Mysterious Manuscripts are books and other documents of supernatural importance, ready to be added to your Call of Cthulhu game. “The Monongahela Carver Cipher” — by Dan Harms, © 2011, illustrated by Toren Atkinson, © 2011 — appears in The Unspeakable Oath 20, available in PDF and in print with free PDF download.
Over the summers of 1970 to 1973, the bodies of five women washed up on the shores of the Monongahela River, just east of Pittsburgh. Each victim was local and in her twenties, but no other common ties between them could be found. Death was by multiple stab wounds, inflicted with at least five sharp instruments per victim, showing that the killer had taken them to a secluded spot to do his work. The perpetrator was never caught.
The police never released to the media one other fact about the killings: Each woman had row upon row of letters, each half an inch high, carved into her left thigh. The carvings were made post-mortem and displayed a great level of precision and cutting skill. Their arrangement implied a cipher, a code that was never broken.
In 2010, the horror began again as another body was found, this one out of the Chenango River just north of Binghamton, New York. The modus operandi was the same as the Pittsburgh killings, down to the letters on the thigh. The FBI quickly took over the case and confirmed that it must be the work of the same perpetrator. In this case, however, advances in cryptology could be brought to bear on the cipher. Initial analysis did not yield a solution but did reveal that the five messages were, in fact, a single one broken into five parts, and that it was likely–though by no means certain–that the message was in English.
Hamilton Meyer, the head of the FBI task force, has exhausted most of his leads, and is seeking help outside Quantico for his investigation. He hopes that new perspectives will break the deadlock on the cipher and save lives.
Decipherment
The decipherment requires ten separate Cryptography rolls at -60% each, with a period of one month between them. These rolls require close work with the crime scene photographs, costing 1/1D3 SAN per month whether the Cryptography roll succeeds or not..
Outside experts can contribute with skill rolls to reduce the Cryptography penalties for the remainder of the project, thereby speeding the decipherment. Each expert’s work takes a month and suffers the same SAN penalty.
- Halved Knife or quartered Medicine: Identical characters made with different cutting strokes actually serve as different characters (10% taken from penalty).
- Halved Medicine or Forensics: Bruising around the thighs is used to highlight particular passages (10% taken from penalty).
- Halved Occult: Some of the text relates to particular astrological events and other concepts (10% taken from penalty).
- Psychoanalysis: Examination of the details of the crimes (0/1D2 SAN) can reveal likely phrase patterns for the decipherment (10% taken from penalty).
Cthulhu Mythos: Some passages that do not correspond to English word frequencies might be in the Aklo tongue. The investigator is able to provide a few sample passages. (10% taken from penalty.)
The Book
Flint, copper, bronze, iron, steel! Slice, rip, chop, cut, tear, cleave, hack! You call to all, O Father, and those who take up Thy sword shall come into Thy kingdom.
The book’s contents are a litany to a being known as the Father of Knives, patron of blades and all those who kill with them. The author casts himself as the mythical figure of Cain, driven to slay his brother Abel. Through actions pleasing to the Father, he hopes to bring favor upon himself and expand his circle of initiates. An Anthropology roll turns up veiled references to mythology, ranging from the Celtic smith Weiland to Shango, the Santeria spirit of iron and thunder. A Cthulhu Mythos roll made after reading finds that the Father of Knives is an avatar of Nyarlathotep.
The Monongahela Carver Cipher. English. SAN loss 1/1D8*; Cthulhu Mythos +1 percentile; Knife +2 percentiles; average 3 hours to study and comprehend. Spells: Contact Deity / Nyarlathotep (Father of Knives)**.
* Temporary insanity causes the person to black out and journey in a fugue state to the site of the nearest undiscovered murder victim. Indefinite insanity causes the person to become obsessed with learning the cipher’s spell.
** A variant of the Contact Deity / Nyarlathotep spell that requires the sacrifice of an unwilling human victim in a slow manner, using at least four different blades (costs 1D3/1D10 SAN to carry out, in addition to the SAN cost of the spell).
The Monogahlia Cipher appears in the The Unspeakable Oath 20
Intrigued by the mysteries of the Cipher? This manuscript and more available in
The Unspeakable Oath, Issue 20!