Smoke and Mirrors

by Emily Cambias

This Spiritualism-inspired adventure is best played with Trail of Cthulhu groups that include a Parapsychologist or Medium.

Introduction

New England, December, 1930.

Mrs. Allsopp is a wealthy widow and avid Spiritualist. She’s hosted the medium Lewis Thrush in her home for eight months and holds regular séances with him. Everyone who attends these evenings hears predictions of the future and present which unerringly come true.

Depending on the Investigators and their various backgrounds, the Game Moderator chooses an appropriate hook. Some potential beginnings include:

• Mrs. Allsopp’s nephew Arnold believes his aunt is being fleeced out of her money by the medium’s “predictions.” He hires the Investigators to look into Thrush and his activities.

  • (core clue) Art: Arnold gives the Investigators a poster advertising a “medium demonstration” by Luis Andreu in Boston from two years ago. He tells them he’s gotten word that “Lewis Thrush” may in fact be Luis Andreu under a different name, but he doesn’t yet have proof. The poster is a typical advertisement with some interesting traditional Spanish art motifs in the decorations.

• A friend of the Investigators has been asked to photograph a séance at Allsopp Mansion. The photographer asks the Investigators along as a favor—he photographed a previous séance of Thrush’s at the mansion, and the pictures make him feel curiously ill.

  • (core clue) Photography: The photographs of the previous séance are hard to parse—apparently Thrush required the camera flash be disabled. But there are clearly several figures seated around a table, looking at something dark and shiny lying in the center of the tablecloth.

Inquiring Minds

Scene Type: Alternate

Lead-Ins: Introduction, The Widow’s Mansion

Lead-Outs: The Widow’s Mansion, The Plant

If the Investigators decide to do a little digging into Lewis Thrush or Mrs. Allsopp, there are several nuggets of information to be gleaned around town.

• • Mrs. Allsopp’s small Spiritualist group meets in the local Congregationalist Church. Any suitable Interpersonal ability (Credit Rating, Flattery, or Reassurance) gets members of the group to confide in the Investigators. They’ve all been to Thrush’s séances before, and most of the group doesn’t want to attend any more. Thrush’s predictions started innocuous—where a lost piece of jewelry was hidden, or a translation of a poem in another language. Then they became…discomfiting: The last words of a drowned child, a secret affair, the approaching death of a family member.

    • 1 point Reassurance spend: All the Spiritualists seem curiously forgetful on the details of what actually happened at the séances, but they all remember black smoke…

• • Library Use: The town has several books and papers involving the Allsopp family. Mr. Allsopp was a wealthy industrialist until his death ten years ago. His widow lives off of her husband’s estate. The house has been under extensive construction for the past several months.

    • 1 point Library Use spend: If they have the name, when Investigators look up “Luis Andreu” they discover a few newspaper articles about a medium by the same name who was active in Boston for several years until he was exposed as a fraud by a stage magician and a skeptic. No pictures, sadly.

The Widow’s Mansion

Scene Type: Core

Lead-Ins: Introduction, Inquiring Minds

Lead-Outs: The Plant, The Seance

Allsopp Mansion is a massive, Gilded Age pile. The Depression forced its elderly owner to let go most of the staff, so only a few servants remain, dusting cold fireplaces and serving tea to Mrs. Allsopp and her guests. Thrush and his hostess both sleep in rooms upstairs. Five servants sleep in rooms near the kitchen: Hannah, the cook, Lily, the maid, Ellen, the junior maid, Wagner, the groundskeeper, and Fraser the footman. Mrs. Allsopp is a fussy but decent employer who pays good wages, and her staff bears her no ill-will.

• (core clue) Mrs. Allsopp herself is in her late sixties or early seventies. She’s obsessed with all things Spiritualism and mediums. She’s trying to collect enough proof of Thrush’s abilities to get a parapsychological society to write back to her. Any suitable Interpersonal ability (Credit Rating, Flattery, or Reassurance) gets Mrs. Allsopp to confide that Thrush summons her husband’s spirit, who advises her on everything from money to house renovations.

• (core clue) Any suitable Interpersonal ability (Credit Rating, Flattery, or Reassurance) used with the staff (especially Lily and Ellen) reveals the servants detest Lewis Thrush, and dislike the new footman Fraser only slightly less. The two men arrived around the same time.

• Locksmith: Thrush’s room is extremely comfortable—he’s obviously been making a dime off his new benefactress. The thick drapes are drawn in the middle of the day.

  • 1 point Locksmith spend: His medium tools don’t seem to be in the room, but their carrying case is. There’s an empty circular recess in the middle of the case. The velvet’s crushed in a way implying a smooth, round surface.

• 1 point Assess Honesty spend: Thrush is charming and polite, especially to Mrs. Allsopp. But there’s something off about Thrush’s whole demeanor. His expressions mimic those of whomever he’s talking to, and he follows their conversation rather than making his own.

• (core clue) Architecture: Everywhere, Allsopp Mansion is full of sawdust and scaffolding. Floors are knocked out, staircases and doors erected, different sized windows cut into walls. Panels of mirrored glass are set into the walls throughout the house, making the hallways seem even longer and darker than they are.

  • 1 point Architecture spend: These changes aren’t random. The lines and curves of the walls and staircases form an intricate pattern which can be perceived when standing in certain doorways, almost like a stereogram. Black smoke drifts in around the edges of the pattern…(roll a 2-point Stability test).

• 1 point Occult spend: All of the staff rooms have candles burning constantly on the bedside table, with evidence of many candles burned in the same place. The Investigators’ Occult knowledge suggests a lit candle is a very old symbol of protection. If asked about it, the staff deflect, embarrassed, but eventually reveal they started keeping the candles lit after the séances started. They all suffer from bad dreams if the candles go out.

The Plant

Scene Type: Alternate

Lead-Ins: The Widow’s Mansion

Lead-Outs: The Seance

Thrush isn’t alone in Allsopp Mansion. His partner in crime, Jules Fraser, is posing as the footman. He’s a burly man with a boxer’s broken nose and cauliflower ears.

Jules Fraser, Secret Partner-in-Crime

Abilities: Athletics 4, Conceal 6, Driving 4, Firearms 3, Health 4, Scuffling 4

Hit Threshold: 3

Alertness Modifier: +1

Stealth Modifier: 0

Weapon:

• Assess Honesty: Fraser’s clocked the Investigators. He believes they’re skeptics here to blow his con and intends to warn Thrush of the Investigators. He’ll possibly try to rough them up if they interfere with the séance.

• 1 point Intimidation spend (or Bargaining with a bribe) gets Fraser to crack. He’s feeling nervous about this job, anyway. Luis Andreu and he ran medium cons in San Francisco and Boston, but they never lasted this long, and Luis always knew to cut his losses early. Sure, the money’s been rolling in, but Luis started acting differently a year ago, and Fraser’s not sure he’s totally right in the head. The late nights could be contributing, but there’s other strange changes, too. He seems like a totally different person! Fraser’s willing to head for town instead of sticking around Allsopp Mansion.

The Seance

Scene Type: Core

Lead-Ins: The Widow’s Mansion, The Plant

Lead-Outs: Shattering the Mirror

It is a few days until the winter solstice, and the sky is already dark by the early evening. Mrs. Allsopp hosts the séances in a mid-size parlor in the center of the house. Other attendees are of course Thrush himself and the Investigators, as well as any other appropriate non-player characters.

Thrush closes all the doors of the room, and seats everyone around the table. One of the servants turns down the lights, until the room is quite dark. Thrush unbuttons his jacket and pulls a black stone mirror from inside his shirt where it’s sat against his skin, and places it before him on the table.

• 1 point Anthropology spend: Thrush’s mirror is definitely an obsidian mirror, perhaps taken from the Yucatán peninsula. Obsidian mirrors were symbols of Tezcatlipoca, “The Smoking Mirror,” lord of night and nocturnal creatures—especially jaguars, which crossed between the underworld and the earth. Several of these mirrors were stolen from the Yucatán by Spanish conquistadors and missionaries.

Thrush begins to speak in a rhythmic, hypnotic voice, changing pitch and timbre effortlessly to mimic the voices of the dead. An elderly man’s voice comforts Mrs. Allsopp and encourages her to “finish the house.” Everyone else at the séance is treated to fragments of voices and sounds, disconnected moments of time and space including some familiar names. If the Investigators did not convince Fraser to leave or keep their intentions secret, Thrush will reveal horrible truths about their past and mock them with the voices of the dead.

• Any characters with the Hypnosis ability may roll (Difficulty 3) to resist the effects of the mirror. If they fail, they should join everyone else in making a 4-point Stability test.

• (core clue) Notice: In the darkness it’s difficult to tell, but…Thrush’s face is reflected in the mirror, its expression completely at odds with his physical form. It looks like a man convulsing in agony, and mouths silent words that belch black smoke. The smoke rises from the mirror and into the air, twisting and shimmering in the gloom.

Shattering the Mirror

Scene Type: Conclusion

Lead-Ins: The Widow’s Mansion, The Plant, The Seance

“Lewis Thrush,” Medium

Luis Andreu—now called Lewis Thrush—has not been himself for a year. Almost a year to the day, in fact. When Luis was run out of Boston for fraud, he needed something to relaunch his “medium” scheme. A new name and a nice suit were a good start, but the pièce de résistance was the beautiful obsidian mirror he got from an old family member. No other medium had anything like it.

When he first performed a séance with the obsidian mirror, on the winter solstice, black smoke filled his eyes and drowned him in acrid ash, pulling him down to his reflection…Now Luis is trapped inside the dark glass. He sees, dimly, the thing which came from inside the mirror looking back at him during séances. His voice comes from inside its mouth and tells people horrible things as he screams silently from his prison.

The Obsidian Mirror

The Mirror is a fragment of Daoloth’s greater form. It has enjoyed its time in Luis’ body, showing the weak and pathetic visitors who come to it the broken shards of time they request (or don’t). The house is almost ready to perform a final séance in, on the longest and darkest night of the year. When it does, the crystalline structure of the obsidian mirror will bloom open like a flower and Daoloth will inhabit the shadowed temple built for it.

To thwart the Mirror, the Investigators need to break it. Breaking it is difficult—it’s a chunk of solid stone, so it requires three successful Athletics tests to smash it. The Mirror of course attempts to defend the stone, fleeing with it into the shifting architecture of the house.

Mirror-Possessed Body

Abilities: Athletics 6, Firearms 3, Health 10, Scuffling 12

Hit Threshold: 5

Alertness Modifier: 0

Stealth Modifier: invisibility (see House of Mirrors)

Weapon: +1 (choking smoke)

Armor: in darkness, -3 vs any attack. In light, Armor is reduced to 0. Fire does normal damage.

• If the Investigators look directly into the Mirror, they must make a 3-point Stability test at the sight of nauseatingly shifting crystal rods and planes extending back into infinity.

• House of Mirrors: The Mirror can expend one of its Health points to disappear into the smoke-filled geometries of Allsopp Mansion for one round.