Post by Catsmate on Oct 24, 2014 12:05:09 GMT
The Expedition.
On the 27th of January 1959 a group of ten young Russians, experienced skiers and hikers mostly in their twenties and members of the sports club at the Ural Polytechnical Institute, set out from the small settlement of Vizhai towards Otorten led by Igor Dyatlov. The next day one of the group was forced by illness to drop out; of the seven men and two women remaining, none would be seen alive again.
On the 31st of January the group reached the edge of a highland area and began to prepare for the climb to come. They cached surplus food and equipment for the return trip, and began the trek through the pass on the 1st of February. Based on diary entries and the opinion of the sole survivor it appears that their attempt to cross over the pass failed due to bad weather and they climbed up the western side of Kholat Syakhyl, possibly due to losing their bearings in a snowstorm.
The camped on the slope of the mountain that last night.
The Search.
Dyatlov had planned to notify their sports club by telegram when the group returned to Vizhai, this was expected to be around the 12th of February, but Dyatlov said before departing that he expected to be longer. Of course no message was received on the 12th but as delays in such expeditions were common this wasn't surprising. However by the 20th the families of the hikers were worried and pressed for action. The head of the Institute dispatched first rescue groups, student volunteers and staff members. Soon militia and military forces, including aircraft and helicopters, became involved in the search.
On the 26th of February the first remains were found.
The searchers found an abandoned and damaged tent on the slope Kholat Syakhl, partly covered in snow and showing signs of being cut open from the inside.
At the edge of the woodland, under the shelter of a large cedar, was the remains of a fire and the bodies of Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko wearing only their underwear and without shoes.
Further searching in the area between the campsite the the trees revealed three more bodies; Igor Dyatlov, Zinaida Kolmogorova and Rustem Slobodin were found 1,200m, 1,000m and 850m from the abandoned tent respectively. They seemed to have been heading back to the tent when overcome by the cold.
It wasn't until the 4th of May that the final four bodies were found; Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Kolevatov, Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolles and Semyon Zolotariov were found in a ravine about 80m further into the wood, buried under several metres of snow.
The Remains.
The first five victims found had died from hypothermia, without significant injuries (though Slobodin has a minor head wound) but the four bodies found in May showed far more serious injuries including severe skull and chest fractures. Three of the dead showed no external injuries, suggestive of a massive impact that didn't break the skin, but the body of Lyudmila Dubinina showed major external damage. These included the loss of her lips, eyes and tongue and some facial tissue.
There were no signs of injuries inflicted by other humans or (ante-mortem) by animals, nor of the presence of others on the slope that night. The exact time of death was indeterminable, but 6-8 hours after the group had last eaten.
What Happened?
It's never been determined exactly what happened on the night of the 1st/2nd of February. The most plausible explanation is a small avalanche, or noises suggestive of one, caused the hikers to flee their tent. This is supported by
the damage to the tent and it's partial coverage with snow. Poorly equipped, disorientated and suffering the effects of hypothermia (which can kill in less than 15 minutes) the party wouldn't have survived long, with the four found in the wood having fallen into the ravine.
There have been numerous conspiracy theories regarding the deaths, linking them to paranormal activity, aliens, yeti, secret weapon testing and more.
Initially the indigenous Mansi people were suspected, but the utter absence of traces of their presence and lack of looting disproved this.
Some items of clothing recovered are claimed to have been radioactive. However this isn't confirmed and isn't particularly odd; kerosene lamps used by the party had mantles of radioactive thorium which could have been dispersed in the panic. Certainly film recovered showed no signs of fogging.
Vaguely plausible suggestions (though still highly unlikely) include a wind vortex producing infrasounds, capable of triggering panic in humans, and a lightning strike. The latter theory posits that the campers became aware of the build up of static electricity on the tent (St. Elmo's fire) and interpreted it as the prelude to a lighting strike, cauisng them to flee. This theory doesn't explain why some of the group then sheltered under a tree or the lack of electrical injuries or evidence of lighting hits.
Interestingly around the time of the deaths a group of hikers about 50km to the south reported seeing "strange orange spheres" in the sky to the
north. Unexplained at the time these are now known to be due to test launches of the R-7 ('Sapwood') missile system (which later became the basis for the Sputnik and Vostok launchers).
Adding to a Who game.
Of course in the Whoniverse such prosaic explanations doesn't necessarily have to be true. Aliens, UFOs, time travellers, secret bases, sinister weapons tests, all these could be the 'true' cause for the deaths of the nine hikers.
Perhaps the PCs arrive before the deaths and meet the hikers, what do they do? Let them die as history states happens, perhaps documenting the exact events?
Then again some players aren't that callous and might try and save the group. This opens up the possibility of them getting tanged in events, especially if the cause of the tragedy isn't simple accident, or even inadvertently causing the deaths.
If they arrive after the deaths, perhaps during the searches, well the group are in the late '50s Soviet Union; do they have the proper papers? A plausible explanation for their presence? Or will they blunder in, relying on fast talk and psychic paper (which doesn't survive a cursory check) and find themselves suspected of murder and espionage?
And just what did trigger the panicked abandoning of the camp? Has the Great Intelligence a plan for expanding into the rigid Soviet Union? Was the Soviet military testing some new product of Weird Science or reverse engineered alien technology? Gravity manipulation, sonic weaponry, psionic fear inducer...
Was there a crashed Martian spaceship buried on the slope of Kholat Syakhyl, it's crew awoken by a previous event?
On the 27th of January 1959 a group of ten young Russians, experienced skiers and hikers mostly in their twenties and members of the sports club at the Ural Polytechnical Institute, set out from the small settlement of Vizhai towards Otorten led by Igor Dyatlov. The next day one of the group was forced by illness to drop out; of the seven men and two women remaining, none would be seen alive again.
- Vizhai and Otorten are in the Sverdlovsk region of the Urals District, a hilly and mountainous region rich in natural resources. The weather is generally cool to cold with short warm summers and long cold winters.
On the 31st of January the group reached the edge of a highland area and began to prepare for the climb to come. They cached surplus food and equipment for the return trip, and began the trek through the pass on the 1st of February. Based on diary entries and the opinion of the sole survivor it appears that their attempt to cross over the pass failed due to bad weather and they climbed up the western side of Kholat Syakhyl, possibly due to losing their bearings in a snowstorm.
The camped on the slope of the mountain that last night.
The Search.
Dyatlov had planned to notify their sports club by telegram when the group returned to Vizhai, this was expected to be around the 12th of February, but Dyatlov said before departing that he expected to be longer. Of course no message was received on the 12th but as delays in such expeditions were common this wasn't surprising. However by the 20th the families of the hikers were worried and pressed for action. The head of the Institute dispatched first rescue groups, student volunteers and staff members. Soon militia and military forces, including aircraft and helicopters, became involved in the search.
On the 26th of February the first remains were found.
The searchers found an abandoned and damaged tent on the slope Kholat Syakhl, partly covered in snow and showing signs of being cut open from the inside.
- This isn't quite as odd as it sounds; the tent used a system of laces and grommets to secure the opening, in an emergency a knife slit would be far quicker than struggling with cords.
At the edge of the woodland, under the shelter of a large cedar, was the remains of a fire and the bodies of Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko wearing only their underwear and without shoes.
- Damage to branches of the cedar suggest someone climbed the tree, perhaps to survey the land.
Further searching in the area between the campsite the the trees revealed three more bodies; Igor Dyatlov, Zinaida Kolmogorova and Rustem Slobodin were found 1,200m, 1,000m and 850m from the abandoned tent respectively. They seemed to have been heading back to the tent when overcome by the cold.
- All five were determined to have died from hypothermia.
It wasn't until the 4th of May that the final four bodies were found; Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Kolevatov, Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolles and Semyon Zolotariov were found in a ravine about 80m further into the wood, buried under several metres of snow.
The Remains.
The first five victims found had died from hypothermia, without significant injuries (though Slobodin has a minor head wound) but the four bodies found in May showed far more serious injuries including severe skull and chest fractures. Three of the dead showed no external injuries, suggestive of a massive impact that didn't break the skin, but the body of Lyudmila Dubinina showed major external damage. These included the loss of her lips, eyes and tongue and some facial tissue.
- These are probably due to animal predation.
There were no signs of injuries inflicted by other humans or (ante-mortem) by animals, nor of the presence of others on the slope that night. The exact time of death was indeterminable, but 6-8 hours after the group had last eaten.
What Happened?
It's never been determined exactly what happened on the night of the 1st/2nd of February. The most plausible explanation is a small avalanche, or noises suggestive of one, caused the hikers to flee their tent. This is supported by
the damage to the tent and it's partial coverage with snow. Poorly equipped, disorientated and suffering the effects of hypothermia (which can kill in less than 15 minutes) the party wouldn't have survived long, with the four found in the wood having fallen into the ravine.
- There were no signs of anyone else being present, or the group leaving the camp other than willingly, if perhaps while mentally unbalanced.
There have been numerous conspiracy theories regarding the deaths, linking them to paranormal activity, aliens, yeti, secret weapon testing and more.
Initially the indigenous Mansi people were suspected, but the utter absence of traces of their presence and lack of looting disproved this.
Some items of clothing recovered are claimed to have been radioactive. However this isn't confirmed and isn't particularly odd; kerosene lamps used by the party had mantles of radioactive thorium which could have been dispersed in the panic. Certainly film recovered showed no signs of fogging.
Vaguely plausible suggestions (though still highly unlikely) include a wind vortex producing infrasounds, capable of triggering panic in humans, and a lightning strike. The latter theory posits that the campers became aware of the build up of static electricity on the tent (St. Elmo's fire) and interpreted it as the prelude to a lighting strike, cauisng them to flee. This theory doesn't explain why some of the group then sheltered under a tree or the lack of electrical injuries or evidence of lighting hits.
Interestingly around the time of the deaths a group of hikers about 50km to the south reported seeing "strange orange spheres" in the sky to the
north. Unexplained at the time these are now known to be due to test launches of the R-7 ('Sapwood') missile system (which later became the basis for the Sputnik and Vostok launchers).
Adding to a Who game.
Of course in the Whoniverse such prosaic explanations doesn't necessarily have to be true. Aliens, UFOs, time travellers, secret bases, sinister weapons tests, all these could be the 'true' cause for the deaths of the nine hikers.
Perhaps the PCs arrive before the deaths and meet the hikers, what do they do? Let them die as history states happens, perhaps documenting the exact events?
- Certainly a detached observer like Gandalf would do this. He wouldn't risk altering history over such a minor matter as nine deaths.
Then again some players aren't that callous and might try and save the group. This opens up the possibility of them getting tanged in events, especially if the cause of the tragedy isn't simple accident, or even inadvertently causing the deaths.
- Unlike some of my previous seeds I don't see this one as a suitable one for time travelling 'disaster tourists'; the locale is too inhospitable and the event too minor.
If they arrive after the deaths, perhaps during the searches, well the group are in the late '50s Soviet Union; do they have the proper papers? A plausible explanation for their presence? Or will they blunder in, relying on fast talk and psychic paper (which doesn't survive a cursory check) and find themselves suspected of murder and espionage?
And just what did trigger the panicked abandoning of the camp? Has the Great Intelligence a plan for expanding into the rigid Soviet Union? Was the Soviet military testing some new product of Weird Science or reverse engineered alien technology? Gravity manipulation, sonic weaponry, psionic fear inducer...
Was there a crashed Martian spaceship buried on the slope of Kholat Syakhyl, it's crew awoken by a previous event?
- Was there a covert battle between Soviet troops and Ice Warriors (or Yeti) during the search? Would this lead to the Soviet cooperation in the formation of UNIT a decade later?
It's easy to gloss-over the lack of traces by blaming a Soviet cover-up.
Thoughts? Comments?
