[SCENARIO SEEDS] A Small Collection of Paranormal Seeds

[Acrobatic Flea]

The Doctor always manages to find a scientific explanation for paranormal events, so how will your players cope with adventures grown from these seeds?

heropresstwo.blogspot.com/2022/02/torn-from-headlines-this-is-its-amazing.html

[Catsmate]

Feb 22, 2022 15:04:54 GMT Acrobatic Flea said:

The Doctor always manages to find a scientific explanation for paranormal events, so how will your players cope with adventures grown from these seeds?

heropresstwo.blogspot.com/2022/02/torn-from-headlines-this-is-its-amazing.html

Another excellent collection.

The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane is an interesting location, and has seen a number of weird happenings (e.g. The Bottle Conjurer of 1749, one of John Montagu's practical jokes which ended in riot and arson) and the attempted assassination of King George III (for the second time that day).


Let me add one to your collection: The Ghosts of Edgehill, the only British phantoms to be officially recognised by the UK Public Record Office...

The Battle of Edgehill (wiki) was an early clash during the series of wars usually called the 'English Civil War'

• It's also a fascinating 'What If' and setting for meddling in the past. The Royalist forces were led by his experienced General-in-Chief, Robert Bertie, (14th Baron Willoughby de Eresby and 1st Earl of Lindsey) but Charles I (rather typically) meddled and placed the inexperienced (and frankly incompetent) Prince Rupert in charge of the cavalry. If this was prevented it's almost certain that the Parliamentarian force would have been decisively defeated, allowing Charles to successfully march on London and perhaps putting an end to the war. Instead the battle was a bloody, inconclusive, mess.
  

Anyway, it is said that a month after the battle it was re-enacted by ghosts.
The first sightings of this ghostly re-enactment occurred just before Christmas 1642, being reported by some shepherds as they walked across the battlefield, suddenly finding themselves amidst the fighting.

“of strange and portentous apparitions of two jarring and contrary armies – the same incorporeal soldiers that made those clamours, the clattering of arms, noise of cannons, ensigns displayed, drums beating, muskets going off, cannons discharged, horses neighing, cries of soldiers, and the two armies – pell-mell to it they went. So amazing and terrifying the poor men, that they could not believe they were mortal, or give credit to their eyes and ears; run away they durst not, for fear of being made a prey to these infernal soldiers, and so they, with much fear and affright, stayed to behold the success of the business.”

The shepherds hastily headed to the town of Kineton where they woke up a Mr. William Wood (a Justice of Peace) and his neighbour, Samuel Marshall, the minister.

Indeed there were so many sightings of the battle by the villagers of Kineton in the days that followed, that a pamphlet, A Great Wonder in Heaven (link), detailing the ghostly goings-on was published in January of 1643. News of these supposed apparitions reached King Charles, who was intrigued and dispatched a Royal Commission (made up of six officers¹) to investigate and "report upon these prodigies, and to tranquillise and disabuse the alarms of a country town".

This is where things get rather interesting: the officers reported that they too had seen the phantoms, walked among them (they were said to be immaterial) and identified some of the participants, whom they'd known.

• One of those specifically named was Sir Edmund Verney, the king’s standard bearer. When captured during the battle Sir Edmund had refused to give up the standard, so the Parliamentarians cut off his hand to take the standard. The Royalists  recaptured the standard allegedly with Sir Edmund’s hand still attached....

To try and stop the apparitions, the villagers decided to give Christian burial to all the corpses that still lay on the battlefield and some three months after the battle, the sightings appeared to stop.
However to this day it is claimed that strange sounds of warfare and apparitions have been witnessed at the site of the battle. And while sightings of the full phantom armies seem to have ended, eerie screams, cannon and musket fire, the thunder of hooves and battle cries are still sometimes heard at night, particularly around the anniversary of the battle.
Uniquely though, as a result of the Royal Commission’s investigation, the Public Record Office officially recognises the Edgehill ghosts. They are the only British phantoms to have this distinction.







1. Including Colonel Lewis Kirke, two captains named Dudley and Wainman and three other unnamed officers.

[Acrobatic Flea]

Thank you so much for once again taking the hooks I presented and building on them.

[Catsmate]

Feb 23, 2022 15:44:58 GMT Acrobatic Flea said:

Thank you so much for once again taking the hooks I presented and building on them.

My pleasure.

[Catsmate]

On a related theme, a story from Japan
Predictions of dark forces being unleashed by an evil vixen hung over social media in Japan on Monday after a famous volcanic rock said to kill anyone who comes into contact with it was found split in two.

Complete with demonic spirits, shape-shifting foxes and imperial assassinations plots.

Link

[Acrobatic Flea]

Mar 7, 2022 12:23:47 GMT Catsmate said:

On a related theme, a story from Japan
Predictions of dark forces being unleashed by an evil vixen hung over social media in Japan on Monday after a famous volcanic rock said to kill anyone who comes into contact with it was found split in two.

Complete with demonic spirits, shape-shifting foxes and imperial assassinations plots.

Link

It appears we both saw the potential in this as I posted it in a new thread. A magnificent launchpad for a scenario, I really hope I'll be able to work it into the campaign I'm trying to scratch together.