Long white bones with the skin all gone.
Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on?”
— Traditional Halloween Song
The Ghost of John, Unique Entity
Little to nothing it known about the origins of “John”, who he was in life, how he met his end, or what horrid forces resurrected him from the grave. Even the title ghost is a misnomer, doing little to describe the true condition of this creature. Some aspects of the monstrosity’s nature to suggest a connection to Ithaqua. The Ghost of John hunts human flesh; not for consumption, but to cover his own naked bones.
The Ghost of John is a skeleton, stripped bare of any tissue, awash in a sickly white glow that seems to originate from inside its empty skull. A chill wind follows John, howling and shrieking through John’s hollow bones. A mist fills the area as he stalks, whipping and curling around ankles and knees, obscuring the ground.
The Ghost of John is active all year, but seems to be particularly active as the days grow closer to Halloween. It may be due to the change in the seasons, or the old belief Halloween represented a weakening in the boundaries between the living and dead. Or it may be the rememberance of him through the childrens’ song gives him a strength found at no other time of the year.
Special Attacks:
Consume Flesh: With a successful Grapple attack, the Ghost of John can suck the flesh off the victim’s bones. The cost is 1 magic point per round. Each round, the victim loses 1d4 CON (plus an equal amount of HP). The effects are horrific. The skin tears and rips away from the victim, seemingly swimming onto John, and tightly covering his bones. John kill continue to suck the victim’s skin off until he has caused 13 CON of damage, or the victim is dead. After the first round, and each round thereafter, the target can attempt to escape John’s grasp, by successfully matching his STR against John’s STR on the Resistance Table.
Chill: Spending 1 magic point, John can fill the area (20 sq. yards) with a freezing wind that lasts 1d4 rounds. Any human in the affected area loses 1d2 hp per round due to frostbite and extreme cold, and loses 20 percentiles on every roll made.
The Ghost of John, Flesh-Seeking Horror
STR 14 – CON N/A – SIZ 13
INT 11 – POW 14 – DEX 12
Mov 7 – HP N/A
Weapon: Nasty Claws 35%, damage 1d4; Grapple 45%, damage special, see above
Armor: None; to attack and damage the Ghost of John, treat John as a normal skeleton as per the Call of Cthulhu rulebook.
Spells: None
Sanity Loss: 1/1d6+1 to see the Ghost of John.
Bruce is a sociology student and co-host of The Crypt Keepers podcast
