Chapter 1: The Founding Of Whyshburg
The town of Whyshburg was founded in 1867 by the wealthy Whyshman family, Ezra and Eliza. The location was perfect for them to establish a business creating elaborate monuments, statuary and gravestones made from the unique granite that could be mined in the area. Located along the banks of the Mongahelia river and in the shadow of the mountain where the stone was quarried, they built a thriving business designing civil war monuments for both sides of the conflict. One of the crowning jewels of the town was Whyshburg Burial Ground, an amazing necropolis filled with vaults and tombs where families from all over the south would choose to bury their loved ones.
Over the years odd things began to happen in the town as the crews dug deeper, finding even more exotic and rare forms of stone. Townspeople began to hear strange things at night and many went missing. Fine stonemasons fled the town and Ezra was forced to begin using the local family the Bostwicks to do the bulk of the work despite their unsavory reputation. In 1875, Eliza left her young children in Whyshburg and moved to Cassadaga, Florida for over a year to join the growing spiritualist movement hoping to find some explanation for the weird supernatural happenings in Whyshburg.
Chapter 2: Hard Times
While sitting in the “Devil’s Chair” a brick throne located in Cassadaga she was contacted by a spirit known as Euryale who promised to help her with the hauntings back home. She returned to Whyshburg with a bizarre mystical mirror and had her husband’s crews dig in certain areas below the mountain to find something else she needed. By this time most of his more talented sculptors had fled, and Ezra spent day and night carving the final details of orders by himself leaving the Bostwicks to do the rough in work.
Falling into debt and wearied by lack of sleep, Ezra listened to the crazed ramblings of his wife Eliza who had descended into madness from nightly conversations with her spirit guide Euryale. At long last the Bostwicks dug up a bizarre mask that was of the same design as the mirror and a plan was hatched to bring the town back into financial success. A plan steeped in the most evil horrors imaginable.
Chapter 3: An Evil Bargain
Euryale it seemed was one of the Gorgons, an immortal monster, one of the Undying – children of the Great Old Ones and Humans buried deep below the mountain in a city of evil called Carcosa. Possession of the Mask and the Mirror of Medusa would allow her to project her image into the mirror turning any who saw it into stone! To get ahead in their business Ezra and Eliza would hire travelers to act as “sculpting models” and dress them in the costume that was to be carved. Once they were carefully posed, Eliza while wearing the mask would lift the drape from the mirror exposing the Gorgon and turning the subject to stone. Ezra would then “carve” the look of horror from the face and sell the stone figure to his customers.
Chapter 4: A Terrible Price
For a time, this evil plan worked and Whyshburg rose in fame as a town that created the most amazingly lifelike sculptures. But Euryale increasingly demanded that the Whyshmans dig deeper into the mountain to free her from the solid rock in which she was imprisoned. As insane as they had both become, they vowed never to free her, but continued to use the artifacts to exploit the Gorgons likeness. Unable to resist, Euryale was used by them for many years in their horrible plot. At long last she cried out to the unspeakable horror that was her father, the great old one, Ghatanothoa. While the mask protected Eliza from the gaze of the Gorgon it would not save her from the cosmic horror of Ghatanothoa who appeared in the mirror unexpectedly. Screaming out in pain she called Ezra to save her and both of them saw the thing that cannot be unseen. Both fell to the floor seemingly dead – dried lifeless mummies! But the Curse of Ghatanothoa is one of eternal life trapped in the shriveled husk of your seeming lifeless corpse – never ending torture… trapped forever alive in a dried husk of a body!
When the Bostwicks found the corpses, they knew powerful evil had been summoned, and they hid the mask and mirror in an attic in the town where it remained undiscovered for almost a century. The bodies of Ezra and Eliza were put into caskets with glass faces and in a bizarre ceremony they were removed from their crypt and displayed in the town once a year on Founder’s Day for all to see.
Chapter 5: The Collector
Whyshburg fell into disrepair, and a flood in 1932 overran the banks and ruined what remained. The entire town was purchased by Victor Chillinghast including the Graveyard and an old manor house located on the property. He was an agent of the Dark Ones know as the Collector and was said to have preformed evil rituals in the burial ground by summoning the spirits of the dead!
Chapter 6: The Rise of Rhomb
The Illuminati realized that the goal of the Collector was to free all of the Undying. To combat this, they pushed him from the town with arcane science and settled Whyshburg with families loyal to their cause, evicting the last of the inbred Bostwick clan that remained. But over the years the Illuminati were distracted by more immediate challenges, like The Blood Night and The Rising of YS and abandoned the settlers to their fate. Over time the people renounced the Illuminati and became the Brotherhood of Rhomb, still dedicated to keeping the evil sealed below, but willing to take a darker path to achieve their goals.
They began to gather weird technologies and strange artifacts, selling the mystic rock from below the mountain to The Esoteric Order of Dagon, an unsavory group of merchants and traders who trafficked in such things. The power of Rhomb grew, but they became strange as their odd beliefs and practices warped them in body and mind.
Chapter 7: The Awakened
Then the Dark Circle, foul creatures lead by The Collector, always at war with Brotherhood of Rhomb, managed to awaken Argus of The Thousand Eyes. The undying monster began to create horrific revenants called The Awakened, and send them to the surface world. To create these things Argus rips from its own body one of its many Eyes, and places it on the head of a corpse, AWAKENING it! The Awakened began emerging from the caverns beneath Whyshburg to destroy the Brotherhood of Rhomb and ready the world for the return of Argus and the rest of the Undying. It was during these attacks that Margaret Wythe, a high-ranking Rhomb member and descendant of the Whyshman family rediscovered the Mask and Mirror of Medusa hidden in an attic so long ago. Since childhood she had studied the legends of her family and had previously acquired the third and most powerful of the Medusan relics, the amulet of Medusa.
Chapter 8: The Relic
Now using the mask and mirror she could not only turn attacking enemies to stone but reanimate and control them using the amulet! These Gorgonoids quickly smashed the emerging Awakened, and when the Dark Circle began to send Gargoyles and other more powerful creatures to attack Whyshburg they were also petrified and reanimated by the power of the Gorgon, adding to the armies of the Brotherhood.
Chapter 9: The Return of Eliza
The Grandmaster of the Brotherhood of Rhomb, Anton Varla grew jealous of Margaret’s new-found power and demanded she give the artifacts to him. She refused and a viscous power struggle resulted with Varla ousted in a bloody battle and Margaret claiming leadership of The Brotherhood. Now Margaret has begun more aggressive attacks on the Dark Circle using her Gorgonoids while fending off Varla’s loyalists at every turn. But unbeknownst to her every time she uses the mask the madness of her still living but mummified Spiritualist ancestor Eliza slowly begins to leech into her brain. Eliza has realized that the amulet can resurrect her and her husband Ezra and that they must fulfill their promise to free the Gorgon and have the curse of Ghatanothoa lifted from them at last!
Will Margaret smash the Dark Circle and stop the Undying, or will the Collector and his foul creatures, Varla and his rebels, or The Mummified Eliza rip from her the power of The Gorgon?