As is the custom, I ran a Call of Cthulhu one-shot because the calendar has ticked over into Spooky Month. The premise for this one-shot was that the four characters were a gang of bank robbers (Tiny, Wildman, Goon, and Mouse) who had just pulled off a heist in Ithaca, NY and were now en route to Buffalo via some backwoods roads. In case you want to avoid spoilers, the scenario I ran was "The Saturnine Chalice." I didn't quite manage a Total Party Kill, but three out of four characters ain't bad.
Events
Tiny was at the wheel of the getaway car; Wildman was in the passenger seat acting as navigator--he found an isolated road for them to stick to. Unfortunately, something went wrong with the car; despite the gas gauge reading "Full," it sputtered to a stop at the side of the road, apparently out of fuel. Fortunately, they spotted a driveway winding up a wooded hill. Surely, the residents might have some gas to spare or at least had a phone to call into town?
After they rang the bell, an old man answered the door. Dressed in the uniform of a butler, he invited them inside and asked them to steady the step ladder he was using to change the lightbulbs in the chandelier overhead. Goon helped him, but failed to notice that the wires were actually too frayed for the chandelier to be operational.
The characters were joined in the hallway by an older man (Augustus, the master of the house), Veronica (his daughter), and Rosemary (the maid). Veronica was wearing mourning dress, but everyone else was dressed normally. Rosemary had a disconcertingly wide smile.
The group requested aid, so Augustus had the butler (Jeremiah) take the characters out to the garage to fetch some gas. Unfortunately, the gas cans were empty and Jeremiah said that the family's Rolls-Royce was nonfunctional. Back in the house, they used the family's phone to request that the general store in the next town over deliver a few cans of gas so they could get their car started.
At this point, August and Veronica invited them to have tea in the dining room while they waited. The long dining room table was already set for an astounding twenty-two people. They explained that they were expecting guests for a dinner party later that night. However, the characters noticed that the candles in the candelabras on the table weren't actually burning down.
They also spotted a small lead sculpture of an ox with a strange symbol inscribed on its base: a square subdivided into nine numbered squares with a line moving from one square to another. Augustus told them that the symbol was a kamea and pointed out that the sum of the numbers in the squares all added up to fifteen in every direction. He said he couldn't remember where he picked up the item. When Goon asked about Veronica's mourning clothes, neither of them could remember who she was grieving. Clearly, something strange was going on in the house.
The characters were left on their own in the dining room, which gave them a chance to explore further. They found a lounge with bright white walls. The room had several paintings of the family, including Augustus's wife (whom they hadn't encountered in the house), as well as a metal bust of Augustus. The bust was positioned to look out the window. When Wildman examined it, he saw that it was inscribed with a different kamea. Beneath it was a scrap of paper that offered a clue on how to decipher the kamea's hidden message.
Veronica came in to play the piano while they worked on the code. They also noted that the library was full of occult and theological works, particularly focused on the role of angels in the Abrahamic religious traditions. Engaging the group in light conversation, she said that she loved to travel. When pressed further, she said that she had just been in Scotland before returning home--but couldn't remember why she had left to come back to her father's house.
The group moved upstairs to explore further. Strangely, none of the residents of the house tried to stop them from poking around. The upstairs bedroom featured a desk with more books. From the materials on the desktop, it was obvious that someone in the house had an interest in the Book of Abramelin, an occult tome focused on summoning a guardian angel.
Mouse tried to open the door leading to the balcony, but it was nailed shut and the gaps around it were sealed with red wax. She noticed that although it should have been just past noon, it was now dark outside. She also saw a line of identical cars approaching the house.
Wildman tried to leave the house, but found the space beyond the front door barred by a stout brick wall. He yelled for Jeremiah, but the butler insisted that he couldn't see any wall.
Back upstairs, Mouse found an oratory room with whitewashed walls. There was a stone altar in the room; hanging over the altar was a odd-looking lamp. When Mouse climbed up onto the altar to get a better look at the lamp, she saw the corpse of a woman in mourning dress hidden behind it. The dead woman had a three-foot wooden wand driven through her chest. Undeterred, Mouse clambered onto the altar and saw that the lamp's glass sides were crystalline and unusually clear. There was a wick inside, but the lamp was out of oil.
Meanwhile, back downstairs, the guests for the dinner party arrived. There were all identical middle-aged men, and all of them went by the name Lester Goodman. The Lester Goodmans had no trouble simply walking through the brick wall in front of the door. There were sixteen of them in total. (Sixteen of them, plus the four characters, plus Augustus and Veronica added up to the twenty-two settings on the dining room table.)
Frantic to figure out what was going on, the characters descended into the basement, where they found the corpses of a man in a butler's uniform and a woman in a maid's uniform clutching each other in death. They noticed a shadow move across the wall; it was unusually tall and seemed to have feathered wings on its back.
They returned to the room with the altar, bringing with them a bottle of lamp oil from the pantry. When the lamp was lit, they found themselves in the presence of a winged angel who said "Be not afraid." The characters involuntarily dropped to their knees before the angel. The angel told them that all they needed to do to escape the house was to destroy or deface one of the kamea statues in the house; he explained that the family had botched a magical ritual and had inadvertently turned the house into a prison.
Tiny rushed downstairs and toppled the Augustus's bust onto the floor, breaking it.
Back in the altar room, the others watched in horror as the angel began to glow brighter and brighter, until the being's innermost light burned out their minds, leaving them catatonic. The angel, which was never an angel, was now free. It then departed to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world.
Tiny found that he was also now free--the house was empty and there were no bricks between him and freedom. Returning to the garage, he found that the gas cans were actually full and that the Rolls-Royce was perfectly operational. Leaving his co-conspirators to their grim fates, Tiny departed with all the loot from the bank job and put the horrors of the Saturnine Chalice behind him.
