The "Tales of Terror" were created by Steve Hatherley back in the early 1990s,  giving Keepers short ideas from which they could build instant scenarios. Each TOTs (as Steve abbreviated it) starts with a general situation followed by three different possibilites for that situation. The Tales of Terror culminated in the publication of TALES OF TERROR: SCENARIO IDEAS FOR CALL OF CTHULHU (Pagan Publishing, 1996).  It was from Steve's TOT idea that I came up with my TOT generator known as "The Stones of Doom".

The investigators have spent months tracking down a notorious madman, James Packett.  Packett’s trail led the team to the Far East.  Packett's journals is a mass of insane gibberish but it does reveal how he had slowly been losing grip of his own self-control. 

What the diary doesn’t tell is that Packett was impregnated with a embryonic Insect of Shaggai.  The parasite has been controlling the man, trying to get him killed.  As a man with suicidal tendencies, Packett is institutionalized.  When the madman is given a revolutionary new method of treatment, electric shock theropy, the Insect of Shaggai takes a metamorphic leap from its present inchoate ... 

1. Packett is released from the hospital, appearing to be fully cured.  The Insect from Shaggai needs more energy to become fully mature.  The electro-shock equipment can not provide enough voltage.  To obtain more the controlled Packett kills a man in cold blood then turns himself in.  The death penalty is given when the man proves his sanity and admits to his crime.  The electric chair is scheduled for his execution.  Will the investigators stop the executioners in time?

2. The electrified body of Packett becomes a ciphon as the Insect from Shaggai needs energy, but not the raw wattage of straight electricity.  This energy it needs is taken from human victims, the electro-chemical energy of living tissue.  The monster goes into a feeding frenzy, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind it as it grows larger and larger ...

3. The electro-shock therapy has crippled the Insect from Shaggai, so the entity mutates.  In this new form the Insect dies but its energy creates a gate to another dimension, allowing small, immature Insects from Shaggai to enter our dimension through Packett’s body.  As part of this process Packett is no longer mobile but as coccooned himself up in a secret place.  Can the investigators find his body and destroy the gate before an invasion of Insects come through?

Copyright G. W. Thomas 1996