Do you know what Lovecraftian critter just doesn’t seem to get enough credit? The Great Race of Yith. I mean, here they are, living five hundred million years in our past, yet swapping minds with people in our own world. They even have a cult that helps them out. This vast secret society, and not even Delta Green has a commentary on them. Well, it’s about time we gave the Yithians more credit, and help them learn the meaning of Christmas in the process.
The basic premise of this is that Yithians have possessed the minds of children belonging to their cultists, so that they can somehow experience the joys of Christmas through the eyes of a child.
Investigators can get drawn in any number of ways, most of it revolving around the fact that the eleven children involved in the experiment have begun to act very strangely. Almost inhuman…
If the Investigators try to speak to parents of children who are not part of the cult, they find the parents are concerned, but unwilling to look into the matter. As though they’ve been bullied into complacency.
Actually breaking into the homes and rooting around will turn up all manner of arcane tomes, a few magical artifacts and a few technological goodies. All of them fairly new, in fact. (“A copy of Al Azif, in its native Arabic, but in mint condition?!”)
Of course, if they do this much snooping, the cult will become very cross. A few of the cultists will in fact go so far as to try and snuff out the Investigators. If you’re feeling as lazy as I am, feel free to use the stats for Artie Gumshoe from the back of the Call of Cthulhu book for the would-be assassins. Give them Cthulhu Mythos and Occult of 20%.
Things like this will escalate. Depending on the resources the Investigators have, this could even come to a showdown.
Should the Investigators attempt to rescue the children, they will find that the children don’t exactly want to be rescued.
Yith-Possessed Children
STR 7
CON 10
SIZ 7
INT 20
POW 13
DEX 10
Move 7
HP 8
Weapons: Fist 25%, damage 1d3-1d4
Skills: Keepers Discretion, though high Library Use, Occult and Mythos would be appropriate.
Spells: 2 of the children, at the Keepers discretion, might have spells. Assign 1-3 spells as you see fit.
Come December 26th, the Great Race leaves the children, and the children have no memory of what happened to them. They will have occasional nightmares and flashbacks, but no firm recollection of their time spent in the past.
Should the Investigators continue their meddling, the cult will leave town at this point. The Investigators may never get a satisfactory answer for what happened to the children, and even if they did they will likely be unable to do anything about it. Sure, players may be upset about that, but the point of this scenario isn’t to provide answers. It’s meant to be creepy and confusing, and possibly a stepping stone into other adventures later on. That’s it.
Tune in tomorrow for the startling conclusion to this series!
Jeremy Zimmerman is a teller of tales who dislikes cute euphemisms for writing like “teller of tales.” His fiction has most recently appeared in 10Flash Quarterly, Arcane and anthologies from Timid Pirate Publishing. His young adult superhero book, Kensei, is available as part of Cobalt City Rookies. He is also the editor for Mad Scientist Journal. He lives in Seattle with five cats and his lovely wife (and fellow author) Dawn Vogel.
