Monday, July 20, 2015

Looking for Lovecraft... More on the Scenario, "Weltgeist"

SPOILERS BELOW - SPOILERS BELOW 

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     Turning WOLF 359 into "Weltgeist" - PART 2  


















Spoilers for my scenario will ensue ................
Drawing of the "Terrarium" (Old pencil sketch pasted onto photo of wood wall and messed about with)

 The history of Robert Garrick is to be left in fragments to be delivered to or discovered by the PC investigators. The complete story is sketchily defined... but well enough for the scenario to work. 
  After Garrick created his experimental telescope with the material from the meteorite, he attained the position of director of the Lick Observatory. Eventually he got what he claimed to be a revolutionary telescope built to replace the smaller telescope at Lick. This device, which Garrick called his "Optical Xenoscope", used larger mirrors cut from the meteorite. The "Xenoscope" apparently did not work but Garrick insisted that he could see a distant world in the Great Andromeda Nebula when he gazed through it. Dr. Garrick had to be dragged from the Lick Observatory, raving, in 1918. After a year in a sanitarium, Dr. Garrick was considered sane enough to return to his home.
   Alas, Robert Garrick was not actually altogether sane, by any ordinary standard and when he got home he found the evidence of bizarre growth in molds and fungi in his basement... all around the abandoned fragments, grinding dust and the remaining bulk of the strange meteorite. His inspiration to use the meteorite to stimulate growth of plants and other simple lifeforms occurred almost immediately.
  The first attempt, in a small greenhouse on the property, failed for unknown reasons and Garrick began a larger and more controlled version of the "Terrarium" in the large barn/garage beside the main house.
  The equipment purchased and shipped to the house over the last year will provide clues for the investigators in the form of packing boxes, invoices and local gossip about the many odd items arriving at the House on Sign Hill as well as the work done by local contractors.

I built a diorama with plans of the house and barn - Next time I will do the structures as 3D paper models

  I gave Garrick an assistant, Larry Jackson, (A clever young grad student with mechanical and electrical aptitude) and I gave Larry a fiancé, Ramona Travers. I also gave him a dog which I named Rudy...
A friend of Robert's from Lick Observatory will have sent him the materials he left behind when he was institutionalized, which will leave packing slips and a letter from this fellow both of which will serve as clues for the investigators.
   The story from this point resembles "Wolf 359". The "Terrarium", under the baleful glow of the meteorite, grows a tiny fragment of an alien world. Garrick and Larry obtain the best cameras and lenses to view and photograph the staggeringly accelerated evolution. This will provide a lot of very odd handouts for the investigators to discover, in the form of photographs like these...
  I stole a few images from a computer game to depict the tiny cities that eventually show up.



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