Welcome to this month's installation of Chilling Thoughts. Each month, Clulling Thoughts will bring you a column which includes some small props for use with the Chill Horror Role-Playing Game by Mayfair Games. These props are designed to be photocopied (so you don't have to mangle your copy of SHADIS) and handed out to the players on a Chill adventure. You will also be given details and suggestion as to how each prop could be used in an adventure, or as the subject of an entire adventure in their own right.

This month's installment involves the sinister scheming behind an innocuous-looking singles service. To preface this adventure, you might have the PCs receive this flyer in the mail during their previous adventure. As it is generally innocuous, they should not suspect it at first. When they return home (or wherever they end their adventure), they might meet up with a elderly woman sitting on a park bench, crying.

She will tell them that Angelica King, her daughter, told her that she has to move out of their apartment by the end of the week. Further questioning will reveal that several months ago her 35 year old daughter expressed dissatisfaction with her marital status. After trying, unsuccessfully, to pick tlp dates at the local nightclubs, Angelica signed up with a dating service. Last night was her second date with Ethan, the man with whom she was matched. Mrs. King will also volunteer information about where Angelica works and the local night clubs she frequents. She does not know the name of the dating setvice that Angelica used.

(If the PCs do not want to follow this up, several of them can run into singles at a local nightclub, bar, etc., who are acting oddly.)

If the PCs go to Angelica's place of work, Angelica will agree to speak with them but act distant and curt. She will refuse to discuss her mother, saying that she does not discuss her private life with strangers. If they question her co-workers, they will find out that Angelica and her mother have always been close and have lived together for the past five years. They also will mention a change in Angelica's personality.

There are several nightclubs in town, two of which Angelica has been known to hang out at. If the PCs question the waiters/bar tenders, they will mention that a number of singles have been acting odd over the past month or so. They will also mention that several regulars have suddenly disappeared.

If the PCs talk to the singles, they will notice three types. The first are distant and curt and act noticeably similar to Angelical. The second type will seem normal at first, but as conversation continues, sentences that seem completely out of context will occur in the middle of a conversation (it is at this time that their true personality is trying to manifest itself --the sentences are generally some type of cry for help). The third types are completely normal singles who will try to pick up any single PG. They will offer information about the background of a number of singles in the nightclub, and mention that several of them tried a new dating service, LifeMates.

If the PCs research LifeMates, they will find that it began three months ago, and has a P.O. Box and a small office in the downtown area. The receptionist will only talk to the PCs if rhey fill out the survey and agree to meet a prospective mate.

The controllers of LifeMates could have several motivations. The first one could be a leader of a cult devoted to the dead rising again. He is using the singles as hosts fot spirits of the dead that don't want to go on to their final resting place. The singles that disappeared are simply those that did not make it through the mating ceremony.

Another could be that the controllers are creatures of the Unknown that have the Evil Way Discipline Rain and can create Mindworms (see Chill Rulebook pg. 197). Using the Mindworms, the creatures are plotting to control the city, and choosing singles in appropriate governmental and scientific positions to aid them.

Alternately, the controllers could be human minions of the Unknown, using singles as part of a sacrifice to the Unknown in exchange for Power. Other singles are mindcontrolled through an ancient magic, and the controllers will use them to gain scientific secrets to sell or political secrets for blackmail. When the singles are no longer useful, they will then be sacrifice to the Unknown.

The last suggestion is that a new breed of Unknown, the Felicians, a type of cat people that needs human hosts to incubate their young. If you take this approach, you might want to add bits about each of the type 1 and 2 singles getting a cat as a pet recently.