The time of the summoning grows closer and closer. Can the investigators find the cult’s base of operations and stop the ritual?
(All page numbers refer to the Seventh Edition of the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook, published 2015 by Chaosium, Inc. I am in no way affiliated with Chaosium or the writers of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game system. Content notes for this chapter: kidnapping, murder, blood sacrifice, potential mob violence, eldritch horrors.)
In Part One of this chapter, the investigators met Jasmine and Malati and the others in the women’s shelter. They also were introduced to Claire, who is undergoing a horrific pregnancy and believes herself to be blessed by the “Great Mother.”
In Part Two, the investigators journeyed to the Westmont estate and located the Westmont text, a page sewn into the back of another volume that details a spell that can be used to stop the cult by sealing up the source of their power. They also went to different locations around the village of Oxmoor and learned more about the town’s dark past.
Here, they will visit the last few locations as the cult prepares their ritual. With any luck, they’ll be able to stop the summoning before it takes place.
The divisions between the parts are mostly arbitrary, and investigators can visit locations in any order. They need to speak to Jasmine and acquire the stone, and they need to find the Westmont Text. Once these things are done, with a day or so of lead time in between at the Keeper’s discretion, the victims (Tom West and Marie Thompson, both introduced in Part Two) will be abducted for the sacrifice and the ritual will begin.
The Church
Oxmoor Parish Church
The first clue that all is not as it seems in the church is that it looks bigger on the outside than it does on the inside. The west end of the church appears to come out to a flattened point on the outside, while on the inside a flat wall bears the large cross behind the pulpit. There also appears to be a window on the outside, but no window is visible on that end of the building from the inside. Several rows of pews face west, and there are four visible stained-glass windows, two on each of the north and south walls.
On the south side, the closest window to the door shows Adam and Eve being driven from the Garden of Eden. The garden is in the background, with the trees looking unusually dark and grey. Adam and Eve are in the foreground, dressed in animal skins, looking back directly toward the right of the picture, past the garden. The angel with the flaming sword is not portrayed.
The next window on the south side, closer to the altar, shows another scene from Genesis. Joseph, in the foreground, is explaining his dream to his brothers, who are positioned lower than Joseph, stare intently past him to the right of the frame. The majority of the image shows the dream, where eleven sheaves of grain bow to a single sheaf in the center. Instead of being a rich golden color, the sheaf in the middle is stained dark, and the stain spreads to the other sheaves. While this could be the result of poor workmanship, the way the dark color evenly spreads suggests that it was deliberate.
On the north side of the church, nearest to the door, the window shows the Immaculate Conception. An angel, who for some reason is holding a chalice, faces forward, while Mary kneels next to him and looks past him off to the left, her arms open in a supplicative gesture.
The window on the north close to the altar shows Jesus speaking with the woman at the well. Christ looks unusually stern and judgmental, even allowing for the art style. He points past the woman toward the background of the picture, where there is an incongruous steeple with what looks like an iron bell. The woman looks away from him, as though following where he is pointing, but instead looks toward the left side of the frame.
All the figures in these pictures are staring toward the front of the room, giving clues as to the location of the secret door. Following the gaze of the figures, the investigators can find one brick on each side of the cross (level with the figures and against the adjoining walls) that will press in. A hard Spot Hidden check will show these bricks not being quite flush with the surrounding mortar. When both are pressed simultaneously, a door beneath the cross will open, leading to a secret room.
There is a fifth stained-glass window in the secret room. It shows a stark white star arcing over a blasted landscape with a black river and twisted, tree-like objects. The star is Wormwood from the book of Revelation, which is said to turn the water to poison. At sunset, the window will illuminate the hidden trapdoor on the floor. If there is no light coming through that window, it will be a hard Spot Hidden check to find the door release.
In order to encourage the investigators to examine the church, the Keeper has several options:
- The men watching the women’s shelter report back to Father Whitney on Claire’s condition and the comings and goings of anyone who visits. They can be followed back to the church, though they will try to lose their tail if they notice it.
- Non-cultist villagers will mention that the stained glass windows are creepy or unsettling.
- Cultist villagers will be going in and out of the church at odd hours as they prepare for the ritual.
- Father Whitney can visit James MacDonald’s bookstore when the investigators are present, under the pretense of having James repair a Bible or hymnal.
- He could also stop by the women’s shelter, to assure Jasmine and Malati that the parish is praying for their charges.
Father John Whitney, Oxmoor parish priest and cult leader
Father Whitney is an affable, honest-looking man of about fifty. He has been the vicar in Oxmoor since shortly after he graduated from the seminary, when the previous priest retired. He has earned a reputation as a kind, gentle man of great patience and wisdom, not at all the sort of person who would read sanity-endangering books, much less head part of a cult that is trying to destroy the world. He can be found most often in the church itself, or in the vicarage at night, though he does occasionally spend time elsewhere in town.
Whitney is, in fact, the leader of the cult in Oxmoor. He took over the position, along with the parish, from the previous vicar. After discovering the cult while he was in school and having a crisis of faith, he was recruited and chosen to replace the last leader. He is not the highest authority in the entire cult, but he is above everyone in Oxmoor as well as the handful of cultists in London. He will at first be friendly and helpful to the investigators, but if their inquiries get too cult-related, he will encourage them not to spread such outlandish tales and cause some kind of panic. He may draw on his counseling experience to try to convince the investigators that they are blowing things out of proportion and acting paranoid; if he cannot convince them that nothing supernatural is going on, he may reassure them that God is all-powerful and encourage them to have faith. All this, of course, is an act, and he is trying to lead the investigators away from suspecting the cult and himself. If he worries about any secrets being exposed, he may send cultists to attack the investigators, steal their belongings, or follow them around.
Facts and Clues:
- Father Whitney is the one who ordered Milton to kill the professor, and they had been in contact for some time.
- As the investigators apprehended Milton before he could share his discovery that the text they were looking for was at the Westmont estate, Whitney has to continue the search.
- The investigators may inadvertently tell him this information as they explain what they are doing.
- An attempt may be made to steal the book from the investigators. If it succeeds, the investigators will, obviously, need to get it back. It will be stored in the underground chamber along with the cult’s text. If the investigators don’t manage to get it back, it will be sent to Dublin to be encountered in Chapter Three and then on to the island.
- Making Psychology checks will help the investigators determine when he is lying, or asking questions he already knows the answer to. An Extreme success can reveal that his talk of faith in God is a lie.
- If asked about the strange stained-glass windows in the church, he will talk about an eccentric artist who designed them in the late 1700s. He will say that he would like to get them replaced, but the parish is fairly poor and they have not yet been able to raise the money—in reality, he has no intention of ever getting new, less terrifying windows.
- As cult leader in Oxmoor, Whitney is busy preparing for the summoning. He has already chosen the sacrifices. He may disappear occasionally to go down to the secret room under the church and practice the spell.
- Most Oxmoor residents are at least passively cult-affiliated, and look to him for leadership without raising any questions about his adherence to normal church doctrine.
- Without extended research and time spent in town, the investigators may not realize how much his beliefs do differ; he may seem a little more apocalyptic/Second Coming focused than your average Anglican.
- His doctrine involves the corrupt nature of the world, divine judgment, and the creation of a “new earth.” Suffering is caused by human sin, and humans need to be “saved” or “purified” from their fundamental natures. A perfect example is the Great War and its pointless destruction: in the new world, there will be no war.
- He has in his possession the only key to the secret chamber at the bottom of the stairs under the church.
Vicarage
The house provided for the parish priest is next door to the church. It is a small, humble dwelling, and only somewhat modernized. The door opens into a small living room, with a kitchen and study off of it, and a hallway leading to a bedroom and washroom. The furniture is worn, but sturdy, and the heat comes from a fireplace in the living room. Almost everything in the house is as expected. The kitchen is stocked with simple food, and there is a small stack of firewood on the front porch.
The living room has three armchairs and a coffee table clustered around the fireplace. Father Whitney conducts meetings and counselling sessions here, and the room is kept clean and sparse. A single bookshelf has a couple of very orthodox theological studies and a pair of Bibles. The study has a full wall dedicated to shelving. Among the expected historical and theological texts, hymnals, and a couple of additional Bibles, there are two unusual books: a copy of the Malleus Maleficarum (p. 236) sits on one of the top shelves, and a German Unaussprechlichen Kulten (p.229) is in a locked drawer in the desk, along with several hand-drawn star charts. An investigator who is able to read the charts (a Natural World or Navigate check, or Survival if the Keeper allows it) can discover that they describe the sky over a spot in the North Sea on several dates over the past few years. Father Whitney has the drawer key on his person, along with the keys to his house, the church, and the secret underground chamber.
Cult Hideout
The trapdoor in the hidden room in the church reveals a narrow spiral staircase leading downward. The stairs are not lit, and the investigators have to descend in single file. Finally, the stairs end in a small vestibule with a single door across from the landing. If the room is occupied, light will be visible around the edges of the door, which is made of heavy, reinforced wood. This underground structure seems to be constructed of the same grey stone as the church above, implying that the entire structure was probably built at the same time.
The door will be locked at all times, except during the ritual. It will be an Extreme difficulty check to pick it, as the mechanism is archaic and complex; otherwise Father Whitney has the key in his possession. When the time of the ritual comes, the door will be unlocked to allow cultists to go in and out freely. If the investigators manage to break in before the ritual, the town will turn out to hunt them down.
The room is circular, about 15 feet in diameter, and mostly empty. A large cistern stands in the center, near which a small table holds the cult’s text, a clay urn of black water from the island, and a large knife of plain design. During the ritual, the two captives will be tied up next to the cistern while Father Whitney reads from the book and Sheriff Oaks prepares to use the knife. The cistern is stained with old blood.
Cult Text
- Sanity Loss: 1d10
- Cthulhu Mythos: +3/+8
- Mythos Rating: 24
- Study: 40 weeks
- Spells:
- Invocare Matris Magnae, “Call to the Great Mother” (Call Shub-Niggurath, p. 248) [1]
- Cantu Posessionem, “Chant of possession” (Dominate, p. 254)
- Beneficium Minor, “Lesser blessing” (Shrivelling, p. 262)
- Parere Praenuntium Beatum, “Bring forth the blessed harbinger” (Summon Dark Young, p. 263),
- Punire Miseris, “Punish the wretched” (Wrack, p. 265)
This is the only copy of this text in England, though there are likely others here and there across the globe. It is in Latin, written by hand in a medieval blackletter. The spells included are interspersed with rambling treatises on life and death and the preferability of the latter; praises to the Great Mother; a brief denunciation of sexuality and fertility, particularly that of women; and even more rambling theorizing on the state of the grey, dead new world. The cover is plain black leather, which has been repaired a few times by a clumsy hand—obviously, James MacDonald never repaired this book.
The Ritual
The ritual will begin at midnight one full day after the investigators obtain the Westmont text. The town will be strangely quiet, and Tom and Marie will be missing, taken to the underground chamber. Adelaide West will be frantically searching for Tom, which may clue the investigators in that something isn’t right.
Not all cultists will be present at the ritual: a group will be hunting for the Westmont text, and the policemen will be patrolling the streets with a handful of others to prevent the investigators from disrupting the ritual. There may be one or two cultists at the door to the church to prevent entry, but the church itself will be empty. Other Oxmoor residents will be lending their support by making animal sacrifices in their homes using a shortened version of the ritual. There will be enough cultists to fill the room. Some of them are armed with knives, sticks, or other improvised melee weapons; none will have firearms.
The investigators will need to use stealth, distraction, and probably violence to get to the ritual site in time. There is the possibility that the sacrifices will be killed but the summoning not completed, depending on the investigators’ timing. Splitting the party may be necessary.
Conclusion
If the ritual completes, a Dark Young will be summoned out of the woods and go rampaging through the town. The Keeper can use the stats for a Dark Young out of the Keeper Rulebook (p. 287), or the modified Dark Young that will appear in Chapter Three. As soon as it arrives, a few cultists will break down the door of the women’s shelter and carry Claire off. The Dark Young will stomp around until morning, then retreat to the forest again and disappear. Most of the town and a good deal of the surrounding land will be destroyed except for the church, and the cult members will leave, many to travel to the island.
If the ritual is averted, Claire will remain where she is, and the town will be intact. Aurelia and James may have been killed, as well as Marie and Tom as the sacrifices. Adelaide West will find no sympathy for the loss of her child, as the townsfolk will reassure her that he will turn up for a few weeks and then act as if he never existed. It may be possible for the investigators to save everyone, but it will take some careful planning and quick thinking.
Either way, this ritual was performed in preparation for the summoning that is to take place on the island soon. Armed with the knowledge of the Westmont text (which they hopefully have managed to hang on to), the investigators are off to Dublin to find the last artifact. If they lost the Westmont text, don’t worry: it will be sent to the cultists in Dublin, where there will be an opportunity to reclaim it.
Forward to Chapter Three (Part One)
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Throughout the campaign, I called Shub-Niggurath the “Great Mother” or similar names for two reasons: first, to throw my players who were familiar with Lovecraft off the trail, and second, as a white person I really didn’t want to have to say “Shub-Niggurath” over and over.
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