Written by sardonicus

Unearth the Mysteries of 1920s Wales in Cthulhu

CALL OF CTHULHU: SHADOWS OVER THE DRAGON’S LAND

A Sourcebook for 1920s Wales

Introduction: The Oldest People

  • Welcome to Cymru: A brief overview of Wales in the 1920s, A land of stark contrasts between natural beauty and industrial blight, between the ancient Welsh language and modern English influence, and between deep-seated nonconformist faith and older, darker beliefs.
  • The Two Veils: Wales is a place where two veils are thin: one between the past and present, and another between our world and the world of the Mythos. The ancient stones don’t just remember the past; they are a part of it.

Chapter 1: The Lay of the Land (Social & Historical Overview)

This chapter provides players and Keepers with the essential historical and social backdrop.

  • A People Apart: The survival of the Welsh language, the legacy of the Princes, and the cultural resistance to English rule.
  • The Two Economies:
    • The Industrial South: The coal-rich Valleys, steelworks of Port Talbot, and docks of Cardiff and Swansea. Life in a mining village: the camaraderie, the poverty, the ever-present danger, and the rising political tension (socialism, unions, the 1926 General Strike).
    • The Rural Heart: The agricultural life of the north and west, hill farming, and the enduring importance of the cantref (hundred) and community.
  • Society & Religion: The profound influence of Chapel culture (Methodism, Baptism) and its strict social codes. The contrast with older, folk-religious practices.
  • Language as a Key: The importance of the Welsh language. Many of the oldest secrets are hidden in Welsh texts, poems, and spoken tales. Investigators who don’t speak Welsh will be at a significant disadvantage.
  • A Gazetteer of the 1920s: A region-by-region breakdown:
    • Glamorgan & The Valleys (Industrial heartland, cosmopolitan Cardiff)
    • Gwynedd & Snowdonia (Rugged mountains, ancient kingdoms)
    • Dyfed & The West (The “Land of Saints,” coastal villages, Preseli Hills)
    • Powys & The Marches (Border country, rolling hills, castles)

Chapter 2: The Folklore of the Blood (Welsh Myth & Legend)

This chapter details the “public-facing” folklore that Investigators can research, which often holds hidden Mythos truths.

  • The Mabinogion Re-examined: Presenting the core tales (The Four Branches) not as simple myths, but as distorted histories and warnings.
    • Bran the Blessed: A Great Old One slumbering beneath the land, his head buried under the White Hill (Tower of London) as a ward against a greater evil.
    • Arawn, Lord of Annwn: Not the Celtic god of the underworld, but a powerful, neutral entity of the Dreamlands.
    • The Cauldron of Rebirth: A prototypical, flawed cloning or reanimation device of extraterrestrial origin.
  • The Welsh Fairy Faith: The Tylwyth Teg (Fair Folk). They are not cute sprites, but dangerous, amoral dimensional shamblers or a servitor race. Their aversion to iron is a vulnerability implanted by an ancient enemy.
  • Giants & Monsters: The Afanc (lake monster) as a degenerate, aquatic servitor. The Ceffyl Dŵr (water horse) as a shapeshifting predator.
  • The Red Dragon (Y Ddraig Goch): A symbolic representation of an ancient, benevolent (or at least territorial) cosmic entity locked in perpetual struggle with the White Dragon (a symbol of cosmic entropy or a specific Outer God like Hastur).

Chapter 3: The Machenian Thread (Welsh Weird Fiction)

This chapter deals with the themes and specific works of Arthur Machen and other Welsh writers into CoC mechanics.

  • The Great God Pan is Not Dead: Interpreting Machen’s most famous story. Pan is not a Greek god, but a name for a formless, reality-shattering horror from beyond. The “Black Seals” are a literal ritual for glimpsing this truth. New spells and artifacts based on his works.
  • The Little People: Presenting Machen’s concept of primal, savage “fairies” as a degenerate, cannibalistic humanoid species living in the hills, a lingering threat from a forgotten age.
  • The Shining Pyramid & The White Powder: The pyramid as a symbol of cosmic geometry. The white powder as an alchemical substance that doesn’t just enhance vision, but temporarily displaces the user’s consciousness into a higher dimension, with dire consequences.
  • The Angels of Mons: A scenario hook where the famous “divine intervention” was in fact a mass hallucination caused by a sensitive individual, or the summoning of something far less holy to terrify the German lines.
  • Other Welsh Voices: Brief looks at the weird tales of others like Arthur Conan Doyle (though Scottish, his interest in the supernatural is relevant) and later writers, showing a tradition of unease.

Chapter 4: The Mythos Beneath the Stones

This chapter reveals the secret truths behind the folklore.

  • The Ancient Ones: Pre-Celtic Wales: The idea that the earliest inhabitants (or non-human inhabitants) of Wales worshipped entities that would become the Celtic gods and fairy folk.
  • Mythos Deities with a Welsh Face:
    • Shub-Niggurath: Re-imagined as The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, easily syncretized with pagan horned gods and fears of the wild.
    • Hastur: The King in Yellow finds a home in the misty, lonely mountains. The play is performed by decadent aristocrats in crumbling castles.
    • Yog-Sothoth: The “Key and the Gate” is associated with the many Neolithic dolmens and stone circles (like Bryn Celli Ddu), which are literal gates.
    • Nyarlathotep: The Crawling Chaos thrives here, appearing as a charismatic union leader, a traveling preacher, or a London bureaucrat, always pushing things towards chaos.
  • Welsh-specific Tomes:
    • The Black Book of Caerleon (A distorted version of the Necronomicon translated into medieval Welsh).
    • The Verses of Iolo Goch (The works of the famous bard, containing encrypted Mythos lore).
  • New Monsters & Servitor Races:
    • The Gwrach-y-Rhibyn: A prophet of death, but in truth a minor Mythos entity that feeds on fear.
    • The Cŵn Annwn: The Hounds of Annwn, not guides for souls, but spectral hunters for a Great Old One.
    • The Corpse-Light (Canwyll Corff): A will-o’-the-wisp that doesn’t just lead travelers astray, but drains SAN.

Chapter 5: Investigators in the Land of the Dragon

Character creation and new rules for 1920s Welsh Investigators.

  • New and Adapted Occupations: Coal Miner, Chapel Minister, Hill Farmer, University Academic (from Aberystwyth or Bangor), Eisteddfod Bard, Quarryman, Valleys Union Organizer.
  • Skills: Emphasis on Spot Hidden, Listen, Navigate, Occult, History, Archaeology, Science (Geology), and the new Welsh Language skill.
  • The Sanity Cost of Place: Rules for the oppressive atmosphere of the deep valleys, the isolating vastness of the mountains, and the claustrophobic darkness of the mines. The contrast between sublime beauty and industrial horror as a source of madness.
  • Equipment: Period-specific items, from a miner’s pick to a preacher’s bible.

Chapter 6: Scenarios and Scenario Seeds

  • The White Lady of Caerphilly: A scenario involving a ghostly apparition in a castle that is actually a temporal echo of a Mythos ritual gone wrong.
  • Beneath the Slag Heaps: A mining company in the Rhondda Valley has broken into a vast, subterranean cavern system, awakening the “Little People” (degenerate, cannibalistic humanoids).
  • The Singing Stones of Preseli: Investigators are hired to retrieve a bluestone from a local collector, only to find the stones themselves are a focusing array for a powerful entity (tying into the Stonehenge mystery).
  • The Yellow Sign in Llandudno: The elegant seaside resort is being used as a base for a cult of Hastur, using the holidaymakers as unwitting participants in a grand, theatrical summoning.
  • The Dragon’s Wake: The red dragon on the flag isn’t just a symbol; it’s a sleeping entity. A rival cult is trying to awaken the “White Dragon” beneath England to destroy it, which would devastate both countries.

Appendix

  • Glossary of Welsh Terms: A guide to pronunciation and meaning.
  • Keeper’s Handouts: Maps of regions and towns, newspaper clippings from the Western Mail, pages from fictional Welsh grimoires.
  • A Who’s Who of 1920s Wales: Notable historical figures who could be patrons, allies, or enemies.
  • Bibliography: For further reading on Welsh history, folklore, and the works of Arthur Machen.

Introduction: The Oldest People

“The oldest people in every country, as we know, have their own stories, and in Wales we have a store of them, and some believe them to be true.”
— A Welsh Witch, 1888

Welcome, Investigator, to a land where the mist does not merely obscure, but conceals. A land where the rain whispers secrets in a language you have likely forgotten, and the bones of the earth protrude through the thin soil in great, dolmen-stone tables. This is Cymru—Wales—in the 1920s. It is a nation of profound and jarring contrasts, a place where the veil between what is known and what must not be known is worn perilously thin.

You will find two different Wales’ vying for the same soul.

One is the Wales of the postcard: a rural tapestry of emerald valleys, soaring mountain peaks, and rugged coastlines hammered by the Irish Sea. Here, the ancient tongue of the Britons is still spoken in hearth and chapel. The past is not a distant memory but a persistent presence. The lone shepherd on the slopes of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) walks the same paths as the Bronze Age herder; the fisherman launching his coracle onto the River Teifi uses a design unchanged for millennia. The standing stones at Bryn Celli Ddu and the hillforts of the Iron Age chieftains are not mere ruins for the antiquarian. They are landmarks, territorial markers, and, some whisper, doors. This is a land steeped in the lore of the Mabinogion, of King Arthur, of the Tylwyth Teg—the Fair Folk who are anything but fair.

The other Wales is one of industry and iron. To the south, the Valleys pulse with the grim rhythm of the coal mines. The sky is stained orange by the furnace fires of the steelworks, and the very air is thick with soot and the promise of a wage. Cities like Cardiff and Swansea are booming, cosmopolitan ports of the British Empire, flush with new money and new ideas. Here, the past is something to be mined, processed, and sold. The deep, dark shafts that plunge into the earth do not seek ancient secrets—they seek black gold. But sometimes, they break through into places that were never meant to be found.

It is in the tension between these two worlds that our horror grows.

The Two Veils

This sourcebook operates on a central premise: in Wales, there are not one, but two veils that are dangerously permeable.

The first is the veil of Time. The Welsh are famously hiraeth—a deep, inconsolable longing for a home, a past, a feeling that is gone. But in Wales, the past is not entirely gone. The stones remember. The tracks worn into the hillsides are not just sheep trails. The echoes in the caverns are not just dripping water. The legends of giants, dragons, and underworld kings are not mere fairy tales. They are folk memories, distorted and hazy, of genuine encounters with forces beyond human comprehension. To study Welsh folklore is not to study fiction; it is to study a corrupted and fragmented history of the Mythos.

The second, more terrifying veil is the one between Worlds. The serene beauty of a misty glen in the Elan Valley, the crushing silence at the heart of a slate quarry, the oppressive darkness at the coal face a mile underground—these are not just atmospheric conditions. They are thresholds. The quiet is not an absence of sound, but a presence. The shadows in the corner of your eye do not dance; they watch. The genius of native writers like Arthur Machen was his understanding that the cosmic and the horrific were not in some distant galaxy, but here, pressing in upon the familiar lanes and hillsides. The “Little People” of his stories are not pixies; they are primal, degenerate things that have never left the hidden places. The “Great God Pan” is not a rustic deity, but a name for the formless, soul-shattering truth of the universe.

How to Use This Book

Call of Cthulhu: Shadows Over the Dragon’s Land is designed to provide players and Keepers with everything needed to run campaigns and scenarios steeped in the unique terrors of 1920s Wales.

  • For Keepers: The following chapters will provide you with the social history, folklore, and secret Mythos truths to build a compelling and authentic setting. We have done the work of weaving the Cthulhu Mythos into the very fabric of Welsh soil, giving you a rich tapestry of monsters, cults, and cosmic horrors that feel inherently Welsh. Use the gazetteer, the scenario seeds, and the deep lore to create a sense of creeping dread that feels as ancient and inescapable as the land itself.
  • For Players: Read on to understand the world your Investigator inhabits. The knowledge that the Welsh language may be the key to unlocking an ancient secret, or that a seemingly superstitious grandmother’s warning is based on very real and very dangerous truths, could mean the difference between life and a fate worse than death. Consider creating characters with local ties; their personal hiraeth for a home threatened by the Mythos will make the horror profoundly personal.
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Prepare yourself. You are about to step into a landscape where every ruined castle has a story it should not tell, where every folktale is a warning, and where the song of the nation—a land of poets and singers—may yet prove to be a hymn to something that slumbers uneasily beneath the dragon’s hills.

Chapter 1: The Lay of the Land (Social & Historical Overview)

“To be born in Wales,
Not with a silver spoon in your mouth,
But, with music in your blood
And with poetry in your soul,
Is a privilege indeed.”
— Brian Harris

To understand the horrors that fester in the shadowed valleys and ancient hills of Wales, one must first understand its people and their recent past. The 1920s is a decade of profound tension, a period where a proud, ancient culture collides with the grim realities of a modern, industrial world in decline. This friction creates fissures—and it is through such fissures that things from the darkness can emerge.

A People Apart: The Weight of History

The Welsh identity is forged in resistance. The memory of the last native Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, killed in 1282, is not a dusty historical footnote but a living wound in the national psyche. For centuries, the Welsh language, culture, and laws were suppressed by the English crown. The iconic castles that dot the landscape—Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech—are not just tourist attractions; they are symbols of military subjugation, stark reminders of English power.

This history has bred a deep-seated cultural pride and a suspicion of outsiders, particularly English authority figures. An Investigator from London will be met with polite but firm resistance; a “Sais” (English person) is tolerated, but rarely trusted. This makes local contacts and the ability to speak even a few words of Welsh invaluable. The true soul of Wales is not found in the town halls or police stations, but in the chapel vestry, the pub snug, and the farmhouse kitchen.

The Two Economies: A Nation Divided

Wales in the 1920s is a tale of two fundamentally different worlds.

The Industrial South: King Coal’s Ailing Realm
The southern valleys—Rhondda, Cynon, Taff—are the pulsing, grimy engine of Wales. Here, the economy is built on coal. For decades, the mines have drawn people from rural Wales, Ireland, and beyond, creating densely packed, vibrant communities where the chapels and trade unions hold equal sway.

  • Life in the Valleys: Terraced houses cling to the steep valley sides, perpetually shrouded in a haze of coal dust. The air rattles with the sound of the winding gear lowering men deep into the earth. The community is tight-knit, built on shared danger and hardship. The ever-present threat of explosion, collapse, or silicosis (known locally as “the dust”) is a mundane fact of life.
  • Political Unrest: The post-war boom has collapsed. Wages are being cut, and unemployment is rising. This ferment produces a fierce, radical politics. Socialism and Trade Unionism are not abstract ideas but necessities for survival. The crescendo of this tension will be the General Strike of 1926, a traumatic, nationwide event that feels like a class war in the Valleys. For Investigators, this unrest is a perfect smokescreen for cult activity—a missing person might be written off as a strike-breaker who came to a bad end, and strange gatherings could be mistaken for union meetings.
  • The Cosmopolitan Coast: Cardiff, with its magnificent civic centre and sprawling docks, is the “coal metropolis of the world.” It is a wealthy, diverse port city where one can hear a dozen languages on the streets. It is a place of opportunity, home to a growing middle class, but also a place of stark inequality and organised crime. It is the gateway to the world, for both commerce and things best left unimported.

The Rural Heart: The Old Ways Endure
North and West Wales present a different reality. This is a land of small, scattered farms, fishing villages, and market towns. Life is dictated by the seasons, the weather, and the land.

  • A Timeless Rhythm: The primary language is Welsh. The culture is rooted in nonconformist religion, poetry (the Eisteddfod is a major cultural event), and a deep, almost mystical connection to the landscape. Time moves slower here, and strangers are more noticeable.
  • The Great Estates: Much of the land is owned by wealthy absentee landlords, often English aristocrats. This creates a simmering resentment and a sense that the land itself is occupied. An Investigator might find a more receptive audience among the tenant farmers than with the local gentry in their manor house.
  • The Shadow of Industry: The great slate quarries of Gwynedd, like those at Blaenau Ffestiniog, are the industrial heart of the north. The conditions are as brutal as in the coal mines, and the landscape is scarred by vast tips of grey waste. The quarrymen, like the miners, are a tough, proud, and closely bonded community.

Society & Religion: Chapel, Crown, and Community

  • The Chapel: The Methodist, Baptist, and other Nonconformist chapels are the undisputed moral and social centres of Welsh life, especially in the industrial south and rural west. Chapel elders wield immense influence. The culture is one of temperance, hard work, and respectability. Sin is not an abstract concept but a daily concern. This creates a potent source of both solace and terror. A strange occurrence might be decried as the devil’s work, providing a ready-made (if misguided) explanation. Conversely, a cult could easily disguise itself as an ultra-strict, new religious sect, its bizarre practices hidden behind a veil of pious fervour.
  • The Anglican Church: The “Church of England in Wales” was disestablished in 1920, losing its privileged status. It is often associated with the English landowning class and holds less sway with the common people than the chapels.
  • The Old Faith: Beneath the layer of Chapel piety lies a much older stratum of belief. Folk magic, charms, and superstitions persist, particularly in the rural areas. The belief in the Tylwyth Teg (Fair Folk), curses, and omens is still strong among the older generation. These are not quaint holdovers; they are the shattered remnants of a worldview that understood the dangers of the land and knew how to appease them.

Language as a Key

The Welsh language (Cymraeg) is not just a mode of communication; it is a barrier and a treasure chest. Over 90% of the population in counties like Caernarfonshire and Anglesey speak Welsh in the 1920s.

  • An Investigator who does not speak Welsh will be permanently locked out of crucial conversations, overheard gossip, and ancient texts. They will be an outsider, forever on the periphery.
  • The most potent secrets of the Welsh Mythos are hidden in untranslated poems, medieval Welsh manuscripts, and the oral traditions of the cyfarwydd (storyteller). A bardic verse might contain the ritual to bind a monster; a lullaby might hold the directions to a forgotten stone circle. The Welsh Language skill is not a flavour option here; it is a vital tool for survival.

A Gazetteer of the 1920s

Glamorgan & The Valleys (The Industrial Heartland)

  • Cardiff: The bustling capital. A place of contrasts: grand civic buildings vs. squalid Tiger Bay slums; wealthy ship-owners vs. destitute dockers. The National Museum of Wales is a hub for scholarly Investigators.
  • The Valleys (Rhondda, Merthyr, etc.): A labyrinth of steep-sided valleys, each with its own character. A claustrophobic, intense environment where everyone knows everyone else’s business—and strangers are immediately spotted. The perfect setting for isolated communities hiding terrible secrets.
  • Swansea: A major port and industrial centre, “Copperopolis” to the world. The air is acrid with the smell of sulphur from the smelting works.

Gwynedd & Snowdonia (The Mountain Kingdom)

  • Caernarfon: The site of Edward I’s magnificent castle, a symbol of English power. A stronghold of the Welsh language and culture.
  • Snowdonia (Eryri): A vast, breathtaking, and treacherous wilderness of mountain peaks, hidden lakes, and deep caves. It is easy to get lost, and easier still to stumble upon things that should have remained hidden. The perfect lair for primordial entities.
  • Blaenau Ffestiniog: A town dominated by the slate quarries. The landscape is apocalyptic, with mountains of waste rock. The underground caverns are immense and unnerving, like man-made underworlds.

Dyfed & The West (The Land of Saints)

  • St. Davids: Britain’s smallest city, centred around its ancient cathedral. A place of immense Christian heritage, which may have been built to suppress a far older, darker power spot.
  • The Preseli Hills: The source of the bluestones of Stonehenge. These rolling, windswept hills are dotted with ancient burial chambers and stone circles, humming with latent power.
  • Cardigan Bay: A rugged coastline of small fishing villages and treacherous tides. Legends of sunken kingdoms (Cantre’r Gwaelod) here feel less like myth and more like forgotten history.

Powys & The Marches (The Borderlands)

  • The Welsh Marches: The border country with England is a liminal space, neither fully Welsh nor English. It is a land of ruined castles, misty river valleys, and old rivalries. The folk here are often bilingual and pragmatic, their loyalties divided.
  • The Elan Valley: A stunning landscape of hills and artificially created reservoirs, built to supply water to Birmingham. The drowning of valleys and villages to serve an English city created deep resentment. The newly formed, deep, cold lakes hide what was left behind.

Chapter 2: The Folklore of the Blood (Welsh Myth & Legend)

“A nation without a language is a nation without a heart.”
— old Welsh proverb

The folklore of Wales is not a collection of charming fairy tales for children. It is the deep, cultural memory of a people who have lived in a landscape of stark beauty and hidden danger for millennia. These stories are the “public record”—the sanitised, mythologised version of encounters with forces too terrible to comprehend directly. For the Investigator, understanding Welsh folklore is not an academic exercise; it is learning to read a coded survival guide. The monster in the lake, the fairy ring on the hill, the king under the mountain—these are all warnings.

The Mabinogion Re-examined: A Mythos Primer

The Four Branches of the Mabinogi form the core of Welsh mythology. To the scholar, they are intricate tales of heroes, magic, and tragedy. To the student of the Mythos, they are a chronicle of cosmic interference and desperate survival.

  • Bran the Blessed: The Sleeping Ward
    • The Myth: A giant-king of Britain whose severed head was buried under the White Hill in London as a talisman to protect the island from invasion.
    • The Mythos Truth: Bran was not a man, but a Great Old One or a uniquely powerful Star-Spawn of Cthulhu who entered a pact with the earliest inhabitants of Britain. In its slumbering state, its psychic presence creates a “Ward of Bran” over the land, suppressing the activity of other, more destructive cosmic entities. Its physical form is not a skeleton, but a vast, alien body buried deep beneath the Snowdonia range. The “head” in London is merely a focusing node, a ritual object of power.
    • The Danger: The Ward is not infallible. It weakens at certain stellar alignments, and its influence is spotty in places where the earthly veil is thin. Furthermore, if the head were ever disinterred, the Ward would fall, and Britain would be plunged into a chaos of unopposed Mythos activity. Cults dedicated to “freeing” the land (knowingly or not) might seek to do exactly this.
  • Arawn, Lord of Annwn: The Master of Transitions
    • The Myth: The noble and just king of Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld or underworld.
  • The Mythos Truth: Arawn is not a god of the dead. He is a powerful, neutral Dreamlands Entity or a being who governs a parallel dimension that overlaps with our own in specific, liminal places—ancient burial mounds (tumuli), certain fog-shrouded valleys, and the moments between sunset and full dark. Annwn is not a place of punishment, but a reality with different physical laws.
  • The Danger: Travel to Annwn is possible but perilous. Time flows differently, and the landscape is mutable. Arawn himself is not evil, but he is possessive of his domain and his hunting hounds, the Cŵn Annwn. Those who trespass or break a pact with him (as Pwyll did) may find themselves trapped, hunted, or mentally unmoored from their own reality. He is a force of nature, not to be worshipped, but to be negotiated with at great cost.
  • The Cauldron of Rebirth: The Prototype
    • The Myth: A magical cauldron owned by the giant Brân, which can resurrect the dead (though they return mute).
    • The Mythos Truth: The Cauldron is not magical. It is a piece of Hyperborean or Mi-Go technology, a crude biological regeneration tank. The “resurrection” it performs is a flawed process that reanimates the body’s cellular structure but cannot fully restore the consciousness or soul (the “speech”). Those revived by the Cauldron are returned with a permanent, debilitating connection to the Mythos, their minds shattered by what they have experienced beyond death. They are, in effect, Reanimated Corpses with 0 POW and a single, driving purpose implanted by the Cauldron’s operator.
    • The Danger: The Cauldron may still exist, hidden in a barrow or lake. A cult seeking to create an army of mute, unkillable servants would covet it terribly. Using it costs the operator 1D10 SAN and requires a Cthulhu Mythos roll to operate correctly; failure creates a shambling, violent horror.
  • Blodeuwedd: The Betrayal of Form
    • The Myth: A woman created from the flowers of oak, broom, and meadowsweet to be a wife for Lleu Llaw Gyffes. She later betrays him and is transformed into an owl.
    • The Mythos Truth: Blodeuwedd was not a unique creation. She is an example of a Golem or Artificial Human fashioned by the sorcerer Gwydion using a deeply misunderstood botanical-alchemical science, possibly derived from the Fungus from Yuggoth. Her “betrayal” was the inevitable failure of this science—the emergence of her own will and the inherent instability of her composite form. Her transformation into an owl represents not a punishment, but her true, alien nature breaking through the human facade. She is a Shoggoth-like being trapped in a single, avian form, forever watching the world of men with cold, inhuman eyes.

The Welsh Fairy Faith: The Danger in the Details

The Tylwyth Teg (The Fair Family) are the most persistent and misunderstood element of Welsh folklore. They are not to be trifled with.

  • Their True Nature: They are Dimensional Shamblers or a species of Fae, a parallel race that shares our world. They are amoral, not malicious, viewing humans as children view insects—sometimes amusing, sometimes irritating, and sometimes suitable for collection.
  • Habits and Habitats: They are attracted to places of ancient power and geological strangeness: stone circles, lone standing stones, deep groves of oak, and the “fairy rings” of mushrooms that can appear overnight. They are most active at dusk and dawn, and during the festivals of Calan Gaeaf (the start of winter, when the veil is thinnest) and Calan Mai (the start of summer).
  • The Rules of Engagement: Folklore is rich with proscriptions that are, in fact, vital survival tips.
    • Iron: Their aversion to cold iron (especially wrought iron) is a genuine vulnerability, a psychic allergy imprinted on their race by an ancient conflict. Carrying an iron nail is a simple, effective ward.
    • Names: Giving them your name grants them a measure of power over you.
    • Food & Drink: Partaking of food or drink in their realm (which might be a glade that wasn’t there a moment ago) will bind you to it, making return to the human world difficult or impossible.
    • Gifts: Their gifts are always double-edged. Gold may turn to leaves by morning; a musical talent may come with a compulsion to play until your fingers bleed.
  • SAN Loss: A clear, unambiguous encounter with the Tylwyth Teg in their true, unnerving form—which is humanoid but with features that are just slightly off (elongated limbs, hollow eyes, sharp teeth)—costs 0/1D4 SAN.

Giants & Monsters: The Local Fauna

The Welsh landscape is populated by creatures that are clearly servitor races or degenerate offshoots of Mythos entities.

  • The Afanc: The Lake-Dweller
    • The Legend: A monstrous, crocodilian or beaver-like creature that dwells in a lake, causing floods and devouring anyone who comes too close.
    • The Truth: The Afanc is a Deep One hybrid or a unique, amphibious servitor race. It is not a single creature, but a species. Each major, deep lake in Wales (Llyn Tegid, Llyn y Fan Fach) may have its own Afanc, placed there as a guardian by an ancient cult or a powerful entity like a Star-Spawn. It is highly territorial and attacks boats, swimmers, and those who disturb the water with magic or ritual.
    • Statistics: Treat as a Deep One with the Ambush and Aquatic skills.
  • The Ceffyl Dŵr: The Lure
    • The Legend: A beautiful, spectral water horse that appears on riverbanks, tempting travellers to ride it before plunging into the depths to drown and devour them.
    • The Truth: The Ceffyl Dŵr is a shapeshifting, predatory entity related to the Hounds of Tindalos. It is a hunter from a fluid dimension, able to alter its form to appeal to its prey’s desires. It does not eat flesh, but feeds on the psychic energy of terror and despair released at the moment of drowning.
    • Statistics: Treat as a Byakhee with a focus on its shape-shifting and hypnotic abilities. A POW roll is required to resist its lure once sighted.
  • The Gwrach-y-Rhibyn: The Prophet of Death
    • The Legend: A hideous, hag-like creature who appears at night to the windows of those about to die, wailing their name in a mournful voice.
    • The Truth: The Gwrach is not the cause of death, but a symptom. It is a minor, semi-corporeal Mythos entity that is psychically attracted to the “negative space” created by an imminent, violent, or tragic death. It is a vulture of fate. Seeing one means your death is already written in the cosmic ledger—or that you have been marked for sacrifice by a cult that knows how to summon them.

The Red Dragon: The Cosmic Struggle

  • The Legend: The red dragon (Y Ddraig Goch) defeated the white dragon in a legendary battle, a prophecy that foretold the Celtic Britons (Welsh) overcoming the Saxon invaders.
  • The Mythos Truth: The dragons are not mere symbols. They represent two vast, opposing cosmic forces locked in a struggle that predates humanity. The Red Dragon is a powerful, terrestrial Great Old One that has symbiotically bonded with the land and people of Wales. It is a force of primal, chaotic, but ultimately protective nature. The White Dragon is a entity of cosmic entropy, sterility, and freezing order, akin to Ithaqua or a lesser aspect of Hastur. Their “battle” is a psychic war that plays out in the ley lines and the collective unconscious of the people. The victory of the Red Dragon is not permanent; the white one is merely imprisoned, not slain, and its cultists work constantly to shift the balance and free it, which would herald an age of ice and silence.

Chapter 3: The Machenian Thread (Welsh Weird Fiction)

“I feel that there are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and dwellers in twilight. It is possible that man may sometimes return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead.”
— Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan

No writer captures the essential horror of the Welsh landscape and its hidden dimensions like Arthur Machen. Born in Gwent and steeped in the lore of the ancient kingdom of Gwent, Machen’s work is not merely fiction; it is a distorted field guide to the terrors that lurk behind the veil of everyday life in Wales. This chapter interprets his core themes and specific stories as literal truths within the Shadows Over the Dragon’s Land setting, providing Keepers with the tools to weave his uniquely unsettling vision into their campaigns.

The Great God Pan: The Horror of Revelation

In Machen’s most famous story, a scientific experiment unlocks a hidden reality, with devastating consequences. For Investigators, this is not a cautionary tale but a case study.

  • The True Nature of Pan: The entity referred to as “The Great God Pan” is not a classical deity. It is a Formless Fright, a localized manifestation of the cosmic horror that underlies our reality. To “see Pan” is not to see a man with goat legs, but to have one’s senses violently opened to the true, chaotic fabric of the universe. It is the moment the veil is torn away, revealing the writhing, meaningless chaos that the human mind desperately organizes into “reality.”
  • The Black Seals Ritual: The brain surgery performed by Dr. Raymond is a crude, scientific attempt to replicate an ancient mystical ritual. In game terms, it is a dangerous and unstable version of a Dreadful Revelation spell.
    • Game Mechanics: The ritual requires a Hard POW roll to perform and an Extreme POW roll from the subject. Failure for the subject results in immediate and permanent insanity (1D10/1D100 SAN loss, and the gain of a Phobia or Mania related to the nature of reality). A success still costs 1D6 SAN, but the subject gains the ability to make a Spot Hidden or Cthulhu Mythos roll to perceive the hidden, shimmering edges of reality for the next 24 hours. They might see the true, non-Euclidean angles of a building or perceive the faint, phosphorescent trails of otherworldly entities. Repeated use is a one-way ticket to the asylum.
  • Helen Vaughan: The offspring of this unholy union is not a demigod, but a Walking Blight. She is a localized breach in reality, a vortex of cosmic entropy that warps and corrupts everything around her. Her ultimate death, reverting through all forms of life, is not a supernatural spectacle but the final unravelling of her unstable genetic and spiritual makeup. She is a living Gates of Silver spell, her very body a portal that must be closed.

The Little People: The Horror of Degeneration

In The Shining Pyramid and other tales, Machen introduces the idea of small, savage, primitive beings living unseen in the British countryside. These are not the Tylwyth Teg of romantic folklore.

  • The True “Little People”: They are a degenerate, cannibalistic humanoid species, a devolved branch of humanity—or perhaps the original, feral inhabitants of the island before Homo sapiens arrived. They have lived in the hidden places—the deep woods, the labyrinthine cave systems, the spaces beneath ancient hillforts—for millennia. They are to humanity what humanity is to the Great Old Ones: insignificant, yet dangerously persistent.
  • Biology and Society: They are small, wiry, and covered in coarse hair. Their eyes are large and dark, adapted to a life of gloom. They communicate in a system of clicks and whistles. They are cunning, possess a primal intelligence, and wield crude weapons of flint and bone. They are the explanation for countless disappearances of livestock, children, and lone travellers throughout Welsh history.
  • The Shining Pyramid & Signs: Their rituals involve the creation of intricate patterns of stones, twigs, and stolen shiny objects (the “shining pyramid”). These are not mere piles of trash but crude symbols of worship to their own debased deities—likely minor Outer Gods or servitor races like Zoogs or Dark Young. Finding such a structure is a dire warning that the Investigators are in their hunting grounds. (SAN loss 0/1d2).

The White Powder: The Horror of Transformation

In The Novel of the White Powder, a contaminated medicinal powder causes a man’s physical and spiritual degeneration into a monstrous state. This is a classic tale of a “medicine” being a gateway to the Mythos.

  • The Alchemical Mixture: The powder is not simply contaminated; it is a corrupted alchemical substance designed for spiritual ascension. A true, functional version might grant a temporary boost to INT or POW, but the version in the story is a botched recipe. It contains trace elements of a mineral or organic compound from a Mythos entity (e.g., powdered Mi-Go brain-case or dust from a Black Stone).
  • Game Effects: In game terms, the powder is a potent and unpredictable drug. Upon ingestion, the user must make a POW roll. Failure results in the “Machen Transformation”: the body becomes a shapeless, protoplasmic mass as the user’s cellular structure unravels (1D4/1D20 SAN, plus permanent loss of 1D4 APP and 1D4 CON). A success might grant a temporary, unnerving insight (+1D4 to Cthulhu Mythos for one roll, with a 1D4 SAN cost), but repeated use makes the transformation inevitable.
  • Using the Trope: This concept can be reused endlessly. A “health tonic” sold in the Valleys to combat silicosis might have far worse side effects. A poet seeking inspiration in a Cardiff opium den might be given something infinitely more potent and dangerous by a cultist posing as an apothecary.

The Angels of Mons: The Horror of Collective Belief

This famous legend of WWI holds that angelic warriors appeared to protect the British forces during their retreat from Mons. Machen, who wrote a short story on the subject, always maintained it was fiction, but the public believed it was real.

  • The Psychic Resonance Theory: In the world of the Cthulhu Mythos, the story could be true, but the “angels” were not divine. The collective terror, desperation, and prayer of thousands of soldiers, concentrated on a battlefield steeped in death, may have psychically manifested a protective force. However, the human mind, unable to comprehend such a phenomenon, interpreted it through the comforting lens of Christian iconography.
  • A Welsh Connection: Perhaps the phenomenon was focused through a specific individual—a sensitive soldier from a lonely valley in Wales, whose own deep-seated folk memories of the Cŵn Annwn or other spectral hunters provided the psychic template. The “Angels” may have appeared less like biblical seraphim and more like ghostly, ancient Brythonic warriors.
  • Scenario Hook: Investigators could be tasked with finding this “sensitive” soldier, now discharged and back in Wales, who is unknowingly causing similar, smaller-scale psychic phenomena in his home village—phenomena that are becoming increasingly less angelic and more predatory as his own shell-shock and trauma worsen.

Other Welsh Voices: A Tradition of Unease

While Machen is the giant, he is not alone in hearing the whispers from the Welsh hills.

  • John Cowper Powys: His massive novel A Glastonbury Romance blends Welsh and Arthurian legend with a pervasive sense of cosmic forces interacting with a small community. His work suggests that the entire landscape of Britain is a living, sentient, and often malevolent entity.
  • The Eisteddfod Tradition: The national festival of poetry and music is not just a cultural event. Its roots are in the ancient bardic traditions, where poets (Beirdd) were believed to possess Awen (divine inspiration). This could easily be interpreted as a form of low-level psychic sensitivity or a fleeting connection to the Dreamlands. A modern poet, delving too deep for inspiration, might tap into a source of Awen that is anything but divine, channelling verses that are, in fact, invocations.

New Spells and Artifacts

  • The Black Seals Ritual (Dreadful Revelation): As described above.
  • The Litany of the Little People: A chant in a guttural, pre-Celtic tongue that summons 1D4 of the “Little People.” The chant takes one hour, costs 1D6 SAN and 1D4 POW to cast. The creatures will be hostile and hungry.
  • Machen’s Manuscript: A handwritten draft of an unpublished story by Machen, detailing a strange stone circle in the Preseli Hills. Reading it provides a +10% bonus to Cthulhu Mythos rolls relating to pre-Celtic Welsh entities, but the reader dreams of the stones every night, leading to an increasing obsession (1/1D4 SAN loss per week until the circle is visited).
  • The Gwent Powder: A small, silver snuffbox containing a fine white powder. It is a “perfected” version of the substance from The Novel of the White Powder. Inhaling it grants the user a +1D8 bonus to their INT for one hour, as they perceive the hidden mathematical equations of the universe. However, they also perceive the horrifying entities that feed on these energies (1D4/1D8 SAN loss), and must make a POW roll

Chapter 4: The Mythos Beneath the Stones

“The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.”
— H.P. Lovecraft

The folktales and bardic triads of Wales are but the surface glimmer on a deep, dark well. This chapter plunges into that well, revealing the terrifying truths that the poets and grandmothers could only hint at. Here, in the cold light of cosmic revelation, we strip away the allegory and meet the entities, tomes, and cults of the Cymric Mythos in their true, soul-shattering forms.

The Ancient Ones: Pre-Celtic Wales

Long before the Celts raised their hillforts, the land now called Wales was inhabited by a forgotten people. Their true name is lost, but their legacy endures in the silent, brooding megaliths they left behind. These were not simple sun-worshippers. They were the first to map the leylines, the first to chart the celestial convergences over the Preseli Hills, and the first to commune with the things that slumbered beneath the turf.

  • The Builders of Stone: The great passage tombs like Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres were not just burial chambers. They were astronomical observatories, psychic amplifiers, and dimensional anchors. Their construction required a knowledge of geometry and geomancy that suggests outside influence—perhaps from the Mi-Go or even the Great Race of Yith, who may have briefly colonised the prehistoric Welsh coast.
  • The First Pacts: These ancient people did not merely fear the entities they found; they worshipped them, made pacts with them, and in some cases, bred with them. The degenerate “Little People” of Machen’s tales and local folklore are the dwindling, inbred descendants of these first, terrible unions. Their bloodline is a corrupted conduit to the powers of the earth, and their most ancient chieftains may yet sleep in barrows, neither dead nor alive, but dreaming awful dreams that poison the land.

Mythos Deities with a Welsh Face

The Great Old Ones and Outer Gods are universal, but their manifestations are local. In Wales, they have worn the masks of Celtic gods and fairy kings for millennia.

  • Shub-Niggurath: The Black Goat of the Woods
    • Syncretism: The perfect fusion of cosmic horror and pagan dread. In Wales, She is Y Gafr Ddu, the Black Goat, an aspect of the Horned God of the Witches. Her “thousand young” are the feral, misshapen things that skitter in the deep forests of Coed-y-Brenin and stalk the slopes of the Black Mountains.
    • Cults: Her worshippers are not organised covens but isolated groups of hill farmers and hermits who practice a bloody, fertility-based faith older than Christianity. Their rituals involve the sacrifice of livestock—and sometimes strangers—in stone circles or deep woodland clearings, seeking to ensure the fertility of their flocks in a land that is often barren. The reward for their devotion is a terrible fecundity, but their children are often born with a feral cast, and their lands are choked with unnaturally profuse and twisted growth.
    • Sacred Sites: The most remote oak groves; the “Ffynon Ffreu” (a well of terrible repute in the Clwydian Range); the caverns beneath the Llyn Peninsula.
  • Hastur: The King in Yellow, Lord of the White Silence
    • Syncretism: He is the power behind the White Dragon of the prophecy, the force of entropy and sterility that opposes the vital, chaotic Red Dragon. He is the patron of decay, of forgotten places, and of art that leads to madness. In the misty, isolating emptiness of the Cambrian Mountains, his influence is strong.
    • Cults: His followers are not brutish peasants but decadent, decaying aristocrats in their mouldering manor houses, and avant-garde artists and playwrights in the university towns of Aberystwyth and Bangor. They see the world as a flawed and gaudy play, and seek to usher in the stark, beautiful silence of the Unspeakable One. They perform private readings of the play The King in Yellow in Gothic libraries, their rituals aimed at thinning the veil and spreading the pall of Carcosa over the Welsh hills.
    • Signs of His Presence: Unexplained patches of cold; the sound of faint, fluting music on the wind; the proliferation of the Yellow Sign carved into standing stones or the flyleaves of library books.
  • Yog-Sothoth: The Key and the Gate in the Stones
    • Syncretism: Yog-Sothoth is the cosmic force behind the countless Neolithic “gates”—the dolmens and cromlechs that litter the Welsh landscape. The ancient peoples intuited that these stone structures were points of connection, and they were correct. Yog-Sothoth is the connection between the points.
    • Cults: Small, highly secretive circles of druids and antiquarians, often with members from the Gorsedd of Bards (the official body of the Eisteddfod). They believe that by chanting the correct formulae at the correct stones during specific celestial events, they can unlock the “Old Knowledge” and achieve apotheosis. They are dangerously correct, but the “apotheosis” is typically a messy dissolution into the bubbling chaos of the Outside.
    • The Gates: The Pentre Ifan cromlech is a known active gate. At certain times, the space beneath the massive capstone does not lead to the opposing field, but to a swirling, non-Euclidean vista of colours-out-of-space. Using a gate requires a Cthulhu Mythos roll and costs 1D10/1D100 SAN.
  • Nyarlathotep: The Crawling Chaos in the Valleys
    • Syncretism: The ultimate shapeshifter, Nyarlathotep thrives in the social and spiritual upheaval of 1920s Wales. He is the charismatic union orator whipping the miners into a revolutionary frenzy; he is the fire-and-brimstone chapel preacher damning his congregation for sins he himself inspired; he is the smooth-talking London financier buying up the distressed valleys for purposes unknown.
    • Agenda: His goal is to break things. He seeks to shatter the Ward of Bran by fomenting a class war so violent it tears the psychic fabric of the land. He encourages the rural cults of Shub-Niggurath to ever-more-bloody excess and provides the decadent cults of Hastur with the artistic inspiration for their soul-destroying plays. He needs the chaos to make the land receptive to the true masters he serves.
    • Common Masks: The Man in the Grey Suit (a corporate agent); Iolo the Preacher; “Dr. Dee,” a travelling charlatan selling potions and prophecies.

Welsh-specific Tomes and Artifacts

  • Llyfr Du Caerliwely (The Black Book of Caerleon): A Welsh translation and extensive commentary on the Necronomicon, believed to have been made by a mad, excommunicated monk in the 13th century. It is written in a dense, poetic Welsh that is almost impenetrable to modern speakers. It contains unique chapters on the “Wyrddon Groes” (The Green Druids, a cult of Shub-Niggurath) and the proper rituals for communing with the Red Dragon.
    • SAN Loss: 1D4/2D8
    • Cthulhu Mythos: +12%
    • Spells: Contact Deity (Cŵn Annwn), Contact Formless Fright (Pan), Dreadful Revelation, Voorish Sign.
  • Cerddi Iolo Goch (The Verses of Iolo Goch): The collected works of the 14th-century bard. To the layman, they are masterpieces of Welsh poetry praising his patron, Owain Glyndŵr. To the Mythos scholar, they are a coded grimoire. The complex cynghanedd (metrical structure) and alliterative patterns form a kind of mathematical key, and when read correctly, they reveal rituals for awakening the “Dragon of the Land” (Bran) and for travelling the “Path of the Summer Stars” (a Dreamlands route).
    • SAN Loss: 1D3/1D8
    • Cthulhu Mythos: +7%
    • Spells: Awaken the Guardian (Bran) (Unique), Find Dreamlands Gate.
  • Tylwyth Teg Dolls: Found in remote cottages, these are not children’s toys. They are small, crudely fashioned figures of woven grass, animal bone, and human hair. They are Wards created by “cunning folk” to keep the actual Tylwyth Teg at bay. A doll placed in a windowsill or hearth will deter the Fair Folk for one night, after which it will have visibly withered and blackened. If the doll is found broken, it means the ward has failed catastrophically.
  • The Amulet of Llyn y Fan: A polished disc of Preseli bluestone, etched with spirals that seem to move in the flickering firelight. When worn, it grants the user a +10% bonus to all rolls to resist the psychic lure or hypnotic abilities of the Ceffyl Dŵr and the Tylwyth Teg. However, while worn, the user is acutely aware of the presence of these entities, and will suffer a -20% penalty to Stealth rolls against them, as the amulet also acts as a beacon.

New Monsters & Servitor Races

  • The Cŵn Annwn (Hounds of Annwn)
    • Description: Spectral, white hounds with glowing red eyes. They are not flesh and blood, but composed of mist and moonlight. They move in complete silence, and their baying is heard only by those they have come for.
    • Mythos Role: They are the hunters and border-keepers of Arawn, Lord of Annwn. They do not kill their prey, but herd them—into a bog, over a cliff, or into a suddenly-appearing fog bank from which the victim never returns, becoming a permanent resident of the Otherworld.
    • Attributes: STR 70, CON 80, SIZ 50, DEX 90, INT 50, POW 75
    • SAN Loss: 1/1D6 to hear their baying; 1D4/1D8 to see them clearly.
  • The Corpse-Light (Canwyll Corff)
    • Description: A floating, phosphorescent globe of sickly green or pallid white light that lures travellers off paths and into bogs or over cliffs.
    • Mythos Role: It is not a will-o’-the-wisp but a psychic parasite. It feeds on the final moments of terror and life force of its victims. It is semi-sentient and can project simple, comforting illusions—the light of a distant cottage, the voice of a loved one—to draw its prey.
    • Attributes: STR N/A, CON 40, SIZ 10, DEX 70, INT 35, POW 60
    • Abilities: Hypnotic Lure 70% (resist with POW), Intangible.
    • SAN Loss: 0/1D4
  • The Gwrach-y-Rhibyn (The Hag of the Mist)
    • Description: A tall, haggard, grey-skinned crone with long, straggling hair, leathery wings, and a single, glaring eye. She is often seen hunched over, wailing and scratching at windows.
    • Mythos Role: A minor, semi-corporeal entity that feeds on the psychic energy of despair and impending doom. It is drawn to those whose death is fated, particularly by violence or supernatural causes. It does not cause the death, but its presence confirms it.
    • Attributes: STR 55, CON 60, SIZ 50, DEX 50, INT 40, POW 70
    • Abilities: Foretell Doom (victim must make a POW roll or be paralyzed with fear for 1D3 rounds), Screech (causes 1D4 SAN loss to all who hear it).
    • SAN Loss: 1D3/1D8
  • The Sin-Eater (Y Bwyta-Beach)
    • Description: A human who has taken on a terrible, shunned role. After a death, the Sin-Eater is summoned to consume food and drink (often salt and bread) laid upon the corpse’s chest, thereby ritually taking the sins of the deceased onto their own soul.
    • Mythos Role: Over time, the Sin-Eater becomes a walking repository of spiritual corruption. They are often outcasts, living on the edge of the village. Their proximity is unnerving, and animals shy away from them. They develop a low-level psychic awareness of death and sin, and their own souls become so stained they are nearly invisible to Mythos entities—making them uniquely suited to act as intermediaries or even Investigators. However, their SAN is perpetually eroded, and they are prone to sudden, violent madness.
    • Game Mechanics: A player character Sin-Eater begins with a Cthulhu Mythos score of 5% but a maximum SAN of 70. They may have the ability to sense lies, perceive spiritual residue, or be ignored by lesser undead, but at the cost of a major Phobia or Mania.

Chapter 5: Investigators in the Land of the Dragon

“To be in a silent world, a world of fresh green and high air, is to be in the presence of things that are great and eternal.”
— Arthur Machen

The people who call Wales home are as varied and complex as the landscape itself. This chapter provides players with the tools to create Investigators who are not just visitors to this ancient land, but a part of its ongoing story—its struggles, its faith, and its hidden wars. The horrors here are personal, rooted in community and soil, and the best Investigators will be those whose lives are intertwined with the fate of Cymru.

New and Adapted Occupations

The following occupations are particularly suited to a Welsh campaign.

  • Chapel Minister (Nonconformist): You are a pillar of your community, whether in a mining village or a rural hamlet. You offer spiritual solace, but you are on the front lines of the battle against both earthly despair and otherworldly corruption.
    • Skills: Accounting, History, Law, Library Use, Listen, Persuade (Sermon), Psychoanalysis, Spot Hidden, any one other skill as a personal or academic specialty.
    • Role-Playing Notes: You may be a fire-and-brimstone traditionalist or a modern thinker questioning his faith in the face of undeniable horror. Your congregation is your greatest resource and your biggest responsibility.
  • Coal Miner: You work in the most dangerous profession in Wales. You are tough, pragmatic, and deeply loyal to your “butty” (workmate). The darkness of the pit holds no fear for you—or it holds a very specific, familiar kind of fear.
    • Skills: Climb, Electrical Repair, First Aid, Heavy Machinery (Winding Gear), Listen, Mechanical Repair, Spot Hidden, any one other skill.
    • Equipment: Miner’s lamp, pick, personal talisman against gas or collapse.
    • Role-Playing Notes: You are likely involved in union politics. You know the earth can be treacherous, and you suspect the new, deep shaft the owners are digging is a bad idea.
  • Hill Farmer: You are tied to the land, its seasons, and its ancient rhythms. You know the old stories are true because you’ve seen things on the misty slopes that you dare not speak of. You are independent, resourceful, and deeply suspicious of outsiders.
    • Skills: Animal Handling, Botany, Craft (Cheesemaking, Shearing), First Aid, Listen, Navigate, Spot Hidden, Track.
    • Equipment: Crook, dog, waterproof coat, knowledge of every hiding spot for miles.
    • Role-Playing Notes: Your family has likely farmed this land for generations. You have a deep, almost mystical connection to your animals and the soil.
  • University Academic (Aberystwyth/Bangor): You are part of Wales’s intellectual renaissance, teaching at one of its proud national institutions. Your curiosity is your driving force, and the unique folklore and archaeology of the region provide endless fascination.
    • Skills: Accounting, Archaeology, History, Library Use, Other Language (Latin, Greek), Persuade, any two other academic skills (e.g., Astronomy, Geology, Occult).
    • Role-Playing Notes: You balance the rigorous skepticism of academia with the undeniable, strange truths hidden in Welsh manuscripts and landscapes. You may be a passionate Welsh nationalist.
  • Eisteddfod Bard: You are a modern keeper of the ancient Welsh bardic tradition. You are a poet, a musician, a storyteller. You understand that words and patterns have power, and that the old tales are not just entertainment, but history and warning.
    • Skills: Art (Poetry) or Art (Music), History, Library Use, Occult, Other Language (Welsh), Persuade, Psychology, any one other skill.
    • Role-Playing Notes: You move between the rustic Eisteddfodau and the more formal national festival. You seek the true Awen (inspiration), even if it leads you to dangerous places.
  • Valleys Union Organiser: You are a firebrand, an organiser, a fighter for the rights of the working man. You know how to rally a crowd, negotiate with bosses, and spot a lie. The real fight is against exploitation, but you’re starting to suspect there are older, darker forces at play in the boardrooms and the pits.
    • Skills: Drive Auto, Fast Talk, Law, Listen, Persuade (Oratory), Psychology, Spot Hidden, any one other skill.
    • Role-Playing Notes: You are charismatic and driven. You see the world in terms of class struggle, and you must reconcile that worldview with a cosmic horror that doesn’t care about human politics.
  • Quarryman: You work the great slate quarries of the north, a job as dangerous and skilled as mining. You understand stone, its strengths, and its weaknesses. You’ve seen the strange fossils and unsettling, un-placeable veins of colour deep in the rock.
    • Skills: Climb, Craft (Stoneworking), Electrical Repair, Geology, Heavy Machinery, Mechanical Repair, Spot Hidden, any one other skill.
    • Equipment: Hammer and chisels, strong boots, a deep respect for the mountain.

Skills in a Welsh Context

Certain skills take on heightened importance in the valleys and mountains of Wales.

  • Welsh Language (00%): This is not merely a flavour skill. It is a key. Without it, Investigators are permanent outsiders, locked out of crucial conversations, ancient texts, and the trust of the local population. A starting point allocation is strongly recommended for at least one Investigator. It can be improved through study or immersion.
  • Navigate: The Welsh landscape is treacherous. Mountain weather can change in an instant, and fog can descend without warning, making familiar paths disappear. A failed Navigate roll in the Cambrian Mountains or Snowdonia can lead to exposure, injury, or stumbling into a place that isn’t on any map.
  • Geology & Archaeology: These skills are vital for understanding the ancient, non-human history of Wales. Geology can identify unnatural mineral formations or the tell-tale signs of a Mi-Go excavation. Archaeology can decipher the true purpose of a Neolithic burial chamber that is more than it seems.
  • Occult: Knowledge of standard European occultism has its place, but a specialization in Celtic Lore or Welsh Folklore provides a significant bonus when dealing with the local manifestations of the Mythos. It allows the Keeper to give the player hints that the Afanc is more than a simple lake monster, or that the fairy ring is a place of power.
  • Listen & Spot Hidden: The horrors of Wales are often subtle: a faint humming from a standing stone, a flicker of movement in the peripheral vision on a lonely hillside, the sound of something large moving through the bracken just out of sight. A sharp eye and a keen ear are the first line of defense.

The Sanity Cost of Place: Atmospheric Dread

Wales itself is a source of Sanity loss, not through sudden shocks, but through a slow, grinding atmospheric dread. Keepers should impose SAN losses for prolonged exposure to certain environments, representing the psychological toll of the landscape.

  • The Oppressive Valleys: The sheer, steep sides of the mining valleys can create a feeling of being trapped, watched by a thousand windows. The constant grime and the ever-present threat of disaster in the pit preys on the mind. (Lose 0/1 SAN after a week spent in the valleys during a strike or after a mining disaster).
  • The Isolating Vastness: On the open moors or the peaks of Snowdonia, the sheer scale of the landscape and the complete silence can be unnerving. The feeling of being a tiny, insignificant speck in a vast, ancient, and indifferent world is a core tenet of Cosmic Horror. (Lose 0/1 SAN after 24 hours alone in the mountains).
  • The Claustrophobic Darkness: A mile underground in a coal mine, with only a lamp for light and the weight of the world above you, is a primal fear. The darkness feels alive, and the creaks of the pit props sound like the groans of the earth itself. (Lose 1/1D3 SAN on the first experience of the coal face, especially during a tunnel collapse or strange discovery).

New Skill: Welsh Language (INT)

This skill represents the ability to speak, read, and understand the Welsh language. It is defaulted at 00% and must be invested in like any other skill.

  • Basic Use (01-30%): The Investigator can manage simple greetings, ask for directions, and understand basic conversations. They will miss nuance and complex ideas.
  • Conversational (31-60%): The Investigator can hold a conversation, understand local gossip, and read simple texts like newspapers or popular novels.
  • Fluent (61-90%): The Investigator can debate, understand complex poetry, and read medieval Welsh texts with some difficulty. They can pass for a native in most situations.
  • Scholar (91%+): The Investigator has a bardic or academic mastery of the language. They can decipher the most complex cynghanedd poetry, understand multiple dialects, and spot the subtle linguistic clues in a text that point to encrypted Mythos lore.

Equipment of the Welsh Investigator

  • Miner’s Kit: A Davy lamp (which can detect firedamp), a pick, a hard helmet. Useful as a tool and a weapon.
  • Hill-Walking Kit: A sturdy wool coat, a good pair of boots, a compass, a local Ordnance Survey map, and a flask of something strong to keep out the cold.
  • Chapel Minister’s Kit: A well-worn Bible, a bottle of holy water (its efficacy is questionable, but the faith behind it is not), the trust of the community.
  • The Iron Nail: A simple, cold-wrought iron nail carried in the pocket. A proven folk defense against the Tylwyth Teg. It may not stop them, but it will give them pause.
  • The University Grant: For the academic, a small stipend for “research” can cover travel, lodging, and the bribing of local landowners for access to their fields.

By creating an Investigator rooted in the world of 1920s Wales, the horrors they face become not just a puzzle to be solved, but a personal tragedy or a battle for the soul of their home. The valley they save may be their own; the ancient evil they awaken may have slept beneath their family’s farm for centuries. This is what makes the terror personal, and the stakes unbearably high.

Chapter 6: Scenarios and Scenario Seeds

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
— H.P. Lovecraft

Herein lie the terrors that await in the valleys and on the moors. These scenarios and seeds are designed to be woven into the rich tapestry of 1920s Wales, using its social tensions, ancient landscapes, and unique Mythos truths as the backdrop for tales of cosmic dread. Keepers are encouraged to use these as starting points, customizing them to challenge and horrify their Investigators.

Scenario: The White Lady of Caerphilly

A ghost story with a temporal twist, set against the backdrop of post-war industrial strife.

Hook: The Investigators are hired by the Marquess of Bute’s estate manager (or a local historical society) to investigate strange occurrences at Caerphilly Castle. The recent General Strike has left the town tense, and rumours of a “White Lady” ghost are scaring away the few tourists the town relies on. The manager wants the phenomenon explained and, if possible, disproved or laid to rest to restore the castle’s reputation.

The Truth: The “White Lady” is not a ghost in the traditional sense. She is a temporal echo of Lady Alice de Montalt, wife of the castle’s 14th-century lord. During a siege, in a desperate attempt to save her husband, she performed a forbidden ritual from the Black Book of Caerlion to summon a spectral defender. The ritual worked, but at a terrible cost: it tore a small, localized rift in spacetime, anchoring her final, desperate moments to the castle’s inner ward. Every few decades, when the stars are right, the echo replays, and the entity she summoned briefly manifests.

Scenes and Investigation:

  1. The Modern Castle: The Investigators can interview the few remaining staff and townsfolk. They’ll hear conflicting accounts: some see a weeping woman, others report a “shimmering in the air” and a feeling of intense cold. The local chapel minister decries it as “the devil’s work,” while a cynical union organiser scoffs, blaming it on capitalist propaganda to distract from wage cuts.
  2. Historical Research: Research in Cardiff’s library or the castle’s own records will reveal Lady Alice’s story and her reputation for “unnatural learning.” A successful History or Occult roll will uncover a fragment of a chronicle that mentions her “calling forth a spirit from the angles between the stars” during the siege.
  3. The Manifestation: The Investigators must spend a night in the castle. As a fog rolls in, the White Lady appears. She does not interact with them but walks a set path towards the inner ward, where the air begins to shimmer. A successful Cthulhu Mythos roll identifies the shimmering form that begins to coalesce as a Star Vampire, drawn by the recurring echo of the ritual.
  4. The Choice: The Investigators cannot fight the echo itself. They must either:
    • Re-enact the Ritual: Find the original ritual (perhaps a page is hidden in the castle’s museum collection) and perform it backwards to close the rift, requiring multiple Occult and POW rolls. This is dangerous and may attract the Star Vampire’s attention to them.
    • Break the Anchor: Discover the physical anchor of the echo—a locket containing a lock of Lady Alice’s hair, hidden in the stonework—and destroy it. This will lay the “ghost” to rest but will cause a violent temporal backlash (1D6/1D10 SAN loss for all present) as the echo collapses.

Climax: The Star Vampire fully manifests, drawn by the potent psychic energy. The Investigators must survive its attack while simultaneously closing the rift, either through ritual or by destroying the anchor.

Keeper’s Note: Use the social tension in the town as a red herring. Perhaps a group of striking miners plans to “haunt” the castle to embarrass the owners, providing a false, mundane culprit that must be ruled out.

Scenario Seed: Beneath the Slag Heaps

A claustrophobic tale of survival horror in the industrial heartland.

Hook: In the Rhondda Valley, the owners of the “Deepless Dream” colliery, desperate to find a new seam, have ordered the miners to dig a new, deep shaft. They have broken through into a vast, subterranean cavern system. Now, miners are disappearing, and those who return speak of “small, hairy things with eyes like fire” and “a great, beating heart of stone” deep in the earth.

The Truth: The miners have broken into the domain of Machen’s “Little People.” This degenerate, cannibalistic tribe has lived in these caves for millennia, and the mining operation is a direct invasion. The “beating heart” is a massive, pulsating geode—an Egg of Shub-Niggurath. The Little People worship it, and the vibrations of the mining have begun to agitate it, threatening to hatch whatever monstrosity lies within.

Potential Scenes:

  • Investigating the disappearances amidst the suspicion and fear of the tightly-knit mining community.
  • Venturing into the new, unofficial shaft, navigating treacherous tunnels and the mangled bodies of missing miners.
  • Encountering the Little People in their lair, a horrifying vista of bones, primitive stone pyramids, and the pulsating, organic-looking Egg.
  • A desperate race to collapse the shaft or find a way to pacify the Egg before it hatches a Dark Young or something worse into the heart of the valley.

Scenario Seed: The Singing Stones of Preseli

An archaeological mystery that uncovers a celestial threat.

Hook: A renowned but eccentric archaeologist, Dr. Gethin Rees, has been excavating a newly discovered cairn in the Preseli Hills. He claims to have found “the source of the bluestones” and that they “sing.” He has stopped communicating, and his university is concerned. Locals report strange lights on the hills and a pervasive, discordant humming that is driving their livestock mad.

The Truth: Dr. Rees has found the primary bluestone quarry, but the stones are not entirely natural. They are fragments of a Hyperborean focusing array that fell to earth millennia ago. The cairn he excavated is not a tomb but a control node. By removing the central “key” stone, he has activated the array, which is now aligning itself with a dead, black star in the constellation Cygnus. The “singing” is a gravitational and psychic vibration that will, within days, tear a temporary but massive gate, pulling through the void-dwelling entities that worship the black star.

Potential Scenes:

  • Finding Dr. Rees at his camp, babbling and insane, clutching the “key” stone (1D4/1D8 SAN).
  • Braving the psychic effects of the “song” (requiring SAN rolls to even approach the site) to investigate the cairn.
  • Deciphering Hyperborean symbols carved into the bedrock to understand that the key stone must be returned in a specific orientation to shut down the array.
  • Dealing with a rival team—perhaps a cult of Hastur seeking to use the gate, or Mi-Go who want the array for their own purposes—who arrive to seize the key stone.

Scenario Seed: The Yellow Sign in Llandudno

A tale of creeping decadence and theatrical horror in a genteel seaside resort.

Hook: Llandudno in the off-season is a quiet, respectable town. But the Investigators’ patron—a retired Scotland Yard inspector—has noticed a pattern. Several young, wealthy socialites have come here for a “rest cure” and have become reclusive, their personalities altered. They spend all their time at a private theatre club, “The Aubergine Jacket,” run by a charismatic Englishman, Mr. Alban.

The Truth: Mr. Alban is a cultist of Hastur. The Aubergine Jacket is a front for a cell of the Cult of the Yellow Sign. Their goal is not a grand summoning, but a slow, insidious corruption. They are staging private, immersive performances of a modified version of The King in Yellow for their “guests.” The play acts as a psychic virus, rewriting the personalities of the audience, making them into hollow, despairing servants who will eventually return to their powerful families in London and Cardiff, spreading the ennui and madness of Carcosa into the highest echelons of society.

Potential Scenes:

  • Infiltrating the exclusive club, requiring social graces and perhaps forgery.
  • Attending a performance and resisting its psychic effects (POW roll or lose 1D4 SAN and gain a minor mania).
  • Investigating the club after hours to find the true, uncensored script of the play and evidence of what happens to those who fully succumb.
  • A final confrontation not with a monster, but with Mr. Alban and his “converted” followers in the theatre, as the line between the play and reality begins to blur terrifyingly.

Scenario Seed: The Dragon’s Wake

A high-stakes campaign climax that threatens the entire nation.

Hook: Strange geological phenomena plague Wales: minor tremors in the south, wells running dry in the north, and a pervasive sense of dread. The Investigators are approached by a frantic, dishevelled member of the Gorsedd of Bards. He claims a radical Welsh nationalist group, Y Ddraig Wen (The White Dragon), is planning to “cleanse” the land of English influence by performing a ritual to awaken an ancient power. He fears they have been gravely misled.

The Truth: Y Ddraig Wen believes they are awakening the Red Dragon to fight for Welsh independence. In reality, the ritual they plan—involving the disinterment of a “relic” from under the Tower of London (the head of Bran)—will not awaken the Red Dragon. It will shatter the Ward of Bran, the very thing that keeps the White Dragon (an aspect of Hastur or a similar entropy entity) imprisoned. The nationalists are being manipulated by Nyarlathotep, who appears to them as a fervent patriot. Their ritual will not bring liberation, but an age of freezing silence and despair.

Potential Scenes:

  • Racing across Wales to gather the three true relics needed to reinforce the Ward: a stone from the true quarry of the Red Dragon’s lair, water from a sacred well in Annwn, and the unbroken word of a Sin-Eater.
  • Infiltrating the nationalist group to learn the details of their false ritual.
  • A dual climax: part of the team must stop the nationalists at the Tower of London, while the other part must perform the true reinforcement ritual at a site like Dinas Emrys, the legendary seat of the dragon prophecy.
  • A final, psychic battle against the manifested form of Nyarlathotep, who seeks to personally break the Ward as the two cosmic dragons struggle in the sky above Wales.

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