More Rats, Different Walls

[Drhoz]

I've been asked to run a game of Call of Cthulhu for Swancon again (theme this year - Contagion ). I've got a setting and basic plot in mind - to whit, an island in the Western Mediterranean, a ruined fort thereon, and a long history of plague, mysterious unsolved massacres, and the like. Naturally, the island is almost depopulated by the 1920s, and the local count is the last of his line, since his only son died in the Great War. He's invited the officers that were with him at Flanders to the island, along with a significant other or two, in order to make some announcement about the inheritance.

Cue sudden mysterious death at dinner, accusations flying, cut off from the mainland, and various increasingly terrifying problems with rats.

I'll certainly be including mythology of the Black Death, king rats, stuff borrowed from Edgar Allen Poe, and murder mystery twists.

But I would love a few more twists, references, and red herrings to throw at the players. And I'm also stuck for a suitably ominous name for the adventure...

Anybody given me an idea will be Tuckerised :)

[Cygnia]

The son died in the Great War, to be sure. But not due to enemy combat. He didn't want to be at the front, but his father forced him the front and enlisted the "help" of those officers to make sure he "did his duty for God and Country". Instead, he fled like a coward, but was caught in the crossfire. He took shelter in what was left of a bombed-out house, little more than a basement, a root cellar.

No food left...all there were left were the rats. And they took turns eating each other until the rats finally won. He died cursing his father's name.

It's time to come home.

[matrix3]

The Count wants to share his inheritance, but it isn't what his guests are expecting.

The Count is actually a parasite (physical or energy based, whatever) that has been feeding upon this particular family line since the Black Death, due to some genetic quirk that allows them to act as hosts. It has control over the rodent population, but inhabiting rats is boring and it wants to continue its inhabitation of a human host. Thus, it has researched the family line and discovered distant relations that might have the necessary traits to act as hosts, and chose a few that happened to be in the war as an easy way to get them together.

A big reason the parasite prefers human hosts is the pleasure that humans feel. Of course, it would be a selfish, sadistic pleasure, and I'd expect the PC's to discover chambers to make de Sade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Sade) weep dating back centuries.

[MrAgdesh]

Sounds like Isle of the Dead (htp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_the_Dead_(film)) might be worth a watch. :)

[Drhoz]

Sounds like Isle of the Dead (htp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_the_Dead_(film)) might be worth a watch. :)

indeed!

[Drhoz]

The Count wants to share his inheritance, but it isn't what his guests are expecting.

The Count is actually a parasite (physical or energy based, whatever) that has been feeding upon this particular family line since the Black Death, due to some genetic quirk that allows them to act as hosts. It has control over the rodent population, but inhabiting rats is boring and it wants to continue its inhabitation of a human host. Thus, it has researched the family line and discovered distant relations that might have the necessary traits to act as hosts, and chose a few that happened to be in the war as an easy way to get them together.

A big reason the parasite prefers human hosts is the pleasure that humans feel. Of course, it would be a selfish, sadistic pleasure, and I'd expect the PC's to discover chambers to make de Sade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Sade) weep dating back centuries.

Oh yes indeedy

[Drhoz]

The son died in the Great War, to be sure. But not due to enemy combat. He didn't want to be at the front, but his father forced him the front and enlisted the "help" of those officers to make sure he "did his duty for God and Country". Instead, he fled like a coward, but was caught in the crossfire. He took shelter in what was left of a bombed-out house, little more than a basement, a root cellar.

No food left...all there were left were the rats. And they took turns eating each other until the rats finally won. He died cursing his father's name.

It's time to come home.


That's certainly usable!

[Lucius]

an island in the Western Mediterranean, a ruined fort thereon, and a long history of plague, mysterious unsolved massacres, and the like. Naturally, the island is almost depopulated by the 1920s,

Such an island should have a bloody and Gothic history.

Specifically, Visigothic.


Although the most ancient stonework - resembling the megalithic ruins on Malta - are much older, the fortress began as a monastery in the time of the Visigothic king Reccered, the first king of Visigothic Iberia to renounce Arianism and embrace the Catholic faith. Before the foundation was laid, the already present community of ascetic followers of Priscillian were ruthlessly slaughtered. While religious tolerance had been a hallmark of Gothic rule, and the newly converted king was less than enthusiastic about persecuting Jews, Priscillianists, and followers of the Arian Christianity he had only just abandoned, the Church found it convenient to be able to spirit away some of their more important targets to this little island, well out of sight of the too-tender king and his nobles.

When the Arian Witteric became king of the Visigoths, he dispatched a shipload of soldiers to discommode the monks and establish a military base to forward his campaign against the Byzantines in North Africa. He followed that up with a second ship when the first never returned. The second detachment reported back that they discovered the burned out remains of TWO ships and two sets of soldiers, Byzantine and Visigothic, plus the bodies of the monks - and the bodies of a great many rats. It was as if the island had been swamped with rats, and everyone had died trying to fight them off.

There was one survivor of course - a sailor, raving in Greek, who had climbed atop a dolmen to escape whatever had befallen. After they brought him to the ship, they caught him trying to set fire to it and the Goths who knew a little of the language swore he screamed "Don't let it off the island, don't let it spread!" before he was restrained. Thereafter he said little but "Bryluka" or "Vrykolakas" several times.

Lucius Alexander

The palindromedary thinks the island should look like this, covered with cypress, but bigger

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pondikonissi_Island_05-06-06.jpg

[tkdguy]

There's also the Stephen King short story Graveyard Shift (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_Shift) (synopsis in Wikipedia).

[Drhoz]

I love Wikipedia :D

With just a few minutes researching for my, I've found a REAL island that has two ruined towers, a history of massacres, invasions by every Mediterranean civilisation you can think of, an order of hermits, and religious sects being banished by order of the Pope. And it's called the Gorgon! I couldn't make this up!

[Drhoz]

Such an island should have a bloody and Gothic history.

Specifically, Visigothic.[/url]

would rep, but... Fear not, your account will turn up with successful Library Use rolls - as recorded by the Genoese historian Lucius Alexander, of course

[Drhoz]

There's also the Stephen King short story Graveyard Shift (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_Shift) (synopsis in Wikipedia).

Funny, I don't remember that one...

[Lucius]

I love Wikipedia :D

With just a few minutes researching for my, I've found a REAL island that has two ruined towers, a history of massacres, invasions by every Mediterranean civilisation you can think of, an order of hermits, and religious sects being banished by order of the Pope. And it's called the Gorgon! I couldn't make this up!

I say that all the time when researching history.

I recently learned about shaturnals for example.

Apparently, someone got the bright idea of mounting a cannon on a camel

and it worked!

Lucius Alexander

Not sure I should try it with a palindromedary....

[tkdguy]

Funny, I don't remember that one...

They also made a movie about this story, although the ending was changed a bit.

[Drhoz]

I say that all the time when researching history.

I recently learned about shaturnals for example.

Apparently, someone got the bright idea of mounting a cannon on a camel

and it worked!


Yes, tried to rep you for that post too... and told my wife and housemates all about it :)

[Drhoz]

They also made a movie about this story, although the ending was changed a bit.


Nah, it's more that I've read the collection, but don't recall the rats. It was a fair few years ago, admittedly

[Drhoz]

What I've got so far for the history of the island - and bear in mind that with the exception of three entries, every word of this is absolutely true. And of those three, two only required minor tweaking :eg: All this for an island only 0.86 sq mi in size!


Prehistory – Megalithic ruins like those on Malta - later used as foundation for the first monastery

6th Century BC – Briefly occupied by the Greeks

4th Century BC – Even briefer occupation by Etruscans

43 BC - Pomponius Mela (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomponius_Mela), the earliest Roman geographer, mentions Urgo, believed to be Gorgona, in De situ orbis libri III but only in a list of islands in the vicinity.

77-79 AD – Urgo receives brief mention in Pliny, who only states that it is near Pianosa and Capraia.

416 AD - Rutilius Claudius Namatianus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutilius_Claudius_Namatianus) in describing his voyage in the region in the poem, De Reditu Suo, says that "Gorgon" rises up in the middle of the sea between the Pisan[/URL] and Cyrniacan (Corsican (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisa)) shores. He had already stated that there were monachoi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk), "monks", on Capraia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capraia) and now relates the story of an aristocratic youth who had given up wealth, status and the opportunity for marriage to retire to Gorgon in "superstitious exile", implying that monasteries of sorts were already on the two islands.

The poem was in two books; the exordium of the first and the greater part of the second have been lost

587 AD - Reccared of Iberia renounces Arianism for Catholicism. Before the foundation was laid, the already present community of ascetic followers of Priscillian are ruthlessly slaughtered. While religious tolerance had been a hallmark of Gothic rule, and the newly converted king was less than enthusiastic about persecuting Jews, Priscillianists, and followers of the Arian Christianity he had only just abandoned, the Church find it convenient to be able to spirit away some of their more important targets to Gorgona, well out of sight of the too-tender king and his nobles.

Genoese historian Lucius Alexander records


When the Arian Witteric became king of the Visigoths, he dispatched a shipload of soldiers to discommode the monks and establish a military base to forward his campaign against the Byzantines in North Africa. He followed that with a second ship when the first never returned. The second detachment reports that they discovered the burned out remains of TWO ships and two sets of soldiers, Byzantine and Visigothic, the bodies of the monks - and the bodies of a great many rats.

8th century - Tradition holds that Benedictine monks from Gorgona rescued the relics of Saint Julia of Corsica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Julia_of_Corsica) ( a Carthagian slave tortured and crucified in 439 for refusing to participate in a pagan sacrifice on Corsica ) before they were carried to the mainland. According to legend, attached to Julia's cross was a note, written in an angelic hand, that carried her name and story.

The monastery was abandoned after its destruction by the Saracens ( the Muslims of Sicily and elsewhere, by this point ).

11th century - The Republic of Pisa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Pisa) cleared the Tyrrhenian Sea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrrhenian_Sea) of Muslims and proceeded against their strongholds in Africa.

1051 - Just prior to the Pisan occupation of Corsica, the monastery was reconstituted, still Benedictine, and was declared under papal protection. Subsequently gifts of land were made by aristocrats in Tuscany (where Pisa is located) and northern Corsica.

12th Century – Torre Vecchia “Old Tower” built by the Republic of Pisa on cliffs on the west side of the island

1375 - Pope Gregory XI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_XI) orders Benedictines to leave the island and were banned from it for their alleged non-monastic way of life

Carthusians ( an order of hermits ) from Pisa Charterhouse retenanted the monastery under Don Bartholomew Serafini. He promptly invited Catherine of Siena (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Siena) to visit. She spoke on resisting the temptations of Satan. The mantle she was asked to leave as a token of the visit placed later in the hands of a young monk tempted to suicide by the death or illness of his mother is said to have removed all temptation, a token, in the church, of her sainthood.

1425 - The Carthusian monks flee the island for the charterhouse at Calci, taking all the records and works of art with them, and never returned. The records were duly published at Pisa. The island however remained in the ownership of Pisa Charterhouse until the 18th century.

16th to 19th Century – Barbary Pirates attack Europe from Iceland to Italy, capturing 1.25 million people as slaves and destroying thousands of European ships. Long stretches of Spanish & Italian coastline abandoned by their inhabitants.

1504 - The notorious privateer Oruç Reis, (also called Barbarossa or Redbeard) in command of small galliots, captured two much larger Papal galleys near the island of [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elba"]Elba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan). Two islands north, he heaves to in the inlet at Gorgona for urgent repairs, and promptly flees again, leaving half his captured slaves and one of the galleys behind in his haste.

17th Century – Torre Nuova “New Tower” built by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, overlooking the Cala dello Scala inlet (the only landing place on Gorgona)

1720 – Last Great Plague of Marseille kills 100,000 people, and spreads across many coastal ports and islands. In 1770 Jean-Baptiste Grosson, royal notary, in his Recueil des antiquités et des monuments ligurnian qui peuvent intéresser l’histoire wrote that on Gorgona, the small populace took shelter in one of the old monastery buildings – where they apparently all succumbed to the plague and their bodies were devoured by rats

1755-1770 – Republic of Corsica formed. In 1767 Corsica took the islands of Capraia and Gorgona from the Genoese, who one year later, despairing of ever being able to subjugate Corsica again, sold their rights over it to the Kingdom of France at Treaty of Versailles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles_%281768%29). Corsica promptly conquered by the French.

1771 - Peter Leopold I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor), Grand Duke of Tuscany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_of_Tuscany), purchased Gorgona from the Carthusians and passed a law opening the island to settlement by fishermen with the proviso that they would catch and cure anchovies and sell them in Livorno. The fishing village dates to this time.

[Drhoz]

and in case anybody was curious what the Torre Vecchia looked like.... http://www.flickr.com/photos/sermatimati/3257549033/

34735

[Lucius]

And so far you're not even mentioning the penal colony!

Lucius Alexander

The palindromedary is starting to wonder about that island

[Drhoz]

I think I'll leave out the penal colony bit - leave the island in private hands until the 1920s. Suits the plot better :)

[Lucius]

I think I'll leave out the penal colony bit - leave the island in private hands until the 1920s. Suits the plot better :)

Or there can be an attempted penal colony that was quickly abandoned....

I'm starting to wonder about those fishing families too.

"You mean, these five families have lived in this village all these centuries, basically never venturing off the island...and no outsiders moving in either? Um...where are they finding people to marry?"
[cue Twilight Zone music]


would rep, but... Fear not, your account will turn up with successful Library Use rolls - as recorded by the Genoese historian Lucius Alexander, of course

I'm not sure where exactly you're putting this island - or how much of a stickler you are for geography and history - but maybe we can work some Vandals in too.

From a supposed first person account by someone who was with Genseric on his famous raid on Rome

"On the fourteenth day after the people of Rome rose up to destroy the coward Maximus who had slain their Emperor, our ships were fully loaded with plunder. We had kept our king's word, sparing the lives of the unresisting people and burning neither hut nor palace, ruining neither tomb nor church, for king and bishop agreed we had leave to despoil but not to destroy. That was when our king took the emperor's widow and daughters under his protection as well. Not long after leaving the mouth of the Tiber, a sudden and unexpected storm came, blowing us far off our course - but worse than the winds and waves was the terror, out of all rational proportion to the storm itself, such that men were lost to folly who had weathered much worse before. The storm's departure was as abrupt as its advent, and we found two of of our spoilbearers ill, so fevered they were painful to touch, their bodies grotesquely swollen, raving. Huneric wanted them thrown overboard but Genseric wanted them taken ashore at the nearest island, and it was Genseric who ruled us. On the island we found a band of hermits, here withdrawn from the temptations of the world, led by one Salvianus who claimed to have been a bishop who renounced his office when he realized being a prince ofhe church was as vain and unworthy a thing as being ruler over the Vandals and Alans - thus he spoke, as if he already knew full well to whom he spoke but cared not a whit. He said also that the men were dying from the touch of a golden chest and described its ornementation of heathen winged beasts with the countenances of men, and our dread grew for how could this man know such a box of ill-omen was in our plunder? Seldom did our king tolerate disrespect, but of this Salvianus he merely asked if he should expect better fortune if he abandoned the evil thing. Better yet, said Salvianus, to abandon all wealth, power, and worldly ambition, but no good would come of sailing with it and as for touching it, those two men have expired even as we have been speaking. He had not been looking at them, but it was so, their corpses already withered like a body left in the desert for years. Our king ordered all plunder moved off that one ship to the others, except what had touched the accursed golden evil, and to make room left many barrels of water and wine and much stored food behind on the island, and accounted that ship as one lost at sea. I never was so glad to put to sea, as when leaving that island behind."

Lucius Alexander

The palindromedary notes that if your players don't know enough to know that Salvianus, the companion of Priscillian, would not likely still be alive to speak to Genseric after the Vandal Sack of Rome, good. If they do know that much....even better...

Hm, if legend says there's a crazy old hermit still somehow hiding on this little island, better and better, even if it IS all just one big


<,><


red herring

[Drhoz]

Or there can be an attempted penal colony that was quickly abandoned....

I'm starting to wonder about those fishing families too.

"You mean, these five families have lived in this village all these centuries, basically never venturing off the island...and no outsiders moving in either? Um...where are they finding people to marry?"
[cue Twilight Zone music]

I'm not sure where exactly you're putting this island - or how much of a stickler you are for geography and history - but maybe we can work some Vandals in too.

That could work, too :) Corsican Strait, between Corsica and the Italian mainland. Northern end of the Tuscany Archipelago


From a supposed first person account by someone who was with Genseric on his famous raid on Rome...

The palindromedary notes that if your players don't know enough to know that Salvianus, the companion of Priscillian, would not likely still be alive to speak to Genseric after the Vandal Sack of Rome, good. If they do know that much....even better...

That casket sounds familiar - Would I get a visit from certain Hollywood lawyers if I use it, or be smited with hemorrhoids like the Philistines?



<,><


red herring


:D

[Lucius]

That casket sounds familiar - Would I get a visit from certain Hollywood lawyers if I use it, or be smited with hemorrhoids like the Philistines?
:D

Mind you, I don't actually think Genseric made off with that particular item - or that it was ever in Rome

BUT, you could certainly make a case that it's possible.

Lucius Alexander

More plausible than a palindromedary

[Drhoz]

Indeed - or just leave it as a red herring. There's no gaurentee it's still ON the island, after all...

[Blue]

--A book in the library is a study published by a scientist at miskatonic-u where he used rat urnine to disguise himself and live among the rats for weeks. (Needless to say he was quite mad, but it creates the funny possiblity of characters rolling in rat pee. Red herrings are fun!)

--There's a room that has been completely ravaged by the rats, except for a particular table with a vase on it, that they seem to have worked around. Examining the vase one can see the figure of a hawk-headed god on it. Were they afraid of it? Paying it respect? Is this a clue as to how to defeat them?

--A house across the island was built with all of the brush cleared away around it for hundreds of feet, and a moat dug around it. Was this person well prepared? Well maybe. Except that it may become evident to anyone who dares go in and explores that someone (something) with a great affinity for rats lived there, due to all of the carved wooden rat idols, the rat wall-drawings (in all manner of media), etc.

--I'd consider part of the solution to the problem being a sort of reverse engineering of the old seige tactic of launching a diseased body over the wall to infect those inside. In this case, whatever cure there is (runes against disease carved on a body; a chemical formula pumped into a body, etc.) be launched into the rats' lair, wherever that may be.

[Drhoz]

--A book in the library is a study published by a scientist at miskatonic-u where he used rat urnine to disguise himself and live among the rats for weeks. (Needless to say he was quite mad, but it creates the funny possiblity of characters rolling in rat pee. Red herrings are fun!)

--There's a room that has been completely ravaged by the rats, except for a particular table with a vase on it, that they seem to have worked around. Examining the vase one can see the figure of a hawk-headed god on it. Were they afraid of it? Paying it respect? Is this a clue as to how to defeat them?

--A house across the island was built with all of the brush cleared away around it for hundreds of feet, and a moat dug around it. Was this person well prepared? Well maybe. Except that it may become evident to anyone who dares go in and explores that someone (something) with a great affinity for rats lived there, due to all of the carved wooden rat idols, the rat wall-drawings (in all manner of media), etc.

--I'd consider part of the solution to the problem being a sort of reverse engineering of the old seige tactic of launching a diseased body over the wall to infect those inside. In this case, whatever cure there is (runes against disease carved on a body; a chemical formula pumped into a body, etc.) be launched into the rats' lair, wherever that may be.

Those are evil :) I like!