After a week of this, god help me, it's starting to sound like a good idea for a CoC game.
I've had the following ideas:
* Players are orphan girls in a NYC orphanage. The mean lady who runs the place drinks heavily and is cruel to the children, but sometimes when she's deep in her cups she mumbles about the 'Thing in the Basement' and how it wasn't her fault when it 'Took the Others'. The orphans have now begun hearing strange noises from the orphanage basement each night, and have recently stumbled across an old newspaper from 1921 detailing the strange disappearance of all the orphans from this very institution in a single night during that year....
* Players take on the roles of the staff at Mr. Warbucks opulent estate. When Mr. Warbucks invites an orphan to come stay for the holidays, everyone is pleased to welcome little Annie. But with the passing days of her stay, strange things have begun to happen. They've seen the girl's odd heart-shaped locket with the unknown language inscribed in it. People have begun to disappear on nights when she talks about her imaginary dog called 'Sandy'. And now it seems that the girl's eyes are taking on a vacant, dull whitish hue each night. Who or what is this girl, and why won't Mr. Warbucks listen to your warnings?
*Investigators are hired by Mr. Warbucks to locate the birth parents of little Annie. They trace the girl's locket to a strange network of shadowy cults and a prophecy claiming that the 'red-haired child will open the way'. When they find links between the cults, the matron of the orphanage that raised Annie, and the eccentric gangster Rooster Hannigan, all signs begin to point to a plot that has been orchestrated for years, a plot that will come to fruition this very winter....
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