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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bruin" data-source="post: 1047935" data-attributes="member: 12587">OODM:  Vorlon, feel free to fill in any details you wanted John to do before they arrived next time you post.  I get the feeling people want to keep rolling, since we're still in the briefing stages.OODM: Let me know if you want any special actions or checks throughout any of this.  I've done some automatically.IDM:As you approach the house to enter, John notices a small window to the lower right of the house near its base.  It appears to look down into a cellar area of the house.  Above this is a larger window, with no glass, but some sort of black veil or silk screen covering it.Just as you approach to knock on the door, it suddenly swings open and standing there is a man with a shaved head and a long scar running down his right cheek.  He is unshaved, sporting a black goatee, and he has a weird glint in his eyes.  A bit further into the house, you see a somewhat larger man, similarly with a shaved head and goatee, disappearing through a door and down some steps into the cellar.  Just to the right, you see a bedroom area that has no door and is covered by a black veil similar to the one on the window (the window is looking out from this bedroom).“You are the investigators, yes? Come in, come in.”  Renard leads you to the left, into a dilapidated living room area.  There are some folding chairs and a makeshift table, but otherwise the room is dusty and unfurnished.  Apparently they have not been here long and don’t intend to stay.  “The lawyer told you of the diary, yes?  We have read through it, and made a list of the important clues it holds, but we are stuck, yes.  It names a Sicilian, who rented a house in the North End to Pickman, but we have had no success in discovering who this Sicilian was, yes.  We need you to figure out who he was, so you can check with the City Archives to find blueprints and addresses for properties he may have owned in the North End, yes.  With that, you can determine the location, and investigate the premises, though we do not know if the house itself or the cellar beneath it are still intact, yes?”He turns his attention to the bedroom area.  From behind the black veil steps out a figure wholly covered in black robes, hood, and gloves.  You cannot discern a face.  It steps forward, carrying a book.  Renard say, “My master carries a book to us, yes?  He wants you to look at it, so that you’ll be familiar with it’s design.  You don’t need to know the title, as it’s written in Ancient Greek, just familiarize yourselves with the symbol on the cover, yes.  The copy that Pickman possessed will be more or less identical.”  The black figure holds out the book in its hands.As the figure approaches, Neal hears a faint ambient sound in the background that he can only describe as “squishy.”On the book, you see a symbol that looks like an asymmetrical five-pointed star, with a circle and squiggle in the center.  You can also see a title in Ancient Greek.  Jens sees that it is titled “On the Protective Qualities of the Elder Sign and Its Uses.”  (OODM: you can see a picture of the Elder Sign in p. 209 of your Rulebooks, or in the Play Aids section of the Chaosium p. 284).After you’re done looking, the cloaked figure draws the book away and returns to its spot behind the veil.  “My mast… my employer doesn’t like to let it out of his hands, yes.  So you can’t take it with you, but you can take these…” he hands you Thurber’s diary and a handwritten list.  “This list will tell you all the pertinent details we’ve read in the diary, but we might have missed something, yes.  Once you have returned the book to us, we will pay you in cash, here.  Do not visit the lawyer again, yes.”“Do not attempt to read or translate the book when you find it, yes, just bring it here.  It is fragile, and turning the pages may cause too much wear.  And Pickman may have possessed another book, yes, also in Greek, but we do not want it.  Be especially sure not to read this other book, as it has a odd reputation of driving men to madness, yes?”John, Jens, and Neal all sense that Renard is not being entirely truthful about why he doesn’t want you to read the first book.“Do you have questions, yes?”</blockquote>

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