Why you should not read 50 Shades of Grey...

Everybody knows that if you get a committee to design a horse, you end up with a camel. This is exactly how 50 Shades, and all of its sequels, was written: by a group of people online who had their content (semi)edited down into a readable dosage. It’s not the work of a single mind or point of view; it’s a camel by committee. And it shows.

So what made it such a blockbuster? It’s not quality reading. It’s not even good source material for movies, given that the only people who put their hands up for roles in the spun-off films are Z-grade actors who have exactly no shot at the big time except for these execrable filmed statements. The only answer is the sex. It’s a fact that women enjoy readable erotica, rather than the visual kind (which is more of a male stimulus)*. Women cop the rough end of the pineapple when it comes to titillation – there are fewer erotic magazines that cater for the ladies and they don’t last long (see the previous sentence), but there are the Mills & Boons reads that take their place, scooting under the censorious radar of general awareness. Recently, I visited a bookstore in Dunedin which specialised in “romance literature”: the staff knew absolutely, to the nth degree, the value of a particular M&B issue, their genre’s authors and all of the different editions – Sweetheart to Blaze – and back again. I had walked in expecting the typical secondhand bookstore routine: when I asked about horror literature, I was directed to a drawer at the back of the shop containing some well-thumbed Stephen Kings and little else. I was told that HPL was few and far between, but I managed to scoop up a book of New Zealand ghost stories in the dollar box at the front door. The staff had my measure: I was an interloper in the secret women’s business of their female erotica gig.

The people who buy E.L. James’ crap are – in the main - women. They are the same women who bought Stephenie Meyers’ vampire rubbish and, before that, Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat chronicles. The only difference is that their reading material of choice has gotten worse over time. What they’re looking for is excitement of an explicitly sexual nature: this is Jilly Cooper and Sidney Sheldon for the millennials. However, unlike those authors, the new breed are poorly-written and (and I need to stress this) neither edited, nor proof-read. That they haven’t been given even the most cursory attention that any other published book requires has to say something. And what it says is nothing good.

My focus in reading material are books from the 1880s through to the 1940s. Just recently, I crossed a milestone off my list – Day of the Locust by Nathanael West – and I have to say that I was shocked and surprised by it. Much like Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister, it’s a bleak excoriation of Hollywood during its heyday, but I was not expecting the sexual brutality that it encompassed. This isn’t a book that the female readership of today would embrace, I’m thinking, because it partakes too much of a ‘rape and pillage’ mentality; however, in the text, those who espouse this thinking are derided spectacularly, their targets (thankfully) escape, and the proponents are revealed as tawdry and ineffectual. For me, the most horrific parts of the book were the blow-by-blow descriptions of a cock fight, but the gruesome instances of Hollywood consumerist sociopathy were enough to make anyone think twice.

Hollywood has a tendency to water down any social commentary that writers choose to take on. I remember seeing the movie version of “Suddenly, Last Summer” once and not understanding anything that was going on. There was a holiday in Greece; Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift; some street urchins... suddenly Taylor was heading for a lobotomy and her cousin was missing. I had no clue as to what had happened, so I went to the source material by Tennessee Williams. I discovered a cannibalistic, homoerotic rationale that Hollywood had completely obliterated from their cinematic release, leaving generations of viewers scratching their heads. I assume that they thought the movie-goers would be too busy “necking” before the end of the First Act, so why bother making a coherent narrative? Why bother confronting 50s America with the gay cousin of a woman whom he exploits to lure Greek teenagers to their beachfront holiday home for his sexual entertainment? That’s what’s happening, folks... before they kill and eat him. “National Velvet”, this ain’t.

What I think I’m getting at is this: people think that modern literature is edgy and titillating, because of course – of course – we’re way more upfront, nowadays, than anyone has ever been before. This is a lie people. The literature that survives is the stuff that you should be focussing on; not the stuff that’s happening right now. Twilight? Twenty years from now it’ll be a footnote. 50 Shades of Grey? If anyone remembers it, they’ll be alone in a world of readers with other things on their minds. These are novels that only sociologists will be interested in 100 years from now. In the 20s, the bestselling novel of the era was a book called The Green Hat by Michael Arlen; these days it’s practically impossible to find a copy anywhere**. And if you did find a copy, it would probably be as dull as ditchwater. Not everything that makes it into print is guaranteed immortality, despite what Emily Dickinson has to say on the matter. Fashion prevails in the publishing world; today’s Jonathan Franzen is tomorrow’s James Michener, no matter how impossible you find that statement to be.

I’m now reading Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood. It feels a little overcooked after West, but I’m soldiering on. Edwardian literature seems to be plagued with bored, overly-entitled, main characters but I’m not letting that stop me – I’ve read Tender is the Night, so I’ve already seen how bad things can get. After that, it’s Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. If anyone wants me, I’ll be out in the “old” literature, where it’s as edgy as it ever was...

*****

*I’m fully aware that that statement is a generalisation. These things are a spectrum rather than an absolute, a boiling-down of bell-curve results. There are women out there who enjoy visual stimulation as much as men do, and men who prefer erotica of a non-visual variety; they are, however, not in the majority according to the research. Given today’s ‘instant-gratification’ society, though, and the stupidly-easy access to Internet porn, I wonder if that paradigm is shifting?

**Actually, it's not that hard to find anymore. What a difference a few years makes! An edition came out in the US in 2008, and an Indian publisher is producing copies as well. As I discovered earlier, the majority of copies are in the Northern hemisphere, but I've just managed to snaffle myself a first UK edition from a dealer in Melbourne. Woo-hoo!

Review: "The Shallows"

COLLET-SERRA, Jaume, “The Shallows”, Columbia Pictures/Weimaraner Republic Pictures/Ombra Films/Sony Pictures, 2016.

I’ve been reading quite a lot about the generally overlooked levels of intelligence that fish demonstrate so God only knows why I decided to watch this. Glutton for punishment, obviously. Actually, it’s not such a stretch: while there is no way in the world that I would ever get into the water with one, I do actually like sharks. They’re cool, creepy, and perfectly designed for what it is that they do - they’re a designer’s wet-dream. They are also horribly threatened with extinction because several million Chinese people think that eating the fins off a shark turned into a soup will make them more of a man. Yeah right: wield that can-opener like a boss, dude – it’s as close as you’ll ever get to a shark (or to being a man).

Seriously, this kind of witchcraft is wholesale-killing every other species on the planet, while its perpetrators see no problem with over-running the joint and putting extra pressure on the limited resources left. Frankly, anyone who orders shark-fin soup needs to be put into a tank with one, along with a spoon, and told to do their best.

The other problem is that people are stupid: every time some idiot goes into shark-infested waters and gets devoured (no surprise, there) the population of the country nearby goes into a tailspin and begins to demand culls and drag-netting and the arbitrary lifting of threatened status listings. Craziness. To put this in perspective, 15 people in Western Australia have been killed by sharks in the last 17 years. That’s less than one a year. Far more people than that die each year from bee-stings, cattle incidents and automobile accidents. But heaven forbid we’d ever forego honey, or cheese, or the chance to limit the obesity epidemic by using our legs, so we scream out for shark culls. If sharks looked like pandas, I bet there’d be a totally different narrative.

So a part of me was hoping that the shark would win at the end of this film. Obviously, I have high expectations.

The set-up for this piece is quite elegant. A young girl taking a break from med-school after the death of her mother from cancer, goes to the Mexican beach where she, herself, was conceived, looking for surf and closure. She spends a pleasant day surfing with two local lads (don’t get attached) and then, as night begins to fall, heads out for one last wave-ride. Sadly, not a smart move.

She discovers the carcase of a whale floating offshore, heavily chewed-upon by something with big teeth. She decides to surf back in to shore, leaving this unpleasantness behind, but she gets bushwhacked by a Great White Shark that jumps out of her wave and chomps on her leg. She manages to get back to the dead whale before it completely eats her and, just before the shark knocks her off this tenuous perch, she makes a break for a tiny outcrop of rock poking up through the waves.

With this opening salvo, the movie paints a clear map of the world for our beleaguered heroine: the rocky reef outcrop (slowing sinking beneath the waves as the tide rises); the dead whale which slowly moves out to sea; a weather-beaten old buoy, 30-40 yards away from the reef; and the beach, 200 yards distant. With just these tiny locales, one monster fish and the limited clothing and jewellery which Nancy is wearing throughout her ordeal, the director paints a compelling and horrifying tale of grim survival.

One complaint I’ve read is that the shark seems a little too intent on taking out the trapped Nancy, but with the benefit of all the reading about fish intelligence I’ve been doing lately, I had no problem with it. Researchers into animal intelligence conducted a series of tests to see if various species could prioritise their activities, thus showing the ability to plan and to understand the passing of time. It basically went like this: food was provided to the test animals, half on a blue plate and half on a red plate; after half-an-hour, the red plate was taken away, regardless of whether its contents had been finished or not. Of all the animals, fish and birds who worked out that, if you eat off the red plate first, you get access to a greater amount of food overall, only cleaner Wrasses (a fish) got it. As far I could tell, the shark knew that the whale carcase in this scenario was going to hang around for awhile; Blake Lively, on the other hand, was definitely sitting on a red plate. Given that three people get chomped in this movie, of which only one is definitively eaten, I can also assume that the shark was getting cranky about the stupid monkeys giving it the slip all the time.

Without having to warn of spoilers, our heroine gets away from the shark; but she does so using only the meagre amount of stuff that comes to hand, plus her medical training. At no time did I think that there was any fudging of reality to make things work out right: every win in this flick is hard-bought and comes with some terrifying punishment (the bite on Nancy’s leg, for example, is particularly sick-making). A lot of what transpires is made to happen through the magic of CGI; however, this is one of those films (like Jim Jarmusch’s “Deadman”, or “30 Days of Night”) where its use is subtle and unobtrusive – “Rogue One” this ain’t.

In the final analysis, this comes across more like Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, rather than just 86 minutes of a cute girl in a bikini (although it is that, too). It’s an exercise in making the most out of very little and scoring a touchdown. Blake Lively’s Nancy is a tough and resourceful character, right up there with Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, and grounds the character, giving the lie to any notions of simply being the cheesecake, or some kind of monster’s obsession in the mode of “King Kong”. This film doles out the required information in easily-digested particles, setting up the final confrontation with elegance and ease. The director takes a gamble by establishing the map of the story without allowing those same elements to float away at any point; but it works as a solid framework for the narrative, so, as far as I’m concerned, reality can take a backseat for awhile. I was too busy watching the waves for signs of teeth to really notice.

Four Tentacled (and toothy!) Horrors from me.

How to write your own season of "Arrow"...

The Devil's Knowe - Notes

Turns out, there was actually something Lovecraftian going on in this scenario, not just a whole bunch of archaeological bumpf. The previous entries cover most of the background material and describe the rough outline of the plot; here are all of the statistics and other bibs and bobs that you’ll need to run it. First, some general stuff to know about the Orkney Isles.

The Orkney Isles form a barrier between the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea. Consequently the waters around the Isles are treacherous and often rough, especially the stretch between the Orkneys and Northern Scotland known as the Pentland Firth. Modern investigators have the luxury of flying to Mainland and catching ferries across to Hoy; Classic era investigators will have to endure a harrowing ferry ride directly to Longhope and risk seasickness en route.

The circle at the centre of the map shows the range of the Xiclotlan clones

Wildlife

Stone Age humanity was not very kind to the local flora and fauna of the Orkneys. Shortly after establishing themselves, they denuded the whole place of its trees and other large plant inhabitants. They introduced such animals as Rabbits and Hares, Sheep and Goats, and Cows. Rats, Dogs and Cats inevitably showed up as well, because humans tend to carry these creatures with them wherever they go. Deer, Badgers and Foxes were never indigenous to the Isles, despite some landowners trying to introduce them for the purposes of hunting, and are not present to this day. Keep this in mind when thinking about hiding “Elsie” in burrows and dens and so forth – even a six-year-old child would have difficulty trying to disappear down a rabbit warren.

On the other hand, the Orkneys are replete with seabirds of all kinds in huge numbers. Gulls, Fulmars (“mallimacks” in the Orkney dialect), Guillemots (“aaks”) Razorbills (“coulter nebs” or “sea craas”), Puffins (“tammie norries”), Gannets (“solan geese”), and Great Skuas (“bonxies”) have massive nesting sites on some of the islands and the White-Tailed Eagle is well-known in the region, although becoming rare. There are also Owls, Herons and many varieties of wading birds and wild Ducks.

Many of the calls and other sounds made by these birds can be downloaded from xeno-canto (http://www.xeno-canto.org/), a site dedicated to collecting and recording bird sounds from across the globe. If you’re keen, you can blend these birdcalls together into a soundtrack that will form a creepy backdrop for your players. Be prepared to do some research though, because the birds are all filed under their Latin taxonomic terms – The White-Tailed Eagle is more properly known as Haliaeetus albicilla for example, so that should get you started.

In the waters around the Isles are many large mammals including various types of Seals and Whales, particularly the Minke Whale which is common in the region. Cod, Herring and other food fish form the backbone of the local fishing industry; however, in modern times, gas and oil drilling in the North Sea have deleteriously affected the populations of these fish and so moratoriums are in place to prevent catching on an industrial scale.

Remember too, that none of the natural animals on the Orkney Isles will go near the alien beings which currently infest the place!

Unnatural Wildlife

Beings of Xiclotl

“I had almost collided, I thought, with a metallic grey tree... about sixteen feet high with very thick cylindrical branches... cylinders further divided into six flat circular extensions. This might merely have been a natural distortion, and such an explanation might also have accounted for the strange arrangement of the branches in a regular circle at the apex of the trunk; but I could reach for no natural explanation when those branches nearest me suddenly extended clutchingly in my direction, and from the top of what I had taken for a trunk rose a featureless oval... an orifice gaping at the top.”

-Ramsay Campbell, “The Insects from Shaggai”

These tree-like creatures are native to the unidentified planet Xiclotl where they worship a voracious species of plant, sometimes sacrificing themselves to its depraved appetites. The Insects of Shaggai, also known as the “Shan”, once used these lumbering brutes as slave labour and took them across the universe with them on their travels.

However this monster ended up on the Isle of Hoy, it’s likely that it was abandoned there by its Insect masters in times long passed. The Neolithic shamans of the island wove a mighty spell in order to contain what they couldn’t destroy, a species of sympathetic magic which required that one of their own people became infected by the creature, was linked to it mystically, and was then sacrificed in order to drive it into a quiescent state, whereupon it could be imprisoned in a special prison – the Devil’s Knowe. Over the millennia, the real purpose of the ‘Knowe became lost to memory, only vague folk stories surviving to lend it a baleful reputation.

The vandalism of the mound released the toxic seeds and pollen of the dormant Being into the environment and poor Elsie was the unfortunate victim of this poisoning. Simultaneously, when the Reverend desecrated the burial cist beneath the Watcher, the spell broke, and Elsie became linked to the Xiclotlan: as she transformed and grew, so too did the monster in the mound, awakening and coming back to life. When the Reverend (or a party member – see “Options”, below) also became infected, he too was linked to the Being, further ensuring that its revival would come about. Once free from its prison, the Xiclotlan is enormously hungry and desirous of a good rampage.

Being of Xiclotl, Stranded Alien Tree Creature

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	51	POW	10	Age	n/a
CON	35	DEX	14	HP	40
SIZ	44	Move	8	Magic Points	10
INT	7	EDU	n/a	SAN	n/a

Damage Bonus: +5d4

Weapon: Tentacle: 50% (half Damage Bonus+Grapple); Swallow Whole: automatic when Grappled, up to SIZ 14 (5d6 per round)

Armour: 8 point hide

Skills: Hide 35%; Sneak 35%

Spells: None

SAN Loss: It costs 0/1d6 SAN to see a Being of Xiclotl

The Beings of Xiclotl can use all six of their tentacles to attack in the same round. If seized by a Xiclotlan the victim is allowed a STR versus STR roll on the Resistance Table; if successful they are damaged but are able to slip free. If not, they are swallowed whole the next round. The Being can swallow whole any opponent equal to SIZ 14 or less. Once it has swallowed prey equal to its own SIZ (44) it cannot swallow any more, although it can still fight.

Dealing with the Xiclotlan is going to be tricky no matter the time period in which the story takes place. Hoy is a large island, although sparsely populated, and communications are slipshod and affected by weather. The local villagers of Linksness and Murra have some shotguns and maybe the odd rifle to bring to the task but little else of any value. Petrol and gasoline stores may be repurposed to some effect as explosives, but the party will have to bring all of its resourcefulness to bear on the issue.

Reinforcements can possibly be obtained from Longhope on the southern side of Hoy,or Rackwick, but getting there and back – if telecommunications are out of the question – will take quite awhile.

All this being so, fellow Keepers, I haven’t exactly left your players completely in the lurch. The Watcher is a large standing stone weighing at least six tonnes and, conveniently, it sits at a point high above the location of the Devil’s Knowe. If your team is daring and cunning, they might just be able to lure the Xiclotlan to the base of the slope and send the menhir crashing down on top of it, an impact which will definitely kill it. They aren’t particularly smart as Cthulhoid horrors go, so this shouldn’t be too hard to manage. You’re welcome!

Infected Characters

Two NPCs become the focus for the ancient shamanic magic of the Neolithic Orcadians in this tale and their fate becomes inexorably linked to that of the growing Xiclotlan in the mound. While these two characters are alive, the Being of Xiclotl grows and thrives; if they are killed, the Being lapses back into an inert state. If the players can intuit what is going on with this story (and it’s definitely not an easy jump to make) they will surmise that, if the infected characters are killed, they can deal with the monster.

The infected characters grow and change steadily over time and the Keeper should keep track of their new stats as they develop (see the following table). If either Elsie or the Reverend attains a SIZ of 20 during the scenario, the spell finally breaks and the Being of Xiclotl is free: regardless of what happens to Elsie or the Reverend thereafter, the monster is free to ravage the island without hindrance.

To really sell the creepiness of these Beings and their sire, it would be fun to have some pre-prepared sound effects ready. The online sound-effects site Sound Bible (www.soundbible.com) has some excellent – and, more importantly, free – sound bites that can work wonders with this game. “Horses Galloping” is close to the sound that the Xiclotlans make with their teeth and, when Sneaking about in the wind and rain, “Creaking Door Spooky” is a good noise to play if one of the party members suddenly senses their monstrous woody presences nearby. You could try clapping two coconut halves together in lieu of a digital sound effect, but some players might start quoting Monty Python and your atmosphere would then go straight out the window!

Elsie Kinross

There’s not a lot in the source material about the Xiclotlans and how they reproduce, so I’ve gone out on a limb and decided that, like most plant species, they make more of their kind by flowering, creating gametes (pollen), and growing seeds. It’s possible that the Shan are somehow instrumental in this process too, being insects. Unlike standard vegetables however, I’ve decided that, in the absence of fellow creatures to impregnate, they can transform other creatures into beings like themselves in order to colonise other planets, using the virulent capabilities of their efflorescence.

Elsie’s transformation is designed to be deliberately horrible and sanity-wrecking. Her skin has transformed into a wood-like material, similar to bark, and her arms have begun to wither and become absorbed into her trunk. The distinction between her head and neck has vanished and her Xiclotlan mouth has emerged in all its toothy glory. These choppers are not the type of teeth that shear or slice; rather, they are designed to grip and hold, so that swallowing can be ensured. To this end, they are flat-sided, pyramidal and lock together quite nicely, making a wooden-sounding “clop!” when snapped together. Given her small SIZ, Elsie is quite nimble, and her low centre of gravity and strangely-altered feet allow her to move at her top speed up inclined surfaces with no impairment, much as rabbits are able to do.

Elsie Kinross (As Was), Transformed Child

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	20	POW	8	Age	6
CON	15	DEX	14	HP	10
SIZ	5	Move	12	Magic Points	8
INT	11	EDU	5	SAN	n/a

Damage Bonus: +1d4

Weapon: Bite: 50% (Damage Bonus/2 (min. 1pt.; hold for automatic damage the following round)

Armour: 8 point hide

Skills: Hide 70%; Sneak 70%

Spells: None

SAN Loss: It costs 0/1d6 SAN to see a Human transforming into a Being of Xiclotl

Several things are of interest when trying to capture, or kill, the former Elsie. Firstly, her growing Xiclotlan instincts mean that if she Bites someone, she will tend to hang on, doing automatic damage the succeeding rounds unless she is detached (STR vs. STR on the Resistance Table), or wounded. Secondly, she isn’t as dumb as her progenitor, meaning that she will play smart in any combat situation, as she knows that her continued survival is crucial to allow the Xiclotlan “Devil” to emerge. She still retains all her knowledge of the region in which she grew up and can use this information to her advantage in terms of setting traps and making plans. Note however, that for every three days that pass after the party first encounters her, her INT score will drop 2 points until it reaches 7 – where it will stay – and her STR, CON, SIZ and POW will all increase by 3 points until she equals her progenitor in every way (she is, effectively, a clone of the original, after all).

A final note about Elsie: she is confined by the original spell to an area nearby the Devil’s Knowe, equal to the radius of a circle the distance between the ‘Knowe and the Watcher. After the Xiclotlan emerges from the mound and is no longer spellbound, she can range as she likes. If taken from this area, she drops into an inert state becoming comatose, but not suffering any other ill-effects. She instinctively knows the limits of her territory and cannot be tricked into leaving it voluntarily. While comatose, she will snap at anyone or anything that handles her roughly, or damages her, but can do nothing further.

Rev. Hamish MacTavish

By foolishly chewing on a seed found at the dig site, the reverend Hamish has doomed himself to the same horrible fate as the diminutive Elsie. As the transformation takes hold, he quickly absents himself to his study and claims an illness so that he will be left alone. In transforming into another clone of the Being of Xiclotl, he becomes a further anchor for the ancient shaman’s spell and, as long as he thrives, so too does the Xiclotlan.

If handled deftly by the Keeper, the fact of the Rev’s altered status should come as a shock at the end of the story. However, it’s possible that the party may discover the metamorphosis earlier than this. If so, a certain fact will become clear: because the Reverend is outside of the area of the Watcher and the Devil’s Knowe, he has lapsed into a comatose state from which nothing can rouse him. At most, if roughly handled or damaged, he will snap at the attackers with his big, blocky teeth, but can do nothing further until the Devil in the mound emerges.

The big difference between Elsie and the Reverend is that the Reverend has some ability to comprehend what has happened to him. If the players think to take him into the range of the Watcher, they will be able to converse with him to a degree and discover what has taken place. Note however that the Reverend is now on the side of the “Devil” and will try not to give away anything that will enable the party to defeat the monster before its emergence is assured. If the Keeper feels that the party needs a little edge, they can have the Reverend muster up a little last-minute vestige of his former role and let drop some vital clue that will save the day (this is a little bit of a cop-out however, so only use it as a last resort; see “Options” below).

Hamish MacTavish (As Was), Transformed Priest

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	20	POW	8	Age	32
CON	15	DEX	14	HP	13
SIZ	11	Move	12	Magic Points	8
INT	12	EDU	18	SAN	n/a

Damage Bonus: +1d4

Weapon: Bite: 50% (Damage Bonus/2, min. 1pt.; hold for automatic damage the following round)

Armour: 8 point hide

Skills: Hide 70%; Sneak 70% (but see above)

Spells: None

SAN Loss: It costs 0/1d6 SAN to see a Human transforming into a Being of Xiclotl

Keeping track of the development of Elsie and the Reverend will define the Keeper’s role for the endgame of this story, so here is a chart that tracks their progress with necessary statistics for combat etc. Remember that, once either NPC gains a SIZ of 20 or more, it will take more than simply killing them off to terminate the main Xiclotlan!

	Elsie
	STR	CON	SIZ	INT	POW	HP	Damage Bonus
1st Encounter	20	15	5	11	8	10	+1D4
3 days later	23	18	8	9	10	13	+1D4
6 days later	26	21	11	7	10	16	+1D4
9 days later	29	24	14	7	10	19	+1D6
12 days later	32	27	17	7	10	22	+1D6
15 days later	35	30	20	7	10	25	+1D6
	The Reverend
	STR	CON	SIZ	INT	POW	HP	Damage Bonus
1st Encounter	20	15	11	12	8	13	+1D4
3 days later	23	18	14	10	10	16	+1D6
6 days later	26	21	17	8	10	19	+1D6
9 days later	29	24	20	7	10	22	+1D6
12 days later	32	27	23	7	10	25	+2D6
15 days later	35	30	26	7	10	28	+2D6

Options...

It’s quite possible that one of the party members may ingest either the pollen or the seeds of the Xiclotlan, dooming them also, to the fate of transforming onto one of these horrible beings. This will mean that the role played by the Reverend as the second anchor for the shamanistic magic now passes to the infected character.

In the first few days, the effects of the infection are relatively inconsequential. The character will feel buoyant, uplifted and in good health. Their energy levels will peak and they will feel fine and fit. On the morning of the third day they will feel slightly headache-y but will rally into good health once more. That night they will receive a nightmare which will shock them into wakefulness but the content of which they will be unable to remember. Mild feelings of claustrophobia will beset them and their skin will start to feel itchy.

Most interesting, their STR stat will have increased by 5 points. Don’t give this information to the player; wait until such time as they need to perform some feat that requires strength and factor in their new level without them knowing: they will be as amazed (and concerned) as the other party members. Each day after the fourth, their STR increases by a further 2 points until it maxes out at 51.

Simultaneously, from the fourth day after infection, the character’s CON, DEX and POW shift 1 point per day towards new settings: CON becomes 15; DEX moves towards 14; and POW slumps to 8 (this has no effect on the character’s Sanity score). As with STR, keep a record of the changes without telling the player directly, then let the new scores be revealed in the course of play.

The nightmares start to become more intense after this, requiring a SAN Roll with each rude awakening. The character feels as though they are being buried alive; weird spirals cause them alarm and strange robed figures menace them from a distant hilltop. These dreams cause 1/1D6 SAN loss.

Pro-tip: rather than simply outlining the dreams to the player, roleplay them through, perhaps with the infected character taking the part of the Neolithic sacrifice during the casting of the original spell. An evil Keeper might imply that the ancient shamans all look very similar to the other party members!

On day eight, the skin irritation which the character feels becomes almost unbearable. In dealing with this, they discover large woody blooms sprouting across their back like huge scales. These are hard and seem to be erupting from deep within the dermis. If the character discovers this aberration whilst alone, they may try to keep the emergence secret; if others are present, the cat will be well and truly de-bagged.

From here on in the transformation speeds up: the character’s neck thickens, their arms wither and become useless; their skin is completely covered and their features get lost beneath this covering, their eyes drifting from their usual position before being swallowed up. They sprout long withies of cellulose-like material from their heads and their feet enlarge and split into the three pronged affair that are the Xiclotlan standards. They are human no longer.

With this change, the character becomes privy to the history of its Xiclotlan “parent” and the nature of the prison which contains it. Naturally, at this point, the character will have switched sides in the matter, and the last thing it will do is tell the party what it needs to do to resolve the issue; however, with a POW vs. its own current SIZ roll on the Resistance Table, if – and it’s a big if – its Sanity is still above 50%, it can pass on certain aspects of the situation to its former friends. Note that, since the only way to resolve the matter is to kill all the extant clones of the captured Xiclotlan, the character will now view the party as a potential threat to its existence and may not be particularly forthcoming. If the character’s player is skilled enough to conduct this mindset creatively for the group, let them roleplay these divided loyalties as they see fit; otherwise, it’s time for the Keeper to take over control of this character.

Research...

Once the mayhem is revealed, the party may wish to turn to their Cthulhu Mythos knowledge in order to try and work out what's happening. As per usual, grabbing a Mythos tome and rolling a Cthulhu Mythos Roll will allow some insights; however, purists about the literary make-up of Mythos Lore know that the references to the Insects of Shaggai and their doings can be found in only two Earthbound sources - the Pnakotica and the infamous "Massa di Requiem per Shuggay". If any party members have had dealings with these sources in the past, let them perform an Idea Roll to see if they can gain insights into the matter at hand. Success allows them to come up with the following after 1D2 hours:

"The Insects of Shaggai were forced from their homeworld by a cataclysm. They teleported away to the planet Xiclotl where they subdued the strange, native, tree-like beings and forced them into servitude; however, they chose to abandon the planet after they discovered the true nature of the Xiclotlans' form of worship and deemed it too depraved to be borne (this, from a race not known for its moral or ethical rectitude!). They continued planet-hopping from Thuggon, to L'ghyx, and finally made an attempt to colonise Earth in the Middle Ages, although they had examined our planet with advance scouts much earlier than this."

Conclusion

I'm not going to throw statistics for Liam Reid or the other villagers into this post - I figure that there is enough material and know-how out there for canny Keepers to cobble together what they need to incorporate these NPCs into the action if required.

I'd like to say in conclusion that this scenario is completely fictional and reflects in no way the attitudes, thinking, beliefs, or ideals of the Orkney Islanders. If you ever find yourself on the Island of Hoy, you might well be stopped from visiting the Dwarfie Stane by the local authorities; this is not due to an outbreak of interstellar monsters, but because a pair of White Tailed Eagles have chosen to establish a nesting site there and the wildlife conservators don't want an excess of tourists to drive them away.

Finally, if you decide to run this scenario, drop me a line and tell me how it went.

Fin.