A Jacobean-Era Outer Dark Manifestation

Excerpt from an internal Ordo Veritatis monograph:

A polemic pamphlet describing the 1616 trial and execution of a woman for double filicide unknowingly portrays a textbook case of Outer Dark activity. (The accompanying illustration, on the other hand…)

Margaret Vincent of Acton, just outside London, murdered her two young children, aged 5 and 2, during a time of extreme tension between majority Protestants and persecuted Catholics. As is true in many such cases today, Vincent killed her children believing her deed would speed them to heaven. Vincent’s execution occurs as part of a wave sending a large number of (actual or suspected) Catholics to the gallows. The pamphleteer claims that, prompted by the devil himself, Vincent secretly converted to Catholicism, motivating her crime. One does not require a grounding in the modus operandi of Outer Dark entities to receive that claim with a grain of skepticism. Given the pressure at the time to paint Catholics as dangerous enemies, this part of the prosecution’s case may be a political embellishment, intended both to secure a conviction and to smear the targeted community. That said, the crime clearly took place in an atmosphere of social hysteria. In addition to sectarian strife, Vincent’s town of Acton was embroiled in a land rights dispute with neighboring Willesden that threatened to boil over into violence.

This emotional context strongly indicates the presence of a heavensender, an Outer Dark being that enters our world when social contention heightens. It preys on psychologically destabilized women with fervent metaphysical beliefs, inducing them to kill children in their care. As is common in such events, the shock of their crimes then reverberates through the surrounding community, creating the psychic backwash that ODEs use to feed and breed.

Unsurprisingly the pamphleteer’s account makes no reference to the neutralization of the heavensender, which according to the worldview of the time is reckoned as a Biblical demon. The accompanying woodcut, however, offers a startling indication that some proto-Ordo Veritatis investigators may have directly observed the creature. Like an actual heavensender, the so-called devil depicted appears humanoid, with scales on the torso, and a trio of appendages thrusting from the cranium. A heavensender uses the latter to exert hypnotic influence on its victims.

One wonders whether a Jacobean operative used the heavensender’s Special Means of Dispatch, a rapier dipped in placental tissue, to dispose of it. (Modern agents complain of sourcing difficulties.) Or perhaps the very same entity remains at large today, looking for another community riven by social tensions, in which to find its next victim.

The Esoterrorists are occult terrorists intent on tearing the fabric of the world – and you play elite investigators out to stop them. This is the game that revolutionized investigative RPGs by ensuring that players are never deprived of the crucial clues they need to move the story forward. Purchase The Esoterrorists in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.