed and hurled itself at Yan, who lashed out with his blackjack and hit it, smashing it into the wall and into a bloody ruin. As Yan and Elan ran up to wash off the ichor, the professor drew out the Mims Sahis and cut off the devil's head, then followed up the stairs.

In the office, the carpet had been rolled back and an intricate and subtly disturbing pattern had been carved into the floor. On the desk was a scroll, written in Arabic, that was obviously one of the Sedefkar Scrolls, and a note:

Master, as you suggested, the scroll must be present.

Next to that was another sheet, in English, what seemed to be a phonetic transcription of some sort of ritual. The professor immediately argued that this was too convenient, while Rosaline said that Makryat might need a little help, and they were still arguing when Yan said, "Who are you?" The professor and Rosaline approached and found a man, with a symbol carved in his forehead, shivering in a closet. He was unresponsive to anyone's entreaties, and when Yan pulled out his wallet and handed it to the countess, she read the name of Arthur Bowman, the missing schoolmaster.

The professor, still dubious, called the British Museum and asked them about a rush translation of a scroll in a jumble of Arabic and Turkish. The man he spoke to said that it might be some time, perhaps a day, and no, the professor could not speak to him as he was very busy. After a little more discussion, the professor hung up and went back to the room where the others had assembled the Simulacrum. They began arguing again about the propriety of the ritual, about whether it was the real thing or not, and about how it worked. Eventually, Yan picked up the paper and began to chant. Elena and Rosaline joined in, and the professor listened with a white-knuckled hand on the Mims-Sahis as the chant continued. After a few sentences, Elena blinked and her body began to shimmer and warp, and then she collapsed, dead! Over her body, coalescing into existence, they saw the form of Mehmet Makryat, skinless and hideous, with worms writhing in his flesh.

Rosaline demanded to know where the ritual was, and Makryat laughed, saying that the ritual was in the room all along and the transcription was a trap. The countess inched toward Mr. Bowman, but the professor asked him what he planned to do now, and with a laugh, Makryat called out, "You will see! Master! Skinless One! To me!"

He rushed at the party. Rosaline shot him with her rifle, but while she shot him, it didn't seem to have much effect. The countess ushered Mr. Bowman into the next room as Makryat rushed in and Rosaline hit him with her rifle. Yan rushed in with a knife, slicing away, and the professor fired but missed. The countess picked up a piece of the simulacrum and swung at Makryat, but missed. Yan and Makryat traded blows, and Makryat's claws ripped into Makryat, downing him. The professor dashed in and administered first aid while Rosaline and the countess rained blows on Makryat. Yan pulled out his revolver and fired, and the professor moved to attack and was slashed instead.

With that, the Skinless One arrived.

A giant man, with an eye in the middle of his forehead, skinless and gigantic. An aura of power surrounded it, and the investigators felt their skin itch. The countess collapsed on the floor and began wandering aimless around the room, and Rosaline collapsed to the floor, and Yan began frantically looking around. Only the professor was unaffected as Makryat screamed at the Skinless One to destroy the investigators.

None wears the Simulacrum.

Makryat began frantically grabbing the Simulacrum pieces and trying to put it on while the professor walked over to the countess, who was still holding the arm. She looked at the professor peacefully and said, "Flowers, for me?" The professor smiled at her, said, "You will have all the flowers you want," took the arm, and hurled it at the Skinless One.

The usurper is unworthy. My gift is sundered.

Makryat died immediately, collapsing like a doll with its strings cut, as the Skinless One snapped the arm in half. As Rosaline awoke, the professor picked up the leg and threw it as well, and they cooperated to throw the rest of the Simulacrum. As the Skinless One grabbed the head, faces flashes across it. Makryat, Professor Smith, Le Comte, Selim Makryat, Beddows, and all of their faces, before dispersing into dust. The Skinless One looked around and sunk into the floor, leaving a swirling vortex behind it. The dust of the Simulacrum was pulled into the vortex, as was the remaining scroll, and though the professor grabbed after it, even the Mims Sahis. The vortex closed, the room returned to normal, and it was finally over.

After taking Mr. Bowman to the hospital, the group dispersed almost immediately, traumatized over their experiences. Rosaline returned to America and her shop and finally married her fiancé, Yan returned to his wife and child (and lover), and the professor took the countess with him back to France. After arranging the finest sanitarium care for the countess, he resigned from his professorship at the Sorbonne and retired to his estate. He sent for books from shops far across the world, studying occult lore and things even more obscure. He spent long nights pouring over ancient tomes, brushing up on his Latin and Greek and Arabic, while his children worried about him and his old scholastic colleagues fell out of contact, until one night he vanished. He was never found, but his bequest kept the countess in excellent care for months until she too disappeared, from a locked room under observation by orderlies.

And finally, on a train platform outside the town of Ulthar beyond the river Skai, that quaint and curious city where no man may kill a cat, the two of them were reunited.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.
   
4. Radovan Venclovic, Romani Ex-Soldier, driven to madness by the beast of flesh in the cemetery at Üsküdar, February 20th, 1923.
   
5. Elena Costanza, British Agent of the Crown, killed by Mehmet Makryat while performing the false ritual in Islington, February 23rd, 1923.
   
6. Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman, driven to madness by the Skinless One in Makryat's shop in Islington, February 23rd, 1923.

I'm glad that at the end, I kept the professor's habit of staring down beings of incredible potency that started with the undead sorcerer in the Dreamlands. Thanks to the Mythos hardening he underwent last session, he only lost 4 SAN when seeing the Skinless One rather than 8 and so kept the presence of mind to throw the arm of the Simulacrum.

Poor countess lost 70 SAN and only had 38 or so.

schoolpsychnerd kept saying that the professor and the countess should get married if we both survived, and if we had I was planning a more tragic ending where the professor disappeared one night and went off to become a cult leader and continue the cycle of worshippers of the Great Old Ones. But since the tragedy had already occurred, I wanted to find a happy ending. I had already told mutantur several times over the course of the game that the professor spent time at night trying to find his way back into the Dreamlands, and I knew that Henri's Dreamlands Express was a place of healing and that the professor knew that Henri himself proved that it was possible for people to live on in the Dreamlands after death. So while his descendants probably have stories about mad grand-père Luc who vanished and was never seen again, he and the countess work on the Dreamlands Express together with Henri in a place where their old sorrows can no longer touch them. It's actually a better ending than they would have gotten otherwise, I think.

Normally I'd post my thoughts about the whole game, but we're not done! The re-release of the campaign adds an additional post-game scenario set in 2013, so we're going to take a brief break while I run a DELTA GREEN interlude and then play that game, and then I'll finally have played through all of Horror on the Orient Express! But for now, I'll leave the professor and the countess to their happiness.

​Dramatis Personae

• Elena Costanza, British Agent of the Crown
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman
  
• Yan Nikolaev, Bulgarian police inspector

That evening, the investigators discussed their plans. They couldn't report Makryat to the authorities--even if they were believed, it would delay the train and exceed the hundred hour time limit--and they eventually decided to question Doña del Garda's maid about her habits and, perhaps, be able to search her room and see if Makryat had left anything incriminating or useful there. The professor went to talk to Rama Ho-Tet about the Sapieta Maglorum, and after introducing himself and speaking about their travels, and the professor admitting that his Arabic was not so good, the Egyptian agreed to try his hand at translation, saying it would pass the time. As he was taking, Jackie Gattling the gossip columnist came to talk to Rosaline and the countess, asking them for gossip and saying that she had arranged an exclusive interview with the Doña in her compartment. After Jackie left, the the group discussed what to do, and decide that they had to prevent the meeting from occurring.

In Belgrade, as they pulled up, they noticed a small white house, incongruously sitting among some other ramshackle houses. As they disembarked, a swarm of black chickens suddenly descended on them from nowhere, pecking and scratching! The investigators piled back onto the train, other than Yan, who looked at the others strangely and then walked up and down looking at the train. Before he returned, he went to a haberdashery and bought two ladies' hats. As the train pulled away from the station, the party noticed further degeneration occurring.

At dinner, the maître d'hôtel seated an old woman with the party, and after a moment, they realized that she looked very familiar. "Grandmother" looked at their food and it turns tasteless and cold, and both Rosaline and Yan left the room. As Rosaline left, she saw the Baba Yaga waiting in the hallway outside her room. Rosaline told her that the investigators didn't have what she sought, it the Baba Yaga did not reply. The countess heard the noise and opened the door and found the Baba Yaga staring straight at her, and the professor called over the maître d'hôtel and asked him who the woman was. As the countess slammed the door, the maître d'hôtel said that she was "the duchess," refused to give her full title, and repeated that she was definitely a passenger who had a place on the train. The investigators could not tell what she wanted and she did not disappear, but as the professor looked out the window and saw the shape of the terrible creature, the Walker in the Woods, he realized that the Baba Yaga could harass them, and could confuse them, but could not harm them. He looked into the Baba Yaga's eyes and calmly took a few bites of his food.

The professor left the dining room, drawing forth the Elder Sign and presenting it at the Baba Yaga in the hallway and trying to force his way past her, but overwhelming fear filled his heart and he could not muster up the will to do so. And eventually, he gave up and they retired to the salon car. After some time, Yan left and used the bathroom door to sneak into the countess's room, where she was hiding under the covers. He retrieved her, they left through the bathroom connecting door, and the investigators convened in the salon car. After a moment, Yan left to go sneak into the fourgon, and the professor wrote a note to Elena Constanza, asking her to meet them in the salon car.

Outside, Yan clambered onto the top of the train in the bright moonlight. He leapt from car to car, passing toward the front of the train, until he reached the fourgon. He couldn't see any guards, but he didn't know their schedules, and he took a moment to watch until he decided it was too risky and returned to the sleeping car. Elena came to speak to the professor and the ladies, and she agreed to keep watch on Jackie Gattling and then left. Moments later, the countess and Rosaline returned to the countess's compartment, but Jackie wasn't there. The countess resolved to remain awake. Rosaline, the professor, and Yan went to sleep.

Yan woke up when the train pulled into Zagreb, and saw a figure in a black cloak holding something white and standing on the platform. As he drew closer, he realized that it was just a porter in a greatcoat gnawing on a loaf of bread, and reboarded and went back to sleep. But in the dead of night, something attacked each investigator separately! Tiny, flapping, fleshy things, like crawling hands, that clambered onto their beds and attacked, covering their mouths and trying to suffocate them!

Yan easily took care of his beast and burst into the hallway as did the countess, clawing at the skin beast on her own face. The conductor, seeing a problem, got up and stared moving toward them as the professor also staggered out of his room clawing at his own assailant, but Yan cut it off his face. He also freed the countess, and then burst into Rosaline's room as she fell unconscious and removed her own skin beast. The conductor, shaken, asked that they come to the salon car and have brandy and discuss what happened. Once there, the professor demanded that the doctor be summoned, excoriating the conductor for how passengers on the Orient Express were attacked in their beds. The apologetic conductor summoned the doctor and, after the investigators' wounds were treated, he said that everyone was in their bed and safe. Rosaline asked about Jackie, and the conductor says the steward said she was safe, but the investigators checked themselves. Jackie was in her compartment, moaning "they came for me, they came for me" over and over, and when the countess examined her, she found six star-shaped lumps of flesh missing from her torso.

At this point, Elena called them into the salon and told them her secret mission. She knew that a man named Makryat was planning to kill the Prince of Wales, and asked them what they knew. After a moment, the professor explained about the Brotherhood of the Skin, about Makryat the sorcerer, and that his plan was probably not to assassinate the prince, but replace him. Elena was doubtful, but after having seen the skin beasts, she believed them. At the Italian border, Jackie was taken off by a doctor, and as the professor poked his head into the salon car, Anton Szorbic pulled them aside and said that he knew they were looking for a killer and he believed that Groening was the killer. He was disappointed at their lack of immediate action, and eventually stalked away.

The investigators slept undisturbed for the rest of the night.

In the morning, the professor noticed another murder in Islington written about in the newspaper, and that neither the Doña nor her maid were at breakfast. After breakfast, the countess went and knocked on the Doña's door. A conductor stopped her and told her that the Doña and her maid had disembarked at Ljubljana, which the professor confirmed with Lord Margrave. They tried to observe Groening and Szorbic, but they didn't see either of them for some time, and when Rosaline asked a conductor, he stated that he didn't think that either of them had disembarked. Yah knocked on Groening's door, and when Rama Ho-Tet answered the door, the Egyptian said that he hadn't seen Groening in some time, and that he was having a lovely time translating the professor's book. Yan then went to Szorbic's door and asked him. Szorbic was curt, but said that he hadn't seen Groening and in the process revealed that he remembered the conversation from the previous night, and Yan thanked him and returned to the salon car. On the way, he heard from a conductor that Groening had disembarked at Trieste.

That evening, the train departed Milan and steamed up into the mountains. As they were sitting in the salon car, Rosaline saw a fireman laying motionless on the tracks. After she told the others, the track curved, and they saw the locomotive moving ahead ringed with a glowing, white-blue nimbus. Almost immediately, the train began to pick up speed, jolting and shaking, and the investigators knew they had to check out the engine. The professor, countess, and Rosaline try to ask the fourgon guards what is happening, and the conductor asks a steward, but it quickly becomes obvious that they are on edge and don't actually know. Yan and Elena climbed on the train and walked over the fourgon to the locomotive where they heard voices from the cabin. Yan and Elena crept closer to listen as they heard what may have been chanting, and saw five Italians in the cabin, cleaning up various accoutrements. Yan and Elena debated what to do, and decided to attack. From surprise, as the Simplon Tunnel approached, Elena and Yan opened fire.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.
   
4. Radovan Venclovic, Romani Ex-Soldier, driven to madness by the beast of flesh in the cemetery at Üsküdar, February 20th, 1923.

We finally did something! Well, some of us. Maybe the rest of us should have also gone over the train cars to attack, but the professor is the only one with a gun and his pistol skill is only 20%. I'm not sure it would have made that much of a difference.

mutantur thought we'd get done today, but he underestimated the ability of player characters to faff around and accomplish nothing. Next time, we finish this business on the train!

...maybe

​Dramatis Personae

• Serjant Thierry Renault
  
• Soldat Jean Dupois
  
• Soldat Michel Beaumains
  
• Soldat Christophe Pressi
  
• Soldat Etienne Babin

14 Prairial, Year 2
Five eventful years had passed.

Dupois had spent years being alternately expelled and redrafted into the army and now spent nights at the bottom of a bottle. Renault had a long talk with his wife about their future, and had reluctantly thrown in his lot with the Revolution after initial thoughts of fleeing with that émigrés. Beaumains, who had stormed out to take the tennis court oath, was once again a proud member of the army now that it served the people. Babin had left the army to spend time with his son, returned to his home in Occitan, and lived there for a while, but eventually rejoined the army. Pressi also remained in the army, but after Comte Benoit had been guillotined, he spent much of his time with Melodie.

Once again the group was at the catacombs, helping guard the entrance as carts bring in bodies of those killed in La Terreur, with orders to let no one in. It was the first time they had seen each other in years, and they made awkward conversation in the hot summer night until six carts arrived. There were no priests this time, but the lead cart has several passengers wearing sacks on their heads with eyeholes cut in them. With them was Citizen Rigeau, chalk-white, in a high-collared jacket, and Beaumains noticed a mottled patch of skin at his neck as his head shifted. He ordered the passengers to unload, and they picked up skulls and began work. The party dispersed the crowd at Rigeau's order, and then began to guard the entrance. Rigeau pointed at Renault and asked where he knew him from, and after being reminded of the affair with Pfennelik, he smiled wolfishly and entered the catacombs.

Unnerved by the parade of workers and more than half drunk, Dupois reached out to try to grab the sack off a worker's head. They did not expect what they saw--the head of Comte Benoit, carelessly stitched to the head of a thin woman's body and lolling bonelessly over its shoulder. As the party cried out, the cart drivers ran screaming into the night and the monster attacked. It smashed a fist into Dupois and Renault stabbed it right through the heart, which didn't slow it at all. Babin took a mighty swing and sliced off an arm with his axe, but again the monster wasn't slowed. Beaumains bowled it over and stabbed it in the head, which stopped its movements. They all stared at it, took a swig of Dupois's bathtub liquor, and plotted. The "workers" returned, ignoring the party and doing their work, and the group grabbed lanterns from the carts and entered the catacombs behind them.

The catacombs were pitch black, but the workers didn't acknowledge the party in any way. At the third side tunnel, the workers turned, and the party followed down to a corridor lined with skulls, each skull with an odd mandala carved into the forehead. The more recent ones were not yet skulls--they were the severed heads of the guillotined dead, with the mandala carved through the skin down to the bone. In the distance was a distant phosphorescent light, illuminating bone dust swirling in the air. The swirls grew stronger and stronger, lifting teeth and bone bits into spirals in the air. Beaumains and Babin cried out, and ahead of them a dry chuckle echoed.

They advanced further and saw Rigeau, sitting and carving something into a heads but as he saw the light he stood and walked toward them with his eyes black pools of stars. He taunted them, saying he was amused that the overthrowers of Pfennelik had discovered him. He told them he was "ensuring his power" when asked what his business was, and then asked if they were cowards, and Renault drew his pistol. Rigeau took a swing and missed, and when Renault shot him there was no effect. They struggled, and as they did Rigeau's shirt ripped open, revealing a jigsaw pattern of flesh across his torso. Babin noticed that they were skull tattoos, and that when Dupois hit him, one mandala on a skull in the walls vanished. Renault took hold of Rigeau and attempted to strangle him, but it brought forth nothing but a smile. Dupois smashed his lantern on Rigeau, showering him--and Renault--in glass and flaming oil. Renault stepped back as Rigeau lackadaisically put himself out.

They attempted to flee, but as they did Rigeau made a gesture and the skulls in the passage collapsed, so they fled down the side passages into the dark. Rigeau's laughter followed them until they heard a voice telling them to follow if they want to live. They caught a brief glimpse of a nightmarish wolf-like face and then fled into tunnels filled with corpse-dirt, down a sudden fall that seriously injured Renault, and into the dark. Through the sealed depths of Paris, medieval to post-classical to Roman, to the dining room of a Roman villa filled with ghoulish monsters dining on headless corpses. They rose up, snarling, but the ghoul leading the party meeped at them and they went back to their repast.

Through an opening in the far wall, past more tunnels and shafts, they eventually emerged in the Luxembourg Garden. The ghoul mounted a dirt mound and grinned at them, and then pulled out a limb, began eating, and explained. He said that Rigeau meant to deliver the world to "those who dwelt Outside," that he had added symbols to the guillotines that delivered those who died to the "Throne of Azathoth," and when it reached ten thousand dead, the Eye of Azathoth would open and Paris would be engulfed. Dupois asked how to kill Rigeau, and the ghoul said that normal means would be impossible--even crushing the bones, the dust would remember. He did say that he had seen Rigeau consult a black book with brass bindings, and that it may have the means of his destruction. It wasn't in the catacombs, but it may be in his house. With no further questions, the ghoul jumped into a hidden hole and was gone.

Finding his house was not difficult, but it was surrounded by buildings on all sides and there was no oblivious entrances but the front. No lights burned within, so Dupois picked the lock and the party entered. They explored the house cautiously, finding nothing on the first floor, but in a room upstairs they found a room containing the Skinless Pope from Pfennelik's estate, a desk with a ledger on it, library shelves, a locked cabinet, medical texts, and other esoteries. Inside the cabinet were books from Pfennelik's cellar, which Beaumains took. Babin examined the ledger, finding a bunch of three-letter codes with totals, that Renault recognized as the totals of the sacrifices that Rigeau was making. The count stood at 9946. They had only a few days. The party searched the room, but it was Renault who found and took the book with brass bindings.

The book was in Latin, titled De Summum Vacuum, but Babin spoke Latin and began to read. He soon found he was unconsciously rotating the book, though he put it down at the urging of the others. He said it would take about twelve hours to study. They made an effort to cover their traces and fled, reconvening and resting in Babin's apartment. Babin read the book, discovering notes on Aztec rituals to "Azottotal," and a note by priests that such rituals were evil and would deny heaven to those who dwelt on earth. Only the willing sacrifice of one who has heard the "Music from Beyond" could stop it. The group thought, and then remembered Dietrich Zann and his music.

They briefly considered consulting the secret police but decided against it due to the danger. They eventually decided to look for his companion Celine, the woman who had been dressed as King Louis, in the red light districts of Paris. After Beaumains attempts at questioning went nowhere, they simply bribed some prostitutes to tell the party where the woman is. By the time they learned, it was nearly midnight, so they went to the attic tenement in the morning. After some brief panic from others in the tenement as soldiers march through their building, they find the attic and knock. When Celine recognized them, she grabbed a cudgel and began screaming, and only Babin's quick words kept things from coming to blows. She invited them in, into a barren tenement room with a single bed, a shattered violin in the corner. She revealed that Zann had a job with the orchestra, but lost it. He was obsessed with the violin, dangerously so, and eventually she smashed it. Since then, he only stared into space, not speaking, playing music that only he could hear on an invisible violin.

Babin spoke to Zann, who repeatedly said that he must "get it out." That the music was done, and he must play it. Celine was strongly against it, but Beaumains convinced her that playing the music might cure his obsession. The party needed a violin, and decided to break into the old orchestra and steal one. Using their authority as soldiers, they found a dusty violin, then debated what to do. They eventually decided to bring Zann to the orchestra again. Celine demanded that she be allowed to come, and they eventually agreed, though they kept their son away. Renault watched over him, while the other three entered with Zann and Celine. As soon as Zann had his hands on the violin, he immediately began playing. The sound grew, filling their ears and minds, as though the instrument had a hundred strings. The theatre's walls crumbled, revealing a starry night sky, and Beaumains and Dupois's ears began bleeding. One by one, the stars went out and they were surrounded by the unreverberate blackness of the abyss. They heard screams as from far away and the sound of unseen wings, until they mercifully passed out.

When they awoke, Beaumains and Dupois realized they could still hear the music, and would, locked into their minds, forever. Babin's fingers were numb, and when Reanaut entered, Zann's son clapped his hands and said, "Again, papa! Again!"

Babin pointed out that he was only one surviving who had heard the music and so the sacrifice would have to be him, and with some reluctance Renault agreed. In the middle of a letter to his son, as Dupois began ranting about the king, they realized that they could sacrifice Dupois instead. Renault brought him to the police and denounced him, and Dupois was swiftly found guilty. His execution was scheduled for within twenty-four hours, and they went to talk to the ghoul and report what had happened. It said that they should lure Rigeau to a deserted place, and the party decided to lure him to the catacombs. Renault put out the call for Pressi and others for the help that he men's they would need.

The next morning, Dupois was led from the prison to the guillotine, through the streets of Paris. Dupois's dog followed him, barking futilely, until the blade descended with a final thunk.

Streets away, the party followed Rigeau through the streets at a distance. Hugel moved past him, revealing the book with brass bindings, and Rigeau took the bait and they led him to the catacombs. Hugel ran into a room with the rest of the party and eleven ghouls, and as the blade descended elsewhere--as Dupois stood in the Court of Azathoth and released the Music from Beyond--Rigeau entered and shrieked, the skulls on his body shrieking in unison, and blood burst forth and showered the party. Pressi leveled his musket and fired, followed by the rest of the party, and then ghouls fell on him, and Citizen Rigeau was torn to shreds.

The Festival of the Supreme Being took place as scheduled on 20 Prairial. In addition, the guillotine was moved to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. On 22 Prairial, it was moved to the barrière du Trône. And on 10 Thermidor, Robespierre was led up the steps of the guillotine, and with his death ended La Terreur.


Comeuppance gotten!

This section reminded me of a bit of Ken Hite's gaming advice, which is that games should be set in the real world because it has a richer, more detailed history than any fantasy world ever could. A game set during pre-revolutionary France always carries the knowledge that the Revolution, and with it La Terreur, is coming. Call of Cthulhu has the same aspect that makes the World of Darkness so fun. It's set in our world, but with a secret layer that the game space occurs in.

This was originally a game run at Gen Con for backers of the Horror on the Orient Express Kickstarter, and when it was done, the players voted to make it available to other kickstarter backers. I'm glad we got to it before the end. I knew Rigeau was evil from his first appearance, though I admit I thought he'd be a member of the Brotherhood of the Skin trying to get Pfennelik out of the way.

This scenario does indicate a problem with the CoC world, though. If it's possible for single individuals to conduct rituals that destroy the world, why is the world still here? Surely someone somewhere would have succeeded by now. The investigators can't win every time, after all, and if the bad guys only have to win once...well. Still, we did win, and that counts for something.

​​Dramatis Personae

• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Radovan Venclovic, Romani ex-soldier
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman
  
• Yan Nikolaev, Bulgarian police inspector

The next day was their appointment with Beylab the perspires, but not until the evening. At breakfast, they discussed the man and bear they had seen. Radovan was convinced he was benign, saying that anyone who an animal trusted couldn't be all bad, but Rosaline wasn't so sure. When Feyar arrived, the party asked him about the proper etiquette for the meeting. Feyar explained that no gifts were required, putting their minds at ease, and they decided to go investigate the Red Mosque. After a long walk through the city, they arrived at a crumbling building that pedestrians walked by without even a glance at its grim-encrusted walls. Several young men, perhaps a street gang, lounged in the doorway and beckoned, calling out "Nice things! Nice things!" and gesturing to the investigators. The countess approached, asking about the trinkets, but then asked about the gang and the mosque, no whether they had seen anything unusual in the mosque at night. Feyar translated the answer--that they sometimes saw other gangs, but no one else. She asked about the Brotherhood, but the gang had only heard rumors. They took the countess's money without incident, and the investigators left.

For a change of pace, the party spent some time on tourism at the Hagia Sophia. The ancient cathedral was glorious, but had seen better days. The Basilica Cistern was across the street, so that was their next destination. That was better kept up but empty of water. After lunch, they visited the Hippodrome, and then the time had come to go to the baths and meet with Beylab. Knowing that Beylab was a stickler for punctuality, the investigators made an effort to arrive on time, and entered the bathhouse and left the bustle of the street behind. The professor checked the skin of the other bathers, but none of them seemed to have any identifiable tattoos or marring of the skin. The women went off into their own section, and the men prepared to meet the perspirer.

Beylab was lounging on a navel stone in the bath, grossly fat, and awaiting his visitors. The professor, Yan, and Radovan approached as Beylab raised a hand, and they took places next to Beylab on the stone. He greeted the party and asked them what they want to know, and the professor mentioned the disappearances of children. Beylab explained that it was an evil statue-worshipping cult, and that the children had not appeared in the slave markets. He said that the cult extended to the city bureaucracy, and that the statue's destruction was key to ending the cult. The ritual of destruction was in the cemetery, in Garaznet's grave, and suggested that the break into the grave in the night. As he reached for water and made to speak more, a shape surged up out of the water behind him and cut his throat!

Radovan and Yan heard the roaring of flames and pulled the professor off the stone as fire surged up and seared the body of Beylab. As the assassin fled, the three gave chase before they were blocked by two other bathers. Yan noticed that one of them had a mismatched ear and the other had an eye that was cloudy, and shouted, "They're here!" He tried to shove past the men but they stood firm, and Radovan's sucker punch flew wide. They made no hostile action, and in a moment it was obvious why--the flesh of Beylab flowed off his bones like a wave, surging across the water toward the men like a red tide. One of the cultists was caught by the monster, shrieking in pain as it reared up over him and began devouring him, and the party fled in terror leaving the screams behind.

There were already police outside, and when they saw the Europeans one approached and spoke in broken English, asked them to stay and and give their statements. Another policeman entered the bath and returned in moments, vomiting in the street. Another policeman later took the investigators statements, and the professor left out the parts about the cult or the monster, describing only a madman assassinating someone else in public. The police called a cab and they returned to their hotel, where the professor explained what Beylab had told them. They debated what to do, but quickly decided that they could not visit the graveyard tonight. Yan and the professor dressed and went down to dinner and had a long awkward conversation about their backgrounds, while the others had dinner sent up to their rooms.

The next morning, there was a message from the British Embassy requesting their immediate presence, so they bolted down their coffee and took the car provided. They were met by Sir Douglas Rutherford, in a clear agitation. He got right to the point, saying that his son was abducted in the last night, and asked for their help. The investigators agreed, and the ambassador said that his son James was last seen in the embassy garden and that he suspected the servants. He summoned the servants, and they stood in a line while the investigators examined them. One servant had mismatched eyes, and when he noticed the attention, he took a step back. The professor shouted to arrest him, and as guards appeared and seized him, the servant screamed that the Brotherhood had the boy and there was no hope. The Skin Beast would come and all of them were doomed. As he struggled, the tattoo suddenly revealed on his arm writhed and the skin of his face drew inward, flowing down his mouth and choking him to death.

Later, as they were drinking brandy with the ambassador, he said that he suspected the Red Mosque and while police searches had turned up nothing, he no longer trusted the police. The professor asked for excavating equipment, and while Sir Douglas was suspicious of his reasoning, he offered to provide it. He further suggested they speak to Lieutenant Douglas Hennessy about the British officer's death. The lieutenant met them in the lobby of their hotel, and the professor noticed that he was extremely nervous, constantly glancing around at the passersby. After asking what they knew, he said that the Drakes were part of a continent-wide smuggling and vice ring known for flaying people. He said that Evelyn was suspected in a murder, shortly before she disappeared, and that a local member named Phelps had recently turned up dead, but Yan realized that he was holding something back. The countess pushed further, mentioning the flayings that the investigators had encountered, and the lieutenant revealed that Mr. Phelps was deformed, half his face having been seemingly melted. The lieutenant said he was being transferred out, but asked that they tell Sir Douglas anything they discovered, and then he left.

After preparing, the investigators went down to the docks to hire a boat. Feyar suggested hiring a fishing boat, and they chartered the boat of a man named Haqim. And they were crossing the straight, Rosaline and Radovan noticed another fishing boat crossing on a similar course, but it remained at sea instead of docking, and it was too far away to make out any details. They landed and Haqim promised to wait, and the party made the short walk to the cemetery.

The countess's player: "Is this grave-robbing? Three of us are white. It's archeology."

After two hours of searching they found the tomb of Garaznet, its letters almost entirely faded away from the weathering of centuries. As Radovan and Yan began digging, Radovan noticed that the dirt wasn't as packed-down as it should be, but shrugged and kept digging. After some time, as the shovels clinking against a stone box, a man approached. He was babbling, in tattered robes, and Feyar explained that he was called the "Companion to the Dead." The professor listened, but most of what the beggar said was nonsense. He urged on their digging and said that "they" were numerous tonight as Yan and Radovan levered open the tomb of Garaznet, but when he heard the sound of stone on stone, he screamed "Don't let him out!" and leapt onto the countess and professor, flailing away. Eventually he backed away as an overwhelming foetor comes from the tomb. The lib slid back, and inside was a bubbling vat of flesh!

The flesh flowed out of the tomb and wrapped around one of the countess's legs as Rosaline began screaming in panic and Yan staggered around sightlessly. The professor threw a lantern onto the monster but it seemed to have no effect, and as he was looking for another weapon, dozens of shapes appeared out of the darkness and the Brothers of the Skin captured the party. The party was disarmed and tied to stone monuments with the weapons just out of reach and formed a circle, which parted to reveal six cultists carrying a squirming bundle. Four others brought in an older man, ancient and shriveled, on a chair born on their shoulders. He questioned them about the scrolls and the statue, but the party was silent. After a short moment, the old man looked at Radovan and began muttering. Radovan's skin twitched and seemed to rot, and Radovan shrieked for a moment and then slumped in his bonds. After further questioning, the old man again muttered and the same thing happened to Yan, though before he fell unconscious, Yan yelled that the simulacrum was in the bank vault.

( Content warning: Violence toward children )

On the Golden Horn, Aktar led them to his room, a small cluttered dwelling. In the light, he seemed vaguely familiar, but none of the investigators could place it. Aktar revealed that he was disguised as a Roma, but actually worked for Ataturk spying out threats to Turkey. His daughter had been kidnapped by the cult, and he had followed the cult to their headquarters and found what remained of his daughter. He suggested they join forces and fight the cult. The investigators agreed, and they decided that they needed to get to the Sedefkar Simulacrum before the cult did. They arrived, leaving Radovan and Yan behind in Aktar's room, and found the bank closed, so they immediately changed tack and went to the hotel. The front desk clerk asked them if they had gone and come back--the cult had obviously already been there. Their roomed had Ben searched, and the scroll was missing. Aktar suggested that they must go to the cultist's headquarters immediately and warn the British and French, and they traveled to the cistern where the secret entrance to the cult's headquarters was. The stairs led down into water, but there was a small boat, and Aktar rowed them through the water to a secret passage, and the investigators travel down a spiral staircase. At the bottom were ooze-covered walls and a small door, on the other side of which was a tomb lit by a greenish glow and covered with horrific carvings.

Across the chamber was an antechamber with a guard facing away from them. Rosaline whispered that he had to be subdued, and Aktar drew a knife, crept behind the cultist, and cut his throat. As lights entered the room, shelves of scrolls were revealed, but a quickly glance didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary and the group continued on through a surgical room separated from the main room of the mosque by a curtain. The professor peeked out and saw a large group of cultists, but they were all facing away from the curtain, so the investigators slipped out into the room next door, only to find that it was a meat locker filled with disembodied limbs. There was also the body of a skinned woman hanging on a meat hook, and when the countess saw it she gasped but steeled herself. Rosaline noticed a pearl necklace lying on the floor, and she discretely pocketed it.

There was nowhere else but he main chamber, so the investigators snuck into the mosque chamber and crept into the crowd. In the center, under the mosque dome, is a stone slab with five indentations carved into it. Five children, James Rutherford among them, were led into the chamber and waited nervously near the slab. Aktar suggested that he would create a distraction while the others rescued the children, and lacking options, they agreed. As they waited, red-robed figures brought out the Simulacrum and placed it into the indentations on the slab. The old man also came out and pulled a scroll out of his robes, and began chanting. The professor understood part of the ritual, asking for power through the suffering of the flesh. As he stepped forward to end the ritual, his mouth sealed itself shut. The investigators began to usher the children out of the mosque, Aktar shouted, "foreign traitors!" and stepped forward, seizing the scroll, and completes the ritual. The statue absorbed itself into his flesh, and Aktar laughed manically and revealed himself as Mehmet Makryat, son of Selim Makryat, the new master of the Brotherhood of the Skin, and ordered the cultists to kill their old master, which they did with enthusiasm.

The investigators tried to run, but they were overwhelmed and escorted away. They were led past other cells full of maimed and mutilated prisoners, begging and whining, and shut into a cell on the top of the minaret of the Shunned Mosque. The professor understood some of the guard's speech--they were discussing the "flapping man," who might come for them, and they were desperate to retreat. As they left, the light revealed a shape in the corner, limbless and eyeless, covered in a blanket. He shouted out at the party, and Rosaline recognized the voice of Professor Smith before he fell unconscious.

Hours later, the door opened to reveal Mehmet Makryat, who lit a cigarette and monologued about his plan. He had impersonated Professor Smith from the beginning, setting the investigators on their entire quest, and revealed that he had been following them along the way and helping them overcome their difficulties. He thanked them for helping him defeat his father, and asked them how they had defeated Le Comte. They did not answer, and Mehmet explained that the Simulacrum's power was corrupting them already and they had only one hundred hours remaining in their lives, and that he was off to London to retrieve the Ritual of Cleansing that would save him from the Simulacrum's effects. With a smile, he said that he would unchain them so that they could see their bodies fall into slime, and he left. When he did, Professor Smith confirms Mehmet's story, but he said that the brothers believed the Flapping Man was a spirit of rage, and they could use that to escape. After some time, a pair of guards arrived to unshackle the investigators. As the countess passed Professor Smith, she flapped the blanket and screamed, and the the guards ran back down the stairs. Rosaline looked at Professor Smith and, after a short internal struggle, she slit his throat to end his suffering. Then the investigators fled down the stairs past the cells, past flayed skins, and the countess grabbed one and put it on. She ran out and babbled in a mix of languages, and the Brothers ran screaming in fear. The countess heard something behind her, and turned to see the real Flapping Man charging the Brothers. With that as a distraction, the party ran. Outside was James Rutherford, who ran up to them as they fled, as the sunrise washed the walls of the Shunned Mosque with blood-red light.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.
   
4. Radovan Venclovic, Romani Ex-Soldier, driven to madness by the beast of flesh in the cemetery at Üsküdar, February 20th, 1923.

Over three thousand words. This was action-packed from beginning to end.

This part is, frankly, one of the weakest parts of the entire campaign--not only is it a railroad from start to finish, it has the players betrayed and captured by someone they thought would be their ally multiple times in sequence and the revelation that the entire quest across Europe and everything they accomplished was all at the bidding of the villain, so it would have been better if the PCs had just ignored Professor Smith's plea entirely and went on with their lives. I knew this was coming, and I've known for the entire game, so it didn't bother me that much. And it is a cosmic horror game, so it does a good job of showing the investigators' actions coming to naught. But as a roleplaying game device, it's poor form.

mutantur said that the new version of the campaign has an option to end in a climactic battle at the Shunned Mosque where the PCs kill Mehmet Makryat and destroy the cult once and for all, which allows for immediate revenge. It's not how the scenario originally went, however, so we're going to do the original ending. That means there's two, maybe three more games and then we're done with the Horror on the Orient Express!

​​Dramatis Personae

• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Radovan Venclovic, Romani ex-soldier
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman
  
• Yan Nikolaev, Bulgarian police inspector

After taking the weapons distributed by Major Kristova's associates, the inspectors sat and waited until dawn. The professor sat by himself, casting surreptitious glances at the major's associates and wondering if they could be trusted. The countess offered up a brief prayer in memory of Jazmina, thinking of all the people she had lost. Radovan cleaned the shotgun he had taken, checked his ammunition, and otherwise fell back into his soldier training. Rosaline stared off into space, almost in shock.

Near dawn, they all piled into a truck and drove southeast of Sofia, to a set of caves near a smaller village. The entrance had been concealed and behind was an obvious emplacement for an ambush, with barbed wire and sandbags set up in front of a machine gun emplacement. The actual machine gun was lying yards away, smashed to uselessness against a rock wall. There were several trucks parked nearby but all of them had ruptured fuel tanks and were undriveable. The major surveyed the carnage, hoisted his rifle, and shared a grim expression with his men. There would be no prisoners.

The cave was completely dark, with a slick floor and unsteady footing. Further in were cave paintings, a bison and hunters frozen in time. The passages looped in on themselves as the group descended further and further into the earth, and finally they heard the sound of boiling water and the faint stench of decay. Through a jagged arch of rocks was a giant chamber, full of echoes, and liberally strewn with bodies with a strange pyramid in the center. As the police fanned out and secured the room, the investigators moved in an examined the scene. The bodies had been torn apart, still clutching weapons that had proved useless against what they had faced. Radovan examined the bodies and found that there was much less blood than there should be. He looked closer and and realized that they were already starting to rot, and then realized that only parts were staring to rot. Parts which had been attached to living bodies by unnatural means.

As Radovan reeled back, the countess moved to see what was wrong and, as she crossed the room, she saw her own eye staring at her from a dead man's eye socket.

The major followed a trail of blood toward a crevice leading upward, with the sky visible through the other side. It was far too narrow for a human to make it through, and he abandoned any attempt to follow the trail. As the group approached the pyramid, they realized that it was made of skulls. Fifteen feet high, growing more and more fleshy as it rose. The top was flat, possibly intended to be used as a platform, and the countess mused that the head may be here. Radovan tried to climb and backed off in disgust when one of the skulls fell on him, and Rosaline suffered a similar fate. Yan asked what they were doing, and when the professor explained he asked for a boost and easily climbed the pyramid of skulls. It was strangely stable, and from the top he could a shrine on top with a pillow, bearing the indentation of a heavy object but otherwise empty. Yan called down that there was nothing there except the shrine, and then climbed down.

Following another trail of blood that led behind the pyramid, the group entered a narrow passage and found a dead cultist who had been torn to sheds. Behind him was a small opening, two feet in diameter, that descended down into the depths of the earth. Rosaline shined a light down but couldn't see anything, and Radovan dropped a rock. When the sound came back, Rosaline reached a hand in, twisting her arm around the passage's turns, and felt two garlic cloves and something smooth, with eye sockets. She lost her footing and her check against the rock, but reached further and further and pulled out the Head of the Sedefkar Simulacrum.

As they existed the small passage, they noticed that most of the bodies on the ground had gone missing.

Radovan stared, seemingly in shock, but the group noticed that the other policemen were still there and had seemingly missed the bodies. One of the police shouted something, and the group noticed movement in the darkness, something darting around in the shadows. Climbing the walls and crawling along the ceiling, and a Yan called out to the major that they needed to leave immediately. A hundred feet from the exit, things came charging out of the shadows. Long-clawed, red-eyed, sharp-toothed, muzzled gray-skinned monsters, and the group prepared for battle.

Shots range out as the investigators fired at the rushing group of monsters. The major made the first kill, blasting one with its shotgun and sending it falling apart in a spray of accelerated decay, but then the monsters were on them. One of them hit Yan, knocking him to the ground, but Yan brought his pistol up and blew it apart. Another clawed Radovan and tried to seize him, reaching around Radovan's attempt to push it off and sunk its fangs into Radovan's neck...and then it crumbled as the major shot it in the head. Rosaline crushed a clove of her garlic and the creature attacking her backed off, hissing. As one of the monsters approached the professor, he drew forth the Mims Sahis, slashed the vampire, and cut it in half.

As the countess backed away from the creature attacking her, the major shouted at them to run and ordered Yan to follow them. Rosaline threw another clove to the major and the investigators moved toward the cave entrance, avoiding the creatures who reached for them, and fled through the passage toward the surface and into the sunlight. The monsters' footsteps followed them through the tunnels, but as they left the tunnel their flesh seared in the sunlight and they fled howling into the caves. The major, having followed them, punched the wall in fury and stalked to his truck. He said he had lost good men and there would be vengeance, and pulled out dynamite and passed it out to the investigators. They laid it down, triggered it, and an explosion sealed the entrance to the horrible caves where the Butchers had their temple.

Rosaline applied first aid to Radovan's wounds as the professor carefully examined the wound's reaction to sunlight. It seemed benign, and Radovan claimed that no blood was drawn, but the professor watched him all the way back to Sofia. There, the major and Yan had a private discussion and then Yan said that he would travel with them to accompany them on their trip. Yan grabbed his equipment and they all returned to the investigators hotel, where they had an almost supernatural compulsion to reassemble the Sedefkar Simulacrum.


Each investigator saw something of themselves in it, and they spent some time gazing at it. Yan asked them their plan, and the investigators explained the Shunned Mosque, the Brotherhood of the Skin, and the need to destroy it. The professor explained about Le Comte and the expectation that he would be coming for them, soon, and the investigators split up to prepare. The countess bought garlic, Yan bought wood to be whittled into stakes and "acquired" some holy water from a local church, and the professor picked up the Arabic translation materials he had had forwarded to Sofia. The professor wrote letters to his sons and daughter, and the countess bought a fashionable eyepatch. Then, they boarded the train for their last night on the Orient Express.

The investigators were exhausted, but they knew they were in danger. The professor suggested they crush garlic and apply it to the seams of the outdoor windows. Yan suggested that they jam the doors in their rooms that led to other rooms, and the countess suggested that they set a watch. After an uneasy dinner, they returned to their rooms and fell asleep, and in the night, there was a knock on the countess's door. Her questions as to the identity of the person were answered only with more knocks. The noise alerted Yan and Radovan, and Yan peeks out into the hall and saw a conductor. The conductor seemed to be sleepwalking, but they raised a shotgun, slowly, and fired. The sound raised screams and and shouts, and as the conductor raised his shotgun, Yan charged. The conductor moved backward just in time to be hit by Rosaline and the countess opening the door to their room.

As conductors came running and shouted at Yan about whether to arrest the conductor, the conductor who had the gun protested his ignorance and eventually was led away. After some brief argument about what to do, the investigators drifted into uneasy sleep. After about an hour, the professor heard a whispered voice demanding that he return the "skin." The professor said nothing, retrieving some garlic, and knocked on the door to the women's room. As the voice ranted, Rosaline knocked and the professor opened the door, shushing her. Eventually Le Comte promised to kill one passenger per hour that the Simulacrum was not returned, and the voice fell silent.

Waking the others up, the professor explained the situation. The investigators decided that they would have to track down Le Comte and destroy him, and so they girded for battle and proceeded to the Fourgon, where they assumed that Le Comte must have some coffin that protects him from the sun. As they walked down the corridor, they heard a roaring sound, and coming around the corner they saw a tiger that sprang on Yan, biting him! As the tiger's fangs sank into his flesh, Yan drove his stake into the tiger, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Rosaline crushed some garlic and hurled it at the tiger, and it recoiled and its body rippled and twisted into the form of a man. A horrific mockery of the human form, long arms and covered in scars, with a muzzle-like face, rotted nose, and hideous fangs. The countess threw holy water to no effect, Le Comte stared at Radovan but Radovan fired his shotgun, blowing a hole into Le Comte. Then the professor pulled out the Lover's Heart. The red light of hatred seared the ancient monster's face, and its body fell apart into mist as it fled.

As they entered the salon car, they were questioned by a conductor, but Yan managed to bluster enough to ward him off. To assuage further suspicious, Rosaline, Yan, and Radovan briefly went back to their room, but the professor and the countess stayed for a drink. As they drank, they heard from another passenger than one of the passengers had died.

The others returned and the professor told the conductor that he needed to retrieve something from this luggage and the conductor, who seemed unsteady on his feet, shuffled aside. They entered the Fourgon and began to search, frantically looking for a coffin or something large enough for one. They found an unregistered crate, clearly large enough to contain a body. Radovan and Yan pried it open and found a coffin, padlocked shut, and the investigators forced it open. The coffin cracked open, revealing a layer of blood-soaked earth and...Le Comte, who opened his eyes and attacked.

Yan hurled garlic and Rosaline tried to stake the vampire, who clawed her across they face, dropping her with hideous wounds. The vampire leaped up and stared at Yan to no effect, and Radovan grabbed Yan's carbine and fired, blasting a hole in the vampire. The countess quickly bandaged Rosaline as the professor pulled out the Lover's Heart and, in Latin, intoned, "Tullius Corvus, go now to thy reward!" The red beam illuminated the vampire, spreading like a bloodstain across his body, and the shock of hearing his name was the last thing he knew as his body exploded into dust and the ancient monster was finally laid to rest.

In the chaos of the passenger death, the investigators were able to scatter the blood-soaked earth and destroy the coffin. They told the conductors that there had been an anarchist bomb in the unregistered coffin, and surprisingly their story was accepted. They finally went to sleep, knowing that one threat had been dealt with, but they were traveling straight into the maw of danger.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.

Crawl 'til dawn
On my hands and knees
God damn these vampires
For what they've done to me

I definitely thought we were going to lose Rosaline this session, but the countess pulled a clutch first aid roll at the last moment! And it's a good thing that none of us approached the windows. There's a lot of terrible things the vampire can do from the safety of outside the train.

Le Comte is finally dead (through the professor doesn't entirely think so, and he's followed us across Europe this far so I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to be suspicious). Now we just have the Brotherhood left to deal with. Just.

​​Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

At the Filipovics' house, the dinner party began. As they sat down, Todor Necic mentioned that dinner was earlier than normal due to the ceremony, and when the professor asked what ceremony he meant, he said that tonight was an ancient Cigany fertility ceremony and that the investigators were welcome to come. The professor agreed that that sounded fascinating, and they all sat down to eat. The dinner was classic Eastern European fare, hearty and beet-centered, held in a room decorated with dozens of clay pots and knickknacks. The countess asks about the clay pots and Father Filipovic said that they were often dug up in the fields, dating from Roman times.

As she was looking, the countess noticed an old bone flute, almost ivory-colored, and asked Nedic if she could examine it. He handed it over, and she examined it, noticing the intricately-carved vines on it, but there was something that seemed odd. She couldn't place it, and neither could the professor, and after a time she handed it back.

As the dinner wound down, the professor asked about the old woman who lived in the forest. Nedic spoke of her with slightly caution due to an old woman who lives alone in a dark forest and hasn't been to the village for forty years. He said that she was just called Baba, "grandmother," and she lived alone and spoke to no one. The professor asked how long she had lived there, but Nedic said that he didn't know and had only spoken to get once.

After dinner, preparations for the ceremony began. While the people gathered, an old woman was seen arguing with the Cigany and stormed over to the countess, demanding through Jazmina's interpretation that the investigators refuse to attend the ceremony. The countess said that she would go pray, but that the professor should watch because of the academic value. The woman eventually grew frustrated with translation and stormed off.

The ceremony invoked a young Cigany girl, dressed in a cloak of leaves and painted with mud, being led to every house in the village and having water poured over her in the February cold. By the end she was shivering, and while she was taken back to one of the houses to warm up, the professor's memory was jogged. Something that the masked man in dream Zagreb had said in his torrent of words crawled out of his memory, and he muttered, "The Black Goat of the Woods." The countess asked him what he said, and the professor explained that the Cigany ritual had some elements similar to protective ceremonies dedicated to the Dark Mother. He couldn't explain any more than that, and eventually shook his head.

After the ritual, Todor Nedic told one of the Cigany that the party was planning to go into the woods. The old woman was dismissive of foreigners being in the town at all, but when she learned they could be dissuaded, she said that she would send her nephew with them. Before she turned away, the professor and the countess noticed that she had a bone whistle around her neck, very similar to the one in the Filipovics' house. Then, the party split, with the professor and Demir going to the priest's house and the women going to the Nedics'. The priest noticed that the professor was looking at the flute, but he was unable to answer the professor's questions about it and expressed surprise that the Cigany had a similar whistle. Then he asked if the professor wanted to tell stories, and the professor and Demir gratefully accepted, staying up late and drinking into the night.

At the Nedic house there was a much more subdued night, and the women eventually get to sleep. Jazmina awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of voices talking in low tones in the kitchen. She couldn't understand the language, so she woke up the countess and they discussed what to do. Eventually, Jazmina tried to sneak downstairs, but a squeak of an errant board silences the voices instantly. When Jazmina descended the stairs, she found Anna alone in the kitchen, making tea. She accepted Anna's offer of tea reluctantly, and drank one cup while listening to Anna's imprecations against the Cigany before excusing herself and going back to bed.

In the morning the investigators assembled in the silence of the Nedic house and the chaos of the Filipovic house, other than Rosaline, who stayed in her room due to a sudden bout of sickness. As they made to leave, Todor Nedic's sister walked up to the professor and pressed a bone whistle into his hands, explaining through pantomime that it would offer protection from the forest spirits. The professor, knowing what he knows about the forest, gratefully accepts.

Radovan Venclovic, the nephew of the old Cigany woman, was waiting for them and introduced himself as their guide. He said that he was wary of the forest but this was a request, so he would take them to Baba's hut, and they began walking. The villagers watched them go as Radovan mentioned that they got few foreign visitors in the town, pointing out the lush fields, the smoke arising from the Cigany encampment, and the verdant grass with no livestock grazing on it. Then, the investigators entered the woods. There was no path, but they followed Radovan as the woods grew darker and darker, the trees slowly began to gain coatings of mold and slime, and all other sounds vanished. Except one--the professor noticed a faint hum, just under his hearing. He stopped, looking around warily, but none of the rest of the investigators heard it. The countess offered the professor water and Radovan suggested that he stop to rest, but the professor said that he would rather get through the woods.

After several hours, the party smelled the scent of freshly-baked bread and came on a brown hut, alone in the forest, surrounded by a fence of thorns. The professor and Demir both felt eyes watching them, but there was nothing out there, and eventually they entered the hut, though not without Jazmina pricking her hand on the thorns as they entered.

The inside of the hut was cluttered with dozens of bits of statuary, with an oven filled with a roaring fire and a young woman sitting at a tapestry. Radovan immediately noticed that she looked very familiar, almost like the twin sister of a girl he knew who had gone missing, immediately making him wary. She introduced herself as Kcerca and was surprised that Radovan recognized her, but brushed it off as a strange coincidence. Kcerca said that Baba was out, but she would be back soon.

As they waited, Jazmina and the countess examined the statuary. The countess accidentally knocked over a shelf containing a bunch of statue pieces and Kcerca rushed to help her pick it up, apologizing for the mess, while Jazmina looked at the tapestry she was working on. It's a picture of a peasant village, and as Jazmina looked at the village she noticed that it was definitely a picture of Orašac.

As the statues were put back into place, a cold wind blew outside with the sound of sheets ripping and the door opened. An old woman entered, hunched over, and nodded at the party and then moved over to Kcerca and began to speak with her in an unknown language. After a moment, she asked what the investigators were there for, and when the professor said they were looking for a statue, Baba smiled and said she had plenty of statues and they would have to stay for dinner. Radovan turned down her invitation with as much grace as he could muster.

Baba told a story about her father, a professor in Sofia who kindled her interest in Roman architecture and statuary, and she became something of an amateur archeologist. She sold statuary to fund her habit, but now she was old. As Kcerca put wood in the oven, the professor told her about the statue arm they were looking for and gave it its name--the Sedefkar Simulacrum. Baba perks up at the name and begins looking around, directing a search. After a short time, she pointed it out on the highest shelf, and Demir volunteered to get it. He climbed up the shelves and grabbed it, trying to tug it free from the shelves as Kcerca put more wood in the oven. Then, several things happened at once.

The statue arms near Demir reached out and grabbed onto him as the other investigators noticed that the roof wasn't actually thatched, it was composed of writhing tentacles! Baba reached out and grasped a giant breadpan, scooping up Demir while cackling and dumped him into the oven, now a giant rugose mouth ringed with tentacles, that clutch at Demir hungrily! Kcerca pickled up a large kitchen knife and turned on Radovan, charging forward, as the shelves revealed themselves as conglomeration of bones that grasped at the professor and the countess!

The countess ran over to Demir and tried to pull him out of the oven, but Demir yelled something in Turkish and pushed the arm into her hands. Radovan, surprised, took a nasty wound from Kcerca's knife and tried to grab at her, but as the professor pointed out the door and the countess pulled the arm away and moved toward the door. The investigators jumped out of the now-high-up hut, hitting the ground lightly except for Jazmina, who twisted her ankle, but not enough to prevent her from running, which they made haste in doing. Behind them they heard a horrible discordant singing and the shrieking of Baba, answered by many other voices, crashing through the woods with their own answering song that reminded the professor and the countess of the shepherd calls of the terrible Men of Leng.

Knowing that now was the time, the professor pulled out the bone whistle and blew it. A shrill noise seemed to fill the air, growing louder and louder and filling the air until the whistle shattered into fragments, cutting the professor's face, as they ran past the briar fence, now revealed to contain hundreds of bones. Behind them, the cottage tore its tentacle-like roots free from the earth and stomped toward them, but the sound of the whistle cut through Baba's singing and the answering cries from the woods. The house staggered around, confused, and a flailing root hit Baba and knocked her off into an old oak tree with a sickening crunch.

The delay did not last long, but the investigators wasted no time in running. After a few moments, they heard the house and the other things in its wake crashing through the forest behind them. They ran as fast as they could, finding a deer path and following it to its end, and when they smelled smoke, Radovan recognized his camp and shouted that they should go there.

As they burst out of the forest, the leader of the Cigany, Marco, approaches and asks Radovan what had happened. The investigators told their story as the Cigany edged away from the arm the countess carried, and then Jazmina noticed a woman who seeemd to be an older version of Kcerca. She pointed out to her in the crowded and shouted, but Radovan shushed her, saying that the woman wasn't who Jazmina thought she was. In Romani, he told Szuba that he had seen someone who looked like her sister who they had thought lost by wolves, leading to Szuba wailing in anguish and collapsing.

These two stories combined infuriated the Cigany, who start to gather torches and pitchforks and assembling a mob. They asked the investigators if they want to join them in seeking vengeance. The professor was reluctant, but assented when both the countess and Jazmina expressed a desire to find Demir's remains. They steeled their courage and followed the angry Cigany into into the woods.

They reached the location of the house before too long, but the clearing was mostly empty. Only dead brown grass remained, though as the mob spread out to search, Jazmina and the countess found a pile of viscera, barely recognizable as having once been a man, near a tree. The countess blanched and turned away, but Jazmina carefully checked Demir's remains, finding the Mims Sahis--untouched by the horrors that he had endured--and a strange red gem that radiated an almost palpable sense of hate. Jazmina asked the others about it, and the professor recognized it as the gem that Madame Bruja had employed against the sorcerer in the Dreamlands. After a brief conversation, they took it and continued.

Before they left, the professor noticed a patch of dirt blown away from bare stone. An ancient mosiac, depicting images of tree-like abominations devouring sacrifices.

Further on in the forest, the mob entered another clearing and found, crouching like a wounded animal, the horrible house that had chased the investigators through the woods. Radovan staggered about as though blinded and JAzmina fainted away, and while the professor an the countess dragged them to safety, the mob charged forward and set upon it with axe and torch. They took horrible casualties and over half their number fell, but eventually the house collapsed and lay, hacked and burning, on the ground. The Cigany thanked the investigators for their help in pursuing vengeance and led them back to their camp, where they had a hearty meal and finally slept.

When they arrived in Orašac, they found it in the same condition as they left it...except for Father Filipovic, sitting vigil in the church over the twisted body of his wife. Nedic said that she had collapsed during the night, in front of Father Filipovic, and the investigators exchanged knowing looks before leaving him to his grief. They told Rosaline what had happened, accepted Radovan's offer to travel with them and purge the earth of this evil, and took the morning train out of the town.

Their trip back to the Orient Express was plagued with problems. In one small town the investigators were attacked by an enraged mob of black chickens, leading to a pitched battle in the streets. When the battle ended, the chickens were the white of normal chickens, and only money offered by the investigators prevented a mob of villagers from seeking redress for the death of their flocks. AS they arrived in Belgrade they were stricken with boils and spent the night in feverish dreams, but awoke clean and whole. As they prepared to board the train, they saw many figures watching from doorways, like old woman shrouded in heavy clothes, but no one was there if looked directly at. And finally, after they bought Radovan a ticket and settled into the train and sped through the countryside, a terrific storm broke and they saw, silhouetted against the hills, illuminated by flashes of lightning, something large, like a giant headless bird, keeping pace with the train but never drawing closer. Rosaline suggested that perhaps the Baba drew its power from the natural world and the iron of the train kept it away.

As they crossed the border into Bulgaria, the investigators noticed a broken-down hut near a river. The hut's thatch twitched like branches in the breeze as they passed, waiting for them, but it did not cross the border.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.

This one is extra-long!

This is one of the moments in Horror on the Orient Express I've been most waiting for because I hated the presentation in the original. Then, Baba Yaga was just that--Baba Yaga, flying on mortar and pestle and all, and it was very hard to square her existence with the rest of the Mythos around her. Here, it's much more like "Baba Yaga" is the human mythology that sprang up around something older. Something that lurked in the forests before humans ever came to the Balkans.

Demir's death and the arrival of Radovan are due to a player shuffle, so next session we'll have Radovan Venclovic the Romani ex-soldier as a permanent party member. This does mean that the combat potential of eh investigators is steadily increasing, which is good as we head into the more dangerous parts of the campaign.

Thus ends Horror on the Orient Express, Book III. Next time, Book IV: Constantinople and Consequences!

Dramatis Personæ

• Asinius Ravila, Iberian medicus
  
• Belasir of Tihama, Arabian sagittarius et speculatore
  
• Emeric of the Suevi, Germanic auxiliārius, and a Christian
  
• Galerius Evodis, Constantinopolitan optio
  
• Milonius Kanmi, Carthiginian sagittarius

The legionnaires returned to the fortress with their prisoners, immediately reporting to the commander. After the local medicus saw to Emeric's injuries and they explained the bat-monsters they had fought to Longinus, he urged them to question the prisoners and learn what he cult was planning. They first tried a good cop/bad cop routine, but the two cultists just smiled with far-off expressions and ignored their questions. It wasn't until Galerius hit the boy across the face that he reacted, and that single hit opened the floodgates. The cultists began ranting about the doom and plague that would sweep over the Empire, and claimed that the "Army of Skin and Blood" was even now on its way. The legionnaires immediately reported the news to Tillius Corvus and Centenarius Longinus, who begin making preparations. At the legionnaires' urging, the refugees were brought within the walls and bonfires were kindled. As the soldiers made preparations, Galerius gave a rousing speech about the glory of Rome and the fortitude of the legions, sending up a wave of cheers from the men.

Almost as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, the army arrived. Groups of skin creatures and bat monsters, mixed with howling cultists with strips of their skin ritually flayed off. Emeric was more far-sighted than his companions, and beyond the army he saw a skinned parody of horse, bearing a robed rider that lifted a curved knife above its head. Overwhelmed, Emeric began to babble Christian prayers in Germanic as the army moved to the wall and began to scale it, paying no heed to the arrows and javelins of the Romans.

Several of the monsters gained the wall and combat dissolved into melee. One of the skin beasts latched on to Belisar and began to drink his blood, only to be shoved off and then chopped to ribbons by Galerius. The other monsters are quickly dispatched now that they don't have the element of surprise, a process that repeated itself across the came. Apparently, necromancy was no match for Roman steel.

After the battle, Emeric felt slightly ill, though he waved it off as the effects of his earlier fight. Tillius ordered the legionnaires not to pursue the fleeing army, but rather to wait until morning. After several hours of fighting, they were glad to obey that order, and they went to sleep. In the morning, they met with the centenarius, who assigned another group of legionnaires to accompany them as they followed the trail to the cult headquarters. The trail required no expertise to follow, littered as it was with blood, the bodies and greasy remnants of monsters, and discarded weapons from the Army of Skin and Blood. It led into the mountains, through a narrow defile that there would have been almost no chance to find if they hadn't had the army's trail to follow. As the proceed into the mountains, Milonius notices that the other legionnaires have abandoned them and turned back for the fort, but Tillius orders them to proceed with the mission.

After a few hundred yards, the trail opens up to a bowl-like depression in the mountains, with seventeen tall menhirs, half again the height of a man, each covered in weathered hieroglyphs and with a skinned human corpse lashed to the stone. In the midst of the menhirs was a pit, descending into an unnatural darkness. A dropped torch vanished into the darkness, and it wasn't until they spread out and searched that they saw a cunningly-concealed stairway descending down the rim of the pit. With no other choice, the legionnaires descended, finding a pool of liquid blackness near the bottom. A spear poked into it came out clean, and so the legionnaires steeled themselves and kept walking. The blackness felt slightly unclean and seemed to leave a thin film on them, but they were not further harmed.

At the bottom of the stairway was a cave complex, with three tunnels leading away and mosaics of implike creatures all around the floor and walls menacing primitive humans armed with spears.

Me: "Did you say, 'Impolite creatures'?"
Belasir's player: "I also heard impolite."

The floor was covered in a curling mist and the legionnaires heard the faint sound of whispers. As well, the sound of footsteps echoed through the caves, and so the legionnaires took one of the corridors that led to the cult's food stores. Milonius suggested destroying the stores, but Tillius was against it, and so the legionnaires continued, finding a barracks with two injured cultists who they quickly slaughtered and then hid the bodies in the human skin hammocks and covered them with the human skin blankets that furnished the room. When the patrol's footsteps had vanished again, they continued down the corridor and found the cult's main room. The mist was stronger here, coming out of holes in the wall, and there was a column in the center with a flayed human figure and some kind of instruction or ritual area in the back. After ambushing the patrolling cultists and killing then, Milonius and Emeric examined the column and were stunned when it transformed into an image of their own faces, each seeing his representation. The others examined the ritual area and the rugs and wall hangings made of human skin, drawing their swords as the skins began to move and attack. There were three against six legionnaires, though, and when they were cut to ribbons another passage was revealed leading further into the cave.

Through that passage was a floor carpeted in human scalps and walled with the skins of legionnaires. Bone windchimes hung from the ceiling and in the back was a bone bedframe with human skin sheets and bedding. In the center was the cult leader, who lifted aloft a curved knife with an unnatural sheen to its blade and babbled that "Your skins are mine!" and then the skin the chamber animated to surround the cultist as he started chanting in Gothic. The legionnaires charged, but Milonius was overcome by the cult leader's magic and attacked Emeric. Emeric managed to block the blow with his shield as the others attacked the skins, and when they were shredded, the sorcerer's skin fell away. Most of it became a strange insectile monster, slithering to attack, except for the skin of his face which animated as a bat-like flitting abomination. But none of it mattered as the legionnaires charged in, and Tillius drove his blade into the sorcerer's heart, causing all the skins to crumble to dust and the mist to fade away.

But the blow unleashed a fountain of blood, much more than a human body could contain. The flood knocked Tillius over, and when it faded Asinius examined him, noting that he was still alive but in a coma. The other legionnaires picked him up and carried him out, back to the fort, and arranged for transit back to Constantinople, where the magister militum offered them two months' leave and a year's pay in exchange for a promise never to speak of this again. He also demanded that Emeric surrender the knife he had taken from the sorcerer, which he did with extreme reluctance--at this, the professor and the other investigators reading the account stopped and looked at Demir, who simply shrugged.

The legionnaires all took that offer and, after their leave, they gathered for Belasir's wedding to Nona and then, when Tillius finally awoke, his wedding to Eudoxia, held on her family's barge on the sea. Just before the wedding, the magister militum summoned them back for one more mission, saying that the the knife has vanished. All of them except Belasir agreed to the mission, but first they attended the wedding.

Tillius gave a toast to the men of the Fortes Falcones, commending them for their bravery...but ended it by saying that Tillius was dead, and then snarled at the wedding guests as a wave of pain and nausea spread through the group. Before anyone could react, he tore out his new bride's throat with his bare hands and began drinking her blood! Milonius, Belasir, and Galerius died of the poison almost immediately, but Emeric and Asinius managed to fight off the nausea and crippling pain and flee to the side, deliberately knocking over several lanterns into their flight. They leapt into the sea as the tapestries and decorations caught fire, and looking back, they saw Tillius killing the wedding guests until the flames grew too high, where he transformed into some flitting winged thing and took off into the night. They knew they were not strong enough to swim back to the Golden Horn, but a passing fishing boat saw the flames and came to investigate, hauling them aboard.

Emeric quickly succumbed to his injuries, the shock of the sea, and the poison, but Asinius lived. He finished the journal stating that he planned to change his name and take ship to Iberia or Gaul, traveling as far as he could from Constantinople and the horrific sights he had witnessed. This was the last page.


Mr. Johnson!

I was expecting something to go wrong, but I was not expecting the commander to turn into a vampire. Maybe a bit more explanation would have been nice, since the historical Constantinople scenarios seem partially set up to explain where le Comte came from and why a Call of Cthulhu game has a vampire as a villain. Or, okay, an evil sorcerer who just happens to have all the legendary powers of the vampire. But it doesn't, really. Was Tillius possessed by the blood? Does the Gothic cult leader live on? Is it unrelated? Who knows. It's fun to play Romans, but this didn't actually seem to serve much story purpose.

I did like the combat, though. It turns out that our modern-era investigators should probably go buy some chainmail, since that, our shields, and our high combat skills matched with Fight Back meant that we slaughtered our opposition without much effort. We need more combat prowess from our elderly academics.

I like to think that Asinius is the ancestor of Professor Durand, but assuming he had children, he died probably around 360 or so. He's undoubtedly an ancestor of the entire group of 1920s-era investigators.

Next session, back to the 20s and on to Belgrade!

Dramatis Personae

• Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic
  
• Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman

The group borrowed a car and, after loading it up with weapons and alcohol to make Molotov cocktails, drove it toward the medial research facility. They told the guards at the city checkpoint that Jazmina was going into the countryside to visit a family friend, and while she couldn't provide an exact address, the soldiers let them through with some suspicion. Rosaline drove the car to a side street and parked it, and the investigators made their way through the woods to the building. After listening to the guard patrols and throwing a carpet over the barbed wire, Demir slipped over the wall and hid in the shadows. It wasn't long until the guard approached again, but the one-armed guard now had two arms--and one of them was the arm of a gorilla or some kind of monkey. Demir gasped, revealing himself, and the guard carefully advanced, but it wasn't carefully enough. Demir stabbed the guard to death and hid behind the wall as Rosaline slipped over the wall and the countess took her place on a box behind the wall.



Another guard walked around the corner but was shot to bits by the investigators. Demir, after a shot whizzed past his shoulder, turned and snuck around the corner of the building Rosaline and now Jazmina were hiding behind. At that moment, the door burst open and another čudovište appeared, this one with the clawed bear hands and the head of a sheep. The party opened fire on as Demir, hearing gunfire, began to move faster around the building.

mutantur: "You kind of hear, far off around that corner, a terrible bleating."

The other guard appeared behind the čudovište , but could not get a clear shot, and after a moment he turned and ran into another building in the back of the facility.

The čudovište bit Rosaline, but it fell under a hail of bullets and the professor shot it again as it lies on the ground. Demir arrived from his circuit of the building, and the party opened the door to the building they had been hiding behind. It was filled with animal cages--wolves, a bear, gorillas, sheep, cats, and dogs. Rosaline and Jazmina opened the prey animal cages, and with the keys that Demir found on the bodies of the guards, they opened the front door and let the professor and the countess in the main complex.

Carefully advancing on the final building, the investigators were ready when the door opened and revealed the final guard, who dropped as the professor shot him. Behind him was another čudovište, this one with human arms that ended in both human hands and the trotters of a pig, and the head of a wolf. A melee ensued, and at first, the guard and čudovište seemed to be getting the upper hand, with Rosaline, the professor, and the countess all being injured and knocked unconscious and the čudovište seeming almost to ignore the bullets that hit it. But the investigators prevailed, and Demir administered first aid to the party. Weapons in hand and at the ready, the the group opened the door and looked into the facility.

As expected, they saw Dr. Belenzada, standing in the midst of a group of twitching bodies, one a gorilla, one a pig, and one a human. All were dead, but all were clearly still moving, twitching and moaning in a way horrible to hear. Dr. Belenzada was wearing a medical smock, and carrying in his hand a strange knife. It looked to be made of ebony stone, with a bone handle, and it faintly glowed in the dim light of the room. The doctor shouted at the investigators that he had important research to be done, and otherwise continued his work. The professor told Dr. Belenzada that his research had already taken one life, and how much could it possible be worth it to continue if he led to more deaths? He brought up the use of chemical weapons in the Great War, but it was Dr. Moric's death that really got through. Dr. Belenzada dropped the knife and cried, sobbing about how Dr. Moric had come to him for help and he had shot him in the back like a dog. Jazmina managed to restrain herself from taking vengeance, especially when the doctor whistled into the darkness and six more horrific chimerical monstrosities shuffled out of the darkness. He shot all of them with a heavy pistol and then, before he could turn the gun on himself, Jazmina stopped him. She told him to turn himself in, to clear her father's name, and he agreed without hesitation. Then, after burning the bodies of the dead men and monsters, the investigators went to sleep.

In the morning, they discussed what to do with the knife they had found. It was clearly the Mims Sahis, the Serpent's Claw, and Demir argued that it would make a powerful weapon against the forces arrayed against them, specifically mentioning the čudovište who had taken so many shots to kill. The professor argued that it was too dangerous to be wielded, and that they had already seen it drive Dr. Belenzada mad. As well, he pointed out that they were being followed by Le Comte and by the cult, and what would happen if they got their hands on the knife? Jazmina stated that she wanted to fulfill her father's last wish, and that seemed like it swayed Demir. He agreed that they would go to the cement factory and leave town the following day.

The cement factory turned out to be a dead end, with the guards only grudgingly letting the investigators in and the foreman flatly refusing to throw anything into his equipment. He offered to write to Zagreb, where the owners of the factory lived, and Jazmina gave him her information. Of course, that was not the end of it, and while the professor, the countess, and Rosaline rested in the hotel from their injuries, Jazmina and Demir returned to the factory under the cover of night. They found the gate open and several bodies inside, all of which had been killed without much of a struggle, and some of whom they recognized--one at least was the reporter, or at least, someone who was now wearing the reporter's face. Neither Demir nor Jazmina were able to operate the machinery, and they didn't want to push random buttons and hope for the best. After searching the bodies and finding strange pouches containing herbs, bits of bone, and other, unidentifiable debris, and after Jazmina secured a promise from Demir that they would attempt to destroy the knife at a later date, they buried the bodies and left. They had to sleep in the wild, leading a patrol of Serbian soldiers on a merry chase, and did not return to the hotel before morning.

In the morning over breakfast, Jazmina checked the local paper and found a note that the National Theatre in Sofia, their next destination, had been destroyed by fire, but there was no particular note about deaths or further čudovište attacks. The was a note that the army had captured some local anarchists and the Orient Express was running again, so the investigators took their luggage, went down to the train station and endured the complaints from ssome of the other passengers who had been unable to board the first train through about how provincial Vinkovci was, and waited for the train. They were able to board and secure Jazmina a ticket, and as they settled into their compartment, Jazmina looked back. She noticed several policemen beating a man as a screaming woman tried to shield him from their blows, and could not help but notice that the man and woman were Croats and the police were Serbians. And as they pulled out of the town, they saw a convoy of army trucks leave the city. One truck, in which four pale faces were visible through the windows surrounded by soldiers, took a dirt path into the woods and did not return.

As they sat in the lounge car, Demir revealed that the knife had not been destroyed, but the professor accepted his reasoning. Demir further said that the knife remained wrapped and in the secret luggage compartment, and mentioned that he was carrying another object of power with him, from the Dreamlands, but not elaborate and no one in the group asked further. He then said he was going to sleep, as he had spent much of the last night running and not slept well, and the professor said that he had to make notes on the Chronicon de Tillius Corvus so that he could translate it for the group later. And then, the train left Vinkovci behind.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.

I'm surprised that things went so well! I was expecting another death at least, but it turns out that overwatch is useful in more circumstances than while playing XCom. We got a lot of bonus dice that helped the shots of the countess, the professor, and Rosaline, who are not particularly good marks(wo)men. But we shot that second guard to pieces. It was the third guard and the last čudovište that gave us all the trouble.

Next session is Professor Durand's storytime, where we learn about a group of Roman soldiers. I've been waiting for this for literally over a year, so I'm looking forward to next time!