Sunday, January 25th, 1920:
Sadie Benz the author, Colonel Angus the explorer, and Father Jonas meet with Randolph Carter in Arkham at the office of Professor Armitage at Miskatonic University. Randolph has been in correspondence with the team and is enlisting them to help investigate strange paranormal activities in the area and to thwart evil plans that endanger the community.
Carter explains he was hoping to get a spell from a friend named Bartley Hodges. Bartley was a reporter from the city who moved out to Jennings, a rural part of Vermont about three hours drive away from Arkham. Word is that Bartley went missing doing some investigating of his own.
The party agrees and heads out to Jenning to investigate. Along the way they stop at the county seat called Battleboro and talk to the local sheriff and his deputy. They say that Bartley has been missing and there are no leads. The town of Jenning searched the countryside for him but didn’t turn up anything. The paper is offering a $500 reward if he’s found. They get directions from the sheriff to Bartley’s house.
They find Bartley’s house before nightfall and they slip in through an unlocked window. No further clues in his house so Colonel Angus decides to spend the night there with his dog. Father Jonas and Sadie Benz are averse to staying in a missing man’s home so they drive an hour out to a larger town and get lodging there.
During the middle of the night the Colonel is awakened when he sees an icy mist roll out of the woods and envelope the cabin. When he walks to the window to investigate he hears a bone-curdling howling unlike anything in nature from off in the distance. He returns to bed and cowers there until morning, his dreams tormented by the memory of the sound.
The next day they get up early and meet in town. They talk to the clerk at the general store and learn that Harney Rooger who lives up on the mountain has been acting strangely and that he attacked the postman.
The party decides to investigate this but first they follow up on another lead by talking to the local schoolteacher. She tells them that she’s seen some big crawdads that are purple all over with scrunched up faces. Madeline Rammstein shows up in town, sent by Carter to join the group and she introduces herself to the locals but they are a bit put off by her forward manner.
Sadie and the Colonel head up the hill to talk to Rooger while Madeline and the Father go to check out local Indian legends surrounding the cold and the howling they heard. At the library in the larger town an hour away they learn of the legend of the Wendigo Ithaqua, the windwalker who prowls the arctic wastelands. Sadie and the Colonel offend Rooger and he drives them off his land. They briefly investigate the mines nearby but nothing else.
They all meet up later in the evening at the Jenning’s Monday night meeting. On the agenda is figuring out what is going on with the fires on the hill and talking about the local mining company that came to visit. They deduce from eyewitnesses that three men from the mining company headed up the mountain last week, but only one of them was seen leaving town. Third on the agenda is celebrating Mrs. Pickins’ 60th birthday. They leave and find lodging in the same hotel in the nearby town an hour away.
The next day Madeline and the Father head over to Harney’s to talk to him and they learn that his crops have been doing well due to his “friends” who are from another world. He’s compulsively chopping wood and offers them some moonshine he made. Madeline graciously thanks him and leaves with Jonas.
They also explore the local mine and inside they find the notebook of Bartley Hodges with the Find Gate spell in it. Also they find a Mi-Go brain canister in the mines and hook it up to a machine so it can speak to and see them. Sadie loses her mind and tosses the brain canister down a mineshaft. They also find a vivisected corpse with the brain missing and some crates containing the remains of two brains and another corpse. Inside the mine they meet Toni Laurattzi, a detective from Arkham PD who was sent by Carter to assist them.
They deduce that there are three brains, but only two corpses, so one body is missing. Upon investigating the mine shaft they find the remains of a large moth-like creature described by locals as a purple crawdad or moth-man. They investigate the rest of the tunnels and find a path leading out the other side of the mountain and they see a stone circle on the side of the adjacent hill across the valley.
Before nightfall Sadie and Jonas head across the valley to hide outside the stone circle. Madeline, Angus, and Toni trail Rooger and at dusk he also leads them up to the stone circle. Rooger sees Madeline following him and shoos her away, sending her back to town. She doubles back and finds her way to the stone circle.
A ceremony starts and Harney starts chanting. Three Mi-Go moth creatures fly down and perch themselves atop the stone circle and start buzzing as well. A great blue swirling vortex of flame starts from their sacrificial fire.
Toni takes a shot at one of the Mi-Go. Colonel Angus takes a shot at Rooger and kills him with his Elephant Gun. Sadie is spotted by two of the Mi-Go and they shoot an icy mist and an electrical gun at her. Father Jonas hurls an ax at the one with the electrical gun and misses. Sadie dies screaming in the icy mist.
Colonel Angus reloads. Father Jonas tries climbing up the side of the stone structure to reach the Mi-Go and falls. The Mi-Go fighting Toni picks him up and carries him up into the sky, dropping him to the ground. Madeline provides medical attention to Toni, saving his life. She desperately fends off the Mi-Go then blasts it with Toni’s tommy gun, killing it. Colonel Angus kills the second Mi-Go, and Madeline finishes off the last one with the tommy gun.
As they turn and flee the scene, Father Jonas isn’t fast enough as he drags Sadie’s body away from the scene and Ithaqua arrives through the swirling gate. The giant sends and icy blast of wind that tosses the priest like a ragdoll through the sky, killing him on impact. Ithaqua lumbers down through the valley with cold mist trailing in his wake.
The next day the party finds that everyone in Jenning froze to death that night (over 200 people). They return to Arkham with the spell for Carter and the Colonel resurrects Jonas and Sadie using his magic. The Colonel spends the next month in an asylum seeking professional help. The rest of the party swaps spells and prepares for their next adventure.
Survivors: Colonel Angus, Father Jones, Toni, Madeline Rammstein
