Introduction:    

It is midnight, October 31st, 1933. You stand outside the gates of Vane Hall, a regal estate of indeterminate age whose edifice, once stately and formal, has diminished into neglect and disrepair. The cruel shock of a mid-October frost has left the grounds even more bleak than usual; a recent lightning strike and subsequent fire the day before after consumed a portion of the gardens, blackening a portion of the mansion’s visage. No romantic charm to this autumnal transition; instead, a battery of unpredictable squalls bearing vicious hail and icy cold rain telegraphed by unreal cloud formations occasionally glimpsed as lightning strobes across in the dead black sky. As you weigh your options vis-a-vis accessing the grounds, you go over what you know:

In six hours, the entire estate of Dr Jackson Vane will become a public asset, as per his last wishes. But due to the lax fine print contained in his will, a legally gray “finders keepers” period will exist between midnight and 6 AM. Informally, word has gotten around that the Vane family, who long since abandoned the estate during the Doctor’s secretive convalescence, have declined involvement in protecting the estate and its assets in the interval.

(Anthropology, Archaeology, Biology, Geology, Medicine, Physics, Theology – Some years ago, Dr Jackson Vane, a preeminent pathologist, suddenly began exhibiting what seemed to be symptoms of severe neurological disease and in spite of his public battle to manage its deleterious effects for months after, he was presumed to have become convalescent. If he is dead, his scientific legacy is at stake.)

[Anthropology] Dr Jackson Vane belongs to a strain of religious adherents who seek to reconcile humankind’s innate divinity with the natural world. Throughout history, these figures have consistently emerged as key sources of of revolutionary, disruptive transformations in all cultures. These black swans, in the 19th century, have been largely absent on the scale that they were in millennia prior and it’s very likely that Dr Jackson Vane was destined to become one.

[Archaeology] When invoked in the esteemed halls of academia, Dr Jackson Vane’s Antarctic expedition elicits rebukes and aversion equally. Vane’s mission to “witness God at the end of the world” was not as proudly supported by his peers in the scientific community as it was by the church-affiliated financial backers. But a pair of young, ambitious archaeologists joined Vane's ill-fated endeavour regardless. While all who participated in the venture returned worse for wear, the archaeologists in question unceremoniously swore off the whole field of study to become missionaries, claiming to have actually encountered an sword-bearing angel who commanded them to warn the world of the coming battle between Satan and God. However, you distinctly recall the tools they brought with them coming back with clear indicators they'd been used for intensive excavation.

[Biology] Around the time of Dr Vane's return from Antarctica, there was a mysterious rumor whispered lasciviously in the dimly-lit after-hours gatherings of biology students of all stripes. Someone had supposedly found evidence that "brain sand", the extremely fine organic crystals present in the pineal gland, were absent in primitive humans. Given the mysterious nature of the crystals, few who even felt inclined to engage with the provocative claim asked the nature of the source of the speculation, instead conspiring to craft a theory on how the crystals developed independently of the pineal gland itself. As you overheard the aforementioned intoxicated imaginings, you recall another neuroanatomist arguing that the pineal gland must be responsible for the regulation of sleep processes, an issue of great concern to chronic insomniac Dr Vane.

[Geology] The Geological Society of London, like most of London's respected scholarly institutions, publicly deflected any questions about their involvement in Dr Vane's Antarctic expedition, never officially rejecting the opportunity or urging any associated geologists to do so themselves. Due to the immeasurable esteem of the Geological Society, any effort to tie them to the unidentified geologists who did go to Antarctica with Vane was futile, but the sophisticated sample extraction equipment that accompanied them was unmistakable. But the real mystery is the bizarre fixation that subsumed several prominent Society geologists in the wake of the Expedition, focusing on hunting specific, ultra-rare crystalline minerals.

[Medicine Spend] For a short period of time, the papers covered Dr Vane's neurological deterioration with typical zeal, documenting his outbursts, fits of inchoate vocalizing and insensible raving. The striking feature of his condition was how relatively innocuous it was: he frequently recognized and attempted to suppress his episodes, increasingly failing, but whatever syndrome was at work, it appeared limited almost entirely to higher functions. The symptoms were horrifying but not at all unheard of and certainly it was expected some kind of drug regimen would provide relief. The sequence of his disappearance and now death simply does not follow from the medical facts, at least based on what you've encountered.

[Physics] Physics was never Dr Vane's friend. He was once quoted referring to the study of physics as "a poor substitute for honest procrastination". Imagine your surprise when you spotted Dr Vane at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, trying to surreptitiously listen in on a controversial presentation on chirality, parity conservation and "mirror matter". As the wildcard Danish lecturer Hob Petersen boldly proposed that Lord Kelvin's famous "dark matter" and his "mirror matter" were indistinguishable, Dr Vane turned his head and made direct eye contact with you as he pursed his lips to whistle soundlessly. A glass of water on the lectern then shattered explosively and, in the ensuing chaos, you lost sight of Dr Vane.

[Theology] Dr Jackson Vane was once one a beloved and respected bastion of British Idealism, a philosophical movement of Hegelian Idealism that proposed an Absolute upon which the basis of all existence derives. Through his advocacy of Hegelian Idealism, Vane posited himself as a bridge between the Church and the scientific world. But the Antarctic expedition may have stretched his credibility too far when its inscrutable outcome was first subject to intense criticism then buried unceremoniously as Vane's disease progressed. The Church now seems to have forgotten Vane's existence and his theological ambitions, even going so far as to suggest that Vane's Antarctic expedition was a swindle.

(Accounting, Law, Cop Talk, Bureaucracy, Streetwise) - Dr Jackson Vane, once a high profile scientist and revered crusader of moral values, has almost certainly been in convalescent care for almost a year now but you don't believe for a second he is actually dead, and if he is, there's unethical machinations involved. The numbers don't add up.)

[Accounting] Dr Jackson Vane most certainly is not dead. Based on the figures you've seen coming in and out of the Vane household since his convalescence, there's been no indication of serious health problems and certainly the upkeep of his care is not indicative of anyone suffering from anything requiring intensive medical treatment. Still, the numbers have been relatively flat and shrinking for quite some time; as absurd as it sounds, the explanation that process of elimination brought you to is that he is catatonic and his family has given up keeping his estate.

[Law] You've seen the document in question that has caused all this and it's a very strange piece of work. The legalese is all grounded in sound if unorthodox precedent but the outcome is preposterous. Every molecule of Vane's worldly possessions goes straight to the public in as accessible a manner as possible; in fact, you've even heard from reliable sources that the initial draft attempted to bypass any institutional involvement completely, but that would have disqualified the whole document, leading to the current state of affairs. These shenanigans aren't wholly unexpected from the likes of Vane but the will's implacable directness in the matter is unsettling.

[Cop Talk] There's no doubt the constables will be flocking here come morning, anticipating the inevitable flood of both the morbidly curious and the irascible devious who'll surely interpret not inaccurately the public notice as license to filch away anything not under watchful eye of the law. You know the bobbies don't particularly care for this pit of gloom but the patrolman you cordially engaged on the way here was even more squirrely than usual regarding the matter of Vale Hall.

[Bureaucracy] Not long before he vanished from public life, Vane set off quite the charlie foxtrot with his first draft of his will, a document that was not unexpected in its precipitation but absurdly strange in content. London's government agents intervened directly to insure that Vane's edict to allow a free-for-all on his possessions come his demise was rejiggered to satisfy their insistence on a formal lottery, though Vane held fast to his insistence that every quanta of his assets be freely distributed, to the extent of threatening legal prosecution should his intent be subverted. What kind of scheme was Vane authoring, many wondered at first, but once it was assumed his illness had rendered him an invalid, the matter was mostly overlooked. Until now.

[Streetwise] Nobody wants to go to Vane Hall. In its glory days, it was a popular destination for academics, philosophers and seminarians alike. Since Vane's disastrous Antarctic project, interest in his lectures and research diminished and eventually it closed to the public. Even though Vane was profoundly skeptical of superstition and a vocal Christian, his home has become the subject of boundless rumors, all invariably speculating that some supernatural malfeasance is the cause of Vane's incurable affliction.

1. Front Gate [Sense Trouble 5+] For a moment you smell something on the wind that unsettles you. It's a strange mix, like spoiled fruit, wet soil and mildew with a tinge of ozone. It comes from beyond the gate, that much you know for sure.

The gate is sturdy bronze plated iron and secured by a latch on the other side. The wall is 10 ft high but there are no protective measures atop it to keep out intruders.

Constable William Barnhart is snoozing in a nearby lorry, his snoring an unsettling rasp. He states that he had only just arrived that day from Bath, on loan from the constabulary there since none of the London bobbies could be counted on to man the lookout tonight. His disdain for the whole superstition around Vane Hall is abundantly clear. He says that he was told by his superiors that there are several people staying at Vane Hall that evening, though they didn't say who. His orders are to first report if anyone enters the estate and then follow them to insure they aren't up to criminal misdeed. He has a baton, a headlamp and a torch with an extra cell.

2B. Garden [Sense Trouble 5+] From the bare oak tree you smell, beneath wet earth and rotten wood, fetid decay that raises the hairs on your neck. Lightning strikes across the sky overhead nearby and in the brief second of light flashing you see a glimpse of something slimy disappear into the hole of the oak tree.

[Biology] The smell is bizarre, at once distinctively moldy but also salty, like a bodily secretion. It's like you've suddenly stepped into a dead forest deep in the throes of decay. SPEND - Slugs and slime molds. They should be covering every inch of this garden from the smell but you see nothing with your torch.

[Mythos] Now that you see the Lichtenberg figure on the oak tree, you realize that this place is the site of a dimensional dissonance. Whatever happened at Vane Hall, it has drawn the attention of more than one eldritch entity and this is the result of their intersecting planes. SPEND - Vane Hall is the locus of energy attributable to Ithaqua and Hastur.

[Occult] The oak tree was a magical conduit and whatever used it attracted the energies of the storm, whether intentionally or not. SPEND - The Lichtenberg figure on the tree is the calling card of the Wendigo.

[Physics] You recognize the Lichtenberg figure on the tree but the pattern is impossible; it does not go from the top of the tree to the base directly but spirals around it, covering the entire surface of the tree. SPEND - As you study the scars, you see that the fractal pattern lightning discharge is somehow evenly distributed through the entire surface area of the tree.

[Evidence] As you examine the ravaged tree, you realize it is hollow from base to tip and the only opening you see is 20 feet up. SPEND - The surface of the tree is covered in a nearly invisible film you recognize as dried slug secretion.

[Outdoorsman] Based on the way the fire consumed the garden after the lightning strike, something had killed off most of the other plants besides the tree. SPEND - Some kind of fungal infection was consuming the whole garden, leaching all the nutrients from the ground and corpsifying everything but the tree.

The Oak Tree A swarm of Carcosan slugs hide inside the hollow tree, watching the PCs from the hole. If a PC manages to scale the tree and get a light inside, they can see that the hollow interior descends underground, leading to the Nesting Pit underneath the Greenhouse.

3B. Greenhouse

Devoid of anything green, the Greenhouse is a desolate mausoleum of long-withered plants but mostly dirt and murky water. It smells like an open grave, devoid of the salinity and ozone present in the garden. [Sense Trouble +5] In spite of the agitated weather outside, the greenhouse air is strangled with fetid humidity suffused with a malodorous stench clearly pooling around the entrance to the subterranean garden.

[Evidence] There are footprints, preserved from the weather, approaching the cellar entrance. SPEND - The footprints are hasty and recent, cleated like heavy boots and leave the greenhouse nearly as soon as they enter, stopping only at the cellar entrance where the earth has been disturbed.