The Case of the Moving Coffins

Time for another tale from Strange Stories, Amazing Facts.

In 1807 a solid rock tomb was built for Mrs Thomisina Goddard, a plantation owner on Barbados. When she was interred, a massive marble slab was used to block up the entrance. A year later another family, the Chases, took over the tomb to bury two of their daughters in solid lead coffins.

Later in 1812 the father, Thomas Chase also died and the tomb was opened to allow his burial to take place. when the slab was remove, they found the two heavy lead coffins had been moved so that they were upright, propped against one of the walls. there was no sign that the marble slab had been moved.

In 1816 the tomb was opened up again for another family member. This time all three Chase coffins had been moved and again there was no sign of any entry to the tomb. The lead coffins, especially Thomas' were too heavy for small groups of people to move; Thomas' had originally taken a team of 8 very strong slaves to move. Word spread of the mysterious moving coffins, so hundreds turned up to the next Chase funeral to see if the coffins had, once again, moved. They had. The only coffin that never moved was Thomisina's.

The Governor of Barbados was so disturbed by this that he had all the coffins carefully re-stacked and then had seals placed on the door slab. One year later they returned to the tomb to check on the seals and the coffins within. The seals were all in in perfect condition, but once they opened the tomb once again all of the Chase coffins had been stood against one of the walls. The tomb was emptied of all coffins after that and has been left empty ever since.

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Some tellings of the tale link it to the first Masonic lodges in Barbados, which could give us some interesting plots of a hidden access point to the tomb and masonic artifacts hidden within. Alternatively we could be looking at one of Lovecraft's ghoulish gateways into the Dreamlands.

Since the book was published, it has been researched and all instances of the tales always end up linking back to one man, a writer called James Edward Alexander in 1833 who claims to have been there at the final opening. Unfortunately no official records exist that can confirm that the Chase family or Mrs Goddard were ever buried at that location.

The Statement of Randolph Carter

"The Statement of Randolph Carter" is Randolph's testimony about the disappearance of his companion, Harley Warren. In the statement he tells of a mysterious tome in an unknown language that leads the two of them deep into the swamps in search of a stairway down into the earth that, presumably, goes to another time and place.

We already know about the existence of mythos tomes; they are the cornerstone of many of the tales and lead to some serious sanity loss in most Call of Cthulhu games. If you're ever short of a way to send people to their doom... use a book. They are generally written in arabic by some madman who lived in a cave in the desert and contain lots of indecipherable script unless you've got lots of Knowledge (Mythos).

The location covered in this story will still be in existence, but likely hard to find without the original books or a lot of luck (mostly bad). We don't actually know where the stairs go, other than down and that they are inhabited by some evil that killed Warren. It could be a tomb of some sorts, a gateway through to the Dreamlands or even the nest of some nasty creature. This one is an easy location to transplant anywhere in the world  and could be accidentally uncovered while fleeing from a German search party if you need a one-shot adventure.

Carter, the survivor of the tale, later appears in other Lovecraft stories and has gained power in the Dreamlands as well as the waking world. Whether these stairs and this event have increased his awareness and power over this realm are unknown, but it does introduce the theory that there is some connection here...

The events in "The Statement of Randolph Carter" are also key elements of Cosa Nosferatu, a fantasy/crime/horror novel featuring Eliot Ness and Al Capone, set in a 1930 era Chicago beset with Lovecraft-style Undead. I've not read this one yet, but it could also provide some interesting ideas for an investigation in America. I'll hopefully come back to this later when I find a copy.

 

The Tomb

Reading through the various Lovecraft tales recently has started to spark some ideas for potential side adventures, or plot points, so I thought I'd start to log them here in case they are of any use to others. We'll be starting with the 1922 short story, The Tomb. This story seems like a fairly simple one to weave into a WW2 setting as it only involves having a location...

In the original story a daydreamer called Jervas Dudley discovers a locked mausoleum near a ruined mansion.  Sleeping near the tomb eventually ends up with him being committed as no-one believes the various events that happen to him.

There are two obvious uses for this one:

1) The players accidentally sleep near a similar mausoleum (or similarly twisted location) and start to encounter odd situations that others do not.

2) The players are sent to investigate a spate of allied soldiers going insane while camped near a ruined castle or mansion.

Quite what the players or soldiers encounter or dream is entirely up to you; there could be something important that happened in the area that affects the current mission, or an important artifact like Dudley's key that need to be unearthed.

In the story Jervas finds a figurine that he believes looks very like him, he also finds a coffin with his name on. If you want to start twisting your player's minds you could have them find something with their name or likeness on as well; for example if you're using option 2 above, you could have the soldiers believe they have been trapped in the castle cellar after a cave in that killed most of the inhabitants. If the  investigators uncover the cellar, the names of all the soldiers could be carved into the walls... but no way for the soldiers to have ever actually found their way in to carve them.