At the local university, Doctor York of the biology department is prepared to show the board an incredible discovery he has made. He claims to have discovered a whole new species of insect just this morning!

As he places the large glass case at the table, he dramatically pulls back the covering over it revealing...

Possibilities

1 Hundreds of tiny, scuttling white spider like creatures. They are still tinged red with blood and internal organs.

Josephine Thayer was a student at the University. She was also a powerful dreamer, who wandered into the labyrinth of Eihort. She accepted Eihort’s dread bargain. A week later, she felt her whole body alive with pain. She was trying to get to the medical room, when she stumbled into Dr York’s room. She fell apart into hundreds of tiny white spiders, which York, his mind now broke, scooped up into a specimen case.

2 A strange, blob-like creature.

Dr York is an ambitious but flawed cultist. He is more concerned with making cash than worshipping anything nasty, but he finds an odd invocation to Zathokkwua necessary when he wants to learn how to transmute lead into gold.

His latest experiment was trying to summon a servant creature for himself. He ended up calling on the “Primal Slime” to grant him one of its children. He received a small disgusting blob like creature, which he was very disappointed with. He decided to make some cash by claiming it was a new species of insect and selling it to the university.

It is one of the protozoa like spawn of Ubbo-Sathla. In time, it will grow in size and sprout many tentacle-like appendages. It will then begin to absorb every living thing around it.

3     An empty box.

While Doctor York was having his breakfast this morning, he found a centipede like creature in his melon. Excited, he thought it was an unknown creature, and bundled it into a box to take to the University. When York pulls back the covering, the box is empty.

The centipede is in fact a known poisonous species, and York has somehow unleashed it on the university. It won’t be long before students start to drop dead.

© Paul Hebron

An investigator visits an archaeologist of long acquaintance, Professor Andrew Dutton Long, at Long’s small but well-kept home. The yard is groomed, the house clean and neat, but every room is infested with vermin. Spiders and slugs crawl the walls, fleas infest the carpet, and houseflies swarm so thick the investigator can hardly breathe. No neighboring houses have the problem. Long is friendly and seems completely sane, yet oblivious to the vermin. He does not see them, and he casually deflects all comments. “This is a nice neighborhood,” he says as earwigs crawl over his forehead. “No problems here with bugs or the like.”

Possibilities

1 Long has procured or devised a talisman to summon Atlach-Nacha. The talisman does not work, but it has the side effect of attracting vermin. The necessary research into the talisman snapped Long’s sanity. A strongbox in his basement, covered thickly with ants and wasps, holds the talisman.

2 A serpent man, Haus-saris-sith, has killed Long and assumed his identity. The pests have been drawn by the serpent’s repellent heaps of carrion hidden around the house. As the investigator continues speaking with “Long,” Haus-saris-sith extends its illusion to conceal the vermin, then attempts Cloud Memory. If the investigator succumbs, the serpent plants a post-hypnotic suggestion that compels the investigator to learn Mythos spells and convey them to Haus-saris-sith

3 Dholes spread to new worlds from the Dreamlands by implanting larvae in the dream forms of victims. Eating a dreamer from within, the larvae gradually materialize in the dreamer’s waking world. Exploring the Dreamlands, Long was trapped by a dhole and received a single larva; it now grows in his material body. The manifestation attracts vermin as a side effect. Now mad, Long has blocked all memories of his ongoing nightmare, and refuses to perceive the pests. To stop the manifestation, investigators can kill Long and fight the emerging larva, or enter the Dreamlands, locate Long in the Vale of Pnath, and extract the larva before Long’s dream form dies.

© Allen Varney

A dog can be a loyal companion in trying times. One of the investigators has a dog – as a faithful guardian, a reliable tracker, and someone he can always trust. Today, however, there appears to be something wrong - as the investigator comes downstairs, it stands in the hall, growling up at him. It doesn’t seem to want to come upstairs, but won’t let him go down.

Possibilities

1 The dog was scratching around in nearby woods a few days ago when it unearthed a Traveller larva, swallowed it and was possessed. The alien’s ship fell to Earth in an asteroid shower a centuries ago and this entity has only recently been disturbed by the dog’s digging.

The Traveller now seeks a more suitable host and wants to trap the human upstairs until it can attack more effectively - though it has control of the dog and could reanimate it if killed, it cannot yet make the special filament attacks typical of mature Travellers.

Meanwhile, the investigator might recall that the dog has been acting peculiar since going for a run in the woods a few days ago.

2 A sadistic serial-killer attacked the investigator last night and died, but the shans that controlled him simply flew into the investigator’s brain. It made him dump the body and then blanked his memory of the event. The dog can detect the creature, but does not wish to hurt its master.

By day, when the alien sleeps, the investigator notices gaps in his memory (such as not recalling anything in the papers about a serial-killer before, though it has been a lead story for weeks) and small clues that the shans has not yet had time to twist. By night, the alien is active, editing memories and making him kill sadistically, starting with the dog. It even adds memories from previous homicidal hosts, although the investigator’s friends have ready alibis for him in most of those cases.

3 The dog is trying to warn its master to stay upstairs – the centre of the kitchen floor is starting to subside, and the faint scrapings and slippages have distressed the animal all night. A little weight or a little more decay reveals that this part of the house was built over an old well. After many years, dampness in the shaft has decayed the capstone, resulting in subsidence.

On examination this shaft is found to be quite dry – the capstone has been chipped away from beneath until it collapsed. At the bottom of the well are piles of bones. Most are those of children, but those at the top of the pile belong to an adult. Research discovers that the local landowner was thrown into this well after it was discovered that he cast children into it as sacrifices to his dark god. By night, the sorcerer’s skeleton scales the walls to chip away at the stone used to seal him in.

© Pete Wright

Two-thirty a.m. is a time when town is quiet, save only for the quick footfalls of a stray wanderer, swiftly heading for home. The investigators have just rounded off a successful evening of cards and are bidding their host a good morning.

Suddenly, the peace is broken by an ear-piercing roar as a crepuscular shape hurtles through the sky leaving a phosphorescent haze trailing behind it. The object’s path of descent sends it hurtling into the clouded depths of the town’s lake. Residents stagger from their houses and before long a crowd has gathered at the lake’s edge. Onlookers can discern a nebulous, viridian glow spreading beneath the surface of the water; it pulses regularly like the rhythmic pounding of a giant heartbeat.

The following morning, the meteor (the most accepted explanation) has become the focus of all conversations. One man speculates that perhaps H.G.Wells’ Martians were not purely the work of fiction. Another speaks of a terrible discovery made by the town fishermen. The lake’s aquatic denizens are dead. The corpses drift across the surface of the water yet bear no mark of injury. If tested, the lake now registers radioactivity.

Possibilities

1 Many of the townsfolk have made frenzied calls to the authorities, eliciting an unexpected response; that evening a full military task force mobilises on the edge of town. The lake and surrounding area is cordoned off, the guards equipped with firearms. The military begin a systematic evacuation of the town; complaints are ignored. The inhabitants are warned not to speak to anyone about their memory of the preceding night. All photographs pertaining to the object (even those of the glowing lake or dead fish) are confiscated. A full news blackout of the event has been imposed upon news stations. The military has threatened to revoke their licences if any details of the event are transmitted.

Depending upon who they approach, the investigators receive contradictory information. The object could be described as any of the following: a simple meteorite, an advertisement balloon, a parachutist or a foreign explosive device (or any other equally implausible explanation).

Just what are the military hiding? How does it involve the “meteorite”?

2 The lake now houses an invader, a being that feeds upon life itself, a Colour Out of Space.

The Colour, like so many of its race, has crossed the cosmos in search of a world capable of sustaining its near-insatiable appetite. After countless years of wandering it finally discovered the Earth. In order to avoid the sun’s impeding rays, the creature made its descent under the cover of darkness. It now resides on the lake’s bed, hidden from the sun’s rays by a murky, liquid shroud.

The creature hunts by night. Since the lake has now been drained of food it will leave the water’s protection and seek sustenance beyond. While quite content to feed on the abundant undergrowth, it will attack any humans who approach it or try to harm it. The Colour spends the daylight hours drilling into the lake’s bed forming a narrow tunnel, when this is complete it will create the embryonic spheres in which to house its young.

3 At some point in humanity’s recent history the Earth became home to a small group of the parasitic Shan (aka The Insects from Shaggai). The Shan race had already colonised many worlds, both throughout and beyond our solar system. Their next target was to be the Earth. They were instead trapped upon it, unable to teleport away due to a mysterious element in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The “meteor” is a Shan scout-vessel. The Shan have deduced that their teleportation-temples will not function and have sent a spacecraft (powered by the pilot’s psychokinetic capability).

The pilot has two objectives: firstly, it must reclaim one of the indestructible teleportation-temples that lies abandoned and forgotten at the base of the lake; secondly, it must assess the Earth’s potential for invasion. The first night will be spent loading the pyramid aboard its vessel, subsequent nights will find the creature leaving the lake and assessing humanity’s strength.

If the creature believes that the Earth would be a suitable target for invasion it will activate a beacon. That night, the sky will be filled with the falling "meteors", that blaze one-by-one into the lake’s irradiated waters.

© Hadley Connor

It's nothing unusual at first. After all, everyone thinks they see movement from the corner of their eye, don't they? Although it doesn't usually happen quite so often. And, on reflection, it's always around the investigator's house, inside and out. Never further afield. Odd.

Then there are the birds. Lots of them - an unusually large number. Drawn by the beetles.

In fact, there do seem to be rather a lot of beetles. Always a common sight, they now seem to be everywhere, scampering in the yard and around the house. They hide behind jars, on shelves and in cupboards.

They get bolder. The investigator gets the feeling he is being watched - but there is nobody around. Nobody and nothing - except for one of the beetles. A big one, nearly an inch from antenna to tail, sitting on the windowsill. Motionless until the investigator moves - and then it turns to track his movements.

Pest control, doesn't work. Chemicals and pesticides leave hundreds of crispy little corpses, but there are always more.

A bird's painful screeches draws the investigator's attention. The bird, a thrush, flaps painfully in the yard. It seems to be covered in berries, or beads - or beetles, attacking en masse! Eventually the bird stops flapping, and the beetles swarm over the corpse in triumph.

Then the neighbour's dog goes missing . . .

Possibilities

1 It is not only their behaviour that has been altered. Many of the beetles are mutants. Most look perfectly normal, but a few are bloated and corpulent. Some even have seven legs.

Closer inspection shows that not only are the beetles mutated. Other insects look similarly affected - as is simple plant life and, eventually, birds and small mammals. Everything becomes more aggressive, more belligerent.

The mutation is caused by a massive build-up of underground toxins from a nearby government facility. Waste from dubious processes is dumped into fissures in the ground, away from environmentalists' eyes. Over a period of time, people fall ill and even die. Random acts of violence soar, from slavering dogs savaging young children to freeway slayings over minor traffic misdemeanours.

As things get worse, the facility keeps on pumping chemicals into the ground . . .

2 Poorly conducted investigations leave loose ends untied - and those loose ends are rarely pleased.

A sorcerer, warlock or witch has been overlooked in a recent case and is now taking revenge on the investigator. The investigator has been cursed with a plague of beetles, and before long he is suffering from rashes and bites - beetle bites.

Eventually, if no way is found to lift the curse, the beetles attack. Millions of beetles swarm over the investigator and smother him. They fill his mouth, crawl in his ears, his nose. He suffocates painfully under the foul black sea.

By morning, the beetles are gone.

3 The beetles have formed a hive-mind consciousness. This rough collective intelligence is the precursor to the great beetle race that the Great Race of Yith will eventually inhabit, millions of years in the future. But its origin starts here, and now.

The beetle consciousness, in this formative state and a long way from intelligence, is groping blindly, unable to make sense of much what it experiences. It learns slowly, but reacts to anything it perceives as a threat.

The Great Race is naturally very interested in the emergence of the beetle intelligence. Agents are in the area, watching from a distance. It is imperative that the organism survives. If the investigator moves against the intelligence - they will act. If eliminating the investigator looks to cause more problems than is worth, the agents move the hive-mind instead. The investigator wakes to discover that two whole days are missing from his memory - and the beetles have gone . . .

© Steve Hatherley

It's a massive snail. It's body must be nearly 9" long (and maybe 2-3" in girth), with a huge shell to match. Worse than that, it's in the cellar. The cellar was always damp, but never home to giant snails...

Closer inspection reveals that there is a crack in the cellar wall, and the snail has come through from next door. The neighbouring house is owned by Sebastian Crease, a thin gentleman in his late-fifties, who lives alone.

Possibilities

1 Sebastian Crease is a discredited scientist - having been fired from his previous employer he is trying to create a comeback. His cellar is filled with test tubes, petri dishes and tanks full of snails. Crease is trying to create a cheap, nutritious superfood based on snails that he can sell to the agribusiness that fired him. He has successfully bred snails up to 9" long, but is aiming for twice that.

2 The snail is a rare Amazonian Flesh-Eating Snail, and Crease is a snail enthusiast. He keeps them in his cellar, which is full of tanks containing specimens from across the globe.

Unfortunately, Crease is now dead - he slipped on a step-ladder while changing the light bulb in the cellar. He fell onto one of the tanks, shattering the glass and his body ended up on the floor in a pool of blood, a shard of glass in his windpipe.

As for the tank, it contained the giant Amazonian Flesh-Eating Snails, and they have been gorging on the feast. With Crease's corpse mostly consumed, they have gone in search of other food.

3 The Grand Vitae Society is an illustrious thirty-year old society that researches ancient Roman customs and traditions - and re-enacts them. (Since the death of society founder Lucius Splitfoot three years ago, the society has become more enthusiastic in its re-enactments and recent gatherings have repeated some of Roman society's worst excesses.)

Sebastian Crease is a prominent member of the society and is responsible for providing a particular Roman delicacy for the next meeting - fattened snails. He feeds the snails on a kind of pap made from, amongst other things, sweet wine and honey. The snails have thrived.

Having successfully bred the snails, Sebastian is now trying different recipes for cooking and serving them. Anyone who calls is invited to try a plate of meaty snacks and titbits...

Lake Vostok, under the Antarctic ice, has been sealed off from the rest of the world for millions of years. When a Russian probe finally brought back samples of the lake water, the scientists were amazed to discover that it was rich in microscopic life.

Deep in cold Lake Vostok, the life was dormant. The heat and light of the Russian laboratory brought a remarkable transformation and soon the samples were buzzing with life. In particular, the samples swarmed with a kind of primitive midge larvae that had hatched from tiny eggs.

The larvae grew and over a period of weeks matured and eventually grew into adults. The adults lived for three days in which they mated and each laid thousands of eggs in the water. The cycle continued.

Eventually, the inevitable happened and some of the midges escaped one of the Russian laboratories where they were being studied. (By this time samples had been distributed to a number of laboratories around the world.) The midges vanished into Siberia and no more was thought of them. The scientists continued their studies.

The midges colonised ponds and lakes in Siberia. During the winter they would go dormant, becoming active each spring and summer. Eventually they reached 400 mile long Lake Baikal in southern Siberia.

Five years after the midges escaped the laboratory (and only six years since being first discovered) the first superswarm appeared over Lake Baikal.

Possibilities

1 From their stronghold in Lake Baikal, the midges rapidly expand. A year later, midges have been found in Europe, Asia, North America and Africa, transported by migrating birds. A year after that a superswarm appears over Lake Victoria – and the year after that Lake Eerie.

Projections indicate that within ten years every freshwater body on the planet will be home to what becomes known as the supermidge. Superswarms will become regular features over any body of freshwater bigger than ten cubic miles. In tropical climates supermidges blacken the skies and threaten the viability of mankind’s already fragile drinking water supplies.

In cooler, temperate climates, winter brings at least some respite. But not for long, as the warmer weather is never more than six months away.

2 Although the midges individually live for no longer than three days, a superswarm typically lasts for about ten. At its height, when trillions of midges make up the superswarm, a kind of mental critical mass occurs and the superswarm develops a rudimentary intelligence.

Awareness typically starts on day three of the superswarm and is at its peak at about day seven. During these few days the superswarm is self-aware, and communicates in writhing patterns. It is aware that it only has a few days to live, but it is hungry to learn how it might live longer.

3 The midges are the heralds of the many-angled ones. Millions of years ago, when the many-angled ones last walked upon the Earth, Lake Vostok was open to the air. The many-angled ones left their spoor upon the Earth, but over time all was erased from the land, air and sea. Only Lake Vostok was left. Untouched. Unspoilt. Dormant. Waiting.

Now, with the Lake Baikal superswarm containing many trillions of midges, something begins. The superswarm starts to dance. Complex, fractal patterns appear, and the superswarm pulses rhythmically. The superswarm is tearing a rift in space-time, a doorway to where the many-angled ones dwell...

© Steve Hatherley