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The Doom from Below
A 1920s Call of Cthulhu® Adventure
W
e like to think of the ground beneath our
feet as a known and reliable quantity—something we
count on as we move through the world. How can
we make even the slightest move if we cannot rely on
terra irma
to hold up and literally support each step
we take?
The truth, however, is that the earth is anything
but solid, even in our mundane world. The ground
is riddled with caverns, chasms, underground
lakes, pockets of natural gas, and all manner
of subterranean excavation and construction
perpetrated by man. Nor are these formations
necessarily permanent. Earthquakes leave rifts,
erosion creates sinkholes, and man-made structures
eventually give way to decay and collapse. The
earth sometimes does open up and swallow things
whole.
In a world where the stars just happen to be
right, sometimes the earth will instead open up
and release unspeakable evil.
Design
: Stan!
Editing & Typeseting
: R. Hyrum Savage
Cover Art
: Luis Guaragna
Interior Art
: Luis Guaragna, Jacob Elijah Walker, and Stan!
Special Thanks
: The Alliterates (alliterates.com), APOD
(apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html), Dale Donovan, David
Lemon, H.P. Lovecraft, Michael Montesa, Vicki Poter,
John D. Ratelif, Cindi Rice, Ed Stark, Owen K.C. Stephens,
The Game Mechanics (thegamemechanics.com), and the
members of the Yog-Sothoth.com forums.
Background
In
The Doom from Below
the investigators explore
a mysterious chasm that drops straight down into
the bowels of the earth. The chasm is located in a
remote section of forest in the White Mountains of
New England. It appears on no maps and, as far
as the investigators can tell, they may well be the
irst living souls ever to explore its depths.
Technically speaking, the chasm would be
described by geologists as a “collapse pit”—a
nearly vertical, almost perfectly circular hole.
Generally, these are found in volcanically active
regions when lava hardens around and over
columns of escaping gas. What seems to be a solid
part of the lava plain can, in fact, be merely a few
feet of rock covering a yawning circular ravine
hundreds of feet deep.
Despite the fact that the hills of New England
have not been home to any active volcanoes for
several million years, and as unlikely as a newly
opened collapse pit is, most would probably agree
upon that classiication. After all, what else could
make a cylindrical hole ifteen feet across and
hundreds of feet deep in the side of a mountain?
The names, descriptions, and depictions applied to this
supplement are derived from works copyrighted by and
include trademarks owned by Chaosium, Inc., and may
not be used or reused without its permission.
All characters, character names, and the distinctive
likenesses thereof are trademarks owned by
Super Genius Games.
This material is protected under the copyright laws
of the United States of America. Any reproduction or
unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained
herein is prohibited without the express written
permission of Super Genius Games.
This product is a work of fiction. Any similarity to
actual people, organizations, places, or events is purely
coincidental.
©2008 Super Genius Games
All rights reserved. Made in the U.S.A.
150 Million Years Ago
As continental drift slowly began pulling Pangaea
apart and forming what are recognizably the
continents we know today, Earth saw the arrival
of three new species. Two of them—amphibians
and birds—were the ongoing result of growth
from the original, naturally occurring primordial
soup, but the third originated on a planet known
as Yuggoth.
Visit our website at
www.supergeniusgames.com
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The Mi-Go came to Earth in order to pillage the
young planet for rare minerals and ores. The fungi set
up colonies throughout the mountains of the northern
hemisphere, including one in what would later be the
White Mountains of New Hampshire. They piloted
their spacecraft to the heart of the mountains then
drilled their way through the rock and earth, setling
at the botom of a smooth, vertical shaft hundreds of
feet below the surface.
Although the rock in this region was not especially
plentiful in substances valued by the Mi-Go,
with time and a complicated fungoid processing
technique, suicient quantities could be leached
from the atomic bonds of the local ore. This process
would take at least a million years before it would
show any results, but the Mi-Go were patient, and
they had nothing but time.
The Historical Record
As far as we know, there are no alien mining
colonies in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
However, certain other pieces of the background
are historically correct.
The timeline for human entry into the region
is reasonably accurate. Approximately 11,000
years ago Paleo-Indians arrived in the region but,
without leaving a clear explanation for why, they
disappeared approximately a thousand years later.
The modern Native American tribes setled in the
area approximately 5,000 years ago and developed
their culture in relative isolation until the arrival
of the Europeans in the early seventeenth century.
Unfortunately, the “Great Dying” is also a mater
of historical record as a series of pandemics
decimated the native population from 1616 to 1619.
The town of Bethlehem, NH, is a real place but,
as explained in the adventure
Murder of Crows
, it
is neither a lumber town nor has it ever been the
victim of a fungoid alien curse.
11,000 Years Ago
Over the millennia, ore processing proceeded
apace, occasionally having to stop as a glacier
crept over the land. A minor inconvenience, to
be sure, but one that stopped the mining entirely
as the Mi-Go entered artiicial hibernation for
thousands of years at time waiting for the ice to
recede.
When the fungi awoke from their last delay,
they found something very diferent about the
lands around their mining colony. A new species
had joined the ecosystem—humans, having
traveled from the lands to the north and west, now
had a small but thriving presence in these woods.
Never ones to overlook a potential resource, the
Mi-Go begin using these Paleo-Indians as slave
labor.
However, the process being as automated as it
was, there really was very litle physical labor for
the humans to do. With the machinery’s fungoid
eiciency, the Mi-Go found themselves with more
and more free time—free time that they used to
perform experiments on the human slaves, often
removing their brains and placing them in either
mechanical cylinders or the bodies of local fauna.
Not surprisingly, the Paleo-Indians took objection
to these practices and began ighting back. Normally,
the Mi-Go would have easily quashed this rebellion,
most likely exterminating the humans in the
process. However, one of their experiments—a brain
cylinder designated Xydroth, that contained a local
specimen—had been used as the central processing
hub for the colony’s automated machinery. The
Paleo-Indian side of Xydroth, although quite
insane, was torn by conlicting loyalties. Should it
assist the Mi-Go in slaughtering its former family
or should it join the primitive humans in ighting
their technologically superior foes?
In the end, Xydroth decided that the best way to quell
its own seething madness was to eliminate both sides.
Neither group ever knew how it happened, but in less
than a thousand years the Paleo-Indians were wiped out
by bio-engineered illness and the Mi-Go were back in their
hibernation chambers, having been duped into believing
that a new ice age was beginning.
The hills were once again illed with a peace and quiet
they had not known since the alien colony irst arrived in
primordial days.
5,000 Years Ago
A new wave of human migration brought the Abenaki tribe
of Native Americans into the White Mountains. They lived
in relatively peaceful co-existence with the other tribes and
made a place for themselves in what seemed like idyllic
woods. Then the tribe discovered the shaft leading to the
Mi-Go mining colony.
Although the colony was completely inactive, Xydroth
was still awake and fully functional. The thousands of
years it had spent without any interaction of any kind had
only served to drive it even more insane.
At irst, Xydroth was content to watch the Abenaki treat
the chasm with awe and respect. It was amused when
they developed folklore and a mythology around the site,
saying that this was the place where the gods blew life
into the earth. But as it became a sacred site—a place that
even members of other tribes made pilgrimages to visit—
Xydroth grew uneasy.
Having humans becoming more numerous and active
around the chasm made it feel as if the humans had
won that ancient batle. This bothered the part of the
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brain cylinder that was still loyal to the Mi-Go. In order to
maintain the balance it knew that it would have to either
release the hibernating fungus creatures or drive the
humans away. It chose the later.
Using its ability (designed by the Mi-Go) to communicate
with and inluence humans nearby, Xydroth began
implanting horrible visions into the minds of anyone who
visited the site—terrible shapes and alien sounds of the sort
that haunted one’s dreams. Soon rather than sacred, the
land was considered cursed. Demons, it was said, lived in
the pit, and it was considered taboo for anyone to go within
a mile of the site.
To increase the dread of the area, Xydroth obliged the
superstitious by using the Mi-Go technology to create
artifacts that would ill the head of anyone who touched
them with nightmare images. The Abenaki called these
totems Spirit Stones, and inding one was considered
an omen so evil that the inder’s entire family was often
banished from their village. Before long, it was considered
bad luck to even talk about that region of the forest, let
alone visit it.
Soon the hills were quiet again.
400 Years Ago
In the early 1600s, European colonies began spreading
through the New England hills. The colonists met
the Abenaki tribe and found them to be friendly,
welcoming neighbors willing to live in peace and
harmony. The Native Americans shared their
knowledge of local plant and animal life, helped the
colonists adapt to their new home, and taught them
all the secrets of the New World. Among these lessons
were tales of the haunted woods surrounding the
Demon’s Mouth—a pit through which evil irst
entered the world. The legends said that the pit still
spewed forth a never-ending stream of poisonous
snakes and spiders. No one, the Abenaki told the
colonists, could visit the site and survive.
The colonists were skeptical, to say the least. But
since the land was so remote and the Abenaki took
the subject so seriously, they never bothered to see
for themselves. It was simply accepted that, for the
sake of neighborly relations, it was best to swear
never to visit those particular hills. That promise
made, connections between the Abenaki and the
colonists grew ever closer.
Unfortunately, that very closeness was a
contributing factor to what New England tribes
came to call the “Great Dying”—a simultaneous
pandemic of diseases such as measles, whooping
cough, and smallpox that ravaged the native
population. In just three years, as many as 95% of
the coastal and near-inland tribes died of or moved
away.
Along with the horriic loss of life, the tribes lost
much of their cultural memory. The true history
of the “Demon’s Mouth” became a vague folktale
about the hills being haunted. Since the site itself
remained so obscure that even trappers and hunters
rarely went that way, the legends themselves
eventually began to fade from memory.
Last Month
Even with growth of the colonies, the ight for
independence, and the explosive growth of a new
country that soon stretched from sea to shining
sea, the newcomers to this land never rediscovered
the Mi-Go mining colony. Individual hunters or
campers found the spot from time to time, but they
all left quickly—chased away by horriic visions
and inexplicable feelings of dread. None of them
reported their experiences to the local authorities or
cartographers.
The nearest setlement was Bethlehem, New
Hampshire. And though it was a lumber town, the
people of Bethlehem always brought their axes and
saws to other, more conveniently located hills. Still,
logging was not the only reason that the residents
entered the woods, and from time to time one of
Changing the Locale
The chasm and Mi-Go mining colony as described in
The Doom from Below
are presumed to be located in the
mountains of H.P. Lovecraft’s beloved New England.
However, with only a few adjustments, a Keeper can set
this adventure in almost any part of the world in which
the investigators ind themselves. The following are
the issues that the Keeper will have to consider when
relocating the action.
•
—According to the Mythos,
Mi-Go tend to set up colonies in mountainous
regions. For the purpose of this adventure, it would
be best if the mountains were relatively near some
small human development yet still covered in a thick
forest. The chasm site is supposed to be accessible
on foot, but diicult or impossible to spot from
the air (or a higher mountaintop). In as much as
the Keeper changes these parameters, some of the
background details will have to be likewise modiied.
•
—The background as described
here is very much linked to the history (and pre-
history) of the northeast U.S. If the Keeper relocates
the action, it will also be necessary to change the
timing and details of the background to match the
anthropological and geographic history of the new
location. Any new background should be formed
around these key points: the Mi-Go arrive; they use
local humans as slaves; a rebellion neutralizes both
sides; a natural disaster causes a loss of detailed folk
knowledge regarding the site and incident.
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Mountainous Woods
Natural History
them would inadvertently hike into the land near the
chasm. Like the Native Americans centuries before
them, these people found their minds plagued by evil
bodings and the unshakable sensation that the forest
itself meant them harm.
A few weeks ago, one such man came into the
woods and succumbed to the creeping fear. However,
in his panic to escape, he tripped and fell just at the
spot of a half-buried Abenaki Spirit Stone. He brought
it back to town with him and misfortune followed
close in his wake. (One possible version of these
events is described in the adventure
Murder of Crows
.
Keepers who do not wish to use that scenario should
invent a diferent tale of mythos-inspired woe that
has befallen Bethlehem, NH.)
The unfortunate man’s journal clearly spelled out
in what section of forest he found the Spirit Stone.
Anyone reading it should be able to determine
the general location of those supposedly haunted
woods. Once that is accomplished and news has
spread, those seeking other artifacts like the Spirit
Stone will likely be the irst to oicially “discover”
the Demon’s Mouth.
Synopsis
The adventure begins when the investigators
arrive at the chasm. Depending on how the Keeper
wants the action to low, the investigators may be
following in the footsteps of a previous expedition
and know roughly what they’re looking for or be
the irst modern people ever to stumble upon the
site. If the later is the case, it is unlikely that the
investigators will have the equipment they need
to immediately begin rappelling down the shaft
(and even more unlikely that they’ll want to). The
Keeper will have to prepare scenes that allow the
investigators to gather enough information and
equipment to feel comfortable with that course
of action. It is never a good idea to railroad your
players, but even less so when the action you’re
pushing them toward is jumping into a gaping pit in
the earth.
The Doom from Below
is broken into three acts,
each of which describes a distinct portion of the
exploration. It is not necessary for the investigators
to inish one section before moving on to the next,
though it will be diicult for them to skip any section
of Act I, which unfolds as the investigators lower
themselves deeper and deeper into the chasm. Much
as the earth itself reveals diferent strata, the descent
is fraught with diferent perils at diferent depths.
The further the investigators get from the surface,
the stranger the challenges become. As might seem
iting, Act I ends when the group reaches the
chasm’s botom.
Act II follows the team as they explore the cave loor.
Some of the problems from Act I may still be around, but
they should seem much less threatening now that the
investigators have irm ground beneath their feet. A major
discovery and a vague threat mark the highlights of this
act. The discovery is a set of pictographs unlike any seen
before. The threat comes from more denizens of the pit and
a growing feeling that someone is watching the group. Act II
ends when the investigators discover that one of the stones in
the cave is hollow and can be pried open.
Act III takes place behind the hollow stone. There,
the investigators discover the control room from which
Xydroth managed both the Mi-Go mining operations and
the manipulation of the humans on the nearby surface. But
while the alien technology in the room may seem inert,
it is all fully functional and under the control of Xydroth.
The brain cylinder knows that the investigators have it at
something of a disadvantage since they are fully mobile
and may be armed. To make maters worse, Xydroth has
no comprehension of modern language or technology, so
it might not even recognize threatening items the humans
are carrying. However, it will make full use of the Mi-Go
equipment and its ability to inluence human minds. If it
can successfully capture one or more of the investigators, it
might try to use the Mi-Go technology to swap its brain with
one of the humans, allowing Xydroth to walk free in the
modern world. Alternatively, it might just take the humans
4
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