Call of Cthulhu Write-ups

1920s Call of Cthulhu Campaign 

Scenario Name: Tell Me, Have You Seen The Yellow Sign?, round 1
Scenario Written By: Kevin A. Ross
Scenario Publisher: Chaosium, in the book The Great Old Ones
Run Date: 29 May 1994
Keeper: Lorna Toolis
Write-up Written By: Chris Smith
Characters: Edward Arlington (Martin Sloan), Deloris Del Rio (Liza Ordubegian), Teddi Mason (Sherry Moore), Dana Mulgrew (Chris Smith), Calli Thorne (Leann Goodall), Jack Uzi (Allan Goodall)

Having survived an encounter with Basil Ives and the Insects of Shaggai, group members enjoy some rare down time. Calli buys another vehicle and updates her will.

Nathalie Davies, the cultist who got away, lives at Sunset Hall, Davies Landing, Mississippi, about two hours from New Orleans. Henry Armitage mentioned that a friend of his, Etienne Laurent de Marigny believed her responsible for the theft of his priceless set of the Vishakapatnam Fragments. However, Henry believed that Etienne could manage his own affairs.

Three months later he contacts Calli and Edward and tells them that he received a communication from Etienne indicating that something is wrong in New Orleans and that someone needs to do something about it immediately. After prodding, he reluctantly admits to the group that it was a dream message. The overall feeling was that of someone trapped.

At the request of Henry Armitage the group goes to New Orleans. They grumble a bit, wondering why they allow Henry to stick them with this kind of errand? It's a good question.

As they get off the train at the New Orleans station, they notice the banners indicating Mardi Gras hanging all over the station. All the group members feel that sense of stress they have come to associate with loss of sanity. Calli and Edward, who remember the Yellow Sign from a previous encounter feel a little more stressed than most.

Calli grits her teeth and explains that the Yellow Sign indicates evil, madness and death. It is the mark of The King In Yellow, an avatar of Hastur the Unspeakable. Hastur is found near the city of Carcosa on a planet near Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus. Both Edward and Calli speak of their time in Carcosa without nostalgia. The thought of returning makes them almost lyrical with hostility.

They take a cab to Etienne de Marigny's house, noticing as they travel through the city that there are thousands of banners with the Yellow Sign on them spread across the city; the Yellow Sign seems luminous somehow.

At Etienne de Marigny's house they are admitted by his `housekeeper', who introduces herself as Enzili. Enzili is young, brunette and seems obscurely amused by something the group is doing or not doing. She reads Henry's letter and agrees that they should have access to "the current file".

The file contains only one letter. Mr. Charles Sundstrom, city editor of the New Orleans Daily Times has written asking de Marigny to investigate the death of one of his reporters, Peter Gavvin. Gavvin had come to Sundstrom telling Sundstrom that he thought he had stumbled across some sort of occult conspiracy and that one of the Krewes was involved.

Gavvin was found dead the next day and Sundstrom is incensed that someone has killed one of his reporters, that he doesn't know who and that he hasn't even gotten a story out of the death.

While the group is absorbing all of this, Dana notices some wards similar to some African tribal protections he has seen placed near the front door, while all of the group notices an extremely odd, large grandfather clock in the hallway. The pendulum has stopped: the hands point at 13:00 o'clock.

Enzili is casual about de Marigny's disappearance but moderately helpful as far as finding the group accommodations are concerned. She sends a message to the Hotel Pontchartrain and has the footman drive them to the Hotel in de Marigny's carriage.

They arrive while their suites are still being freshened - it is apparent that the previous occupants were moved to make way for them. The Hotel Manager is obsequious, clearly determined that they should have no cause to complain to `Madame Enzili'. If it didn't seem so unlikely, they would have thought the Hotel Manager was frightened of the housekeeper.

The same sort of fearful respect is apparent the next day in the Hotel's dining room. It doesn't help when the staff notice that Jack Uzi is plainly unable to handle silver utensils. Also that his middle and index fingers are the same length. Calli can almost hear agitated conversation at a distant service stand, the words "loup-garou" and "Enzili-Rouge" stand out. As a tactful gesture Dana tips heavily.

The group head out to the newspaper where Peter Gavvin worked, intending to interview the editor, Charles Sundstrom, who wrote to de Marigny, asking him to investigate the reporter's death.

They go through the newspaper's back issues while they wait, finding a series of articles written by Peter Gavvin about the various Krewes, the social groups which fund and stage the annual Mardi Gras celebration. Rex and Comus are identified and the oldest and most significant Krewes, but there are several other Krewes. Gavvin died before he completed the series.

Sunstrom makes himself available almost immediately. He is extremely unhappy about Peter Gavvin's death and arranges for them to review the notebooks the reporter was filling at the time.

Sundstrom refers them to Professor Tourneur of Tulane University's Physics department, making a cryptic comment to the effect that, "Tourneur knows what's going on!"

He regrets that he doesn't know anything about "Enzili-whatever". Calli and Edward look at him, the echo of generations of student lies still ringing in their ears. He knows but doesn't want to tell.

They are sent to a room down the hall to read the notebooks. The end of the notebooks concentrates of the Most Honourable Krewe of the Swords. In particular, Gavvin concentrated on two members of the Krewe, Denis Bouchard, the chairman and Randall Fowler, the financial power behind the Krewe. Comprehensive information is given, including home and office addresses, family information - Bouchard collects antiques and women, Fowler's wife and daughter died in a hit and run accident a year ago and he has been drinking heavily since that time.

The notebooks give an address in the French Quarter with a note "Swords Krewe HQ?" and the name, "Papa Screech - $8,500?" was at the end of the notes. The final entry said "Warehouse!"

The group's next stop is a public library, a small, sad looking building which they immediately abandon as a source of useful information. Instead they hail a cab and head for Tulane University, home of one of the best university libraries in the American South, also home to Professor Tourneur in the Physics dept.

Professor Tourneur, rather than the murderous mastermind they were expecting turns out to be a ginger-haired man, middle-aged, and paunchy, in the throes of marking term assignments. He is happy to answer their questions and show them around - they get the impression that rather than finish marking the assignments, he would be happy to show them the city.

Talking happily, he takes them down and then outside, around the other side of the building. Beside a freshly dug garden about thirty feet away from the four-storey physics building he stops. "I came in to work early that morning," he says,"and the body was lying here. The custodians had already called the police. They had put up screens and the coroner, Dr.Samuel Jacobs, a friend of mine was trying to get everything measured and photographed so I gave him a hand. The body had hit the ground with enough impact that parts of it had driven six inches deep into the ground - six inches! Nice trick from a four storey building. Thirty feet away from the building too! Maybe Gavvin was a broad jumper?"

Edward, the physicist of the group, left his sliderule in Arkham, but he and the members of the group look at the four-storey building, the thirty foot gap between the building and the flowers in the newly dug garden and giggle to each other, Edward and Dana mumbling something about "terminal velocity".

Professor Tourneur explains that during the Great War his contribution had been the development and testing of aeroplane parachutes. He thinks the velocity of the corpse was terminally funny too.

Edward and Jack get sidetracked, arguing about whether the unfortunate Mr. Gavvin was dropped from a height by a byakee or a nightgaunt.

Professor Tourneur offers to write them a letter of introduction to Dr. Jacobs and reluctantly heads back to his department and his marking. As an afterthought the group asks him what he knows about Enzili. He seems mildly put off and tells them,"I don't hold with these swamp tales and superstitions."

The group head over to the university library, by this time determined to find out who or what "Enzili" is. It turns out that "Enzili" and "Enzili-Rouge" refer to two different aspects of a voodoo loa. The former positive, the later more dangerous.

The group continues checking for local myths and legends dealing with the local swamps and finds a see also reference leading them to the narrative of Inspector John Raymond Legrasse.

In 1907 Inspector Legrasse of the New Orleans police dept responded to complaints from the people living near the swamps to the south of the city. The family members of abducted children and women led Legrasse and a force of twenty men into the heart of the swamp, where they found over a hundred people participating in a wild orgy, while the bodies of their murdered victims hung from cross posts sunk in the swamp. The scene was lit by huge bonfires and drums beat out an alien rhythm. Legrasse and his men attacked and captured most but not all of the participants. 5 cultists were killed, 2 were wounded; 47 captives were later incarcerated as criminally insane.

The group pick up their letter of recommendation to Dr. Jacobs. Jacobs' office is in the back of the local police station, next to the records room. He answers the group's questions readily, not at all happy about signing a death certificate "Death by Misadventure". The group want to know if Gavvin was still alive when he hit the ground. Unhappily for him, he probably was. They wondered if he had been hurt in any way before he had been dropped. Dr. Jacobs whips out some pictures of some odd claw marks (?) - he isn't really sure what they are, but some kind of claws were driven deeply into Gavvin's armpits. Calli takes one look and says,"Byakee" with casual assurance. The other group members aren't really surprised.

The group proceeds to check out Peter Gavvins' rooming house, but there isn't anything useful to be found, although Mrs. Shreeve, the landlady took a real liking to Calli and Deloris and would have liked to have helped.

Deloris looks up an old acquaintance, a booking agent, who agrees without much resistance to put her down as part of the group performing at Randall Fowler's house for the Mardi Gras party.

Upon returning to their hotel suite, they notice that it has been warded against evil, a small, polished green stone holding down a black feather. Dana and Deloris persuade Jack Uzi that it would not be funny to move this into the hotel hallway.

Dana adds his own wards to the collection, but is left with the feeling that he missed something important.

Consulting the notes Calli took from Gavvin's notebooks, they decide the logical thing to do is to check out the entry for Papa Screech with the only local authority on voodoo they have come across. They take a cab back to Etienne de Marigny's house, where Madame Enzili is waiting, more helpful now.

She tells them that Papa Screech used to be a boucour, a voodoo priest, but "he hears other voices now." She adds that her loa would be happy if Papa Screech did not survive the group's investigation. From what she says Papa Screech has been preying on Randall Fowler's grief. Screech gives "messages" from his dead wife and child to Fowler, who comes across as maybe not all that bright, in addition to being a lush.

Papa Screech was most often used by Baron Samedi, the loa guardian of the dead.It becomes apparent during the course of this interview that Madame Enzili is quite determined to convince the group members to kill Papa Screech.

She describes him for them: a black man wearing a top hat with feathers stuck into a snakeskin band. His working class clothing is decorated by a snakeskin belt. Around his neck he wears a whistle made from the femur of a child. She advises them not to let Papa Screech get a chance to use the whistle. 

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