EL PREDOMINIO DE LA CAMPANA LOCAL; EL CASO FRANCES DURANTE LA TERCERA REPUBLICA

This section details a number of events Gamemasters can use as the basis for their adventures or as background flavor. Unlike the history section in the core rules, the information below is for the Gamemaster only.

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* Sherlock Holmes investigates the Hound of the Baskervilles. The true events are covered up with a mundane explanation by Arthur Conan Doyle.

* Term “parapsychology” coined by Max Dessoir.

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* First reported sighting of Surly Ghoul in London.

* A withered corpse, apparently that of Dorian Gray, a handsome and narcissistic young man, is found in the attic of his house. The Ghost Club removes a portrait of Gray soon afterward.

* Georges Bonnet, a 104-year-old Parisian sculptor who murdered women and used their parathyroid glands in an elixir of youth, is killed.

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* In Mexico, Tadeo Fulgencío Mejía learns rituals from a witch in a bid to contact his late wife (d. 1890).

He sacrifices an unknown number of ritual victims through into the 1900s.

* Russian occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, dies of influenza aged 60.

* J. S. Thompson attempts to photograph a soul leaving the body.

* German occultist Wilhelm Dietrich Sphingien dies in mysterious circumstances. There is no formal po-lice investigation. Werner Ansbach, a former pupil of Sphingien, is charged with his murder and confined to a lunatic asylum.

* Patent issued for the Ouija board.

* Revelations of a Spirit Medium, a book exposing the tricks of fake mediums, is published. Several Leagues are suspected of its authorship.

* Lawrence Talbot contracts lycanthropy.

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* The Ghost Club launches an expedition to Mexico, sailing from Cornwall, England, on the ship Plutonia.

The purpose of the expedition is a secret.

* Edward Bellingham animates an Egyptian mummy us-ing a spell from a scroll. He is forced to destroy both mummy and scroll by fire by a fellow student.

* Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot em-bark on the first of their paranormal investigations.

Leagues of Gothic Horror

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* Cholera outbreak in Hamburg, Germany coincides with the arrival of Count Orlok.

* Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, a founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, makes contact with the Secret Chiefs and becomes their intermedi-ary with humanity.

* Inner Order of the Golden Dawn founded.

* Mercy Brown, 19, dies in Exeter, Rhode Island, of an unknown disease. Soon after her burial, people re-port seeing her walking around town.

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* Plutonia returns from Mexico amid great secrecy.

* The events concerning Count Dracula take place, but are not fictionalized and made public until 1897.

* Sherlock Holmes investigates the Red Leech. The true events are covered up with a mundane explanation by Arthur Conan Doyle.

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* Last confirmed sighting of Edward Bellingham occurs in the Sudan.

* Word “ectoplasm” coined by Charles Richet.

* Werner Ansbach dies without recovering his sanity.

* Swedish artist and novelist Johan Strindberg suffers the first of several psychotic episodes while studying the occult. He is hospitalized in 1896.

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* Bridget Cleary burned alive by her husband, who be-lieved her to be a fairy changeling.

* Stephen Banning and his son, John, discover the tomb of Egyptian princess Ananka. Some unknown event leaves the elder archaeologist catatonic.

* Professor Edward Clayton discovers the Gemhetep Papyrus in a Cairo bazaar.

* Unconfirmed reports that Count Dracula has returned from the grave. He is apparently destroyed by being submerged in running water.

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* Schoolboy Harry Price (1881-1948) writes a play about his encounter with a poltergeist. He later goes on to become a noted psychic researcher.

* First use of the term Black Mass in English.

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* The scientist Griffin experiments on himself, and in so doing becomes the Invisible Man. He is believed killed later the same year.

* The Ghost Club helps convict the husband of Elva Zona Heaster of her murder by communing with her ghost.

* The aristocratic Hisgins family is tormented by the

White Horse of Shalladholm, a curse laid on their fam-ily in the 15th century but dormant for the previous seven generations.

* Sherlock Holmes investigates the Devil’s Foot. The true events are covered up with a mundane explana-tion by Arthur Conan Doyle.

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* The Ghost Club takes possession of the Monkey’s Paw from Mr. and Mrs. White.

* A mysterious benefactor donates several occult tomes to the British Museum Library. Within moments of the paperwork being signed the man drops dead.

* Stephen Banning recovers from his catatonic state and reveals to his son that he read the Scroll of Life.

In doing so he awakened the mummy of Kharis, high-priest of Karnak, sworn protector of Anaka’s tomb.

The mummy, having now reached England, goes on the rampage against the desecrators.

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* First sighting of the White Lady of Whitby.

* Egyptologist Abel Trelawny attempts to resurrect Queen Tera, an ancient pharaoh with seven fingers on her left hand.

* Moina Mathers and her husband, Samuel Liddell Mac-Gregor Mathers, perform rites sacred to the Egyptian goddess Isis on stage at the Parisian Theatre Bodi-niere. Five members of the audience go insane.

Who’s Who

This section gives brief biographies for a number of oc-cultists active during the 1890s (and later). Globetrotters might encounter these luminaries as Patrons, through Contacts (Mysticism), as fellow League members, or sim-ply as incidental characters in an adventure.

Adams, Evangeline (1868-1932): An astrologer, Ad-ams is largely unknown during the 1890s, but goes on to achieve widespread fame.

Blavastsky, Helena Petrovna (1831-1891): Russian philosopher and occultist. Founder of the Theosophical Society and author of three occult books. She is one of only a handful of occultists contacted and instructed by the Great White Lodge.

Boullan, Joseph-Antoine, Abbé (1824-1893): A French Roman Catholic priest, Boullan was dismissed from the clergy for reasons that were never made public.

He later founded the Church of the Carmel, a Satanic cult that hid its true allegiance behind Christian rituals.

Crowley, Aleister (1875-1947): Already known as

“the Beast” by his mother, Crowley is destined to become the leading occultist of the 20th century.

A keen mountaineer, he joins the Alpine Club in 1894.

His first initiation into an occult organization occurs in

Sinister Tales & Dark Occurrences

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1898, when he joins the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Although young, he is already an accomplished practitioner of ceremonial magic.

De Guaita, Stanislas, Marquis (1861-1897): A French poet and occult expert of Italian aristocratic de-scent, de Guaita studied chemistry and metaphysics at school. He founded the Cabalistic Order of the Rosicru-cian in 1888. During the late 1880s and early 1890s he was locked in a magical war with the Abbé Boullan and his Satanic Church of the Carmel.

Doyle, Arthur Conan (1859-1930): Although Doyle does not develop an interest in spiritualism until 1906, he helps provide mundane explanations for several oc-cult investigations carried out by Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.

Felkin, Robert William (1853-1926): British ex-plorer, medical missionary, ceremonial magician, author on Central Africa, and anthropologist.

List, Guido Karl Anton (1848-1919): German/Aus-trian poet, businessman, journalist, author, playwright, and mountaineer. Best known as a leading figure in Ger-man revivalism and occultism. He is a leading proponent of the power of the runes and an accomplished magician (Old Ways: Germanic).

Machen, Arthur (1863-1947): Welsh Gothic hor-ror author and occultist. Many of his stories are loosely based on his personal experiences.

Mathers, Moina (1865-1928): French artist and oc-cultist, Moina was the first initiate of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1888). She gains some fame as a clairvoyant during the 1890s.

Mathers, Samuel Liddell MacGregor (1854-1918):

One of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1887), Marries Moina Bergson in 1890.

Encausse, Gérard Anaclet Vincent (1865-1916):

Better known among occultists as Papus, Encausse is a physician, hypnotist, and occultist. He is a student of magic, the tarot, and alchemy, and a member of over a dozen occult Leagues and secret societies.

Reuss, Theodor (1855-1923): Of Anglo-German descent, Reuss is an occultist, journalist, and a former singer and police spy. He helps form the Ordo Templi Orientis around 1895. The order is so secret it does not become known to the public until 1904.

Sprengel, Anna (????-1891?): All that is known about this mysterious figure comes from William Wynn West-cott, who found mention of her name in a set of occult ciphers. The two communicated only through letters, but exchanged copious correspondence.

Westcott claims she was a German countess and love-child of Ludwig I of Bavaria. What role she might have with the occult is unknown, but she granted Samuel Mathers a charter to found British lodges of the Golden Dawn (implying that it already existed elsewhere). It is possible that she was a senior member of the Great White Lodge. Whether or not she actually died in 1891 or merely chose to disappear from public life is just another mystery surrounding the enigmatic aristocrat.

Strindberg, Johan August (1849-1912): Swedish

artist, poet, playwright, and novelist. Spends much of the 1890s travelling across the globe, during which time he studies the occult.

Waite, Arthur Edward (1857-1942): American poet and scholar. Becomes interested in psychic research in 1874 following the death of his sister.

Westcott, William Wynn (1848-1925): A doctor of medicine, Westcott is also one of Britain’s leading oc-cultists and ceremonial magicians. He joined the Soci-etas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1882. Along with Samuel Mathers, he cofounds the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1887. He abandons his public interest in occult-ism in 1896 after he becomes a Crown Coroner.

Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939): Irish poet and writer destined to become one of the 20th century’s leading writers. He has a deep interest in mysticism and occultism, helping found the Dublin Hermetic Order in 1885 and joining the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1890. Having witnessed the darker side of the occult firsthand, he joins the Ghost Club in 1911.

Leagues of Gothic Horror

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References

Gamemasters and players should consider the follow-ing novels, short stories, movies, and television or audio dramas as inspirational source material for Leagues of Gothic Horror. Many of the stories form the core of Gothic Horror literature. Others, along with many mov-ies, are set either before or after the Victorian Era, but portray Gothic themes, either seriously or comically.

Literature (Fiction)

If not available in your local library or bookstore, the text of many older works can be found online.

Beckford, William Thomas. Vathek Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights Chambers, Robert W. The King in Yellow

Coleridge, Samuel. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Dickens, Charles. The Mystery of Edwin Drood Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles Hill, Susan. The Woman in Black

Howard, Robert E. The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House Jacobs, W. W. The Monkey’s Paw

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw

LeFanu, Sheridan. In a Glass Darkly, Uncle Silas Leroux, Gaston. The Phantom of the Opera

Lovecraft, H. P. Many of his Cthulhu Mythos stories are Gothic in tone.

Maturin, Robert Charles. Melmoth the Wanderer Newman, Kim. Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron Poe, Edgar Allen. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, The Masque of the Red Death. The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum

Radcliffe, Ann. The Mysteries of Udolpho

Reynolds, G.W.M. Faust, Wagner the Wehr-wolf, The Nec-romancer

Rymer, James Malcolm. Varney the Vampire

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or, A Modern Prometheus Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Body Snatcher

Stoker, Bram. Dracula, Dracula’s Guest, The Jewel of Seven Stars, The Lair of the White Wyrm, The Lady of the Shroud

Various. Horror by Lamplight (1993, a marvelous com-pendium of Gothic Horror stories including the classics The Monk, The Masque of the Red Death, The Golem, and Lot No. 249)

Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto

Wells, H. G. The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr.

Moreau

Wheatley, Dennis. The Devil Rides Out (among others) Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray

Wilson, F. Paul. The Keep

Literature (Reference)

Baddeley, Gavin and Woods, Paul. Vlad the Impaler: Son of the Devil, Hero of the People

Bunson, Matthew. Vampire The Encyclopedia Geddes & Grosset (pub.). Dictionary of the Occult Lovecraft, H. P. Supernatural Horror in Literature Suckling, Nigel. Vampires, Werewolves, Witches

In document Las campañas electorales : su regulación, evolución y características en el mundo occidental (página 148-155)