Old Meg

The vicarage is a boxy, two-story building with white- washed walls and a slate roof. On the lower floor are Longby’s office/library, a front parlor, and a kitchen and scullery. Upstairs are four bedrooms, one of which is used by Longby. Behind the house is a yard with a well and an outhouse.

Challenges

The vicarage will be the characters’ base of operations. Here are some suggestions for events and challenges.

• Longby has an extensive library, which contains some useful information (see “Clues” below). However, it is not well organized (for anyone except Longby, who can put his hand on any book almost immediately), and any player character trying to use it for research must make a success- ful INVESTIGATION test to find each clue given below.
• Mary Hopper, a widow from the village, comes in to cook and clean for Longby and his guests. At first she will be as reticent as her neighbors, but given a successful MANIPULATION test (and some encouragement from Longby, if needed), she may warm to the player characters after a day or two, and be able to answer questions. Through her association with the educated curate, her rustic accent has softened somewhat, making her a little easier to understand than the other villagers. She can offer information on the people of the village (usually with the caveat “you didn’t hear this from me, mind”) as set out below.
• Mrs. Hopper is an inveterate gossip, and enjoys the attention of curious neighbors eager to pump her for information about Longby and his visitors. She overhears a great deal, and will actively try to eavesdrop on any conversation that sounds interesting. If the player characters wish to prevent her from overhearing, everyone involved in a conversation must make a STEALTH test. Alternatively, they may switch to Swedish or some other language that she does not understand. Longby does not understand Swedish, and Mrs. Hoppers will be offended if she thinks the player characters are trying to stop her from snooping. This will add one level of difficulty to all Empathy tests while talking to her until her hurt feelings can be soothed.

Clues

• The legend of Saint Birren and Old Meg is recounted very briefly in The History and Traditions of Gloucestershire. While converting the pagan Anglo-Saxons of the area, the saint battled the evil witch and turned her to stone by the power of his prayers. The book says no more on the matter, although the player characters may hear a more complete telling of the legend from Old Gaffer Ingham at The Shepherd’s Rest – if they can understand him.
• The Monuments and Antiquities of Gloucestershire, an archaeological survey of the county published about 20 years ago, includes a map of the cave and its surroundings with the location of the standing stone marked. The stone is described as “…a single standing stone, about the height of a man, typical of those found in upland areas across England and Scotland and generally ascribed to the Neolithic era. No trace was found of any circle or other arrangement of stones, of which the stone might formerly have been a part.”
• Longby is compiling notes for a parish history that he intends to write, and among his documents are some maps of the area. These will help the player characters see where attacks have taken place, gaining a +2 bonus to LEARNING or INVESTIGATION rolls when the player characters are looking for a pattern or route that the creature is following: see “The Monster’s Path” below.
• Mrs. Hopper can tell the player characters that Daisy and Billy were a devoted couple. Everyone in the village expected that Billy would ask Daisy’s father for her hand the following spring, when he had made a little money from selling a small flock of sheep that his father had given him. She has no idea why Billy chose to go to the May fair with Jenny Pearce. It was rumored after the fact that the two had fallen out, but no one knows why. If the GM wants to muddy the waters, Mrs. Hopper might invent any details that she does not know.

The village pub is built of the golden local limestone with a roof of stone shingles. There is a tap-room on the ground floor, with accommodation for the inn- keeper and his family behind. The beer cellar is cut into the rock below the tap-room, with a barrel-hatch set into the floor behind the bar and a set of stairs leading up to the family’s suite of rooms.

Upstairs there are four rooms: two are available as guest rooms, and the other two have been given over to storage since the village rarely sees any visi- tors. The storage rooms are piled high with miscel- laneous junk: at the GM’s option, a careful search of them may turn up some item that the player char- acters can use.

The beer in the Shepherd’s Rest is typical of the area. Served at cellar temperature (which is only slightly below the temperature of the tap-room), it is mid-brown in color. Swedish characters will find it denser and a little sweeter than the beers they know from home. Also available is cider, which is cloudy and wickedly strong: about 10–12% alcohol. The inn has no wine (“no call fer furrin drinks ere’round ’ere”) and the only spirits consist of a half-empty bottle of Scotch whiskey and a quarter-full bottle of brandy. Neither has been opened in living memory, and no one knows what condition they are in.

The food in the inn is simple but hearty. Meat pies are sold on their own during the day, cold or heated. In the evening they are served hot as a meal with mashed potatoes, gravy, and boiled vegetables. The other option is the “ploughman’s lunch,” which consists of a lump of local, Cheddar-style cheese, a lump of rough, gray-brown bread, home-made pickle, and fresh butter, accompanied by an apple or other fruit according to the season.

Challenges

The inn provides the player characters’ best opportu- nity to interact with the locals. They will be reluctant to talk to “furriners” at first, but Longby will try to help break the ice, and translate if necessary.

• Edward Moore, a constable from Annonsbury, enters the inn looking for Longby and his guests. He is more curious than anything else, but wants to know who the foreigners are and what their business is. A successful MANIPULATION or INSPIRATION test will soothe his concerns – not that he can express what they are, exactly, but some of the locals shoot him dirty looks and mutter under their breath. This provides an opportunity for the player characters to learn of the resent- ment that is building in the village following Billy Winchcombe’s arrest.
• Two of the Winchcombe brothers, Tom and Martin, are in the inn, drinking heavily. They argue with Albert Bradley, the innkeeper, when he suggests that they go home and sleep it off, becom- ing loud and troublesome. Just at that moment, Daisy’s father, Fred Thomas, comes into the inn. He is red-eyed, unshaven, and disheveled, clearly broken by the loss of his daughter and the shock of finding her mutilated body. The Winchcombe brothers turn on him angrily, accusing him of reporting Billy to the police and causing his arrest. Threats and accusations fly, along with slurs on the characters of both young people. A fight seems inevitable unless the player characters try to stop it. If they intervene, they will earn the gratitude of one side and the enmity of the other, and this will be reflected in further adjustments to any Empathy tests they make in dealing with them.
• Tom Pawsey, a local poacher, brings a sack full of rabbits to Albert the innkeeper. While he is well known in the village, he will try to avoid strang- ers, in case they are in league with the law or the local gamekeepers. Gaining his trust requires a difficult MANIPULATION test.
• Inquiring about the legend of St. Birren and Old Meg will see the player characters being referred to Old Gaffer Ingham, the oldest inhabitant for miles around. Whenever the Shepherd’s Rest is open, he can be found in his chair at the back corner of the tap-room, smoking a clay pipe and nursing a tankard of ale.

Clues

There is a great deal of information to be gained at the inn:

• Fred Thomas breaks down if questioned about the state of his daughter’s body, and any player char- acter who is so insensitive as to ask him about it will have a hard time in future dealings with the locals. He was not alone, though, and both of the two men who were with him – Rob Watledge and Edwin Horsley – are regulars at the Shepherd’s Rest. Either one can describe the state of the body (“Torn apart, it were – ’orrible sight. An’ ’ard it be to say it, but I reckon not all of ’er were there. Some parts was ate, iff’n you ask me. I’d swear on the Bible no ’oomin done that – t’were an animal for sure. Bin centuries sin’ a wooluf bin seen hereabouts, but ’ard to think what else could’a done such mischief”), though they will be careful not to speak of it in the presence of the grieving father.
• All of the villagers knew Daisy, and most will describe her as a pleasant, honest, and decent young woman. If coaxed further, one or two might volunteer more (“She were moonish, if ye take my meanin’ – full of old tales and such. She loved hearin’ of the… good neighbors, is what we call ’em here – you know, I’m sure – and the like. She’d ’a bin ’ung fer a witch in the old days, but there were no ’arm in ’er, just what eddicated folk might call an overactive imagination”). Further successes will reveal that she often walked alone in the hills, and was fascinated with the legend of Old Meg.
• Likewise, everyone knows Billy, and no one can believe that he would be capable of such a violent crime. He could be high-spirited at times, like any youth, but there was never any malice in him and he was noted for his even temper. It is said that he adored Daisy, and according to one rumor Jenny was a cousin visiting from out of town – no one can quite say where – and Billy was doing his duty as a family member by showing her around the fair. It is said that he was visibly distressed when he saw Daisy run off.
• Tom Pawsey knows the surrounding countryside well, and for a couple of shillings he will guide the player characters to the cave and any surrounding farms if they can win his trust. He can supply the same information on the sheep attacks as anyone at the Winchcombe or Thomas farms. If he can be persuaded to accompany the characters to a kill site, or to the cave, he will admit that he has never seen tracks like those the characters find there. He knows every kind of animal that lives in the area, and these tracks belong to none of them. If the characters have not already realized that the tracks are human-like but for their long claws Tom will give them this information, confessing that he has never seen the like before.
• Old Gaffer Ingham can tell a more detailed version of the legend. His account adds the details that Old Meg was not a mortal witch but some kind of monster; that the Anglo-Saxons (whom he calls “the old-time folk”) used to leave offerings of livestock by her cave – and sometimes condemned criminals – to propitiate her; that St. Birren vanquished her with a cudgel he had blessed; that her “old-time” name was Mog and some say she was a sister to Morgan le Fay of King Arthur’s time; and that she can’t be killed, only driven back into her stone form. This is a major clue, letting the player characters know that a blessed weapon is required to defeat the hag.
• If the characters ask, Old Gaffer Ingham might also reveal that he had been talking to Daisy about the legend of Old Meg, and that she had been fascinated by it. She confided in him once that she went up to the cave from time to time to think, and that she felt a connection to the witch of legend. “No monster in her mind, she said – more a woman who wouldn’t bend the knee to men, she thought. She ’ad some right modern ideas in that direction, did young Daisy.” This clue established a link between Daisy and the cave, making it likely that she was there of her own free will when she met her death.
• General gossip in the inn tells of unseasonable frosts. They are later than any frost in memory, and seem very localized. An extra success (or a kindly GM) adds that these are the same areas where sheep have been found dead. This is a clue about the hag’s path, and if the player characters have already been to the cave or to the site of any sheep kill they will have seen the effects for themselves. Old Gaffer Ingham or some other local can recall that the legend of Old Meg includes the words “winter comes behind her.”
• Some farmers have found sheep savaged to death by some large wild creature. They are torn apart, with meat ripped from their carcasses and bones smashed. The largest local predators are foxes, and they are not capable of such destruction. An extra success (or a kindly GM) adds that the ground around them shows signs of a severe and unseasonable frost.

The Thomas farm sits at the foot of the hill below Old Meg’s Holt. It consists of a small stone farmhouse, a timber barn on a stone foundation, and a fenced sheepfold, all surrounded by a low stone wall. The farmhouse is little bigger than a cottage. The family is headed by Fred Thomas. His wife Emma died two years ago, leaving him and Daisy alone. Also on the farm are two hired hands, Rob Watledge and Edwin Horsley. Both are in their early twenties.

Challenges

• Nothing can be done here unless the player char- acters have gained the trust of those on the farm. They have one opportunity to do this in the Shepherd’s Rest (see above). If they supported Fred Thomas, no test is necessary. If they stepped in on the Winchcombe side, all Empathy tests at the Thomas farm will be one step more difficult than usual. Otherwise, an MANIPULATION test must be made as normal.

Clues

• Fred is beside himself with grief, and hardly knows what to make of his daughter’s fate. Between sobs, he will say that he liked Billy, and would not have believed him capable of such a brutal attack. On the other hand, the police told him that Billy is their only suspect.
• A guide from the farm will be needed to lead the player characters to the site of a sheep mutilation on Thomas land. The attack took place several days ago, and the carcass has been burned on the spot. If asked why, anyone from the farm will explain that the dead sheep could not have been left there for fear of encouraging foxes and other pests. Also, since no one knows what killed it, there is the risk of disease to be considered. Examining the site will require an INVESTIGATION test, because there is a great deal of disturbance including the ash and blackening of the fire and the prints of farmers’ boots all around. However, a successful test will reveal one or two anomalous tracks. They look like the prints of bare human feet, but are slightly distorted. Any extra successes will allow a character to characterize the distortions as com- ing from unusually long toes with claw-like nails. If the player characters have already seen tracks at the cave or at the site of another sheep kill, they find these tracks are identical.
• The area around the attack site shows an unusual and localized blackening of the grass and other vegetation. Any extra successes will lead to the further conclusion that the blackening looks like frost damage. The blackening is not restricted to the attack site, but continues away from it in two directions, in a swathe about six feet (2 m) wide. Following the trail will lead to the discovery of more footprints, and allow a character to deter- mine that the creature that left the footprints was moving more or less away from the hill and the Thomas farm.

Old Meg’s Holt is a small cave in the side of a crag overlooking the Thomas farm. Its roof varies from about 6 feet/2 meters to 3 feet/1 meter high; it is about 24 feet/8 meters deep and 12 feet/4 meters wide. The floor consists of compacted dirt. The cave itself is empty, and the floor does not seem to have been disturbed recently.

Challenges

• A normal INVESTIGATION test can be made inside the cave if any character wishes to search for clues there, but nothing will be found.
• Outside the cave, a normal INVESTIGATION test will allow a character to find the place where the stone once stood, and to examine the area around it.

Clues

• Outside the cave mouth is what looks like a freshly-dug hole, about 3 feet/1 meter in diame- ter and 18 inches/50 cm deep. The soil around it is churned up, and a few footprints may be found. Most are the prints of bare feet with long, clawed toes, like those at the attack sites on the Thomas and Winchcombe farms. A few, mostly at the edge of the disturbed area, were made by Fred Thomas and his companions when they came upon Daisy’s body. If the player characters have already found clues about the standing stone and the legend of Old Meg, they will realize that the stone is miss- ing, and they may begin to wonder how a prehis- toric standing stone weighing at least four tons can simply disappear.
• Close by the hole is a patch of dark soil, sur- rounded by many boot-prints. A MEDICINE test is required to identify the stain positively as blood, but anyone local will confirm that this is the spot where Daisy’s body was found.

The Winchcombe farm sits across the river from the Thomas farm, and is very similar. The family is headed by David and Matilda Winchcombe. Also on the farm are their sons Tom and Martin, both in their late teens, and their daughter Anne, who is twelve.

Challenges

• Nothing can be done here unless the player char- acters have gained the trust of the Winchcombe family. They have one opportunity to do this in the Shepherd’s Rest (see above). If they supported the Winchcombe brothers, no Empathy test is necessary. Otherwise, an Empathy test must be made as normal.
• The heads of the family, David and Matilda Winchcombe, flatly deny all accusations against Billy, and expect the rest of the family to do the same. While they are present, no one will vol- unteer any information. Instead, they simply back up everything their parents say. A further Empathy test – and some ingenuity – will be required to get one of the younger Winchcombes alone and persuade him or her. Anne will be the hardest to talk to privately, since the rest of the family are very suspicious of any stranger’s intentions toward her.

Clues

• A guide from the farm can lead the player characters to the site of a sheep killing on Winchcombe land. The site is just as described above for the Thomas farm, including the blackening of the grass.
• Talking to the Winchcombes about the sheep attack will reveal that it took place the night after the attack on the Thomas family’s sheep.
• If any character succeeds in talking to Anne Winchcombe alone, a further Empathy test is required to persuade her to open up. She will confirm that Billy and Daisy were a loving couple, with dreams of marrying in a year or two. They will also confirm that Jenny Pearce is a distant cousin, and that Billy was eager to smooth over the misunderstanding with Daisy.
• A guide from the farm will be able to lead the characters to the site where a sheep was killed. The clues there are identical to those found on the Thomas farm (see above).

Annonsbury police station stands close to the center of the small town, with the post office on one side and a bank on the other. All three buildings are made of the local yellow sandstone, which has weathered to a pale gray. Inside, the characters find a wooden counter manned by Sergeant Jack Worrell, who asks their business. Inside are various small offices and a narrow corridor with cells on either side: six in total.

Challenges

• Getting to visit Billy Winchcombe requires some work. The sergeant will refer the visitors to Detective Inspector Robert Banks, who is in charge of the case. A, challenging MANIPULATION test is required before Moore will deign to speak to the characters. If they met Constable Edward Moore in the Shepherd’s Rest, he can shift the dif- ficulty of the test by one step in either direction, depending on whether they made a good or bad impression on him. One step easier than normal is an automatic success.
• Inspector Banks is reluctant to discuss the case, especially with a group of outsiders who have no official standing. He has already seen off a couple of journalists who were sniffing around for details of the grisly murder. If the characters present him with everything they have found, they must make a difficult Empathy test before he will tell them anything. If this test is failed, Banks will decide that they are interfering amateur detectives and order them out of the police station, calling sev- eral large policemen to enforce his command if necessary. If the characters make any mention of the supernatural, the difficulty of the test rises from difficult to impossible.
• In addition to Worell and Banks, there may be three to five constables in the police station at any time. Successful MANIPULATION tests may elicit some basic information from them. However, they are all reluctant to tell outsiders too much, for fear of getting into trouble with Banks. Therefore, each successive MANIPULATION test is one level more dif- ficult than the one before.

Clues

• Billy Winchcombe is sitting in one of the cells awaiting trial. This will be at least a week away, as Inspector Banks is still collecting evidence and preparing his case. Once Billy is convinced that the characters believe in his innocence, he will tell them that he and Daisy were in love and planned to marry, that Jenny was a visiting cousin and Daisy misunderstood the situation, and that plenty of people saw him at the fair that afternoon. The characters will probably have heard all this information before from people in the village.
• Everyone at the police station is aware of the case, and can tell the characters a few things: that a date for Billy’s trial has not yet been set; that the inves- tigation is being led by Inspector Banks; and that Daisy’s body was examined by Doctor Mellors, a local physician.

This gothic-revival red-brick building stands not far from the police station in the center of Annonsbury.

Challenges

• The player characters can consult the local his- tory collection, and find the clues below. The Gamemaster may require a successful LEARNING test if desired.

Clues

• An early volume of the annual transactions of the local historical and archaeological society includes some notes reprinted from the works of the antiquarian William Stukely, who visited the area in 1721. Stukeley mentions a cave known locally as “Old Meg’s Holt” and notes that the name “Old Meg” refers to “an antient Standing Stone nearby, which local Tradition holds to be the body of a terrible Witch, turn’d to Stone by the intervention of a Saint in the Saxon age, who was engaged in converting the local Population.” This is a clue that something supernatural is at work.

Doctor Mellors maintains a surgery in a large house on the edge of the town. He lives on the upper floor of the building.

Challenges

• Like Inspector Banks, Doctor Mellors will be hard to talk to. He will refuse to see the player char- acters unless one of them is a physician. Failing that they can convince him that their interest in the case is legitimate and respectable by making a successful MANIPULATION test.

Clues

• Daisy’s body has been buried and is not available for examination, but Dr. Mellors can be per- suaded to let the characters see the notes from his post mortem examination, as well as a copy of the report that he sent to Inspector Banks. His con- clusion was that Daisy was attacked by a large and vicious animal, possibly a bear. The only problem with this theory is that bears are thought to have been hunted to extinction in the Middle Ages. None the less, Mellors insists that the wounds on Daisy’s body were caused by a powerful creature with long claws. He also found that several inter- nal organs were missing, apparently eaten.
• If the characters win his confidence, Mellors will express his frustration with the Annonsbury police. He is especially frustrated with Inspector Banks, who dismissed his theories about a dangerous