Go to Part 1

NODE 1: THE BLACK CATS

BACKGROUND

The Black Cats aerobatics troupe was first organized in 1924 with 13 members, headed by Bon MacDougall.

MEMBERSHIP: The roster is in constant flux with members coming and going.

Original members: Bon MacDougall, Al Johnson, Gladys Roy, Fronty Nichols, Heard McClelland, Chief White Eagle, Jack Frye, Paul Richter, Art Goebel, Spider Matlock, Gladys Ingle, Frank Lockhart, Reginald Denny, Babe Stapp, Bill Lind, and Sam Greenwald

HOME BASE: Burdett Airport – Los Angeles, CA

UNIFORM: Black sweater with a 13 Black Cats patch on the front and names on the back.

• Each name has 13 letters; if it doesn’t, nickname is added.
• White claw insignias; one for each time they’ve fell. (Under Black Cat rulings, after the eighth claw they can no longer fly with the troupe, because cats only have nine lives. Reginald Denny received two when joining the troupe because he’d been felled twice during the Great War; his joining may have also been a publicity stunt arranged by his studio.)
• The logo of the black cat was created by Bon MacDougall “in regard to the ancient Egyptian religion and it honored the sacred cat of Bubastes”. He flew with it before the formation of the group; adding the 13 for the group.

TRIVIA:

• Appeared in Howard Hughes’ Hells Angels and other 1920s films.
• Used no parachutes until 1927 (when it became law).
• Disbanded in 1929. (Members of the troupe went on to found TWA.)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

• http://www.twaspirit.com/blackcats.html
• http://www.sedonalegendhelenfrye.com/1928.html

LOCAL TOURING TROUPE: Consists of Gladys Roy (who is from Minnesota) and a handful of other 13 Black Cat members who are barnstorming as an independent tour across the Midwest.

AEROBATICS SHOW

START: If the timing makes it possible, the show has already started as the PCs approach.

• They see a low-flying plane pass overhead. Someone is dangling helplessly from it!

AEROBATICS SHOW: Play Aerobatic Show – Video (skip to 00:15).

Aerobatics Show – Photo 1 (Race Car): Gladys Roy appears in a race car keeping pace with a plane.

Aerobatics Show – Photo 2 (Climbing Aboard): Gladys stands up in the car, grabs the passing plane, and climbs aboard.

Aerobatics Show – Photo 3 (Wing Leap): Gladys jumps to another plane.

Aerobatics Show – Video: As she does so, a third plane comes up… this one having lost its wheel. Gladys collects a wheel from the second plane, transfers to the third, and replaces the wheel.

Aerobatics Show – Photo 4 (Dog): After changing the wheel, she climbs up onto the wing, and does a handstand. As she comes down, she’s confronted by an angry dog. The dog threatens her, she backs away…

Aerobatics Show – Photo 5 (Tennis): … and leaps onto another plane! This one is outfitted with a tennis set, which she proceeds to play with another barnstormer.

The show continues like this for some time, with various stunt performers on both land and ground doing a variety of amazing feats. The planes themselves also do a variety of stunts and formation flying.

OTHER POSSIBLE STUNTS

• Flying through a building or crashing into a building, tree, object, etc.
• Blowing up planes in the air; passengers and pilot eject.
• Spinning airplanes (sometimes engulfed in fire) toward the ground, but not crashing.
• Loops while barnstormers stand on the tip of each wing.
• Flying lower and picking up hats with wing tips.
• Hanging from rope ladders or dangling upside down by ropes; swinging under the plane on wires.
• Parachute performances.
• Flying inverted for extended periods.
• Riding a bicycle dangling from a rope and then parachuting down to the ground.
• Landing upside down.
• Saloon brawls on wing tops.
• Staging a fight on the wing with one man getting knocked off with a punch.

CURTISS FIELD – FALCON HEIGHTS

• Bill Kidder founded the airfield in April 1919; Minnesota’s first full-service airport.
• Licensed by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company for selling and servicing Curtiss airplanes.
• Snelling & Larpenteur Avenue (dirt-lane roads at the time) would be lined with cars on weekends to watch the planes. Just east of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.
• Offers short plane rides for $15.
• Additional Resources: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/MN/Airfields_MN_Minneapolis.htm

GLADYS ROY

APPEARANCE:

• Prop: Photo of Gladys Roy

ROLEPLAYING NOTES

• Cool, confident, ironic and witty.
• Smokes.
• Quirks an eyebrow when amused.

BACKGROUND

• 23 years old.
• Started parachute jumping in 1921. Holds the world’s low record for parachute jump. (Has also jumped from 17,000 feet.)
• A barnstormer who’s performed across Minnesota, also in Hollywood and across the nation.
• Famous for dancing the Charleston and playing tennis on the upper wing of an airplane in flight.
• Western Vaudeville Manager’s Association is her booking agent.
• She was injured filming The Fighting Ranger in Hollywood earlier this year when she was thrown from a horse

CLUES

• She invited Alicia Corey to the party at James J. Hill House.
• She knows Rachel bought her whiskey from people associated with Kid Cann. (She recognized the Juicy Fruit flavoring as Minnesota 13.)
• She bought the liquor for the party (Minnesota 13) from a bootlegger named Oleg Andersson. She met with him a gin-joint called Pete’s on Hennepin Ave. just north of the river. (See Node 2: Minnesota 13.)
• She wasn’t drinking at the party last night because she had the aerobatics show this morning.
• Following Gladys: Gladys can be followed to Node 3: Fatima’s Shrine (she goes there after the aerobatics show).

LEVERAGED CLUES (anything proving her membership in the Sisterhood of Fatima)

• Can basically fill in all the background on Tanit and Ra.
• She knows that kids are being kidnapped by the Tanit cultists. (Alicia Corey told her.)
• She knows that the whiskey was tainted with Tanit parasites (although she didn’t know that when she brought it).

NOTES

• Gladys’ Bag: Searching through her stuff will turn up a Hamsa charm similar to the one Alicia Corey had at Hill House. (Can be used as leveraged clue.)

GLADYS ROY: Athletics 10, Driving 4, Firearms 3, Fleeing 6, Scuffling 8, Weapons 8, Health 10
Alertness Modifier: +2 (professional paranoia)
Stealth Modifier: 0
Weapons: Fists (-2), Switchblade (-1), .41 deringer (+0, 2 shots)

OTHER MEMBERS OF THE BLACK CATS

Have no real connection to events, but…

• Know that Gladys Roy was talking about going to Rachel’s party last night and having a grand old time.
• Alicia Corey went with Gladys and didn’t show up for work this morning. (Caused a headache with the box office.)

13 BLACK CATS FLYER

These flyers can be found at Hill House and also Node 5: Fatima’s Shrine. There’s also likely to be some found here at the show itself (brought by people who received them elsewhere, etc.).

Go to Node 2: Minnesota 13

Go to Part 1

BASEMENT

BASEMENT – KITCHEN PORCH

Liquor Crates: Mostly empty crates which originally contained three dozen bottles of Minnesota 13. A half dozen or so bottles remain, unopened.

• GM Note: Gladys brought the liquor in these crates and had them dropped off at the back porch.

FIRST FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR – HALL

Prop: Photo of James J. Hill House Hall

Corpses (3): Two on the floor. One on the stairs.

FIRST FLOOR – ART GALLERY

Prop: Photo of James J. Hill House Art Gallery

3 story tall pipe organ. 12 foot high fireplace on the opposite wall. Expensive art lining the walls.

Corpses (3): One playing the organ. Two in an amorous embrace on the bench.

FIRST FLOOR – LIBRARY

Prop: Photo of James J. Hill House Library

Corpses (3) – One of the corpses is Frank Candide (ID in his wallet; he was married to Evelyn, whose body is in the attic).

FIRST FLOOR – MUSIC ROOM

• Upright piano. Victorian wallpaper. Crystal chandelier.
• Portaits of James J. and Mary T. hang on the walls to either side of the door.
• Coats and purses are stacked on a divan.

• Simple Search: To sort through the IDs.
• Evelyn’s ID: Evelyn Candide’s ID is here, so if they haven’t found the bodies in the attic yet, this will indicate a missing woman.
• Alicia’s ID: Alicia Corey’s purse is here and a photograph inside can be used to identify her corpse. It also lists her name and address on a small “Please Return” card.

FIRST FLOOR – TERRACE

• Evidence Collection 1 / Evidence Collection (Lucretia’s Testimony): There is a trail of fingerprints “walking” across the terrace. (Go from the house down the stairs and then vanish into the grass.)

SECOND FLOOR

SECOND FLOOR – BALCONY

Fluted balustrades around the edge. Lounging furniture fashionably arranged.

Corpses (1 + Alicia Corey)

ALICIA COREY’S CORPSE: This corpse still has its left hand, which is clenched in a tight fist.

• GM Note: Alicia’s purse and ID are downstairs in the Music Room.

Shattered Hamsa: Clutched in her left hand, there are shards of glass and lead. (Prop: Shattered Hamsa)

• GM Note: This was Alicia’s Hamsa charm. To prepare this prop, print out the picture of the Hamsa and cut it up into pieces. Allow the players to assemble the pieces like a puzzle.
  

Slit in the Palm: There is a strange slit or cut in the palm. No blood, but some kind of clear, jelly-like substance in the slit.

• Medicine: The liquid is aqueous humor — the introcular fluid which fills the eyeball.

SECOND FLOOR – RACHEL’S ROOM

Prop: Photo of James J. Hill House Rachel’s Room

THIRD FLOOR

THIRD FLOOR – SERVANT’S QUARTERS

A simple room, but with the same rich oak trim found throughout the house.

ATTIC

THEATER

Converted into a small stage. (For the production of amateur theatricals by the Hill children.)

Corpses (2): Located on the stage behind the curtains.

• Rupert Wild and Evelyn Candide.
• Evelyn was married to a Frank Candide, whose corpse is in the Library.

Tanit Hands (2): These hands were trapped in here.

CRAWLING HAND OF TANIT: Athletics 2, Fleeing 6, Scuffling 4, Health 4

Hit Threshold: 4 (tiny, quick moving hand)
Alertness Modifier: +1 (10% eye by volume)
Stealth Modifier: 2 (tiny skittering hand)
                Weapons: eye gouge, scratching, unpleasant probing (-3)
Stability Loss: +1
Eye of Tanit: Pupil twists into a curlicue. Stability test (no loss). On failure, establish trance like state. On second failure, can issue a hypnotic compulsion that will last until trance ends. Being controlled has a potential of 4-point Stability loss.

RACHEL HILL

APPEARANCE:

• Prop: Photo of Rachel Hill

ROLEPLAYING NOTES

• In a state of shock covered only by her excellent manners.
• Dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief.
• Weakness melts away if pushed around; then she wields her full strength as a millionaire’s heiress.

BACKGROUND

• Grew up in New York.
• Had diptheria as a child.
• Married Egil Boeckmann, a University of Minnesota football hero (scored touchdown that tied first “Little Brown Jug” game with Michigan) in 1913.
• Moved back into James J. Hill House when her mother became ill in 1919.
• Recently hired a photographer to take pictures of the property before it’s given to the Archdiocese.

CLUES

• She did not drink, as she’s teetotaler.
• Gladys Roy left early. She had invited a friend – Alicia Corey – to the party.
• Reassurance 1 / Interrogation 1: She asked Gladys Roy to secure the alcohol for the party (and brought it in the later afternoon). (She won’t admit this without reassurances that she won’t get in trouble. Otherwise her story is that people brought their own booze.)

NOTES

• Rachel was married in the Drawing Room of the mansion. (The dissociation between that memory and the corpses currently in there.)

RACHEL HILL: Athletics 4, Driving 2, Firearms 0, Fleeing 8, Scuffling 4, Weapons 2, Health 7
Alertness Modifier: -1 (oblivious)
Stealth Modifier: 0 (unskilled)
           Weapons: Fists (-2)

LUCRETIA GRAY

APPEARANCE:

• Prop: Photo of Lucretia Gray

ROLEPLAYING NOTES

• Nervous around authority figures.
• Protective of members of the Hill family. Refers to them as Mr. Wallace, Ms. Rachel, etc.
• Gives a “look” to anyone she considers to be acting foolish.

BACKGROUND

• Her husband was a butler in the house. He died in a trolley accident in 1919. They had no children.
• Has worked with the Hill family since 1911.
• Last servant working in the house (the rest were assisted into other positions or given pensions after Mary T.’s death).

CLUES

• She sent the invitations out for Ms. Rachel’s party. (Has a list of addresses and could, for example, give people contact information for Gladys Roy.)
• Gladys Roy brought the liquor (Minnesota 13) to the party at Rachel’s request. She dropped it off on the back porch and Lucretia would run bottles up as people requested more.
• Reassurance 1: As she was calling the police from the phone in the den, she saw something crawling across the Terrace and disappearing into the darkness.

LUCRETIA GRAY: Athletics 10, Driving 0, Firearms 0, Fleeing 8, Scuffling 6, Weapons 3, Health 10
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: +1
            Weapons: Fists (-2), Household Implements (-1)

Go to Node 1: The Black Cats

Go to Part 1

One of the first elements I established for the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist was to have the Cassalanters approach the PCs and attempt to recruit them as their agents in the Grand Game: I found the story of their children’s plight very compelling, and the entire situation rife with incredibly tough and emotional decisions that I felt would really elevate the campaign if they were put center stage. (Whereas in a traditional run, even with the Cassalanters as the DM’s chosen villain, it’s very likely that the PCs will never even discover what the Cassalanters’ true motives are.)

But what if we went a different way?

There are four rival factions in Dragon Heist, of which the Cassalanters are only one. If it’s interesting to swap the Cassalanters’ approach from open antagonism to would-be collaborators, what might happen if one of the other factions took the same approach?

Of course, none of the other rivals have innocent children for the PCs to be called upon to save. So their approach to collaboration will look a little different.

MANSHOON’S ULTIMATUM

The timing of Manshoon’s approach can be identical to the Cassalanters (he discovers the PCs are investigating the fireball that killed several of his agents and decides they would be useful pawns), but it might be better to wait until the fallout from the Gralhund Villa raids. Assuming that the PCs end up with the Stone of Golorr, Manshoon would be highly motivated to get them onboard.

His method for doing so, however, is far less discrete than the Cassalanters: He takes a hostage.

Circumstance will determine whether it will work best to find someone in a PC’s backstory or to target someone they’ve built a relationship with during the campaign, but either way the kidnapping takes place offscreen. Perhaps the PC becomes aware of it when they find their loved ones’ ransacked quarters, but more likely it takes the form of a simple letter arriving at Trollskull Manor.

The letter explains the situation simply: They have something he wants. And now he has something they want. A meeting will be arranged (to which Manshoon will send his simulacrum rather than appearing himself), and the following proposal will be made:

• Their loved one will not be harmed. Quite the contrary. They are enjoying luxurious accommodations (If only the PCs could be so lucky.) Manshoon is personally seeing to it that their every need (except freedom) is being met.
• The PCs will seek to restore the Stone of Golorr and use it to claim Neverember’s Enigma – the 500,000 golden dragons he embezzled from the city.
• Manshoon is not an unreasonable man, of course, and if the PCs fulfill their end of the bargain, not only will he free their loved one, they will also be free to keep fully 20% of the treasure.
• The Zhentarim will also make available to the PCs the full resources of their intelligence-gathering and mercenary networks.

IF THE PCs JOIN MANSHOON: The Zhentarim response teams and safe houses are put at their disposal, with more and more resources being made available as they prove themselves more trustworthy. All of Manshoon’s lieutenants can be played as allies, and this extra muscle will certainly free the PCs up to try more daring (or, at least, direct) heists to obtain the missing eyes.

IF THE PCs REFUSE: Manshoon shakes his head sadly. Then he leaves, has their loved one murdered, and dumps the corpse on the front step of Trollskull Manor.

IF THE PCs SEEK TO RESCUE THE HOSTAGE: A heist! I love heists. The hostage is being held in Area E11 of Manshoon’s Extradimensional Sanctum. The Zhents who made their quarters there have been turned out for the moment; consider spreading them out between Kolat Towers and the Zhentarim faction outposts.

JARLAXLE’S ALLIANCE

For Jarlaxle, we’ll move in the opposite direction: When running the opening scene of the campaign at the Yawning Portal, instead of using Step 2: Friendly Faces (in which the PCs pick one of the NPCs on p. 221 of Dragon Heist to be the contact they’ve come to meet), the contact they’re meeting with is, in fact, Jarlaxle.

Depending on the approach you want to take, they might think they’re meeting with “Captain Zord” or they might know the true identity of who they’re meeting. Either way, Jarlaxle does, in fact, connect them with Volo.

This means, of course, that the PCs are members of Bregan D’Aerthe from the very beginning. Refer to the general information on p. 14-15 of Dragon Heist and the faction missions on p. 34-35.

INVERTED NIMBLEWRIGHT INVESTIGATION: If you want to radically shift Chapter 2 of the campaign, then have one of the PCs’ jobs be to sell the nimblewrights for Jarlaxle. One of the reasons Jarlaxle wanted to get on Volo’s good side was so that Volo could help make introductions to various guilds, nobles, and other highly-placed and influential people. Refer to the list of owners in Part 5C: The Nimblewright Investigation as a resource for the prospective clients Volo refers them to.

Whether the PCs are selling nimblewrights or not, they still have Trollskull Manor as a reward from Volo. Jarlaxle will help bankroll the renovation costs and is eager to develop it as a safehouse for Bregan D’Aerthe operatives.

The fireball explosion also still happens on schedule: When the PCs discover that a nimblewright is involved, they can either go to Jarlaxle and clue their whole organization into the Grand Game. Or it’s possible that they were literally the ones who sold the nimblewright to the Gralhunds. (Small world, eh?)

THE GRAND GAME: Tracking forward, slot in the PCs everywhere that the campaign refers to Jarlaxle’s agents.

At Gralhund Villa they’re able to review nimblewright footage in Jarlaxle’s crystal ball and are then ordered to set up a surveillance post. (Maybe they even end up in Artheyn Manor, just like Fel’Rekt would in a ‘normal’ campaign.)

I recommend not having Jarlaxle accompany them on the other heists (he has a lot of other projects and a busy social calendar to attend to), but they can certainly tap Bregan D’Aerthe resources (in the form of a response team). And Jarlaxle may be able to directly feed them information (and access) to Xanathar’s Lair.

XANATHAR’S GANGSTERS

For this final collaboration we’re going to radically invert the campaign: Rather than starting the campaign at the Yawning Portal, the PCs will be gangsters working for Xanathar. Their first job? Raiding a warehouse where the Zhentarim are holding Renaer Neverember, capture Renaer themselves, and bring him to a sewer hideout where they’ll be met by Nihiloor.

Of course, they discover too late that they’ve kidnapped some fuckin’ mook named Floon Blagmaar. A total disaster. Maybe they try to double back to the warehouse, but by the time they get there, Renaer is gone and the place is swarming with watchmen. (Their first inklings that a Grand Game is happening will come from the questions Nihiloor asks ‘Renaer.’)

CHAPTER 2 – WORKING FOR THE BOSS: You need some time to pass here and, in this scenario, the PCs don’t get Trollskull Manor. Run a few faction missions that introduce them to the Xanatharian faction outposts (they get outfitted by Grinda Garloth; they struggle to figure out how to get the mechanical flying beholder working before the Twin Parades; they’re charged with running security at Terasse Estate and escorting gamblers through the dangerous tunnels to the gladiator tournaments).

Their contact person for these faction missions? Dalakhar.

CHAPTER 3 – THE TRAITOR: Then comes the day when Dalakhar vanishes. Turns out he’s betrayed the Boss and stolen something. Boss won’t say what, but it’s clearly important. The PCs need to find him.

They track him to the Inn of the Dripping Dagger. The timeline is slightly different in this version of reality, and they end up finding the letter from Kalain. They track Dalakhar to Kalain’s place, and she tells them he’s headed to some place called Trollskull Manor. (You’ll want to buff this up a bit to fully satisfy the Three Clue Rule.)

The PCs head over to Trollskull Manor. As they’re heading through the alley, a huge explosion goes off just around the corner up ahead: Rushing forward, they discover Dalakhar and a bunch of other people dead!

THE TROLLSKULL MANOR TEAM: From this point forward, the campaign more-or-less follows the normal track. Investigations will lead the PCs to Gralhund Villa; they’ll find the Zhentarim and Jarlaxle’s team watching the place.

But here’s the twist: There is a group of heroes who rescued Renaer Neverember and moved into the Trollskull Manor. And they’re doing what the PCs in a ‘normal’ Dragon Heist campaign would have been doing: The PCs likely first spot the Trollskull Manor Team at Gralhund Villa, but they’ll keep turning up:

• They raid one of Xanathar’s sewer hideouts.
• They perform a heist at Xanathar’s Lair. (Maybe the PCs can foil it. Or maybe the PCs foil their attempt, only to have Jarlaxle simultaneously steal the Eye. Guess it’s time to pursue them back to the Eyecatcher for a heist-in-kind.)
• While the PCs are trying to perform a heist at Kolat Tower, the Trollskull Manor Team is simultaneously active onsite.

And so forth. Play the heroes actively, and figure out what faction(s) they belong to and bring those into play, too.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The cool thing here is that, once you’ve restructured the campaign components into scenarios instead of plots, you can use those components in myriad ways. These examples push that to an extreme, but it demonstrates how much flexibility this approach has and how easy it is to take material prepped in this way and actively play it in order to respond to player choice.

Compare this to the approach taken by the published campaign, which attempts to give you flexibility and ‘reusability’ by, for example, giving you three different versions of an Old Tower. But the truth is that you don’t need multiple versions of a tower in order to get different utility out of it during actual play.

The other thing I’ll point out is that in all of these collaborator scenarios – including the original remixed version with the Cassalanters – we have no idea what’s going to happen. Do they take the Cassalanters offers or refuse it? Do the Xanatharian gangsters take the money and use it to take over the organization, launching a bloody gang war in and below the streets of Waterdeep? When Jarlaxle’s agents tweak to his true identity, do they remain loyal or turn on him?

Just as the flexibility of the material allows us to reframe the presentation of the campaign, it also provides infinite variability in the actual running of the campaign, providing you (and your players) with a constant stream of surprise and wonder.

Go to Part 1

As the scenario begins, one or more of the PCs have received a call from Detective Fred Watson in the middle of the night. Perhaps they’ve worked with him on previous cases. Perhaps they’ve been recommended to him. Whatever the connection, he has a case that needs their ‘special skills’ and he needs them to come up to the James J. Hill House in St. Paul immediately.

BACKGROUND – THE HILL FAMILY

• James J. Hill (1838-1916) was the CEO of the Great Northern Railway.
• Met Mary Theresa Mehegan (a daughter of Irish immigrants; waitress working in the Merchants Hotel in St. Paul) in 1864; married her in 1867. She died in 1921.
• They had 10 children together: Mary, James, Louis, Clara, Katherine (d. 1876, infant), Charlotte (d. 1923, pneumonia), Ruth, Rachel, Gertrude, and Walter.
• The children have largely scattered – most to New York. Walter lives on a ranch in Montana. (Louis and James are still local, but went with Ruth and Gertrude back to New York a couple weeks ago. Ruth and Gertrude were in town arranging the donation of the house with Rachel.) Only Rachel is currently in town.

BACKGROUND – THE MANSION

• Exterior built of a reddish stone.
• The mansion was completed in 1891. It was the largest and most expensive home in Minnesota, containing 36,500 square feet on five floors (13 bathrooms, 22 fireplaces, 16 cut-glass chandeliers, profusion of elaborately carved oak and mahogany woodwork, a three-story pipe organ).
• President McKinley visited in 1899.
• Back side of the house is on a kind of bluff. It looks out past the Cathedral (which rears up from some unseen depth) and across the sweeping, gently swelling hills of Saint Paul.

OVERVIEW – THE PARTY

• Rachel Hill wanted to throw one last party before she and her sisters donate the house to the Roman Catholic Dioceses of St. Paul. (They have recently purchased the house from her mother’s estate.)
• She invited 8 people. 13 people actually showed up because people brought friends or dates, so there were a total of 15 people in the house (including Rachel and the house servant Lucretia Gray).
• Gladys Roy left early (because she has an aerobatics show in the morning).
• Rachel went to bed with headache shortly after midnight.
• At 1 AM (the thirteenth hour), the Tanit-tainted liquor activated. Alicia Corey activated her Hamsa, which disrupted the ascendance of Tanit, but killed everyone there. Alicia Corey’s left hand was partially saved; but the partially ascended Tanit fragments in the left hands of the other guests separated from their hosts and crawled away.
• Screams awoke Lucretia. She woke Rachel. The police were phoned and arrived around 1:40 AM.

LOCATIONS OF THE DEAD BODIES

• Carriage Porch (1)
• Hall (2)
• Library (3)
• Art Gallery (3)
• Balcony (1 + Alicia Corey’s body)
• Attic Theater (2 + 2 Hands of Tanit)

GM Note: If the number of bodies are compared to the count of guests given by Rachel, it will be noted that one is missing: Gladys Roy (who left).

INVESTIGATING THE DEAD BODIES

Left hands are missing. Stumps left behind are not bleeding.

Some bodies have a small amount of bleeding from nostrils or ears.

Medicine: The flesh on the stumps are pink and new.

• Medicine 1 / Pump Stomach: The contents of the victims’ stomachs are slightly purplish and resemble a non-Newtonian fluid; like water mixed with corn starch. (This can be analyzed with proper lab equipment. See General Research: Lab Analysis – Tanit Parasites.)
• Medicine 2 / Autopsy: Cause of death is acute hemorrhaging in the brain, similar to an aneurysm.

Autopsy: Multiple sites in the right side of the brain are damaged. Left side of the brain appears entirely healthy.

• Autopsy (Medicine 1): The Broca area of the brain, in the left hemisphere, shows signs of very slight atrophy.
• Autopsy – Alicia’s Body / Hand of Tanit: Tissue in the left hand has been replaced with some sort of purplish, crystalline structure. (This counts as a 1-point dedicated pool when investigating the tophet serum, allowing the researcher to automatically see how the hexagonal cells are forming the biocrystalline structures.)

Alicia’s Biocrystal: The structure has decayed throughout her hand; some sort of apoptosis or necrotic effect damaging the tissue. It extends up the Ulnar canal – the semi-rigid longitudinal canal in the wrist which allows passage of the ulnar artery and ulnar nerve into the hand.

Hands of Tanit: The biocrystalline structures are connected to the eye in the palm of the hand. Their exact function is unclear.

AROUND THE HOUSE

These items can be found throughout the house. The GM should liberally strew them wherever it seems appropriate.

Minnesota 13 Whiskey Bottles: They were being drunk everywhere.

• Prop: Minnesota 13 Whiskey
• See Node 2: Research – Minnesota 13
  

13 Black Cat Flyers: Several people have them in their pockets, etc. There may also be a few strewn around on tables and the like where people abandoned them. (See Node 1: The Black Cats.)

• GM Note: Gladys Roy was handing them out.

ARRIVAL @ HILL HOUSE

There’s a gaggle of reporters at the front gate (which is being watched by two patrolmen; they’ve been told to expect the PCs). Police officers mill about on the front lawn. Fred Watson meets them as they come across the lawn.

Detective Fred Watson:

• Police arrived. He got called in. Saw the missing left hands and concluded this was the type of case he should call the PCs in for.
• Cleared the cops out of the mansion so that the PCs would have a clean slate (and to put some sort of stop to any weird rumors that are beginning to spread).

GM Note: The structural key here is that the PCs should be allowed to do their own investigation. If they just listen to Watson tell them what he’s found or have him lead them around the house, that’s really boring game play.

Three Key Points from Fred:

• There are bodies; he doesn’t know how many.
• Rachel Hill, the owner of the house, is in her room on the second floor.
• He’s going to go talk to the reporters now; the PCs should go look at the house.

GM Note: Fred won’t think to mention Lucretia (she’s just a Negro servant after all); but if someone explicitly asks if there are any other witnesses he’ll mention her. She’s in her room in the Servant’s Quarters on the third floor.

Cops: If the PCs question the cops who were cleared out by Fred, they can tell them:

• The known locations of dead bodies (see above; although they don’t single out Alicia Corey).
• That Rachel Hill is in her room on the second floor.
• That Lucretia Gray, the household servant, is in her room on the third floor.

Carriage Porch: There is a corpse with a drop-cloth over it on the front stairs.

Next: The Hill House Investigation

Go to Part 1

REFERENCE – TWIN CITIES 1925

NOTABLE NEWSPAPERS:

• Minneapolis Tribune (since 1867)
• Minneapolis Daily Star (since 1920)
• Minnesota Pioneer (since 1849, first daily newspaper in Minnesota, morning paper)
• Saint Paul Dispatch (since 1868, evening paper)

TRANSPORTATION: Twin Cities Rapid Transit operates 524 miles of electric trolley lines, laced between Minneapolis, St. Paul, and into the suburbs as far as Anoka and Lake Minnetonka. (Map above.)

UNIONS: Minneapolis’ reactionary, anti-labor employers organized into the Citizen’s Alliance. They blacklisted labor organizers, hired spies to keep tabs on “radicals”, crushed strikes, maintained scab registries, etc.

The Minneapolis CLA (Communist League of America) is led by Carl Skoglund, a Swedish socialist who immigrated to America in 1911, and Vincent Ray Dunne. These Trotskyists undermined the business-friendly leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). The first strikes would not actually happen until 1934, but the union-business espionage ran rampant through the ‘20s.

Source: Red Teamsters

FARMER-LABOR PARTY: Founded in 1918, by 1925 the Minnesota Farmer-Labor party – operating on a platform of farmer and labor union protection – was beginning to dominate statewide elections.

• J.E. Meyers is the mayor of Minneapolis. He ran as a member of the Loyalty Party, focusing on a patriotic platform of supporting America’s World War I veterans.
• Laurence C. Hodgson, a former newspaper reporter and poet, is the mayor of St. Paul.

GENERAL RESEARCH – HAMSA

Occult 1 / Library Use: The Hamsa symbol, also referred to as the Hand of Fatima and the Hand of Miriam, is a protective sigil or charm taking the figure of a hand with an eye in the center of its palm. It is supposed to guard against the “evil eye” and is widely recognized throughout the Middle East and North Africa, with some scholars believing it to have originated in Carthage.

GENERAL RESEARCH – TANIT PARASITES

Lab Analysis (Chemistry/Medicine): The purplish color in the whiskey / denatured ethanol is due to a contaminant. This appears to be bacteriological in nature.

• If analyzing raw ethanol, this will be remarkable because alcohol is generally antibacterial – it destroys cell membranes, penetrates the bacteria’s cytoplasm, denatures its proteins, coagulates the enzymes, binds water (dehydrating the cell), and dissolves fats, leading to massive cell dysfunction and death.
• Closer inspection of the bacteria reveals it to be disturbingly unusual: The cell envelope is shaped like a symmetric hexagon. Its internal structures are simplistic, similar to those of a prokaryote (the first form of life on Earth) and lacking anything suggestive of an internal nucleus. It’s possible that this is some atavistic remnant of an alternative evolutionary path.
• Chemistry 1 / Medicine 1: The hexagonal cells interact strongly with each other, forming honeycomb-like lattices and, due to their symmetrical nature, capable of forming tightly-packed, perfectly tiled structures similar to hexagonal crystals. Within these larger hexagonal bio-crystals, the individual cells appear to take on specialized functions – although its impossible to determine exactly what those functions are, it would seem they serve a function similar to organelles. Thus, in relation to the prokaryote-like individual cells, the bio-crystals are analog to more complex eukaryotic cells – although organized in a way seemingly completely alien to terrestial biology.
• Chemistry 2 / Medicine 2: The interactions between the cells within each bio-crystal seem to possess a neuronal character – perhaps synapse-like micro-structures could explain the coordination between the various “organelle cells” of the crystal, in a fashion similar to a nervous system or brain tissue.
• GM Note: If investigated in a later time period, researchers might detect electrical signals “disturbingly reminiscent of human brain activity”, but neither the equipment nor knowledge of the human mind necessary for this conjecture exists in the 1920’s.
• Organic Tissue: If exposed to organic tissue (whether human or not), the tanit parasites will swarm – forming a kind of purple halo around the tissue. (Investigation of this specific phenomenon with Chemistry or Medicine would suggest that this is stimulating biocrystal growth, as described above – and functionally reducing those point spends by 1 point each.)

Tophet Serum: If dosed with tophet serum, a character must make a 2 point Stability test each day. If they succeed on three tests in a row, the effects dissipate and no further tests are required. (During this time, they will begin to manifest hallucinations, motor apraxia, and alien hand syndrome.)

• If the character is Shaken by tophet serum, they begin to manifest symptoms of dissociate personality. (The bicameral division of their mind is breaking down, their perception of self is evaporating, and the Tanit consciouness is striving to take sole control of their body). This takes the form of a Driver that can impel actions (i.e., Tanit’s consciousness is taking control). As with any other Driver, obeying the driver restores Stability per the normal rules, but also prompts a 7 point Stability test (due to Possession).
• If the character is Blasted by tophet serum, in addition to permanent mental illness they also develop an Eye of Tanit on their left hand.
• A character who is rendered Incurably Insane by tophet serum has become a fully-realized host of Tanit.
• Non-Human Hosts: Unknown effects.
• GM Note: Those who observe the progression of tophet serum may realize that virtually everyone who drinks it will, in fact, be lost to the Tanit consciousness. Realizing that hundreds of serum-tainted whiskey bottles have been sold (and presumably drunk), they may make the intuitive leap that Barca has successfully created hundreds of fully-realized Tanit hosts. (Cthulhu Mythos could also provide a similar revelation.) Where are they? Some might be lost to insane asylums, but most are just quietly continuing the façade of their mortal lives – an invisible army of sleeper agents who will continue to pursue the eventual re-awakening of Tanit throughout the 20^th century.

Go to Part 3: Arrival at Hill House