Within the Earth-40 Brane, the United Kingdom’s Invisible College is tasked with defending the realm from occult, esoteric and supernatural threats. In the instance of an extinction level threat all operatives’ oaths require them to place the survival of the human race as a species above any prior oath.
Very senior members of the organisation, dubbed the Round Table, are aware of a multiverse beyond their world, and have contact with the Tenet of Indeterminate Philosophy.
Relations With Other Agencies
The Invisible College has operatives embedded within MI5, particularly the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) and the Joint State Threats Assessment Team (JSTAT). Generally speaking, cultists of eldritch abominations tend to be too insane to pose credible terrorist threats and, since the collapse of the USSR, most other nations subscribe to the Compact On Non-Proliferation of Occult Weaponry (CONPOW).
That said, the College also operates inside the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6) in their capacity in monitoring proliferation of weapons. US intelligence in particular is suspected of developing esoteric threats that, should they be proven, would result in international, covert, occult censure.
Structure
From the, “great and the good,” to the, “peons”.
Siege Perilous
Round Table
Operations
Operations is where the meat hits the hellfire. Each cell falls under the direct control of one of the knights of the Round Table. In the field, no expense is spared if operatives request it. However, should they survive the mission, the investigators will have to defend their expenses in a storm of paperwork and a potential audit by the Bursar.
No-one wants an audit by the Bursar.
Operatives of the Invisible College represent a significant investment in secrets, experience, and sometimes sorcerous skill. They are not frontline troops. However, they are often required to place themselves in extreme peril while they do what no-one else can or will. They do operate their own Protectors, who specialise in warding companions and, “tanking,” occult threats, but the, “arm militant,” of the College are known as, “Excalibur Units,” seconded from the British Army’s Special Forces Reserve. Naval and Air Force equivalents are also in place but more seldom required. Invisible College agents are always accorded an equivalent officer rank, as per the standard Civil Service scale.
Operatives are regularly reminded that this accorded rank is with respect to their special areas of expertise and not general command of troops in the field. Please don’t try issuing commands to a Colonel unless you want your behind left out to dry when you need fire support.
Occult Engagement Protocols
Occult Engagement Protocols
Although more or less every contact with the occult is new and exciting (and not in a good way), the Invisible College has evolved a number of protocols for dealing with whatever weirdness may occur. In cases where the contact takes place on foreign soil, standard procedure is usually to leave quietly and make sure all the trip expense claims are in order. Where otherworldly threats have to be dealt with, officers and Special Forces personnel of Excalibur Units are well-advised to follow standard procedures. Any deviation from these requires a full and formal explanation of what was done and why rather than the use of a pro-forma contact report. And the pro-forma is brain-twisting enough.
Officers would also do well to remember that mundane threats are still threats. Falling off a cliff or being bitten by a snake are pretty mundane misadventures compared to having your brain eaten, but that does not make them desirable, except maybe by comparison. Agents must be on the watch for mundane threats as well as occult ones. Most such mundane threats can be dealt with using common-sense precautions and do not require a College-approved guide. Nevertheless, there is one.
Large chunks of the Field Operations Manual deal with issues such as how to use a ladder safely and avoiding stomach upsets in countries with inadequately clean drinking water. Clueless as many College staff can be about the real world at times, most do manage to avoid mishaps without referring to the manual section on anti-slip precautions in the shower and similar environments. Of course, when you’re being chased by Deep Ones, it is possible to forget these elementary real-world precautions and come a cropper, as the manual charmingly describes it.
However, the main mundane threat to College officers is, ironically perhaps, the fabric of civilised society and its many agencies that try to be helpful and protective.
Clueless Responses to Incidents
(AKA: How Not To Get Killed By A Police Sniper Just Before You Confront Lurking Evil)
It is quite startling to discover what people can fail to notice going on in front of them, but once someone does actually spot the zombie horde or gateway to crappinessville, there will be a response of some kind. Fire and ambulance crews, lifeboatmen and other helpful people will attend the scene to try to save lives. Normally that’s a good thing but it can lead to all kind of complications.
The police are a more active threat in this sense, in that they have a remit to protect the public from strange people who brandish weapons, and will feel duty-bound to try to deal with whatever is happening no matter how outmatched they are. That usually equates to evacuating an area, setting up a cordon and calling in anyone and everyone who might be some help. Thus a single police officer can bring down massive complications with a well-intentioned radio call. Pretty soon the area will be flooded with uniforms and people whose job it is to find out what is happening. Operating on the quiet can become problematic at this point
It must also be stressed that cops have no sense of humour about people waving guns or things that look like guns, especially if bodies have been turning up or stuff has recently exploded in the area. Most patrol officers in Britain are not armed, in the sense that they do not have a gun, but they do have incapacitating sprays, batons and a radio to yell for help from the armed response team – and they do have guns.
A College officer who rushes around with a gun in an area covered by police marksmen might meet an untimely and rather ironic end. The key to dealing with police and emergency-service response is cooperation and containment. That is, you need to contain the police response before they get too enthusiastic and call in the anti-terrorist unit, and you need to get their cooperation. Your warrant card is the primary tool in this case, and should be applied vigorously and nearly. If you can get to the first cops on the scene and co- opt them with your warrant card then you should be able \nto take control of the police response or stop it happening at all. If not, you need to get to the on-site commander and use your warrant card at that level.
Once you have gained control of the emergency-service response you should be able to use rather than work around the official response. Cops can be useful for keeping anyone else from wandering into the area, and to keep reporters out. If you’re lucky and there are officers with appropriate experience present they may be able to actively help, but if not then the rule is to use the cops to keep everyone, including the cops, out of your way while you deal with the problem.
Conventional (ish) Operations
Some Laundry operations are not much different to other national security situations. Most of these are termed ‘Counter-Terrorism and Rescue-Like Operations’ in the field manuals, raising the question of exactly what a ‘rescue-like’ mission might achieve.
These operations are conducted much like conventional counter-terrorism missions, and might involve an element of interaction (of a non-violent sort) with the opposition. Many cults, occult organisations and even terrorist groups have a public face and do not want to be exposed for what they are before their plans are ready. It may be possible to negotiate meaningfully with such groups, so long as the College officer does not forget that their long-term agenda is probably not something that should be encouraged.
Dealing with such groups can be a lot like international relations during the Cold War. Both sides know what the other is up to but maintain a polite façade to avoid escalation until they are ready or it becomes inevitable. Infiltration of a cult or other occult group is conducted much like infiltration of any other suspect organisation, though with the added complication of geasa, magical wards and other sorcerous means of exposing a snitch.
Overt operations against a cult can be carried out much like any other operation. If it becomes necessary to smash in the door and rescue the hostages, it does not matter very much whether the hostiles worship Nyarlathothep or Osama Bin Laden; the details of the threat may vary but an arrest or hostage rescue op is much the same in either case.
Some groups are utterly crazed and unpredictable, but most follow some kind of logic and many are frighteningly rational when it comes to operating in the real world. These are the most insidious, as they tend to know how to, “play the game,” and will use legal means, bureaucratic stalling and misinformation to protect themselves… backed up of course by less conventional defences. Once the façade is cracked, these groups are as ruthless as any international crime syndicate or intelligence agency, but not necessarily more so. They do tend to have more inventive ways of disposing of bodies, however.
Conventional (ish) operations include typical, “black bag,” covert entry missions to plant evidence or obtain information as well as observation, surveillance and infiltration. Deliberate cage-rattling of a suspected cult is about as far as, “conventional,” can go; once the weirdness is out in the open then it’s time to move on to less conventional means.
Containment and Suppression
Containment and Suppression (or C&S, as it is sometimes known) is the College’s primary and preferred mission. In short, the threat is identified and contained, then quietly disposed of. Where possible, the College prefers to co-opt anyone it can and to obtain artefacts for study – a former threat who now works in Cubicle 17a in the Indexing and Cross-Referencing Team is suppressed just as efficiently as one who has been vaporised or banished back to the outer realms.
Co-opting works best on humans who have stumbled upon something by accident or through being a bit too clever for their own good, but can be applied to some other entities too. The knowledge and abilities of the individual might be useful to the College at some later date, and elimination always remains an option. Indeed, it is easier to achieve and to clean up afterwards if the individual is within the College – the appropriate quote here is, “Keep your friends close, and give your enemies a job with a decent benefits package”.
If the threat cannot be co-opted or negotiated with to a satisfactory outcome, then suppression is the only answer. “Suppression,” in this case means making the threat go away. The means used should be as cost-effective as possible and ideally will not involve any requirement for a cover story to sell to the masses. Low-key is good, but the need to succeed sometimes takes precedence.
In the case of a possessor entity threat, or any other threat that can spread, containment and suppression go hand in hand. The usual precautions must be taken against possessor entities – avoiding physical and electrical contact, treating encountered persons as suspect until proven, “clean,” and so forth – and care must also be taken to ensure that innocents do not blunder into contact with entities.
College agents may be aware that what appears to be Fred the Delivery Driver is not him any more, but this is not a conclusion that will leap readily to the mind of ordinary people encountering the entity currently wearing Fred’s uniform… and skin. A thin attempt to deceive, which will not convince the most distracted of Laundry agents, will work on an ordinary person who considers demonic possession to be the stuff of fiction.
Military personnel backing up a College operation may have ways to deal with possessed entities, such as using less-lethal weapons to incapacitate the host body, while attempts are made to contain or drive out the entity. They also have guns and explosives, and those work pretty well, too. Shooting every possessed entity in an area will provide effective suppression of the outbreak, and extreme as it may sound it may be the only option.
Containment can sometimes be achieved by indirect means. Explosives will disable most possessed entities, but they can also be used to create obstacles that will contain or channel a group of enemies. Hostiles can be channelled into kill-zones in this way, or contained for a single response such as a large explosive device or mass exorcism.
Checkpoints and obstructions are also a useful way to control the movement of personnel and hostiles. A simple cordon-and-search operation can be used to ensure that an area is cleared, and afterwards access may be restricted to a few key points. These can be controlled by the creation of cleared, “Kill zones,” that deprive hostiles of cover, and movement through the kill zone can be further curtailed by using razor wire and similar obstacles that will impede movement but not bullets.
Note that many possessed entities will disregard threats that would cause a normal person to find another route. A possessor might try to push through thick thorny hedges or even razor wire, accepting damage to its host body that the host might not. Thus it is necessary to think in terms of what is physically possible when setting up obstructions, rather than what would deter most people.
Thick hedges or weak wire entanglements will slow down anything trying to push through them, and are thus useful as a delaying tactic. They must, however, be watched and use made of the delay. As combat engineers say, “An obstacle not covered by fire is not an obstacle,” and a team that neglects to watch an approach because none of its members would fancy climbing through that hedge might get an unpleasant and surprise. On the other hand, somebody trying to climb through a razor wire fence is pretty good confirmation of possession or mind-wrenching stupidity, both of which might merit opening fire.
As far as minor possessor entities go, it is usually possible for a team to maintain its security through the use of kill zones, obstructions and access control, at least for long enough to complete a primary mission. Those entities that get too close may have to be dealt with in the old fashioned manner (shooting them), and in this case suppressed weapons are preferred if the team is to remain fairly covert.
In a possessor-rich environment, a team may have to operate as a, “Roving pocket,” with team members covering all approaches on the move and shooting anything that comes too close. This works well enough in the short term, but is best used only when making a brute-force movement through hostile territory.
In many ways diseases and other forms of contamination such as radioactive fallout or hazardous chemicals can be harder to deal with than possessor entities. Similar principles are used, however, with barrier protection in the form of protective suits and breathing equipment, and a general policy of keeping your distance and not touching anything you aren’t sure of. Barrier protection such as a protective suit will only be useful so long as it is not compromised by holes or taking the helmet off.
Contaminants can remain on the outside of the suit, so decontamination is important after a mission. This takes the form of washing off the contaminants with neutralising agents or, if nothing better is available, lots of water and detergent. Decontamination is mandatory before removing protective equipment where there has been contact with… pretty much anything. Ideally it is performed in a sealed environment such as aboard a mobile decontamination suite, with the fluids then disposed of according to current Health & Safety legislation. Allowing contaminated liquids to enter the local drainage system can cause a new set of problems, after all.
One other form of contagion is to be avoided wherever possible, and that is civilian panic and stupidity. Both seem to be infectious and can be extremely dangerous. Establishing a secure area from which the public are excluded is of paramount importance, as is the creation of a suitable cover story. Explanations about E. coli outbreaks, termite infestations, gas leaks and such like can be used to keep the public away from an area without much effort from the security team, though it is necessary to watch for journalists, conspiracy theorists and perhaps a group of meddling kids with a large dog trying to see what’s really going on.
Use of the warrant card and a security detachment (which can be co-opted from local police if necessary) to secure an area will go a long way towards reducing panic. What the public can’t see can still hurt them, but at least you’ll be able to deal with it without tripping over rubbernecking yokels.
If the area cannot be properly secured, then a cover story can be effective at keeping people away. An announcement that anyone who has been exposed to – whatever – will need to report to a local hospital to be checked out and perhaps quarantined can prove surprisingly effective in clearing the vicinity. Which is why if it is necessary to get people checked for contamination, you should use a different story.
Suppression of a disease or contaminant can require anything from a good scrubbing down with bleach to the use of fuel-air munitions or thermobaric warheads. More physical threats can be more easily found and eliminated – though incendiaries and explosives work well there too. Other related threats will normally suggest an appropriate suppression response. Which translates as: “You weren’t just going to leave that gate to another universe open, now were you?”
Paranormal Reconnaissance and Exploration
Sometimes the nature of a threat is not immediately apparent. A gate opening in time and space is rarely a good thing, but sometimes nothing immediately inimical leaps out and starts devouring. Alternatively, sometimes something does but rather than just slam the gate closed it may be necessary to investigate where it leads.
“Paranormal Reconnaissance and Exploration,” missions also include entry into physical areas such as a suspect building or a mysterious tunnel under the arctic ice. Searching a lost city in the South American rainforest may also fall in this category, depending on what you find. It is wise to assume that there is a paranormal element – or at least a paranormal threat – involved with any new place your team is sent into. While the officers’ mess may be a strange place indeed, it is probably not necessary to observe paranormal reconnaissance protocols when visiting (depends on your unit, though), but in most cases even a routine visit to the offices of a suspect company could result in contact with something even odder than the average database engineer.
Paranormal Reconnaissance missions are much like any other recon operations. The team will try to operate covertly, avoiding contact and observing where possible. Wards, protective equipment and a healthy degree of paranoia should be in place, and even apparently mundane objects must be treated with suspicion.
The goal of a recon op is to gather information, although sometimes this can lead to the realisation that something needs to be dealt with immediately. Wherever possible the team will go in, get the info and slip back out again. A properly planned response can then be set up using the Intel gathered by the reconnaissance mission.
One simple rule for paranormal exploration missions is: “Don’t touch nuthin”. Once the experts from Artefacts have examined an area or object and proclaimed it safe… you probably still shouldn’t touch it if you can avoid it. An exploration mission takes the team into someone else’s backyard, and there is no telling what horribleness might be just lying around waiting for someone to step on/fall into/invoke.
The team should move through the area to be explored cautiously, but not too slowly. The typical 4-man Special Forces patrol formation works as well here as anywhere else, with larger expeditions using the 4-man team as a building block. Typically the, “Tail end Charlie,” of any given 4-man patrol will be armed with a high-firepower automatic weapon such as a light machine gun, and will respond to a threat with intense fire while everyone seeks cover.
A team may send out scouts or detach personnel to investigate points of interest along the way, but the horror-movie rule of, “Don’t go out of camera shot,” applies. “Nobody goes anywhere alone,” is another basic rule. Pairs cover one another as they explore or protect the College boffins as they investigate things man was not intended to fiddle about with. A team may move through an area in bounds, with some elements static while others are on the move. Guard posts may be set up at key points, such as the entry to an area, and often snipers are used to provide security as others operate. Snipers do not operate alone; usually a sniper and his observer will suffice to provide mutual security, but a couple of additional personnel may be sent to protect them if necessary.
The sniper team will establish itself in a secure elevated spot, where it can observe the area. Fire support is a secondary role; the sniper’s observation skills are the team’s first line of defence. The sniper element’s first task is to sanitise its location, making sure it is not sitting on top of something nasty, and while one soldier is using a rifle scope or specialist spotting scope to make a minute examination of an area, the other will be watching all around for threats. The sniper team must also make sure it has a clear avenue of escape in case things go badly wrong.
It is rarely possible to put so many personnel into an area to make it safe for College agents to skip about from one interesting site to another, so movement must be carefully coordinated. With armed personnel at their backs and a sniper team up somewhere high, the specialists should be safe enough to do their thing… but ‘should’ is a dangerous word, and things can get hazardous fast when poking around ancient ruins on the far side of a gate. Personnel who become complacent may not live long enough to learn from their mistake.
A variant on the recon mission is a live specimen snatch. Under some circumstances, a damaged specimen will do, so expedients like shooting it in a non-lethal area a few times can be used to assist the capture. More commonly, it is necessary to bring in a specimen undamaged, and that can pose a challenge.
Less-lethal weapons, either of a general sort or something specific to the creature to be snatched, can be used in a capture, or perhaps a sorcerer might be able to use a geas or similar spell to gain compliance. Unless occult means make it simple, “bagging,” a specimen is normally done the same way as snatching a terror suspect; the target is attacked by surprise, bashed, drugged or otherwise made less able to resist, and then secured for transport. That tends to be much easier with human-sized creatures, but a team may have to snatch something big. If so, mechanical assistance is useful.
It is vital that the whole team does not fixate on the snatch operation. Some personnel need to protect the rest of the team from incoming threats, and even if less-lethal weapons are to be used, some team members should have lethal weapons ready in case things go south and a fast put-down is required.
Recovery of Personnel and Artefacts
Sometimes it is necessary to retrieve people and things that have been… misplaced. There are all manner of reasons why an object might end up in potentially hostile hands, and if that object happens to be the owner of a warrant card then utter stupidity cannot be ruled out.
Options vary depending on the circumstances. If the object or person is in the hands of a neutral or potentially friendly group, or a group so powerful that a direct challenge is a bad idea, then bargaining or purchase is one of the few viable options. If the opposition can be kept in the dark about the value of what they have, so much the better. Occasionally a potent artefact is stolen by someone who knows nothing about its powers but thinks it might fetch a few quid on the Internet. A bag of notes is a small price to pay for its return in most cases.
Where the new owner is unwilling to hand over the item, coercion can be used. Threats to kill loved ones are officially frowned upon but as an alternative to leaving something dangerous in unpleasant hands, such measures might be acceptable. Deals to perform a service in return for the object, although the stuff of most console adventure games, are not normally considered an option; the British government does not want its Special Forces operators rushing around the countryside doing the bidding of some crook with a hostage. There have been occasions where there was no alternative, however.
A stealthy snatch operation is always a viable option, using covert means to grab the item and then depart swiftly. In the event that a covert snatch is discovered, or if it is not an option, then a direct assault may be the only option. This does risk accidental damage to the artefact or hostage, but if the need is great enough then deliberate elimination may be acceptable to avoid hostiles getting access to the item or whatever the hostage knows.
The general rule is that stealth and surprise are the best options, and once a recovery operation goes, “loud,” then it needs to be fast and violent. Flashbangs and similar distraction devices are only useful if they are followed into the room by armed people intent on violence. The aim, as with most rescue operations, will be to prevent the opposition making any coherent response and to overwhelm what opposition does materialise by a combination of speed and firepower.
A recovery operation can be broken into three main phases: approach, snatch and escape. The approach should be stealthy if possible, sudden and fast if not. The team may have to wait for a long period until the circumstances are right, and must be ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Once the prize has been secured then the goal is to get it to safety, not necessarily to eliminate all of the opposition. Depending on what is at stake a military team may have to forgo a golden opportunity to take out a whole lot of bad guys in order to save some geek from the Laundry, but if those are the orders then they must be followed. The geek may be more important to the big picture than the opposition; though occasionally a rescue or recovery does suffer ‘mission creep’ or the team realises that they have to deal with something else important right now.
Escape is always part of the plan; possibly the most important part. Some elements of the recovery team may be assigned to cover the extraction route or to protect a safe house. Escape can be slow and covert or might be a crazy dash through enemy territory; the team will have to decide whether to make a break for it or to hold up and wait for the search to die down. Sometimes the extraction actually goes according to plan, which is always a nice surprise.
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Hygiene & Logistics
Once Operations save the world, again, from a looming esoteric threat, the thankless task of clean-up begins. Hygiene & Logistics don’t get a shining knight with a seat at the Round Table to head their work, making do with a mundane Civil Service Director grade position.
This department handles procurement, storage and provision of material resources for Operations teams, as well as, “disappearing the bodies,” in the aftermath of a field mission. Operations teams that accomplish their goals with minimum post-action intervention from, “the Cleaners,” are much lauded, “below decks”. If a team regularly leans on H&L to cover up their ham-fisted approach, they can expect some drunken abuse at the staff Christmas party as an absolute minimum.
The College
Teaching
Defence Against the Dark Module
The Invisible College provides comprehensive training and education schemes in topics ranging from ordinary degrees in Pre-Human Civilisations and Hermetic Philosophy to post-graduate qualifications in Computational Demonology and Higher Order Mathematics (Transdimensional). More recently, there has been a requirement to deliver more practical qualifications to internal teams and NVQs are now available in fields such as Warded Construction, Summoning Circuitry and Thaumic Dissipation (Drains).
Note that all of these courses first require a student to be, “read in,” to relevant case files or occult secrets. Getting the clearance in the first place is often the most significant hurdle in gaining access to the, frankly terrifying, amount of expertise available in the hallowed halls of the College.
Research and Prognostication
This whole department is rumoured to be hosted in either a space so well warded it is undetectable, or another pocket dimension entirely. Apparently, the Hertfordshire Hailstorm of 1697 was the final straw of experiments that escaped the labs.
Library
The Library is concerned with books, sources of documented knowledge. This may include scrolls, logs, field reports and tomes of occult knowledge. The, “books,” themselves are seldom inherently magical or ontonic, which would put them in the domain of the Archivists.
The College Library is subterranean, extensive and labyrinthine. No-one is allowed unaccompanied access to the dusty shelves here, and an Excalibur unit is one permanent guard. Unknown to most, the Library provides access to the Tenet of Indeterminate Philosophy’s Stacks and therefore, other Branes.
Archives
Where the Library is concerned with books (and scrolls and suchlike), the Archives are concerned with Artefacts.
These are similar to Ontonic Objects in their operations and may include manifestations of cross-reality Ontons such as The Book, The Sword, The Coin and The Bell. The Crown is used elsewhere within the Invisible College.
Lifers
Someone who has stumbled in to the, “things man was not meant to know,” and been deemed either useful or too dangerous to be administered amnestics and released, “back in to the wild,” will be read in to Section III of the Official Secrets Act and given a lifetime position within the Invisible College. Often, these positions are administrative and bureaucratic sinecures, a position designed to keep the person out of harm’s way, but close to hand should they be required. The Oath (actually a Geas required as part of OSA Sect. III prevents the new employee from engaging further with supernatural or sorcerous activities and, by and large, can expect a day in, day out job very much in line with any other junior civil servant in the intelligence services.
Known Agents
Emma
Emma
Emma Is A Fearless Protector Who Needs No Weapon
Name is subject to change.
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Hamish O’Bomination
Hamish O'Bomination
Hamish O’Bomination Is A Likeable Elocutionist Who Solves Mysteries
Sometimes we bargain with people outside the EU
This is definitely not his real name.
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Jess Drayton
Jess Drayton
Jess Drayton Is A No-Nonsense Investigator Who Explores Dark Places
Marine Biologist. Probable contacts with BLUE HADES.
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Marc Marceau
Marc Marceau
M Is A Superstitious Elocutionist Who Moves Like A Cat
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Prof. Lily Golightly
Prof. Lily Golightly
Prof. Lily Golightly is a Scholarly Investigator Who Would Rather Be Reading
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Ray
Ray Winstone
Ray Winstone Is A Ruthless Protector Who Does A Bit Of This And That.
NB
This name is plainly an alias. Mostly just goes by, “Ray”. It is generally considered that any additional names are probably not, “Of Sunshine”.
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Scott Taylor
Scott Taylor
Scott Taylor Is A Cynical Protector Who Learns Quickly
He is also over six feet in high and has a tendency to loom. Plays as a forward in rugby.
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Vi
Vi
Vi Is An Inquisitive Occultist Who Infiltrates
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Case Files
BLUE LILY
BLUE LILY
This report is classified BLUE LILY REDSHIFT. If you do not have BLUE LILY REDSHIFT clearance, do not read this document.
17th January, 1983
Final Report to the Board
In 1974, I was approached to lead a research team under PROJECT BLUE LILY to investigate the possibility of using experimental in-vitro techniques to hybridise mammals with biologically morphic exonomes. The in vivo creation of hybrids had been confirmed (Armitage, Rice, Morgan, 1934) although not under laboratory conditions. A secure laboratory was constructed in Kirkcudbright and work began in 1976.
Bovine egg cells were used as the primary biological component in initial experiments. Unfertilised egg cells were placed in a Class III summoning grid. Lines One to Seven used an n-dimensional transform through the Gate of Ma’at and while fertilisation rates of 0.146 were achieved, none of the blastocysts survived past Day Four before undergoing spontaneous reality failure. For Line Eight, the Prayer of Aten-Umet was invoked under an entropy co-efficient of 0.788 and a fertilisation rate of 0.65 was achieved. Of the Line Eight samples, 16 survived past Day Four and of these, five continued to thrive.
(At this time, I wish to enter a personal note into the record and wholly deny the allegations made during the meeting of 19th December last year – at no time were human egg cells used in experimentation. While proposals to do so were indeed lodged with the Board and with the ethics committee in 1979, the incident occurred before the move to human testing.)
On 14th March, 1981, we began Line Nine, which again used the Prayer of Aten-Umet under low-entropy conditions. The grid was brought to full power at approximately 1530 hours; within 30 seconds of invocation, the containment wards failed and the reality excursion began.
Of the 16 staff members on-site that day, only four survived the initial breach. We attempted to seal the breach by cutting power to the invocation chamber, but the summoning grid was now drawing energy from a low-tau universe and was effectively self-powered. Fortunately, the reality breach was contained to the research laboratory itself, allowing us to alert the support staff at Kirkcudbright.
The breach was sealed 14 hours after opening (and I must again acknowledge the sacrifice of UNIT BRAVO) and the laboratory was thoroughly investigated and cleansed by Hygiene & Logisitics teams. All viable samples are believed destroyed1.
With the majority of the staff dead and all research material destroyed, PROJECT BLUE LILY was irreparably damaged. While it is certainly possibly to recreate our results and even conceivable that a hybridised embryo could be brought to term in a suitable host, it is my professional recommendation that this line of inquiry be abandoned.
Please consider this letter to be notice of my resignation from the Invisible College, effective immediately. I submit to whatever geas-compulsion or other precautions the Round Table feels necessary to maintain my silence in this matter.
R.G. Edwards.
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Not confirmed. ↩
GABLE WINDOW
GABLE WINDOW
In-Game Date
1995-08-02
RL Date
2025-04-18
Agents
Handler
Related Casefiles
BLUE LILY
Briefing Notes
This report is classified GABLE WINDOW. If you do not have GABLE WINDOW clearance, do not read this document.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Entropic occlusion (ENTOCC) is a form of occult stealth technology utilised by both human and non-human hostiles. Through local manipulation of entropy, it is possible to render a target invisible to vislight and IR observers, in a similar fashion to non-occult cloaking using metamaterials. While most implementations of ENTOCC leave a noticeable distortion field, a sufficiently precise distortion of local conditions can result in, “perfect,” invisibility, providing an insurmountable tactical advantage in the occult battlespace.
A Tillinghast resonator or similar detector can move ENTOCC targets into the visible spectrum, but the range of such detectors is severely limited (<100 metres). Furthermore, integration of Tillinghast-type detectors with self-guided munitions has proved notoriously difficult (see YELLOW ARCHER). Tillinghast technology is hence unsuitable for large-scale battlefield deployment as may be required under certain near-future scenarios involving open conflict with ENTOCC hostiles.
Another counter for ENTOCC is an alchemical compound referred to as IG, derived from the powder of Ibn-Ghazi (Al-Hazred). When agitated, IG granules produce an entropic distortion that temporarily unravels ENTOCC within the power cloud. IG loses its potency within a short period; traditional deployment of IG was with a hand-pumped sprayer or aerosol. For IG to be tactically viable, a wider dispersal method is required.
BATTLESPACE DEPLOYMENT OF IG CLOUDS
Refinements to the IG formula produced a longer-lasting variant, IG7. GABLE WINDOW utilises a refitted CRV7 delivery system, replacing the warhead with a payload of three kilograms of IG7 wrapped around an airburst charge. GABLE WINDOW is designed to detonate at 250 metres above ground level, creating an effective IG7 cloud of up to 1.5 kilometres in radius. The IG7 remains airborne for up to five minutes before losing effectiveness, giving forces in the area the opportunity to target ENTOCC hostiles with conventional weapons including laser guided munitions. IG7 clouds do not significantly reduce visibility. Ground units within IG7 AOE are advised to take precautions against chemical weapons due to the toxic nature of the compound; see also standard warnings for operations within Tillinghast zones.
If GABLE WINDOW tests proceed as expected, then projections are to begin mass production of IG7 and deployment of CRV-7IG units by 2005.
Photographs
There is also a set of photos in the folder. They show a stretch of barren Scottish coastline beneath a hazy, silvery mist. There are several target objects (piles of oil drums or dummy tanks) highlighted – they are strangely distorted and weirdly coloured. The target objects are all equipped with Class Three Entropy Manipulation generators – they are invisible to the naked eye, but were revealed by the GABLE WINDOW airburst.
In the last photo, at the very edge of the silvery mist, there is something else. It has got the same discolouration and distortion as the target objects but it is definitely not a training dummy. The Tornado was turning away when the photo was taken so it is hard to make out details, but the thing definitely has tentacles. Lots of them. It is impossible to estimate the thing’s size, as it was half-in, half-out of the Ibn-Ghazi airburst, but it must be at least six feet long.
Report
Agents were contacted by telephone at approx. 0400 on 02-10-1995 and collected by high speed car (“blue light special”. Internal billing as appropriate). Transported to RAF Northolt and boarded a BAe 146 bound for Scotland. Agents were cleared for GABLE WINDOW and provided briefing notes. Inside the plane was a large, unsealed wooden crate containing the following items:
- Six sets of very large, wax-treated wet weather clothing, army green.
- A handheld GPS unit.
- A Tillinghast resonator.
- Torches and spare batteries.
- Four sachets of the powder of Ibn Ghazi.
- A field exorcism kit. Also included was a sealed bag which had tags to ensure it had not been previously opened. The bag was heavy, bulky and contained a box of some sort. It was stencil painted with: “WARNING: DO NOT OPEN WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION”. An additional note was attached, reading, “Ray; This means you”.
Landing in Prestwick, near Glasgow, Prof. Golightly’s Blackberry rang and Director Pringle enquired as to the enjoyability of the journey prior to confirming that his major concern was the last photo and that the team was to, “Have a poke around, and let me know the instant you find anything significant”.
After meeting their contact in the arrivals section, the indescribably Scottish Rennie, the team embarked in a rattly Landrover. At a brief pit stop to pick up some artery hardening breakfast from a lay-by food van, Rennie informed them he thought the whole thing was a waste of time and span them many a merry tale of the lloigor, “Spirits of the air,” and other, “Timorous beasties”. The team determined that Rennie was full of it as they continued south-west towards the Kircudbright Training Ground near Dumfries.
Passing a sign informing them that they were entering MoD property, they weren’t welcome, and they may encounter high speed ordnance that would have a brief and exciting encounter with unexpected visitors, Rennie turned down a dirt lane that soon became a track. The beauty of the Solway Firth somewhat offset the dreich weather as Rennie squelched the 4x4 to a stop near to the field depicted in the briefing photos. “Here we are,” muttered Rennie, with a dour look, “Naewhere”.
The team told Rennie, in no uncertain terms, that he was to remain in the vehicle while they conducted their investigation and set off to determine where the photograph of the tentacled horror had been taken. After more trigonometry than needs detailing, the team arrive on high ground with a good view of where the final photograph captured the tentacled horror. Binoclar inspection reveals churned up ground and tracks that demand closer inspection. Onwards! Agent Taylor’s tracking skills came to the fore: Whatever made these tracks was a single entity, but leaving hoofprints, paw prints, dragging like a snake or monopodial creature and, in some areas, the tracks petered out, not like a weight being lifted, but almost like the creature just… not being there. Weird.
At this stage, the Tillinghast resonator was deployed and the tracks were shown to be covered in a shifting purple/orange iridescence making following the tracks a lot easier. The tracks led over a low, stone wall which had been dissolved by what might have been an extremely strong acid down to two thirds of its original waist height. On the road beyond the wall was an old, use-worn, blue family car, complete with stick figure family of mum, dad, daughter and dog in the rear window. The monstrous trail passed nearby the car, but did not interact with it as it crossed another low stone wall to a sheep field.
Scouting the field by binoculars, they could see a pile of four sheep corpses, and all the remaining sheep huddling in a far corner of the field, clearly distressed. Closer investigation revealed the sheep corpses were sagging sacks of wool, skin and bone, entirely lacking in filling, however there did not appear to be any wounds upon the unfortunate creatures. Agent Vi, for reasons known only to herself, pondered bringing a sheep along with them. Meanwhile, Agent Drayton’s tracking skills determined that the monstrous tracks from this point on were heavier, more often like sheep hooves, and less inclined to just disappear. Somehow, more real.
The monster’s tracks led in to a small wood, parallel to faint track, which appeared to have been followed by the human occupants of the car. Agent Vi determined that there was also a ward in this area that would drive unwanted persons away, but that the team were not subject to its effects. Using dowsing rods assembled from a nearby hazel tree, it was determined that the source of this ward’s effects also lay within or beyond the woods.
As they neared the woods, the more perceptive of the team became aware of singing in a high register, possibly pipes? The teams’ protectors, Agent Taylor and Agent Winstone engaged stealth mode to reconnoitre the source of the sound which had resolved in to the sound of young girl’s voice singing what sounded like nursery rhymes. The two scouts saw a small, blonde girl, about six years of age, singing as she squished through the soggy loam of the woods, looking for, “Yog-Snuffles”. As she headed further in to the woods, Ray maintained the tail, while Scott Taylor, headed back to the team.
While Agent Taylor briefed the team on the, “creepy little girl,” situation, Ray lost sight of her in the woods for a time. Suddenly, Rennie appeared, screaming his Scottish lungs out and floating about three feet off the ground. With a hideous slurping, Rennie’s screams came to an abrupt halt as his innards were rapidly extracted and the remaining sack of bones was carelessly discarded in the mud. Ray hid behind a tree as the little girl wandered off with her, “invisible friend”.
Meanwhile, the team had heard the bloodcurdling scream and came upon the scene of Rennie’s demise. Once assured the, “timorous beastie,” had vacated the area they, true to their adventuring form, rummaged through Rennie’s pockets and retrieved his wallet, warrant card and Landie keys. His rabbit’s foot keyring was roundly mocked. Prof. Golightly noted a small, scalpel-like incision on the back of Rennie’s neck where his fluids and soft tissues had been extracted. The Tillinghast resonator goggles showed the whole area as, “touched by things of an extra-planar nature,” but the path left by the creature was clear.
Nothing terrible ever happens in abandoned bunkers
The team came upon the girl sat on a tree stump outside the opening to what appeared to be a WWII-era subterranean bunker. The open steel door was emblazoned with an Invisible College ward designed to drive off undesirables, which is what Vi had sensed earlier. Despite the whole area, and even the girl, being covered in the taint of elsewhere, she appeared to be pretty much a, “normal,” human girl of approximately six years old. She seemed quite happy to talk to the team and they gleaned the following information:
- Yog-Snuffles was her best friend and had been since eating her dog.
- He had been living in the shed at the bottom of the garden until becoming too big to fit.
- She couldn’t remember a time Yog-Snuffles wasn’t living in the shed.
- Her name was Emma Hume and she and her family lived in a nearby town/village.
- Yog-Snuffles was probably off looking for something to eat. He was always hungry. (Queue argument about bringing sheep)
- Her parents were in the bunker getting in touch with Yog-Snuffles’ daddy.
- Yog-Snuffles’ was going to come and stay with them and wipe the stain of humanity from the face of the earth.
A call was made to Director Pringle to inform him that, yes, there was definitely something rotten in the state of Denmark and he gave them clearance for BLUE LILY REDSHIFT and permission to open the sealed bag. Inside, the team found the PROJECT BLUE LILY document and a laser designator, as might be used to target artillery or missile strikes.
There was a sudden tremor in the earth beneath the feet of the team, culminating in a sudden, violent earthquake that caused a tree to fall and nearly flatten, Agent Drayton. It was only with the quick reflexes of Agent Winstone that a reduction in dimensions was avoided.
At this point, the team felt a terrible sense of dread that something was watching them. The Tillinghast resonator goggles revealed that Yog-Snuffles was squatting obscenely on top of the bunker, just… watching. Agent Taylor got some mind-blasting insight in to the nature of non-terrestrial organisms before the goggles, in an attempt at self-preservation, shorted out.
Prof. Golightly used some ninja skills to approach Yog-Snuffles unobserved, before covering the thing in powder of Ibn-Ghazi. The revelation of the horror’s true nature wreaked havoc upon the poor minds in the area and chaos ensued as people ran around, getting attacked by suckered pseudopods, battering the rubbery tentacles with tree branches or trying to blow capsicum powder in to eyes that have stared in to dimensions mankind was not meant to know (No, this doesn’t work). After some further shenanigans with stabby objects, the team found themselves inside the bunker, with a sturdy, steel door between them and toothed atrocity.
After short break to gird their loins and recoup some sanity, the team descended in to the depths of the bunker, passing by abandoned office space and research laboratories. The complex had all wiring and cabling stripped out. Unnatural fungus grew throughout and, in some places, the concrete was discoloured with a weird, purple tint and seemed to be crumbling like soft cake.
Bullet holes in the laboratory space drew some note, but the team were motivated to urgency by the rise and fall of chanting in human voices that grew steadily louder as the progressed and a brightening, red glow from up ahead. Passing by closed, heavy steel doors on either side of the corridor, their goal appeared to be similar door at the end of the corridor that hung ajar. It was from behind this door that the glow and voices came and the door itself seemed to have been pummeled and melted in places, great rents allowing the dancing nimbus to illuminate some way in to the corridor.
“Soon! Soon! The walls grow thin! I shall push from this side and the child from the other and the walls will break! I hunger! Be swift with the sacrifice!” an inhuman voice boomed from beyond the door.
Ray was the bold one who pressed their eye to a crack in the door to see what lay beyond: A summoning chamber, stripped of equipment and machinery, but obviously still of some use to… something. Writhing in the air above a chalk summoning circle, a bleeding gash in reality, provided a window into dimensions best left unexplored. A pair of human adults, male and female, presumably the Humes stared mindlessly in to the abyss, their mouths repeating a droning chant. Whether possessed, hypnotised or enchanted, it was clear they were no longer at home to Mr. Free Will.
“The door must be made from your side, minions! Widen the breach!” Beams of pink (?) light shot from the breach in to the eye sockets of the unfortunate Humes. The breach began to widen…
In rapid succession, Prof. Golightly and Vi determined that this summoning circle was acting as a focus of occult energies that were widening the rift and that destroying the circle should close the portal. It was with this confidence, that Agent Drayton began a run up to the door and the team hauled the door open at the last possible instance to allow Jess Drayton to slide across the summoning chamber’s floor.
“Intruders! Invisibles! I know you of old! You shall suffer greatly when the Earth is cleared and we of the Aklo Saboath rule where we once ruled! Our hand is at your throat, though you see it not! Well, more of a tentacle really, than a hand! Graagh!” Everything seemed to happen at once. Yog-Snuffles resumed its attempts to smash its way into the bunker. Thunder boomed overhead and the air crackled as reality crumbled.
Agent Drayton’s slide broke through the lines of the chalk circle and the glowing portal snapped shut, the Humes’ bodies dropping like marionettes with their strings cut. The team had shut of their torches for their assault and, with the portal closed, everything was now in pitch darkness. The pounding of Yog-Snuffles also ceased abruptly, leaving an eerie quiet. As torches came on, and vision was restored, the Humes were found to have had their throats cut. I’m not saying it was Ray, but it was Ray.
Once outside, the team didn’t rest on their laurels, wanting to track down Yog-Snuffles before it got up to more mischief. While the creature itself was invisible, its angry passage through the woods was not and led directly towards a hillside free of trees. The team moved closer, to see an all too familiar crimson glow at the crest of the hill, where Emma was transfixed by pink light streaming from beyond.
Prof. Golightly called it in. Informing Director Pringle that they had a fire mission for the nearby Dundrennan Firing Range, Scott Taylor carefully aimed the laser designator at the ground at the crest of the hill, carefully trying not to alert either child that they were being targeted. Within minutes, the hilltop disappeared in a storm of high explosive artillery shells, turning the convex crown in to a concave caldera. When the smoke cleared, the team approached to confirm there was no trace of unearthly flesh remaining, merely the ruined remains of a previously buried megalithic structure, now turned to gravel…
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