Casting Shadows

This week’s seed is a troublesome little creeper for Call of Cthulhu which will work its way through the dirt to the characters whether they want to tangle with it or not.

My Saturday Seeds also reappear on Ancient Scroll on random Saturdays~

The seed

The seed entails the characters getting embroiled in a vice investigation which they may come to find has all the marks of something else entirely. It is best suited for an era of play no earlier in history than the 1890s, where personal reputation in the community has great import.

Planting the seed

The seed is appropriate for a group of established characters with family ties, untarnished reputations in the community and respectable occupations from which they earn their living.

The Details

Due to the timely interruption of an attempt to dispose of a badly mutilated corpse,  an investigation conducted by the local authorities has begun to uncover traces of a complicated vice ring operating in the region. The newspapers have been full of salacious details and outrageous speculation and the grimness of the discoveries has been the quiet talk of the town. Missing persons cases going back decades are being reopened, and once-buried scandals either are being exposed are are threatened with exposure.

At the height of public interest, a raid on a suspected brothel reported to be staffed by abducted and drugged victims turns up some very peculiar finds. One of these finds involves the investigators in a way they may never come to understand.

Spurred on by the horrors already uncovered early in the investigation leading offices to fear finding the remains of tortured and cannibalized young people, the raid is swift, brutal, and extremely thorough. Their efforts were rewarded by uncovering a cleverly concealed passage leading to a hidden basement level complete with occult trappings, altar, obvious evidence of strange rites involving human sacrifice, and on the floor a chalk portrait of the characters anointed with the blood and entrails of a recent victim.

What is going on

This is the first step into a larger mystery. Up to this point, the authorities have been uncovering traces of activity which have over the years spun off from the fringes of the main cult. This discovery is still related to a fringe group, but this group does have members which have begun to tap into some of the eldritch forces which underpin the world most take for granted. Their rites of sacrifice have given them a limited ability to scry into the future and these visions are interpreted in their leader’s remarkably vibrant chalk portrayals on the black floor of their ritual spaces.

What was the prophecy that has involved the investigators?

With this break, will the authorities and investigators be able to move fast enough to catch the cultists closer to the real inner circle of this group? Has the leadership begun to crack under the strain or is this a real success in the battle against those who are willing to sell out humanity for transient illusions of power?

More directly imperiling for the characters, how will they be able to deal with the public outcry against them which will not hesitate to label them as being responsible parties in the debauchery and carnage of this debacle and demand satisfaction….

Enjoy~