Chaosium Digest Classics: Cat's Eyes - A follow up to Cat's Cradle

By Andy Clements
Originally appearing in Chaosium Digest v28.10 on October 3, 1999

Introduction:
The home city of the investigators is being plagued by more bizarre and grisly deaths, similar to those occurring during Cat's Cradle. People are being found as mere piles of skeletons, the bones picked clean of all flesh with scratches on the bones. The strangest part is that evidence from witnesses suggest the 'murders' occurred within a time period of about ten minutes - surely not long enough for a serial killer to strip away the flesh and make his/her escape? This should be enough to draw most Investigators into the adventure, but it should be especially the case for any who played in Cat's Cradle.

Keeper Information:
These latest acts against humans are not the work of vengeful cats, as in Cat's Cradle. In this case, a priestess of Bast is sending the Holy Children (slightly more vicious and larger versions of modern cats) to kill people who have wronged her. There are three victims before the events come to the attention of the Investigators. The first is the ex-husband of thePriestess (unaware of her secret vocation) who divorced her after an affair with a co-worker. The second is the lawyer who helped the ex-husband gain custody of their children. The third was the co-worker. However, this will not be the last of the murders. The Priestess is slightly unhinged at losing everything that life had to offer, and is more than a little vindictive. Which is why she isnow picking more random victims.

Evidence:
1) Mortuary reports: These will reveal little information, other than the suggestion that the victims were eaten alive by fairly small, maybe cat or dog sized, animals.
2) Personal effects of victims: These will also reveal very little, except who had the *motive*. The lawyer's writings will not reveal much - he did not bother to look into the Priestess's feelings. However, the diary will show that the ex-husband got custody of the kids. The mistress's diary will show that she thought the Priestess was jealous and vindictive - which she feels is justified, but still scares her. The ex-husband's diary will suggest he left her because he never knew what she was doing, and that she held people in contempt.
3) Occult writings: Investigators will more than likely run across nothing but the same works that appeared in Cat's Cradle, which suggest that cats are sent to punish those who are cruel to Bast's children.
4) Mythos writings: Investigators who know where to look will find a Mythos book entitled The Book Of The Cats (imaginative I know). This book grants +3% to Cthulhu Mythos, but most importantly, tells of a prophecy, where the cats shall rise in times to come, to eat man, and to rule over the survivors. (It wouldn't be Cthulhu without an apocalyptic prophecy).

What Can The Investigators do?
The only way to deal with the priestess is to kill her, although an especially good group of investigators may have the skill to talk sense into her. This, however, would have to be a remarkable feat of role-playing.

The Priestess:
I suggest that Keepers give statistics to the Priestess as suits their own campaign. However, she should not be given an excessive level of spells: A spell to summon Bast, as well as one to send the Holy Children against people should be entirely sufficient. In campaigns where Investigators are gun happy, equip the Priestess with a shot-gun.