GM Quick Reference - Horror

👤 NPC Names (d100)

1920s-1940s era names for investigators, witnesses, and NPCs

1-25

Archibald Whitmore
Dorothy Chen
Harold Blackwood
Margaret Flynn
Edmund Carstairs
Ruth Ashford
Walter Grimsby
Evelyn Cross
Chester Pembroke
Alice Winters
Silas Marsh
Helen Corbitt
Arthur Kane
Beatrice Holloway
Francis Dexter
Clara Thornton
Herbert Stone
Irene Danvers
Nathaniel Ward
Violet Crane
Theodore Marsh
Mabel Pickman
Oscar Gilman
Florence Hart
Reginald Price

26-50

Edith Waite
Lawrence Tilton
Gertrude Bishop
Vernon Dunwich
Lillian Webb
Samuel Curwen
Josephine Blake
Alfred Whateley
Constance Grey
Bernard Hutchinson
Harriet Olmstead
Vincent Armitage
Pearl Sawyer
Douglas Eliot
Sylvia Derby
Frederick Talbot
Hazel Ward
Cecil Chandler
Gladys Martin
Morris Waldron
Agnes Potter
Stanley Frye
Opal Corey
Raymond Gilman
Lucille Upton

51-75

Malcolm Carter
Esther Akeley
Gilbert Peaslee
Winifred Danforth
Percy Delapore
Mildred Ellsworth
Horace Griffith
Norma Phillips
Wilbur Slater
Vera Tillinghast
Ernest Zann
Ruby Cabot
Roland Merrill
Ethel Wilcox
Ambrose Orne
Dora Babson
Clifford Hyde
Thelma Sloane
Howard Derby
Nora Fenner
Randolph Sprague
Blanche Upham
Lionel Manton
Cora Hazard
Mortimer Pabodie

76-100

Lenore Hutchins
Clarence Hext
Bertha Chandler
Lester Boyle
Estelle Riggs
Jasper Heaton
Mae Thornton
Wilfred Blanchard
Ida Fletcher
Monroe Talbot
Velma Dexter
Irving Morse
Phyllis Durfee
Llewellyn Atwood
Stella Angell
Burton Halsey
Minnie Ives
Jerome Wheaton
Audrey Rhoades
Elmer Tilton
Leona Talman
Franklin Wingate
Susannah Marsh
Albert Jermyn
Constance Armitage

🗣️ Rumors & Whispers (2d10)

What investigators overhear in libraries, diners, and dark corners

2d10	Rumor
2	"Old man Corbitt's been buying strange chemicals from the university. At 2 AM. In cash."
3	"Three students went into the Restricted Section last week. Only two came out. Library says all three checked out fine."
4	"The fish catch has been... wrong lately. Scales where there shouldn't be scales. Too many eyes."
5	"My grandmother says the Hutchinson family hasn't aged in forty years. Same photographs from 1890."
6	"Dogs won't go near the old Armitage estate. Not since the stars were right last month."
7	"The asylum discharged a patient who speaks only in dead languages. He's living at the boarding house on Curwen Street."
8	"There's a book the university won't admit they have. But I've seen the checkout card. Last person who borrowed it disappeared."
9	"The Congregational Church bought 40 pounds of salt last week. They don't have a parking lot to de-ice."
10	"Professor Tillinghast's experiments stopped making noise three days ago. His lights are still on."
11	"Someone's been digging in the old colonial cemetery. Not grave robbing - digging in, not out."
12	"The new night watchman at the waterfront never blinks. I've watched him for an hour. Not once."
13	"Dr. Hargrove's patients all requested the same room transfer. Wing C. No one will say what's in Wing C."
14	"The postal route through Innsmouth has a new carrier every week. None of them quit. They just stop showing up."
15	"That new society downtown - the Order of the Outer Eye - meets every new moon. Members always look a little different after."
16	"My nephew works at the docks. Says the cargo from the Miskatonic run smells wrong. Manifest says 'academic specimens.' Manifest is lying."
17	"The old Marsh house has lights on for the first time in fifteen years. No one moved in. No one we can find."
18	"Three separate witnesses heard singing from beneath the reservoir last Tuesday. All three gave the same melody. None of them had met before."
19	"A woman at the train station asked me if I'd seen her husband. Showed me his photograph. It was a picture of me. Ten years older. I've never seen her before."
20	"The Sentinel ran a story last Thursday about the Gilman warehouse fire. I have the clipping. But the Sentinel says they never printed it. The building still burned."

🔍 Quick Loot (2d10)

Personal effects found on victims, in rooms, or during investigations

2d10	Item Found
2	Diary with last three pages torn out. Remaining text mentions "the arrangement" and a date next week.
3	Photograph of seven people at a party. One face scratched out. Back reads "Innsmouth, 1927 - Never Again"
4	Ring of keys. One labeled "Archive - Do Not Duplicate". It's been duplicated - there are file marks.
5	Pocket watch stopped at 3:33 AM. Inscription inside: "Time means nothing to the patient."
6	Torn piece of map showing coastline. X marked at a point that doesn't match any known shore.
7	Small vial of thick, silvery liquid. Smells like ozone and copper. Label in Latin: "Memoria Deletum"
8	Library card for a university you've never heard of. Checkout history shows books that don't exist.
9	Child's drawing in crayon. Shows a family. One member has too many limbs. Child labeled them "New Daddy"
10	Telegram: "STOP INVESTIGATION STOP THEY ARE WATCHING STOP TOO LATE FOR ME STOP" No signature. No date.
11	Matchbook from "The Green Door Club - Members Only". Address leads to a condemned building. Matches smell wrong.
12	Bundle of letters, all the same handwriting, all addressed to different people. All end mid-sentence on the same word: "underneath."
13	Brass compass that always points the same direction, regardless of orientation. Not north. Doesn't correspond to anything on a map.
14	Newspaper clipping about a fire, dated three weeks from now. Building is still standing. Names of victims are listed. One might be familiar.
15	Leather billfold. Money, identification, everything intact. Owner's photograph inside shows them standing somewhere - but the background is wrong. That building was demolished in 1903.
16	Medicine bottle, prescription label scraped off. Pills inside are the wrong color for anything on the market. Faint chemical smell. Faint movement when the bottle is still.
17	Academic journal article, heavily annotated in two different hands. The original argument and the corrections contradict each other in ways that shouldn't be possible. Both are correct.
18	Small leather pouch containing nine teeth. Not human. Not from any animal you can identify. Arranged deliberately. A tenth slot, empty. Waiting.
19	Personal photograph of the investigators - taken recently, at a place they've been this week. No one in the group took it. They were never near anyone with a camera. The framing is perfect.
20	Handwritten manuscript, three hundred pages, no title page. It describes events from the current investigation in exact detail. It ends with a description of whoever is reading it, right now, holding these pages.

🎭 NPC Personality Quirks (2d10)

Quick traits to make witnesses and contacts memorable

2d10	Personality Quirk
2	Constantly checks over shoulder. Won't sit with back to door. "You'd understand if you'd seen what I've seen."
3	Speaks in whispers, even in empty rooms. Insists "they" can hear through walls, floors, everything.
4	Chain smoker. Lights next cigarette with current one. Hasn't slept properly in weeks - you can tell.
5	Obsessively clean. Washes hands repeatedly during conversation. Won't shake hands. "Contamination spreads."
6	Quotes scripture constantly, but from no Bible you recognize. Verses mention things that shouldn't be in holy texts.
7	Laughs at inappropriate times. Especially when discussing deaths. It's clearly a coping mechanism that's failing.
8	Writes everything down immediately. "If I don't write it, I forget. Or worse - I remember it differently."
9	Deeply superstitious. Salt circles, iron nails, won't say certain words. You'd mock them if you hadn't seen things too.
10	Never uses names. Refers to everyone as "friend" or "colleague." Says names have power. Won't elaborate.
11	Twitches when lying. But also twitches when telling certain truths. You can't tell which is which.
12	Keeps exact count of how many times each word is spoken during conversation. Gets agitated if someone interrupts the tally. The number matters. Can't say why.
13	Refuses to discuss anything after sunset. Appointments only in daylight. Offers no explanation. Checks the sky constantly as afternoon wears on.
14	Speaks exclusively about past events in present tense, present events in past tense. It's disorienting. They don't notice they do it. When pointed out, they look genuinely confused.
15	Has memorized the layout of every room they enter before sitting down. Counts exits, notes windows, identifies load-bearing walls. Does it fast, without thinking. An old habit from something they won't discuss.
16	Apologizes constantly, preemptively. "Sorry for what I'm about to say." "Sorry you had to hear that." Braces for consequences that don't come. Seems surprised every time.
17	Keeps a running list of people who've disappeared in the last decade. Checks it during pauses in conversation. Adds names from memory. The list is very long.
18	Insists on paying for everything in exact change. Carries rolls of coins. Gets visibly distressed if forced to use paper money. "Paper is a promise. Promises break."
19	Photographs every room they enter before speaking. Small personal camera, always on their person. Won't explain. When pressed, shows one photo: it shows something in the corner that isn't there now.
20	Calm to the point of unsettling - not stoic, genuinely unafraid of anything. Not brave. Just certain that the worst has already happened and nothing else can touch them. They're probably right.

⚠️ Investigation Complications (2d10)

When things are going too smoothly, roll for obstacles

2d10	Complication
2	Police Interest: Local police suddenly interested in investigators' activities. Someone called in a complaint. Or something worse.
3	Witness Disappears: Key witness vanishes. Apartment looks lived-in but abandoned mid-activity. Food still warm on table.
4	Evidence Destroyed: Critical evidence destroyed in "accident." Fire, flood, or simple misplacement. Awfully convenient timing.
5	Being Followed: Investigators definitely being tailed. Black car, or shambling figure, or something in the corner of vision.
6	Conflicting Information: Two reliable sources give contradictory accounts. Both seem certain. Both can't be right. Or can they?
7	Time Pressure: Situation accelerating. Next occurrence happens sooner than expected. Pattern breaking down. Running out of time.
8	Unexpected Ally: Someone offers help. Too much help. Knows too much. Are they involved, or trying to stop it? Both?
9	Personal Connection: Investigation intersects with investigator's past. Family member, old friend, or place from childhood involved. Coincidence?
10	Authority Interference: University dean, hospital administrator, or church elder demands investigation stop. Won't explain why. Threatening consequences.
11	Break-In: Someone searched investigators' rooms. Nothing stolen but everything touched. They know what you know now.
12	Press Attention: Local reporter has independently stumbled onto the same trail. They're asking the right questions in the wrong places. Getting in the way. Or in danger. Possibly both.
13	False Lead: A convincing piece of evidence points in entirely the wrong direction. It may have been planted. Or the truth may be stranger than fabrication. Either way, time has been lost.
14	Internal Conflict: Investigators disagree - sharply - on the right course of action. Both positions have merit. The disagreement can't wait. A decision has to be made now.
15	Resource Shortage: Something critical runs low at the worst moment - funds, ammunition, medicine, a specific contact. Resupply is possible but costly in time or favors owed.
16	Witness Recants: A previously cooperative source now denies everything they said. Terrified. Bought. Changed. Something got to them. Getting them to talk again - if possible at all - requires more than persuasion.
17	Copycat or Echo: A second, unrelated event mimics the investigation's main case exactly. Either someone is watching and replicating it, or the pattern is larger than understood. Both possibilities are alarming.
18	Investigator Targeted: The threat shifts focus. One investigator specifically is being watched, warned, or approached. The contact is deliberate and personal. The message is unmistakable: they've been noticed.
19	Sanity Strain: The weight of accumulated knowledge breaks something. An investigator's grip on normalcy cracks at a critical moment - not dramatically, but quietly, in a way that will affect everything going forward.
20	It Was Watching: Retroactive horror - the investigators realize that something has been present, observing, for longer than the investigation has existed. Every location they've visited. Every conversation they've had. It was there.

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