The Faceless Marauder - Part 1

Dorothy L. Sayers was once challenged that she couldn’t write a murder mystery that followed the ‘timetable’ sub-genre of crime fiction; that is, a murder that depends upon an intimate knowledge of train timetables, allowing minutes for the perpetrator to arrive, do the deed and then vanish, leaving them with an entirely plausible alibi - as long as no-one else does their trainspotting homework! The result was Five Red Herrings, arguably her worst book, and one that I – even she – would recommend ‘for completists only’. To that end, I’ve always wondered if it would be possible to write a “Call of Cthulhu” scenario where all the information was on the table at the start of play and wherein the Investigators could sift through a mountain of facts to trace the menace to its source. Much like poring through train schedules with a map and a stopwatch...

This then, is what I’ve come up with. There are lots of documents and lists of facts here through which a party of Investigators will have to shuffle in order to see a bigger picture. In fact, to see any picture at all! I’ve discovered in this exercise that facts tend to overlap each other to the point of obfuscation and that is certainly the case here.

Your party will either love or hate this, depending upon their personal tastes. There is leg-work to be done, people to interview and leads to track down; at the end there is an horrible confrontation with a Mythos entity of a low-grade sort; however, if they don’t sort through the clues properly, they won’t get there.

The party will have to acquire the facts first, before they can start to make sense of them. In this way, I’ve broken things up a little between action and research, to try and play to individual strengths and to keep everybody entertained. When things get to the deductive phase however – and they will – it might be worthwhile just getting everyone around a table and blackboard with all the evidence – “CSI” style – and live roleplay their characters while exercising their “little grey cells”.

Other things: this is a London-based “Cthulhu Gaslight” adventure (because it’s easier to plot such material sans computers and mobile ‘phones) and it might be a good lead-in or follow-on from my other adventure “The Whitechapel Golem”, helping to establish, or reinforce, characters from that scenario. It might be helpful if one of your characters is in law enforcement – a detective in the Metropolitan Police, or Scotland Yard – but it’s not absolutely necessary. As research, you might want to read Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s “From Hell” (avoid the movie!) in order to capture the mood and atmosphere: be aware that this tale runs headlong out of the Spring-Heeled Jack panic and into the Ripper mess, so familiarity with both of those sensations is handy. Also, get a map of 1890s London – you’ll need it!

Finally, aware that, in many ways, this story is a huge steaming mess of nastiness, if you run into difficulties, drop me any comments or questions you might have and I’ll be happy to help you through them!

*****

The premise is that there’s a dark figure stalking women in the streets of London, attacking them in order to slake its unnatural lusts. Witnesses are few and far between and descriptions are vague, leading many to suspect that the attacker is masked, or is the Ripper returned, or that it is a resurgence of the Spring-heeled Jack phenomenon of 1838.

What is actually happening is that the city is being stalked by a Xo Tl’mi-go, a Mythos species of humanoid that preys upon normal humans for food and in order to procreate. The creature arrived in London inside a collection of artefacts transported from South America to the English capital. Its original location, high in the west Honduran mountains, mummified it whilst still alive; the wetter London environment has allowed it to moisturise back into life and now it seeks to create more of its own kind.

“Child of the Kingdom”

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	15	POW	10	Age	???
CON	17	DEX	11	HP	15
SIZ	13	APP	n/a	Magic Points	10
INT	17	Idea	85%	SAN	n/a

Damage Bonus: +1D4

Weapon:         Claws 30% (1D6+db); Bite 25%, when held by claws (1D6);

Armour:          1 point, rubbery skin

Skills:                Climb 80%; Disguise 50%; Hide 70%; Jump 55%; Listen 75%; Sneak 80%

Spells:                              None

SAN Loss:       It costs 0/1D6 SAN to see a Xo Tl’mi-go

In order to pass unremarked through the metropolis, the creature has stolen clothes from its victims; more ghastly than this, it has flayed the bodies of some of those people it has killed and dresses in their skins, a habit which affords it a degree of disguise. This has led to some reports of the assailant wearing a mask, or gloves.

Having revivified in the Museum, the creature left the building (killing the nightwatchman en route) then wandered around the city getting its bearings. It soon found the river and access points into the sewer system. Once underground, it built itself a nest and began to formulate a plan to assert its dominance over the pathetic humans of the city above.

Two things were immediately pressing: food and the creation of more of its own kind. Abducting men off the street allowed the creature to feed off their flesh and flay their bodies in order to make skin suits. It should be noted that the monster doesn’t actually wear its victims’ skins as a disguise (although that’s a handy by-product); it feels that it adopts the skills, knowledge and power of its victims when it does this and, in its own mind, the fact that it hasn’t been caught yet is clear proof that this ‘magic’ works. These suits are immediately seen for what they are in bright light and close up (1D4/1D6 SAN loss), but on London’s foggy streets and back-alleys, in addition to items of stolen clothing, they work well enough to hide the monster’s true nature.

The Xo Tl’mi-go also abducts and kills children, since they are easy prey. These victims are used as food by the horror, although it also ritually sacrifices the children as offerings to its deities in its vile nest.

The Marauder lives according to South American Aztec culture. It worships the same gods as the Aztecs and in the same fashion, although it ranks itself higher than humans on the evolutionary scale. Its understanding of technology aligns with that prevalent in Pre-Columbian Honduras: it has no conception of the wheel or metallurgy (apart from the working of gold and silver), so much of what is going on around it in 1890s London is quite simply inconceivable. As a result, it is extremely cautious in undertaking its nefarious crimes and will plan endlessly and meticulously to maintain its freedom. Basically, it won’t go down without a very hard fight. As weapons, it uses wooden clubs (tepoztopilli) and, after it finds the oyster shells in the pub, it makes itself Aztec swords (macuahuitl) – wooden blades lined with the sharp edges of the shells (in lieu of obsidian blades). These shells are also what it uses to skin its victims.

Lest it be unclear, the Marauder is pure evil. It has the cultural roots of the pitiless Aztecs, and it automatically assumes itself to be of a higher order of being than the human cattle around it. It plans to replicate itself with the single-minded goal of taking over this empire and ruling humanity with the rest of its kind.

However, the creature has discovered a major flaw in its plans: during winter, the British capital is too cold for the monster and it is forced back to its nest to hibernate. Astute Investigators will notice that all attacks and other related reports about the beast only happen during the summer months. When the Xo Tl’mi-go first awakens, its attacks are furious and unrelenting; as autumn approaches there is a slight escalation once more before they cease for another year. In time, the monster will discover heaters and fireplaces, but for now it does what it can in the time it has available. The party has stumbled upon the horror at its most vulnerable moment: if it successfully breeds more of its kind, things can only get worse for the Londoners!

Playing the Marauder

Imagine what it would be like if you were a Stone-Age entity dropped into the middle of 1890s London. You’d see a bunch of large stone buildings in carefully laid-out streets – nothing exceptional there, the Aztecs had huge edifices and town planning also. Although you’d probably be at a loss to know what the buildings were for. Next, you’d be bewildered by horse-drawn traffic: both the wheel and horses would be novel concepts to you, although sleds pulled by llamas are things within your experience. The dogs would be bigger, the cats all smaller and the ‘guinea-pigs’ would be numerous, lean and have tails.

After ten years lurking in the sewers below the streets (city plumbing was a feature of Aztec settlements, so no troubles there) you have been able to work out that the population is highly gendered in terms of its dress and conduct. You can spot men from women and have acquired a fair degree of familiarity with modern clothes. Like the Aztecs, the warriors wear quite different apparel and you would be instinctively wary of men dressed in uniforms – policemen, soldiers, hospital staff. In combating these types, you would take the time to observe them for weaknesses and they would be the first targets for you in a melee.

You understand that the lights on carriages, along the main roads and outside of buildings are some kind of man-made illumination – possibly magical – and, like all light, you’d try to stay clear of it. You have worked out that smashing these light sources effectively extinguishes them, but it’s just as easy (and quieter) to simply fade into the relentlessly foggy air.

Ambush is your preferred option for attack. The humans of this place never look up and don’t travel in the tunnels beneath the streets (although there are some few who do). Because of this, you have learned to move along rooftops, in back alleys and through the sewer mains, keeping out of sight and staging lightning-fast attacks that the humans cannot counter. Few of them have adequate fighting skills anyway, and at most they carry clubs which have limited effectiveness. The only real advantage that they have lies in their numbers, and you would work very hard to avoid being surrounded or confined in any way.

A crucial element in running this character is its Idea Roll. Anytime the creature is confronted by a new concept, it has a chance to work out what it is on some basic level by making this roll. If it approaches a trap or ambush, it’s legitimate for the Keeper to give the Marauder a chance to sense that something is dangerous to its survival – even if it doesn’t figure out exactly how – and to pass it by. So far the creature hasn’t seen a gun in action – the first time it does, it will take this information on board and start to integrate this new threat into its worldview.

Hooking the Players In

As mentioned, if one of your characters works for the police, this is simplicity itself: the details of the most recent attack arrive with a thump on their desk. Otherwise, the Keeper will have to use their ingenuity.

Another alternative is to have the party become interested in the discoveries of flayed partial corpses being dredged up out of the Thames River. The newspapers create a “nine-day’s wonder” out of this happening and spill a bit of ink on the topic. If the party has some cachet with the police, they might then be able to offer their services as part of the formal investigation.

The easiest means is to have one of the Investigators be familiar with the Pearsons (the victims of the latest attack). This smacks of the ‘Long Lost Friend Hook’, I know, but needs must where the Devil drives. If the Keeper can find a better solution, by all means go for it; otherwise there is always this option fall back on.

Progression

Depending upon how the players enter the story, the investigation will take one of two approaches (although there may be more):

Child abductions: The Pearson child was taken in broad daylight, by an assailant who jumped onto the roof of the hansom cab and snatched the infant from its mother’s arms. Lady Otterline was wounded in the attack and Sir Albert Pearson killed after falling from the cab. Discussions with the police will reveal that this isn’t the first time a child has been brazenly snatched off the streets in the Holborn area.

Skinned bodies: Newspapers have been talking about the discovery of a skinned man’s leg on a trash heap in Russell Square. Connexions are made between this discovery and that of the flayed body of a man found floating near Cleopatra’s Needle in 1887.

Setting the Scene

The unacknowledged ‘character X’ of this piece is the city of London itself. The adventure takes place in the western end of the city in what today is considered a fairly ritzy part of town. Back then it was a very different sort of place. The districts of Holborn, St. James and Bloomsbury were riddled with networks of slums, ghettoes which housed the most desperate and ruthlessly poor underclasses of the British capital. Areas such as St. Giles and Seven Dials were notorious for crime and the upper classes walked theses regions alone at night at their own peril.

Modern audiences are relatively familiar with the idea of Victorian London – the recent fad with all things steampunk have seen to that. Essentially, if you play up the concepts of gaslighting, fog and horsedrawn carriages, you’re pretty much halfway there. If you take the time to watch various films and TV shows set in the period – “Ripper Street”, “Peaky Blinders”, “Penny Dreadful” – you’ll quickly be able to convey the atmosphere of the place to your players.

The Victorian period saw the birth of advertising on a large scale and your characters will see walls covered with handbills vouching for the effectiveness of everything from soap to bootblack. These walls will be a source of information for your team once things get going so make sure that you draw your players’ attention to them. Once the party of Investigators are in the Holborn area, they will start to see posters and notices warning of a night-time rapist or asking for information about missing people. This is where the party might start to see a wider picture of interconnected events.

Remember that the Marauder has had ten years’ experience on these streets, learning every alley and laneway between Highgate Cemetery and the Thames Embankment, so don't feel guilty about using any and every permutation of the city’s construction to your own benefit. Get yourself a period map and study it well; remember that the Marauder uses the roofs and sewers with equal facility.

About the sewers. Don’t get too hung up on detail here: they are simply red brick caverns and tunnels underfoot. Unlike Paris, where the sewers below the streets run directly below the roads above, London’s bowels are a twisty maze that you can configure and re-configure to your heart’s content. As long as you convey the atmosphere of what they’re like, it will be enough (try watching Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” for inspiration). Of course, if one of your players is resourceful enough to find a period map and bring it to the table, then fine – go with it and congratulate them for their innovation. If a request for maps is proposed by the characters, the police will simply shrug: it’s not their turf. However, they will provide two sewer workers who will act as guides for the party if needed (again this obviates any need to provide a canvas for your players).

If you have meta-gamers in your crowd, try and shut them down easily. Once these guys discover that the British Museum is in the centre of the affected area, they might get all gung-ho and kick in the doors. Try to get them to be reasonable about it: if there’s no direct reason for them to go there, they shouldn’t be drawing Lovecraftian conclusions. If their investigation takes them there, fine; if they’ve exhausted every other avenue and they go there just to lift stones and see what’s underneath, also fine; however, if they say “a museum huh? I’ll bet that’s where the nastiness is – let’s go there first”, then they’re out of line. If you paint a grim enough picture of the crime-ridden district surrounding them, it might make them think that a prim, orderly museum is the last place that their villain would be. Of course there are things to be discovered here, but the evidence should take them there, not their fan-boy instincts.

To Be Continued...