MoN 038: Going "Up North"

The plan was set, and the die was cast—the group would head up north. They would travel by train to Derbyshire and Lesser Edale. There they would investigate the story of villagers being torn apart by some kind of vicious beast—which many of them assumed was a werewolf (but of course, werewolves aren’t real—right?) Dr Dudley and Ikil Lit were not so sure—they had seen things in France during the closing days of the war that had led them to question what was real and what was not.

Of course, there was much to do before their journey north—shotguns and copious ammunition had to be purchased, and research on Edale had to be carried out. Thus, the group were busy out and about in London for a few days. Dr Dudley even found time to spend a day in the London Library to research African cults—which led him to a fascinating fragment of the exceptionally rare Africa’s Dark Secrets by Nigel Blackwell, which seemed to detail some aspects of the so-called Bloody Tongue in Kenya!

At St. Pancreas

After a few days, on the 20th, the group assembled at St. Pancreas for their northward journey. However, while they waited for the train, they all noticed a slender middle-aged man watching them. Ikil Lit slipped behind the man in case he posed a threat to the group while Jacob accosted the stranger. A short and inconclusive conversation ensued, which culminated in the man hurriedly leaving the station. Eagle-eyed Ikil Lit saw the man rush back into the station, however, as the group’s train pulled away from the station. With luck, though, it seemed the man had not seen where the group had gone.

Hours later, after changing at Derby, the group alighted with their baggage as Edale. Sadly there were no taxis available, but a few minutes after they got off the train, a wagon rumbled down the street.

Lesser Edale

The group pounced and paid the carter—Burt—to take them to Lesser Edale, which lay five miles hence on the other side of Mam Tor.

They arrived in the village as both dusk and drizzle fell over the village. Luckily, the village inn—the Laughing Horse—had enough rooms for them all, and the group unpacked and settled in before returning to the common room to sample the local beer and food. Most of the group enjoyed mixing with the locals, but Charles seemed somewhat out of his element—his beloved Savoy but a distant memory for now.

The group discovered that the locals were simple folk wreathed in the superstitions of the locality and firm in their belief of the Black Beast’s existence. Several of them purported to have seen the beast itself before the local constable, Hurbert Tumwell, had shot and killed it in mid-December of the previous year. Even though it was supposedly dead, many of the assembled drinkers vowed they had heard it howling at every full moon since! Clearly, there was more to this mystery than the papers had reported.

As the night wore on, and the pints flowed, the group—artfully posing as clueless American tourists—learnt much from the assembled villagers…

This post is a session summary for my weekly 7th edition Call of Cthulhu Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign.