FORAY Tickets for a Prayer Wheel

This is the much anticipated continuation of the Call of Cthulhu chronicle created by Jim Comer for Viet Nam. If you missed the earlier Tickets, you can read them first by going to the Tickets Intro Page

Chapter Nine
Eighth Ticket
To the Mountain in Laos

A few bodies are missing. Unfortunately for the peace of mind of all involved, so are the Green Berets attached to HI25. The helicopter that the firebase uses was found missing, its pilot sapped and brutally mangled. The chopper was last seen headed west, and its destination is not a matter of speculation. So begins the last venture of the campaign. The investigators have a choice of sterile equipment, and set off in an unmarked helicopter for the mountains of Laos, where Captain Schwärmer and company have gone to celebrate a feast.
The goal is a mountain mentioned earlier, the fortress hidden in a maze of tunnels. Here the fungi stop to be empowered and transformed, here the witch cult holds its unspeakable cannibal feasts, and here the Green Berets meet with the Kaitongs, with Ho, and with Nyarlathotep.
Sidebar-The Life and Adventures of Nyarlathotep
Nyarlathotep has always been the most interesting of the Mythos critters to many Lovecraft fans, as it is capable of reason and speech, and possesses a thousand different forms. I have decided that it should be the center of the opium-smuggling plot in Tickets, and have read Nyarlathotep's character as a transient one. I reason that it takes one of its many forms for a certain time, and having achieved all that can be gained thereby, shifts to another. Of course, the Crawling Chaos can take any form it likes, but one in particular comes up for emphasis. This sidebar examines Nyarlathotep's role in the overall world situation and explains exactly how it throbs in the mountains of Laos at the heart of darkness.
THE SITUATION
The morning of the 20th of December 1969, the investigators are in the firebase where they and the Green Berets are billeted. This is HI25 unless there is reason to place them elsewhere. If so, then wherever they are, the Green Berets are also, having been assigned there for a little while. If the big battle with the VC has just happened, then the Green Berets were posted there for that purpose. The Keeper can adjust the location to suit his own campaign.
Whatever the place, there are bodies about, or were last night. If anyone dear to the players has died lately, the body bag is still there. In any case, they hear a helicopter take off before dawn. A Listen hears screams and blows. Anyone rising will get outside just in time to see Ernst Mueller carry Crazy Jerry onto the Special Forces team helicopter. Jerry protests. The chopper leaves. The investigator notices that all the body bags are missing from the landing strip. Something is deadly wrong.
THE SUMMONS FROM PERNELL
The commanding officer, Harry Pernell, will call the investigators to meet with him, sending word by Adkins, who acts as his orderly. They will(it is presumed) go to meet him in the Officer's Club, at least those who are alive or sane enough to do so. New characters may make up much of the party, after the showdown by the sea; they are invited as well-even if no one is left who recalls the beginning of the adventure. Pernell does, and for the first time, he will take decisive action to stop the evil that has flourished under his nose.
The Officer's Club is a long low building. As the investigators enter, they are stunned by the cold-the air conditioning, absent in their quarters, is turned to fifty degrees Fahrenheit. There is a roaring fire in the grate at the end of the room. The only occupant is Captain Henry Gerald Pernell, sitting in a large armchair with a glass of bourbon in his hand. From his appearance, it is not his first. He sits the investigators down in leather chairs, begins to speak. He might say what follows.
"Glad to have you here, men, "(or, "ladies and gentlemen", or "And you too, miss"), "You've heard, maybe, about the missing helicopter. Well, there are other things missing as well. Twelve of them, maybe thirteen." He will wait for an investigator to state or guess what these things are, and then have another sip. "Yes, the distinguished Captain Schwärmer, hero of Lai Minh, Van Truc and Pho Gaw, is missing with his entire team on a very unauthorized mission. You might know who else he took with him." Here, if the investigators have lost a buddy recently, they will know that his corpse was missing from its place that morning. If they have lost no one, make up names of dead soldiers, preferably characters you've used before. The important thing is that Captain Schwärmer stole bodies, living or dead, for his horrid rites. If it could be someone that the players like or know, so much the better. If there is no one else, it's Gerald Camborn-"Crazy Jerry".
"Yes, Camborn's gone. And a combat helicopter. And the whole Special Forces team, when they had orders to be here for regimental inspection. Now, that's not all. I suppose you know today's date."   If no one does, it's December 20, 1969. "Tomorrow is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Now, for some reason, I never thought about this before, I don't know why." It's because the Green Berets had clouded his mind with black magic, but he doesn't know this. If the players tell him this, he will believe them. "So? I had suspected something like that for a long time. But you will notice that every winter solstice, the Captain has been absent. I've been here a while, known the man for five years, but never noticed it till now. There is more. They could be anywhere by now, in that chopper, but we think we know where they are."
Who's we? The Captain, Adkins, and Wild Bill the Mannequin-fucker. No one else. "Here." He pulls out a map of Laos. He points to a tall mountain, deep in the back country, near the Plain of Jars. The site is that marked by the fungi on every map of theirs that the investigators have seen. "We don't know what this place is, but our Montagnard allies won't go near the place. They say evil things from the stars haunt it." He drinks again. "Of course, that's all superstition." Is it? "We know that Ho Chi Minh went there at least six times, always on religious holidays. We're guessing that it's a center for the drug trade, and that he met with the dealers there. We don't know what Schwärmer plans to do there, especially with Camborn, but that's the direction he was headed when the guard on duty saw him."
"Now, I have no authority to send you men on a covert operation. And I have no access to sterile arms and equipment, in the warehouse here, so obviously I couldn't send you on one, even if I wanted to." If there are civilians or women present, he will add that they could not go even if everyone else went. "But it's a pity that I didn't count the weapons there. Or see if the helicopter was fueled, or give Bill any orders for today or tomorrow. And I haven't seen my map of Laos lately; anyone know where I put it? As a matter of fact, I have a very bad memory about these things. Gentlemen, am I understood?" Here the players ought to realize that they are being asked to find Schwärmer and if necessary, kill him "with extreme prejudice". They will probably accept. "Gentlemen?" He draws from a drawer as many glasses as there are investigators and a bottle of Calvados. He pours. "Confusion to our enemies!" The investigators probably need it. He turns round and stares at the fire until they depart.
THE FLIGHT
The investigators wait until nightfall they make preparations Pernell likewise. He cannot go with them. Adkins, his orderly, will show them to the 'sterile' warehouse at the edge of the camp. Here is the equipment they will need.
The material is sterile in the sense of being untraceable to the USA. All is manufactured in nations not aligned in the war. The investigators are asked to remove all clothing and equipment, and to don black fatigues without insignia. Their weapons are replaced by arms manufactured in Sweden, Israel, South Africa. and the like. If the Keeper wishes, he may itemize. Wild Bill, the helicopter pilot, is beside them equipping himself, and will fly them into Laos (which he refers to as "West Vietnam", a designation all too appropriate). Adkins sees them off, wishing them well shyly.
The flight is without incident. The Keeper may make something up, but is urged to avoid anything too deadly. The campaign is about to take a turn for the worse, and there will be no real chances for relief or for replacement characters. They head out over the nation of Laos, following a map without national boundaries. After a flight of some hours, they arrive at the spot marked on nearly every map that has appeared in this game so far, a high mountain overlooking the strategic Plain of Jars, a mountain more terrible than they have ever suspected.
THE CANNIBAL FORTRESS TUNNEL COMPLEX IN THE MOUNTAIN
The helicopter's target is a high mountain overlooking the Plain of Jars. Centuries ago it was hollowed by the Tcho-Tchos and hallowed to Shub-Niggurath, whose rites were performed here. As the helicopter lands, give each player an Idea roll on seeing the mountain under a full moon. Critical success means that the investigator perceives that the mountain is anomalous-it does not fit into the terrain. A Geology roll tells the same. They may assume then that the mountain is manmade. They could not be more wrong. The slopes are covered by garden plots, with the same vigor that marred the Tcho-Tcho fields.   There are enough cabbages, turnips, and yams here to feed an army.
The Gallows and entrance.
On the mountain slope the shape of an inverted L is visible in the moonlight. From the end of it hangs a human body. The investigators, if they approach, see that the man has been stabbed with something while hanging from the wooden frame. A critical success on Occult rolls will reveal that this is obviously a sacrifice to Odin. The man is Crazy Jerry, or some other person that the players know.
Below the frame is a trapdoor, of bamboo covered with earth, leading to the fortress. The marks of bare and booted feet lead up to it from all directions, but especially from a place toward the top of the hill. If the investigators check it out, they see the swash of dust from a helicopter landing, and the prints of some things that are not feet. A SAN roll is required for seeing these prints, 0/1 SAN is lost for it.
The entrance is silent and unguarded, but don't tell the players that. If they sniff, a Spot Hidden will smell dinner smells, familiar to all from the American Southeast(the smells are greens and barbecue). A Listen critical success hears music, unidentifiable. The entrance opens freely, and within is a tunnel of clay dug by hand. In other words, the usual.
Tunnels
The tunnels are higher and wider than the usual VC issue, with six-foot-ceilings. Those of SIZ 15 or more will still have to stoop. Every so often, there is a niche in the wall, made for a Pathet Lao or VC to sleep. The investigators can creep up on the first few niches, until they find out that there is nothing in them. The Pathet Lao used this place for a while, but the desertion of the area around the Plain of Jars during the 1969 takeover of the heroin trade forced them to redirect their attention toward the capital. They return tonight. If the Keeper wishes, there can be more encounters along the tunnel paths, but nothing serious. As the investigators near the second-floor exit, the music will become recognizable as a piano. It is well played, and a Music skill roll will identify a French art song, something by Edith Piaf, most likely. The smell grows stronger near the kitchens.
The Kitchens
The first kitchen is a gourmet's delight, with copperware, a Thai samovar bubbling with fresh tea, pastries hot from the steamer, and the array of knives and other implements usual to restaurants. The kitchen includes human corpses being prepared for the table, which is set for a holiday feast whose centerpiece is human thigh prepared as per the Cantonese recipe for roast pork. There are no corpses in the kitchen; the heads and such have all been trundled off to the feast hall. A tenderloin lies on a table, roast and sliced, and there are steamed buns with a filling of human flesh prepared as roast pork. Several paté tins and terrine molds lie empty, and bread pans attest to the preparation of a huge feast. There are also ears in a jar of vinegar, as the Vietnamese prepare pig's ears. A successful Idea roll is needed to identify them as human, and they are anyway hidden on an upper shelf, next to the pickled cabbage. A midden holds burnt and scraped bones.
The second kitchen is a mess, holding kettles, each fifty to a hundred gallons worth, of cabbage, turnips, and tubers, without any salt or seasoning. The slop is food for the herds who live huddled in the mouth of the Great Old One whose body the mountain is. There are troughs in a corner with handles to carry the swill. The boiled crud is disgusting and the pots are filthy. While the stuff is edible and nourishing, nothing else can be said for it. There are four kettles, holding a total of 300 gallons of food. If investigators probe the bottoms, they will find bones, human-sized but from no animal any of them has ever seen. These are from the creatures raised by Schwärmer from imperfect salts. Unlike James Page and John Scott before him, he did not keep the things for ritual, but roasted cuts of meat and threw the bones in the stockpot. Teutonic thrift is a wonderful thing.
The Door into Digestion
Down the hall from the kitchen is a two-meter hatch of wood, round and with handles, set into the wall. The hatch is always locked and has a STR of 30. If the hatch opens, all must roll CONx5 or less on D100 or faint from the awful smell of rotten meat, filth, and things less easily named. The shaft revealed is dark all the way down. The walls are stained with food and waste. There are cries and moans from the darkness.
If anyone throws a flare or climbs down with a light, he will see about a hundred feet of shaft, and then horror.   Human or half-human monstrosities swarm and scrabble in the cave of filth at the bottom of the pit. Above them the walls are no longer earth or rock, but flesh, and the final vision will be the rows of sharp spikes projecting from them. An Idea roll recognizes them as teeth. Getting back up might be difficult.
This chasm is actually the mouth of the Great Old One Qaggjhaqq-Unglorh, who is the hill. When the Ice Age ended, the islands that are now the Indochinese and Malay peninsulas did not "sink". They rose, and Qaggjhaqq-Unglorh with them. It is asleep, as are all the Great Old Ones on Earth, but even so is hungry. It feeds on these human herds, descendants of those dumped here by the cult that began to work sorcery here. They will slay and eat anyone who falls among them. The energy gained by the larval Great Old One enables it to supervise its worshippers and to sweat the ooze found in the laboratory (described below). Seeing the masses trapped in the monster's mouth costs 1 SAN. Seeing the mouth itself costs 1/1d20 SAN.
Conference room
This room has a bamboo roof, obviously to allow movement and fresh air. It is at ground level; by cutting through the STR 20 bamboo walls, one can step outside onto the hill slope. It is furnished with mats and cushions, with water thermoses and cups here and there. This was a conference room for the leaders of the conspiracy. Maps show the world in 1927, in 1969, and in 2027. Dots outline population groups. In the century recorded and projected, the population of the Earth will have increased fivefold. Green stars mark the Pacific seafloor, the Mid-Atlantic ridge, the deep Russian Antarctic, the Himalayas. Lines on the 2027 map move from the ocean sites through the river valleys of Asia, taking in the areas of densest population.
There are also many letters. Three in English may draw attention:

Dear Captain Schwärmer,
     I received your letter last year with the recipes and crafts hints. You have certainly attained more than I in that regard. My own efforts, of course, were solitary. Owing to my present confinement I am unable to use any of your suggestions, but I will try for my release soon, and look forward to resuming my old haunts. Perhaps we can meet for dinner.
Yours, Edward Gein
Dear Captain Schwärmer,
     All is well here; the Family has accomplished its first missions, and greater glories await as the Rising unfolds. The work at the Polanski house followed your directions. I am intrigued by your apparent disinterest in psychedelics.   The Family has derived much benefit from them. In hope that we can meet on your next leave, and in dedication to Helter Skelter, I am
C. Manson
The third is crayon on child's tablet paper.
Dere Captan (the name is repeatedly misspelled) Schwärmer,
     Our teacher said if we get a letter from the soldier she toldus to rite to him agan. Hi I hope you are fine. I am fine, I did what you said in yor last letter. Then buried the stuff that was left over in the back yeard. I dont think anyone will catch me, nobudy notices those people anyway. Your friend,
Jeffrey Dahmer

The Boudoir
The lower hall has three doors in the walls. The first leads to a sumptuous boudoir. The door opens on incense and perfume. The room holds a dressing table with mirror, a wardrobe, and a huge bed. The bed is a Hepplewhite original brought here in the nineteenth century. Montagnard masks top its posts. Its canopy is thrown back; on the spread lies the compete uniform of a US Army corporal-Himmelgart, down to his green underwear. In the wardrobe are women's gowns from the first half of the twentieth century. Some are large enough to fit a man. The vanity holds all kinds of perfume, mostly French brands such as Chanel and Jovan. A bottle of Avon's White Shoulders lies untouched. A fan and scented gloves lie on the table, with makeup, jewelry and lipstick. The players lose no SAN for seeing these things, but one of them may realize the horrible weirdness they point to when no human woman has ever seen this place.
The Larder
The larder is across the hall from the lavishly appointed bedroom. The larder is a meatrack, made to hold captives until the time came for a feast. In a world without refrigeration, the Tcho-Tcho hit upon the method of the digger wasp-to paralyze the prey until needed. The larder holds a number of American servicemen whose tags show them to be missing in action.   Here are two:

Ronald Earl Ray, Staff Sergeant Recon Leader, born 11.8.47
William Theodore Brown, Sergeant First Class Recon Leader born 9.19.35
Their necks are broken to prevent movement and they are hung, for days until needed, on bamboo racks through which their waste can drop onto the floor. A degenerate subhuman woman, grossly pregnant, cleans their filth from the floor and feeds them. Most are comatose, incommunicado, or beyond reach. Death would be a mercy for them, of course. If the investigators have lost a friend or two more than absolutely necessary, then have him here, still aware of his horrible fate. Otherwise, have William Brown awake, conscious, and breathing harshly. First Aid skill will reveal that he is, like the others, dying slowly of massive spinal trauma, incurable. If the investigators cure these living dead somehow, most will be insane. Brown will make noises like speech in his throat. An investigator bending until his ear touches Brown's lips may hear something like this:

the stooped things the crooked things oh Bill you were right you were right oh mother make it hold still make it stop wheres my arms and my wheres my legs the whisperers those damn whisperers who are they woman with the black hair black eyes man of gold gold man who are they why doesnt he ever miss he cant miss black eyes black woman their teeth are so sharp their faces they arent human arent human oh mother make it stop the whisperers and the stone they werent men until the stone the gold man the stone in the stone bird the gold stone jacob why the black eyed woman I never hurt you jake smash the stone her perfume his perfume who is the stinking man in the hole the stone smash the stone red robe man in the hole why him why me Bill make it hold still smash it smashed smashed its always night

The preceding gibberish holds a number of clues. The gold man is the mad Captain, the black woman Patty Holeran or Nyarlathotep. The gold stone is the amber crystal holding the millennia-old statue, the smashing of which destroys the power of the fungi to enter human shape and stand the heat and moisture of Vietnam, thus ending their role as provocateurs in the war.
The Pits in the Hall
Three wooden grates lie in the earth floor of the hall. The first is about a meter square, the other two, two meters square. They are the lids of prison pits. The first, if listened to, is silent, smelling of rancid grease. It has a STR of 10. In the pit is a lone old man in a yellow robe. He is Asian; an Anthropology roll identifies him as Tibetan, almost certainly a monk or lama. He sits meditating on Mahakala, the Shining Black Lord of Transcendent Awareness. He will gladly leave the pit and follow the investigators, though he will fight only if he has no other choice.
Yeshe (his stats are below) is from a small monastery to the north, established by Tibetan refugees. He came to see if the old evil that once animated this place was renewed; it was. The Tcho-Tcho tortured him, hoping to gain the secret of access to the monastery, but he resisted. Schwärmer was to have had at him next, but the agenda may change. Yeshe is near death from exhaustion and torture, but if addressed on the subject will speak of the need to destroy the stone, resting in the floor of the feasting hall.
The second pit resounds with animal screeches and howls, deafening in volume. It is full of African green monkeys dying of an unknown disease with sores in their groins and armpits. They will attack madly with bite and claw. There is nothing else in the pit save for them, their waste, and the remnants of their last meal. He didn't die a happy man.
The third pit seems much deeper, and it is. It also resounds with screams and screeches, but these are human. The pit is full of African women, skeletally thin, covered with black sores at armpits and groin. They are mindless with privation and speak no English anyway. There are nineteen of them.
Anyone who gets blood or fluids from either the monkeys or the women into his system in any way should be noted by the Keeper. In about fifteen years, the character may manifest the symptoms of human retrovirus disease. These animals and people are part of Nyarlathotep's plan to infect the world with AIDS.
The laboratory above
The corridor ends in a door. It is locked, sounds of chittering and has a STR of 15. It leads into a room filled with rat cages and long tables full of modern scientific equipment. Microscopes and test tubes share space with hissing Bunsen burners and bubbling beakers. A map shows distribution of major pathogens and likely vector species. The rats are labelled in French; some carry bubonic plague, some Lassa fever, some retrovirus. Many other diseases are here represented. Nyarlathotep used this room for her research into how to infect the world with horrible diseases to destroy human society. There is also the necessary equipment for refining opium into heroin, morphine, and such, as well as a huge pile of shzor-shzong, the smoker for preserving them, and the equipment to turn them into CTH. All is standard sterile CIA issue, marked "Property of Air America Airlines".
The Laboratory Beneath
The stair across from the bedroom lead down through dirt and rock to a chamber of stone in the lowest area of the mountain, directly above the living flesh of the Great Old One. It is a single huge hall lit poorly by kerosene lamps. At one end are a series of tables holding glass beakers, alcohol lamps, test tubes, stills, vats, and so forth, and an array of porcelain ware answering to the same needs. Huge retorts cool after the task of cooking bodies for their salts. At one wall a huge rack holds jars resembling Ming-era porcelain, each labeled in Chinese characters with a brush and English with a grease pencil. A magic circle has been drawn on the floor with chalk.
Nearby a black-letter copy of Borellus lies open on a reading stand. On the open pages are the words of the Resurrection spell, given below under the heading "Ritual of Infinity", in a fine clear hand in black ink.   The rest of the book is a typical magical text. Reading it takes at least four months serious study, and a Read/Write English roll. It gives a spell multiplier of x4, and adds 10% to Mythos knowledge. The only magic it teaches is how to make the salts of a being from its corpse and how to restore the being using the Resurrection spell. The use of magic to preserve the soul within Yog-Sothoth is also covered, as it the evil enchantment that causes one to become an obsession with one's descendants. It is written in Latin with extensive early modern English notes, and costs 1d10 SAN to read. In the frontispiece is the notation, "From John Scotte to mye Dear Ffrend Symon Orn, Aprille 30, 1775". This book would be worth over one thousand dollars to a collector, while one knowing its Mythos significance would pay any price. The volume was rare even in the 1920s, and may be one of ten or twelve copies remaining in 1969.
The jars hold the essential salts of great men and women robbed from their graves. Allow an investigator to look at the names: Caligula Caesar, Jingis Khan, Tomas de Torquemada, Attila, Donatien Alphonse François Marie de Sade, Napoleon, Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Tamurlane, Sargon, Iyeyasu, Tojo, Mussolini, and Ho Chi Minh. If the investigators try to raise any of these, let them. As they are almost certainly here before they visit the banquet hall, allow time to pass as the piano music plays. The rite of raising the dead may be repeated, but each time warn the investigators with swirling clouds of smoke and awful glimpses that the sight is not one for human eyes. Each use of the spell costs 1d10 SAN, and seeing the risen dead costs 1d4 SAN, as the existence of these beings violates cosmic order in spades.
The dead once raised will rant and gibber, utterly useless even to those who know their language. An Oratory roll might convince them to speak amicably for a moment, but they have little to say that will help the players-their concern is with the long-past time of their lives. These rulers were to return and rule the world as satraps of the Cthulhu cult at the end of time. Simon Orne, Joseph Curwen, and John Scott all came here to learn the spell and to learn the skill of how to prepare the salts. This skill is the only one in the Borellus book, as detailed above. Other memorabilia point to the presence of these necromancers: a ring bearing Scott's name, a wardrobe of Georgian clothing, a letter in Aklo glyphs with Curwen's signature. Other chests hold clothing for the raised dead: shapeless robes and the garments of various periods.
At the other end of the hall, a big door is set in the wall. It has a STR of 30. If this is overcome, it will open. Within is a solid wall of flesh, warm to the touch, and foul-smelling. This is the physical body of the Great Old One Qaggjhaqq-Unglorh, who is the mountain. Seeing it costs 1d6 SAN. A player making an idea roll may realize what it is. If he does, he may voluntarily drop more SAN. A spell written in Chinese and English, Contact Qaggjhaqq-Unglorh, in the mass of papers that litters the lab can cause the flesh to leak fluids that will cook a human body into essential salts. Remember that the skill of making the salts must be learned from the book, a matter of interest only in the long run.
Banquet Hall
The banquet hall is a scene out of Dante. The floor bears a huge circle of stone, in which a dinosaur skeleton clutches a crystal of amber as large as a man's head. In the crystal is the statue, a hundred million years old, of one of the Mi Go, referred to elsewhere as the whisperers. There are three long tables of Lao teak, priceless elsewhere, each SIZ 32. They seat the Green Berets, who are eating, drinking, gambling, talking, enjoying the feast. The main course is laid out on the high table, roasted and carved. If possible it is a friend or comrade of the investigators. Seeing this sight is cause for a SAN roll("horribly mangled corpse"). If any investigator goes insane as a result, which is likely, then the Keeper may rule that he vomits explosively, knowing what dishes were prepared in the kitchen. There are other roasts, soups, steamed and baked pastries, and vegetable stir-fries drenched in bak bon dshzow ("human ganglia paste", a Tcho-Tcho specialty). A fine assortment of rice wines, beers, and liquor complete the menu, and some of the team chose to cap it off with a few pipes of opium.   If the investigators are thinking of violence, Müller is covering them from the corner with a machine gun; he won't miss.
Hei Ren-Tzu, or Patty Holeran, herself waits at the banquet table, politely bidding the soldiers to have a bite to eat. She is a trim Chinese woman of middle age, with the serenity that many hope for but few achieve. In 1945 she succeeded to the opium ring that her husband, Giap Chin Truc, had managed before that; she has run it with an iron grip ever since. She is an excellent piano player, having learned from the cultured Edward Candler, and having honed her music skills by lessons with the shade of Erich Zann.
In fact, she is an avatar of Nyarlathotep. He(it?) came to Indochina in the wake of his smashing success in the Manhattan Project, and has been spreading drug addiction and death ever since. If pressed, she will admit her identity by chanting Lovecraft's poem of the same name; bullets will only hasten her physical death and the change to the monster form described elsewhere.   Schwärmer and Himmelgart are here, the former in full dress uniform plus green beret, the latter, unrecognizable until he turns to face the players, in full and amazing drag, a Thai silk evening gown made for the wife of a French opium dealer in the Triangle. His bouffant wig is the final touch; a green beret sits atop it.
Solutions
The investigators are at the mercy(if that's the right word) of the most evil and ruthless men in the American armed forces. They can try several ways out.
Violence is the least likely to succeed. The Green Berets are drunk and stoned, but even so they are far better fighters, and have the drop on the investigators. Schwärmer almost never misses and is wearing his sidearm. The investigators are almost certain to be killed if they try this, though the Captain will not kill them unless he is enraged.
They may try to argue for their freedom. If Schwärmer is in full possession of his faculties he won't let them go. The secrecy of this place can't be compromised, and any revelation of his horrible activities will destroy him. He will not believe any promise of silence; he does not know that the Pathet Lao's drive to take the Plain of Jars has reached this mountain tonight, and he could leave no sentry-who would want to sit outside and miss the fun?
They may play along with the Green Berets and try to get them drunk or stoned enough that the players could leave. Let them try. All of the team have high CONs and are heavy drinkers. A pinch of CTH slipped into drink or opium would make the whole scene into raging madness, but again the team would likely not be so far gone that the departure of the investigators would not be noticed or stopped. Note that if the captain is down, his hold on his men will be weaker. It will be possible, though unlikely, that they could be convinced to disobey him. The idea would have to be phrased as indirectly as possible("Hey, the captain is a freedom-loving American, so he would like it if you let us get up off the floor." "Only a Communist would keep his own countrymen tied up like this.")
They may try to get the mad captain arguing with Nyarlathotep. This is a real possibility, as Jake Schwärmer's biggest problem with her has always been that she's not white. Appealing cleverly to his outrageous racism would probably work. Ridiculing him for his sexual and magical activities would not. The person who jeers at him may be selected for gruesome torture to make his comrades agree to cooperate or simply to entertain Nyarlathotep. Jeering at Himmelgart in drag is similarly dangerous.
The most dangerous angle to try can only work if the investigators know all about the ritual(see below). The ritual to resurrect Alec from his salts is the real reason for the presence of the men here tonight; it's the real reason for the past twenty-five years of Schwärmer's life. If the investigator(s) whom the Captain respects and likes (there should be at least one of them) can soberly, honestly talk to the Captain, they can try to convince him that the ritual will not work. If the ritual has been tried and has not worked, then this argument is much more likely to succeed. The Captain has lived the past quarter-century in depravity so insane that it would have sickened de Sade, but for a reason. Deprived of that reason, he will not wish to live. If the players roleplay this realistically and well, then they might be able to bring him down off the manic high that he is on when they encounter him and distract him. If they do this, then likely the fungi or the Pathet Lao show up shortly. He will spurn the fungi, and fight berserkly against the Laotians, maybe even sacrificing himself in battle. If at all possible, run his death as described below.
The ritual of infinity
The Green Berets are here for three reasons. The first is to confer with Patty (Nyarlathotep) about the upcoming destruction of the human race. This has been done before the investigators arrive, the remains of their talk being the material in the conference room. Then they moved to pleasure-the initiation of Himmelgart as one of the team. He was dressed for the part, wined and dined, and dances with Schwärmer prior to the consummation of the sacred marriage, in which he will play the female rôle. The third and most important reason was that this was the night long promised and so often delayed: Patty has promised that she will teach Schwärmer the spell that will revive Alec in the body of his son.
The son is either Jim König or one of the player characters, in which case the theft of the bodies and the abduction and murder of Crazy Jerry were only lures to bring the investigators here to the fortress. The ritual is a variant on the normal Resurrection spell detailed by Borellus, which requires only the essential salts to recreate a living body. Joseph Curwen used this method to restore the great dead of the past in his Massachusetts study. Upon his own death, he prepared incantations allowing himself to draw to his rescue his distant descendant James Page, the Charles Ward of Lovecraft's story. Alec made no such plans, and so Schwärmer could simply call him from his salts, but has taken the precaution of bringing to the scene the son of Alec Baldwin, who will provide the physical body that the spell could only imperfectly supply.
The Keeper must decide how to run this sequence. If the whole matter of the mad Captain is unimportant to him and his players, he may assume that the spell does not work, and that the Captain's years of labor have served a cruel lie. In that case, when he learns the truth, the Captain may kill the investigators or Patty in his rage. It may be possible, once he knows that Alec is not coming back, to try to persuade him to give up the plan and abandon the Mythos. This is unlikely. If this is the path that the Keeper chooses, he can use the rite as a source of tension-have Jake always asking Patty "When is he coming back?", "When will I see him?" and other questions. Jake is at the edge of his very dubious hold on reality tonight, and he will need little goading to produce a horrid spectacle indeed. The stream of ragged demands will go on.
The Keeper may choose to work the situation for irony. If this is the case, then the man supposed by Jake Schwärmer to be Alec's son is actually his own son. The magic is useless and all was for nothing. Schwärmer will react as above.
Another choice is to have the ritual proceed as planned. The man thought to be Alec's son will stand in a diagram drawn on the floor. His cooperation will be assured, if necessary, by machine guns.   Jake will go to him, cut both of them, and mix their blood. This recalls his mixing of blood and fluids with Alec long ago. By doing it, he may explain, he returns Alec's blood, from his own body, into the body of Alec's son. He then kisses the man good-bye and steps back to chant:
Y'AI 'NG'NGAH
YOG-SOTHOTH
H'EE-L'GEB
F'AI THRODOG
UAAAH
The spell takes hold. Smoke billows, mercifully hiding the alteration of face and body as the twenty-five-year-old soldier assumes the form of a slender, handsome youth seven years younger-Baldwin at the time of his death. All who see this lose 0/1D3 SAN. Here again the referee has choices.
Who it is
The person crouching on the floor inside the magic circle could be one of three people. If the Keeper wishes to twist the situation further, it is a fiendish villain who has taken the body of Baldwin. Good examples include the Tcho-Tcho wizard, if he's dead, or his evil grandfather, or Old Wizard Whipple, if he's around. Use someone your players will recognize, but someone horrid and eager for a new lease on life. Or the spell could unleash the horror spawned of imperfect salts, but this is unlikely, as the body need not be created from the salts but is already present.
It could be Tawil at-Umr, the Opener of the Way, the Gate and the Key. This figure is known to take human form to advise travellers through the many worlds and to lead them to their goals. If this entity is present, and if anyone thinks to utter the proper formulae (both Schwärmer and Patty know them, as does anyone who knows the spell Contact Yog-Sothoth), it will negotiate calmly with any who will talk to it, and then offer passage home in return for the jewel. Of course, Patty will not want to lose the jewel, as the Fungi will then be unable to help her in the drug trade. Schwärmer will go either way, as he is lost before Baldwin's face. Handling this option would be more difficult for the Keeper.
Most difficult of all is the assumption that the spell worked as planned and that Terence Alexander Baldwin of Charleston, South Carolina, 1926-1944, is there before the players. Baldwin will, of course, lose SAN for his Resurrection, and if he is kicked over the edge, will react with panic. The last thing he remembers, after all, aside from an extradimensional flutter or two, is being tortured for hours in the hazing session that killed him. He awakens to see a dozen blond men in green berets looming over him, with a Chinese woman looking on and roast human bodies on the table. He may actually lose further SAN from the whole scene. If Baldwin is not actually driven mad, he is still as shaken as he can possibly be from the whole matter. He will shake his head amid Jake's frenzied greetings.
His first speech will be something like "Deadeye, what are you doin' so old all of a sudden, and who are all of y'all?" He is totally lost to find himself alive(after dying) in Laos("where? y'all mean French Indochina?") and twenty-five years on. The idea that he was raised from the dead by magic will be incomprehensible to him. He will be horrified at the monster, rapist, and cannibal that his old roomie Jake has become. In fact, the investigators could win Alec over to their side if they play their cards right. ("Come with us, Alec; we'll take you home!") Alec has no Mythos knowledge and no magical powers, and is a poor shot. He is, however, gracious and charming, and will win hearts with ease. The problem here is dealing with the one he won thirty years back.
Killing Patty Holeran
If the players manage to kill Nyarlathotep in its form as Patty Holeran, they will see the SAN-shattering transformation into another form as described in the rulebook, and will know no more of that puissant entity all their waking days. The Crawling Chaos takes the shape of a saxophonist of great skill and begins spreading music and disease in the bars and nightclubs of the world's great cities.
There remains the question of the Green Berets. After Nyarlathotep recites the poem describing him and admits his identity, he will transform into a giant shaggy mole with burning fur and tunnel into the earth and stone below the hall. The team will appear amazed as the players. At an appropriate point in the conversation, thirty Pathet Lao guerrillas break down the door and enter with blazing guns. The resulting firefight should show the players that the Special Forces men are better fighters than they had ever feared. Muller will run straight into the approaching horde with a grenade in each hand, sacrificing himself to destroy most of the guerrillas. They kill a few Green Berets through overwhelming force of arms, but only if the players do not help Schwärmer's men will there be a melee. Then, let a player get badly hurt. The Green Berets after the fight will warn the players of the need to flee. As the players leave the complex they each must make a luck roll to avoid the rats with Lassa fever, who the Lao set loose. Investigation of the Lao corpses will reveal numerous rat bites.
Schwärmer's Death
The Green Berets will flee, taking their dead and wounded with them, as well as any dead or wounded investigator with an APP of 16 or greater. They head for the surface, and their camouflaged helicopter. They can pull the tarp off the helicopter in 2 rounds. The helicopter starts in 10 rounds. Several are pilots, so that piloting the thing is not a problem. If the investigators have a Green Beret and vice versa, the captain offers a trade. If not, try to run a sequence like what follows:
The Captain sends Müller out to get the players. They fire a machine gun as the helicopter takes off. It hovers as Schwärmer offers them a ride. They know not to take rides from strange men, but this is ridiculous. Their own chopper may not return, if it's gone. They throw a grenade. The captain catches it(remember that DEX) and throws it back, wounding an investigator or Brandt(who may be with the investigators if they know his future self). Any wound Brandt receives will be his lower leg wound familiar to those who know his future self. Attempts to kill him will likely backfire-or maybe not, if this is all a dream. The captain steps from the helicopter, maybe covered by a gun, maybe not, to kill the investigators with his rune spear. They shoot him. He keeps coming. They empty a clip into him. He reaches the nearest investigators and spears him, then falls. An investigator should hear his last word-it is, of course, Alec's name.
Anyone currently at 1 or 0 hit points will have a near-death experience. He will be drawn down a long dark tunnel toward a bright light, hearing a ringing noise. As he falls down the tunnel, he will see a figure overtaking him. It's the boy from the photograph, the young Jacob Schwärmer. At the lip of the bright light there sits a small figure, knees drawn up. It's Alec; they meet and go off together.
THE FLIGHT
If Yeshe is with the investigators, he will urgently request that they return him home. His fellow monks must be told of the horror; they can help the wounded investigators; they can end the horror if they have the investigator's help. If the investigators have further doubts, then the helicopter is low on fuel- there's enough to get them to the monastery, but not back to Vietnam. They may try to make for the secret CIA drug base instead. If they do, use the section above for details. They could also try to walk away from the cannibal fortress. If they do, they will spend weeks hiking through remote wilderness, encountering hillmen of the Pou Eum, Phou Tai, and Bo peoples, VC, opium growers, opium smugglers, and possibly the fungi from Yuggoth. The exact events of the march must be up to the Keeper; areas of the route were almost uninhabited at the time, and other Mythos sites might well exist. If the investigators do this, then the remainder of the adventure may not take place, although the conclusion can be presented as a dream.
STATISTICS
Patty Holeran, Opium Queen and Avatar of the Crawling Chaos
STR 10   DEX 19 INT 86
CON 19 APP 18 POW 100
SIZ 7 SAN ?    EDU ?
HP 12
Beretta 9mm 100%, other weapons, skills and spells as needed. There is nothing that Nyarlathotep does not know.
SAN : There is no SAN cost to see Patty Holeran. If and when she changes into a more monstrous form, 1D10/1D100 points of SAN are lost.
Alec Baldwin, Beloved and Bedlam Boy
STR 12   DEX 14 INT 15
CON 11 APP 18   POW 11
SIZ 9    SAN   55 EDU13
HP 10
Rifle 30%, Fencing Sword 40%, Bow 25%, French 40%, History 45%, Bargain 20%, Fast Talk 25%, Credit Rating 80%, Etiquette 80%, Charm 80%
Phum, a Typical Pathet Lao Militiaman
STR 11    DEX 12 INT   12
CON 11   APP 10 POW12
SIZ 7 SAN 55    EDU 5
HP 9
Lao 80%, Rifle 30%, Dagger 45%, Pistol 50%, Track 50%, Climb 50%, Camouflage 50%, Dodge 30%, Hide 50%, Sneak 40%
Yeshe Norkay Rinpoche, Tibetan Monk
STR   9 DEX 14 INT   15
CON 16 APP 9 POW17
SIZ 8 SAN 50 EDU 17
HP 3(normally 12)
Tibetan 80%, Sanskrit 50%, Chinese 30%, English 10%, Lao 5%, Vietnamese 5%, Debate(Tibetan only) 50%, History 40%, Occult 50%, Cthulhu Mythos 30%, Sing Tibetan Sacred Music 90%, Perform Buddhist Ritual 80%
Spells: Elder Sign, Voorish Sign, Gyüto Chant
Typical Nameless Human Food Animal in the Mouth of Hell or African Captive
STR 12 DEX 11 INT 5
CON 13 APP 5 POW 9
SIZ 8 SAN   0 EDU 0
HP10
Bite 40%, Fist 50%, Screech 90%
Qaggjhaqq-Unglorh, pupating Great Old One
STR 100   DEX 0 INT 0
CON 100 APP 0 POW 40
SIZ 1000000
HP 500,000
Move 0
Attacks: Slime, 100%, 1HP
Bite, 100%, 1D100 damage
Spells: None
Skills: None
This being is virtually mindless and almost never moves. It will bite only if someone casts the Contact spell inside its mouth. It weighs over ten million tons. The author of this work can't think of a way to kill it. Perhaps someone else can.
New Spell: Contact Qaggjhaqq-Unglorh
This spell can be cast at only one place, namely the site where Qaggjhaqq-Unglorh itself sleeps, disguised as a mountain. The spell elicits no cooperation from the Great Old One, merely causing it to excrete a caustic substance. Anyone touching the ooze takes 1 point of damage. Using the ooze, one can reduce a body to its essential salts, a task otherwise quite difficult. The spell costs 1 Magic Point and 5 points SAN.
New Spell-Render salts
     This spell takes from one week to one month to cast, and requires that the caster do nothing else in that time. He must have a fully-equipped laboratory in which to work. He must expend 15 Magic Points and 2d10 points of SAN. The result is the "essential salts" from which a human body can be raised. It is recommended that investigators be discouraged from learning this spell.

All Material is © Conrad Hubbard.
Tickets for a Prayer is an adventure written by
James Comer and published here with his permission.
References to products created by Chaosium or other
companies are not challenges to their copyrights
Conrad Hubbard, Editor