Ghost Writer Kill, First Session
Adapted from a scenario by Graeme Davis
It is a quiet day in Gold’s Books and Antiquities. Owen Williams, shop assistant and amateur publisher, and Dalton Hodge, catalogue agent, are minding the store while Toby Gold attends to something no doubt very important.
The bell jingles and a regular client enters. Paul Collins is a fixture of the London showbiz scene, a practicing stage magician who bills himself as “The Amazing Ra!” due to the Egyptian trappings he adopts for his show. He is also vaguely connected with the film industry, as an advisor on “effects”. He is interested in books on the occult and prehistory, the more colourful and lurid the better, in order to provide inspiration for new hooks, patter, tricks etc for his shows.
Owen and Dalton have just the sort of thing Collins would be interested in buying: a 1909 Golden Goblin edition of Friedrich Von Juntz’s Nameless Cults, much prized by undiscerning collectors for the lurid woodcuts and graphic descriptions of probably fictitious pagan rites. Unfortunately for Collins, the book was obtained to order for occultist and collector Hauxley Trevanian. Unfortunately for Trevanian, he hasn’t shown up in the shop for the past three months and so is seriously overdue in collecting his book and paying his bill. Owen and Dalton quickly weigh up the pros and cons and decide to sell the book to Collins, clearing the red ink from the ledger.
Naturally, three days later Trevanian shows up, claiming to have been very busy on a “great work”, looking somewhat feverish, and wanting his book. Luckily (given customer interest in this sort of thing) Owen had previously run off a few “authentic reproductions” of the Von Juntz and Trevanian is not discerning enough to notice the substitution. (Nb: Keeper believes in player agency and so smiles and nods at this deft use of the Forgery ability and hurriedly mentally rewrites a third of the module. Carpe DM and all that.) A stroll past that evening establishes that Trevanian has torn down half of his house to build some sort of tower.
About a month later Owen, perusing the morning papers, is shocked to read of the hideous demise of Paul Collins at the hands of an unknown assailant, apparently while driving his car at night on the edge of Blackheath. [Handout 1]
Meanwhile, Charlotte Winstonthorpe, archaeologist, is contacted by a chum she knows through the Lyceum Club, Isadora Turner, a journalist. Miss Turner has come across something she thinks may be an Ancient Egyptian text and would like Charlotte’s opinion and translation skills. Miss Turner only reads a few words of the alleged text (Handout 2) before Charlotte is able to confirm that it is not Egyptian.
QuoteAi! h’neghriffkthn akhtnakhtthngai y’ghrtfthgn
Ai! Iy’f ngahn’g ghnakhngn
Tih’ndlnsh ai’h ngahn’g ai’h
Overcome with a sense of imminent danger, she stops Miss Turner reading further. Some of the words seem alarmingly similar to those of another pseudo-Egyptian script Charlotte encountered some months ago, that seemed to herald imminent death at the hands of cultic murderers to the recipient. Miss Turner is alarmed at this revelation and states that she believes that the man whom she heard utter the words is now dead. She is unwilling to say more and leaves hurriedly. However she inadvertently leaves two pieces of paper behind: one a page of notes in shorthand, and one which appears to be a publicity photograph (Handout 3).
Charlotte visits the bookshop to warn her friends that “the cultists are at it again” and to draw on Owen’s expertise to ‘translate’ the shorthand, revealing notes about something called Ziska and a ritual (Handout 4).
QuoteRe: preparation for Ziska, expected start April/May.
Assistant ‘Tahamut’ (obvs false name) officiates. Check book name correspondences. He and OB run through ritual - claims ‘geniune’. Final ritual in tomb with many followers, Ziska’s crowning moment. OB lies on table, T reads incantation over her
Dalton recalls that Ziska is the name of a popular occult romance from the late 19th century. Rummaging through the stock reveals a copy, an entertaining yarn about a reincarnated Egyptian princess seeking revenge on her also-reincarnated lover/murderer in the 19th century Parisian art/Cairo Expatriate scene (Handout 5).
Owen, Charlotte and Dalton guess that Paul Collins may be the man Miss Turner said is now dead - but what is the connection between these strange events? (And what’s their legal position for selling him the book?)