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
The Ninth Ticket
The prehistoric monastery
After a bloody gunfight with the Pathet Lao, the investigators may or may not still have the Green Berets on their tail. A place marked on the captain's map offers help-the Green Berets avoid it, and it's within the helicopter's limited cruising range. The site turns out to be a prehistoric monastery, long abandoned until Tibetan refugees reoccupied it after fleeing Chinese oppression. Their abbot speaks some English and understands the dilemma of the situation. The Dreamlands are identified by the monks with the Buddha-fields or Western paradise, and from that vantage point they know of the evil done by Nyarlathotep, but are unable to combat it.
The upshot of the cult is the attempt of the fungi
to reach the sea, nowhere nearer than Vietnam to the mountains. There
they can seek the aid of the Old Ones, whose survival on the ocean floor is
plain to them from reading reports of Antarctic trips to the Mountains of
Madness and Leng. Though the Old Ones and the fungi warred in the past,
the Mi-Go now wish their help in transport and in alliance against the Cthulhu
spawn. The octopoids have never been amenable to reason, and their coming
rise from the sea's bed bodes ill for all other intelligent species.
In addition, the fungi and Old Ones can together enslave the human species,
since the Mi-Go have experience in this while the Old Ones have military might,
and do not wish to repeat the Shoggoth debacle. 
High above the cannibal fortress, near the Laotian-Chinese border, is a hidden monastery, penned in on Schwärmer's maps, a target for the Fungi and their allies. It is inhabited by Tibetan monks fleeing Chinese oppression who have mastered the Gyüto chanting technique as a weapon against the Great Old Ones and the Fungi. When the monks chant in the Gyüto style, any non-terrene matter in earshot automatically explodes, doing no physical damage to bystanders but costing them a few points of SAN. The monks are twelve in number, their abbot being Tenzing Norje Rimpoche, an incarnate lama. Tenzing knows English(Speak English 60%) and can instantly discern the players' nationality and origins. He will propose that the players use the dream-inducing drug to enter the Dreamlands in the monks' company. The monks, owing to their perfect Buddha-mindedness, can enter the Dreamlands still awake, in perfect meditation, and do so often. They can tell the players the essential truths of the campaign, although they do not really understand everything. They will express everything in their native terms, and will refer to the halfworld or Dreamlands as the Buddha field or the Western Paradise. They cannot themselves fight Nyarlathotep, owing to the danger of revealing their real-world location, but the players can do so.
Another way of ending the scenario is to destroy the crystal, which can be carried into the Dreamlands unaltered. Smashing it on the many stones of the Dreamlands or Alcheringa will end the power of the fungi to descend from the hills to the jungle and conduct their horrid rites. Wongar, the Australian aborigine, can conduct the players into Alcheringa, but there will have the form of a giant bird, a mihirung, and no hands. He is unable to grasp the stone. See the section on Wongar for more details.
If the players succeed in foiling
the plots of the fungi, they gain 3D10 SAN, and additional SAN
for killing or stopping the Green Berets, equal to the largest
amount lost by that player for witnessing their evil acts.
The Keeper may wish to end the game with a flash-forward to the
surviving characters in the 1980s, seeing the coffins of bones
brought home from Indochina, and suffering the additional horror
of knowing that the bones are scraped and gnawed by human
teeth.
Tibet in fact, fiction and Mythos
Tibet is one of the most isolated parts
of the world. For centuries it pursued a monastic pattern
of civilization unlike any modern European model of the nation-state.
Its contact with Europeans in the early-to-middle twentieth century
produced the small quantity of Tibetan mystical literature that
has become much talked about in the West and a much larger body
of pseudo-Tibetan gibberish, designed by Nyarlathotep to
fuddle Western perception of Tibetan wisdom.
Tibet came relatively late to "civilization" as the term is commonly used. In the first millennium AD, the people of Tibet were tribes, groups of tribes, and archaic or primitive kingdoms, living by yak herding, barley farming, and plunder. Their religion, known as Bön, (pronounced pern), was shamanism, with hints of darker influences. When Milarepa, a Buddhist monk, converted them to Buddhism, there began their transformation into a society ruled by a monastic elite. By the middle of the second millennium, after the Mongol hordes had wrecked Tibet's older political structure and been themselves converted to its faith, the incarnate deity known as the Dalai Lama had become accepted as King of Tibet. The Lama was chosen by mystic signs at birth, and ruled over the wild and savage Tibetan people as well he could. The last Lama fled after the Chinese invasion and now resides in India.
The Adventure's last ticket
The Dreamlands mirror or shadow area
on Earth. For instance, Olathoë and Lomar are dreams
of the Nordic past, while the marvelous sunset city seen by Randolph
Carter is the exaltation into wonder of Providence, Rhode Island.
In this case, Leng is certainly Tibet, as we can see from the
profusion of hairy men and prehistoric monasteries. Leng's
associations with Antarctica come from the isolation and loneliness
of the lost city there and the "elder Pharos, the primal
white jelly" seen by Danforth as he and Dyer (Henry Praisegod
Tanner, in reality) fled the abominable city located in the Antarctic
highlands, which sight was almost certainly a vision of Yog-Sothoth,
the Gate and the Key. This puissant entity provides the
connection between Antarctic and Asian Leng, and it would not
be surprising to find evidence of Leng-like associations in the
high Andes.
The monks at the monastery are Tibetan
refugees, fleeing Chinese oppression for isolation in the mountains
of Laos. When the helicopter touches down they will come
forth to greet the players. If attacked, they will flee
or die; they have no combat skills. Two of the younger
monks know a few words of English, enough to fetch the abbot,
who is fluent and speaks with a singsong Indian accent.
He will offer the players tsampa, a revolting mix of butter,
barley and tea in a bowl, and watch as they make CONx5 to try
to keep it down. Any who need first aid receive it now.
If the monk from the cannibal fortress, Yeshe, is there, his
brethren will receive him with great joy, and treat the players
better. If not the abbot will expect news of his fate.
If Yeshe has died, the abbot will remark that he will have much
merit in his next incarnation.
The monks have mastered esoteric chanting techniques, enabling each of them to sing three notes at once. This method of singing is hauntingly beautiful, and many ceremonies have been recorded and are commercially available. It has Mythos significance also. The 70-cycle notes that the monks sing are attuned to the vibration rate of nonterrene matter, and any entering earshot of this music automatically disintegrates. Thus any Fungi spies cannot enter the place. The same is true of Cthulhu spawn, although none are known to frequent the Laotian mountains.
The monks give the investigators a place to rest for the night, and in the morning perform the final ceremony, one designed to send the players to the dreamworld where the mystic stone can be destroyed. The ceremony is set in the main hall, a place richly decorated with icons and paintings smuggled from lost Tibet and a few made here on the spot. The investigators sit on a rug in the center as nine monks place a complex sand-painting on the floor about them. Laid grain by grain, the painting depicts the landscape of the Buddha-field or Western Paradise. This place, called the Dreamlands in Call of Cthulhu, is the collective unconscious of the human and nonhuman dreamers of planet Earth. Created by the first sentient beings to dream on Earth, perhaps the Cthulhu-spawn, it was later ruled by serpent folk and gugs, after which power passed to the Great Ones, called the gods of Earth. Among these are the Buddha-figures of Tibetan mythology.
The monks finish the carpet and pass a red silk rope to the players. Each monk carries the rope between his palms, and it finally ends in the hands of the abbot. He begins his eldritch chant and the monks respond. The smoke of incense blurs the investigators' vision, and the rope begins to slide upwards between their hands. Clinging to it, they are carried up the rope to find themselves in a field of red clay. By them is a car, a new 1941 Buick. They can drive anywhere, as the keys are in the ignition, but on the horizon are the tents and Ferris wheel of the South Carolina State Fair, 1942. There, they might suspect who will be waiting for them. At the gate, they find the money of the period in their pockets, and their clothes have also changed-one more transformation, into people who inhabit the happiest dreams of the mad captain.
The Keeper must run this very carefully. The players should have come to understand the tragedy of Captain Schwärmer by now, and to feel some sympathy for the grief that drove him to madness. If they are unable to understand this, then play the two boys as spirit guides, who show the investigators the way to the door and then depart. If they have shown any signs of understanding the tragedy, then use this encounter as a way of showing them that the Captain has redeemed himself by his death and is reunited in it with the one he loves most.
On the midway of the fair are many attractions. There is an Octopus Man, a Fat Lady, a Hairy Man, a Tattooed Man, a fire-eater, and a sword swallower. There is also a variety of games. One is called Chinese Prayer Wheel; fairgoers throw darts at a spinning nine-spoked wheel and try to hit the one golden spoke. Three darts are fifty cents, nine for a dollar. One hit wins a stuffed heart, three a bear. Standing before the game are the two figures, just as depicted in the picture in Schwärmer's footlocker. This is obviously a scene from that long-lost happy summer. The investigators will likely talk to the boys, and if they offer to buy them "tickets for a prayer wheel", Schwärmer will gladly accept. He will then throw, hit, and win the prize. The boys will split a Coke with the investigators and talk of small things. Jacob Schwärmer will look sidelong at them, and Alec will be his usual charming self. If the player hint of future events, the boys will respond cryptically; Alec may ask if the investigators are friends of Jake's, and the younger boy might say "I don't know you. But maybe I will."
They will show the investigators to a door that no one else seems to notice. It is set upright in the air. Passing through, they find themselves in a barren moonscape by a sterile lake. Throwing the jewel into the lake ensures that the Minions of Ghadamon will eat it. Smashing it with another rock destroys it utterly. This action ends the power of the Fungi.
For this action the investigators receive 1d20 SAN each.
If they killed Schwärmer, thus ending his part in the massive
plot to destroy the human species, they each get back SAN equal
to the total lost beholding his macabre works. That is,
if one player lost 12 SAN from seeing the eyeless bodies of friends,
the sacrifice to Odin, the rapes and perversions, than all players
will receive that amount back, up to the usual maximum of 99
minus any Cthulhu Mythos skill.
New Skill:
Tibetan Trance Running
This skill can be learned only by one who has spent a long time
in study of the mystic arts. It enables the user to run
at 10-20 miles per hour for as many hours as he has POW
points, one of which must be spent for each hour running.
While running he is entranced and cannot speak. He can
regain one POW per hour of rest.
Tibetan Gyüto Chant
This skill takes years of study to learn. It enables the user to sing three notes at once, the root, third and fifth notes of a chord. This unearthly music has two uses. A singer can enter the Dreamlands awake while chanting, and take one person along for each three who chant. He cannot act in the Dreamlands, but can behold their wonders. Second, no Mythos creature can enter the place where the chant is sung. In effect, the chant is a verbal Elder Sign.
Proceed to the Endgames, which we have released in this same issue.
References to products created by White Wolf or other
companies are not challenges to their copyrights
