SESSION #14 (06/11/25)

 This week the heroes spent an afternoon and early evening in Bingham, Oklahoma.

Ralph flipped through the bible he bought from Mortimer and found a note in a child's handwriting:

My name is Lloyd.  My daddy is Mortimer.  You bought a bible from him.  He thinks god is a snake called Yig and that I have been chosen by him.  I am scared of snakes and don't want one to chose me.  Can you help me?

Vivienne and Maddie returned to the hotel and filled in Colt and Ralph, and Ralph showed everyone the note. They decided to go check out the church, then head to the lumberyard.  Walking down Main Street the ran into Sheriff Benson outside the police station and he engaged them in some conversation.  They came away from that feeling that Benson is aligned with Reverend Kornfield and the new direction the town is taking.

Entering the church the heroes met Reverend Kornfield as he was chatting with Mortimer and Lloyd Allen.  Maddie walked over to a desk along a wall and saw some pictures children had been colored, as well as Kornfield's bible, which was open and heavily notated in pen.  There was also a roughly 8" by 10" stitched decoration that appeared to show an individual tied to some kind of table, with another person standing next to them and a massive snake dripping something into the restrained person's mouth.  Kornfield chatted with the heroes and bit and offered Maddie Yig's blessing, which she allowed and during which he whispered to her that he could see she was already blessed.  Young Lloyd looked at the heroes with a bit of desperation in his eyes.

From there they went to the lumberyard.  Maddie introduced Colt and Ralph to her true love Paolo, and they also met his co-worker George Hensen, who had supposedly been healed by Kornfield after a major accident.  Hensen was very nice and gregarious and engaged Colt in a push-up contest, which he won easily.  He suggested that if they wanted to see more evidence of Kornfield's power, they should go see Peggy Shaw's babies.  Leaving the lumberyard, Ralph began to give Maddie a bit of a hard time about the potential powers of Yig's blessings, and out of frustration she grabbed him and tossed him five feet into the air (successful Cthulhu Mythos roll...), which left everyone, including Maddie, a bit stunned.  

The heroes went to the Shaw residence and talked their way in, being surprised about how warm it was inside the house - though Colt and Maddie felt it was very comfortable.  While Peggy made tea she told them about her newest babies, and pointed to the sand-filled box sitting under the wood stove, which contained a clutch of rubbery eggs, some of which were beginning to bulge at the sides (Sanity rolls!).  This left everyone uneasy, but they also asked to see her son Severus, so she went upstairs and brought him down - the boy covered in snake-like scales and with a forked, darting tongue (more Sanity rolls!!).  Vivienne went temporarily insane at this point and simply begain making tea as if none of this were even the remotest bit unusual, shutting her brain down completely to the unfolding horrors.  Peggy asked Ralph if he wanted to feed the baby and pulled a mouse from her pocket.  Ralph held it over the baby's face and saw his jaw distend as he swallowed the mouse (more Sanity rolls!!!).  The group thanked Peggy and got Vivienne outside.  Out in the street they ran into Peggy's husband Greg, and he suggested they go have a drink.  As they walked up Main, they noticed the sheriff was watching.  Maddie separated from the others and went back to the hotel.

At the saloon Greg gave some additional insights about the schism in town.  There they also met newspaper reporter Baxter Fandyke.  When he learned that Colt was a reporter from the east coast, and that they'd seen King Kong, he offered to pay Colt to write an article for the local paper about it, if he could do so by that evening.  Colt agreed.  

Earlier in the day Maddie let the hotel keepers know to let Lloyd know she had a present for him next time they saw him.  Lloyd showed up at Maddie's room and they discussed his fear of snakes.  Maddie gave him a flare, which she called a "special birthday candle", that he could use if he was afraid.

The evening found Vivienne and Ralph in their respective hotel rooms, Colt over at the newspaper offices, and Maddie at the lumberyard to continue her romance with Paolo.  Ralph was considering going back to the Shaw residence with some dynamite and blowing it up.  And... all of them heard bells ringing and people yelling.  Looking out upon the town they could see flames rising up from where the church sat, and townsfolk running toward it.

SESSION #13 (06/04/25)

Our heroes boarded an overnight train from New York City to St. Louis for the first leg of their trip to Bingham, Oklahoma.  From there they went to Springfield, Missouri, to visit WFUK radio station and see if the could get any information about the Kornfield sermons from Jacob, the many who sent the records to Caduceus.

(Note - the campaign does not include this Springfield piece.  The heroes were insistent they wanted to investigate this avenue, so I homebrewed the Springfield content.)

Arriving in Springfield they went to WFUK where they met Susie Lovelady, the 60-ish woman with too much makeup and perfume who worked the reception area.  Asking about Jacob, they quickly learned he'd gone missing about two weeks prior, and that the police seemed unwilling to investigate.  Susie told the heroes that a woman and man had come to see Jacob on the last day he worked, and that they'd left with him.  The woman gave her name as Rose, and she fit the description of Rose Meadham.

The heroes went to Jacob's apartment (Susie gave them the address), and Ralph used his special pick to get them inside.  The apartment was extremely tidy, and the record player was still on, the needle clicking helplessly on the runout groove of a record.  The record turned out to be a Kornfield sermon from about three weeks ago, and there were about a dozen total Kornfield sermon records next to the player. 

Ralph checked the bedroom and it appeared all of Jacob's clothes were still here as was, most tellingly, his set of luggage.  Vivienne walked over to a round, wood table upon which sat an empty bottle of Johnny Walker, a glass, and an ashtray full of Lucky Strike butts.  The tabletop was covered with small, fresh carvings that looked like snakes.  There were also two bible verses carved into the table:

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves:  be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

And:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lived up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Maddie used her psychic abilities and had a vision of Jacob sitting at the table, drinking and smoking and looking at the record player with a thousand yard stare as he carved snakes into the table.

At this point the working theory was that Caduceus sent Rose to "pay a visit" to Jacob after Caduceus received the records he mailed them, probably with the intent of permanently silencing him.

From there it was back to the train station and off to Bingham, where the heroes checked into the Bingham hotel posing as a pair of married couples.  Delbert, who was one of the owners, told them there was a schism in town since Kornfield had gone off to wander for 40 days like Jesus, having returned a different man.  Delbert indicated those who were no longer following the church were led by Bill Schoenbaum.

Ralph and Colt wanted to take a rest, so Maddie and Vivienne decided to go get a drink at the Deer Head Saloon.  As they were walking down the hall to to the lobby they saw a thin, sunburned, dusty man stagger in and in a raspy voice ask for a room.  When asked for his name he said "Jacob".  They came to find out that Jacob had walked from Springfield to Bingham after having heard Reverend Kornfield's sermons.  

At the saloon the ladies spoke with bartender Maurice Walsted and a very drunk Hilliard Fowler.  They learned a bit more about the schism in town, and Fowler seemed particularly distraught about one of his own employees George Hensen, who had a bad accident at the lumbermill that should have killed him, but Kornfield saved him and now he's almost superhuman.  He also mentioned Gregory Shaw at the telegraph station may have a story of his own to share. 

Walking back to the hotel the women were startled when someone behind them called out Maddie's name.  This turned out to be Paolo, a former worker on Maddie's family farm who she may have had an inappropriate relationship with and still loves deeply.  He said he'd been bouncing around from farm to farm until hearing Kornfield on the radio a month ago.  Kornfield has taken him under his wing and got him a job at Fowler's lumber yard.