Susan Hill Redux - "The Man in the Picture", Review

HILL, Susan, “The Man in the Picture – a Ghost Story”, Profile Books Ltd., London, 2007.

Octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine-titling; 145pp. Near fine in like dustwrapper.

Lest anyone think that I was overly harsh with my assessment of Susan Hill’s other ghostly offering “Printer’s Devil Court”, let me just follow that review up with this observation. Prior to my friend lending me that other book, I thought that I’d never encountered Susan Hill before – ‘turns out, I was wrong. It’s been a few years but I had read “The Man in the Picture”, so I skimmed over it again to refresh my memory about it; as well, I’ve picked up a copy of one of Hill’s police procedurals The Shadows in the Street, a detective story featuring her sleuthing mainstay Simon Serrailler, just to compare and contrast. See people? I really do do my research.

HILL, Susan, The Shadows in the Street, Vintage/Random House, London, 2011.

Octavo; paperback; 372pp. Moderate wear. Good.

To be frank, I’m not a fan of police procedurals – they tend to be more than a little splatterpunk-y for my taste: too much wallowing about in the entrails, dogged but nevertheless world-weary police officers, and (yawn) the inevitable serial killer at large. It smacks of pornography. To compare, I read Peter Robinson’s Aftermath, one of his DCI Banks stories, and it ticked all of the boxes: messy crime scene? Check. Weltschmerz? Check. Serial killer? You guessed it. In Hill’s case, the elements are all there, but she approaches them quite differently. Whereas Robinson (and I’m only using him as an example here because he’s the one I’ve read most recently) has female characters who are all long-legged with swishing hair, Hill’s women are far more nuanced with an actual internal life beneath their costuming. Coincidentally, both tales are written such that the crime is at one remove to the character development: in Robinson’s book, the crime and its committer are over and done with; the twist comes when the “victim” turns out to be anything but, and starts the rampage again. In Hill’s tale, much of the book is taken up with church politics, one character’s grieving process, and an examination of the grim lives of prostitute single mothers. The hero detective doesn’t even show until it’s almost all over.

In the final analysis, Hill’s book is the better of the two: the police procedure is well in the background, rather than being rammed down the reader’s throat; the characters are not stereotypes but are far more three-dimensional and interesting; and the story is interestingly constructed and satisfyingly paced. It’s not my kind of horror, so Tentacled Horrors are out of the question, but I’d give it a solid 4 out of 5.

Now we turn to “The Man in the Picture” and far more familiar territory.

This, like “Printer’s Devil Court” is pastiche – it must be said. Hill is trying to write M.R. James ghost stories, and obviously, she enjoys the exercise. This is a far better story than the other one and incorporates all of the tropes of a Jamesian spook tale: the setting at an Oxbridge university, the Edwardian overtones, the weird story, the nebulous explanation – it all works a treat. It’s almost as if the master was at work once more.

My hesitation with this stuff is that while it’s nice to see someone paying homage to James in this fashion, there is a lot of M.R. James out there. If you want to read James, then read James, not someone pretending to be him. Of course, if by reading Hill you find yourself in Jamesian territory then fine, forge ahead. I just feel that his contribution is not being recognised here – Hill is standing on a giant’s shoulders, and that giant is all but invisible to the unknowing.

It’s true that M.R. James has fallen somewhat out of fashion. In the 70s and early 80s, the BBC made many short films from his tales and these all clearly referenced the original author. There was a series of Christmas ghost stories in which Christopher Lee (RIP) basically read the short story to a group of students in a college study room surrounded by candles and port, in the same manner that James did, and even without special effects and visuals, these are very spooky and effective. Again though, we were explicitly told that we were watching a recreation of James’s work. I’m sure Hill is getting adequate recognition here (even after her book The Woman in Black was made into a long-running stage play and movie), but I’m wondering how James’s sales are looking?

I don’t begrudge Susan Hill for demonstrating her influences in the course of making sales and pushing units: it’s a cutthroat world out there in the writing game and you do what you have to. Still, she owns her own publishing house (Long Barn Books Ltd.) and so you’d think her concerns about getting into print would be negligible. Pastiche is the thorny trail towards sloppy writing and is dovetailed into the current trend for “more” not “good”. Frankly, I’d like to see more of ‘Susan Hill’ and less of ‘Susan Hill trying to be M.R. James’.

Again I haven’t gone into the story or its features – if you’ve read M.R. James, there’s not a lot to say. Still it’s a praiseworthy effort – four Tentacled Horrors.

In the meantime, look up Simon Serrailler...

Review: "Printer's Devil Court" by Susan Hill

HILL, Susan, “Printer’s Devil Court – A Ghost Story”, Profile Books Ltd., London, 2014.

Octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine-titling; 106pp., with several monochrome illustrations. Gilt titled and embossed dustwrapper. Near fine.

M.R. James had a particular party trick that he could pull off on demand: someone would nominate a time period prior to their current one (late Victorian into the Edwardian Era), and Montague Rhodes James could write a passage in the idiom of that time. Flawlessly. He could write like a Medieval English monk, or a country squire from the 1700s, or an Tudor dandy from 1580. It meant that whenever he wrote a ghost story set in the past, or dealing with texts from distant ages, they rang absolutely true. H.P. Lovecraft could do this too, although his results were more instinctive, because he eschewed the idiom of his own time for something that he felt far more comfortable with – the writing style of Edgar Allan Poe’s generation.

It’s tricky to get that degree of familiarity with the writing style of a bygone age such that it seems perfectly real. It requires a lot of time spent immersing oneself in that technique and it’s a real high-wire act to get it right: if there’s even a breath of a misstep, the whole thing falls very, very flat.

A friend threw this book at me and said that “if I liked M.R. James, I will really like this”. That’s a Hell of an assumption on his part, but I can see where he’s coming from. I do like M.R. James; a lot. What I don’t like is stuff that tries to be M.R. James but ends up being pastiche. I zipped my way through this – it’s only 106 pages long after all – and left the exercise with mixed feelings. First, it’s a ghost story – that’s a bonus; second, it reads very much like an M.R. James ghost story but it doesn’t quite hit the mark; third, I saw the twist coming a mile away – never a good look, especially for me! Fourth, most of the difficulties are, in fact, not the fault of the author!

Let me explain. We live in a strange period in the history of publishing; things are turning over to electronic formats and soon the book as we know it will cease to be produced. In the meantime though, just as it was when the printing press was beginning to make an impact, book production is going through the roof. More books are being produced now than at any other time on the planet. The sad fact is, that most of the books that are currently being made are crap. Nowadays, people want a book that won’t end: marketing models which heretofore were used to manage the production of TV shows and movies are being used as models to pump out print media. This means that people are being taught to not look for quality, but rather continuation. People nowadays don’t want “good”; they want “more”.

This is why E.L. James can write four volumes of dreck like the 50 Shades of Grey series, despite the fact that there’s no editorial input, and make enough on the project to then write the same four books again, but from the point of view of one of the other characters. Once the floodgates were opened and the marketing types pushed the hype, no-one cared any longer what they were reading, just as long as it kept on coming. For the same reason we get TV shows that outstay their welcome, Man Booker prize-winners whose works are more like telephone books (with just as much unnecessary filler), and even classic, mainstay books that are being re-written (my god!) by new authors for a modern audience. (Seriously, be careful the next time you pick up a new copy of Northanger Abbey – it might well have been written by Val McDermid!)

It’s part of the need to distract ourselves that has become a hallmark of modern life. There are too many of us, and things are getting pretty dire. However, no-one wants, or is able, to find a way forward. The easy answer, therefore, is to bury our heads and ignore it.

What this means for Susan Hill’s little book therefore (and I’m not being patronising here; it’s a short story, puffed up to be something else; a promotional piece), is that it’s all flash and no substance. It does the piece – and the author – a disservice. Let’s take it from the top.

First, this is pastiche – there’s no sugar-coating it. It feels like an M.R. James story – sort of – but there are pieces of text that leap off the page and blow the illusion right out of the water. It’s the odd turn of phrase that rings untrue; a repeated word; a sentence that looks like it’s heading somewhere and – Oh look! A birdie! The sad fact is that these moments are not necessarily the fault of the author – they are editorial typos, mistakes made by the typesetters and proof-readers in the course of rushing this baby to the bookstores.

Second, the story is an obvious one. I’m wondering if the masterminds behind this release gave Ms. Hill the time to prepare a piece at all. “Don’t worry,” they probably said, “just grab any old thing from your ‘working’ tray and we’ll smooth it out for this promotional jag”. This tale is probably not truly representative of what she’s capable of producing; I wonder if Susan Hill wishes she could have offered them something a bit better instead?

Let me explain a bit here: I can never see a twist coming. In movies when all my friends are groaning and rolling their eyes, I’m the one sitting there saying “what? What?” “The Sixth Sense” hit me like a train: ‘didn’t see it coming. Same with “Unbreakable”. And that’s just M. Night Shyamalan’s oeuvre. (The one time I did spot the twist en approche, was “The Crying Game” – I wonder what that says about me?) Anyway, this story was literally an open book to me from the first word. And I don’t think it’s because I spend so much time with this kind of stuff – I just think it’s not that clever a twist.

Third – the production. This is a short story, not a whole book. It has been produced – with all the bells and whistles – to encourage sales and to heighten the author’s profile in the cutthroat market that is today’s book industry. If this had been a collection of stories, or a novel, it would have been a justifiable exercise; as it is, it looks like something hefty, but comes off as a lightweight effort. The reader is at first intrigued by all the gilt and hardcover expense, but, 106 pages later, the little balloon goes pop! And you’re left with a novel-sized short story taking up valuable space in your bookshelf.

I know I haven’t touched upon the matter of the story at all in this overview – if I did, there would be no point in you even looking it out for a read. All that I can say about the effort is that Susan Hill must be feeling very ill-served by her publisher. I can’t blame her if she is.

Three tentacled horrors

The Whitechapel Golem - Notes

This story is designed to fill a gap between a Keeper’s regular, Mythos-based adventures. It helps to raise the profile of the team of Investigators (by having them solve an Occult, not necessarily Lovecraftian, mystery), it provides them with a genuine (albeit low-powered) Mythos tome with useful spells, and helps boost some flagging SAN points without savaging the players’ worldview too much. It hardly needs to be said, although I’m mentioning it anyway, that the Keeper who chooses to run this game shouldn’t tell their players that it’s called “The Whitechapel Golem” – once the ‘G-word’ is out there in the open, the story loses much of its punch!

Rewards:

Defeating the Golem: +1D6 SAN points;

For each member of the Golem’s ‘hit-list’ still alive at the end of the adventure: 2 points per intended victim;

If David Cohen survives: +1D6 SAN points (plus the 2 points above);

If the players facilitate the engagement of David and Ruth: +1D4 SAN points;

If the players actively facilitate the chastisement of the Rabbi by story’s end: +1D4 SAN points;

If Benjamin Maylott survives: +1D4 SAN points.

If the Golem remains unvanquished: -6 SAN points;

If David Cohen dies: -1D6 SAN points;

If Benjamin Maylott dies: -1D4 SAN points.

*****

Despite some gruesome deaths along the way, I’ve kept the SAN loss on these events fairly low and left things to the Keeper’s discretion. Loss of Sanity upon discovering a corpse is largely modified by the finders’ familiarity with the victim. Should the party have met Simeon Goldschmidt and have been brought in to the adventure by this NPC, discovering his dead body might justify a 1/1D6 SAN point loss later on, as in the case of seeing Tom Bamford being killed. Blasting sanity is really dependent upon what sort of horror story the Keeper is going for.

There are lots of unqualifiable possibilities with this tale, that depend upon the players’ engagement with the narrative and their roleplaying nous. The thwarted lovers, Ruth and David, can be brought together; Rabbi Maylott can be made to see the error of his ways: I have added Rewards for achieving these goals above, but some teams may not be so interested in such story-based objectives, so I leave it to the Keeper’s discretion.

Other rewards accruing to the players are as follows:

Lord Batwick will be very pleased if the mill dispute turns out favourably and if his chief foreman’s murder is avenged. The influence of having a Peer of the Realm on side cannot be understated.

Benjamin Maylott, if he survives, will be a handy resource for the party if any other Hebrew weirdness comes their way, or if there are ramifications from having the Sepher ha-Sha'are ha-Daath in their possession...

*****

Relocating the Story.

This is a Gaslight Era Call of Cthulhu tale and works best for that period. All that the Keeper need do is to integrate their players and it should run smoothly.

If the Keeper’s story arc places the Investigator in the US, then the story can be re-located to, say, New York, with little difficulty. Places and handouts will have to be altered to fit the milieu, but it is do-able. “Lord” Batwick would have to become just Henry Batwick, wealthy mill owner and financier, but his role would remain fundamentally the same.

Transplanting the story to the 1920s Classic Era Call of Cthulhu setting would involve some extra work, but could be achieved. The Jewish communities of the East End of London were on the wane in the ‘20s but they still existed. References to Jack the Ripper and the levels of crime in the district contain less force and are less of a threat, and so should be toned down somewhat. Urban poverty, disease and lawlessness had been largely addressed by this stage so the Keeper should bear this in mind before creating any anachronistic faux pas.

Taking the narrative across the Pond at this time is easier than leaving it in England. If set in New York, the Prohibition backdrop and the general tenor of gangland lawlessness in Manhattan lends a better atmosphere to the story. Perhaps some of the tailors are running hooch in their fabric supplies, or turning over their warehouses and workshops to operate as speakeasies after hours: the possibility of having the golem slither into a nightclub through the eye-slit in the front door is too cool an image to ignore!

Updating the story to a Cthulhu Now setting is probably too problematic, and the Keeper is advised to come up with some other narrative to bind the elements together. By modern times, the population of London’s East End is mostly Bengali and Islamic, all of the synagogues having become mosques, or having been re-purposed as townhouses or nightclubs. An enterprising Keeper could still fabricate something with a little research.

A Golem Sourcebook

The Sefer Yetsirah:

No story about a golem is complete without a mention of this book. The title translates to “The Book of Formation”, or (incorrectly) “The Book of Creation”, and academic debate is rife as to whether the book’s purpose is an occult, kabbalistic one, or simply an exercise in mathematics.

Traditionally, the book is ascribed to the patriarch Abraham, although some sources say that Adam is the original author and that he passed it on to Noah who then handed it over to Abraham. Many scholars, however, claim that the work was written in the early Medieval period or perhaps earlier, based on the tonal values of vowels used in early transcriptions, possibly around the 2^nd Century CE.

Legends associated with the book claim that it was used to artificially create a calf to be eaten upon the Sabbath day; Abraham is said to have created such a beast to feed the three angels who visited him and foretold that his wife Sarah would soon give birth.

Versions of the book are available and mention of the golem can be found within its pages.

Jewish Folklore:

Traditional golem stories read more like fairytales and they are intended that way, as they discuss the hubris of mankind and the danger of over-reaching oneself. It's only fairly recently that tales about golems have taken on a sinister cast. Still, the early legends are essential for understanding the 'golem rationale', so into Fairyland we go!   

There are quite a few books out there concerned with Jewish legends and folk traditions. Golem stories traditionally involve the famous Rabbi Loewe of Prague, who created a golem to free his community from oppression at the hands of a cruel (sometimes just misinformed) ruler. Most of the later golem lore starts here. Below are two handy titles for those interested.

Schwartz, Howard (Ed.), Miriam’s Tambourine: Jewish Folktales from Around the World, Oxford University Press, 1988.

Patai, Raphael (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions, Routledge, 2012.

Golem Novels:

The proliferation of fantasy writing has seen the golem concept take off in various directions including some humorous examples from the pen of the late, great, Terry Pratchett. Many of these takes tend to err on the funny side rather than the horrific and so I offer the following as better fare for Call of Cthulhu players, especially the Meyrink which oozes atmosphere.

Meyrink, Gustav, The Golem, Kurt Wolff, Leipzig, Germany, 1915.

Weisel, Elie, The Golem, Summit, New York, NY, USA, 1983.

Bashevis Singer, Isaac, The Golem, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, New York, NY, USA, 1982.

Rogasky, Barbara, The Golem: A Version, Holiday House, New York, NY, USA, 1996.

Visual Aids:

There aren’t a lot of golem-based cinematic offerings this side of “Charmed” or “Supernatural”. The ones I can best recommend are the following: the Wegener movie has lots of moody visuals, but also a fairly earthy and broad sense of humour which you may wish to ignore; on the other hand, the X-Files episode has Kim Manners (RIP) at the helm, so you know you’re in good hands!

Wegener, Paul, & Carl Boese, “Der Golem (wie er in die Welt kam)”, Projektions-AG Union, 1920 (there was also an earlier version in 1915, but it's harder to find).

Manners, Kim, The X-Files, Season 4: “Kaddish”, Ten Thirteen Productions, Twentieth Century Fox, 1997.

Other "Golems":

Of course there are many parallels between the golem legend and other stories where foolish mortals use god-like powers to produce results which they probably should have left well enough alone. A modern-ish take on the golem is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (along with its many cinematic interpretations) and of course there's HPL's infamous "Herbert West: Reanimator" for a more directly Lovecraftian inspiration!

Oh! And don't forget that freaky broom from Fantasia!

*****

If you liked this tale and enjoyed running it for your group, let me know how it went. I'm always open to hearing about how my scenarios could be improved upon, so let me know if you have any ideas!

Enjoy!

The Whitechapel Golem - Part III

What’s Next?

From here on in the story really runs on rails: eventually, the golem is going to either break free from the tenuous hold that Benjamin has over it, or it will run out of victims and fade into the background, purposeless and undirected – until it breaks free from Benjamin’s tenuous control!

The Keeper should keep in mind that the Jews of Whitechapel, especially the older citizens, cannot detect the creature (unless, of course, it attacks them directly), but that the Gentiles are not so blinded.

Lord Batwick is Not Amused...

With the death of his master foreman, Lord Henry weighs in and demands that something be done. He contacts the police and demands that Rabbi Maylott be arrested on suspicion of murder. This is not such a stretch: the Rabbi has been shouting to the world about his woes and has attacked Lord Batwick’s workers, his clients, and himself personally, warning of vengeance and threats against person and property. The Peer arrives in person to see that the troublesome cleric is put away and nods in grim satisfaction as the police officers apply the manacles. A crowd of onlookers – some of them very vocal in their opposition to this treatment of the holy man – gathers to watch: amongst them is the golem, and Lord Batwick is soon the latest addition to his ‘hit list”.

The gaoling of Rabbi Maylott is a crucial part of the narrative. While he languishes in his cell, the golem is sure to move on to the next victim on its list (Simeon Goldschmidt) thus proving that the Rabbi is not the mysterious murderer and that there is no legitimate reason why he should be imprisoned. Rest assured that he will berate everyone who comes to release him for their ineptitude and lack of respect!

Inevitably...

...The golem is going to break free of Benjamin’s control. Even though the chance of this happening increases dramatically with each death, the base chance increases by 5% each week the golem hangs around, despite its activities. Once this happens, Benjamin will automatically be aware of the severed connexion between them, and understand that the creature he created is coming after him with a vengeance. The first thing that Benjamin will do is rush off to find the Investigators (assuming that they have been fairly prominent in trying to solve the mystery) or David Cohen, who will then drag the errant scholar to the Investigators.

Benjamin has with him an old book. He explains that he found it in a barrow in Petticoat Lane and bought it for a shilling. He thought that it was just an old cabbalistic work, probably Portuguese or Spanish in origin; it turned out to be something quite different.

The book is the Sepher ha-Sha’are ha-Daath, written in 1664 by the discredited Nathan of Gaza, and which is the nearest thing to a Hebrew version of the Necronomicon. Benjamin reveals that he found a spell within the work which would create a golem and that he used it to show his father that he could be of some use to him in his crusade, rather than the cringing, sickly child which his parent always accused him of being. What he wasn’t prepared for however, was the toll that the spell would take on him and the cost of trying to control the creature which he unleashed.

With this information, the party can formulate a means of shutting the golem down and returning the streets of Whitechapel to normal once more. The Sepher ha-Sha’are ha-Daath has a formula for reversing the original incantation; however, it is time-consuming. In the meantime the monster has to be prevented from its killing spree: this effectively breaks the party of investigators into two groups – the hunters and the magic workers.

Uncreating A Golem

The original spell called for the caster to create a cloth doll of shatnez material and, on the Sabbath, utter an incantation while immersing the doll in pig’s blood. The caster must ritually prepare for this blasphemous rite by fasting for a full day, eating nothing from before dawn until after sunset, all the while concentrating on the creation of the creature. At the end of the Sabbath ritual, the caster loses 5 points of POW and the spell is done.

In order to undo the spell, it effectively must be performed in reverse. On the Sabbath, after fasting, the doll must be bathed in clean water to remove the blood and then it must be unmade, and the linen separated from the wool. Benjamin still has the poppet – made from two vaguely human-shaped pieces of woollen felt crudely sewn together with linen thread and stuffed with cotton wadding – and he willingly surrenders this to the Investigators, along with the cursed book. Undoing the spell costs 15 Magic Points, pooled from amongst all the spell’s practitioners. In order to discover this information, the Investigators must first read the Sepher ha-Sha’are ha-Daath, and suffer the commensurate SAN losses which this entails.

Sepher ha-Sha’are ha-Daath; 1664 AD - Nathan of Gaza

This work, whose title translates as the “Book of the Gates of Knowledge”, contains a commentary on two chapters of what the author – the cabbalist, Nathan of Gaza – refers to as the Book of the Alhazred. He discusses the notion that Abdul Alhazred travelled on a quest to the ‘land of the Qlipoth’, the shards of a former reality, in order to redeem them, and that this was his greatest accomplishment. It is said that this commentary is the closest thing to a Hebrew version of the Necronomicon.

Nathan of Gaza later supported Shabbetai Tsevi in his attempt to be identified as the Messiah; the subsequent conversion of Tsevi to Islam in 1666, dramatically ended his claim and brought Nathan of Gaza into general disrepute.

Examining this book isn’t easy. As the reader begins to partake of the passages, they start to hear unintelligible whispers, distant at first but growing more incessant, with utterances that sound like the reader’s name. Along with this audial hallucination, the reader starts to see movement out of the corner of their eye. Sleeping becomes difficult and awakening with a start becomes commonplace. Eventually, the combined effects of these two phenomena will raise the reader’s anxiety to fever pitch, resulting in the SAN loss for reading the work. The effects die away after about a week, as long as the reader puts some distance between themselves and the book.

Hebrew; Nathan of Gaza; 1664 AD; 1d4/2d4 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +8 percentiles; 13 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: “To Build a Man of Truth” (Create Golem); “To Banish a Demon” (Cast Out Devil); “A Mystic Gesture” (Voorish Sign); “A Circle of Protection” (Warding)

Obviously the party needs to be able to read Hebrew in order to access the book’s capabilities. This is easily circumvented by having Benjamin handy to translate the text, as is the lengthy study time required, since he’s already done the hard yards.

*****

Fighting a Golem

There is another way to defeat a golem: the word upon its forehead which animates it and gives it life, is composed of three letters; if the first of these letters is removed or defaced, the golem is instantly destroyed. Most golems have the word written upon them and wiping out the offending letter is tricky, but not impossible. In this case, Benjamin went the extra mile and embroidered the letters on the golem – not so easy to remove (and the KwikUnpik^© wasn’t invented at this time – I checked!).

So the party is in place to mount a two-pronged attack – while the spell-slingers make with the magic mojo, the brawn of the party can get out on the streets to try and take the beastie down by main force. This is not as easy as it sounds.

Unless the letters are removed or the spell completed, the golem will re-appear fully-healed and animate at the next sunset, no matter how much damage is inflicted upon it. And damaging it isn’t that easy:

Impaling weapons don’t work against it. This extra damage will never happen against something made of cloth;

Falls don’t affect it. Pushing it off a ledge from a great height or dropping it in a pit are pretty much useless;

It has Armour. Being made of insensate matter means that most damage is dulled right down;

Acid and other chemicals are useless. Corrosive substances thrown at the golem inflict 1 point a round for 1D4 rounds;

It doesn’t breathe. Thus, gas weapons and noxious vapours won’t work against it and it can’t be drowned;

Wool doesn’t burn that easily. The golem can be lit on fire, but wool is a natural fire-retardant, so fires do half the standard damage. Even if it is burnt to ashes, it will still reappear the next sunset, fully formed, if that letter isn’t removed or the spell completed;

Water, in sufficient quantities, will slow it down. Splashing water on it won’t do; it needs a good, solid soaking until it is drenched. At that point its movement rate is reduced to half and it will no longer be able to Climb.

Keep in mind that the golem is almost completely silent. When it moves it makes only the sound that cloth makes brushing against things: it doesn’t make footfalls, and it can’t speak. It likes to attack from ambush, using the roofs and its Strangle attack (which can stretch up to twenty feet away). And always remember that it can completely flatten itself to slither up chimneys, under doors, through narrow windows and past barred grilles. This will be especially frustrating for the party if they think that they can trap it somewhere. Also keep in mind that in a locale like Petticoat Lane, or any of the other secondhand clothes markets that populate the East End, it can slump down to look just like the contents of a rummage sale. With some careful thinking, the Keeper can provide the Investigators with perhaps the most fiendish quarry they have ever encountered!

An Extra Wrinkle...

The foregoing material is probably enough to keep a relatively active group of Investigators busy for a few nights of gaming. However, if the Keeper wants a denser and more nuanced narrative, here is a little sub-plot which might intrigue their players.

The golem is a product of the community to which it ‘belongs’. Its attitude depends on the state of that community: if the people are fractious and divided, the golem becomes ropable; if the people are unified in their aims, then the golem becomes more helpful and dependable. This ‘gestalt-mind’ effect is a way to flag what’s going on to Investigators with an eye for detail.

Upon discovering Abraham van der Vat’s death, some may wonder what happened to the contents of his strongbox (which he was counting just before he was attacked). There are many prosaic reasons for the gold’s absence: his widow cleared it away, or the police trousered it during their investigation. But what if the golem took it? The monster’s actions are affected by the community’s needs and desires, so perhaps, in killing Abraham, the golem became fixated upon the gold and decided to keep it. This leads to interesting places:

When the body of Shlomo Carjaval is discovered, it will be seen to have gold sovereigns scattered around it, and these will be identified as those missing from Abraham’s office (his habit of biting gold coins gives this away). A Spot Hidden roll will determine that Shlomo is wearing a broken gold chain around his neck and questioning will reveal that he used to wear a gold locket containing a picture of his wife: it can’t be found at the crime scene.

When Tom Bamford is hanged, nothing from his personal effects goes astray, and nothing of Shlomo’s is discovered upon his corpse. After Simeon Goldschmidt is killed, his gold watch goes missing, and Shlomo’s locket, with its daguerreotype of his wife and a lock of her hair, is found in his mouth.

Myron de Witt’s corpse is discovered without its trademark gold-tasseled fez, but Simeon’s watch is lying dropped nearby. When (if!) David Cohen is killed, the fez covers his face. This signals the last victim on Benjamin’s “To Do” list, assuming he hasn’t lost control of the creature by then. The Keeper will have to devise other ‘clues’ to scatter around if other victims are required; note, however, that the golem doesn’t lift items from Gentiles.

The Whitechapel Golem - Part II...

Welcome to Whitechapel

“The Jewish poor are independent and self-supporting, and keep up the ceremonies of their nation under the most adverse circumstances...”

-Walter Thornbury, Old and New London, 1878

Wandering in and out of the East End of London is certainly not for the faint-hearted. In the Gaslight era, the region was a slum, ranged along the length of Whitechapel Road, and penetrating back into the alleys on either side. A signature feature of the area was the manufacturing of clothing and draperies and the brewing of ales and beers. The predominantly Jewish tailoring community made clothes for their wealthy patrons in the west of the city, but those same items of apparel returned to the markets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields to be recycled or turned into rags for paper. This fabric reclamation mentality gave rise to the famous Petticoat Lane, a place where, in the 1700s, clothes were recycled for the poor and men could dip into a bag for a shilling a go to retrieve a random wig discarded by the wealthy.

Whitechapel Road is lined on either side with houses owned by the moderately well-off; however, behind this facade there lurks a den of iniquity which used the benign street frontage as a mask to obscure random acts of violence, deceit and abuse. Some alleys contained infamous rookeries, semi-permanent ramshackle houses occupied by far too many itinerant tenants, often formed into thieving collectives of the Oliver Twist variety. Prostitutes wandered the streets and used “dosses” – interior spaces paid for by the night, or hour - to accommodate their clients. These dosses were also the last resort of the homeless, who bargained for their usage each day in order to avoid freezing on the streets overnight. St. Botolph’s church in Mitre Square was known locally as the “Prostitutes’ Church” because they would circle around it looking for clients. In 1888, the area was cleared of their activity for awhile during the rampage of a certain “Jack” who preyed upon them...although, it must be said, he wasn’t the only one.

When deciding to visit this part of the city, Investigators should be well-prepared. The main thoroughfare along Whitechapel Road is lit by gaslights during the nights, but the side streets and alleys are not so furnished. Cutpurses and thugs roam the shadows looking for easy marks, and these criminals might be as young as six-years-old as often as they are of a more mature vintage. Well-dressed men will be cat-called by whores and well-dressed ladies will find themselves the targets of even less salubrious attention if unaccompanied. It’s wise to know where the police stations are and to carry a weapon of some kind...along with the wherewithal to use it.

The Jewish community here represents the genteel poor of the region. Jewish families emigrated here from Holland, Russia and Spain during the previous centuries and have formed their own enclave. Most Jewish households are those which line Whitechapel Road and are multi-storey buildings opening directly onto the street. There are many synagogues here as well, and they too face directly onto Whitechapel Road. The Russian Vapour Baths at 86 Brick Lane was a centre of Jewish social and religious life, as Jewish men gathered here on Friday evenings after work before attending religious ceremonies prior to the Sabbath. Finally, there are a number of burying grounds in the area which cater exclusively to the needs of the Jewish community.

The Ghost’s Afoot!

It should be fairly obvious to the party by this time that something peculiar is going on and that it falls fairly comfortably within their bailiwick. There are any number of leads that they may wish to pursue and the Keeper should let them organise their day as they see fit. If they’ve noticed that the younger members of the Jewish community are the only ones who seem to sense a sort of unease in the district, they may wish to follow up on this with some discreet questioning; the police can walk the players through the last few weeks of criminal activity, none of which directly seems to involve the Jews (although Rabbi Maylott has been asked to move along a few times, in the middle of several loud, public tirades). They may wish to visit David Cohen at his workshop or they may wish to examine the scene of Abraham van der Vat’s murder – let them find their own way forward.

The Crime Scene

The van der Vat establishment is closed for business and the party will need a policeman or some other authority figure (David Cohen, for example) accompanying them in order to gain access. Within the dusty, fabric-bolt festooned workspace they will find a double rank of treadle sewing machines on one side and several large cutting tables on the other. Mannequins stand in the corners and sticks of tailor’s chalk swing from strings attached to the rafters. To one side is a large door before which stand a trio of steps: through this door was Abraham’s inner sanctum and counting room, where he kept his strong-box and his accounts. Mrs van der Vat sits weeping on a three-legged stool near this door attended by her three daughters – Antje, Helga and Bertha: she submits to David’s commiserations if he is accompanying the party; she angrily turns from any police officers, or Tom Bamford, and pretends not to be able to speak English, berating them in furious Dutch. The daughters will acknowledge the investigators and direct them silently into the office.

(A side note here: there are a number of full-length mirrors in the workshop, on frames and attached to the walls. All of these have been draped with fabric, in line with Jewish traditions associated with death and mourning. An Occult Roll will highlight this for any curious Investigators, otherwise one of the van der Vat daughters, or David, can enlighten the querist.)

Inside the office, there is a scattering of papers and a chair turned on its side on the floor. The furniture of the roll-top desk is in complete disarray with ink staining the woodwork. Bolts of fabric normally standing upright in the corners of the room lie tumbled all around. In the centre of the cramped space is an open strongbox (contents removed) and a few drops of blood. In the wall over the desk is a narrow and heavily barred window which, if tried, only opens inwards a few inches. The glass has been whitewashed to allow light to pass through but no visual access from outside. The door has a solid lock built into the handle and – now broken – a very sturdy padlock for extra security. No matter how long the party searches here, they find no secret doors or panels and no floorboards which can be easily (or otherwise) lifted – there’s not even a chimney or air vent. Those who check will see that the bottom edge of the single door clears the floorboards by a good inch...

Some Investigators may decide that something spectral is occurring and might decide to use whatever means they see fit to determine the presence of ghosts or other similar phenomena: whatever they use will absolutely fail – it’s possible that they “ain’t afraid o’ no ghosts”, but there are none here to be afraid of.

The Cohen Residence

The party may wish to visit David Cohen, as the organiser of the Whitechapel Confederation of Tailors and Drapers, to discuss the death of Abraham van der Vat and the issues surrounding the Mills. When last we saw David, he had been biffed on the head by a cobblestone, so the Keeper must remember to reincorporate this injury into the follow-up meeting.

The Cohen residence is a small, tidy but shabby, terrace house – two up, two down – facing onto Whitechapel Road. David lives here alone with his aged mother. He explains to anyone interested, that his father died from tuberculosis many years ago, and that his brothers have moved out to find their own way: one has become a foreman at a mill in Newcastle up north, while the other left for South Africa to make his fortune on the goldfields. David’s mother is merely a querulous voice emanating from a back room during the party’s visit, but he is very solicitous of her needs and displays himself as the dutiful son.

David is happy to discuss all things “shmatta” (that is, “clothes”, in Yiddish) and acknowledges Rabbi Maylott’s concerns regarding the changes to the mill operations; however, he is practical enough to recognise that Lord Batwick has the right to make money as he sees fit. He is keen to try and find a solution that benefits everybody, and he has been assured that Lord Batwick has the same goals. If anyone suggests that Abraham van der Vat was murdered as a result of the dispute, David is incredulous. No-one, he is sure, would go to such outrageous lengths.

While discussing issues, a knock comes at the door and David opens it in answer. Outside, is a bespectacled youth whom David greets warmly as “Benjamin”. The lad has come calling on behalf of his father, Rabbi Maylott, seeking after Ruth. David sternly assures the lad that he would not meet Ruth improperly, without both the rabbi’s consent and a chaperone, and therefore it’s unlikely that she would be at his house. Benjamin freely acknowledges this state of affairs, and goes on to ask if David had heard about van der Vat’s death. David reassures the youth that everything that can be done about that is being done and that he should not dwell on the matter. Benjamin nods ruefully and makes his exit.

Investigators who witness this exchange are allowed to make a Psychology Roll. Benjamin seemed not only to know that Ruth would be unlikely to be at David’s house, and that the excuse was therefore a sketchy one used as a pretext for something else. It would seem that Benjamin wanted actually to discuss the murder with David and, that being the case, it would seem that he knows something about it: has he perhaps got a guilty conscience?

If any party member follows Benjamin to confront him on this matter, the lad pales, breaks into a sweat and pleads unwell, fleeing the interrogation and escaping back to his father’s house. The party may chew this morsel over...

A Second Death!

That night, while inspecting his workshop floor, Shlomo Carvajal is attacked. Next morning when his employees show up for work, they are surprised to find the factory doors shut and locked. One of them breaks a window to peer inside and, as a result of what he sees, the police are called. Shlomo is found lying on the wooden floor between the pattern-cutting tables: his eyes are wide with shock but his mouth is shut, apparently bound by something so tightly that it dislocated his jaw. He lies on his back staring upwards to the louvered skylights: all of his limbs have been wrenched off, twisted away from his torso and, apparently, all at the same time, as if he’d been quartered by horses in the medieval fashion. The limbs have been flung in four random directions and can be located nearby. Like van der Vat, he displays many joint dislocations and ligature marks, although, while van der Vat seems to have been squeezed to death, Carvajal has obviously been torn asunder. Like van der Vat too, there is no evidence of a break-in and no clear notion of how someone could have gained access.

As with the previous death, the police take charge of the crime scene and remove the body for examination; as before, if the Investigators developed a good rapport with the Medical Examiner, they may go with the corpse and be in at the autopsy. A number of reporters appear outside the Carvajal workshop and make themselves fairly intrusive by way of questioning and photography; if the party is known for its “dabbling in the mysterious” they may be identified as the ‘ghostbusters in residence’ and will be acknowledged as such in the press.

The Rabbi Weighs In...

This is just too good for Rabbi Maylott to leave alone. If the party wanders back to Whitechapel Road, they will find a large crowd of agitated locals cluttering up the footpath outside of the rabbi’s home. He is standing in his doorway, talking loudly about how this death is just further evidence of the unholy taint of sin which is reeking through the district. He points fingers not only at the police for not being able to apprehend the culprit in these crimes (as they were unable to do with the Ripper murders), but also at the Confederation of Whitechapel Tailors and Drapers for colluding in the corruption of fabrics being brought into the workshops. He claims that these deaths are sent by God as punishment and will not end until all shatnez material is identified and removed from the workshops and the mills. As can be seen, Rabbi Maylott is a man who likes to have his cake and eat it too.

Standing by the rabbi, with her arms crossed and a determined set to her jaw, is Ruth, who obviously disagrees with everything that he is saying. Standing behind them in the doorway is Benjamin, looking shaken and pale: when Maylott begins to speak of the murders as being sent by God as a punishment, he visibly quails and flees deeper into the house, causing Ruth to pursue him anxiously. Once more the party may feel that Benjamin is harbouring something that needs revealing...

A Late Newsflash!

That evening the late editions of the newspapers are alive with reports about the grisly death; some of these touch upon the Investigators’ involvement in the case and draw long bows to the supernatural. Most however, claim that the murders are a continuation of the police ineptitude that allowed the Ripper to escape justice in 1888. From now on, co-operation from the Metropolitan Police is grudging and hard-won.

Some close readers of the various news articles will notice that there is a discrepancy between the reports as to how many individuals were employed by Carvajal and how many were present at the discovery of the body that morning. As well, there is something dodgy about one of the photographs...

Mayhem in the Night!

As night falls over the district the players may wish to patrol the neighbourhood and to try and capture the mysterious “Ghost”. If they have made favourable in-roads with the local constabulary, the police may allow the group to accompany their patrolmen on their beats – certainly these officers will not rebuff any individual requests to accompany them on their rounds, regardless of whether their superiors may feel indisposed towards allowing it officially. Thomas Bamford is eager to undertake a patrol, bringing-in some of his workers from the mills to assist, and even David will gird his loins and step up. However these vigilantes gather and organise themselves, they will be in for a busy night!

First and foremost, the Keeper will have to maintain a few things in mind. David, as a Jew, cannot see the golem at all, although he will sense its brooding presence, which varies in intensity. The same is also true of any party members who are Jewish. If the creature hasn’t yet broken free of Benjamin’s loose control, it will be unable to harm David – Benjamin is saving him until last out of respect for his sister’s feelings. Therefore, wherever David is, that’s the safest place to be.

Conversely, Thomas Bamford is next on the golem’s ‘hit list’, so wherever he is, there is bound to be trouble. However the party decides to deploy itself into the night, Bamford chooses to take his men and head northwards towards Brick Lane; he says that he will move counter-clockwise past the Russian Vapour Baths at 86 Brick Lane and then work his way back around to the Pavilion Theatre, there to await the rest of the vigilantes. If some party members choose to accompany him, they can do so.

Needless to say, Thomas doesn’t get that far. As he reaches the old Huguenot Chapel at the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane, spiralling lengths of fabric swing down from above and drag him sharply upwards, anchoring him to the sundial that crowns the entrance of that building, twenty feet above the street. Those accompanying him will see him jerk upwards into the pea-soup fog and hear his horrible choking as they scramble to assist. All too soon his body falls back to earth with a thud, his face blue, eyes bulging, tongue protruding (SAN Roll: 1/1D6).

Investigations later in the day, when the sun is up and the fog has cleared, will discover a length of twined fabric scraps forming a short piece of crude rope tangled around the gnomen of the sundial – a cord of linen and wool. The inscription on the sundial reads (in Latin) “Umbra Sumus” – “We Are Shadows”.

*****

Benjamin Maylott

An introvert and a shining example of the quality of student that the local yeshivas are producing, the Rabbi’s son has a secret, something that has terrified him to the point of withdrawing from anyone who could help him with it. Benjamin has a habit of scrounging for old books in the barrows and stores along the streets; it was here that he discovered a battered old book – the Sefer ha-Sha’are ha-Daath (“Book of the Gates of Knowledge”) – and thinking that it might contain some interesting commentaries on the Sefer Yetsirah, brought it home to read. The book does contain commentary on that other tome; it also has a bunch of other stuff that a yeshiva student ought not to look at without guidance from an instructor.

Benjamin has a lot of issues with his father who drives him mercilessly and who feels that his son doesn’t quite live up to expectations. Benjamin has followed the angst that the local factory has caused amongst the community and, in one stroke, has taken action to show his father his willingness to thwart the troubles and show him how clever a scholar he is. Benjamin found the recipe for making a golem in the old book and, fuelling it with the community’s outrage against the factory, has let it loose.

There was a price though. Benjamin has been shaken by how much the process took out of him and, pleading ill, has taken to his bed. He is slowly starting to realise that his ability to control the monster is limited indeed and, now that he has discovered his sister’s romantic involvement with one of the golem’s targets, he can sense the resentment of the creature swinging his way. He knows he will have to do something eventually, but he knows not what. In the meantime, bed is a good place to hide...

Son of a Rabbi

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	9	POW	7(12)	Age	17
CON	10	DEX	12	HP	10
SIZ	10	APP	7	Magic Points	1
INT	17	EDU	19	SAN	52

Damage Bonus: +/-0

Weapon:       None

Armour:        None

Skills:             Sewing 65%; Feign Illness 55%

Spells             Create Golem

SAN Loss       It costs no SAN to see Benjamin Maylott (unless he is horribly killed)

The Whitechapel Golem

Unlike the typical creature usually encountered in legend, this golem is constructed from cloth, specifically the shatnez at the cause of the community conflict. The word “Aemaeth” has been embroidered upon its forehead making the excising of that all-important letter somewhat tricky in organising the creature’s demise.

Golems are, at best, moody servitors. They know that they are abominations, transgressions of the holy order of the universe and thus, they resent being brought to life. Further, they conduct themselves according to the abiding sentiment of the community for which they have been brought into being to serve: if they emerge within a restless, divisive and angry community, that is how they will behave. It takes the active involvement of a strong and righteous rabbi to adequately control a golem – something that is quite lacking in this tale.

Since the animus which motivates the creature comes from the gestalt-mind of the community, it is able to mingle amongst its ‘own kind’ without being noticed. Members of the congregation will have a ‘blind spot’ in regard to the beast – they will see just another familiar person rather than a stranger, and think nothing of their presence: in retrospect, they may invent plausible identities for the stranger, but without absolute certainty as to who they actually were. Outsiders, on the other hand, may see an extra, unaccounted-for individual and be concerned when the other Jewish persons present fail to notice them. The manifestation of the golem is not completely unremarked however: the faithful will feel its oppressive, angry presence amongst them, coupled with sensations of being watched, or followed, even haunted. Of course, when it attacks someone - Jewish or otherwise - they become acutely aware of its presence.

The Golem can assume two distinct forms in this tale: it can appear as a silent, dark-attired male figure, wearing a yarmulke and with ringlet sidelocks hanging before his ears; or it can manifest as a scarecrow-like agglomeration of material, shaped as a vaguely-humanoid giant, a shape it uses to attack its victims. In any form it is able to slump down into a pile of cloth and become completely camouflaged in, say, a tailor’s workshop. As well, it is able to slip easily through windows, between bars, and under doors, gaining access where a human assailant would not be able to pass.

Again, like all such creatures, the golem resists its enslavement to the community will and seeks freedom, initially by the expedient of dispatching its creator. As time goes by and the monster’s SIZ and STR become unmanageable, the creator will break cover and seek aid in avoiding their fate (possibly regretting the act of stitching the animating word upon the golem!).

Like other golems, this automaton is animated by the mystic word on its brow. This word – Aemaeth – translates as ‘Truth’; removing the first letter reduces it to Maeth – literally, ‘he is dead’. Of course, our heroes possibly don’t read Hebrew. The word looks like this:

Hebrew is read right to left, not left to right like English, so it’s possible that the Investigators might attempt to efface the wrong symbol!

Rag Trade Automaton

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	24	POW	12	Age	n/a
CON	17	DEX	4	HP	18
SIZ	19	APP	n/a	Magic Points	12
INT	4	EDU	n/a	SAN	n/a

Damage Bonus: +2D6

Weapon:       Crush 35% (1D6+2D6db); Fist 45% (1D6+½db); Strangle 45% (1D6+1D6db)

Armour:        9-points of insensate linen and wool

Skills:             Climb 80%; Hide (from Gentiles) 75%; Sneak (around Gentiles) 70%

Spells             None

SAN Loss       It costs 0/1D6 SAN to see a Golem

This golem attacks with two club-like limbs at the beginning and the end of each round; if both strikes succeed against the same target, it may then start to Crush the opponent the next round. Alternatively, it may lash out with spiralling tendrils of cloth and try to Strangle a single opponent up to 20 feet away: if successful, it can continue choking its victim over the next few rounds but can perform no other attacks on other opponents. To release a Strangled victim, those coming to their assistance, must combine their STR and overcome the golem’s current STR on the Resistance Table.

This golem increases in power much as others of its ilk; however, this particular monster evolves in a very different fashion. For each victim it kills, it grows exponentially larger and stronger; as well, the chance of it breaking free of its creator’s control increases exponentially for each victim. Use the following table to track its growth.

Victim	STR	SIZ	HP	db	Chance of Breaking Free
Abraham van der Vat	24	19	18	+2D6	5% (failed)
Shlomo Carvajal	25	20	19	+2D6	15%
Thomas Bamford	27	22	20	+2D6	30%
Simeon Goldschmidt	30	25	21	+2D6	50%
Myron de Witt	34	29	23	+3D6	75%
David Cohen	39	34	26	+4D6	105%

Benjamin’s control over the creature is nominal at best, enough to stop the monster attacking himself, the Rabbi, or Ruth, and to keep it focussed on the members of the Confederation of Whitechapel Tailors and Drapers – for now. If it breaks free of even this slight impedance, it will target Benjamin immediately, then go on a mad rampage attacking everything and everyone...