Agents' Briefing

The FBI agents in "Crude Oil" are dispatched from the Boston bureau. They are brought into the case because Arthur Whipple's body, which was dumped in the Durant River, floated all the way into Vermont before it was found. The fact that the corpse crossed state lines, and the gruesome nature of the murder, aroused the FBI's interest. Consequently, Special Agent Harcourt, the PCs' supervisor in Boston, sent them via train to New Jerusalem. Before they depart, Harcourt will give them the following briefing.

"Yesterday the mangled corpse of Arthur Whipple, an oil field worker from New Jerusalem was found in the Durant river, over the border in Vermont. As the body crossed state lines, our charter permits us to involve ourselves in the investigation - and we have also been contacted with a request for assistance from the sheriff in New Jerusalem. He will have more details for you upon your arrival, but keep in mind that all may not be as it seems. The owner of the oil field the victim worked in, Sean O'Bannon, has connections to East Coast organized crime. We've never been able to pin anything directly on him, but his ties to the Finnerty family in Boston are well-documented. He is not a suspect at this point, but I felt you needed to be aware of his history. Keep your eye on him, but don't turn this into a fishing expedition; the sheriff already has a suspect in mind, a co-worker of the late Mr. Whipple. I don't have all the details, but it sounds like a most promising lead... Are there any questions?

If not, Ms. Graves has your tickets - I believe your train leaves at midnight."

If the PCs ask the right questions, Harcourt will volunteer the following information.

• The victim seemed to have been killed by severe physical trauma to the upper body, but the nature of the murder weapon is currently unknown.
• O'Bannon has been clean for the last few years, as far as the Bureau knows. It may be that his new-found wealth from the oil business and the work of running his small field has reformed him.
• New Jerusalem has one of a handful of profitable oil fields this part of the East Coast.
• O'Bantion's wife died a Couple of years ago; his daughter lives with him.

To inquiries that fall outside of these grounds, Harcourt will either *claim ignorance ("That's why I'm sending you, Special Agent!") or tell the PCs to speak with New Jerusalem's sheriff, who has the whole story. If the investigators ask some questions that are way off base ("How long has the Finnerty family been active in Boston?"), Harcourt will tell them straight out he thinks they're barking up the wrong tree.

Events

5:00 AM: FBI Investigators arrive by train. Investigators from Bums agency have already been there for a couple of hours.

8:00 AM: Breakfast and debriefing with O'Bannon.

10:00 Am: Investigators will view the body of Whipple at the local doctor's home.

11:00 Pm: The Ridley-Spawn. kidnaps a child. It is lucky enough to find the child's window open and makes off with the child without incident.

12:00 AM: The Ridley-Spawn sacrifices the child at Well #3.

Goals

The Investigators are expected to be brought up to speed on the events of the last couple of weeks and formulate a plan of attack for the next couple of days. O'Bannon will help them in any way he can, but the information he has is limited.

Consequences

The only real event of any consequence is the kidnapping of the child. The locals will find the withered body in the morning. The Ridley- Spawn will sacrifice the child, and will have transferred Power into the runes carved into the wellhead, thus bringing it closer to freeing its brethren.

Details For Day One

The agents. are equipped with Colt 1911 .45ACP pistols, cameras, flashlights, and the usual assortment of handcuffs, notepads, and the like. They do not have radios. If they ask they will be allowed to take up to two 12 ga. shotguns, so long as they are discreet about it; Harcourt doesn't want the Bureau to look like a pack of cowboys. Agent Reid Parker also has a small forensics evidence kit.

The agent's train leaves promptly at midnight, but mechanical trouble delays their arrival in New Jerusalem until approximately 5 A.M.

The Arrival

Give each of your players an "Investigator Run Down" located at the end of this article. This will let them in on everything they need to know about their character. When they arrive in New Jerusalem, they all check into the local hotel (run by Joseph P Cottonmaker, an old gray fellow who has a bad limp in his right leg that he got when h off the swings when he was seven) and are met by a big thug who tells them he's here to take them to O'Bantion.

They drive up to the house in a black Packard Twin Six (the seven seater limo) and take a twenty minute drive through the snowcovered countryside to the house high on the hill overlooking the town.

When they arrive, they are offered brandy and escorted through the spacious and extravagant halls to the library. They will be quick to notice that the library is all but devoid of books. Empty shelves circle the room, but it is the only room in the mansion that sports a fireplace, and the Investigators can relish the warmth.

About twenty minutes after their arrival, the Investigators are greeted by the very Irish O'Bannon.

His red hair has not gone gray yet, and his steel blue eyes have no hint of fog. He is smaller than average, has a sloped jaw and a full set of teeth. His handshake is warm, and perceptive Investigators will notice a peculiar grip when he shakes their hand (a Federal agent shot off his little finger during a fire fight in Chicago two years ago).

Sean O'Bannon is very tired and very cranky and more than a little drunk. Read or paraphrase the speech located in a sidebar nearby. This is all the pertinent information O'Bannon is willing to give them. When he's done, he'll send them on their way down to see what's left of poor little Whipple ...

O'Bannon's Speech

"I didn't call you," he says to the Federal Agents. "But I know why yet here. That's fine. If you get the job done, I'll be happy. Here's what I'm gonna tell ya, and ya'd betta listen up the first time 'cos I ain't gonna tell ya again. Two weeks ago, my foreman, that's Scotty Ridley, he disappeared without a moment's notice.

That's bad. I liked Scotty. Then, just three days ago, the man who took his'place, Arty Whipple's his name, he goes missing, too. That's bad. Now I ain't got nobody who knows how to work them pumps out there and everything shuts down for three days. Now just last night, Whipple gets found and he's floating down the river. All I know is that Whipple and Scotty were rivals for the job when I hired them. They ne'er got along well, those two. Now one of them turns up missin', I don't think nuthin' Of it, 'cos Arty couldn't hurt a fly and Scotty could whip the temper out of a bull if you gave 'im the chance.

But now both 'ave turned up missing 'r dead and I don' have one clue why. You can talk to anyone on the yard, talk to anyone in town, I don' care. Just find Scotty and find out if he's still alive. Then find the guy who did this to me and rub him out. Make sure he never does it again."

If anyone dares to ask O'Bannon why he doesn't have some of his Chicago connections investigate, he'll get real angry and go to his desk. Then, he'll think twice about pulling the gun in his desk drawer and say between gritted teeth, "Why don't you just go out and do your job?"

The Autopsy

The local doctor, who has no pathological training, is ill-equipped to perform a detailed autopsy. Fortunately, Special Agent Parker is trained in the discipline, and the doctor will be more than happy to show him the body. Whipple's corpse is currently being stored in the doctor's shed, packed in snow to keep it fresh. It was returned to the town for burial (and police examination) only the day before. Agent Parker does not have all of the tools to conduct by-the- book autopsy, but he'll still be able to gather valuable information with nothing more than gloves, his kit, and lamp light.

Upon scraping away the snow, all the investigators except Agent Parker (and the doctor) need to make Sanity rolls. If they make the roll, they only lose I SAN. If they miss the roll, make them lose Id3. Even the stoic Agent Parker is momentarily taken aback by the spectacle. Whipple has been torn almost in half, a huge ragged wound runs from his right upper torso down to approximately the location of his left kidney.

From the wound jagged shards of his ribs protrude, and soft coils of intestine bulge and glisten in the lamp light. The body, which had been in the Durant River for several days, has taken on a repulsive gray-green tone, and facial features are gruesomely distorted by bloating.

Examination of Whipple's body will yield the following facts to Agent Parker upon successful Forensics rolls, or upon asking the right questions. The GM shouldn't hide information unless a roll is badly failed, or unless the player is going off on a tangent. Remember, Special Agent Reid Parker is a doctor, and a specialist in the field of forensic pathology. Reveal these facts in the order they are presented below.

• The murder weapon was not a blade. The wound is too jagged, and the bones show no telltale nicks.
• Regular scrapes on the victim's back, and the back of the legs, would seem to indicate the body was dragged some distance after death.
• There is a large quantity of an oily black substance in the wound cavity. Traces are still visible in the hair, filming the eyes, and under the victim's nails.
• Bruising on the body indicates that the victim was tightly held, or perhaps crushed under an object, near the time of death. This bruising pattern is distinct from the small wounds caused by the body hitting debris in the river.
• The victim's throat was crushed. There is a curious bruise pattern extending all the way around the neck which is not attributable to hands, rope, or any other commonplace method of manual strangulation.
• The esophagus and stomach are curiously distended and ripped. The stomach has a tremendous tear in it. No stomach contents are recoverable.
• Judging by the manner in which the ribs are splintered and the internal organs are displaced, it seems that the body cavity was ruptured from the inside.

The PCs will not have time to have any lab work, like toxicology, done on the body. They may also be unable to identify the black liquid at first, but if any oil field worker (including O'Bannon) is shown a sample, they'll be able to identify it as crude oil.

Alert PCs will take photographs of the late Arthur Whipple. After the examination is complete the body can be prepared for burial.

Other Events

The rest of the day can be spent asking questions about Whipple. The only people who really knew him were his co-workers, and they will all say the same thing. Whipple was a quiet guy who kept to himself. He liked to read pulp magazines (he was especially fond of Robert E. Howard) and used to talk about going to college one day.

They will also tell the Investigators that he and the old yard boss, Ridley, were competing for the affections of O'Bannon's lovely daughter Katherine. If the Investigators want to talk to Katherine, they'll discover that she's out of town for the day and will be returning late tonight. Everyone knows she's off in Boston spending her allowance on whiskey and roulette, but only a significant bribe can get anyone to say so.

The Investigators are free to drive up to Boston (it is only forty miles away), but they will only be wasting their time. Kathy O'Bannon does not want to be bothered, and even G-Men are going to have a problem getting into the places that she's hanging out in. If you feel like a little change of pace, however, feel free to have your Investigators shlep themselves up to Boston to hang out in ritzy gin joints rubbing shoulders with gangsters to ask Ms. O'Bannon some questions. It'll keep them out of town for a day and allow the Ridley-Spawn to claim its first victim.

Little Billy Bowyer

Billy is four years old. He lives at #3 Peyton Place. Earlier in the day, his mother threw a stray cat who had made its way into the apartment out the window of Billy's room. She's deathly allergic to cats, and in her anxiety, she forgot to latch the lock on the window.

At approximately 11pm, the Ridley- Spawn will open the unlocked window, snatch up little four year old Billy Bowyer and carry him out to the well where the little boy will have his POW sucked out of him in a dark ritual designed to release the Spawn's sleeping brothers. The mother will not notice that he's missing until 8am the next morning. By then, it will have been far too late.

Flashlights In 1927

The Investigators' options here are: flares, kerosene lanterns, gas lanterns, electric torches and carbide lamps. Flares will set off a blaze in the cave, so they may be a very bad idea. Kerosene lanterns explode when dropped, so they may also be risky. Gas lanterns are a bit more safe, but carbide lamps (because of the open flame) are right out. The best option would be electric torches. Their light is very weak and thrown in a beam.

Batteries will keep them alive for 2-4 hours, long enough for the Investigators to wander around the dark tunnel. If it's dropped, give it a 75% chance of breaking the filament. It will take about 5, 10 minutes to replace the filament, plenty of time for the Ridley-Spawn to sneak up on someone in that dark cave.

Call of Cthulhu Crude Oil (Part 1)

Introduction
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Characters

Crude Oil Part 2