*** Session 14 - Scene 10 (of 10) ***

Driving back to the office, Le Doux asks for more information about Jerboa. Eberhardt tries to explain, but his use of "cone" continues to get in the way.

Le Doux decides they'll need to go back to the office first. Once there, Le Doux has Madge take the men into the bathroom to clean them off. While she takes care of the others, Le Doux gets them a couple of his spare pairs of pants and gives them some coffee since he thinks they are still drunk (or perhaps high on horse tranquilizers).

Meanwhile, in a different part of town, Hawk uses the money from Le Doux's safe to buy some new pistols since clearly the others are in need. He smiles at his good deed for the day.

When he's done with that, Hawk resupplies his car with flammables then heads back to the office.

As he arrives, Hawk sees Eberhardt and Nibbons have new pairs of pants on and Madge has smoked half a pack of cigarettes.

Le Doux points out the newspaper story on Ella Tau to Nibbons, saying he believes it refers to the Cult of Allatou. Eberhardt points out he already said that, but Le Doux dismisses him as being drunk.

The four of them discuss what the story means for a while. Le Doux believes they should still go to the funeral home, but believes it is a set-up by the cult to trap them.

To that end, Le Doux believes Chester should go undercover at the funeral to scope it out. As he relates his plan, Hawk hands out guns. Le Doux wonders where he got the money for that, but Hawk still believes he is "Bob" so he won't answer.

Using his detective disguise kit, Le Doux applies a fake mustache to Nibbons along with his gray wig. He also gives him a "hobo coat" and applies bushy eyebrows. The effect makes Nibbons look like a cross between Mark Twain and William Howard Taft, who is down on his luck.

Le Doux tells Nibbons to use a fake name and act confused, saying he is there for the funeral of his cousin named Ralph. He wants Nibbons to take notes on who is there and see what is going on.

Hawk isn't so sure about the plan, saying Nibbons should come up with his own cover story that is more believable.

They then drive over to the funeral home, with Hawk insisting on taking his own car. Le Doux drops off Nibbons a couple of blocks away so he can approach on foot.

After they drop off Nibbons, Le Doux drives past the Krupp Funeral Home, slowly. It is a large, old mansion clearly in a state of disrepair.

When Nibbons arrives, he is greeted by a tall, gaunt, older-looking gentleman. Nibbons identifies himself as a friend of the deceased there to pay his respects.

The funeral director asks Nibbons to sign the guest registry. He does so using the unusual alias "Gorn Clinker". The director gives his name as Roderick Krupp, the owner of the funeral home.

Krupp escorts Nibbons inside to the chapel. The inside of the building looks like a normal funeral home. In the chapel he spots an urn up by the podium.

Nibbons looks around at the few people attending the funeral. He recognizes two of them are the Grimes brothers from the warehouse.

Krupp tells Nibbons the service will begin shortly, but Nibbons asks for a bathroom. He quickly heads inside, but is distraught to find it is a simple water closet with no window to escape from.

Looking in the mirror, Nibbons gets nervous he may get spotted. He makes sure his disguise is still believable and keeps his pistol ready before heading back in to the chapel.

Outside, Le Doux looks for a place to park but notices someone watching them from an upper window in the funeral home with binoculars. He believes the man has spotted them.

Le Doux drives around the corner and motions Hawk's car over. When Hawk comes over, Le Doux tells him John Taubert is watching them and the place is full of zombis. However, the plan doesn't go as planned as Hawk floors the accelerator and drives off, leaving Le Doux and Eberhardt wondering what to do next...

*** Session 14 - Session Notes (originally typed up on 4/26) ***

This session was slightly shorter than normal but had a lot going on. In the end, it was a real mix of stuff that didn't go anywhere and some productive advancement on several of the outstanding plotlines. Overall, everyone was happy with the session even if it did devolve into several circular conversations at points.

 Two of the bigger developments - Le Doux getting a new body and Eberhardt's subconscious compulsion to substitute the word "cone", were last-minute ideas I had the day or so before the session.

 Le Doux's new body was an attempt to get around him being stuck in the hospital while critical plots played out. Since I had already introduced the whole "nexus being" thing, I thought I would put it to good use. It also gave me a chance to give his new body a higher CON / hit points to make him a little less fragile, at the cost of more sanity via body horror.

 Eberhardt gained a new derangement last time so that was a matter of deciding what made the most sense. I thought the word substitution thing would be great for adding conflict and comic relief without hampering him too much. Of course, almost everyone is getting a new derangement next session after all the SAN loss this time around...

 Other notes about the session:
 * Like before, I used the Great Race to add some exposition and give some context to everything going on. But in the great tradition of this sort of thing, I brought up more new questions than I answered.

 * Last session, the doctor clearly said Le Doux was going to survive. I had him repeat that this session. The question is, was the cone creature telling the truth to Le Doux or was he lying to further a different agenda.

 * The "is this heaven" line is a frequent joke of people here in Iowa due to the whole Field of Dreams thing (which you can still visit, BTW).

 * Clearly, the Crescent City area has factions of Yig, Hastur, and Nyarlathotep all involved in activities, not to mention Allatou and the Great Race. Oddly enough, Cthulhu himself hasn't been a factor. At least, not yet...

 * The "cascading paradox timequake" thing is intended to sound like Star Trek style techno-jargon. The idea was for the cone creature to make it sound impressive rather than any kind of scientific accuracy.

 * There was some initial confusion during the scene as the player thought his character wouldn't be familiar with "rockets". I had to remind him the concept of a liquid-fueled rocket was new, but not rockets themselves per se.

 * The "watchers out of time" comment is a direct homage to August Derleth's story / collection. Unlike many Lovecraft fans, I don't have a particular issue with Derleth's stories and found the stories in The Watchers Out of Time to be perfectly fine reading (nothing great mind you, but certainly not worth the rapid anti-fandom I've seen online).

 * Le Doux in the white area with the train is intended to be very Matrix-y.

 * The "Cross-Time Central Railroad" comes from a Fantastic Four storyline from the 90's by Tom DeFalco. I thought it would be appropriate enough here.

 * Le Doux's new body is intentionally very different to emphasize the body horror. The mom tattoo, however, is pure humor.

 * The player himself invented the whole "alternate Bob personality" thing. Personally, I thought it was more disruptive than it was worth but it did lead to a lot of humorous banter.

 * Nibbons is unconscious for the first 2/3rds of session because he's our Skype player and his power was out for a while so he joined late.

 * Hawk re-stealing the money from the safe was classic. It becomes something of a brick joke when he uses it to buy the others guns (as a favor) later. The best part is the player doesn't get the humor/irony.

 * Officer Fred Lee is something of a play on "Officer Friendly". His dismissive line to Hawk is taken from The Wire (with a very different context there).

 * Eberhardt getting fired was inevitable at this point, so I had the cops show up to get that Band-Aid ripped off. Him getting sent to the asylum seemed the natural conclusion of his behavior.

 * Le Doux stealing Nibbons' pants made no sense, but was a great setup for later when I used dramatic license to tell them they could only find a pair of Le Doux's golf pants for him.

 * Hawk's conversation with the doctor got pretty bad - it was like a minstrel show skit by the end. I didn't write up the whole thing because the intent was to mock the doctor's racism and I didn't want that to get lost. It's my usual problem with interactions with Hawk - trying to convey the systematic racism of the times without veering into that territory where people can't tell the difference between celebrating something and satirizing it.

 * I've probably gone overboard with Madge as well. What started as a cheap gag using the old "librarian is secretly a dominatrix" trope has gotten increasingly disturbing.

 * The "undercover brother" comment was the result of a series of OOC jokes mixed with in-character dialogue. It's meant as an homage to the Eddie Griffin movie.

 * The "Ella Tau" thing was hilarious because it was intended to be very, very obvious to the players that it is The Committee setting a trap for them; something Hawk missed completely and even Eberhardt didn't totally get.

 * I liked Eberhardt going to the asylum because it gave me a chance to re-introduce Dr. Essex, who clearly knows a lot about what is going on and has plans of his own. I originally meant to give him more time back after the Broncati case but the campaign went in a different direction so I didn't get to use it.

 * Nibbons' information on the Old Spanish Fort and the Marksville tribe was originally intended to be learned back when they first heard about the Old Spanish Fort from Jerboa. But a couple of missed rolls at the time didn't lead to them getting that background.

 * Anyone who's actually been to the Old Spanish Fort in New Orleans will probably realize my description of it bares little resemblance (though it is much closer to other old Spanish forts in the south). That's one of the reasons I don't use the actual city names - I want my game cities to be different and more atmospheric (just like Gotham isn't really Brooklyn or whatever).

 * Donny Martin was a lost cause by this point, even if the PCs had recovered the book (which they still haven't).

 * The creature in the bayou was a Spawn of Abhoth. It was being fed by Broncati and the Hangman from the KKK (though the PCs haven't figured that out yet).

 * The horrific description of the spawn was my initial inspiration for the campaign, based on all the talk in the Republican primaries by Carly Fiorina about the whole Planned Parenthood thing. This isn't intended as a political comment on abortion one way or the other, merely that the discussion inspired me to create a truly horrific monster.

 * The family spotting Eberhardt and Nibbons changing was comic relief. I already had a vision in my mind of the full extended family from the HBO show Big Love, but the Le Doux player believed I only made it a large Mormon family so he couldn't just kill them to sacrifice to the Floating Horror.

 * Le Doux has Nibbons go undercover because the player is terrible at it and thinks it will be funny. This is also why the disguise ends up so outlandish.

 * Roderick Krupp is another Marvel comics-inspired members of The Committee.

 * There is an urn at the funeral because the cover story is Jerboa was cremated, though Nibbons never asked about that. The implication should be that perhaps Jerboa isn't really dead after all...

 * Le Doux really wanted to trick Hawk into blowing up the funeral home with the various Committee members inside, but the Hawk player interpreted his character's reaction much differently (since his belief is Hawk is very superstitious and scared of anything supernatural).

So, there's session 14. Not sure what happened - I posted them to RPG.NET and I always post to both sites at the same time (oddly, I also just noticed I somehow skipped scene 2 when I posted there. Sigh)

Again, since it's been so long, here's what I sent my players about open plotlines (with the note I may have inadvertently left out some things):

The Story So Far...


The Cult of Allatou

The first cell of the Cult of Allatou was discovered during the investigation into the death of Taylor O'Conner. It was led by Scott Prichard, who wanted to use Congressman O'Conner's daughter to bring Allatou back into the flesh. It also included the owner of Gramarye Books, Henry Carstairs. All members of this cult cell were killed by the investigators.

Demonologist Patricia Walker later informed the group of the existence of a second cell of the cult in the area, a cabal of businessmen known as The Committee. Walker is later apparently killed by The Committee, leaving behind the clues of "Grimes, Paffenroth and Roland".

Independently, Fox's investigation into the cult turned up connections to the Tatterdemalion Garment Company (owned by Arnold Paffenroth) and Dolly's Theatre (owned by Percy and Barton Grimes). Fox uncovers a date and time of a meeting by The Committee, but the group fails to follow up because of the Donny Martin investigation.

Nibbons later traces the sale of Gramarye Books' stock of occult tomes back to shipping magnate Maximillian Coleridge. He also discovers Carstairs had a note on a third cell of the cult in the city they have no knowledge of, called The Society. When he goes to investigate Coleridge, Nibbons learns he is another member of the cell but is captured by the cult himself in the process.

Le Doux later discovered and killed some kind of demon being held in the basement of Gramarye Books.

The group subsequently rescues Nibbons from Dolly's Theatre but Jerboa goes missing in the ensuing fight. A later ad for a funeral at the Krupp Funeral Home with her picture and the fake name "Ella Tau" suggests The Committee is attempting to set a trap. Nibbons goes undercover straight into the trap, using the name Gorn Clinker.

 

Dr. Broncati / Missing Occult Tome

Dr. Amenti Broncati was an abortionist who the investigators arrested for the death of Benjamin Devereaux.

He is currently incarcerated in the Crescent City Asylum under the care of Dr. Nathaniel Essex. Dr. Essex appears to have some interest in occult matters himself, but this is not a fact known to the group.

He claims to have worshipped a "demon" that lived in the swamps of Bayou St. John, and "fed" the demon in the swamps with the remains of the fetuses and any mothers who died in the procedure. A later trip into the bayou by the investigators to look for Donny Martin seems to have confirmed the existence of this creature.

When Hawk was robbing Broncati's house after his arrest, he discovered an occult tome but did not take it. The occult tome was later revealed to have been taken by a Black man named Clayton Bigsby, who has since mysteriously disappeared. However, recent interactions with the Klan suggest the mysterious new head of the local Klan, The Hangman, may be in possession of the book (see also, Gangland Connections, below, for more info on the Klan)

 

Jean Batraville / Zombis / The Floating Horror

Jean Batraville was a voodoo cultist worshipping the entity Nyarlathotep, which he called The Floating Horror. He used his powers to raise zombis from the dead to take revenge for the death of his brother during the Second Caco War in Haiti. The group later killed Batraville, but Le Doux kept his occult notes for himself.

 

Donny Martin / Werewolves

Donny Martin was a missing college student who was later revealed to be transforming into a werewolf. He was tied to several murders in the city, at first believed to be linked to the serial killer, The Axeman, who mysteriously stopped killing several years ago. Le Doux was forced to kill Martin, and burned his body in Bayou St. John.

During the investigation, Le Doux learned of a clan of werewolves, the Bowles Clan, living in the remote Segnette Bayou.

While investigating the Bowles' home, the group discovered notes about creatures called the Byakhee and an entity later identified as Hastur. These concepts may or may not be tied into the Indian belief in an evil entity known as the Wyrm.

One of the clan, Jerboa, went missing and is presumed dead in connection to activities with the Cult of Allatou (see above).

 

Gangland Connections

Congressman O'Conner's political boss, Paul Medvig, has ties to Alonzo Patterson. Patterson's men tried to get Le Doux to implicate Matranga associate Bernie the Bookie, but Le Doux didn't really go along with it.

The group has had several indirect interactions with the Matranga family via their pornography operation at the Blue Acadian Bookstore.

One of the men Batraville killed was a bag man for Big Daddy. The group investigated a possible connection between the death and the local Haitian Zobop gang under "Big Mike" Louis, but eliminated them as suspects. Eberhardt later pulled in some favors for the gang to keep the peace.

In exchange for Big Daddy not killing them, Eberhardt and Hawk participated in a muscle job against Harry Apostolou, nephew of Greek crime boss Manolis Apostolou.

Hawk has friends with the Thornton Brothers gang. The gang is currently at war with the Dorsey-Graham gang.

Eberhardt and Le Doux helped the Crowe gang (who run narcotics and prostitution operations in the bayou) negotiate a peace with Thylo Bowles in exchange for a lifetime pass at their prostitution campground.

The missing money for Big Daddy was traced back to small-time bootlegger Mae Kennedy. Le Doux passed along the information to Big Daddy after giving back the money.

The group has had a couple of run-ins with the local Chinese syndicate, the Tsung Tong. The head of the tong, Kei Wong, may or may not be after Hawk after Le Doux's comments to the manager of Lee Ho Fook's.

The Klu Klux Klan has been very active in the area under their new leader, The Hangman. A couple of lynchings have occurred, along with the disappearance of many Black street kids. The Klan also is identified with looking for occult books (see Cult of Allatou, above). Not much is known about the Klan, other than a connection to lawyer Ham Johnson.

Hawk was told by Thornton's men that pawnshop owner T.J. Parker was looking for him because some guy was asking around about Hawk. Hawk later found T.J. dead in his shop, his head bashed in by a baseball bat.

 

Crimes Under Investigation

Eberhardt and Le Doux were spotted (but not identified) by a witness at the murder scene of Patricia Walker. They are still wanted for questioning.

Hawk was under investigation for a couple of deaths at the coroner's office, but Eberhardt later initiated a cover-up to hide those crimes using janitor Ted Johnson.

 

Other Occult Stuff

Le Doux once read a newspaper article about a missing film star, Jason Roland, who disappeared under strange circumstances. A previous attempt to complete the last film he was working on was plagued with problems (including the crew believing the set was haunted). The film is set to try filming again in Crescent City soon.

Le Doux investigated a case of a "Lizard Man" that turned out to be insurance fraud. But during the course of the investigation, learned someone had robbed the history museum of artifacts related to snake men worshipped by Indians. The snake god was later revealed to be known as Yig.

Ted Johnson claimed his brother died mysteriously after crossing a voodoo witch, and was found dead in the crawlspace under his house wearing a clown suit.

Unbeknownst to the group, the Pentex Chemical Company is involved in experiments with the Army to create super soldiers for the next great war. They appear to be using a mix of approaches related to both the Cult of Yig and the remains of the creatures from Lakefront City.

Several members of the group (Eberhardt, Nibbons, and Le Doux) have all been possessed by the minds of The Great Race of Yith – creatures who live beyond space and time. Both Eberhardt and Le Doux remember their "dreams" of interacting with the creatures in a prehistoric civilization where they inhabited the bodies of cone-shaped creatures. The creatures later helped Le Doux change bodies with one of his alternate dimension selves. The creatures mentioned the "flying polyps" as being a threat to them in their current timeline.

Mouse Anthony once told a tale about vampire plantation owners to Hawk.

*** Session 15 - Cast of Characters ***

Boudreaux "Boo" Le Doux: A Cajun and former swamp guide turned private eye who styles himself after hardboiled pulp detective novels.

 Bruno Eberhardt: A 1st generation German immigrant and seasoned police officer. He does some work on the side for Le Doux and others to supplement his income.

 Chester Lee Nibbons: A younger, bookish White guy who works as Le Doux's "partner" in order to pay off a gambling debt to him.

 Benjamin "Hawk" Brooks: A Black street kid turned enforcer. He works as muscle and provides information for Le Doux, for a price.

*** Session 15 - Scene 1 (of 10) ***

Le Doux tells Eberhardt that Nibbons is likely stuck in the funeral home with the cult, and they need to get him out. Eberhardt dryly notes Nibbons is often stuck in things.

Boo suggests they head in through the front. Eberhardt says that is a good idea.

Driving the car down the block a little to make a U-turn, Le Doux catches the brief site of someone in brown robes entering the funeral home as he turns the car around.

Not sure what to make of the man, Le Doux squeals around a turn quickly. He tells Eberhardt to brace himself as he accelerates the car to top speed.

Meanwhile, inside the Krupp Funeral Home, Nibbons emerges from the bathroom and barely stops himself from stepping into a pool of blood on the floor in the hall. Next to it is the body of Roderick Krupp with a head wound.

Standing over Krupp is a monk. Next to the monk, the chapel doors have been closed and some kind of medieval mace-looking object is jammed into the door to brace it shut. Nibbons can hear pounding from the other side.

He then notices the can of gasoline next to the monk, the floor is covered in gas, and the monk is holding a lighter. Nibbons can tell the man has the eyes of a fervent zealot full of righteousness. The monk says, “pati non patieris vivere” as he drops the lighter.

Chester has no idea what the monk said, but can tell the man is ready to matyr himself and knows he needs to get out before the fire spreads too far. He tries to run past the man but the monk tackles him as he passes by. Nibbons and the monk both become engulfed in flames.

Outside, Le Doux attempts his plan to swerve the car around and drive it through the front of the funeral home. Unfortunately, he oversteers and smashes the car straight into one of the large oak trees out front. Eberhardt is thrown out of the car and on to the softer ground, while Le Doux’s chest is crushed by the steering wheel.

Back inside the inferno, Nibbons attempts to shoot the monk in his head with his pistol as they roll around on the flaming floor. But the pain from the burns causes him to miss his shot.

As all hope seems lost, the nearby door from the basement of the funeral home opens. An orange demon-looking creature with a long tail emerges. The monk lets Nibbons go as he charges at the demon.

Nibbons takes the opportunity to run out the door and onto the lawn, rolling around to put out the flames on himself. He manages to smother the flames, but can tell he is badly burned.

Eberhardt comes to on the ground. He sees the smoke pouring out of the building and hears the screams of the people trapped inside. Seeing Nibbons and the second-degree burns covering the man’s body, he rushes over to pick him up and get him away from the building.

They don’t get far before the fire hits the gas lines in the walls of the building from the old gaslights. As the building explodes, Eberhardt throws them to the ground to avoid getting hit by shrapnel.

The burning remains of the funeral home are now eerily quiet and neighbors have started to come out to watch. Eberhardt looks over at the car, but can tell it has been totaled and Le Doux badly injured. He calls out for someone in the crowd to call for a cone.

Nibbons manages to look up at the car. He yells about what they’ve done to his car, but then heads over to check on Le Doux.

Shambling over, Nibbons looks at Le Doux. His lungs are clearly being crushed by his ribs being rammed into his chest by the steering wheel. Because of his bad burns, Nibbons is not able to do anything so he calls over Eberhardt. Eberhardt manages to pull Le Doux out and get him breathing again.

By the time Hawk shows back up at the scene with Foxy (whom he went to retrieve), he sees there is nothing left of the funeral home except a pile of smoldering ashes being hosed down by a fire truck, and Le Doux and Nibbons being loaded into an ambulance.

Hawk has Foxy snuff out the Molotav cocktails they were coming to throw then calls over to Eberhardt to get in the car. Saying he doesn’t need to be told twice, Eberhardt gets inside and Hawk speeds away from the scene.

*** Session 15 - Scene 2 (of 10) ***

In the car, Hawk asks Bruno how the other two are doing. He says they are not good, as he's seen better looking men back in the trenches.

Deciding they should lay low, they head back to Le Doux's office. They find Madge there, who asks after her cousin. Hawk tells her Boo was in a car accident, and she rushes down to the hospital to check on him.

After Madge is gone, Hawk decides to take the opportunity to look all through the office and Le Doux's apartment. He's still confused about the whole Boo vs. Bob thing, and wants to find any sort of proof the other brother exists as he still believes Le Doux is really Bob. However, he cannot find any photos or other records of Bob.

While Hawk ransacks Le Doux's house, Eberhardt tries to patch himself up. Still feeling battered and bruised, he asks Hawk for help. Hawk grabs a bottle of his granny's homemade "Thunderbird" wine from the cabinet in Le Doux's office where he keeps it. It doesn't make Eberhardt feel much better, but does get him drunk quickly.

In the meantime, Hawk explores the various possibilities about Le Doux, wondering if perhaps Bob is a reincarnated version of Boo. Eberhardt doesn't think so, and finds the possibility of multiple Le Douxs running around to be terrifying.

Eberhardt believes they need to phone a friend for some help to figure things out. He calls over to the BOI office to talk to Special Agent Millard Fox, but discovers Fox is out on assignment in the Houston office. He has them send a telegram to Fox, telling him to get back for an urgent cone.

Hawk wants to check in on Le Doux and Nibbons, but doesn't really want to go into the hospital himself. So, he drives Foxy over and has her make the inquiries. She is less than thrilled at playing messenger, but tells him the doctors expect both men to recover, though they are still currently in the intensive care unit.

The next priority for Hawk is getting a second car. Since the others have destroyed all the cars they owned, he takes Eberhardt over to Mouse Anthony's to find a cheap car to purchase (though makes him wait in the car).

Mouse and Hawk greet each other with the usual flair. Hawk explains he needs a new car, something a bit more high end than his jalopy. Mouse offers a newer wood-paneled car as a possibility.

Hawk is concerned about the car being seen, but Mouse says it originally came from Arkansas. Hawk agrees that might be far enough. Mouse also insists he has all of the usual "legitimate papers" for it.

Mouse quotes a price of 800 dollars, but Hawk only wants to pay half that. In return, he agrees to supply a couple of "trade-ins" to be delivered later. Anthony decides Hawk's credit is good enough so he agrees to the deal.

As he takes the money, Mouse asks if Hawk ever got with T.J. to find out what the whole thing about the guy asking around about him was. Hawk tells him T.J. is dead.

Mouse asks who killed T.J. Hawk says he isn't sure. Mouse wonders if it has anything to do with the current war going on between the Dorsey-Graham gang and the Thornton Brothers gang.

Hawk isn't sure who the killer is, but isn't particularly concerned about it. Mouse still thinks it's odd, as T.J. didn't really have any enemies and wasn't really part of any gang.

As Mouse hands him over the keys, Hawk asks if he's heard about anything strange going on lately. Mouse asks what's gone on lately that hasn't been strange, noting there has been a lot of activity in the city lately.

Hawk agrees, noting he heard about a funeral home burning down just today. Mouse asks about it, but finding out it occurred in a White neighborhood, says it sounds like White people with White problems that has nothing to do with him.

Agreeing, Hawk cautions Mouse to watch his back as a lot of crazy White folk are running around the city. Mouse says he already knows that, with most of them being in the Klan. He notes another man was found lynched last night.

Mouse discusses how dangerous it is now. Hawk, pulling back his jacket to reveal his gun, says that is why he doesn't leave the house without it.

Once the two men say their goodbyes, Hawk heads back to his car and hands over the keys to the new one to Eberhardt and the two head back to Le Doux's office.

*** Session 15 - Scene 3 (of 10) ***

Since they have no idea what happened at the Krupp Funeral Home, Eberhardt isn’t sure whether to believe The Committee was killed or not. He decides the best way to check is to call around to some of the likely members.

He starts with Arnold Paffenroth, calling over to the Tatterdamelion Garment Company. When the receptionist answers, he asks for Paffenroth and the call is transferred. When someone answers, Eberhardt gives his name as “Mr. Le Doux” and says he wants to talk to Paffenroth.

Eberhardt goes on to say there was a funeral he believes the man was supposed to attend today. The man on the line notes Eberhardt doesn’t sound as French as his name. Eberhardt suggests the man isn’t Paffenroth either.

The man who may or may not be Paffenroth asks what he wants. Eberhardt says he is simply trying to find out where the “real Mr. Paffenroth” is. The man insists he is the real Mr. Paffenroth.

Eberhardt presses his bluff, asking who the man who went into the funeral home who looked like Paffenroth was. The man calls him out on it, saying he clearly doesn’t know as much as he is pretending to.

Before hanging up on Eberhardt, the man tells him not to worry; he’ll have someone look into him and get back to him later. Eberhardt calls over to Hawk that he may want to be prepared to keep a lookout at the window for some company.

Hawk would prefer to leave the office instead. Eberhardt wants to make a few more calls first, so Hawk takes Foxy and has the two of them move the cars away from the office and keep a lookout from more of a distance.

Next, Eberhardt calls over to the Coleridge Shipping Company. The receptionist there says it will take a moment, as Mr. Coleridge is out on the warehouse floor.

After a minute, a gruff sounding man gets on the line. Eberhardt confirms the man is Coleridge. When asked his name, Eberhardt gives it as “Detective Le Doux”.

Coleridge asks the detective what he can help with. Eberhardt says he is looking for a book, but realizes in the moment he can’t recall the name of the book Nibbons was trying to find.

Keeping up the charade, Eberhardt claims to be a rare book collector and says he heard Coleridge had a large collection. Coleridge is confused why a detective would be a rare book collector. Eberhardt insists he has clients who help him track down rare books.

Coleridge is skeptical of Eberhardt’s story. Eberhardt tries to follow up with more lies, but starts substituting the word “cone” again, causing more confusion.

Starting to lose his patience, Coleridge says he is a busy man and demands Eberhardt get to the point. Eberhardt explains he is looking for a particular book; and although he can’t remember the name, he know it was one of the ones he bought from Gramarye Books.

Coleridge says he purchased the entire store and doesn’t have time to deal with this. He suggests Eberhardt make an inquiry with the business office, though says it in a way that suggests he has no intention of helping him.

After thanking Coleridge for his time and hanging up, Eberhardt is convinced none of The Committee were in the funeral home when it burned down and decides against trying to call the Grimes brothers.

*** Session 15 - Scene 4 (of 10) ***

Before leaving the office, Eberhardt decides to leave a warning note for Madge to tell her to stay away. Just as he finishes, he hears the outer door open and turns around to find Harry Apostolou carrying a baseball bat.

Eberhardt is confused how Apostolou found him. He doesn’t realize Apostolou has been looking for revenge for days. How the man tracked down the stolen tools from his shop to T.J.’s pawn shop. How he tortured T.J. until he gave up information on Hawk then beat the man to death with his baseball bat. How he’s been watching the group for some time now, waiting for an opportunity to get one alone so he can find out which of them accompanied Hawk to his shop.

Wanting to stop the man, Eberhardt goes for his gun. But Hawk, having kept a lookout, steps in behind the man before Eberhardt can spin around. He tries to shoot Apostolou in the back of the knee, but aims too high and shoots him through the lower back.

Apostolou collapses on the ground, gurgling in pain. With no choice now, Eberhardt finishes him off with a shot to the head.

Given the neighbors undoubtedly heard the shots and will be reporting them to the police, the two get in the cars. Hawk and Foxy decide to lay low at his place, while Eberhardt heads out of town to use his free pass at Audrey’s.

*** Session 15 - Scene 5 (of 10) ***

After a day of depravity at the brothel, Eberhardt decides to head back into the Segnette Bayou and talk to the Bowles at Flow.

He carefully makes his way to the cabin, greeted by Thylo at the edge of their property. Thylo immediately asks about Donny. Eberhardt doesn't really explain, saying they couldn't save him so they had to feed him to the "baby monster".

Thylo wants to know what Eberhardt means. He explains the creature was a monster made of parts of babies, so clearly it was a "baby monster".

The patriarch isn't interested in the creature, but wants to know if Donny was killed by the knife. Since Eberhardt didn't actually see Le Doux plunge it into him and he was overwhelmed by the gelatinous monster, he can't say for sure. Eberhardt says the last few days have been very traumatizing, and suggests Le Doux may have used the cone but he doesn't remember.

Thylo ignores the cone comment and asks where the dagger is. Eberhardt says it is likely in the swamp then.

Not pleased, Thylo then growls to ask about his daughter. Eberhardt explains that is what he came to talk about, as he was hoping she may have returned home.

Eberhardt goes on to say he has not seen her since she turned into a werewolf outside the club. Thylo wants more details, so Bruno quickly recants the tale of going to the club to save Nibbons and how it was Le Doux's plan to have her turn to a werewolf.

Thylo grabs Eberhardt by the shoulders and slams him up against the outside of the cabin. His eyes glow red as he asks Eberhardt if he lost his daughter.

Ebehardt tries to talk to the man, but Thylo isn't listening. He growls out that Eberhardt has until the next moon to find and bring back his daughter to him, or he will feast on his insides.

At the mention of the moon, Eberhardt starts rambling about his own possible werewolf condition. Thylo ignores him, saying he will either find the girl or Thylo will come and find him. He reminds Eberhardt the next full moon is in twelve days, then warns him to leave. He also tells him if he comes again without his daughter, he will be a dead man.

*** Session 15 - Scene 6 (of 10) ***

The next day, Eberhardt meets back up with Hawk to check in on Nibbons and Le Doux in the hospital. They are still recovering (with Le Doux still in a coma), and the doctor says they won’t be released for another week.

Eberhardt also talks to Hawk about his encounter with Thylo. Hawk thinks about the last time they saw Jerboa, fighting the hired goons at Dolly’s when they took off.

Hawk wonders if perhaps she got picked up by the police. Eberhardt notes he doesn’t really have any contacts in the force anymore since he was fired and sent to the asylum.

The next thought Hawk has is to head over to Dolly’s and keep an eye out for someone they can ask (preferably, a janitor or other service worker there). But when they get there, they notice a large “Closed” sign across the front of the building suggesting the club has shut down.

Hawk waits around for a random Black person to walk by he can chat with. Eberhardt feels the time could be more productive looking at the library for any crime stories about the club or Jerboa, so he heads there.

Eventually, Hawk’s patience is rewarded by a well-dressed Black man walking by. His suit and bow tie make Hawk a little wary, but he decides to ask him anyway.

Hawk spins some story about his “master’s girl” getting into a fight in the club. The other man, speaking with perfect elocution, says he heard something about a disturbance here a few nights back. Whatever happened the police were never called and the person causing the disturbance was taken back inside the club. After that, the man explains, club has been closed for a couple of days; he knows nothing else about anything going on.

When Hawk asks about the owners of the club, the man says he has no idea about them either. Hawk thanks the man for his time.

Hawk decides he will wait around for another Black man to approach, but a police car comes by. Hawk tries to casually drive off, but the police siren goes off, pulling him over.

The officer walks up to the car, makes disparaging comments about him driving a car, and tells Hawk he fits the description of an unidentified Negro male robbery suspect in the area.

Hawk tries to talk his way out of it, saying how he knows they all look alike. The cop continues harassing Hawk by making comments about his poor appearance.

The officer wants to take Hawk back to the station for questioning, but Hawk pulls out all the stops on his charm, saying his master Le Doux needs him to deliver some clothes for him to the hospital. He goes on to explain about Le Doux being a detective and being in a fire.

Not sure what to make of the story, the cop asks what he is doing in the area. Hawk says he was picking up the clothes from the house.

The cop says perhaps Hawk isn’t the man he’s looking for. He gives his theory that boys with money don’t need to be out stealing, and asks Hawk if he has any money. Picking up that the cop is looking for a bribe, Hawk offers that he has $40.

The officer tells him by coincidence that is the cost for the extra fee for Negros who drive. He offers to take care of that right here for Hawk so he won’t need to fill out any paperwork. Hawk thanks the man, noting as a Black man he can’t read.

After bribing the corrupt and racist cop, he heads over to the library to find Eberhardt. Looking around (with the librarian following him to make sure he doesn’t steal any books), Hawk spots Eberhardt looking through the newspaper archives.

Eberhardt explains he has not found any stories about a police report on Jerboa or Dolly’s. Hawk notes that is consistent with what he heard as well.

Hawk suggests their next move is to keep watch over the club. Eberhardt is confused because the place is closed, but Hawk notes just because it is closed doesn’t mean people aren’t coming in and out of it. Ultimately, they decide to check in on Nibbons to see if he is recovered enough to talk about what happened at the funeral home.

*** Session 15 - Scene 7 (of 10) ***

When they show up at the hospital, Nibbons asks where they've been as he's been bored stuck in the hospital. Eberhardt, looking at the massive bandages and scarring, tells the man the burns do not look so good. Hawk explains they didn't visit before now because they knew he was in intensive care.

Hawk then asks what Nibbons remembers from what happened. Eberhardt is also anxious to know what occurred at the funeral home.

Nibbons briefly runs through seeing the Grimes brothers in the chapel, heading to the bathroom, and then coming out to discover the crazy monk. They have Nibbons clarify about the Grimes brothers, and Nibbons relates he is fairly sure they died in the fire.

Hawk finds the monk incident to be very peculiar and tries to get more information so they can trace him back to where he came from. Nibbons doesn't recall much about the man's appearance other than wearing the brown robe.

Eberhardt tells Nibbons they need to find Jerboa and the last time they saw her she was fighting with the men at the Grimes brothers' club and was likely taken back inside. Nibbons wonders if she perished in the funeral home fire or has really been dead the whole time, but Eberhardt wants to hold out hope she hasn't (for his own sake).

He is still discouraged the people who may know where Jerboa is have likely been killed. Nibbons asks if anything was left of the funeral home, but Eberhardt says the cone was burned to the ground. Nibbons is temporarily confused, not remembering any cone.

Nibbons tells Eberhardt that's all he recalls and asks him what he saw there. Eberhardt notes he saw the tree and the ground and that was about it.

They check in with the doctor to see when Nibbons can be released, but he'll be there at least another four days. As for Le Doux, it will be a week or more since he is still in his coma.

Eberhardt says the first thing they need to do is find Jerboa so Thylo doesn't kill them in another ten days. Hawk wonders if they shouldn't just plan to kill the werewolves.

Hawk isn't sure what to do next, but Eberhardt suggests the plan to watch the club, or break into it and look around, is probably the best option.

*** Session 15 - Scene 8 (of 10) ***

Eberhardt and Hawk decide to head back over to the club. Hawk tries making a call first back to Le Doux’s office first to see if Madge discovered the body of Harry Apostolou, but no one answers.

Once they arrive at the club, they take positions to stake the place out. Hawk wants to wait until at least 2:00 in the morning before they make their move, just to be sure no one will show up first.

When no one does, they make their way to the alley fire escape again. As before, they make some noise heading up but this time no one pops their head out with a gun.

Listening quietly at the window, Eberhardt hears nothing. He opens the window and carefully climbs inside.

There are clearly no lights on inside the building and it is very quiet. Hawk carefully cracks the door to the room they entered. The hallway beyond is very dark.

Carefully using his flashlight, Eberhardt shines it around and sees the hall is empty. He sees a couple of other doors in the hall along with the stairs leading downstairs.

Hawk opens one of the doors to find a utility closet. They move to the other door and find it to be an office.

Heading inside, the two begin searching the office. They find nothing of interest but do notice the office does have another door inside it leading to another room.

When Hawk goes to open that door, he finds it locked. Using his lockpicks, he jimmies the lock open.

The room beyond is painted black and red, with a large table in the center of the room with the symbol of Allatou on it. A faint scent of sulfur hangs in the air. Along the back wall is a large wardrobe cabinet.

Along the side of the table, on the floor, are remains of some ropes. Nearby are three dead bodies – two men in suits who look like they could have been bouncers at the club, and a woman who is dressed provocatively in a silver dress. She is a young woman with an exotic appearance and platinum-silver hair.

On the woman’s forehead is some kind of card. And on the wall over the bodies, something appears to be written in blood, “Non concupisces non adorarent dæmonia”. Looking at the bodies, they can tell all three were stabbed to death by a large, bladed weapon – as if run through by a sword.

Hawk asks him what it means as he rifles through the dead men’s wallets. Eberhardt notes his Latin is rusty, but it has something to do with demons.

Hawk also takes a look at the card while he is looking over the bodies. Eberhardt, a Lutheran, appears to be one of those strange prayer cards the Catholics use.

Eberhardt can’t identify the saint on it – it appears to be a man with a knife in his head (though he notes the Catholics have a lot of saints). He notices the back of the card does not actually have a prayer on it. Below the picture on the front of the card is written “Credo in Unum Deum”, which he recognizes as the opening lines of the Nicene Creed.

The two then head over to the cabinet and look through it. Inside are a set of black robes and skull masks along with black candles and other occult parephanelia.

Hawk spots a hidden drawer inside the cabinet, which is locked. He picks the lock and discovers inside is a scroll and a book. The book is Discours execrable des Sorciers by Henry Bouget – the one Nibbons was looking for before. Eberhardt notes it won’t help them with Donny Martin now but could be useful later. Neither man wants to examine the scroll for fear of what it may contain, but do take it with them. Hawk suggests they don’t read the book either, just give both to Nibbons.

Hawk wants to leave but Eberhardt wants to make sure Jerboa isn’t here. He believes they should head down to the basement, but Hawk notes they always find trouble when they go there.

Eberhardt is able to convince Hawk to at least check out the main floor. Since that is a large, open floor stage they can see everything from the stairs and determine no one is there. Eberhardt also notices the building doesn’t have a basement since that part of town is too low-lying.

As they leave, Hawk tells Eberhardt to go on ahead as he wants to do something first. He heads back into the meeting room and uses the black robes to start a fire. By the time he leaves, smoke is already pouring out of the building. Eberhardt sighs as Hawk insists a monster inside must have set the building on fire.

*** Session 10 - Scene 9 (of 10) ***

The two drive by Le Doux's office but see it is still closed, with some crime tape across it. Eberhardt also notices someone appears to have painted a yellow cross on the door. They decide not to stop since clearly someone has marked them for something and decide to lie low for a week until their companions get out of the hospital.

Nibbons is discharged a few days later. He tries to go by the office but sees it has been sealed by the police and has the yellow cross painted on the door. Chester identifies the symbol as one used by the Holy Inquisition to mark the Cathar heretics as a badge of shame. He figures someone who doesn't like Le Doux must have put it there. He decides to head back to his apartment to rest up until Le Doux is out.

A few days after that, Le Doux comes out of his coma and heads home. He ignores the police tape and the yellow cross. He also largely ignores the chalk outline of the body and related bloodsplattering inside. Believing his recent setbacks are the result of angering Nyranthlotep by not properly worshipping the entity, he knows now what he must do.

Boo retrieves his silver knife and horse tranquilizers. He uses the phone to call Madge and tells her he needs to see her right away. Since the office is a mess, he insists on seeing her.

Madge is surprised, since he always claimed to be allergic to her cats. He tells her he is feeling much better now. On the way over, he picks up a thermos of coffee and puts the tranquilizer pills in it.

When he arrives, they chat for a bit. She tells him he is looking much better and is happy to see him. Madge also suggests they all go for a night out soon, which he says sounds great.

He hands her the coffee and talks about how the business isn't doing so well lately. It doesn't take long before she falls unconscious from the mickey he slipped her.

Le Doux takes her body back to the bedroom and begins the ritual sacrifice to Nyrlanthotep. As the blood flows, he realizes he made a mistake by not doing this earlier. He now believes he will need to make at least one sacrifice a day to the dark god to appease him.

To cover up the crime scene, he starts a fire in the apartment building. As he leaves, he can see people trying to escape the flames. A child jumps out of an upstairs window, leading to his head crushed on the pavement when he hits. The scene causes Le Doux to lose what sanity he has left. He heads off into the darkness of the alley, hopelessly insane with ideas of bringing forth Nyranthlotep to the world...

*** Session 15 - Scene 10 (of 10) ***

Meanwhile, Eberhardt, Nibbons, and Hawk all meet up at Nibbons’ apartment. None of them have been able to get ahold of Le Doux or Madge and aren’t sure what to do next.

Eberhardt tries to give Nibbons a quick recap of what has gone on, focusing largely on the threat from Thylo. Nibbons recalls the recent newspaper story he heard about the local firemen demanding a raise from the string of arsons in the city.

Hawk offers the possibility of using the book. Nibbons knows the book will be useless on helping against Thylo, but agrees with Hawk the book could be used to cure Eberhardt if he really is infected. However, it will take a couple of weeks of study, which they don’t have time for since the moon is in two days (unless he wants to try to cast it without properly learning it first, which is too risky).

Hawk notes he has the silver bullets from the machine shop now, though refuses to help Eberhardt set up a trap for the werewolves (but is more than happy to let Eberhardt use the bullets on his own). Nibbons notes they should be able to hold the werewolves at bay with wolfsbane, but it could be hard to find. Hawk thinks about getting a cage to hold the beasts, though obviously that would be even harder to obtain.

Not sure how successful the plan is, Eberhardt wonders if they shouldn’t continue to try and find Jerboa. He knows she could have been taken by one of the other members of the cult (since the Grimes brothers are dead) or perhaps is somewhere else.

He starts by showing the prayer card to Nibbons. Despite being a good Catholic, he can’t place the saint on the card. Hawk suggests they should go to a priest to see if he knows more. Nibbons suggests he and Eberhardt go see Father Pallas at the archdiocese records office.

Before they head out, Hawk asks Nibbons if he should also look at the scroll. When he unrolls it, he sees it is a charter for The Committee, pledging their allegiance and eternal souls to Allatou. The scroll is signed in blood by all the members – Percy Grimes, Barton Grimes, Shiva Asgari, Arnold Paffenroth, Joseph Saint, Jacob Russell, Sybil Dvorak, Roderick Krupp, Brian Nocenti, and Maximillian Coleridge. There is a larger signature at the bottom, in the same handwriting as the rest of the document, is the name of Jason Roland.

Of the names, they know the Grimes brothers are dead while Paffenroth and Coleridge appear to be alive. Roland sounds familiar, but other than recalling it was one of the names on Patricia Walker’s list they can’t recall where else they may have heard it before.

Eberhardt notes Sybil Dvorak is the name of a wealthy Czech socialite he’s seen in the society pages of the newspaper. None of the other names sound familiar. Hawk points out the name Shiva Asgari sounds Persian, which he believes could have been the dead dancer back at Dolly’s.

An argument breaks out between Eberhardt and Hawk over the implication of the deaths – Hawk believes the situation is clearly a war between The Committee and some other group the monk belonged to. Eberhardt isn’t so sure, wondering if the deaths were part of some ritual sacrifice.

With no definitive conclusion, Eberhardt and Nibbons head over to the cathedral to talk to Father Pallas. He greets Nibbons happily, saying it is good to have company again.

Nibbons shows him the prayer card and asks him about the saint. He identifies it as a lesser known saint, St. Peter of Verona; also known as St. Peter Martyr. Pallas goes on to explain St. Peter was a 13th century Italian Catholic priest and Dominican friar. He served the Holy Inquisition in Lombardy, where he was killed by an assassin, Carino Pietro Balsamo, of the Milanese Cathar heretics in 1252. The father also notes the assassin later repented and renounced heresy, eventually beatified himself as St. Acerinus.

Father Pallas asks where he got the card, noting it is unusual. Eberhardt says he got it from a friend, and was interested since there was no prayer on it.

The archives priest suggests they go talk to Father Peter Vernon, the headmaster as St. Francis Xavier. According to Pallas, the priest was an orphan who named himself after St. Peter and is something of an expert on him. Pallas notes Vernon is a staunch Dominican and has been involved with the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.

Eberhardt agrees they should talk to him. Pallas notes he can find him at the school, or with his religious studies group. When Eberhardt asks about the study group, Pallas recalls the name is something rather flowery – they call themselves “The Society of St. Peter Martyr”.

Nibbons immediately picks up on the name, realizing they are The Society – the last cell of the Allatou cult…

*** Session 15 - Session Notes ***

This session was a mixed bag at its best moments, and kind of a hot mess the rest of the time.

The Le Doux player was having one of his "I'll behave like a reckless jackass" nights, so was immediately taken out of action, along with Nibbons who took forever to decide what to do about the monk and then botched several rolls in a row.

Then you had Eberhardt and Hawk completely unable to follow the trail of clues I was leaving. They seemed completely lost without Le Doux to lead them, though refused to just wait around until he and Nibbons got out of the hospital.

So, basically, two players sat around essentially out of the action for half the game, while the other two were frustrated and confused by the plot. And now Le Doux is completely insane and a NPC, so we'll need to try and integrate a new character while keeping the game from falling apart. Now I'm a bit frustrated and discouraged; there's no way I can run a game that can easily accommodate random reckless behavior, nor can I have much of a mystery if the PCs won't even bother to look at the clues.

Other notes from the session:
* Originally I didn't have much of a plan for what happened next with The Committee. But I knew I needed some incident to more the plot forward since the PCs are so lousy at investigating them (seriously, I can't believe no one ever followed up on any of the clues about them). So, I thought I'd have the monk show up so I could start to kick off The Society's part in the plot.

* I'm using a fair amount of dramatic license for the timing of things. Le Doux probably should have crashed his car far sooner in the chain of events.

* "Pati non patieris vivere" (very) roughly translates to "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Not that the PCs ever followed up on that.

* The orange demon from the basement is actually part of the story behind The Committee. It may or may not get explained later.

* The funeral home has a basement because I constantly forget that N.O. doesn't actually have basements. I guess my fictional Crescent City has a higher altitude in some parts of town.

* The house explodes because we all thought that would be cooler (when Eberhardt grabbed Nibbons, he specifically mentioned the pose being the "grab the guy and run away from the explosion" movie trope).

* Eberhardt lingered over saving Le Doux; the player was mad at the Le Doux player for acting stupid.

* Hawk returned because the player changed his mind again. He's also taking a rather creative bent on his insanity, now insisting his character is scared of dead bodies but not necessarily zombis. It doesn't make any sense to the rest of us.

* I'm not sure what Hawk was intending to find at Le Doux's, particularly since the player knows what happened.

* Everyone was confused why Eberhardt was trying to call Fox. I would have let him make the random phone call just to see the Fox player ad lib that, but he was in Houston (hence, Fox was as well).

* In another strange moment, no one was quite sure why Hawk didn't want to go to the hospital himself since he goes there all the time. I think part of it is the player trying to get his daughter (who plays Foxy) to interact in the game more, but she clearly dislikes doing so, so it always gets awkward.

* Mouse dropped the line about T.J. because I was still trying to convince Hawk that was a source of imminent threat. He never did catch on.

* Eberhardt calling around to The Committee members was a good idea, and him quitting before trying the Grimes Brothers (a couple of the only members actually at the funeral) was funny irony. He was also using Le Doux's name with everyone as another passive-aggressive response to Le Doux's decision with the car.

* Harry Apostolou has been waiting for someone to be in the office alone. His intent was to beat the information out of whoever was in there about who was with Hawk when he was being blackmailed. His death will not go unanswered.

* Eberhardt's idea to see Thylo wasn't terrible either, but the way he handled it, it didn't end well. I thought giving him the days to find Jerboa would spur him to follow up on that plot (not sure why the PCs didn't find a werewolf disappearing in the city to be worth looking into more). Unfortunately, as the rest of the session showed, that idea kind of backfired.

* I pretty much had to flat out tell them to go look for Jerboa at Dolly's, and then they don't even try to go inside when they find it closed.

* Hawk following it up with his insipid plan about "wait for a Black guy to walk by" was another moment of his unintentional/ignorant racism that had the rest of us with head in hands. The first guy that walks by is clearly highly educated and middle class; that was just me mocking him.

* Since Hawk was staking out a building in broad daylight, I thought it was time he experienced some profiling. I was surprised he actually backed down for once.

* I thought they did very well breaking into the club, but once inside they ignored practically every clue they found (particularly the rope, which had they examined it they would have found wolf fur on). I think they expected to just find Jerboa there and when they didn't see her didn't seem to get that the clues would point to who took Jerboa (worse, they interpreted the clues incorrectly and for the longest time thought The Committee did the killings).

* "Non concupisces non adorent daemonia" is another of my Google translate phrases. It roughly equates to "Thou shalt not lust nor worship demons", a reference to the dancer that was killed.

* Eberhardt isn't Catholic but the player running him is. I thought he'd get more into the whole Catholic angle, but I was clearly wrong as he didn't engage with it at all.

* I don't think they had crime tape per say in the 20's, but I claim dramatic license.

* After all the Catholic-related clues at the funeral home and Dolly's and Le Doux's office, I thought for sure they would have started to piece together it had something to do with the Inquisition and they should go follow those clues up. Again, I completely miscalculated here.

* By this point, the Le Doux player felt his character was rapidly coming to an end so he wanted to go out by doing the blood sacrifice he'd been planning for months (he wanted to use it with Hawk, but ended up settling for Madge).

* Madge's talk about them all going out soon had to do with a plot where she takes them out to a club then reveals she apparently won a contest she forgot about - which then brings in the Chinese Tong who were behind the whole scheme. I was even going to wait to reveal it until after they got some drinks so I could have something of a Temple of Doom opening scene moment. Oh well.

* Le Doux lost the remainder of his sanity this session and became a NPC. Expect him to show back up as a major villain now that he'll become a serial killer attempting to bring forth Nyranthlotep.

* The newspaper story about the firemen wanting a raise was my joke at the recent string of arsons by the group.

* I thought it was ironic Hawk had been bugging me about the silver bullets for weeks, and now is reluctant to put himself into a situation to use them.

* I pretty much led them by the nose again back to Father Pallas.

* I find it funny they never recall the Jason Roland connection, despite me bringing it up all the time.

* Father Vernon, The Society of St. Peter Martyr, and related material is taken from the John Saul novel, Punish the Sinners (though what they are up to in this game will be inspired by a different one of his books).

* Note that the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office is what the office of the Inquisition was called at the time the game took place.

* The Society is indeed a cult with activities around Allatou, but not the way the other two are (as they clearly have ties to the Inquisition as well). What the PCs seemed to miss was that The Society is at war with The Committee. More on all that to come.