Revenge of the Dog-Men

I missed the previous two weeks but the following is a quick overview of what happened. When Father Montalcini visits Joshua in the asylum he is obviously mad. He talks about creatures coming out of the walls in the temple in South America – dogs that walk on their hind legs. While talking to him I notice that the tips of his fingers on this right hand are missing, obviously taken off by the ‘blades’ on the ‘lock’ for the book that Mogens currently has.

It turned out that Joshua Farnsworth is the lovechild of Penelope Farnsworth and Dr Jones (the curator). We believe that either Dr Jones or Penelope killed her husband. Dr Leicester, Captain Cullen, and Wooster go to Penelope’s house as they believe that she will be the next victim. They arrive and enter her corner apartment and they notice a ‘dodgy’ smell. In her house they encounter a ‘hell hound’ which looks like a were creature. It seems to be about to eat Penelope but after being disturbed it runs out of the apartment.

Fast forward to Mondays session. As the creature runs out of the apartment, Captain Cullen notices that when running in a straight line it runs on all fours, but when going around a corner it runs on two. It then jumps out of a window. As Penelope Farnsworth begins to stir Captain Cullen, Wooster, and Dr Leicester exit the scene. When entering the building where we are staying, Captain Cullen notices the ‘hell hound’ in the shadows across the road.

That night Captain Cullen enters the Dreamlands and goes to the Library. He is given a book called ‘The Divine Feast’ by Henry Hollowell written in 1914. This book describes a Grimoire call ‘Haze of Gowls’ which Hollowell claims was destroyed by the Church. It details a monastic order which practiced heretical rites and talks about fantastical creatures in the centre of the earth. Persecution by the Church drove them underground. They only rise to the surface to eat humans. This cannibalistic practice turned them into a human/canine hybrid whose lifespan is extended far beyond that of normal humans via the eating of their victims’ hearts. The victim’s souls are kept within the creature as a type of hell. These creatures believe that they are absorbing the sins of humanity by consuming their wrong-doers. The writing on the wall is part of the creatures prayer. We realise that not all demons are ‘evil’. This demon preys on the ‘guilty’ and not the innocent. We decide to do nothing about the ‘Hell Hounds’.

We head off to Mogens estate for his party. In the dining room of Mogens house Captain Cullen casts Detect Magic and detects a room under the house with what seems to be a sacrificial altar in the centre which is under a statue in the middle of the foyer which is under the centre of the domed roof. The book seems to be off to the side of the altar.

The dinner is a ten course informal affair. We mingle with the guests, with Dr Leicester and Father Montalcini being the more sociable and trying to draw attention away from Captain Cullen who is trying to investigate the grounds and house further to find a way into the room under the mansion. During the fifth course Mogens and a group of his guests disappear and then reappear some time later. It seems that they went down to the room under the Mansion.