This is a replay for the Call of Cthulhu scenario What’s In The Cellar?, written by Jon Hook, published by Chaosium in Gateways to Terror.
The following narrative replay is for Call of Cthulhu scenario, What’s in the Cellar?, the second of three scenarios in Chaosium’s Gateways to Terror book. If you’re a player, or just don’t want to know everything about the scenario ahead of time, you can read or listen to the first, spoiler-lite section of my review of What’s in the Cellar? here. You can purchase Gateways to Terror on DriveThruRPG, Chasioum’s website, and Amazon,
Otherwise, on to What’s in the Cellar?
Clarence Blackwood, author of the occult and the weird, was summoned to the law office of Joseph Klein, along with the private detective Rodney Carr and the psychologist Dr. Verna Clark. Eight months prior, police arrested Clarence’s distant cousin and Klein’s partner, Arthur Blackwood, for murdering his wife Rose at their cabin, though they hadn’t found Rose’s body. Up until recently Arthur raved and ranted in an institution, but he recently came out of his stupor enough to claim innocence, and personally requested Clarence to go to the cabin to absolve him.
The lawyer Joseph Klein welcomed the three into his office, introducing them to one another. Though Klein sincerely doubted his partner’s innocence, he hired on the hard-boiled detective Rodney Carr to make one last sweep of the cabin in case the police missed something, and the broad-minded Dr. Verna Clark to determine Arthur Blackwood’s state of mind at the time of the murder.
Mr. Klein set an object down on his desk – all buttons and wheels. He explained it was a recorder, and that Arthur Blackwood has sent a message for Clarence. With the push of a heavy button, the machine whirred to life, and Arthur’s voiced crackled out.
“Cousin, please… you must help me. I can’t explain it… I never believed the stories for they were too fantastic to be real, but the Blackwood family line is both blessed and cursed! A genie lives in the cellar of the family cabin but to control it you must find my ring. I dropped it, I think, in the cellar! Please find my ring and prove to the police that the genie exists! Please, I implore you! Find my ring, for it is the only thing that can prove my innocence!” (Gateways to Terror p.38, Chaosium Inc.)
Klein shut off the machine then handed over a photo. It showed a basement, the walls dark, and the white, crushed shells that covered the floor were splattered with blood. Klein said Arthur had most certainly done the horrible act, likely having simply snapped under the pressure of work. He then handed over a key and letter granting the group access to the cabin. He didn’t expect much of them, but it was Arthur’s last request, and Klein had cared for his partner deeply. Before he went mad.
After a few parting matters, the three took Rodney’s car out of town to the cabin. They found the building empty, as expected, with little of interest besides plenty of happy photos of Arthur and Rose. And so they opened the door into the dark cellar, and armed with flashlights, descended.
Shells crunched under their feet as they spread out through the cellar. Rodney quickly noted the lack of any blood stains on the shells – in the picture the floor had been splattered. Stuffed shelves lined the walls, and Clarence and Dr. Clark started rooting through the mess.
Dr. Clark pulled out an old wooden box containing a journal, a ripped sheet of paper, and a small painting of a stern looking man. His dark gaze unnerved her and she quickly broke eye contact with the long-dead man, and notice an extravagant ring on his right index finger. On the reverse side, scrawled hand-writing introduced the stoic man as the Wizard Milton Blackwood. This Milton Blackwood, a self-designated wizard, turned out to have written the journal and the scrap of paper, if the similar handwriting could be trusted. A section in the journal described the wizard making a pact with some sort of super-natural creature. In archaic script, the scrap of paper claimed that this creature would bring good fortune to the Blackwood line, from heir to heir, as long as the Blackwoods kept hold of the ring. It warned to never remove the ring.
Clarence Blackwood shivered as Dr. Clark recounted her discoveries. Something about it rang familiar, rang true. In his own digging through the junk, Clarence came out with an old trowel, its edges sharp to the touch. Making a connection in his head, he looked at the ladder. It descended into the shells, rather than settling atop. The shells must be piled deep on the true dirt floor beneath.
And then something banged into the back of Clarence’s head, nearly toppling him over. He held his throbbing skull, and when he brought it away, blood dripped from his fingers. A hammer lay at his feet with some blood and curls of his hair on its head. The others asked if he was alright and what had happened. Dr. Clark bound and stopped the bleeding as best she could while Rodney picked up the hammer. It must have fallen off the top shelf, he said. Clarence wasn’t so sure but kept it to himself.
Poking around some more, Rodney started digging around the shells with his foot. One large shell caught his eye. Carefully brushing aside sharp fragments to get at the larger one, he slowly grew suspicious. And when he drew it, he sucked in a hiss of air. A thigh bone. Human. He dug further, wincing as he cut and scraped his fingers.
Clarence and Dr. Clark gathered at Rodney’s call. He held a skull. Bits of decaying flesh still hung from it in places. Dr. Clark inspected it, finding it to be a woman’s skull with deep bite marks on its surface, scraping flesh and punching through bone. Definitely not a human’s bite. The clinging flesh dated it at roughly eight months old. The same time as Rose Blackwood’s death.
Rodney and Dr. Clark looked at Clarence. His cousin, Arthur, wasn’t a murderer, he was innocent! But that meant…
Dr. Clark bolted for the ladder.
Clarence and Rodney, a bit slower on the uptake, watched as Dr. Clark scrambled up the ladder. Only for the door to swing shut in her face, knocking her down into the jagged shells. Clarence made to go help her when something drew his eye to a corner of the room.
The darkness wriggled.
He scampered aside just in time as a tentacle, pink and glistening, whipped past him. And then a second followed in its wake, striking his calf. He cried out and looked down to see a ragged tear in his pants’ leg, blood flowing free.
A gaggle of tentacles wavered in the air, stretching out of the shadows. Small gnashing jaws tipped the ends of the appendages. And in the darkness, something slightly over the edge of unseeable contorted and unfurled. And laughed.
The ring! Rodney dove his arms deep into the shells, slicing open fingers, hands, and wrists. Digging, searching for the ring, red stains spread up his shirt arms. His fingers closed on a small cold loop. With a savage grin he yanked it free, holding the ring up with blood-slick hands.
As Dr. Clark got to her feet, her dress cut and stained with dozens of red splotches, and staggered along the shelves, looking for something to defend herself with. She found a baseball bat and raised it between her and the creature.
Clarence swung his trowel at the nearest tentacle, its sharp edge biting into the thick rope, and the thing screeched. But its attention was on Rodney. Two tentacles shot out, one striking him in the chest, the other his thigh, flinging the detective through the air. He tumbled through the biting shells and came to rest in a bloody heap. The ring still held in his lacerated hand.
With a snarl Dr. Clark charged the darkness. Her bat swung through empty air, and the tentacle swivelled to face her. Somewhere in the black corner, she felt a baleful gaze meet her own. Its abject alienness seemed to freeze her, locking her legs in place like tree trunks.
And as the tentacles closed on her, Clarence snatched the ring out of Rodney’s red hands and slipped it on his finger. Instantly, he knew what to do.
Holding out his hand, ring pointed at the gnashing teeth and eyes bulging out of the dark corner, Clarence bellowed for the demon to respect their pact and return to its seal.
Its screeching rage shook the cellar, knocking knick-knacks from the shelves and rattling the shell floor. A section of the floor cleared, shell fragments spraying out of the way, revealing an ornate arcane symbol carved into the floor. It glowed with an uncanny purple light.
The demon spat and cursed, but with sound of tearing fabric it slipped into the sigil. The screams faded, the glow dimmed, and all fell silent in the cellar.
Dr. Clark and Clarence steadied themselves, then rushed over to Rodney. Though losing blood and unconscious, he hadn’t yet completely slipped away. Quick first aid by Dr. Clark stemmed the bleeding, and together they wrestled Rodney out of the cabin and into his car, and from there to a hospital.
In the coming weeks and months, life returned to a happy, normal, place. Rodney recovered and promptly retired. Arthur Blackwood’s name was cleared, though he remained in an institution for the better part of a year until he begrudgingly gave up on his tales of genies and confirmed that a bear had mauled his wife. Dr. Clark continued her practice, but began dabbling in more esoteric fields, finding fertile grounds for her exploration of the human – and inhuman – mind.
Clarence kept the ring, eagerly gifted to him by his cousin. He found a life of good fortune, things tending to go his way, and avoiding the worst experiences most folk went through. But he always made sure to keep the cellar locked.
If you want to try running What’s in the Cellar? for your group, you can purchase Gateways to Terror on DriveThruRPG, Chasioum’s website, Amazon, or your friendly neighbourhood game shop(Unless you your game stores are like the one’s in my city, in which case, no, you can’t get them there, or any other Chaosium games, sadly).
And before you go, maybe take a look at some more scenario replays?
MJRRPG: Branches of Bone
Seeds of Terror: The Mummy of Pemberley Grange, Endless Light, One Less Grave, Hand of Glory
Chaosium: Amidst the Ancient Trees, The Necropolis, What’s in the Cellar?, The Dead Boarder
Japonism: Do Gods Dream of Digital Drugs?
Bibliothek 13: A Cup of Horror
