eyeharvester

After the events of last session, the PCs decided to set down the road back to the castle, believing the children demon-ridden and perhaps under the spell of the strange, tall man that the old woman claimed had killed everyone. When they got there, they attempted to warn the Lord about all the things they had seen, but he seemed oddly unconcerned. At his side was a hale young man with a blond beard and a fiddle. After some questioning of this man, the PCs came to the conclusion that he was somehow involved with the horrible events in the village. They attacked him, and during the ensuing brawl started a fire that soon spread out of control. The stranger was killed, though at some personal loss to the PCs. Attempting to enlist the help of others in the castle to stop the fire soon showed that most of them were rather lethargic and unwilling to help. Still, they prevented too much of the castle from being destroyed.

This fact was immediately proved irrelevant, for those at the castle's windows soon saw a giant, gaunt man without a face, dressed in fine black clothes with a white ruff about his neck step out of the forest. At his feet were a number of the children from the village. The children were trying to run around his legs as if he were some abhorrent maypole. They were failing, though, because his long strides soon left them in the dust, and they had to scramble to keep up. The PCs, in shock, fired ineffectual arrows at the thin man as he pressed closer to the castle. As he did so, he seemed to grow larger and larger, taller and taller, and eventually began pulling down the castle, taking the Lord in his so-sharp hands, and then striding back into the forest with his attendant ring of children at his heels.

At this point, the characters found themselves back in their own bodies in the theater as the rest of the audience applauded the end of the play. Reeling with SAN loss and confusion, the PCs talked over their experiences with each other as the audience trickled out into the theater's foyer for the post-play reception. Some of the bolder PCs started to inspect the theater, looking for the "hypno-rays" or other mad science-ish devices they felt must have been behind their strange experiences. Their quest was not entirely in vain. Although they certainly found no "hypno-rays", they did find, in the lighting booth that they sneaked into, a copy of the play's script. Which, being PCs, they proceeded to steal.

The rest of the party, less brazen, conversed with sundry theater-goers and members of the cast and crew. The novelist PC had a few words with playwright, an earnest young man with a perfectionist's attitude towards his creation. More ominously, Dr. Nicole Gaudet (another PC - perhaps I shall put up a list of them at the end of this entry? Yes, yes I will) had a conversation with a man named Simon Alheir, who seemed a little too interested in her and a little too knowing about her recent experiences. He gave her his card, and told her to drop by his little establishment - called the "Haus Der Lüge" - whenever she felt the need to talk...

The PCs
• Harry M. Bishop - a rather hardboiled novelist whose work rather resembles Thomas Ligotti.
•*Willie Cooper - an investment banker who finds his wealth all too dull and longs for something more interesting.
•*Dr. Nicole Gaudet - a hardworking surgeon who may be more psychologically vulnerable than she at first appears.
•*Daphne McQueen - an out-of-work construction laborer who has just blown in from NYC, and is currently relying on the kindness of relatives.
• Sean Pegg - an appliance salesman who prides himself on his shady contacts.
• Blake Roberts - a journalist, rather devoted to his job.
•*Jim Roberts - Blake's younger brother, a college student.

Yes, there are quite a few PCs, but since most of them can't make it every week, there's typically a manageable level of 'em.