Scenario 0 Disappearance at the Twilight Estate

Prologue (Scenario 0):

Disappearance at the Twilight Estate

Sunday, November 22nd, 1925. Arkham, Massachusetts. 
Though All Hallows’ Eve is nearly a month past, a grim melancholy lingers throughout the town. Each morning, a thick fog permeates the streets. Nights are beginning to grow longer, and if you ask around town, you’ll hear people swear that it’s getting darker, too. But despite the gloomy mood, progress continues in the sleepy town of Arkham.
The election of Nathaniel Rhodes to the United States Senate has upstanding members of the community feeling optimistic about the town’s future. And tonight, at his well-appointed estate in French Hill,
a man named Josef Meiger hosts the Silver Twilight Lodge’s charity gala, an annual members-only event that will turn deadly for several attendees…

ÆÆEach player must choose one of the following neutral investigators to control for the
duration of this prologue:

Gavriella Mizrah, Jerome Davids, Penny White, or Valentino Rivas. Throughout this prologue, you will play through this character’s story and make choices that will determine his or her fate. Your choice of investigator has no direct effect on your standard investigator deck, though the results of the prologue will influence the story.

ÆÆDo not assemble an investigator deck for any neutral investigator.
Instead, gather the cards listed on its reverse side—these cards will be used in that investigator’s unique setup. (All listed cards are level 0 unless otherwise noted.)
ÆÆIf there are 3 or fewer players in the campaign, in the “Missing Persons” section of your Campaign Log, cross off the profiles of any of the neutral investigators who were not chosen.
ÆÆProceed to Intro.

Intro:

 “Ladies and gentlemen,” Josef Meiger announces, raising a glass of champagne in a toast. A hush descends on the room, until only the crackle of the fireplace and whispers of gossip can be heard. “Allow me to welcome you all into my home for this year’s charity gala. We have some very upstanding citizens here tonight, and I thank all of you for your hard work and generosity.” Cheers and murmurs of agreement fill the room. Many of the guests raise their glasses to Valentino, one of the most esteemed members of the Lodge this year, who sits at the Guest of Honor table, which is nearest to the fireplace.
Josef ’s assistant, Jerome, blends into the wall behind Josef, discreetly checking his pocket watch. In another corner of the room, the head housekeeper, Penny, walks from table to table, filling empty glasses and collecting dirty salad plates. “Each of you has done great deeds in the name of the Silver Twilight Lodge and our historic city,” Josef continues.
“Next year, we will continue to shoulder this burden and do what must be done for the sake of progress.” Jerome steps forward quietly,
interrupting Josef ’s speech with the unassuming confidence that comes from years of trusted service. He taps Josef lightly on his shoulder and shows him the time. “I’m afraid I am already out of time. Thank you all very much for attending,” Josef concludes, bowing. Polite applause rises from the audience, and Josef walks briskly toward the parlor, followed closely by his assistant. Two servants collect coats as latecomers trickle into the manor, and Gavriella—Josef ’s head of security—watches over the entrance with hard eyes and a clenched jaw. “Has Mr. Sanford arrived?” Josef asks curtly, tapping his polished leather shoe on the floor.
“I’m afraid not,” Jerome replies, flipping through the last pages of the estate’s guest book. “But he should be here any minute, Mr. Meiger.”
“Good. I want there to be no problems whatsoever when he arrives; am I understood?” Josef calls out to Gavriella: “Make sure he is well protected.” Gavriella nods, patting the handle of her .45 in her shoulder holster. Josef turns his attention back to his assistant. “And have Penny make sure the main course is kept good and hot while we wait for Mr.Sanford’s arrival. Not a single slice is to be served without his presence.”
“Not even for Mr. Rivas, sir?” Jerome asks, glancing at Josef over the rim of his thick glasses. Josef pauses for a moment, considering.
“Pour Mr. Rivas another glass of champagne, and I am sure he will not complain. Also, I’m still waiting on those accounts I asked you about earlier today. Don’t forget,” Josef says, clapping his assistant on the shoulder before walking back into the banquet hall. Jerome nods obediently and heads upstairs.
Soon after, the dark mist would appear, and nothing would be the same.
ÆÆOne at a time, each player must proceed to the intro for their chosen character and read that section aloud. Do not read any intro for a character not chosen by a player. Once each player has read his or her character’s intro, proceed to Setup.
Gavriella Intro: You stand guard as instructed, waiting for Mr.Sanford to appear. By now, the remaining guests have filed into the banquet hall, and you can hear the sounds of merriment and drinking coming from beyond the wooden door behind you. You pay them no mind, remaining vigilant. Years of fighting and discipline have taught you to be ready for anything, even at a harmless banquet like this. Just as you begin to ponder whether your talents are being wasted under Mr.Meiger’s employ, a dark mist invades the parlor through the front door and the window frames, flooding the room. At first, you believe it to be only the evening fog seeping through the manor’s entryway, until you begin to notice that everything the mist touches seems to have decayed as though aged hundreds of years.
You step back cautiously, keeping a hand on the grip of your weapon just in case. Never in all your years have you seen something like this.
An unnatural chill spreads throughout the room, and shivers run up your spine. As the ashen mist finishes pouring in, it coalesces into a singular form: a humanoid figure wrapped in shadows. It raises its hand and points at you with a charred, blackened finger.
You unholster your firearm and point it at the creature, allowing your training to take over. “Don’t come any closer!” you shout. The thing watching you from the entrance is unfazed. Its ethereal form begins to glide toward you, dark mist crawling over the carpet in its wake.
“I warned you,” you growl, and a thunderous shot echoes through the parlor as you squeeze the trigger. The bullet rips a hole in the figure’s head like a rush of air billowing through a column of smoke. The mist stitches itself together, and the thing continues to drift your way,reaching out menacingly.
Nothing could have prepared you for combat with such an unnatural enemy. Faced with no other option, you turn and flee up the staircase nearby, pausing to squeeze off several more shots at the top. The bullets that make their target simply pass harmlessly through the ghostly figure, striking the door behind it. A few stray shots shatter a column of the staircase’s wooden balustrade.

Jerome Intro: You carefully flip through the pages of Mr. Meiger’s ledger, looking for the accounts he inquired about. You have served Mr.Meiger faithfully for almost a decade, and he trusts you with sensitive information like this—a point of pride for you. While you are often curious about your employer’s business, you have never pried into his personal matters. Not until tonight, anyway.
You adjust your glasses and lean forward as you turn to the page regarding Mr. Meiger’s request. Some of the names on the list you recognize: Rivas, Gensler, Fairmont, Rhodes, Wick. But many are names you have never heard of before, let alone seen affiliated with Mr. Meiger’s work: Lindquist, Konstantinov, Magro, Atkinson, Lamar…Just how deep do Mr. Meiger’s connections go?
Strange as that may seem, it is the list of names on the page afterward that raises your hackles. While it was clear that the names on the previous page are associates of Mr. Meiger’s, or at least prominent members of the Lodge, you can only assume that this next series of names is of people your employer is…targeting. For what, you cannot say.
You stand next to Josef ’s desk and record the list in your pocket journal carefully, making sure to keep the names in the exact order they appear in Mr. Meiger’s ledger. You hope that your suspicion is nothing more than the absurd imagination of an overworked secretary. Still, something about all of this has you concerned. That, and the sudden draft of frigid air that has somehow wafted into the room. Your gaze naturally drifts to the window, at which point you scream out in shock and lose your balance, stumbling backward into Mr. Meiger’s desk.
Pressed up against the office window is a host of screaming faces emerging from the mist, or perhaps composed of it. Their ghostly hands press against the glass, their eyes hollow and empty. Your reading glasses clatter to the ground and shatter under your heel as you scramble to the other side of the office. You don’t realize that you dropped your pocket journal in the chaos until it is too late.

Penny Intro: You sigh as the cool New England air embraces you. It has been a very stressful night: stressful enough that you’ve decided to sneak away from the clamor to grab a quick smoke before heading back to work. You rest your arms along the metal railing of the balcony,
your fingers trembling as they hold your cigarette. The dreary gambrel rooftops and Victorian manors of French Hill span the view below you, the unlit windows hiding countless secrets.
You can’t remember a night in which your employer was as concerned with every little detail as he is tonight. He is normally so calm, so collected. There’s something special about tonight that has him on edge.
Is it Mr. Sanford? A shudder crawls through you. For some reason,something about that man gives you the creeps. But Josef has interacted with Mr. Sanford many times before, so that cannot be the reason.
What could it be that has Mr. Meiger so worried?
You are torn from your thoughts by the gathering of grey clouds overhead, swiftly blotting out the night sky. As the clouds grow ever closer, you begin to see shapes emerging from the vapor. You squint and lean over the railing for a better view. That is when you notice the true forms of the shapes in the mist: their screaming faces, their clawing hands, all writhing in torment and coming straight for you. You cry out in terror and back up against the wall as the mist envelops the building.
A spectral shape emerges from the haze beyond the railing, dressed in bloodstained rags. It begs for rest in a croaking, gasping voice. Your only hope for escape is to retreat back into the manor and call for help...
Valentino Intro: “Are you going to break, or are you going to sit there admiring the cue ball all night?” you ask with a mocking smile. Your opponent sets the ivory ball back on the table with a sigh.
“I can’t help myself around ivory. You know that, Tino,” Adam replies.
You rarely see Adam Gensler except during Lodge functions, but you prefer his company to that of the stuffy business types who make up most of the Lodge these days. He makes his shot, the sudden clattering interrupting the din of conversation. “Your shot, Tino. And do try to avoid hitting the nine ball first. You’re always so overeager.” Adam chuckles as he moves to the other side of the table, making way for you.
“That was one time, my friend, one time.” You roll your eyes. Truth be told, you’ve enjoyed coming to these events for the opportunity to give back to the community, not to hobnob with Arkham’s gentry. But hobnobbing has had its perks.
You lean over the table and clear your mind as you line up your shot.
The room falls silent as you block out the clamor and the music, focusing all of your attention on the one ball and the corner pocket. You hold your breath and strike the cue ball. It clacks as it hits its target, and the one ball drops effortlessly into the corner pocket. “There, you see?”
It is only then that you realize the silence around you is not just in your mind. All of the light and warmth has been sucked out of the room.
Adam is gone, along with everyone else who was present just moments before you took your shot. “Hello?” you call out. A dark mist coils about your ankles as you walk around the billiards table. “If this is a practical joke of some kind, it’s in awfully poor taste,” you remark. The only response is the deep growl that emerges from beneath the table.
Morbid curiosity compels you to look underneath it, at which point a dark hound pounces onto your chest, savagely clawing at your torso.
You react instinctively, pushing it off of your body as hard as you can. It lands on the billiards table, causing it to collapse under the creature’s weight. You slowly back up as the creature rises to its feet once again and jumps off the broken table, its hollow eyes gazing into your soul.

 

Setup

ÆÆGather all cards from the following encounter sets: Disappearance at the Twilight Estate, At Death’s Doorstep, Inexorable Fate, Realm of Death, Spectral Predators, Trapped Spirits, The Watcher, and Chilling Cold. These sets are indicated by the following icons:
When gathering the At Death’s Doorstep encounter set, only gather the seven Spectral locations from that encounter set. Do not gather any of the other cards from that encounter set.
ÆÆPut the seven Spectral locations into play. (See suggested location placement, below.)
ÆÆPut The Spectral Watcher enemy into play in the Entry Hall.
ÆÆEach player follows the setup instructions on the back of his or her investigator card.
ÆÆShuffle the remaining encounter cards to build the encounter deck.

The Spectral Realm

Note: This scenario only uses the seven locations with the Spectral trait. Do not set up this scenario using any locations without the Spectral trait!

No Way Out

There is no positive resolution for this scenario. Investigators should strive to last as long as they can and gather as many clues as they can before their inevitable demise. Note that while cards can still be added to the victory display during this scenario, experience and victory points will not be gathered for this scenario.
Since these investigators do not have decks, ignore any instruction
or effect that would cause them to draw cards or interact with player decks. Additionally, since these investigators do not have discard piles, each player card that would be placed in their discard pile is removed from the game, instead.
Good luck. You’ll need it.

DO NOT READ until the end of the scenario.

No resolution was reached, because each investigator was defeated: “Mr. Sanford, thank you so much for coming.
I know you are a busy man. Your presence at tonight’s meeting is very much appreciated.” Josef shakes Carl Sanford’s hand firmly as he speaks. Sanford merely nods. “I know you’ve only just arrived, but I have some…private matters to discuss with you, if that is all right,” Josef continues, his narrow eyes shifting back and forth between the men flanking Mr. Sanford.
“Very well.” The elderly man nods to his two enforcers, who step aside to give him privacy. He cradles his hands behind his back, his stature impressive for his age. His discerning eyes fall on Josef. “What is the matter?”
Josef leans closer. “It’s here, sir. It’s here in this very house.”
There is a quiet pause between the two men, and then Carl Sanford smiles.

ÆÆNo experience is earned for this prologue.
ÆÆIn your Campaign Log, record X pieces of evidence were left behind. X is the total number of clues on Act 1a—“The Disappearance.”
ÆÆReturn each of the player cards used in this scenario to the collection.
ÆÆEach player chooses an investigator from the standard pool of investigators and assembles his or her investigator deck, as usual.
ÆÆProceed to Scenario I: The Witching Hour.