Kırşehir earthquake

On April 19th, 1938 the Kırşehir region of Turkey suffered a massive earthquake that killed 224 people. The epicentre is located near Kaman-Kalehöyük, an archeological site that has, since excavations in 1986, revealed artifacts from the Bronze, Iron and Ottoman eras. In 2005 archeologists discovered the world's earliest known example of steel manufacture in the form of a fragment of carbon steel.

We could go down the usual route of blaming the earthquake on a summoning, but there are other possible causes that have been covered up. The fact that we have this archeological treasure trove near by with items from multiple time periods makes me want to invoke some sort of time slip here that drags people into the wrong era. Alternatively we already have stories like The Tomb that create a link between current day (for the dreamer) and the past, allowing items and relationships to be formed. In either case, that carbon steel fragment may be a piece of world war 2 era equipment that had somehow made it's way back through the ages; whether it's wielder was also dragged back is another matter.

Anyway, back to the earthquake. The Tomb doesn't really give us a mythos cause for this as it's going to drive everyone mad. A gateway into a Dream realm however, could. Kaman-Kalehöyük would have also been on numerous caravan routes across Turkey and we all know how shifty some of those caravan owners were (well, they are in folk tales and holywood films, so that's enough right?). Some less scrupulous caravans may have either formed, or used, a gateway to a Dream realm in order to gain power over others, or strange artifacts to trade for profit. The gateway may have been covered over during some big storm in the past, only to be uncovered by a german archeological team in search of mystical powers. I can see this being another location for Walpurgen's experiments in breaching the veil between worlds.

Opening or closing the portal could have caused such a backlash as the fabric of reality is changed that it would cause the same effect as an earthquake.

The mysterious death of the Duke of Rutland, 1940

While searching for mysteries that occurred during the war, I came across the death of John Manners, the ninth Duke of Rutland. The Duke's actual death isn't actually all that mysterious, but the circumstances that surround it make ideal fodder for potential plot hooks for Section D's investigators.

In April 1940, the Duke of Rutland died of pneumonia in a cramped room in the servant's quarters of his family estate, Belvoir Castle. Shortly after his death, his son had the rooms sealed for several decades with no-one allowed access. Even the castle staff were tight lipped about exactly what happened...

Prior to his death the Duke had spent ages sorting through the family archives putting them in order and cataloging everything in the library, including various archeological artifacts as well as his family histories and books. Later investigations revealed that the Duke had spent his last days actively destroying evidence of certain periods in his life and encoding others. The three obvious gaps cover some of his childhood, his time in Rome (1909) and some of his time during WW1 when he is know to have had conflicts with his family.

But... what other things did he try to hide in his final days and what did he pass on to Section D? And most importantly of all, why were his chambers sealed and his retainers so secretive? This makes me want to weave something in about the Duke becoming entangled with some mystical group in Rome, aimed at re-balancing power in favour of the Church. As WW1 breaks out and he witnesses the horrors of mass destruction, he could start to feel disillusioned with his involvement in this and he slowly turns to darker powers to try and rectify his earlier mistakes.

WW2 rolls around and things are still following a course the the Duke cannot help but feel he helped guide. When he is diagnosed with pneumonia, he turns over all his research to Section D as he does not have the strength to carry on combating the German mystics and instead starts to spend his final days purging anything suspect from the records; covering them up with more mundane concerns like family arguments.

This handover from the Duke may lead the investigators on a covert mission to Rome to try and recover some additional information about a larger plot, or reveal the location of a large archeological dig sponsored by the Vatican

Newport Tower Mysteries

The town of Newport on Rhode Island in America is the source of an ongoing mystery... in the town is a large stone tower that still stands today. General belief is that it's a 17th century windmill, but there are others that insist there is evidence (since debunked) that places the tower's creation centuries before that date; making it older than Christopher Columbus' voyage to the Americas.

The one discovery that has yet to be disproved are the architectural anomalies that point to it not being a windmill, but some form of observatory instead.

Four of the eight supporting pillars of the tower face the main points of the compass. In the 1990s, William Penhallow, an astronomer at the University of Rhode Island, studied the windows in the tower and said that he found a number of astronomical alignments. At the summer solstice the setting sun should shine through the "west" window (actually just south of true west) onto a niche in the inner wall, next to the "south" window. (This no longer happens due to urban development and park trees.) Similarly, the angle from the "east" window through the "west" window is about 18 degrees south of west, which is the southern extreme of moonsets during what is known as the "lunar minor standstill". The smaller windows also form alignments, on significant stars. These alignments could be accidental, but if they were deliberate it would explain why the pattern of windows seems, according to Penhallow, "so odd". - Wikipedia

Granted, these discoveries are too recent for our time period, but that doesn't mean that others hadn't known of them earlier. The ideal situation for this is a government backed cult using the tower as a focal point for it's mythos investigations into Homeland Security. Just imagine the havoc that that would cause if something broke out?

In fact, 1938 saw a massive hurricane start in the Atlantic that devastated the eastern coast of America, causing over 600 deaths in New England. A large percentage of these deaths were in Rhode Island...

One possible situation is:

A government backed group of sorcerers try to harness the power of the sea to create storms to defend shipping lines to Europe. Unfortunately either the Germans, or something else, attack during the ceremonies causing the sorcerer's control over the storm to waver, sending it spinning across the American coastline causing mayhem wherever it hit. The investigators may be part of the ceremony, or just sent to guard it from outside forces; having to defend the sorcerers from otherworldly powers until they can get the storm under control.

Mysterious shipwrecks of 1938

While we're considering disasters as plot points, here's a list of all the ships who sank with all hands aboard during this year. Whatever the real cause of the losses, with no-one around to tell any tales... who can say what really happened?

• Glanrhyd (United Kingdom): The cargo ship foundered in the Irish Sea between Lundy Island and Cardigan Bay with the loss of all seventeen crew on the 17th of January.


• Lochshira (United Kingdom): The coaster foundered in the North Sea off the coast of Ayrshire with the loss of all five crew on the 17th of January.


• Richard Borchart (Germany): The collier departed from Hamburg on a voyage to Nordenham, Lower Saxony. Two lifebuoys were discovered on Heligoland, Schleswig-Holstein on 4 February.The ship was believed foundered in the North Sea with the loss of all nineteen crew.


• Rumore (United Kingdom): The coaster departed Waterford, Ireland on 27 January bound for Barry, Glamorgan. She passed Passage West, County Cork the next day but was never seen again.


• Gianicolo (Italy): The cargo ship issued a distress call in the Mediterranean Sea on the 11th February, but was never found. It was  presumed foundered with the loss of all 35 crew.


• itsu Maru No.3 (Japan): The cargo ship departed from Mizumata bound for Kobe, but never seen again. Reported on 18 February as presumed foundered.


• Admiral Karpfanger (Germany): The four-masted barque reported by radio when off Cape Horn, Chile. Wreckage was later found on Navarino Island.


• Agnar (United Kingdom): The coaster, on a voyage from Vohemar, Madagascar to Mauritius reported by radio from the Indian Ocean, but no further contact was had with the ship. It was presumed foundered with loss of all crew.


• Anglo Australian (United Kingdom): The cargo ship passed the Azores, Portugal on a voyage from Cardiff to British Columbia, Canada. There was no further contact and the ship was presumed foundered on the 14th of March.


• oca (Chile): The cargo ship capsized and sank off Chiloé Island with the loss of all nineteen crew


• Ben Seyr (United Kingdom): The cargo ship departed Ramsey, Isle of Man bound for Cardiff and was not seen again, presumed to have foundered on the 2nd of October.


• Mineral (Germany): The coaster passed Brunsbüttel, Schleswig-Holstein on 1 October bound for Antwerp, Belgium. No further trace, presumed foundered

The tug, Liberty, was run down by an unknown vessel and sank at Hog Island, Philadelphia; two crew were rescued. Being run down by an unknown vessel sounds rather suspicious; you could easily modify this so that the ship was attacked by mysterious forces and scuttled to prevent it reaching it's destination.

 

Markham Colliery Disaster

Markham Colliery at Staveley near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England suffered a massive explosion on the 10th of May, 1938 that killed 79 miners. It is believed that the explosion was caused by a runaway truck that cut an electric cable and released coal dust into the air; this combination would have been lethal.

The Markham No. 1 Colliery is situated about four miles east of Chesterfield. Mining work began at this site about 1882, but the Blackshale Seam, where the explosion was centred, was not reached until 1924 or 1925. No coal mining was taking place in this part of the mine in 1938; it is believed that the truck collided with containers full of  waste material accrued during the cleaning of the gearheads and loader gates.

Lots of information about the real event on: http://www.healeyhero.co.uk/rescue/pits/markham/markham_38.htm#top

It all sounds far too neat. I suspect the miners dug through into a nest full of Ghasts and causing the explosion was the only way to stop them from escaping

 

Changsha Fire

On October 25, 1938, the city of Wuhan fell to the Empire of Japan. Soon after, a great number of refugees and injured soldiers, in addition to government institutions and factories, were relocated to Changsha. This caused a population boom in the city, and the number of residents jumped from 300,000 to more than 500,000. Though the city did prepare for this type of scenario for a long time, due to the limited transport capacity of Changsha, it still could not hold this amount of goods and people.

On October 8, the Imperial Japanese Army entered northern Hunan. On the 11th, Yueyang fell. Soon, Chinese and Japanese armies faced off along the Xinqiang River just outside of Changsha. The situation in the city became increasingly tense.

Because of a lack of confidence in holding the city, Chiang Kai-shek decided to burn the entire city.It was reasoned that with the city burned to the ground, Japan would gain nothing even if it chose to forcefully enter it. On November 10, the chairman of the Hunan government, Zhang Zhizhong, passed Chiang's idea to his subordinates in a meeting. An arson team was immediately organized. The team was dispatched to every corner of the city and was ordered to set the fire once a signal fire was set off on the top of Tianxin Building in the southwest of Changsha.


At around 2 o'clock in the morning of November 13, 1938, there was a fire in a military hospital just outside of the South Gate (to this day, it remains a mystery whether the fire was a signal or an accident). The arson team took it as a signal and started to set the fire. The burning lasted for five days, also destroying several 2,500-years old historical antiques. City residents tried their best to escape, resulting in a severe boat accident at a river ford on the Xiang River.

- Wikipedia

While the main fire was intentionally set, this disaster does have a mystery at it's core that could be useful to us as a plot hook. Why was a fire set in the hospital? We could assume that this was an intentional fire designed to spark the rest of the destruction... but that wouldn't be much fun.

A more interesting spin on this would be that someone was trying to make absolutely sure that something was covered up at the hospital. Maybe the Chinese were working on some abomination in the hospital, designed to help fend off the Japanese advance, but it either failed, or wasn't finished on time. Maybe the Japanese infiltrated and destroyed an experiment, or Allied investigators had infiltrated the city in order to prevent a summoning, or misuse of mystical artifacts.

One idea that appeals to me is that the Chinese are experimenting with an artifact that mutates a number of individuals (probably wounded soldiers) in an attempt to counter the Japanese advances in the area. Despite the allies not wanting to step in between the two forces here, they aren't likely to want to stand by and see artifacts used like this as who knows where it would end; especially with Japan closing in on the city. A group of investigators are set to infiltrate the city, stop the experiments and destroy any evidence of it's existence. This could tie in nicely with Interface 19.40 book we're getting in the Modiphius kickstarter...

Banda Sea earthquake

The Banda Sea is an area of the Pacific ocean that is surrounded by hundreds of small islands, forming the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. It is about 1000 km (600 mi) east to west, and about 500 km (300 mi) north to south.

In 1938, on February the 1st, the Banda Sea was the site of the 9th strongest earthquake in the 20th century, generating massive tsunamis. Thankfully no-one was killed in the earthquake, but given the region and the chains of tiny islands it seems perfectly suited for some deep, dark mystery.

An obvious starting point is to link this to the Dagon story and plot hooks as the region is about right. The Dagon story does take place a bit further out into the pacific, but having a sunken realm in the Banda Sea makes some sense as we have all of the islands that are the peaks of something much much larger.

If you want to avoid raising a major deity and driving your players bat____ insane, you could set your adventures in a sunken city; a bit like Atlantis. Maybe a local cult, or a group of Nazi scientists have worked out it's location and have started to collect artifacts from it; maybe it's a city full of Deep Ones that needed cleansing...

For non-mythos related adventures, it could have even been the site of a secret German/Japanese submarine base... blowing up the base could cause a major collapse of a cave system, causing the earthquake.