Call of Chicago: Rose Mackenberg, Ghost-Breaker

“It is only when I have found what was supposed to be psychic turned into extortion that I have condemned and exposed it. Or when I have watched it ladled out to some trusting soul until it became a one-way ticket to an asylum.”

Rose Mackenberg, quoted in the Chicago Tribune (Aug. 5, 1945)

Born in Brooklyn in 1892, Rose Mackenberg became an investigator for a law firm in the 1920s. In 1925, pursuing the case of a businessman grifted into buying phony stock by “advice from the spirits,” she consulted with the magician Harry Houdini, who made a side career out of exposing fake spirit mediums. Houdini was so impressed by her street smarts that he hired her as part of his ghost-breaking investigation team. Working for Houdini, she would arrive in a city ahead of his tour, infiltrating spiritualistic circles and approaching “open-eye” (con artist) mediums with nonexistent problems that the “spirits” then addressed for money. She became adept at disguising herself as a local widow, business-woman, or sincere (“shut-eye”) Spiritualist believer, occasionally even accepting initiation or ordination into local Spiritualist churches to get more evidence of grifting. Her fellow investigators, including H.P. Lovecraft’s friend Clifford Eddy, called her “the Rev” for the many phony diplomas and degrees she accumulated.

In May of 1926, she accompanied Houdini to the Capitol to testify in favor of a federal bill making fortunetelling illegal in Washington, D.C. After his sudden death on Halloween of that year, she continued his ghost-breaking work, usually paid by suspicious relatives, insurance companies, law firms, or crusading newspapers to expose open-eye frauds in a given city; she later estimated that she had investigated over 1,000 mediums. She filled out her income with lecture tours demonstrating mediumistic stage magic, but never published her magnum opus, So You Want to Attend a Séance? She remained active well into the 1950s, appearing on TV talk shows and testifying as an expert witness, and died on April 10, 1968.

The Mackenberg Files

“I want to emphasize at this point that these inquiring sessions were enlivened with a subtle and indefinable air of nervous mystification and bewilderment, with a feeling that, before the investigation was over, there would be revelations about spiritualism in high places involving mighty names, great reputations, and the peaks of government officialdom.”

Rose Mackenberg, “Six $25 Fees …” (1929)

The obvious role for Rose Mackenberg in a Trail of Cthulhu adventure is as the advisory GMC in a mediumistic investigation into a Mythos sorcerer using Mythos magic instead of stage magic to contact spirits. This is so obvious (and so unfairly nerfs the heroic Rose) that I present three other options.

• The Church of the Audient Void in Washington, D.C., poses as a Spiritualist church, recruiting the influential and wealthy as members. Its elders blackmail the membership, using the secrets the seekers share with the “spirits,” to gain covert power. The elders worship Nyarlathotep, but don’t use Mythos magic to fake spirit contact because it scares off the marks. Rose knows the Washington spiritualist world from her investigation in the previous decade; she helps the Investigators penetrate the sect, dismantling the elders’ social armor with superior grifting.
• The Investigators have discovered the operations of Augusta Bayrolles, who uses her family’s connections with the local ghoul warren to produce truths from beyond the grave for paying customers. Killing her would merely hasten her transition to full ghoul-hood, so the Investigators must work with Rose (and her local legal contacts) to convict and imprison Augusta for grave-robbery and fraud.
• In 1948, Rose exposed the medium Clarence Nielsen as a grifter. Driven to avenge his shame, Nielsen delves deep into the true occult, and finally begins hypergeometric operations against her as his researches flower. In 1965, Agents of DELTA GREEN notice unnatural phenomena in Manhattan; they contact Rose in her brightly-lit apartment. (“I got very tired of dark rooms,” she says.) She advises the Agents not on his magic (in which she still disbelieves) but on his psychology and likely weaknesses.

New Occupation: Medium

In the wake of war and epidemic, millions of people need to hear from their departed loved ones. You make such contact possible, either by genuine gift or ingenious grift. Since the spirits are notoriously capricious, even genuine mediums must know some stage magic: you can’t disappoint a grieving (and paying) client, after all. The trouble with leaving yourself open to the Other Side, however, is that not everything Outside wants reassuring human contact. Not everything Outside, you’re beginning to realize, is human.

This Occupation also models ghost-breakers, those who debunk and expose fraudulent mediums for the greater good or from a sense of personal betrayal. Just like genuine mediums do, you need to master the techniques of your targets.

Occupational Abilities

Investigative 9: Art (Stage Magic) 1, Assess Honesty 1, Flattery 1, Locksmith 1, Notice 1, Occult 1, Oral History 1, Reassurance 2

General 16: Athletics 3, Conceal 2, Disguise 2, Filch 3, Mechanics 2, Preparedness 2, Stealth 2

Credit Rating: 2–5

Special: In a properly prepared séance room (darkened, silent, attentive), your Difficulties (to channel or fake a spirit) drop by –1. Choose one of the following options:

Spirit Channeler: Add Psi 4 and Spirit Channeling 2 to your General abilities, at a cost of 10 General build points. The spirits of the dead speak to you. If they do so, you need not test any abilities. To call to and contact an unwilling or indifferent spirit, you must spend 2 Psi and make a Spirit Channeling test (Difficulty 4 unless the spirit actively resists). At the GM’s discretion, you may have a “control” spirit who helps you with such tasks; you can spend from their Athletics pool in such cases (see Ghost, in the Trail of Cthulhu corebook). The spirits (or worse) may attempt to speak through or even possess you; you can spend Psi or Spirit Channeling on your Stability test to resist, if desired. The GM may restrict this option to Pulp-mode games.

Spook Racketeer: You may buy points in, and use, the Hypnosis ability. In the context of a séance, you can use this ability on all the sitters at once, to make them receptive to your illusions while in a light trance. In addition to increasing their gullibility and suggestibility in general, this mechanically decreases their Alertness modifier (or increases their Difficulty to detect your fakery) by the margin of your success on the test against Difficulty 4 (or their Stability). The GM may only allow other uses of the Hypnosis ability in a Pulp-mode game.

Ghost-Breaker: Once per session, you can refresh 3 points of your Stability pool by revealing the mundane truth behind a seemingly supernatural occurrence: exposing a fake medium, phony psychic, or grifting cult leader; demonstrating that a haunting cold spot actually comes from subterranean water; or the like. You may not recover Stability by “exposing” an actual Mythos occurrence.

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Trail of Cthulhu is an award-winning 1930s horror roleplaying game by Kenneth Hite, produced under license from Chaosium. Whether you’re playing in two-fisted Pulp mode or sanity-shredding Purist mode, its GUMSHOE system enables taut, thrilling investigative adventures where the challenge is in interpreting clues, not finding them. Purchase Trail of Cthulhu, and its many supplements and adventures, in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.