The investigators are in Dublin, seeking an artifact and some information from the late professor’s demolitions team. The cult is here as well, and they are planning something even more terrible than they attempted in Oxmoor. A young woman, Grace Callahan, has already gone missing. The investigators are running out of time.
(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: violence, kidnapping, murder, blood sacrifice, eldritch horror.)
Dress Shop
Flanagan’s Fine Apparel is currently run by Justine O’Leary, a middle-aged woman whose severe expression belies a kind, motherly demeanor. There is an elaborate wedding dress in the window and a couple of flapper-style party dresses on mannequins inside. Bolts of fabric, spools of thread, and cards of shiny buttons fill up the back of the shop, along with several sewing machines. The name “Flanagan” is a relic from several owners ago, and no one by that name has worked here in years.
Aislinn Dorsey, a tenant at St. Brigid’s House, has recently been hired here. Both she and Mrs. O’Leary remember seeing Grace window-shopping before she was kidnapped, but she wandered off down the street and Mrs. O’Leary didn’t see where she went.
Richard Pryce, or whichever cultist the Keeper has placed in his stead, will be lurking down the street from here when the investigators stop by after Grace’s disappearance. The investigators can try to follow him to the hideout; he will be easier to sneak up on than the other cultists in Part One.
Cult Hideout
Located in a nicer part of town, the cultists have established a base at this large, second-floor apartment. While most of the cultists gathering in Dublin are at the summoning site, this is an important center for coordinating their activity in the city, which mostly consists of following the investigators and trying to find and acquire the texts and artifacts not already in their possession. The apartment is spacious and modern, with electric lighting. The windows are covered with heavy curtains and are very rarely opened. All entrances are kept locked.
Richard Pryce is the person officially renting this apartment, and he is here at night. During the day, two or three of the other cultists will be sleeping here (one in the bedroom and the others in the living room).
There is a heavy oak desk in the study, and in the locked drawer are some important documents:
- Star charts for a spot in the North Sea, the same as the charts in Father Whitney’s desk in Oxmoor.
- The key to the encoded instructions carried by the various cultists (Handout 3-3).
- Another copy of the instructions (Handout 3-2).
IABISERBWLNNVLWODTJRHGF
WEZRKIGCOTRLFYWFXPATAYD
XVVVKICDIPRMJXANFIINZIF
LODMCIHJOYGBGHBBQGSRXMF
QEJYIIIFLSBESHZIGSQAKEE
The Keeper can, as always, substitute this decoded version for the encrypted one, or make it available if the players struggle with the code.
TAKE BACK WHAT IS OURS FROM THE INTERLOPERS
FOLLOW THE RIVER TEN MILES WEST
THEN GO TWO MILES SOUTH TO THE FOREST
BE SURE TO LOOK FOR OUR MARKS
This is a grid of all 26 letters of the English alphabet, with the phrase “PARERE PRAENUNTIUM BEATUM” scrawled across the top.
This set of instructions is encoded with a Vigenère cipher. The Keeper can ask for an Idea roll, or a relevant skill, in order for an investigator to recognize it, or grant the knowledge of the cipher and how to decrypt it to investigators with backgrounds in espionage or interest in ciphers. The key is the phrase written at the top of the grid: “PARERE PRAENUNTIUM BEATUM.” Take the first letter of the key (P) and go to that row. Follow that row across until the first letter of the encrypted text is reached (I), and then go up to the top of the column to find the first letter of the solution (T). When the end of the key is reached, just repeat it until there is no more encoded text. There are also websites where you can enter in the encoded text and the key and auto-generate the solution; here is the first one I found.
Eske’s Flat
If the investigators cannot get either Eske or Cullen to cooperate with their mission, they may find it necessary to seek out where they each live. Cullen rents a room from his sister in St. Brigid’s House, though he spends little time there; all that can be found is a few changes of clothes.
Eske lives on the third floor of a cramped, aging tenement on the south side of the river. It has a single bed, a tiny kitchen with a single gas burner, an even tinier washroom, and a window just barely big enough for a smallish person to fit through. The paint is peeling and the room is usually cold. If the investigators don’t happen to find Cullen here as well, they may notice that the shirts hanging to dry on the radiator are of significantly different sizes. The window is often left unlocked.
The key is under the bed, wrapped in several rags and shoved far back into the corner. The undisturbed dust around it suggests that it has been there for some time (and also that neither Eske nor Cullen is a very good housekeeper). There is also a bolt-action rifle stored under the bed, and it is noticeable less dusty.
Eske works construction. Every morning, a truck comes by to pick him up and take him to the current job site, or he takes the train. He takes the train home, washes up, and then walks to the pub, staying there until nine or ten in the evening, when he walks back home. More often than not, Cullen follows him home an hour or two later, leaving again before dawn, and often coming or going through the window. After the bombing, Cullen will avoid this place so as not to lead the authorities to Eske.
The Key
This artifact, removed from some skeletal remains in the first chamber in the temple, looks to be a black iron key about ten inches in length. The design is simple and elegant, with a round bow at one end and a blade with only three thick protrusions at the other, and the metal has a rough texture. It is unusually heavy, even given its size, and shows only slight signs of rusting. Sleeping near it causes nightmares, much like the stone and either of the texts associated with the temple.
Interim Events 2
- When the investigators find and enter the cult’s hideout in the city, or the evening immediately following (but before they leave the city to go to the summoning site), a bomb will be detonated in a residential building, just south of Dublin Castle, the seat of British colonial rule in Ireland. The explosion can be heard throughout the city, and a plume of smoke and dust is visible within a few seconds. The search parties looking for Grace will immediately redirect to help the fire brigade.
- The cult has caused this explosion. Though they are secretive enough not to be immediate suspects, and care very little for the punishments imposed by temporal governments, they have made a token effort with their choice of target to frame the IRA for the bombing.
- If the investigators ask Cullen, Eske, or any of the other fighters, they will say they were all out searching for Grace, and the war is over anyway. Within a day or two, they will also take inventory of their stockpiled explosives and find none missing, as the cult used their own supply.
- If the Keeper wants to give the investigators a chance to stop the explosion, they can have an opportunity to follow the cultist planting the bomb.
- The police will stop by the boarding house looking for Cullen. Cait will tell them she hasn’t seen him in weeks, but will let them know if he turns up (she will not).
- Cullen will stop by that evening to drop off his rent before going into hiding.
- Many of the IRA fighters will also hide, so there will be fewer people in the pub or out looking for Grace.
- By this point, the investigators should know where the summoning site is. They can try to convince the men still searching for Grace to accompany them outside the city to look for her. If the investigators go out on their own, Cullen, Eske, and maybe a couple others will arrive later in a “borrowed” vehicle with several weapons and help fight the summoned creature.
- If the investigators take more than a day or so between finding the city hideout and going to the summoning site, Aislinn will also be kidnapped and taken to the site. Cait will notice that she hasn’t been home.
- Before the summoning can take place, the cultists must have their summoning text.
Summoning Site and Ritual
Chase:
If the investigators fail to obtain and solve the cultists’ coded instructions, there is an alternative way for them to find the summoning site. While they are retracing their steps through the city, they may see Aislinn getting snatched by the cult, manhandled into a vehicle, and taken to the summoning site. She will be drugged, gagged, or otherwise silenced so she won’t cry out and draw attention to herself from the investigators, any search parties still looking for Grace, or random bystanders. This will only happen at night, probably as she leaves the dress shop after work, and will likely necessitate the investigators stealing or borrowing a horse or car in order to follow. The cultists will drive at a reckless speed westward, out of the city, staying as close to the River Liffey as they can. Once they are out of the city, they will follow the river for ten miles before coming to a blighted shrub near the road, and then turn sharply south. They will drive for another two miles until they reach two more blighted plants and an abandoned barn at the top of a hill, driving directly up to the open barn door and unloading Aislinn to where the summoning ritual is being performed.
See Chapter Seven of the Keeper Rulebook (p. 130) for rules on chases.
Some potential obstacles for the chase, to be used at the Keeper’s discretion:
- Within the city:
- Pedestrians
- Sharp turns
- Potholes
- Outside the city:
- Fallen tree limb
- Sharp turn at 10 mile mark
- Large puddles
If the cultists’ vehicle becomes incapacitated or the investigators catch them close to the end of the chase, they will abandon the car and Aislin and run toward the summoning site. However, if this happens very early on in the chase, they will get out and fight the investigators.
The Site:
The cult has set themselves up in an abandoned barn about twelve miles from the city limits of Dublin, a few hundred yards from the woods. It is not as specialized a space as the one under the church in Oxmoor, but they have sharp knives, a small clay jar of black water from the well, and their book with the summoning ritual. The barn is empty, except for a couple of rusty, crumbling pitchforks left behind by the previous owners, a table with the summoning tools, and the prisoners tied to a support pillar. The back end of the roof has caved in, and the space is covered with debris under the ragged opening above.
Kane, Sullivan, and McGrath will be here, as well as Pryce, provided they haven’t been killed or arrested. A cultist named Joseph Prendergast will be there as the spellcaster, with possibly a couple of additional cultists to fill out the ranks. If the investigators arrive and rescue the sacrifices before they are killed at the conclusion of the ritual, Prendergast will sacrifice the nearest two cultists instead. He will finish the incantation, and all will be silent for a moment, and then the thing will start moving in the forest. It will emerge a minute later, crashing through the trees and taking out a chunk of the barn on its way to the city, continuing on its trajectory unless it is attacked, at which point it will turn its attention toward its attackers and fight them until it is either vanquished or does not take damage for a full round (either because it has incapacitated its foes, or the investigators and their allies have turned their attention elsewhere). Then it will resume rampaging.
The cultists will also attack the investigators, mostly with melee weapons, though one or two might have a firearm, and Prendergast can perform other spells. They will fight to the death with great disregard for their own safety. While the creature will not attack them directly, it may step on them, knock the barn down on them, or hit them unintentionally while swinging at an investigator.
Joseph Prendergast, cult leader in Dublin
The investigators will not see much of Prendergast, as he will be spending the entire chapter at the remote summoning site. A former astronomy adjunct at Trinity College, he was recruited by the cult during the war and has been creating their star charts for them. He will also be performing the summoning outside of Dublin, reading the ritual from the cult’s text. The chant will sound something like Latin, and something like things moving in the depths of the earth, and something like cold wind sweeping through bare branches. When he finishes, he will kill the sacrifices—or, if the investigators have managed to rescue them, the nearest two cultists.
The Creature:
“Blessed Harbinger” (modified Dark Young, p. 287)
STR 200 CON 200 SIZ 220 DEX 50 INT 30
POW 90 HP 60
Build: 5
Move: 7
Attacks per Round: 2
Attacks: Tentacle hit: 4d6, 40%
Grab: 1d10+5 STR damage per round, 20%
Trample: 4d6, 30%
Skills: Stealth 30, Spot Hidden 50, Listen 50
Sanity Loss: 1d4/1d10
Damage Reduction: Melee slashing/cutting weapons do normal damage
Melee bashing/blunt weapons do half damage
Firearms do ⅕ damage
Thrown weapons and shrapnel do ⅕ damage
20% chance that a burn effect will work
Immune to poison and other effects.
(Combat damage reference: p. 413)
The thing that comes out of the woods is approximately the size and shape of an enormous tree. At first it is difficult to make out against the forest in the background, but as it moves and comes closer, it looks less and less like a tree. The wriggling, branch-like tentacles reach nearly twenty feet in the air, and the squat body is about twelve feet across. Short, twisted legs like roots around the body extend and contract to propel the creature forward in an unearthly, lurching gait. It is difficult to tell how many legs and tentacles it has, as they change length and width and shift into each other as it moves, making them impossible to count. ITs skin at first looks like bark, but as you look at it, it blurs and changes, sometimes looking rough like bark, other times oily and slippery, and other times ashy and insubstantial. Vertical slits open and shut in the ridges and planes of the creature’s skin like horrible black mouths, and jagged teeth become visible at the places where legs and tentacles split from each other. It has no visible eyes, nor any apparent way to hear. It stumbles toward the city with terrible, mindless purpose, altering its course only if it is attacked. If it is killed, it will collapse in on itself and dissipate until nothing is left but a black scar on the landscape.
This creature’s stats were modified from the canon Dark Young in order to create the opportunity for a dramatic set-piece battle: it has many more hit points, but its chance to hit is significantly reduced, as well as its damage reduction. It is possible for investigators to fight and dispatch this Dark Young through great, coordinated effort, while Mythos monsters in the Call of Cthulhu canon are typically impossible to confront without severe Sanity loss and/or death. The Keeper is free to modify the Harbinger further, to use it as written here, or to instead use the Dark Young as written in the Keeper Rulebook, depending on the kind of story they wish to tell.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the investigators prove victorious over the creature and can then make plans to travel to the island and seal the well. If not, they will have to leave Dublin to its own devices and hope they can make it to the island and put a stop to the cult before too much destruction occurs. Either way, Cullen and Eske will be duly convinced that the cult is a significant threat and will hand over the key; if the investigators have managed not to antagonize them too much, they can provide additional assistance, such as a vehicle, the IRA’s stockpile of dynamite and weapons, information on hiring a boat and finding the island, and so on. It is possible, though very difficult, requiring Hard or Extreme successes on social checks and/or something of great value in exchange, to get the two men to travel with the investigators to the island. Having two additional combat-capable characters, who can also set explosive charges, may be invaluable in the next chapter, but neither Cullen nor Eske have any desire whatsoever to go back to that terrible place. Cullen will draw the investigators a map of the island (Handout 3-4), pointing out the main boat landing and an alternate landing on the north side (marked by an X).
The investigators should have also acquired the last piece of information to complete the binding ritual: the bell in the temple must be rung seven times, once for each year the writer of the binding spell was imprisoned there. They now leave Dublin to its politics, and turn at last to the hollow island.
Forward to Chapter Four (Part One)
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