Quest Line · Original Adventure · Call of Cthulhu 7e
1920s · 3-4 hours
Wealthy retired banker Edmund Varnham invites the investigators to his Essex country manor for a weekend gathering, but a disturbing anomaly has manifested: a hallway that wasn't there before, stretching impossibly deep into the house's interior. As guests begin experiencing vivid nightmares and the hall grows longer each night, the investigators must discover the source of this architectural impossibility before the house consumes them all.
This adventure contains themes of spatial distortion, memory loss, nightmares, and body horror. The horror is primarily psychological with some moderate violence. Players should create investigators who would accept a weekend invitation to a country estate—acquaintances of the host, fellow businesspeople, artists, or curious academics all work well. Characters with Architecture, Psychology, Occult, or Library Use skills will find opportunities to contribute. The tone should balance 1920s social propriety with creeping cosmic dread.
Variation 1 - The Social Invitation: Edmund Varnham sends formal invitations to the investigators, mentioning he has "a curious architectural puzzle" he'd value their opinion on. He's been a patron, client, or social acquaintance. The promise of good food, conversation, and solving an intriguing mystery should suffice.
Variation 2 - Professional Consultation: Varnham specifically seeks the investigators due to their reputation for handling unusual matters. His letter mentions strange occurrences and offers generous compensation (£50 each) for their discretion and expertise.
Variation 3 - Concerned Family: Varnham's niece Margaret contacts the investigators, worried her uncle is suffering delusions. She asks them to visit under the pretense of a social call to assess his mental state—then they discover the hallway is terrifyingly real.
The investigators arrive Friday evening at Varnham House, a handsome Georgian manor set among ancient oaks three miles from the village of Ashford Green. Edmund Varnham, a distinguished gentleman of sixty-five with silver hair and worried eyes, greets them warmly along with his staff: Mrs. Aldridge the housekeeper and young Thomas the footman.
After settling in and an excellent dinner, Varnham walks the group to the east wing. "It appeared four nights ago," he explains, stopping before an open doorway that should lead to his study. Instead, a hallway extends into darkness far beyond where the exterior wall should be. The hall is perhaps five feet wide with dark wood paneling and a worn runner carpet. Gaslights flicker at intervals, fading into blackness after about forty feet.
Investigation opportunities:
Walking to the exterior confirms the impossibility—the house's outer wall remains intact with no extension. The hallway exists only inside. Varnham admits he's ventured about sixty feet in but felt overwhelming dread and retreated. He's lost two nights of sleep to nightmares since its appearance.
Varnham's backstory (revealed through conversation): He recently inherited a collection of curiosities from his late brother Arthur, an eccentric collector. Among them was a peculiar mirror with Sanskrit inscriptions he placed in his study three days before the hallway appeared.
The investigators likely choose to explore the hallway either that evening or the next morning. As they venture deeper, the atmosphere grows oppressive.
Every twenty feet, the hallway extends another twenty feet—always maintaining the same forty-foot visible limit. After one hundred feet, investigators notice:
Opening any door reveals a bedroom frozen in time—dust-covered, personal effects scattered as if the occupant left suddenly. Each room contains:
Example room—"H. Marsden": A gentleman's bedroom circa 1905. Journal reveals Harold Marsden, a businessman who suffered recurring nightmares of endless corridors. Final entry: "The hall has found me. I understand now—it feeds on our forgotten spaces, the rooms in our minds we've locked away. I won't fight anymore."
Spot Hidden (Hard): At the end of the currently visible hallway section, mirrors are barely visible in the darkness—the same style as Arthur's mirror.
The choice: Investigators must decide whether to retreat with this information, continue deeper, or begin removing/destroying the mirrors they find. Removing mirrors causes the hallway to violently contract twenty feet, requiring DEX rolls (Regular) to avoid being crushed by closing walls (1d6 damage and 1/1d4 SAN loss if caught).
That night, all occupants of Varnham House experience nightmares of walking endless hallways with doors bearing their own names.
By Saturday evening, the hallway has extended noticeably—now requiring one hundred twenty feet of walking before the first doors appear. New nameplates have manifested: each investigator's name, Varnham's name, and his staff's names. The house groans and settles as reality warps.
Occult or Library Use (Regular) combined with examining Arthur's journal (found in his room within the hall) reveals the truth: Arthur Varnham acquired seven mirrors from a Brahmin scholar in Calcutta. The mirrors are "Smara Glass"—tools for trapping memories and forgotten experiences. When arranged in sequence, they create a physical manifestation of collective unconscious space—a hallway of abandoned memories that hungers to be filled with new ones.
The source: Deep in the hallway (at least two hundred feet in), the seven mirrors form a semicircle around Arthur Varnham's preserved corpse seated in a chair. He died here, consumed by his own creation. The mirrors pulse with sickly luminescence.
Ending 1 — Destruction: Destroying all seven mirrors collapses the hallway violently. Requires successful STR or DEX rolls (Hard) to escape the collapsing space, 1d10 damage if failed. The investigators escape but suffer 1d6/1d10 SAN loss witnessing reality fold in upon itself. Varnham House is damaged but salvageable. Arthur's corpse is found in the study, apparently dead for weeks despite impossible preservation.
Ending 2 — Sealing: Using occult knowledge, investigators perform a ritual to seal the hallway by covering all mirrors with sanctified cloth and marking thresholds with protective symbols (Occult Hard or INT×3). This prevents further extension but leaves the existing hallway in place—a permanent scar in reality. Costs 1d4/1d8 SAN but prevents structural damage. Varnham must live with this permanent impossibility.
Ending 3 — Consumption: If investigators fail to act decisively or become trapped exploring too deeply, they risk being absorbed into the hallway's architecture. Those who sleep in the house without resolving the situation find themselves walking the hall in dreams, then waking within it physically. They become new rooms—new forgotten spaces. Requires POW vs. POW contests each night to resist. This ending should only occur through player choice or catastrophic failure.
Edmund Varnham: Retired banker, age 65, cultured and refined but deeply frightened. Motivation: Desperately wants his home and life returned to normal, willing to help but fears what his brother unleashed.
Mrs. Eleanor Aldridge: Housekeeper, age 50, no-nonsense Yorkshire woman who's served the family thirty years. Motivation: Protect the household and Mr. Varnham; deeply suspicious of Arthur's "foreign nonsense."
Thomas Wickham: Footman, age 22, eager and curious, secretly reads penny dreadfuls. Motivation: Sees this as an adventure; dangerously fascinated by the hallway.
Arthur Varnham (deceased): Edmund's younger brother, age 58 at death, obsessive collector of esoterica. Motivation (in life): Believed forgotten memories were humanity's greatest tragedy; sought to preserve them physically.
Margaret Varnham: Edmund's niece, age 28, modern and sharp-witted, studying psychology at Cambridge. Motivation: Protect her uncle from scandal while understanding the phenomenon rationally.
Monetary: Edmund Varnham offers £100 per investigator for resolving the situation discreetly, plus covering all medical expenses if injuries occurred.
Knowledge: Investigators gain 1d6 Occult skill points from studying the Smara Glass phenomenon. Arthur's journals contain fragmentary Sanskrit verses about consciousness and memory (potential leads for future scenarios).
Artifacts: If investigators carefully extract one mirror without destroying it, they possess an extremely dangerous artifact capable of trapping specific memories—useful but corrupting. Worth £500 to the right collector.
Experience: Award standard investigation experience. Additional bonus if investigators saved all household members and prevented the hallway's permanent establishment.
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