Late July, 1924 – In which the Mansion of Madness casts a long shadow over the sanity of our investigators, not least of which is McGinty inviting an Eldritch Abomination to move into his house.

Some asides :

McGinty : Of course Julius likes tools. That’s why he hangs out with us.

Julius’s Player : The mosquitoes! They’re huge! I swear that one had Boeing stencilled on the side.
Rondale’s Player : Just look out for the one stencilled “Airbus”



Scattering in various directions after fleeing the mansion, carrying armfuls of mouldering books as they do so, McGinty and Rondale return to Arkham, bearing the unconscious Dr McPool with them. There, for reasons best known to himself, Rondale deposits the woman in one of the guest rooms, and locks her in. Naturally, upon waking in a strange house, after the events at the mansion, and hearing a horrible non-stop screaming from the walls, her first reaction is to try and escape out the window, failing utterly, and is found in the backyard with two broken ankles.

Understandably questioning Alicia’s sanity, McGinty bandages her up and moves her back into the ground floor of the house. Her apprehensions are hardly soothed by lengthy speculation about hidden doors, and heavily armed monkeys.

McGinty : *humouring the lunatic* Were you trying to fly?
Alicia : *glares* Not I was not trying to fly
McGinty : Were you trying to land?

GM : I’m picturing you opening the back of the truck and a horde of chimps with aviator’s helmets pouring out waving trench guns and revolvers.
McGinty : McGinty’s Monkey Army! I’ll teach them not to make me Governor! We’ll take the zoo first. Go, my pretties! Free your brothers, and arm them!

McGinty : Now, no more jumping out windows – doors are what you come in and out of.



The screaming only she can hear doesn’t stop. Rondale diagnoses tinnitus, caused by the storm of gunfire and explosions that ensued at the mansion. He’s completely wrong, but never mind.

Julius : It’s actually a tiny, tiny woman stuck in her inner ear hairs
GM : So where is the microscopic sub with the laser?



Come the dawn, McGinty and Rondale go about a normal day. This starts with dusting the entire house with corrosive sublimate bedbug powder, de-lousing the wolfhound, and checking the mosquito screens. McGinty has recalled the curse the hyena-werewolf thing laid on him a few years back, in the event he ever interfered with its plans. Breaking his leg with a voodoo doll probably counts. This is followed up with a few rounds of boxing practise with the teenaged burglar that McGinty hired to work at Rondale & McGinty’s Electrical & Automotive Repair. The lad is understandably apprehensive of entering the ring against McGinty.

McGinty : Don’t worry lad, you won’t last five minutes.



A significant amount of McGinty’s income comes from equipping and repairing the many vehicles bootleggers use for smuggling booze. One result of this is an increasingly large pile of car tires piling up alongside the building. His proposed solution is to buy the Arhkam Rubbish Tip.

GM : Ok, why?
McGinty : It’ll be a moneymaker. Privatise! Plus I’ll install an incinerator. That’ll get rid of the car tires. And other things.
GM : *facepalm* I should have seen that coming.
Rondale : Yes, yes you should have
GM : How many ways do you have to dispose of inconvenient corpses now?
McGinty : There’s that plot down at the cemetery; the tip; the vegetable garden...
Julius : And the advantage with the incinerator is if you throw in a few car tires no-one will notice the smell of roasting meat.
GM : And if you’re really desperate there’s that stone arch you have in the basement.
McGinty : Yeah! Although you have to be quick with that one. So you can shove the corpse through and close it again before the monsters come out.
Rondale : I can picture the scene – me holding the corpse, you ready to open the Gate – ‘Ok, on the count of three.. no, ON three... one.... two... THREE!’
GM : I’m more interested in how many things are gathering on the far side to take advantage of this regular supply of fresh meat.



McGinty furthers his political aspirations by meeting with various movers and shakers in Boston and Arkham. After one such meeting, he comes out to find a figure sitting in his Packard. Drawing a gun, McGinty sneaks up and demands an explanation, only to discover that he’s talking to a six-foot-tall white rabbit with waistcoat and fob-watch. Apparently its name is Harvey. McGinty thinks this is amusing enough to play along and the two drive up to Arkham enjoying a long chat about friendship, reciprocity, and the dark crystal McGinty took from the smoking corpse of Josephine Garsetti, after being hired to recover it by the late unlamented Ezekiel Crater. McGinty even offers to let the bunny stay at his house, thereby allowing an eldritch abomination access to this reality.

Rondale and Dr McPool don’t find the situation amusing, and they don’t even know about the abomination that’s installed itself in one of the upstairs bedrooms yet. They’re just alarmed that McGinty is talking to a six-foot-tall bunny that no-one else can see.

Rondale : Oh God, the alcohol has finally done for him, he’s got the D.T.s
McGinty : What are you talking about, he’s sitting right there!
Rondale : McGinty, there’s nothing there
McGinty : You’re a fooking looney
Rondale : Of course, we’re completely insane because we can’t see a six-foot-tall white rabbit named Harvey Wallbanger



Over the next few days Rondale despairs for McGinty’s sanity and ops to sleep across the road at the shop ( lucky for him ) and McGinty spends time at the classier local speakeasy to continue his politicking and talk the council into selling him the tip. Dr McPool cuts a rug on the dancefloor, despite being confined to a wheelchair.

McGinty : And this is Alicia McPool. As you can see I broke both her legs to stop her getting away.



Alicia and the rest are also concerned that McGinty flatly refuses to let anybody else even touch the crystal he acquired. According to one of the books they acquired, and Harvey, the crystal is the key to great power, and is the source of the sudden rush of power and charisma McGinty has been enjoying since he stole it.

GM : Yes, you certainly do seem to be very popular these days – you even have women wanting to fondle your stones.
McGinty : They’re always after me lucky charms.



McGinty, searching the house for Rondale, discovers the Thing that now occupies one of the bedrooms, and is understandably upset. Harvey placates him by pointing out that he and it are essential the same, that McGinty did invite him to stay, and that he only wants to be McGinty’s friend and teach him how best to use the powers of the Dark Stone. All he has to do is bathe it in the blood of the next person he kills, just like Garsetti and Crater used to do. McGinty in turn insists that his extradimensional houseguest move to the greenhouse, which it is compliant enough to do. It’s not like the outbuilding wasn’t already a deathtrap, anyway. Rondale comes around the corner of the house to witness half of the conversation McGinty has with the bunny only he can see or hear.

Rondale : So the greenhouse will have an eldritch abomination in it?
McGinty : Sounds like a plan!
Rondale : Where’s the rock, McGinty
McGinty : Er... in the safe in the greenhouse.



Rondale, now certain that this is not going to end well, elects to get Alicia the hell out of town, and try to get The Amazing Julius up here as quickly as possible. There were a few rituals in an ancient scrapbook they’d ‘acquired’ earlier that might be very useful here. At the very least it’ll take two people to hold McGinty down as they strap him into a straightjacket.
Rondale stops by Amy and Lucy’s flat in Boston en route to Alicia’s home.

Rondale : Hi Lucy... McGinty’s not here! Put down the bottle!



Meanwhile, McGinty goes about business as normal, despite regular advice from a spectral bunny. This business includes a visit from an obvious G-Man, nosing about after bootleggers, and clearly incredulous about the modifications to McGinty’s fearsome battletruck.

Undercover Prohibition Agent : What’s with the cow-catcher? And the whitewalled tires? And the hatch in the roof of the cabin?
McGinty : You ever been caught in a blizzard? The white-wall tires keep the snow off better. And the cow-catcher pushes the drifts out of the way. And if you DO end up in a snow-drift you can climb out the hatch and get out that way.
GM : .... you jammy git.



Guiliano manages to find a gap in his busy tour of the Tri-State area to drive overnight up to Arkham, bringing along one of his pre-prepared devices and his notes for the Seal of Solomon, apparently an extremely powerful version of the Elder Sign that will permanently bind an entity into a now indestructible item, as long as the entity is actually present, and only at massive cost to your soul, even assuming the spell works. The smaller box he’s bringing isn’t the only one he’s prepared in advance.

Julius : There’s that coffin in the basement! You know, the one with the plaque that says ‘Reserved for previous occupant’



McGinty attempts to justify his intention to bathe the stone in the lifeblood of his next victim.

McGinty : It’s hungry. It’s a fooking big rabbit. I tried carrots but it wants blood.



They do manage to persuade him to fetch the stone from the greenhouse, despite Harvey’s insistence that McGinty can’t trust them near it. With good reason, since despite McGinty’s armed refusal to hand it over, Guiliano had a hypnotic compulsion prepared to make sure that he did.

Guiliano attempts to flee, as Rondale attempts to hold down the now enraged McGinty, and both fail. Ignoring the intervening glass, the mad Irish bastard launches himself through the car window and pummels the Italian magician unconscious, but soon succumbs to a dastardly attack from behind by Rondale. Who then shoves Guiliano into the passenger seat and takes the wheel, fleeing town ahead of certain vengeance.

The Amazing Julius OOC : I can just picture a policeman coming down the street now – McGinty, stinking of booze, clutching his groin and rocking and hissing over and over “Don’t listen to the rabbit, don’t listen to the rabbit”
McGinty : Ooooh, me lucky charms!



Alas for Rondale and Guiliano, McGinty soon succumbs to the influence of the Thing ( for one thing the theft of the stone has left him spiritually gutted ), and guided by the voice in his head boards the battletruck and roars off in pursuit. Rondale is naturally horrified to see the view in the rear view mirror of the cow-catcher, and McGinty’s fury-twisted face peering over the top, bearing down on their vehicle at speed. Shaking the Italian awake and screaming at him to start the binding spell, Rondale attempts to stay ahead of the truck and fails, and is driving off the road, narrowly missing trees and rocks, and frantically arms himself as McGinty brings the truck around and lines up to ram them dead.

The first round of gunfire does nothing – McGinty armoured the truck for a reason – but the second takes out a wheel and leaves McGinty’s truck stuck in a ditch. That doesn’t stop McGinty, who is climbing out the hatch in the roof and heading into the back of the truck to fetch his machine gun, as Rondale desperately steels himself to murder a friend, and Guiliano completes the ritual and prays he has enough psychic ability to contest the will of an Abomination and survive the experience. Also, that the entity actually exists, and isn't just a product of McGinty's deranged imagination.

Happily for most of those concerned, he does. Although all three are utterly shaken by the experience, Guiliano needs to be hospitalised, and Rondale has to admit that an angry McGinty is the most terrifying enemy they’ve yet had to face.